Rules of Their Royal Wedding Night
Автор
Michelle Smart
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CHAPTER ONE
ELSBETH FERNANDEZ STEPPED into Ceres Cathedral, her arm held by her cousin, Dominic. Why he gripped it so tightly was beyond her. She’d been nothing but compliant with his wishes that she marry Prince Amadeo. She was always compliant. King of her home principality, Monte Cleure, Dominic’s word was law, especially for the female members of his family.
Her handsome prince, who she’d met only once at their pre-wedding party, stood far in the distance. Their marriage had been agreed, like everything else in her life, without Elsbeth’s input, but when the man tasked with negotiating the marriage had privately asked if she was willing, she hadn’t hesitated to say yes. In all honesty, her prince could be the ugliest man in the world and she would still have agreed to marry him, so it was her good fortune that he was the handsomest prince in Europe.
He was so tall! She’d marvelled at the height difference between them and secretly delighted that he stood a foot taller than Dominic. He didn’t look to have an ounce of fat on him either, unlike her obese cousin and the majority of the male members of the House of Fernandez, who liked to gorge. Her prince—and Elsbeth had taken to privately, gleefully, referring to him as her prince since the order had come for her to marry him—had a body that was indisputably hard. Sculpted. His face had a sculpted quality to it too with its chiselled jawline, accentuated bow of the top lip and long, straight nose.
She hoped he would be a kind husband. Or at least as kind as a royal prince used to his word being law could be. Elsbeth knew her duty as a future king’s wife was to follow her husband’s lead in all matters, speak only when spoken to, never give an opinion on anything weightier than flower arrangements, never disagree with her husband in public or in private and, most importantly, breed as many children as her husband desired. She prayed she was fertile. She would hate to disappoint him on any matter but a failure to breed would be classed as unforgivable and could see her divorced and sent back to Monte Cleure. It had happened to her aunt. Three years of a childless marriage and she’d been set aside and replaced with a new model.
Please let me give my prince children. Don’t give him an excuse to send me back to Monte Cleure.
Since their pre-wedding party, she’d prayed nightly that God grant her prince children, and then she’d closed her eyes and drifted into sleep, happily conjuring his clear green eyes and the black lashes surrounding them, and imagining what those firm but full lips would feel like pressed against her own and what his thick black hair would feel like threaded through her fingers.
The urge to run down the aisle to her prince was strong but Elsbeth maintained her steady pace by reminding herself that when she left this cathedral she would no longer be under Dominic’s subjugation.
While she knew much about the public image of the Berruti royal family and the workings of its reigning queen to ensure their relevance in the twenty-first century, she knew little about its private workings or the kind of man her prince was behind closed doors. Whatever the future held for her, it couldn’t be worse than her lot in the House of Fernandez. God wouldn’t be so cruel. Would He...?
Amadeo watched his bride make her way sedately down the aisle towards him, her arm linked with the man he despised most in the world, and made sure to keep his revulsion at both of them far from his face. The only positive he could take from this union was that Elsbeth was pretty. Very pretty, he grudgingly admitted. Her silky blonde hair had been elegantly swept off her oval face and as she walked closer to him the excitement was evident in her big blue eyes and the smile of her wide, plump mouth.
She’d displayed the same excitement at their pre-wedding party, the one and only time he’d met her. And yet, for all her smiles, which had quickly become grating, she’d hardly said a word. Not once had she started a conversation. She’d answered direct questions with a smile that didn’t falter but seemed not to have a single opinion or idea in her head.
Already sickened at being stuck with a Fernandez for the rest of his life and becoming a relation by law to the tyrannical, narcissistic, megalomaniac Dominic, his bride being a wilting wallflower only added to his antipathy at the situation. There had been no alternative though, not with their two nations on the brink of a full-blown trade and diplomatic war. Amadeo’s brother had lit the fire. Then, just as it was brought under control, his sister had thrown a can of petrol on it. This marriage was the only way to extinguish the fire in its entirety. For the sake of his nation, the monarchy he would one day head and his family, Amadeo was prepared to marry his enemy’s cousin. His whole life had been spent doing what was best for the monarchy, his human inclinations and desires stifled into submission.
If his siblings had stifled their desires and inclinations more effectively, he wouldn’t be standing here now.
His bride reached him.
As heir to the throne, Amadeo had always known the priority when he came to choose a bride would be suitability. After all, his wife would one day be Queen Consort and a figurehead for his great nation. Elsbeth’s breeding made her highly suitable for the role. He had though, expected to marry someone he could like and respect and whose company he enjoyed. Of those three traits, Elsbeth ticked the box of none.
Conscious that this most magnificent of occasions was being broadcast into the home of every Ceresian not lining the streets and into the homes of many Italians and other Europeans, he reached for her small hand and bestowed her with a practised smile. Baby blue eyes sparkling as brightly as the diamonds on her tiara, she returned his smile with an eagerness that made his stomach turn. With over a hundred million eyes watching his reaction though, he hid it, playing up for the cameras by mouthing, truthfully, ‘You look beautiful.’
She blushed at the compliment in a manner the cameras would adore. No doubt the cameras already adored her. He could already imagine the comments from the gushing reporters about the fairy-tale wedding dress the bride was wearing, all white lace and silk, emphasising but not displaying her generous bust—not a hint of cleavage was on display—and enhancing her slender waist before the skirt splayed out in the shape of a flamenco fan.
Hands clasped together, they turned their backs on the packed congregation and faced the bishop.
Elsbeth had never known cheers and applause like it. The streets lined with well-wishers had been loud on her entrance to the cathedral but when they came back out the sound would have taken any roof off.
A row of horse-drawn carriages awaited them. Her romantic husband assisted her into the first one and then, once seated beside her, took her hand in his.
The journey back to the castle seemed to go on for ever, and so did the applause. These people were genuinely happy for them, she realised with amazement as she blew a kiss to a frantically waving child being carried on her father’s shoulders. Her husband’s people cheered them all the way to the castle gates, and by the time they reached it her cheeks hurt from smiling and her wrist ached from all the waving.
Feeling as if she were in the most fantastical dream, she stood beside Amadeo to greet their guests, from the important to the not-so-important. There were so many heads of state and A-list celebrities that the castle’s roofs were thronged with snipers and the surrounding grounds thick with heavily armed security. Inside the castle though, the banqueting room their twelve-course meal was being held in was a mass of glittering gold and silver, and any security was unobtrusive enough to melt into the background.
She tried so hard to take everything in so future Elsbeth could dip into her memory bank whenever she wanted, but her dreamlike state was such that the only thing she could focus on with anything like clarity was her new husband. He was just so charming! Having lived her life in a royal palace infested with charming snakes, she wasn’t naive enough to think the charm was anything but a public act but he was being attentive to her, constantly checking that she liked the food and that she had enough to drink. Not only was he a prince but a gentleman!
Her mother’s watchful gaze though, was a reminder that, gentleman or not, her husband, a future king, had expectations and standards he expected her to adhere to, and that Elsbeth must abide by them from the start. She wasn’t foolish enough to do anything less.
Hours later, their meal over, it was time to move to a stateroom for the wedding reception party. Glad to have Amadeo holding her hand, she let him lead her to a table and tried not to overtly marvel at how exquisitely the room had been adorned. The colour scheme followed on from the banqueting room and yet managed to be even glitzier.
She caught the eye of her new brother-in-law’s wife, Clara, who gave her such a beaming smile it made Elsbeth’s belly warm with pleasure. Dominic had kidnapped Clara some months back and would have forced her to marry him if Amadeo’s brother, Marcelo, hadn’t rescued her and married her himself. Elsbeth had been terrified of meeting her at the pre-wedding party but her fears had been unfounded, Clara welcoming her generously and with no hint she blamed Elsbeth for Dominic’s cruel, unconscionable actions.
Her new sister-in-law, Alessia, had been very welcoming at the pre-wedding party too, although Elsbeth thought she looked a little distracted today. It warmed her belly even more to think these nice women were her new family. Maybe one day they would be her friends too. She could hope. She hoped for lots of things.
Elsbeth’s prince leaned into her and murmured, ‘It is time for us to dance.’
A frisson raced up her spine and, her heart bolting into a canter, she rose to her feet. With her hand enveloped in Amadeo’s, and catcalls and whistles from the increasingly raucous crowd, who’d been guzzling champagne as if it were going out of fashion, she walked to the centre of the dance floor.
One hand held in his, she put the other lightly on his shoulder. Another, deeper frisson careered through her when his hand slipped around her waist to rest on her lower back.
Her heart thumping too hard and too fast for anything more than the underlying beat of the romantic song they danced to to register, Elsbeth could hardly draw breath. The first time she’d danced with Amadeo she’d been too excited at the thought of escaping Monte Cleure to think of anything other than not screwing it up by making a bad impression on him. This time she’d had a month since their first dance and had done little but dream of him. To be in his arms, her breasts pressed lightly into his hard stomach, her senses filling with his scent, was enough to send her into overdrive.
Amadeo danced with his new wife until the dance floor was so crowded their bodies were crushed together. She didn’t utter a single word, simply kept the fixed smile on her face that had been ever-present since she’d arrived at the cathedral. Did she even have thoughts in that pretty head or was it only air?
‘Shall we get a drink?’ he suggested, dipping his head to speak into her ear over the growing noise. He caught a light, delicate scent that perfectly suited his insipid bride. It turned his stomach.
‘If you like,’ she replied brightly.
Mentally gritting his teeth, he led her—she didn’t make the first move to leave the dance floor, just as she hadn’t made the first move on anything at all that day, always waiting for him to take the lead—back to their table. She’d finished her glass of wine during the wedding breakfast by the end of the fourth course, but had made no effort to call any of the waiting staff over to refill it for her. He was certain the glass would have remained empty if he hadn’t asked if she would like some more. She’d responded with a bright smile and a ‘Yes, please.’
What had he married? A walking, talking, wind-up doll like his sister used to play with when she was a child?
When they reached their table and fresh drinks had been brought to them, his brother, Marcelo, caught his eye and nodded to the dance floor. Following his gaze, Amadeo saw the tall figure of their new brother-in-law, Gabriel. A gap in the crowd gave him a glimpse of their tiny sister wrapped tightly in Gabriel’s arms.
A small breath of relief escaped his lungs. Gabriel had negotiated the wedding contract between Amadeo and Elsbeth. He’d also had a one-night stand with Alessia that had resulted in a baby-sized consequence. Amadeo and their parents had emotionally blackmailed Alessia into marrying him. It had ended in disaster a week ago when Alessia had kicked Gabriel out of the castle and told him to never come back. Normally, Amadeo would have taken it on himself to bring them back together for the good of the monarchy but his sister had been so distraught over the collapse of her short marriage that, for once, he’d held off from interfering. The way they held each other told him his instinct to hold back had been right as they’d obviously found their way back together without his assistance.
Taking a large gulp of his champagne, he watched Marcelo take a cheeky grab of Clara’s bottom, and saw Clara’s response, a mock slap of the hand followed by a passionate kiss on the lips. Theirs was a marriage Amadeo had emotionally blackmailed them into making too. As with Alessia and Gabriel, love had found them. And happiness. What Marcelo and Clara shared was a happiness he sometimes envied.
Sometimes too, his envy tasted bitter.
Marcelo had been allowed to escape the confines of royal life for a decade, joining the Ceres army and thriving amidst all the adventures that life had brought. It would have been out of the question for Amadeo to do the same. He was the heir. Every step he took and every word he spoke and every action he made was done with the dignity of his role at the forefront of his mind. It was beyond the realms of credulity that he would have swooped in to rescue a kidnapped woman from a palace window via a helicopter, as Marcelo had done. Both his siblings thought him rigid and stuck up. If he was, it was because he had to be. The path of his life had been laid out from his conception and he’d always known that to deviate from it could bring danger to his whole family. His siblings had not been so conscientious with their own recent behaviour. The pair of them had, in their differing ways, allowed their emotions to rule their heads and the repercussions had come close to threatening their family’s existence. It had been left to him to clear up the mess of their making.
Marcelo’s rumble of laughter at something his wife said echoed in Amadeo’s ears as his gaze locked onto his sister stealing a kiss with her husband on the dance floor.
Draining his glass, he looked again at his blank-faced bride and his chest tightened. He would never be susceptible to the kind of adolescent emotions that had seen his siblings lose their heads but he’d hoped for more than this. More than a blank face from the despicable House of Fernandez.
Once the party had finished and her prince had thanked their guests, Elsbeth walked through the maze of wide corridors to their quarters. She’d been hugely looking forward to seeing the private space she and her husband would make their home. Tucked in an L on the ground floor of the castle, the size and proportions didn’t disappoint. She followed Amadeo through a large reception room and into an even larger living area with high ceilings and an abundance of bay windows. Richly decorated in dusky pinks and gold, it surprised her how feminine their quarters were. The faint scent of paint told her it had been recently decorated.
‘What do you think?’ Amadeo asked her.
Knowing better than to tell the truth, she replied, ‘It’s beautiful.’ She wouldn’t dream of telling him she preferred bold colours and less kitschy furnishings, even if she didn’t have the feeling it had been redecorated with her in mind.
He inclined his head and opened another door into a corridor. Instinct told her where this led and her heartbeat accelerated.
‘The master bedroom,’ he said blandly, opening the door at the far end.
What greeted her made Elsbeth, the cousin of a king, someone who’d lived her entire life in one of Europe’s finest palaces, gasp.
Vast and high-ceilinged, most of the oakwood flooring was covered in a prettily patterned rug of pale blue threaded with gold. The four-poster bed was a work of art, the drapes pale blue damask, the headboard pale blue velvet topped with an elaborate gold moulded frieze of cherubs at play, at its foot a pale blue velvet chaise longue. The panelled walls were cream, the huge chandelier, along with all the other lighting, gold and crystal. This was a room fit for a queen, never mind a princess. Catching another trace of paint, she thought Amadeo must have stifled his own preferences to create a room with her in mind and, though he was wide of the mark with her taste, her heart swelled with gratitude that he’d gone to so much effort to make their home something he thought she would like and be comfortable in. It was a gesture that proved him a better man than the men in her family.
He indicated the two unobtrusive maids who’d followed them and said to Elsbeth, ‘I shall take a shower in one of the guest bathrooms while you prepare for bed. I will join you when you are ready.’
She arranged her features into a smile, making sure to hide the relief that he wasn’t going to remove the wedding dress himself. Another sign he was a gentleman! She knew perfectly well that Dominic had used her virginity as one of his selling points in the marriage negotiations. Men, Elsbeth had been assured, prized virginity in their brides.
Once the dress had been removed and carefully wrapped in tissue paper and boxed away, she sat at her antique dressing table having her hair brushed by a maid. There was something incredibly romantic about preparing herself for bed for the first time as a bride, she decided. The nightdress her mother had chosen for her, if not to Elsbeth’s taste, was romantic too. White silk with thin straps, it was modestly cut, square beneath her collarbones and falling to mid-calf. Remembering the sage-green negligee she’d been drawn to, dismissed by her mother as being too ‘slutty’, she reminded herself of what her mother had said about this one being the perfect nightdress for a virgin giving herself to her husband. The virginal nightdress was very becoming and felt wonderful against her skin so she shouldn’t complain, even if only to herself.
With her body and teeth clean, her face scrubbed of make-up and moisturised, her hair gleaming, the pretty virginal nightdress on and the bedsheets turned down, she was ready.
Swallowing the lump of fear that had suddenly formed in her throat, she smiled at the maids. ‘You can leave me now. Please tell...’ She swallowed again. ‘Please tell the prince that he can join me.’
‘Would you like the curtains of the bed to be drawn?’ one of the maids asked.
Imagining with another clutch of fear how it would feel to be cocooned on the bed and only able to hear Amadeo’s approach, she shook her head.
Alone, she took a deep breath and got under the bedsheets. After trying a number of positions, she ended up propping herself against the headboard, folded her hands loosely on her lap and, her heart thumping louder than ever, waited for her groom.
The wait seemed to take for ever. The longer it went on, the louder her mother’s stern advice rang in her ears. Wait for him to make the first move. Be compliant. Do whatever he tells you to do. Do not complain if it hurts.
Give him a baby.
There was a knock on the door.
Taking one more deep breath, Elsbeth fixed a smile on her face and brightly called out, ‘Come in.’
