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“OUR LITTLE STEVIE’S getting married?” Giorgio’s old friend Francisco Duarte das Aguas Santas was obviously as dumb-founded as he had been. Once Giorgio’s call from the VIP lounge in Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome had reached Frank at his ranch in the Portuguese countryside, it had taken several minutes to explain the situation.
“Yes, she’s engaged.” It was getting somewhat easier to say the words aloud. Giorgio’s grandmother had been ecstatic at the prospect of a royal wedding in Vinciguerra, especially since his own parents’ wedding had been the last one celebrated, and that had been over thirty years ago. They had been returning from an anniversary trip when they died tragically in a car accident. Giorgio hoped his sister’s nuptials would distract his grandmother from asking him when he would make some lucky woman his principessa.
“And to some guy we’ve never met.” Frank sounded nearly as disgruntled as Giorgio had been.
“I’m leaving in a few minutes for New York, so I’ll meet him tomorrow.”
“Does Jack know?” Jacques de Brissard was the third member of their trio.
The three men had met their freshman year at the university in Manhattan. Although Giorgio technically out-ranked Frank, a duke with a large estate in Portugal, as well as Jack, a count who owned a lavender farm in Provence, they had much in common. Their bachelor apartment had turned into a home when Stefania had come to live with them—home, something Giorgio thought he’d lost when his parents died.
“No, I left a message for him, but he’s traveling to Southeast Asia to do medical relief for that cyclone that hit the coast.”
Frank made a sound of dismay. “He just got back from the earthquake in Turkey and sounded exhausted. I told him he needed to take some time off to recuperate. What is he thinking?”
“He’s a doctor, and his patients come first.” Giorgio didn’t like it any better than Frank, but Jacques had always been single-minded about his medical career.
“He’s going to wear himself out,” Frank predicted gloomily, breaking off to shout instructions in Portuguese. Giorgio must have caught him as he was supervising the farmhands. Frank was always experimenting with new crops in addition to the olives and grapes his family’s land produced. “But what are we to do with Stefania? She’s not old enough to marry.”
Giorgio shook his head to decline a second glass of wine from the lounge attendant, a pretty redhead. “I don’t like it, either, Frank, but she’s twenty-four. At least she’s finishing up her graduate degree first. Besides, if you think she was stubborn when she was eleven…”
Frank snorted. “Remember when she refused to go to that fancy prep school you had all picked out for her and insisted on going to the academy of the arts? You even threatened her as her principality’s sovereign ruler and what did she do?”
“Called the State Department and requested legal asylum on grounds of persecution.” Giorgio sighed. He had tried to forget that little incident. His grandmother had not been amused to receive indignant phone calls from various human rights and refugee organizations. “Amigo meu, maybe it is time to turn our girl over to this German fellow. After all, they are the orderly sort.” He laughed, and Giorgio had to join in at the idea of anyone keeping Stefania in order. “And when is the blessed event? If she wants to come to my island out in the Azores she and the German can have a private honeymoon—consider it my gift.”
Giorgio smiled. “They haven’t set a date, but I’ll be sure to tell Stefania when I see her Wednesday.”
“Give her my love, and make sure this fiancé of hers is a decent guy. If he isn’t, then you and Jack and I will talk some sense into her.”
“Or I’ll just drag her back to Vinciguerra and put her in the dungeon.” They had three actually, one cleaned up for the tourists and two that hadn’t been used since the Napoleonic Wars.
“Human rights organizations be damned.” Frank sounded more cheerful. “We’re just living up to the time-honored European tradition of locking stubborn princesses in towers and such.”
“Do the time-honored traditions mention princesses with black belts in tae kwon do cleaning their brother’s clock?”
“You can only blame yourself for that. You insisted she go to those self-defense classes if she was going to travel to the arts school in that awful neighborhood.” Frank laughed. “Come on, things will be fine. If her young man is okay, then pick a date. Jack and I will help you plan her wedding—don’t worry.”
“The three of us?” Giorgio yelped. “Since when are we wedding experts?” He had fought very hard to be the exact opposite.
“Once you get the dress and the date, everything else falls into place. My mother planned my sisters’ weddings. We run large estates—hell, you even run a whole country. How hard could it be?”
“You weren’t even living in Portugal at the time—you merely flew in for the weddings and missed months of preparation.”
“I did see some of what my mother and her wedding planners did.” Frank sounded a bit hurt. “They have notebooks at the bookstore that explain what to do.”
“Fine, okay, Frank, we’ll all help Stefania as much as we can.” Giorgio had no intention of being the lead wedding planner. It sounded like a nightmare in the making.
“Maravilhosa. Great.” Frank cheered up. “I’ll fix up the island however she likes. And I’m good for several barrels of the family sherry.”
Giorgio could use a barrel of sherry about now, but his flight was about to board. “Thanks again, Frank. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Send me the report on her fiancé from the private investigator when it comes in. Adeus!” His friend hung up.
Giorgio wasn’t sure if Frank was kidding or not about having Dieter investigated. Probably not kidding. He tapped his fingers on the small glass table. Should he? Stefania had several million euros in trust funds, some of which were to be released on either her marriage or her twenty-fifth birthday, both coming up within the next year.
He sighed, remembering the trouble some other European royals had run into with their unwise marriages. Maybe erring on the side of caution…he quickly called his assistant. “Alessandro? Please call that private investigator from that insurance fraud case last year and have him research my sister’s fiancé.”
Oh, well. If Stefania found out and lost her temper with him, it wouldn’t be the first time—or the last.
“WELCOME TO PEACOCK DESIGNS—you must be Stefania.” Renata came from behind her workstation and warmly shook the bride’s hand. She would be a dream to dress, slim but not too skinny, with rich brown eyes and olive skin. Her dark hair lay in curls on her shoulders. She looked like she should be modeling for an Italian tourism poster.
“Yes, I’m Stefania di Leone.” Her bride gazed raptly around the salon. “The dresses are all so wonderful. I can’t wait to get started.” She made a beeline for a full-skirted, tea-length dress.
“Would you like to try this one?” May as well jump right in. “Absolutely!” She pointed at the other dresses. “And that
