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‘The king specifically desires that you wear it. It is a copy of the gown worn by his first wife at her own betrothal,’ the countess told Natalia stiffly. ‘It is his belief that the sight of you in it will remind the people of their love for Queen Sophia and that they will transfer that love to you.’
And, of course King Giorgio, being the man he was, would never let slip an opportunity to trade on the loyalty of his people for his own ends, Natalia acknowledged disapprovingly, although in this instance she was obliged to admit that serving his own ends would also benefit his people.
The bodice of the gown had to be laced up so tightly that she could hardly breathe and then the straight, elegant column of its skirt attached to it. She had already endured an hour with a hairdresser summoned to put her hair up in a stiffly regal style and now as she looked at herself in the mirror the only familiar part of herself she felt she had to comfort her was the subtlety of her own specially blended scent.
There was a knock on the outer doors to her apartment and then they were opened to reveal the small phalanx of traditionally costumed palace guards.
It was time for her to go.
Once she walked through these doors she would be leaving Natalia Carini behind for ever.
When she walked back through them in her place would be the betrothed fiancée, soon-to-be wife, of Crown Prince Kadir of Niroli.
Kadir could hear the excited buzz of the crowd outside in the large courtyard below them. This room with its balcony onto the courtyard, according to his father, had been traditionally the place from which past kings had always addressed their people, giving them news both good and bad.
The doors to the balcony were hung with the Nirolian flag and the coat of arms of his father’s family and that too of his mother’s, and now those doors were flung open to a shrill fanfare of trumpets. As they stepped forward onto the balcony Kadir saw the rainbow-coloured ribbons of flowers and confetti being hurled into the air as the band in the square played the national anthem. The gaudy brilliance of the celebratory colours matched the excitement in the crowd as they yelled and cheered their joy.
He barely knew his father as a father; they were meeting now as two mature men both with their own agendas to promote. A fierce surge of unexpected emotion stabbed painfully through him, catching him off guard. He was forty years old, for heaven’s sake, far too old and too self-aware to start mourning some sentimentalised vision of a non-existent father-and-son relationship.
King Giorgio stepped forward holding up his hands for silence.
‘My people,’ he announced. ‘I give you my son.’
Natalia could hear the frenzied roar of the crowd as she stood in the shadows of the balcony room, waiting for her summons to join the king and her future husband. Down there amongst them would be her grandfather and other members of her extended family. No matter what other past quarrels might lie between them, her grandfather and King Giorgio were united in their love for Niroli.
Through the open doors she could hear the king’s voice, trembling slightly now. With age? With emotion? His stirring words had certainly elicited a roar of approval from the listening crowd.
‘We must always remember that there is a purpose in all things,’ the king was saying. ‘When one after another my heirs disqualified themselves from the right to follow me onto the throne, I was filled with despair, for you, my people, and for my country, not knowing then as I know now that fate had already chosen the one who will come after me; the son I did not know I had.
‘A chance meeting many years ago led to his conception, hidden from me and kept hidden until his mother relented and confessed to him on her deathbed that I had fathered him. Prince Kadir has given up his right to rule the Kingdom of Hadiya to take on the mantle of his duty to his blood, my blood, your blood, people of Niroli. He will need help if he is to rule you as you deserve to be ruled and to that end it is my pleasure to inform you that my son, and your future King, Prince Kadir, will in ten days be married to Natalia Carini, daughter of Niroli.’
As the roars of approval surged upwards from the crowd Natalia felt the countess give her a small push. Automatically she took a step forward, and then another, her heart thudding frantically inside her chest cavity.
The brilliant sunlight after the shadows of the salon momentarily blinded her as she stepped out onto the balcony, trying not to wince at the shrillness of the trumpeters.
The king was standing in the middle of the balcony. She dropped him a small stiff curtsey and felt her bodice corset digging into her flesh as she did so. Behind her the court dignitaries were filing onto the balcony; below her the crowd was cheering and calling out her name exuberantly, ‘Natalia. Natalia…You are a true Princess of Niroli.’ The air was filled with the scent of the bombs of flower petals being thrown by the revellers, some of whom were already dancing to the impromptu burst of music from a lone musician.
‘Daughter of Niroli,’ she could hear the king saying firmly, ‘give me your hand so that I in turn may symbolically unite it, and thus you, here in front of our people with the hand and the person of our chosen heir, my son Prince Kadir.’
The king was reaching for her hand, and for the first time Natalia was able to look past King Giorgio and at her future husband.
The world swung dizzily around her as though she had been scooped up and were being swung from a funfair wheel. Him! The man from Venice! Leon Perez! Surely there was some mistake, and she was just imagining…but, no…it was quite definitely him! Prince Kadir, her husband-to-be, was Leon Perez, and the man she had made love with in Venice. It couldn’t possibly be, but it was!
The shock struck right through to her heart, pinioning her with disbelief, sucking the air from her lungs and turning the bright sunshine dark. The sound of the crowd became a dull roar reaching her from a distant place. From that place she was only vaguely aware of the laughing excitement of the crowd being checked and then becoming a low-voiced sound of confused anxiety as they saw her sway and then semi stumble.
Natalia was oblivious to their concern. All she could see was the man who was to be her husband. He might be dressed in the historical dress uniform of the Commander-in-Chief of Niroli’s Armed Forces, a cloak of dark green velvet lined with ermine slung from one shoulder, and the Nirolian Seal of State ring very evident on his ring finger, but none of that could mask the reality of the fact that he was the same man she had had sex with in Venice.
A hard hand gripped her by the elbow keeping her upright as she swayed, a too well remembered male scent shocking her senses. The murderous look he was giving her was enough to have her stomach lurching without his for-her-ears-only, ‘Pull yourself together,’ mouthed against her ear as he made a pretence of showing concern for her.
Somehow she managed to force herself to turn to the crowd and smile as the king placed her now-icy-cold hand on that of his son and heir, Niroli’s future King and her future husband.
‘My people,’ King Giorgio announced emotionally. ‘I give you my son and his betrothed, your future King and Queen. May their lives together be spent in joyful service to our country and may they be blessed with the gift of children to carry on our traditions after them. I ask you to pledge to them your loyalty and love
, as they pledge theirs to you. My people, will you accept Prince Kadir as your future King and his wife-to-be Natalia Carini as your future Queen?’
‘We will…’ the crowd roared as though with one voice.
Their acceptance seemed to reverberate throughout the square as though sending its message to every part of the island, Natalia thought as she was overwhelmed by her own feeling of kinship with the people down below her in the crowd. She was a part of them and they of her in a way that the king and even less his son could ever be. She had been born amongst them and had grown up with them. She would, she promised silently, from now on dedicate herself to her service to them and to her country.
