Читать книгу A Ring To Secure His Crown - Ким Лоренс, KIM LAWRENCE - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

HER MOTHER ENTERED her bedroom with dramatic abruptness just as Sabrina was fitting the last hair in the smooth twist she had wound her hair into.

‘There has been a disaster with the meal. Don’t ask!’

Sabrina didn’t but the harassed Duchess told her anyway. ‘I found out an hour ago that the Queen is gluten and lactose intolerant. Half the menu had to be revised. The chef is not happy.’

‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Sabrina soothed, getting to her feet. Focusing on her mother’s panic made it somehow easier to deal with her own nerves. ‘Just breathe, Mum.’ She laid a hand on her parent’s arm.

The Duchess took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right, but I’m running terribly late. I haven’t even started getting ready, not that it really matters. The Queen—’ she lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder, as though someone might be listening, before adding in a note of mingled envy and despair ‘—always makes me feel inadequate. I swear the woman gets younger every year!’

‘Mum, you always look lovely!’ Sabrina protested.

Her mother smiled. ‘You’re a good girl, Brina. And you’re right, of course, at my age it’s silly to worry about what I look like.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Sabrina protested. ‘There’s plenty of time for you to go and get ready.’

‘I can’t. I promised Walter that I’d run through the final details with him and speak to the staff.’

‘Leave it to me,’ Sabrina said, pretty sure she would regret the offer. The major-domo, Walter, always made her feel as though she were ten again and he’d just caught her trying to glue together a piece of porcelain she had broken. ‘You go and get ready.’

‘Really?’

Sabrina nodded.

The Duchess gave her daughter a gentle hug. ‘You’re an angel. I really don’t know what I’ll do without you when you’re married.’

‘Pretty much what you’ve been doing for the past seven years while I’ve been living in London, except from now on I’ll be closer.

‘Of course. You’re such a sensible girl. You’ve never given us a moment’s worry, unlike your sister! Speaking of Chloe, I’m going to check what she’s wearing.’ Reaching the door, she stopped and turned back. ‘You look very beautiful tonight.’

Sabrina grinned and smoothed the full skirt of the calf-length fifties-style pale blue silk dress she wore. ‘Oh, this old thing?’

‘And you’re wearing your grandmother’s pearls,’ the Duchess said, an emotional crack in her voice, as Sabrina touched the string of antique pearls wound around her slender neck. ‘You do know we are both very proud of you, don’t you? I wish there was another way. That you could—’

‘Nobody is forcing me to do anything. Luis is a lovely guy and I plan on being very happy.’ She took her mother by the shoulders and propelled her out of the door. It was only when the door had closed again that her forced smile faded. Happiness, she reminded herself, was not a right; in her case it was more a hope.