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CHAPTER ONE
‘WHENAMIgoing to marry?’ Angelino Diamandis rolled his dark heavily lashed eyes with slumbrous amusement in receipt of his brother’s question.
Christened Angel by his friends, it being an in-joke that he was anything but angelic, the ruling Prince of Themos sprawled back on the upholstered ottoman in an untidy but indisputably graceful tangle of long lean limbs and simply smiled over his cup of coffee. The movie-star good looks that had long made him a favourite of the paparazzi had rarely been more breathtakingly obvious.
Prince Saif of Alharia, clad in the traditional silk finery of a bridegroom, studied his younger half-brother with an unimpressed frown. ‘Why are you smiling? As though I had asked you something foolish? You are a head of state and one day, just like me, you must marry. Neither of us has a choice.’
That last statement was voiced without resentment or self-pity, Angel acknowledged, wryly amused by his brother’s heartfelt sense of duty and honour. Saif still rejoiced in a streak of naivety that Angel had never had. Saif had been surrounded from birth by all the safety barriers a devoted elderly father considered necessary to conserve his only son’s happiness and security.
Angel, in comparison, had never known either parental love or parental protectiveness although he had never admitted that to a living soul. He had been raised by servants and sent to boarding school, his parents much craved but distant figures on his horizon...until he’d gained the maturity to see what they werereallylike. Catching his mother in bed with his best friend at the age of fifteen had been a cruel wake-up call to reality, and being exposed to his father’s equally grubby activities had been crushing. He had learned that all the money, privilege and status in the world couldn’t compensate for an essential lack of decency and good taste.
Angel had, however, left his brother with his innocent illusions intact about the mother who had abandoned him and her first husband, the Emir of Alharia, to run off with Angel’s father. Queen Nabila and her equally self-indulgent second husband, King Achilles, had, after all, died in a helicopter crash when Angel was sixteen. There was no good reason now to tell Saif the ugly truth about the mother he had never known.
‘Not much choice when it comes to marrying,’ Angel conceded ruefully. ‘But I still wouldn’t have agreed to go into an arranged marriage with a bride I haven’t met, as you have done.’
‘Youknowthe precarious state of my father’s health.’
‘I do, but I also think you will eventually have to stop tiptoeing around him.’
Saif stiffened defensively. ‘You say that because I have not yet had the courage to tell my father about my relationship with you...and I’ve hidden you away here in a forgotten part of the palace to conceal your presence in Alharia on my wedding day.’
Angel nodded gently. ‘We are not children who need to hide wrongdoing,’ he murmured wryly. ‘Our mother grievously betrayed your father, but our blood tie should not be denied because of her behaviour.’
Saif looked troubled, too honest a man to deny that fact. ‘In time I will tell him that we have a sibling relationship.’
Annoyed that he had taken his bad mood out on his serious older brother by reproaching him, Angel changed the subject. ‘I will not be entering an arranged marriage as such when I wed but I have already chosen my bride.’
‘You are in love?’ Saif flashed him a sudden smile of mingled surprise and approval. ‘I had not thought you would even recognise that possibility.’
‘And you were right,’ Angel interposed. ‘I’m not in love and neither would Cassia be. She is simply the most suitable woman I know to take on the role of Queen, although to be frank I have not yet discussed the subject with her. It is merely that I know her practical views on marriage. Status and wealth appeal most to her.’
‘Cassia!’ Saif sliced in, his consternation unhidden because he had clearly been taken by surprise by that familiar name. ‘Thatfrozenblonde?’ Breaking off mid-sentence, Saif reddened at his lack of tact and compressed his lips shut again before concluding, ‘Forgive me... I was—’
Angel shifted a dismissive hand and laughed with genuine appreciation. ‘No, Cassia and the iceberg that sank theTitanicdo have much in common,’ he responded equably. ‘But that’s the type of wife I would prefer. I don’t want an emotionally incontinent bride or a demanding one or one likely to be unfaithful or careless of appearances. Cassia will suit me and my needs as the ruler of Themos very well indeed. Our sole challenge would be the production of an heir because I don’t think she is a very physical woman, but no doubt we would deal with that requirement when the time arrives...and neither of us would be in any hurry to get to the altar. I am only twenty-eight and she is twenty-five. According to our constitution, I cannot be crowned King until I marry or produce an heir.’
Saif dealt him a remarkably sombre look. ‘Such a bloodless arrangement won’t work for you, Angel. You have much more heart than you are prepared to admit. Even if Cassia seems the perfect candidate now, at some stage of your life you will wantmore,’ he declared.
Angel simply laughed again, utterly unconvinced by that sentimental forecast, indeed, only his respect for his brother killing the scornful rebuttal ready to leap to his tongue. He had never been in love in his life, and he didn’t believe he was capable of that kind of self-delusion. It was his belief that love was more often the excuse for the dreadful things that people did. His mother had told him that it had been her love for his father that had made her desert her first husband. Of course, she hadn’t even mentioned the infant son she had left behind at the same time, he recalled in disgust, or the fact that she had already been pregnant with Angel by Prince Achilles. Too often, Angel had seen friends treat each other badly and employ love as a justification for cheating, lying and betraying the trusting or the innocent. He was a realist. He knew exactly what sort of marriage he would be getting if he wed a woman like Cassia and that brand of icy detachment would suit him to perfection.
‘I must return to the reception.’ Saif sighed with regret. ‘I am very sorry that you are unable to join the festivities.’
Setting his cup aside, Angel vaulted fluidly upright. ‘No, you were right to hide me,’ he said softly. ‘I was, as I often can be, impulsive in flying out here the instant you told me you were getting married. For sure, someone would have recognised me at the party.’
His brother gave him a discomfited look and Angel suppressed a sigh but there was nothing he could do to change the situation. He, the child of their mother’s scandalous second marriage, could not expect to be a welcome guest in the Emir’s family circle. Some day, of course, that would change when nature took its course and the elderly Emir passed, but it was unlikely to change any sooner. Angel rejected the faint sense of resentment afflicting him as he accompanied his brother out to the open galleried corridor beyond the suite of rooms where he had been placed. The palace of Alharia was a vast building, built over many centuries and capable of hiding an army should there be that necessity, he thought wryly, glancing over the wall into the courtyard beneath and catching a glimpse of red hair that spun his head back.
‘Who’s that?’ he heard himself ask of the woman below, playing with a ball and a couple of young children.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ Saif admitted. ‘By the look of that starchy uniform, someone’s nanny...she probably belongs to one of our wedding guests.’
Belongs?Just as if the woman were a stray dog, Angel savoured with amusement. Was he quite as remote from the domestic staff as his elder brother appeared to be? He didn’t think so. His childhood had put paid to that lofty royal distance. The only affection he had ever received had come from his parents’ employees and he had learned to think of them and see them as individuals rather than mere servants there to ensure his comfort.
‘It was the red hair. It always catches my eye,’ Angel confided truthfully, still looking down into the courtyard while censuring himself for doing so.
Obviously, it wasn’ther! As bright as she had been at Cambridge when he met her, there was no way she would now, five years on, be as humbly employed as a nanny in service. And why hadn’t he long since forgotten about that wretched girl? With her combat boots, stroppy attitude and blue eyes deeper and truer in colour than even the legendary Diamandis sapphires? He gritted his teeth in annoyance at the vagaries of his persistent memories. Was it because she had been the one who, in popular parlance, had got away? Was he still that basic? That male and predictable?
‘Yes...that’s very noticeable,’ Saif remarked with a hint of amusement. ‘You are an unrepentant womaniser, Angel. Everything the global tabloids say about you is true but at least you have enjoyed the freedom to be yourself.’
‘And so will you some day.’ Angel gave his brother’s shoulder a quick consoling pat even while he knew that he was voicing a white lie intended to comfort. As an obedient son, most probably averyfaithful husband and the future emir of a traditional country, Saif was unlikely to ever have the liberty to do as he liked, but there was little point in reminding him of that hard fact, Angel reasoned with sympathy.
