Royal Marriage Of Convenience

Rose entered the church-and she paused.

Up until now it had seemed a dream. An escape. She’d been running from a situation that had threatened to overwhelm her. From the time she’d walked in to the restaurant five weeks ago things had moved in fast motion, a blur of things that had had to be done. Organisation. The chaos of arriving here. The fuss associated with this royal wedding.

This dress alone; the royal dressmakers had spent hour upon hour with the heirloom wedding gown, altering the fragile lace, fitting it so that it seemed like a second skin. The people wanted a fuss. The people were desperate for a royal bride. That’s what she’d been told over and over since she and Nick had been let out of their underground prison.

‘The news that you are here has inspired the country as nothing else could. A clean sweep without bloodshed- oh, my dear, how wonderful. And you and Prince Nikolai…You’re such a romantic couple. There won’t be a dry eye in the country.’

She’d blocked that comment, expressed by the chief dressmaker but seemingly echoing the sentiments of the populace. But now, as the organ was swelling into the first chords of the bridal march, she paused and took a breath.

What was she doing?

The last time she’d heard this music, she’d been in a tiny church in Yorkshire and Max had been waiting for her.

Now Nick was waiting for her. The whole sweet trap.

And it rose up to catch her. She caught her breath in panic. Her feet refused to move.

Nick was at the end of the aisle, but he was a blur, seen through misting eyes, too far away to see her panic, too far away to help.

An elderly man rose from the pew beside the door. He placed a hand on her arm, and she turned in shock.

Erhard.

She hadn’t seen him for five weeks. She’d been told he was convalescing from illness. He’d made a couple of organisational phone calls but he’d stayed away. She and Nick had both worried, but he’d refused to let them see him.

For him to be here now seemed almost magic.

He’d shrunk a little, but in other ways he’d expanded. He was wearing full military uniform. Tassels and braid everywhere. A dress sword. And he was smiling.

‘Nikolai isn’t the same as Max,’ he said softly, and his grip on her arm was surprisingly strong. ‘You know that.’

She looked into his face for a minute and he met her look, unflinching. How had he known?

‘He’s waiting for you,’ he said.

She turned to look towards Nick. Panic cleared.

Nick was concerned. She could see that even from here. He was watching, waiting, but there was a slight furrow in his brow that said he knew she was troubled.

How did he know that? How could he tell that from here? And how could she know that he knew?

He looked fabulous. He was wearing the same uniform as Erhard, rich, deep, deep blue, with red and gold braid, tassels, a golden sash slashing across his chest, and a dress sword hung by his side.

Nikolai de Montez. A prince coming home. He looked the part.

He should be sovereign and not me, she thought, starting to feel hysterical. He looked fabulous. He looked royal. He looked so far apart from her world that she felt giddy.

The whole chapel was waiting for her to start walking. To go to her bridegroom. But Erhard’s pressure on her arm wasn’t insistent-he was waiting for her to decide. Letting her take her time.

Nikolai was waiting.

And then Nick smiled. He stooped and lifted something from the floor.

Hoppy.

She’d left Hoppy in the care of one of the palace gardeners. The little dog had made friends of everyone here, so much so that Nick had suggested the reason for the country’s insurrection was that Jacques had kicked the dog. It was a tiny thing in the scheme of things, but it had been caught on camera, and Jacques had not been seen in public since. Hoppy, however, had been in demand. For every photo call there had been the request: ‘and the little dog?’

Rose had thought he had no place here today in this most formal of ceremonies. But Nick obviously had had other ideas.

The furrow of worry had disappeared from Nick’s brow. He was smiling. Hoppy was tucked under his arm, and then, maybe lest she thought it was some sort of enticement for her to come to him, Nick set the little dog on his three feet.

He’d been washed and brushed until he shone. He looked almost regal. There was a gold and blue riband stretched around his chest, matching Nick’s to perfection.

He waved his tail like a flag, seemingly aware that the eyes of the world were upon him, lapping up the attention.

‘Go to Rose,’ Nick said.

The bridal march was still playing. Hoppy looked up at Nick enquiringly, then gazed around the church while all the dignitaries, officials and palace staff held their collective breath.

Hoppy had watched her dress. He knew that this confection of white-and-cream lace and ribbon was his mistress. His disreputable tail gave another happy wag and he set off down the aisle at full tilt.

Hop-along Hoppy.

Rose giggled and bent down to greet him. Hoppy reached her and bounded up into her arms, wriggling all over. She gathered him to her, then straightened and looked ahead at Nick. He was still smiling.

And suddenly this was as far as it was possible to be from that long-ago wedding to Max. She remembered it- the tiny church in Yorkshire, Max waiting looking thin and gaunt and anxious, and his parents sitting by him, fretting that everything was as it should be.

The bride’s guests sat on the left, the groom’s on the right. That was the way it should be, and Max’s mother had strictly enforced it. ‘Are you Max’s friend?’ she’d directed the ushers to ask, and if the friend said yes, regardless of the fact that she and Max shared many friends, then they’d been directed to the right as well.

So she’d walked into the church and there’d been three lone stragglers, friends who’d defied her mother-in- law’s rules and sat on her side regardless.

It had been Max’s wedding. It had been nothing to do with her.

It had been Max’s life.

But here both sides of the church were crowded, even if it was with strangers. Erhard was beside her, calmly smiling, giving her all the time in the world. Hoppy was trying to lick her face.

Nick was smiling.

This was her life. That flash of certainty she’d had when Erhard had first put this proposition to her, when she’d sat across the dinner table from Nick and looked at the way he’d talked to Erhard, courteous, kind, sensitive…

There were no strings here. This was no golden net waiting to catch her, hold her, as it had held her mother. Nick was doing this to free this country. Sure he’d kissed and held her, and he’d been her rock during the past few days, but there were no conditions.

She could marry him and he’d walk away and leave her to it.

He was watching her, hopeful but uncertain. The whole church was watching her uncertainly. What was she doing? Having second thoughts in front of the world’s press? Giving Erhard and Nick heart attacks? If Julianna and Jacques were watching her now they’d beam with delight. Or say really loudly to the nation, see, she’s vacillating.

It was only the thought of marriage that had her vacillating.

‘Are you right to go?’ Erhard whispered, and she managed a smile.

‘I like to make my bridegrooms sweat,’ she said, and his old face wrinkled into a smile of delight. He looked along the aisle to Nick and she intercepted that look again: women-we don’t understand them but we love them anyway!