The King's Bride Read online

  ‘No, I haven’t much. So I couldn’t have imagined that you feel for me as I feel for you. Could I?’ He was pleading.

  ‘No,’ she said seriously, ‘you didn’t imagine that.’

  He dropped the letter so that it fell, unheeded, to the floor. He seized her against him like a man just released from prison. His kisses too had the desperation of sudden freedom,

  shot through with dread lest the precious gift be snatched away. And behind that lay the eagerness of a boy exploring love, almost as a new adventure. She kissed him back in reassurance, but gradually that gave way to the thrills that were coursing through her. He was the man she loved, but he was also the most sexually attractive male animal that it had ever been her privilege to encounter. She’d sensed that at the ball, when she’d first felt his arms about her, and everything since then had been a matter of waiting to tie up the loose ends.

  Suddenly he stopped, holding her face between his two hands, whispering, ‘Are you sure? Are you quite sure, Lizzie? Don’t feel you have to just because I-because of this place and all the trappings.’

  She loved him for his doubts. In the past he’d shown her the arrogance of power. Now he trusted her with the humility deep inside him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he repeated again. ‘It has to be me, for myself alone. I don’t want it any other way.’

  ‘Just you,’ she promised. ‘There’s nobody else in my heart, and there never will be again.’

  She slipped out of her robe and nightdress so that he could see all the beauty she brought him. She knew her nakedness was magnificent, but at this moment she only cared for it as a gift for the lonely, doubt-ridden man who’d taken refuge in her heart.

  And it would be a true refuge for him, she vowed as he lay down beside her on the bed. Whatever the future held, whatever price she had to pay for loving him-and it might be a great one-she would say it was all worth it if she could give him any happiness.

  From the way he made love she could tell that the last of

  his doubts still lingered. There was about him a serious intentness that was beautiful here and now. But far back in her mind she made a note that in future she must teach him how to be a little light-hearted.

  No woman could have asked for a more tender or considerate loving, but beneath it she could sense the vigour, sternly leashed back for her sake. The knowledge was a new excitement, a promise for the future. Next time they made love he wouldn’t hold it back; she would see to that. But for now they were getting introduced, delighting in what they found, joyful in each other. Only at the last moment did his passion slip beyond his control, and he claimed her with a fierceness that she willingly matched.

  There was a long silence then, broken only by breathing and the soft sound of their heartbeats fading. Daniel kissed her and drew her close.

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured.

  She gave a chuckle, full of pleasure and satisfaction. ‘I think I should be thanking you. That was the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  ‘I want to toast you in champagne.’

  ‘So let’s send for some.’

  ‘You mean I should make the call from your room? That would really give them something to talk about.’

  ‘No, I will.’ She lifted the house phone and made the order. ‘You stay here while I wait for it in the sitting room.’

  The champagne arrived five minutes later. Lizzie dressed soberly and closed the door into her bedroom.

  ‘There’s only one glass,’ she said, bringing everything in a moment later. ‘I could hardly ask for two, but I think there are some in that cupboard.’ She eyed him, lying naked on

  the tumbled bed. ‘If you lie like that I shall forget all about champagne.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, grinning. ‘Why are you wearing so much?’

  She laughed and tossed her clothes aside while he poured two glasses.

  They toasted each other, then Daniel said, ‘There must be something else. Let’s drink to a bargain well sealed. Except that you haven’t kept your side yet.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ she asked, trying to sound casual, although she sensed doom creeping up on her. However she’d pictured the moment of truth, it hadn’t been like this.

  ‘“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours,”’ he quoted. ‘That was the deal. What have you done with Alphonse’s letters? Oh, never mind; I’m feeling too happy to worry about that. I just want to think about you. Tomorrow will do for the letters.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, relieved. ‘Tomorrow.’

  But something in her voice struck his ears strangely. He frowned and looked curiously at her face.

  ‘You have got them safe, haven’t you, darling?’

  Oh, heck! she thought. Why now?

  ‘You have, haven’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t want to talk about this now?’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve got me worried. Lizzie-’

  ‘Daniel, I told you right from the start that I don’t have those letters.’

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘But of course you have them. You as good as told me-’ He caught her eye and said slowly, ‘What have we been talking about all this time?’

  She took the precaution of rising and moving away, unaware that her shape was distracting Daniel from what he was pursuing. Almost, but not quite.

  ‘Evidently we haven’t been talking about the same thing,’ she observed.

  ‘You knew I was offering a bargain.’

  ‘And you knew I didn’t have them. I told you that in this very room.’

  ‘Yes, but then you-’ He rose from the bed and began to follow her. ‘Then you-’

  ‘Eased up on the denials a little,’ she told him, bland-faced.

  He advanced purposefully on her. ‘You scheming, two-faced little-’

  She backed away. ‘Now Daniel-’

  ‘Your Majesty!’

  ‘Rats! If you want to be called Your Majesty, put something on first.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  She chuckled. ‘There’s only one subject that interests me at the moment. You too, from the look of it.’

  One glance down at himself was enough to make him accept the inevitable.

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ he muttered, lifting her right off her feet and tossing her so that she landed sprawling on the bed.

  ‘All right, my love,’ she gasped as he dived and landed on top of her. ‘Anything that you-mmm!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE began a double life. By day she was the historian working seriously on the Voltavian archives. If she met Daniel in the presence of anyone else she would address him as ‘Your Majesty’ the first time, and ‘sir’ after that, as did his courtiers.

  But at night she called him Daniel, and laughed as she melted in his arms. Their loving was passionate, and full of joy, and afterwards, as he lay sleeping in her arms-for he always slept first-she would hold him protectively and wonder if this was how Liz had felt with Alphonse. And then she knew that was impossible, because no woman in the world had felt the special joy that was hers.

  After the first explosion he’d accepted the fact that she couldn’t produce Alphonse’s letters with wry humour. It delighted her that he had managed to laugh about it.

  ‘You got the better of me,’ he said without rancour. ‘But you wait and see. I’ll get even.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she teased.

  When she was there he could enjoy a family evening, and even displayed a talent for playing the piano that none of his children had known about before.

  They confided this to her when Daniel was out of earshot. They revealed also, without exactly knowing they were doing so, that their mother had drummed into their head that he was their king first and their father second. With herself, she had stressed, it was the other way around.

  Daniel might regard his late wife generously but Lizzie’s thoughts were less charitable. Serena had been so possessive a
bout her children that she’d bolstered her own position at her husband’s expense, and everyone was suffering for it now.

  Once, when the palace was quiet, he showed her where he lived, and she was struck by the contrast between the magnificent bedroom where the king officially slept and the little monastic cell where he actually passed his nights-those that he didn’t spend with her.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she asked, looking at a small painting on the wall. It showed a man in Voltavian military uniform, but with a gentle, unmilitary face, on the verge of a smile.

  ‘That’s my great-uncle, Carl. Alphonse’s younger brother. He was a dear fellow, everybody loved him. There’s a story that the only reason Alphonse married Princess Irma was to clear the way for Carl to marry the woman he loved. She was the daughter of a lawyer, respectable and a lady, but this was seventy years ago, when it was unthinkable for a prince to make such a marriage. And Carl was next in line to the throne, after Alphonse.

  ‘So Alphonse married and had a son, and then the way was clear for Carl. He renounced his rights of succession, married his lady, and they lived very happily for fifty years.’

  ‘What a charming story. And Alphonse really made a dutiful marriage just to help Carl?’

  ‘So they say. My grandfather would never confirm or deny

  it. But Carl was very dear to him, and his happiest times were spent visiting the family. Mine too. They always seemed so happy. Carl was a wise man to marry where his heart led him.’

  ‘But he did it at someone else’s expense,’ Lizzie pointed out. ‘Your grandfather couldn’t have done the same. Nor could you.’

  Daniel was studying the picture. ‘I think I could-now,’ he said. ‘I’ve made one state marriage, given my country three children. Next time I shall please myself.’

  He wasn’t looking at her as he spoke-almost deliberately, it seemed to her. She drew a sharp breath at what he might be implying, but before she could reply a buzzer went to summon him to deal with an unexpected crisis. Lizzie had to leave and it was the following evening before she saw him.

  He didn’t raise the matter again, and she wondered if she’d misunderstood him. Or perhaps he really had meant what she hoped, and then caution had checked him. The thought that they might actually be able to marry was too wonderful to be believed. She wouldn’t let herself dwell on it.

  Their secret life was charmingly domestic, although Daniel observed that it sometimes made him feel like a character in a French farce. In the morning she was always the first up, slipping out to the sitting room where the newspapers had been quietly laid out by Frederick. Breakfast of rolls and orange juice was served in the same fashion, with Daniel discreetly out of sight behind the bedroom door. And if anyone noticed that Lizzie’s food consumption had recently doubled, nobody mentioned it.

  They would enjoy breakfast together, lingering until the last moment, until he had to present himself to his court and she must go to the library, and they would look forward to

  their meeting in the afternoon when they rode with his children.

  The morning papers came in three languages, and while with Lizzie Daniel would particularly enjoy reading the English ones, giving some trenchant opinions on what he read there.

  ‘You should see what they say here,’ he said one morning. ‘I know there isn’t a word of truth in it, but what can I-? Lizzie? My darling? What is it?’

  She forced herself out of a sad dream and gave him a forced smile. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t say “nothing” when it makes you look like that.’

  ‘All right.’ She showed him what she’d been reading. The picture of a handsome young man, with a daredevil face, stared out from the paper. The caption read, Toby Wrenworth killed in motorcycle race.

  Daniel felt as though something had struck him in the chest. He could barely force himself to ask, ‘He means something to you, this man?’

  ‘He did once. We were married for a couple of years.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘I was eighteen and he was handsome and dashing. Auntie warned me against it, but I wouldn’t listen. I was so sure I could make him settle down. Of course he didn’t. He got bored and took off, and we were divorced. He was only happy taking insane risks. It was only a matter of time before this happened.’

  ‘Did you stay in touch?’

  ‘No. I haven’t spoken to him for years. It was all over long ago.’

  ‘But he’s remained in your heart?’ He was watching her face intently.

  ‘Not him so much as the memories of the happiness we shared. But it was a very short happiness. I was a stupid, ignorant girl or I’d have known I couldn’t change him.’

  He wished he’d known that stupid, ignorant girl who’d given her whole heart to a man who hadn’t valued it. What had she been like in the flush of her first love? His longing to know that, to have been the man who inspired her first young passion, was so intense that for a moment he couldn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, tossing the paper aside and taking her face between his hands. ‘Forget him. Look at me.’

  She did so, and tried to smile. But it was an unconvincing smile and she saw the shadow of fear cross his face.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she tried to reassure him. ‘I just need to be alone for a while.’

  ‘I have to go, but I’ll see you this afternoon-hell, no, I’ve got meetings all day, and tonight I have to attend the opera.’

  ‘Late tonight, then,’ she said.

  She spent the day wandering alone in the woods, thinking about Toby. The boy she’d known had been gone even before his death; she could see that from the face in the paper. It was a hard-bitten man who looked out from the front page, and the text made it clear that he’d cared for nothing and nobody except riding his powerful machine in races. Somewhere in the background was a discarded girlfriend and two illegitimate children. The Dame had been right all along. All teeth and trousers. And selfish with it.

  Toby had changed her, teaching her the value of keeping her heart to herself, and so, in his way, he’d helped to bring her to this point. She had a heart to give to the one man who mattered, because after that first fling she’d never wasted it

  again. Her sadness was all for Toby, who’d loved life and lost it while she was preparing to move on to a new life.

  It was nearly two in the morning before Daniel came to her, and she could see in his face that his day had been wretched. Years had left him skilled in concealing his feelings, but now they burst out in the first moment.

  ‘Tell me the worst,’ he said harshly. ‘You still love him, don’t you? You’ve been trying to put him behind you, but you can’t.’

  ‘Darling, that’s not true.’

  ‘I think it is. That’s why you play with men so easily-because you couldn’t have the one who mattered. But who do you make love with? When you lie in my arms whose face do you see?’

  Suddenly she understood. ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong,’ she said, giving him a little shake. ‘It isn’t happening again, I promise. I’m not Serena, pining for another man.’

  He gave a shaky laugh. ‘Am I that transparent?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘I thought you were all mine. If I discovered that you weren’t, my life would be dark again. And that would be hard to bear when you’ve shown me the light.’

  ‘I am all yours,’ she promised. ‘I’ve been over Toby for years. It was just a shock to read about his death like that. I don’t dream of him. I dream of you.’

  He relaxed in her arms and allowed himself to be reassured. Instead of taking him straight to bed Lizzie ordered a light meal and they sat and talked about nothing very much. It was being together that mattered, and when she could feel that he was calmer and happier, then she took him to bed and loved him tenderly.

  As they lay together afterwards he said, ‘If I’d known I was going to fall in love with you, I’d have run for my life.’

  ‘Love?’ she asked
in a soft murmur. ‘Is this love?’

  ‘Don’t you feel that it is?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ She buried her face against him, whispering, ‘And I’m so happy now.’

  Next morning he had to leave her earlier than usual for a meeting with his Prime Minister. Before going he said, ‘Tonight will be special. I have a surprise for you.’

  ‘A surprise? Oh, tell me now,’ she begged eagerly.

  ‘Then it wouldn’t be a surprise. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s something that will mean a lot to you.’ He sighed, kissed her tenderly, and then again. ‘If I don’t leave you now I won’t be able to. Goodbye, my darling, until tonight.’

  When he’d gone she had a bracing shower. As she was drying herself her phone rang. She answered eagerly, expecting to hear Daniel’s voice. But it was a stranger, and as she listened her smile faded.

  She dressed quickly and called Daniel. ‘I have to leave, right now,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t leave me,’ he said, becoming imperious in a moment. ‘I won’t let you go, ever. Wait there.’ He hung up before she could reply.

  He was with her in a moment. ‘What is this nonsense about leaving?’

  ‘I’ll come back when I can, but I have a sick friend who needs me. It’s Bess. I told you about her. She’s had a heart attack and the hospital sent for me. I’m all she has.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said at once. ‘I was being selfish. It’s so hard to part with you when I’ve only just discovered you. But you must go at once. My own plane will take you-’

  ‘No need, darling. There’s a flight in an hour, and if I go now I might just catch it.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll call the airport. It won’t leave without you.’

  She gave a shaky smile. ‘What it is to be a king.’

  ‘It’s only valuable to me if I can use it to make your life a little easier. But before you go there’s something I want to say-you must understand-’

  She waited, but after hesitating for a long moment he sighed and said, ‘Never mind. This isn’t the moment. But remember that I love you whatever-whatever happens.’

  ‘Darling, whatever’s the matter?’