Sins (21 page)

Alessandro was hanging his head.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Emerald demanded. She knew perfectly well what was wrong, but she wasn’t going to let him know that.

‘I want to marry you. My heart is given to you for all time. But I am afraid that it will not be allowed.’

‘Not allowed? When we love one another so much? Who could be so cruel? Alessandro, we cannot let anyone keep us apart. I will die without you to love me. You are my life now.’

‘As you are mine.’ He was close to tears again.

‘We must be together. We must get married without anyone knowing. Once we are married, everyone will have to accept it.’

‘It is not possible that we could do that.’

‘Yes it is,’ Emerald told him promptly. ‘There is this place in Scotland called Gretna Green, where people elope in secret to get married.’

Alessandro was starting to look apprehensive. ‘We cannot…’

‘Yes we can,’ Emerald assured him. ‘I will arrange everything. All you have to do is tell your mother that you are going to stay with a friend. She cannot object since she is so busy nursing her cousin.’

‘She will not give me permission to go.’

He meant it, Emerald recognised, inwardly cursing her mother-in-law-to-be.

‘You are a man, Alessandro, not a child, a crown prince, how can you rule a country if you allow your mother to rule you?’ Emerald asked, deliberately wounding his male pride.

‘She is anxious about my safety; she cannot help it. She worries about me all the time.’

‘We don’t want to worry her, of course,’ Emerald agreed. She certainly didn’t want his mother interfering, and stopping Alessandro from marrying her. It was because she suspected that the princess would seek to do just that Emerald had suggested they elope in the first place.

Alessandro looked relieved. ‘I will tell her that I want to marry you. Once she has met you she will love you just as I do.’

‘But what if her cousin dies? Won’t your mother want to go into mourning? That will mean that we will have to wait for ever before we can get married and I can’t bear
that. I want us to be together now, Alessandro. Now and for ever. If we elope, then we can be married straight away. Just think how wonderful that will be. I know your mother will be disappointed and perhaps even a little bit cross–
my
mother will be too–but I know that once they see how happy we are together and that we are meant for one another, they’ll be happy for us. I know that some girls would insist on a big wedding, but all I want is to be your wife, and as quickly as possible.’ How true that was, and she could still have the big wedding party once they were married.

‘Instead of telling your mother in person you can post a letter to her as we leave London, saying that you are visiting a school friend, so that she isn’t worrying about where you are.’

He was looking uneasy so Emerald continued, ‘You said the other day that you have hardly seen her since you came to London because she spends so much time with her sick cousin.’

‘That is true, yes.’

‘You see, it will be simple. All you have to do is tell her that you have been invited by this school friend to visit his family estate. I will help you write the letter. Oh, my darling, darling Alessandro, it will be so wonderful,’ Emerald told him, changing tack. ‘Imagine it, just the two of us under the same roof, waiting to get married and then coming back here to London to tell everyone. How exciting it’s going to be. We shall have a huge party and I shall have to be presented at court again, because that is what happens when you get married. Princess Emerald. Oh, I can’t wait.’

She didn’t intend to wait either, or to give Alessandro the chance to change his mind. The sooner they were on their way to Gretna Green, the better.

Alessandro was helpless. There was no point in him pointing out potential flaws or making logical arguments; Emerald had made up her mind and he loved her far too much to deny her anything. Besides, every time he said anything that remotely suggested that he did not adore and love her, Emerald burst into tears, and he could not bear that.

He must not let her down, Emerald told him, because if he did she would besiege his suite at the Savoy and haunt him with her broken heart for the rest of her life.

He would not let her down, Alessandro promised vehemently. He loved her and he always would.

Ella was feeling hot and bothered. How long was Oliver Charters going to be here for? She always did everything she could to avoid him whenever she knew he was coming into
Vogue
’s offices. If he saw her he was bound to look at her in that way of his, which made her feel so…so self-conscious and angry, and mixed up inside in a way she didn’t like.

‘Ella, I’ve got an errand for you.’

It was only when she was outside on the street that Ella realised that in her relief to obey her boss and escape from the office and the unwanted probability of seeing Oliver Charters, she’d left her diet pills behind in her office drawer. Angry panic engulfed her. She needed those pills; she hated being separated from them. She was terrified that if she didn’t have them then she might start wanting to eat and then she’d get fat again. Her head was pounding. She felt sick, on edge, her nerves somehow rubbed raw. But she
was
still losing weight.

When she had gone to see Dr Williamson earlier in the week he had praised her for her success in losing over two stone when he had renewed her prescription.

Ella was hoping that Laura Harbold, the model who had laughed about her with Oliver, would come in for a photo shoot, so that Ella could see if she had reached her goal and now weighed less than the model. She wasn’t going to give up dieting until she did.

The early morning light streamed in through the high windows, forming a pool of gold just in front of the altar. Emerald could feel its warmth on her face. Alessandro had complained the whole time they had been in Gretna that it was cold and that it never stopped raining, and this morning, when the sun had broken through, Emerald had told him that it was a good omen for their marriage. The small stone church was empty of both worshippers and wedding guests, the vicar un-curious about the history of the young couple he was now uniting together in marriage.

As she listened to the vicar intoning the marriage service Emerald gave Alessandro a disparaging look. It was just as well that she had been the one to organise everything. If it had been left to Alessandro, nothing would have got done.

All the way north on the train he’d been panicking that his mother would somehow guess that he had lied to her about staying with a friend and would stop them. The last three weeks, staying at a horrid little guesthouse, in separate rooms, of course–Emerald had no intention of risking Alessandro change his mind because he’d got what he wanted–with nothing to do other than read books and go for long walks, had been the most boring of Emerald’s whole life, but now at last they
were over. She was the one who ought to be feeling sorry for herself, not Alessandro. She wasn’t even wearing a proper wedding dress, never mind the family tiara and veil, even if the elegance of her long cream evening dress, with its lace bodice, had drawn gasps of admiration from the locals who had seen them entering the church.

Emerald had been given away by the owner of the boarding house, after she had offered him twenty pounds to fulfil that role and provide them with two witnesses.

Alessandro’s hand trembled as he slid the ring onto her finger. It was Emerald’s great-grandmother’s wedding ring, which she had left to Emerald, along with the rest of her jewellery.

‘You may kiss the bride.’

Alessandro was trembling from head to foot and his eyes were wet with tears. Emerald looked at him impatiently. He was such a baby at times. Well, that would all have to change now that they were married. She wanted a proper man for a husband, not a boy afraid of his mother.

But she was now Princess Emerald di Lauranto. Emerald smiled to herself, her irritation instantly fading.

‘Darling, darling Alessandro,’ she whispered to him. ‘My husband.’

There was no question of them remaining in Gretna now that they were married. Emerald had booked them into a smart hotel in Edinburgh.

‘We should go back to London,’ Alessandro said, packing his own bags as he had, on Emerald’s instructions, left his valet in London. ‘My mother will be
worrying. I have never been away from her for so long before.’

‘Don’t be silly, you’re a married man now. And besides, your mother thinks you’re staying with a friend. Surely you want to have me all to yourself, and a proper honeymoon?’ Emerald whispered to him suggestively.

Of course, she got her own way.

It was late afternoon before they left Waverley station in the taxi that would take them to their hotel. Edinburgh certainly wasn’t London, but at least it looked as though it had some shops, Emerald acknowledged, as they drove down Princes Street.

‘I hope your castle in Lauranto doesn’t look as grim as this one,’ she told Alessandro as they both looked up at the castle brooding on the hill above them.

Now that they were actually married, the irritation and impatience Emerald had begun to feel towards Alessandro had been replaced by a much happier mood.

The staff at the large Edwardian hotel treated her with the kind of deference that improved her mood even further, so that by the time they were finally alone in their palatial suite Emerald was on top of the world.

The physical practicalities of becoming Alessandro’s wife held no fear or apprehension for her. The passionate kisses they had exchanged during their ‘courtship’ had increased her curiosity about sex and had also reinforced her opinion that it was something she was going to very much enjoy.

Now, with the tension and the boredom of their weeks in Gretna Green behind her, and safe in the knowledge
that she was legally Alessandro’s wife, Emerald was not just ready to explore and enjoy the intimacies marriage permitted, but eager to do so as well.

Alessandro, though, had other matters on his mind.

‘I must telephone my mother now and inform her of our marriage.’

Emerald stared at him, barely concealing her annoyance. He was such a very handsome boy, far better-looking than the Duke of Kent, or indeed any of the young men in her social circle. Lyddy could giggle as much as she liked that she thought the dreadful Australian was big and strong and soooo good-looking, but there was no way she would ever find such an uncouth person attractive, Emerald decided. She had caught her prince, but now she had to secure him. Emerald gave Alessandro a calculating look. He adored her and she fully intended that he would continue to adore her. And she knew just the way to ensure that he would.

Removing her hat and then her coat, Emerald stepped out of her shoes and then lay down on the hotel suite bed. Holding out her arms, she commanded softly, ‘Come here.’

Alessandro looked at her blankly at first, and then when she gave him a long meaningful look from beneath her lowered lashes, the blood rose up under his skin, turning his face pink.

‘We’ve been married for hours now,’ Emerald pouted at him, ‘and you haven’t even kissed me properly yet.’

His mother quite plainly forgotten, Alessandro headed for the bed, the urgency that had him fumbling with his shoelaces making Emerald laugh in triumph.

There would be no telephone call to his mother until
she
decided one should be made, she gloated as she sat up on the edge of the bed to kiss him, glorying in the feel of his body trembling violently in her arms.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry…’ Fifteen minutes later Alessandro was practically crying with mortification, in between his attempts to slow his breathing.

The cause of his despair–and of Emerald’s own irritation–was the damp patch darkening the fabric of his trousers, evidence of his inability to control his excitement long enough to consummate their marriage.

She supposed she ought to be pleased that he was so susceptible to her. After all, all she had done was kiss him and then slip her hand inside his trousers to explore the stiff flesh pushing against the fabric. Alessandro, in turn, had played with her breasts, tearing off one of the buttons of her blouse in his eagerness to touch them. It had been when Emerald has whispered encouragingly in his ear, ‘You can kiss them, if you want to,’ that the excitement of doing just that had resulted in Alessandro’s face contorting as he cried out and the hard flesh she had been holding exuding the horrid sticky mess that was now staining his trousers.

Really, Alessandro was making a dreadful fuss, Emerald decided. If one of them had a right to be upset then it was her. She, after all, was the one who had been disappointed and now she had a very distinct ache low down in her body.

Frustrated, she cajoled, ‘Well, never mind, we’ll just have to do it again, won’t we?’

Immediately Alessandro’s tears ceased and he reached
for her, clasping her to his chest and telling her emotionally, ‘I am so lucky to have won the love of someone so perfect. I adore you, I worship you, you are my life. I will make it up to you, I swear. Your beauty and my love for you overwhelmed me and disgraced me. Tell me that you forgive me.’

‘Of course I forgive you,’ Emerald assured him sweetly, but there was a determined glint in her eye. ‘After all,’ she added pointedly, ‘we’ve got plenty of time before we need to get dressed for dinner.’

Emerald eyed her naked body in the ornate mirror that hung over the large claw-footed bath she had just stepped out of, admiring the smooth paleness of her skin and the curves of her body. Her nipples were still stiff and a little tender. She touched them with her own forefinger and thumb, tugging experimentally, gratified by the sudden surge of pleasure that coiled through her.

She had left Alessandro asleep on the bed where he had collapsed after he had finally penetrated her. He had wept at the sight of the few spots of blood that had marked his entry into her and her own entry into womanhood, but Emerald had been dismissive of his display of emotion. His penetration of her had hardly hurt at all, although she was not going to tell him that since he was making such a fuss about it and of her, calling her his beloved, his angel, and swearing eternal devotion to her.