Kitabı oku: «Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt»

CHAPTER ONE

Paris…ten years later

PRINCESS SOFIA DE LORIA of Iondorra looked out across the Parisian skyline as the sun began its slow summer descent over the rooftops and cobbled streets of Europe’s reportedly most romantic city. The irony was not lost on her. Tonight she would meet the man she would spend the rest of her life with. Not that romance had anything to do with it. No, that was the domain of Angelique—the practical, determined matchmaker who had been employed for that express purpose.

The hint of jasmine that settled around the room of the luxurious hotel near the Sixth Arrondissement from some invisible air dispenser was nothing like the real thing and Sofia longed to return to her palace in Iondorra. Although she did appreciate the soft white and gold tones of the room and, casting a look to the king-sized bed, her heart lurching, she felt desperate to throw herself amongst the soft pillows and deep comfort offered by the impossibly thick duvet. She had been away too long, immersed in diplomatic duties unruffling more than a few feathers caused by her father’s recent and increasing absence from the world’s stage. More and more, she found that she just wanted to go home.

She pulled her gaze from the incredible view of the Jardin de Luxembourg and paced towards the larger seating area of the stunning suite. Only yesterday she had been in Prague, two days before that, it had been Istanbul. Her body moved oddly within the costume for that evening’s masquerade ball—the full corset holding her back straight and pushing her breasts against the gentle arc of the low, sweeping neckline. She felt confined by it, not that it was an unfamiliar feeling to Sofia. The bustle of material behind her, falling into a wide golden train, made her feel as if she were pulling the weight of more than just her, and Sofia couldn’t help but think that it somehow fitted that evening.

The masquerade ball being held to celebrate the birthday of one of Europe’s minor royals had presented the perfect opportunity to meet her three would-be suitors without attracting the notice of the world’s press, or the intrigue of the very royal and rich society that had been waiting with bated breath to see who the Widow Princess would marry next.

A sliver of pain twisted through her heart as she recalled the description favoured by the international press so much that it had almost become part of her title. Princess Sofia of Iondorra—the Widow Princess.

Every time it was mentioned it was accompanied by images of her in mourning, her pale skin harsh against the depth of the black clothes she had worn to honour her husband. Four years. Antoine had been gone for four years. The familiar sense of grief, softened only slightly over the years, edged around her heart. Theirs might not have been a love match in the truest sense, but Antoine had been her friend, her confidant. He had known about her father’s illness and helped shield it from the world. He had supported her through their brief marriage as she adjusted to the reality that she would be queen much sooner than anyone had ever expected.

She missed his quiet support and understanding and once again felt the strange sense of bafflement that had met the news of his shockingly unexpected death at a charity car race. The footage of the six-car pile-up in Le Mans had shocked nations, but only devastated one. Because only Antoine’s life had been lost.

But she could not afford to indulge in her grief. Not tonight. Antoine, more than anyone, would understand why she needed to remarry for the good of her country. Her father’s illness had deepened in the last few months, and, whether she liked it or not, the council was right. If the news of his illness broke while she was still considered the Widow Princess, then the future of her country would be in serious jeopardy. With a fairly inexperienced prime minister forced into making difficult austerity measures, the monarchy was the only stability and security the people believed in. And the only way Iondorra would survive the impending announcement of her father’s diagnosis was if they had some hope for the future—a fairy-tale marriage heralding the next generation of royals.

It hadn’t been Antoine’s fault that they’d not conceived during their four-year marriage. They had tried a few times, but even Sofia had been forced to admit that neither had been able to bring themselves to actually consummate their marriage. And she knew why. Only once had she experienced a chemistry, an attraction that had been at once all-consuming, that had seemed almost to threaten her very sanity. And it hadn’t been with Antoine.

It hadn’t taken long before her husband had started to look elsewhere for the pleasure that she simply could not offer him. He’d been so devastatingly discreet and quiet about it all. Every now and then he would disappear for a few days, and return with some impossibly expensive gift, offering it to her with eyes that could never meet her gaze. It hadn’t angered her, torn her up inside the way it should have done. Instead, all she’d been able to feel was so very sad for the man she cared for like a friend, like a brother, to be trapped in the same cage she was caught within. Duty. A passionless marriage.

And here she was again, on the brink of yet another one. Wasn’t the definition of madness doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?

‘Are you ready?’ Angelique’s voice came from somewhere behind her.

‘For the royal equivalent of speed dating?’ Sofia asked. ‘Yes,’ she said, answering her own question, all the while shaking her head to the contrary.

Angelique smiled, the movement softening her features into something more relatable than the fierce businesswoman persona she usually adopted.

‘Are you sure this is what you want? We can always cancel, find some other way…’

‘Are you trying to do yourself out of a commission? That doesn’t seem very wise.’

Angelique cocked her head to one side, quite birdlike. ‘My finances are perfectly secure, I assure you, Your Highness. And, as you have requested the utmost secrecy, then so would be my reputation. You do have a choice, Sofia.’

But they both knew that was a lie. Sofia looked to the window again, as if it were an exit route, as if she could fly to it and escape from what was about to happen. Because somehow, in some way, Sofia simply couldn’t shake the feeling that, after tonight, her life would drastically change.

Yes, she’d have met and chosen the man she would marry, but it felt bigger than that. It felt as if she were on a precipice but that she couldn’t see the edge. And it made her angry. Angry for all the sacrifices she had already made, and the ones she could continue to make in the future. As if a summer thunderstorm had zapped her with a lightning strike, coursing white-hot heat through her veins. But where once she would have vented her anger, her fear, all this impossible-to-express energy, Sofia had to fight it. Princesses didn’t get angry. They got married.

‘Okay,’ Angelique said finally as if, too, sensing there was no going back. ‘So, would you like the motivational speech now, Your Highness?’

Sofia couldn’t help but smile at the gentle humour in Angelique’s tone. It felt like years since someone had laughed with her. It had been years.

‘What would you like? Braveheart-style, Beyoncé Run the World, or something à la Churchill?’

Sofia let a small, sad laugh escape from her lips. ‘I’ll forgo the attempt at a Scottish accent, I think. I don’t suppose you have anything just for me?’ she asked, instantly hating the sense of vulnerability her words evoked.

‘I do,’ Angelique said, locking serious eyes with hers. ‘You will be a great queen. You will care for Iondorra with as great a sense of purpose as any who have gone before you. You will rule her with love and duty and sacrifice, but all of that will ensure Iondorra’s longevity amongst the world’s greatest nations. And you will do it with a man at your side who will love, honour and protect you in a way that allows you to protect your country. You, Your Highness, are a force to be reckoned with and my wish for you is that you find a man worthy of that. These three suitors are perfect candidates. They understand your duty, your role in life, and are willing and able to support you in that. And now it is time.’

‘To go to the ball, Fairy Godmother?’

‘No, Sofia,’ Angelique said gently. ‘To remove Antoine’s ring.’

Sofia’s fingers flew to the wedding band around her fourth finger. It felt as sacrilegious to remove it, as much as it was easy for her to do so. Antoine would have understood. She placed the simple wedding band she had worn for eight years on the dressing table and felt a little bit of her past slip away from her grasp.

As Angelique left the room, Sofia returned her watchful gaze to the Parisian rooftops. For just a moment, she had fallen under the spell of the other woman’s words, grateful for them, thankful. But that positive determination she had felt fizzing in her veins had disappeared with Angelique’s departure. And for the first time in a while, she let the façade drop and allowed the feel of exhaustion to sweep over her. Her father’s deterioration had increased in the last few months and propelled the need for the one thing she’d been putting off for several years. The cost of keeping her father’s illness a secret had been a great one to pay, but one that she would do again and again. Because the people of Iondorra needed security.

She thought of her little European principality, cradled in between France, Switzerland and northern Italy. The country that she was to rule, protect as if it were her child. The country that, ever since she was seventeen and had been whisked away from her boarding school, she had been trained to protect, ruthlessly sculpted to become the perfect princess.

And then, as always following these moments of weakness, came the inner strength that saw her match even the strongest heads of state at the tables of European negotiations. She, and Iondorra, had no time for selfish, moping thoughts. She’d put those things aside a long time ago. Just as she’d put aside the thoughts of her own happy-ever-after.

Poor little princess, an inner voice mocked, sounding very much like that of a young man she’d long ago loved. A young man she’d been forced to leave behind, lie to, and a man she very much refused to think of now.

She glanced at the embossed invitation, smiling at how the gold detail of the lettering matched the soft golden yellows of the corseted Victorian-era dress she wore, the crinoline underskirt as heavy as a crown.

For so long she’d been cast as the Widow Princess, it had begun to feel as if she’d lost herself. Not that it mattered. The only thing of true importance was Iondorra. And attending the masquerade ball was just the next step towards the throne.

Each of the three men had been carefully vetted and would, in their own ways, be perfectly acceptable candidates for their role as husband. So there she was, in Paris, dressed up and ready to find the man she would spend the rest of her life with. And if she’d once thought she already had, then it didn’t matter. Such fanciful daydreams were for others. Real princesses didn’t have the luxury of Prince Charmings.

Theo Tersi scanned the expanse of the large Parisian ballroom, took a breath and instantly regretted it. Where he had expected to taste the hint of satisfaction at the thought of what tonight would bring, the only thing on his tongue was the cloying and competing scents of the perfume adorning the many women in the room. It was an assault on his olfactory system and he was half tempted to retreat and preserve that much-needed function. When he would think back to this moment in the months to come, he would wonder if it had been some kind of cosmic sign to turn back. To think again.

But right now, there was no turning back for Theo.

‘All right, I’m here,’ grouched the exiled Duke of Gaeten.

‘You don’t need to sound so pleased about it,’ Theo said absently, still scanning the faces in the ballroom for the one that he wanted. No, needed. ‘Surely the great Sebastian Rohan de Luen is not bored in the face of all this as yet untouched potential?’

‘Hah,’ his friend almost spat. ‘You think me jaded?’

‘No, as I said. Bored. You need someone to challenge you.’

‘And you need to walk away from this madness before it gets us all into trouble.’

Theo turned and cast a look over his closest friend, the only person who had been there for him when his world came crashing down for the second time. They had been in the middle of a business meeting—Theo soliciting a deal that would see the wine from his vineyard served at Sebastian’s Michelin-starred hotels scattered across the globe—when he had received the call from the hospital informing him of his mother’s admittance and diagnosis. The bottom had literally dropped out of his world, and Sebastian? Had chartered a private plane to return him to Greece and, rather than simply letting that be the end of it, had contracted Theo’s vineyard to his hotels. It had been the only thing that had saved Theo and his business from the wolves—but more importantly it had provided him with enough capital to pay for his mother’s healthcare. Without that contract, he would have lost the vineyard, would have lost the roof over his and his mother’s heads, and possibly would have lost his mother. And Theo had never forgotten it, and would never. Their relationship had quickly grown from business to brotherhood and, despite the awful foundation of its start, he wouldn’t regret it. It had been his salvation in the years since.

But, throughout that dark time, Theo had only seen one face, one person to blame, one person who had lied to him, set him up to take full blame for her actions, and had singlehandedly ruined his life. Had it not been for her, he would have finished his education—would have attended one of the finest universities the world had to offer, and would have been able to provide his mother with more, with better. He would never have been in a position where he could have lost it all. And that fear, the fear of nearly losing his mother, had changed him, had transformed his DNA. Never again would he be the naïve youth he had once been. Never again would he be that innocent.

Sofia was the origin point of the change in the course of his life, one that had only exacerbated his mother’s later illness. He hadn’t been surprised when the doctor had explained that the stresses of the last few years had taken their toll on his mother’s already weak heart. The shock of losing her job after his expulsion, the struggle of the following years… Had he not met Sofia, he would never have lost everything he’d held within his grasp—the opportunities, the chances he had been given to be and do better than either he or his mother could have ever expected. Naïve and foolish, he had believed every single one of Sofia’s lies before she disappeared, making a mockery of all those words of love, of a future she would never give him—could never have been able to give—when he finally discovered the truth about her.

Oh, he had thought her to be so different to the cruel students of the international boarding school his mother’s employer had sponsored him to attend, but at least they had owned their cruelty. No—Sofia’s had been worse, because she had hidden her betrayal until the last moment, she had purposefully set him up to take the blame for her reckless actions and he had been expelled.

And the shame he’d felt when he realised he had lost it all? The anger that had coursed through his veins when he realised her words, her touches had been nothing more than a game to be played by a bored and spoilt princess? It had been nothing compared to the moment where his heart had shattered into a thousand pieces. The moment he’d seen the announcement of her engagement. To be betrayed by someone he had…he could no longer bring himself to say the word. He forced his thoughts fiercely away from reflections that would only see him lose his temper. And if anything was to be lost tonight, it couldn’t be that.

‘I spent years—years—watching and waiting to see if I would lose this…need for vengeance.’ He had thrown himself into any willing woman he could find in an attempt to erase the memory of her. He hadn’t managed to turn his tastes to the blonde hair that seemed dull and lifeless in comparison to the lustre his memories had endowed her with. Blue eyes seemed bland and insipid against the sparkle and shine of the strange combination of intelligence and recklessness that seemed unique only to her. Brunettes were the only way forward through those dark, hedonistic two years as he had tried and failed to satiate the wild, driving need for her…for revenge that had all but consumed him.