Philippe was now an outsider. As he was himself, he thought grimly, glancing down at his uniform that made him seem almost ludicrously regal. And the threats were there, real or not.
He could protect Philippe. He
‘It’s time, Your Highness,’ the Head of State said in stentorian tones, and Ramon knew that it was.
It was time to accept that he was a Prince of the Blood, with all the responsibility-and loss-that the title implied.
The great chorus of trumpets sounded, heralding the beginning of ceremonies and Jenny was sitting in a pew in the vast cathedral of Cepheus feeling bewildered. Feeling transformed. Feeling like Cinderella must have felt after the fairy godmother waved her wand.
For she wasn’t at the back with the hired help. She and Gordon were being treated like royalty themselves.
The palace itself had been enough to take her breath away, all spirals and turrets and battlements, a medieval fantasy clinging to white stone cliffs above a sea so blue it seemed to almost merge with the sky.
The apartment she’d been taken to within the palace had taken even more of her breath away. It was as big as a small house, and Gordon had been shown into a similar one on the other side of the corridor. Corridor? It was more like a great hall. You could play a football match in the vast areas-decorated in gold, all carvings, columns and ancestral paintings-that joined the rooms. Dalila had ushered her in, put her holdall on a side table and instructed a maid to unpack.
‘I’m not staying here,’ Jenny had gasped.
‘For tonight at least,’ Dalila had said, formally polite in stilted English. ‘The ball will be late. The Prince requires you to stay.’
How to fight a decree like that? How indeed to fight, when clothes were being produced that made her gasp all over again.
‘I can’t wear these.’
‘You can,’ the woman decreed. ‘If you’ll just stay still. Dolores is a dressmaker. It will take her only moments to adjust these for size.’
And Jenny had simply been too overwhelmed to refuse. So here she was, in a pew ten seats from the front, right on the aisle, dressed in a crimson silk ball-gown that looked as if it had been made for her. It was cut low across her breasts, with tiny capped sleeves, the bodice clinging like a second skin, curving to her hips and then flaring out to an almost full circle skirt. The fabric was so beautiful it made her feel as if she was floating.
There was a pendant round her neck that she hoped was paste but she suspected was a diamond so big she couldn’t comprehend it. Her hair was pinned up in a deceptively simple knot and her make-up had been applied with a skill so great that when she looked in the mirror she saw someone she didn’t recognize.
She felt like…Gianetta. For the first time in her life, her father’s name seemed right for her.
‘I’m just glad they can’t see me back at the Sailor’s Arms in Auckland,’ Gordon muttered, and she glanced at the weathered seaman who looked as classy as she did, in a deep black suit that fitted him like a glove. He, too, had been transformed, like it or not. She almost chuckled, but then the music rose to a crescendo and she stopped thinking about chuckling. She stopped thinking about anything at all-anything but Ramon.
Crown Prince Ramon Cavellero of Cepheus.
For so he was.
The great doors of the cathedral had swung open. The Archbishop of Cepheus led the way in stately procession down the aisle, and Ramon trod behind, intent, his face set in lines that said this was an occasion of such great moment that lives would change because of it.
He truly was a prince, she thought, dazed beyond belief. If she’d walked past him in the street-no, if she’d seen his picture on the cover of a magazine, for this wasn’t a man one passed in the street, she would never have recognized him. His uniform was black as night, skilfully cut to mould to his tall, lean frame. The leggings, the boots, the slashes of gold, the tassels, the fierce sword at his side, they only accentuated his aura of power and strength and purpose.
Or then again…maybe she would have recognized him. His eyes seemed to have lost their colour-they were dark as night. His mouth was set and grim, and it was the expression she’d seen when he’d known she was leaving.
He looked like…an eagle, she thought, a fierce bird of prey, ready to take on the world. But he was still Ramon.
He was so near her now. If she put out her hand…
He was passing her row. He was right here. And as he passed… His gaze shifted just a little from looking steadily ahead. Somehow it met hers and held, for a nano-second, for a fraction that might well be imagined. And then he was gone, swept past in the procession and the world crowded back in.
He hadn’t smiled, but had his grimness lifted, just a little?
‘He was looking for you,’ Gordon muttered, awed. ‘The guy who helped me dress said he told the aides where we were to sit. It’s like we’re important. Are you important to him then, lass?’
‘Not in a million years,’ she breathed.
She’d come.
It was the only thing holding him steady.
Gianetta. Jenny.
Her name was in his mind, like a mantra, said over and over.
‘By the power vested in me…’
He was kneeling before the archbishop and the crown was being placed on his head. The weight was enormous.
She was here.
He could take this nowhere. He knew that. But still, for now, she was here on this day when he needed her most.
She was here, and his crown was the lighter for it.
The night seemed to be organized for her. As the throng emerged from the great cathedral, an aide appeared and took her arm.
‘You’re to come this way, miss. And you, too, sir,’ he said to Gordon. ‘You’re official guests at the Coronation Dinner.’
‘I reckon I’ll slope back down to the boat,’ Gordon muttered, shrinking, but Jenny clutched him as if she were drowning.
‘We went round the Horn together,’ she muttered. ‘We face risk together.’
‘This is worse than the Horn.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Jenny said, and the aide was ushering them forward and it was too late to escape.
They sat, midway down a vast banquet table, where it seemed half the world’s dignitaries were assembled. Gordon, a seaman capable of facing down the world’s worst storms, was practically shrinking under the table. Jenny was a bit braver, but not much. She was recognizing faces and names and her eyes grew rounder and rounder as she realized just who was here. There were speeches-of course-and she translated for Gordon and was glad of the task. It took her mind off what was happening.
It never took her mind off Ramon.
He was seated at the great formal table at the head of the room, gravely surveying all. He looked born to the role, she thought. He listened with gravitas and with courtesy. He paid attention to the two women on either side of him-grand dames, both of them, queens of their own countries.
‘I have friends back in Australia who are never going to believe what I’ve done tonight,’ she whispered to Gordon and her skipper nodded agreement.
Then once more the aide was beside them, bending to whisper to Jenny.
‘Ma’am, I’ve been instructed to ask if you can waltz.’
‘If I can…?’
‘His Royal Highness wishes to dance with you. He doesn’t wish to embarrass you, however, so if there’s a problem…’
