Читать книгу The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Aimee Carson - Страница 97

CHAPTER FOUR

LIANA GAZED AT her reflection in the gold-framed mirror of one of the royal palace’s many guest suites. She was in a different one from the last time she’d been here six weeks ago, yet it was just as sumptuous. Then she’d come to Maldinia to discuss marriage; this time she was here for a wedding. Hers.

‘You’re too thin.’ Her mother Gabriella’s voice came out sharp with anxiety as she entered the room, closing the door behind her.

‘I have lost a little weight in the past few weeks,’ Liana said, and heard the instinctive note of apology in her voice. Everything with her parents felt like an apology, a way to say sorry over and over again. Yet she could never say it enough, and her parents never seemed to hear it anyway.

They certainly never talked about it.

‘I suppose things have been a bit stressful,’ Gabriella allowed. She twitched Liana’s short veil over her shoulders and smoothed the satin fabric of the simple white sheath dress she wore.

Her wedding to Sandro was to be a quiet affair in the palace’s private chapel, with only family in attendance. After the fairy-tale proportions of Leo and Alyse’s ceremony, and the resulting fallout, something quiet and dignified was needed. It suited Liana fine.

She wondered what Sandro thought about it. She hadn’t seen him since she’d arrived two days ago, beyond a formal dinner where she’d been introduced to a variety of diplomats and dignitaries. She’d chatted with everyone, curtsied to the queen, who had eyed her coldly, and met Sandro’s sister, Alexa, as well as his brother, Leo, and sister-in-law, Alyse.

Everyone—save the queen—had been friendly enough, but it had been Sandro’s rather stony silence that had unnerved her. It had occurred to her then in an entirely new and unwelcome way that this man was going to be her husband. She would live with him for the rest of her days, bear his children, serve by his side. Stupid of her not to think it all through before, but suddenly it seemed overwhelming, her decision reckless. Was she really going to say vows based on a desire to please her parents? To somehow atone for the past?

No wonder Sandro had been incredulous. And it was too late to change her mind now.

Gabriella put her hands on Liana’s shoulders, met her gaze in the mirror. ‘You do want this marriage, Liana, don’t you?’ Liana opened her mouth to say of course she did, because she knew she couldn’t say anything else. Not when her mother wanted it so much. Even now, with all the doubts swirling through her mind, she felt that. Believed it.

‘Because I know we might seem old-fashioned to you,’ Gabriella continued in a rush. ‘Asking you to marry a man you’ve barely met.’ Now Liana closed her mouth. It was old-fashioned, but she wasn’t going to fight it. Wasn’t going to wish for something else.

What was the point? Her parents wanted it, and it was too late anyway. And in any case, a real marriage, a marriage based on intimacy and love, held no appeal for her.

Neither did a husband who seemed as if he hated her.

And wasn’t that her fault? For telling him she didn’t respect him? For pushing him away out of her own hurt pride and fear? But perhaps it was better for Sandro to hate her than call up all those feelings and needs. Perhaps antipathy would actually be easier.

‘I just want you to be happy,’ Gabriella said quietly. ‘As your father does.’

And they thought marrying a stranger would make her happy?

No, Liana thought tiredly, they didn’t want her to be happy, not really. They wanted to feel as if she had been taken care of, dealt with. Tidied away. They wanted to forget her, because she knew soul deep that every time her parents looked at her they were reminded of Chiara. Of Chiara’s death.

Just as she was.

If she married Sandro, at least she’d be out of the way. Easier to forget.

Better for everyone, really.

She drew a breath into her lungs, forced her expression into a smile. ‘I am happy, Mother. I will be.’

Her mother nodded, not questioning that statement. Not wanting to know. ‘Good,’ she said, and kissed Liana’s cold cheek.

A few minutes later her mother left for the chapel, leaving Liana alone to face the walk down the aisle by herself. Maldinian tradition dictated that the bride walk by herself, and the groom keep his back to her until she reached his side.

A stupid tradition, probably meant to terrify brides into submission, she thought with a grimace. And would it terrify her? What would the expression on Sandro’s face be when he did turn around? Contempt? Disgust? Hatred? Desire? She knew she shouldn’t even care, but she did.

Ever since she’d first met Sandro, she’d started caring. Feeling. And that alarmed her more than anything.

She closed her eyes, fought against the nerves churning in her stomach and threatening to revolt up her throat. Why had this man woken something inside her she’d thought was not just asleep, but dead? How had he resurrected it?

She longed to go back to the numb safety she’d lived in for so long. For twenty years, since she was eight. Eight years old, pale faced and trembling, staring at the grief-stricken expressions on her parents’ faces as she told them the truth.

I was there. It was my fault.

And they had, in their silence, agreed. Of course they had, because it was the truth. Chiara’s death had been entirely her fault, and that was a truth she could never, ever escape.

This marriage was, in its own way, meant to be more penance. But it wasn’t meant to make her feel. Want. Need.

Yet in the six weeks since she’d returned from Maldinia, it had. She felt the shift inside herself, an inexorable moving of the tectonic plates of her soul, and it was one she didn’t welcome. Ever since Sandro’s scathing indictment of her, his assault on her convictions, her body, her whole self, she’d started to feel more. Want more. And she was desperate to stop, to snatch back the numbness, the safety.

‘Lady Liana? It’s time.’

Woodenly Liana nodded and then followed Paula, the palace’s press secretary, to the small chapel where the service would take place.

‘This will be a very quiet affair,’ Paula said. ‘No cameras or publicity, like before.’

Before, when Alyse and Leo’s charade had blown up in their faces, Liana knew, and they’d been exposed as having faked their fairy-tale love story for the entirety of their engagement. This time there was no charade, yet Liana still felt as if everything could explode around her. As if it already had.

‘All right, then.’ Paula touched her briefly on her shoulder. ‘You look lovely. Don’t forget to smile.’

Somehow Liana managed to make the corners of her mouth turn up. Paula didn’t look all that satisfied by this expression of expectant marital joy, but she nodded and left Liana alone to face the double doors that led to the chapel, the small crowd, and Sandro.

Drawing a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin. She was doing this for a good reason. Forget her own feelings, which she’d tried to forget for so long anyway. There was a good reason, the best reason, to marry Sandro, to make her life worth something. Her sister.

For a second, no more, she allowed herself to think of Chiara. Chi-Chi. Her button eyes, her impish smile, her sudden laugh.

I’m doing this for you, Chi-Chi, she thought, and tears, tears she hadn’t let herself cry for twenty years, rose in her eyes. She blinked them back furiously.

Forward.

‘Lady Liana?’

Liana turned to see Alyse Barras—now Diomedi—walking towards her, a warm smile on her pretty face. She wore an understated dress of rose silk, with a matching coat and hat. Silk gloves reached up to the elbow on each slender arm. She looked every inch the elegant, confident royal.

Liana had met Alyse briefly at the dinner last night, but they hadn’t spoken beyond a few pleasantries.

‘I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk properly,’ Alyse said, extending one hand that Liana took stiffly, still conscious of the tears crowding under her lids. ‘I just wanted to tell you I know how you feel. Walking down an aisle alone can be a little frightening. A little lonely.’ Her gaze swept over Liana’s pale figure in obvious sympathy, and she instinctively stiffened, afraid those treacherous tears would spill right over. If they did, she feared there would be no coming back from it.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and she knew her voice sounded too cool. It was her only defence against losing it completely in this moment. ‘I’m sure I’ll manage.’

Alyse blinked, her mouth turning down slightly before she nodded. ‘Of course you will. I just wanted to say... I hope we have a chance to get to know one another now that we’re both part of this family.’ Her smile returned. ‘For better or for worse.’

And right now felt like worse. Liana nodded, too wretchedly emotional to respond any further to Alyse’s friendly overture.

‘Thank you,’ she finally managed. ‘I should go.’

‘Of course.’ Alyse nodded and stepped back. ‘Of course.’

Two footmen came forward to throw open the doors of the chapel, and with that icy numbness now hastily reassembled, her chin lifted and her head held high, Liana stepped into her future.

The chapel was as quiet and sombre as if a funeral were taking place rather than a wedding. A handful of guests she didn’t know, her parents in the left front row. Sandro’s back, broad and resolute, turned towards her. She felt the tears sting her eyes again, her throat tighten and she willed the emotion away.

This was the right thing to do. The only thing she could do. This was her duty to her parents, to the memory of her sister. She was doing it for them, not for herself. For Chiara....

She repeated the words inside her head, a desperate chant, an appeal to everything she’d done and been in the twenty years since Chiara’s death.

This was her duty. Her atonement. Her absolution. She had no other choice, no other need but to serve her parents and the memory of her sister as best she could.

And as she came down the aisle she finally made herself believe it once more.

* * *

Sandro had heard the doors to the chapel open, knew Liana was walking towards him. He fought an urge to turn around, knowing that tradition had Maldinian grooms—royal ones, at least—facing the front until the bride was at their side.

When she was halfway down he gave in and turned around, tradition be damned. He wanted to see Liana, wanted to catch a glimpse of the woman he was about to promise to love, honour, and cherish before he made those binding vows. For the past six weeks he’d been trying not to think of her, of the proud contempt he’d seen on her face the last time they’d spoken, when she’d told him with a sneer in her voice that she didn’t respect him.

And as shocked as her contemptuous indictment had been, how could he actually be surprised? Hurt? She’d been speaking the truth, after all.

Now as she came down the aisle, her bearing regal and straight, her chin tilted proudly and her eyes flashing violet ice, he felt the hopes he hadn’t even realised he still had plummet.

She was just as he remembered. Just as composed, just as soulless and scornful as he’d first feared. And in about three minutes she would become his wife.

As she joined him at the altar, her dress whispering against his legs, she lifted her chin another notch, all haughty pride and cool purpose.

Sandro turned away without so much as a smile and listened to the archbishop begin with a leaden heart.

An hour later they were man and wife, circulating through one of the palace’s many receiving rooms among the few dozen guests. They still hadn’t spoken to each other, although Sandro had brushed his lips against Liana’s cold ones at the end of the ceremony before she’d stepped quickly away.

They’d walked down the aisle together, her hand lying rigidly on his arm, and gone directly to one of the palace’s salons for a champagne reception.

Liana, Sandro couldn’t help notice, seemed to take to the role of queen with instant, icy poise. She smiled and chatted with a reserved dignity that he supposed fitted her station. She was friendly without being gregarious or warm or real.

She wasn’t, he thought, anything he wanted. But he had to live with it, with her, and he was determined to put such thoughts behind him.

He moved through the crowds, chatting with various people, conscious of Liana by his side, smiling and yet so still and straight, so proud. She seemed untouchable and completely indifferent to him, yet even so he found his mind—and other parts of his body—leaping ahead to a few hours from now, when they would leave the reception and all the guests behind and retire upstairs to the tower room that was the traditional honeymoon suite.

There wouldn’t actually be a honeymoon; he saw no point, and he doubted Liana did either. But tonight... Tonight they would consummate their marriage. The prospect filled him with desire and distaste, hunger and loathing.

He wanted her, he knew, but he didn’t want to want her, not when she didn’t even respect him. And she obviously didn’t want to want him.

Sandro took a long swallow of champagne, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. What a mess.

* * *

Liana felt tension thrum through her body as she made a valiant effort to listen to another dignitary talk about Maldinia’s growing industry, and how Prince Leo was helping to raise funds for technological improvements.

But her real focus was on the man next to her. Her husband. He listened and chatted and smiled just as she did, but she felt the tension in his body, had seen the chilly expression in his eyes when he’d turned to her, and in the moment before she’d said her vows she had felt panic bubble up inside her. She’d wanted to rip off her veil and run back down the aisle, away from everything. The anxiety and hope in her parents’ eyes. The ice in her groom’s. And the churning fear and guilt inside herself that she could never escape, no matter how far or fast she ran.

And so she’d stayed and repeated the vows that would bind her to this man for life. She’d promised to love and honour and obey him, traditional vows for a traditional marriage, and she’d wished she’d considered how different it would feel, to fill her mouth full of lies.

She didn’t love this man. She hadn’t honoured him. And as for obedience...

Sandro placed a hand on her elbow, and despite every intention not to feel anything for him, just that simple touch set sparks racing up her arm, exploding in her heart. She hated how much he affected her. Hated how weak and vulnerable he made her feel, how he made her want things she knew he would never give her.

‘We will say our goodbyes in a few minutes,’ he said in a low voice, and Liana stiffened.

‘Goodbyes? But we’re not going anywhere.’

Sandro’s mouth curved in a humourless smile. His eyes were as hard as metal. ‘We’re going to our honeymoon suite, Liana. To go to bed.’

She pulled her arm away from his light touch, realisation icing her veins. Of course. Their wedding night. They would have to consummate their marriage now. It was a duty she’d known she would have to perform, even if she hadn’t let herself think too much about it. Now it loomed large and incredibly immediate, incredibly intimate, and even as dread pooled in her stomach she couldn’t keep a contrary excitement from leaping low in her belly—fear and fascination, desire and dread all mixed together. She hated the maelstrom this man created within her.

‘You aren’t going to steal away yet, are you?’ Alyse approached them, Leo by her side. ‘I haven’t even had a chance to talk with Liana yet, not properly.’

Liana offered a sick smile, her mind still on the night ahead, alone with Sandro.

‘You’ll have plenty of opportunity later,’ Sandro answered, his fingers closing once more over Liana’s elbow. ‘But for now I want my bride to myself.’ He smiled as he said it, but to Liana it felt like the smile of a predator, intent on devouring its prey.

And that was how intimacy with Sandro felt. Like being devoured. Like losing herself, everything she’d ever clung to.

Alyse glanced uncertainly at Sandro before turning back to Liana. ‘We’ll have to have a proper chat soon,’ she said, and Liana nodded jerkily.

‘Yes, I look forward to getting to know both of you,’ she said with as much warmth as she could inject into her voice, although she feared it wasn’t all that much. ‘You both seem very happy in your marriage.’

‘And you will be in yours, Queen Liana,’ Leo said quietly, ‘if you just give Sandro some time to get used to the idea.’

Liana watched as he slipped his hand into his wife’s, his fingers squeezing hers gently. Something in her ached at the sight of that small yet meaningful touch. When had she last been touched like that?

It had been years. Decades. She’d found it so hard to give and receive affection after Chiara’s death. For a second she could almost feel her sister’s skinny arms hook around her neck as she pressed her cheek next to hers. She could feel her silky hair, her warm breath as she whispered in her ear. She’d always had secrets, Chiara, silly secrets. She’d whisper her nonsense in Liana’s ear and then giggle, squeezing her tight.

Liana swallowed and looked away. She couldn’t think of Chiara now or she’d fall apart completely. And she didn’t want to think about the yearning that had opened up inside her, an overwhelming desire for the kind of intimacy she’d closed herself off from for so long. To give and receive. To know and be known. To love and be loved.

None of it possible, not with this man. Her husband.

She might be leaving this room for her wedding night, but that kind of intimacy, with love as its sure foundation, was not something she was about to experience. Something she didn’t want to experience, even if everything in her protested otherwise.

Love opened you up to all sorts of pain. It hurt.

But she didn’t even need to worry about that, because right now she and Sandro were just going to have sex. Emotionless sex.

They spent the next few minutes saying their goodbyes; her mother hugged her tightly and whispered that she hoped she would be happy. Liana murmured back nonsense about how she already was and saw the tension that bracketed her mother’s eyes lessen just a little. Her father didn’t hug her; he never had, not since Chiara had died. She didn’t blame him.

A quarter of an hour later she left the reception with Sandro; neither of them spoke as they walked down several long, opulent corridors and then up the wide front staircase of the palace, down another corridor, up another staircase, and finally to the turret room that was kept for newlyweds.

Sandro opened the door first, ushering her in, and Liana didn’t look at him as she walked into the room. She took in the huge stone fireplace, the windows open to the early evening sky, the enormous four-poster bed piled high with silken pillows and seeming almost to pulse with expectation.

She resisted the urge to wipe her damp palms against the narrow skirt of her wedding gown and walked to the window instead, taking in several needed lungfuls of mountain air. The sun was just starting to sink behind the timbered houses of Averne’s Old Town, the Alps fringing the horizon, their snowy peaks thrusting towards a violet sky. It was all incredibly beautiful, and yet also chilly and remote. As chilly and remote as she felt, shrinking further and further into herself, away from the reality—the intimacy—of what was about to happen between them.

Behind her she heard the door click shut.

‘Would you like to change?’ Sandro asked. He sounded formal and surprisingly polite. Liana didn’t turn from the window.

‘I don’t believe I have anything to change into.’

‘There’s a nightdress on the bed.’

She turned then and saw the silk-and-lace confection spread out on the coverlet. It looked horribly revealing, ridiculously romantic. ‘I don’t see much point in that.’

Sandro huffed a hard laugh. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

She finally forced herself to look at him. ‘There’s no point in pretending, is there?’

‘Is that what it would be?’ He lounged against the doorway; while she’d been gazing out of the window he’d shed his formal coat and undone his white tie. His hair was ruffled, his eyes sleepy, and she could see the dark glint of a five o’clock shadow on his chiselled jaw, the hint of chest hair from the top opened buttons of his shirt. He looked dissolute and dangerous and...sexy.

The word popped into her head of its own accord. She didn’t want to think of her husband as sexy. She didn’t want to feel that irresistible magnetic pull towards him that already had her swaying slightly where she stood. She didn’t want to feel so much. If she felt this, she’d feel so much more. She would drown in all the feelings she’d suppressed for so long.

‘You weren’t pretending the last time I kissed you,’ Sandro said softly, and to Liana it sounded like a taunt.

‘You’re as proud as a polecat about that,’ she answered. Sandro began to stroll towards her.

‘Why fight me, Liana? Why resist me? We’re married. We must consummate our marriage. Why don’t we at least let this aspect of our union bring us pleasure?’

‘Because nothing else about it will?’ she filled in, her tone sharp, and Sandro just shrugged.

‘We’ve both admitted as much, haven’t we?’

Yes, she supposed they had, so there was no reason for her to feel so insulted. So hurt. Yet as Sandro kept moving towards her with a predator’s prowl, she knew she did.

He stopped in front of her, close enough so she could feel the heat of him, and he could see her tremble. She stared blindly ahead, unable to look at him, to see what emotion flickered in his eyes. Pity? Contempt? Desire? She wanted none of it, even as her body still ached and yearned.

Sandro lifted one hand and laid it on her shoulder; she could feel the warmth of his palm from underneath the thin silk of her gown. He smoothed his hand down the length of her arm, the movement studied, almost clinical, as if he was touching a statue. And she felt like a statue just as he’d accused her of being: lifeless, unmoving, even as her blood heated and her heart lurched. Sandro sighed.

‘Why don’t you take a bath?’ he said, turning away. ‘Relax for a little while. If you don’t want to wear that nightgown, there are robes in the bathroom that will cover you from chin to toe.’

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he moved to the fireplace, his fingers deftly undoing the remaining studs of his shirt. He shrugged out of it, the firelight burnishing the bronzed skin of his sculpted shoulders, and Liana yanked her gaze away.

On shaky, jelly-like legs she walked to the bathroom, her dress whispering around her as she moved, and closed the door. Locked it. And let out a shuddering breath that ended on something halfway to a sob.