“I was afraid that if you learned the truth, you'd pack your bags and go. I couldn't face the thought of losing the only woman I have ever loved. It was a deception, but one for which you will, perhaps, forgive me?”
“But you could have been king all this time,” she breathed, still not daring to be convinced by the love she saw in his eyes, a love that more than matched her own.
“Earlier today I told you that there were things you don't know about me, and perhaps never would, because they could only be told at the right time. Now that time has come.” He raised his voice. “I call on everyone here to witness that I would rather be your consort than king, and married to any other woman.”
The congregation broke into loud applause. The royal guests in the front row rose to their feet and were followed by row after row behind them, clapping and cheering. High up aloft the choirboys joined in.
But Randolph and Dottie saw only each other. His gaze said that this was the measure of how much she mattered to him. She was more to him than his duty, more than his life. She was his life. She was awed by the sacrifice he'd been prepared to make, rather than lose her.
The archbishop's worried voice broke in on them. “But can we have a coronation or not?”
“Of course we can,” Dottie told him. “The coronation of Elluria's rightful monarch, King Randolph.”
“And his consort, Queen Dorothea,” Randolph put in, “who reigns as supremely in her subjects' hearts and she does in her husband's.”
Taking her hand in his he stepped forward and they stood side by side as the archbishop raised his voice, calling to the people.
“I present to you, Randolph, your sovereign lord, rightful king of Elluria, and his lady…”
She barely heard the rest. The mist that had shrouded the path ahead had lifted now, and she could see clearly at last. This was the world they would share; years of work and duty, made sweet to each by the presence of the other. Behind them stretched the way back out of the cathedral, and beyond that lay the sunshine.
Lucy Gordon
met her husband-to-be in venice, fell in love the first evening and got engaged two days later. They're still happily married and now live in England with their three dogs. For twelve years, Lucy was a writer for an English women's magazine. She interviewed many of the world's most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud.
In 1985 she won the
