The Prince's Royal Wedding Demand, page 1
He pointed out the door. “After you, Princess.”
Princess. She was going to start laughing again, and this time she might not stop until she was crying. Or screaming. “There has been a mistake,” she said firmly. The same way she’d spoken when she’d told Sophia she would take care of everything.
You’ve certainly taken care of things, Ilaria.
“Even if you don’t like them, there has been one,” she said before he could stop her. “Sophia told me she was meant to have dinner with a duke or a lord. I was only going to go through with the dinner, refuse the impending proposal, then go home to Accogliente and—”
“Silence.”
Ilaria immediately clamped her lips together. It was as natural as breathing, following his sharp order.
“What exactly are you saying?” the prince demanded.
Still, she had to muster all her courage and set this to rights. Her heart pounded, and her hands shook even as she clutched them together. But she held his dark, intimidating gaze. “My name isn’t Sophia. Sophia is my cousin. You’ve married the wrong woman.”
Lorraine Hall is a part-time hermit and full-time writer. She was born with an old soul and her head in the clouds, which, it turns out, is the perfect combination to spend her days creating thunderous alpha heroes and the fierce, determined heroines who win their hearts. She lives in a potentially haunted house with her soul mate and rambunctious band of hermits-in-training. When she’s not writing romance, she’s reading it.
This is Lorraine Hall’s debut book for Harlequin Presents—we hope that you enjoy it!
Lorraine Hall
The Prince’s Royal Wedding Demand
For Flo & the Ms
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM INNOCENT MAID FOR THE GREEK BY SHARON KENDRICK
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WAS NOT the “simple dinner” Ilaria Russo had been expecting.
It was supposed to be straightforward. Pretend to be Sophia, her cousin, have a long, boring dinner with some lord or duke, and then when he inevitably proposed, turn him down.
All the while Sophia would be escaping and eloping with the man she really loved—a sailor her father did not approve of.
Giovanni Avida might be Ilaria’s uncle—the man who’d married her late mother’s sister—but Ilaria considered him one of her few enemies in life. His grasping, conniving accumulation of wealth had created terrible conditions at the mine her father had worked and subsequently been killed at. The disaster had taken the lives of not just her father, but twenty other men from her village.
And instead of receiving any punishment for his actions, Giovanni had been given a job in the King’s ministry. Instead of helping his orphaned niece, he had refused to let Ilaria visit his home in wealthy Roletto. The only “kind” thing he’d done was allow his wife to sometimes bring their daughter, Sophia, to Accogliente to visit Ilaria. Ilaria had always assumed it was the one thing her aunt insisted upon.
While Ilaria had maintained a close friendship with her sweet cousin, Giovanni had spent the past ten years amassing yet more wealth and influence, and desperately trying to get Sophia married off to a title so he could have one himself.
So, when given the opportunity to thwart him and help her sweet cousin who deserved escape from her father’s ironclad control, Ilaria had taken it.
Now she was here in Roletto, the capital city of Vantonella, using her considerable likeness to Sophia to take her cousin’s place.
While Ilaria was certain of her purpose, nerves had set in when she entered the sparkling city nestled between the towering European Alps and the shining Lago di Cornio. There were so many buildings. So many people bustling around the train station. She’d spent the entirety of her twenty-four years in the little cottage built by her ancestors centuries ago, deep in the Pecora mountain region of Vantonella, farming and sheep herding and helping her grandfather until his death last year.
She’d had a brief moment of panic in the train station when she’d considered turning around and running home, but Sophia and her sailor had found Ilaria in the crowd. Though Sophia had acted somewhat strange, they’d exchanged clothes, identification and hugs. Ilaria had wished her cousin well. The meeting with Sophia had returned most of her courage.
Until Ilaria had reached the address Sophia had provided and found an ancient cathedral instead of a restaurant. Until she’d been gestured inside by a soldier in full military regalia. Until she’d looked down the aisle to see a tall man in the shadows. Presumably waiting for her.
Something about the incredibly ornate altar made Ilaria very, very nervous. The soldier who’d opened the door and now stood there watching her did not help. She wiped her sweaty palms on the hips of her borrowed dress.
“Your purse,” the soldier intoned, holding out a hand.
Ilaria looked down at the small purse she clutched. It was Sophia’s, like everything she wore, and it felt wrong to give it up. The soldier did not seem impressed with Ilaria’s hesitation, however, and Ilaria knew she had to do her best not to act like the country mountain girl she was.
For tonight, you are well-to-do, well-trained Sophia Avida. You will firmly turn down whatever marriage proposal is made here. And you will give Sophia the time to disappear, never to be found by her controlling, scheming father again.
Tomorrow, once she was certain that Sophia was married and safe, Ilaria would go home to her farm. She had left it in capable hands. After the mining disaster ten years ago, her grandfather had begun to hire orphan children to help tend the sheep. Ilaria had worked with him to create whatever opportunities they could for those children and their widowed mothers to stay in their home village, rather than be shipped off to orphanages and workhouses in the city and lose their homes on top of everything else they’d lost.
Because that had been the King’s and her uncle’s grand plan for disaster relief.
Ilaria and her grandfather had done what they could with tragedy. And now those children were coming into adulthood with a set of skills, and small savings, to rebuild their own lives. Those widows had been able to feel as though they’d taken good care of their children, even in a village with few financial opportunities outside generational farms, with the mine now shuttered.
It was not quite the same scale, but Ilaria liked to think that by stepping in to help Sophia, she was doing what her grandfather would have done. Given someone an alternative that would allow them freedom and happiness.
She had not been able to protect her father from the mining disaster. She had not been able to stop the slow decline in her grandfather’s health that had ended with his passing last year. But she could save Sophia from a sad, manipulated life in the titled circles of Roletto.
“Sophia, please move forward,” the shadowed man instructed from down the aisle.
Ilaria did so, compelled by the authoritarian voice. She had to swallow down the nerves, straighten her shoulders, and not wilt at the depth and certainty in the voice that beckoned her forward.
Down the long, intimidating aisle. She looked back once, but the soldier now stood in the middle of her exit. Like he was blocking it.
This is all wrong.
Still, she moved toward the man at the end of the aisle.
For Sophia. And, in a way, for Uncle Giovanni.
Each footstep echoed in the grand marble building. Dim lights cascaded through bright stained glass, and gold and silver seemed to shine and glow everywhere she looked.
She’d never seen anything so opulent in her life. It likely rivaled the inside of the royal palace. She was used to patched roofs and muddy roads and the sound of farm animals in the distance.
As she reached the end of the aisle, she realized two terrifying truths at once. First, there was a second man here. Shorter in stature, standing behind a pulpit, a Bible opened in front of him.
Second, and more importantly, the man who’d beckoned her closer was not a duke or a lord.
He was Prince Frediano Montellero, the direct heir to the Vantonella throne.
Ilaria was sure she gaped up at him. Her shock had to be evident in every slack muscle on her face. Even in her small village she’d seen pictures of the famed Prince. The heir, who was nothing like his wild and impetuous parents who’d died at a young age free-climbing the intimidating Monte Morte.
Prince Frediano was said to be as proper and honorable as his grandfather, the great King Carlo. Ilaria had never understood how anyone could call the monarchy honorable when they gave schemers and all but murderers places in their ministries. When they were so out of touch with people in need that they suggested things like moving those who’d lost everything to cramped rooms and orphanages in the city.
That did not mean she was immune to her reaction at standing next to Prince Frediano, with his stunningly sculpted
Everything about him seemed to scream don’t touch, and surely there was something wrong with Ilaria that her fingers itched to do just that. Test out the sharpness of that chiseled jaw, or if his hair had any of the soft give of mere humans.
Because surely he was something unearthly. Unreal.
She should want to spit on his shoes, treason be damned, but she could not stop staring. She could reach out and touch a prince if she wanted to. The world had been flipped on its axis.
Prince Frediano nodded to the man with the giant, ancient Bible. “You may begin,” he said.
His voice was like a terrible strike of thunder, vibrating deep within her, making something completely unknown pulse with heat, rendering her mute. She was rather used to being in charge in her village, though she always gave her elders the appropriate respect. She did not understand this muteness she couldn’t seem to control.
The priest began speaking in a slow, monotone voice. Talking about the sanctity of marriage and the sacredness of vows.
The noise Ilaria made when the priest directed the “Do you take this woman to be your wife?” question to the Prince could only be characterized as a squeak. Her head whipped from the priest back to the Prince. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but only another squeak emerged.
And the Prince said yes with shocking ease, as if this made any sense. As if he would have married any woman who’d stumbled inside the cathedral at this particular time.
The priest started speaking again. Ilaria was shaking now, knowing she needed her vocal cords to work but something like terror held her resolutely speechless.
Until the priest looked at her, as if it was her turn to answer.
She still couldn’t speak, but apparently she could laugh. Slightly hysterically. Because not one moment of this made sense. Some odd...prank. A clear, wrong mix-up. It was supposed to be a dinner. A proposal.
Not a wedding.
“I’m sorry,” she managed, though the words came out as a croak. “There’s been a mistake.”
For the first time, the Prince’s gaze turned to her. His dark brown eyes—so dark they were nearly black—met hers with such cold, frigid disdain she couldn’t form words. But her body trembled—inside and out. She could not fathom why.
“There is no mistake,” he said firmly. “I do not tolerate mistakes.”
Well, that was suitably terrifying. But she could hardly just agree to marry him when he must think she was Sophia. When he was a prince, the grandson of the man who’d vaulted her uncle to new heights when he should have been thrown in prison. When, honestly, this had to be some kind of hallucination. “I’m not—”
“You are here, are you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“There. She has said yes.” His gaze moved back to the priest. “Proceed, Padre.”
“No! I didn’t say yes to the vow. I’m not—”
But the priest did in fact go on. Why wouldn’t he? A prince had told him to. The man with all the power in the room.
“This has to be a dream,” Iliana muttered. A nightmare.
“I assume you mean that all your dreams have come true. You are most welcome.” He even gave a little bow, though she got the impression that impatience simmered beneath every move. “Now the formalities are finished. Let us proceed to the palace.” His gaze raked over her. “We’ll need to do some work prior to the public introduction tomorrow.”
“Work...” She didn’t know what that might mean. What any of this could mean.
The Prince strode down the aisle. No doubt expecting her to follow. She scurried after him, practically tripping in the borrowed shoes. Sophia’s shoes.
She just needed to find the words to explain. To fix this. She could. When the men had come to tell her grandfather of her father’s death, she had handled Grandfather’s emotional collapse. She had suggested he take in the orphans to help at the farm. She had handled the rapacious men at the door trying to buy their farm for a pittance.
She knew how to handle tragedies. Surely she could handle this blunder. For Sophia. “Wait,” she called after him.
He did not wait or even acknowledge she’d spoken. When he came to a side door of the cathedral, he held it open and finally looked back at her.
His dark gaze studied her with such intensity she didn’t know how he carried the weight of it. She wanted to stoop, hunch in on herself.
She swallowed and forced words out of her tight throat. “I’m very confused. I don’t understand what just happened.”
“I would have thought it quite self-explanatory.”
“Well, a wedding.” She laughed a little breathlessly. Honestly, how wasn’t he laughing? This was beyond absurd. Then again, looking up at his cold expression it was hard to imagine him laughing ever. Did royal mouths even curve that way? She’d only seen dour portraits of him and his grandfather. Suitably proper and royal, but with no hint of mirth.
He pointed out the door. “After you, Princess.”
Princess. She was going to start laughing again, and this time she might not stop until she was crying. Or screaming. “There has been a mistake,” she said firmly. The same way she’d spoken when she’d told Sophia she would take care of everything.
You’ve certainly taken care of things, Ilaria.
“Even if you don’t like them, there has been one,” she said before he could stop her. “Sophia told me she was meant to have dinner with a duke or a lord. I was only going to go through with the dinner, refuse the impending proposal, then go home to Accogliente and—”
“Silence.”
Ilaria immediately clamped her lips together. It was as natural as breathing, following his sharp order.
“What exactly are you saying?” the Prince demanded, his voice vibrating with something Ilaria couldn’t name, because he clearly kept the emotions behind them locked deep within. But there was some emotion there. And it wasn’t good.
Still, she had to muster all her courage and set this to rights. Her heart pounded, and her hands shook even as she clutched them together. But she held his dark, intimidating gaze. “My name isn’t Sophia. Sophia is my cousin. You’ve married the wrong woman.”
* * *
Frediano did not respond immediately. He had learned to temper all his baser urges—whether they be anger or greed or lust—by taking his time. He had spent the better portion of his life learning control at the feet of his grandfather, the man who had ruled Vantonella honorably and justly for forty years. The man who had given him safety and purpose and had saved him—literally and figuratively—from the careless neglect of his impetuous parents.
And now that prodigious man’s heart was giving out. Doctor after doctor had told King Carlo that if he did not step down from the throne, have the recommended surgery, avoid stress, and rest, he would not live to see his next birthday.
Frediano intended to make sure that the great King Carlo lived to see at least twenty more such celebrations. Which was why he had set out to find himself a wife, knowing very well his grandfather would never consider retiring until Frediano was married to an appropriate, sensible woman who would not upset the order of things.
No matter how his grandfather trusted Frediano, Carlo would never risk what had happened before. Not when it came to his only remaining heir. So Frediano had sought the perfect wife. Not a story, not the selfish, press-seeking disaster Frediano’s mother had been.
Frediano kept his entire body still as he collected the information this...creature had just laid at his feet.
He had not married Sophia Avida—whose father was a wealthy merchant and the crown’s Ministry of Energy, neither titled nor poor, and thus as uninteresting and biddable as any potential princess could hope to be in his eyes—but instead her...cousin.
He had only met Sophia briefly because this union was not about attachment or feeling. It was about being master of the situation he found himself in. It was about convincing his grandfather it was time to step down.
