Читать книгу The Future King's Bride - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 10

UNSEEN, Millie put the tiny contraceptive Pill into her mouth and swallowed it—then walked into the bedroom, her face as white as the wedding gown which was hanging there. She shook her head from side to side. ‘I don’t know if I can go through with it, Lulu,’ she said huskily.

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Lulu, giving the kind of brisk, no-nonsense smile which only big sisters could get away with. Especially big sisters who had only recently forgiven you for stealing their boyfriends. Her smile increased. ‘As someone else once in pretty much my position quipped—your name’s on the teatowels now, it’s much too late to back out.’

And Lulu was right—it was. Her name and Gianferro’s. Not just on teatowels either, but on tea-sets too—and splashed all over breakfast trays, and some specially minted coins—all carrying the same formal and rather rigid pose of her and Gianferro, which had been taken on the day that their engagement was announced to the world.

Bizarrely, she found herself wondering if Gianferro had ever even used a teatowel. She doubted it. Or cooked a meal for himself. Equally doubtful. Her own upbringing had been privileged, yes—but at least she and her sister had been Brownies with the local pack. She knew how to clean and how to cook, and how to produce a plate of squashy-looking cupcakes which people would buy for charity.

But not Gianferro.

With every day that passed she became more and more aware of the rarefied and very isolated world he inhabited. Getting to see him was fraught with difficulty—like trying to make an emergency appointment at the dentist. He was surrounded by aides, and one in particular—Duca Alesso Bastistella, a devastingly handsome Italian nobleman whom Lulu had confessed she could ‘fall in love with at the drop of a hat’.