The Prince's Bride

  The Prince’s Bride

  The Royal Wedding Invitation series

  Sophie Weston

  The Prince’s Bride

  Copyright © 2017 Sophie Weston

  Smashwords Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Publication by Tule Publishing Group 2017

  Second Edition

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-947636-43-9

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  The Royal Wedding Invitations series

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  His Serene Highness Prince Jonas of San Michele was not taking calls. He had been in his office since dawn, working on a contract to satisfy the law firm’s most difficult client. And he was not going to stop until all parties had signed up.

  His assistants knew the signs. No lunch then. They sent out for sandwiches and told the Palace that they would pass on all messages as soon as he was free.

  By the time the contract arrived back in the office with both sets of signatures on it, Jonas had biro stains on his shirt, his hair was all over the place and the afternoon was nearly gone. He didn’t care.

  He went into the outer office, incandescent with pleasure. “We did it!”

  The collective sigh of relief was more eloquent than a standing ovation. People high-fived one another and someone opened a bottle of San Michele’s answer to French champagne. Jonas, Royal Patron of the San Michele Winemakers’ Association, laughed and applauded.

  “Congratulations. You must be pleased,” murmured the senior paralegal, as conversation became general.

  “Thank you,” said Jonas. The man had worked for Reval Partners since Jonas’s grandfather’s time. “We did a really good job, I think. Don’t see how we could have done anything better, anyway. And we had just enough luck to swing it.”

  “Group hug?” said the paralegal, a cynic.

  Several people groaned and someone said, “Rather have a group celebratory dinner.”

  Jonas shook his head, sadly. When he first came back from the States, he had gone out with the team several times after they’d closed a big case. This last year, however, more and more royal duties had intervened. He hadn’t even made the Christmas Party. “Sorry, guys. Not tonight. I need to clean up and head off to the Palace for the Crown Princess’s party.”

  That reminded them of the messages. A junior unearthed the file and sent it to his phone. He studied it. Between phone calls and emails, there were eleven from assorted officials.

  “Ouch,” said Jonas. “What on earth’s going on? I’m not even late, yet. I need further and better particulars here.”

  He went back into his office, pondering which of his callers to consult. The obvious candidate was the Crown Princess’s personal assistant. But she would say whatever Crown Princess Anna told her to, and his sister-in-law was a micro-manager of other people’s time. He decided his best bet was an old friend.

  The Head of Palace Security answered his phone with a cheery, “Hi there!”

  The Head of Palace Security didn’t do cheery, especially when he was on duty.

  Jonas blinked. “Hi there? You don’t fool me, evil alien invader. Let me speak to the real Fredrik Jensson.”

  “Good to hear from you,” said Count Fredrik, with only the slightest suggestion of gritted teeth.

  “You’re not alone, I take it?”

  “Not at all. I –” His voice became fainter as he spoke to someone in the room with him. “Please reassure Her Serene Highness. Prince Jonas will be here in time for the sunset cocktails. Yes, I’m certain.”

  Jonas had a twinge of conscience. “Sunset cocktails?”

  “Have you read any of your briefing notes?” said Count Fredrik in quite a different voice, clearly relieved of his previous inhibiting companion.

  “Been rather busy at work. But the party is in the diary and I’m on my way. Well, nearly on my way. Need to tidy up a bit first.” Just as well that the always impeccably tailored Fredrik couldn’t see him, Jonas thought, amused.

  “Good of you to let me know.” The Count didn’t sound one little bit grateful.

  Jonas grinned. “Don’t mention it, old friend.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The office. I’ll have a quick shower and –”

  “You took your uniform to work, then?”

  “Uniform?” Jonas had sudden cold feeling that he’d missed something major. He wore military uniform on state occasions and Forest Ranger uniform when he was volunteering in the San Michele Forest. He didn’t think Fredrik was talking about the Rangers.

  “But this isn’t a state occasion. It’s just a cocktail party Anna has arranged for some trade mission, with me filling in for Carlo. Isn’t it?”

  “Well, that’s how it started out,” said Count Fredrik fairly. “Been a fair few adjustments along the way.”

  Jonas groaned. “I just put it in the diary when Carlo told me he’d be travelling and I’d have to host the thing for Anna. And then forgot about it. What can I do?”

  Count Fredrik relented. “Thought so. I’ve borrowed you a uniform from the Hussars. Bring your stuff and change here. Grab a cab now. I’ll meet you by the old stables.”

  The old stables currently constituted the Palace recycling centre. They were situated at the back of the kitchen complex.

  “By the trash cans? Very cloak and dagger.”

  Count Fredrik was patient. “Just get here. Fast as you can.”

  But there were no cabs. As the sliding doors of the impressive building swished together behind him, Jonas realized that he was facing a wall of Friday evening traffic. A stationary wall. It was gridlocked all the way to the main drag. And when he looked up, he saw a queue of vehicles along the steep cobbled way that led to the ancient castle gateway. The cars on the hill weren’t moving either.

  Jonas stared. This was more than normal Friday night traffic. He began to wonder just how big this bash of Anna’s was. A trade mission didn’t normally bring Liburno to a standstill.

  “Hell!”

  Of course, it was partly his own fault, he acknowledged. If he had employed a social secretary, as his sister-in-law kept nagging him to do, everything would have been taken care of. Someone would have read all those additional emails, if he’d lobbed them into a pending file for when he had the time to catch up.

  But Jonas had been saying no to a social
secretary ever since he came back from the States. Just like he said no to an apartment in the Palace and to a regular security detail at official functions. He would fulfil all the tasks that Parliament or his father required of him. He would stand in for his eldest brother, Crown Prince Carlo, when the family asked him to.

  But he’d explained his position to the family again and again. He didn’t want a royal lifestyle. He didn’t want footmen bringing him his post on a silver tray every morning. And he hated the idea of paparazzi invading his hobbies and his holidays.

  His brothers said that was reasonable, his grandmother declared it to be wholly his own affair and his father just grunted. Only his sister-in-law continued to badger him to change his mind. Worse than that, recently she had started to matchmake.

  But Jonas had promised to deputize for his elder brother at this evening’s red carpet event while Carlo was abroad. So he would forget how tired he was and head for the Palace on foot.

  Jonas took off his jacket, stuffed it into his backpack, shouldered the bag and set off. He texted Count Fredrik: Traffic solid. Walking.

  The reply winged back immediately: Running would be better.

  After three hours’ sleep last night? He’d been working for fifteen hours already.

  A second ping: On parade on the battlements at sunset, remember.

  He broke into a jog, texting as he went. When’s sunset?

  Soon.

  Jonas took stock. After all, he was young, fit and he was supposed to be a problem solver. To get to the old stables, he would normally head up the hill and slip into the park by one of the side gates, where the officer on duty would recognize him. But that would entail running past all those stationary cars and limousines, with all the great photo opportunities for bored passengers to snap the fifth in the princely succession panting up late to the evening’s royal event. He could just imagine what the Crown Princess would say to publicity like that.

  The alternative was to head into the public park. It was separated from the Palace grounds by a stone curtain wall and some serious locked gates but there was a small entrance that the tree surgeons used, which was usually unlocked during daylight hours.

  Jonas broke into a run.

  Of course, when he got there, the tree surgeons’ entrance was locked and bolted. But by now the adrenaline had kicked in. There was a big oak tree by that gate. He had climbed it many times as a boy.

  He flung his backpack over the wall and started to climb.

  Jonas arrived at the rendezvous with scuffed shoes, a three-cornered rent in his trousers and hands and face so grubby that any schoolboy tearaway would have accorded him instant respect. He was grinning from ear to ear.

  Count Fredrik was pacing impatiently in front of the portico of the old stables. “What happened?” he demanded, turning towards the Palace and urging Jonas into a near-run.

  “Had to climb over the fence. Somebody had locked the gate.”

  The Head of Security grunted but didn’t slacken his pace. He shot them round the corner of the eighteenth-century kitchen wing to an anonymous door, and fished out a key.

  “Back stairs?” said Jonas knowledgeably.

  “Naturally.”

  The Count urged him through the door, then locked and bolted it behind them. He checked his watch. “First you change. Then you hit the battlements for the sunset cocktails. You’ve got less than half an hour.”

  “Change? What am I? Spider-Man?”

  The Reval brothers and Fredrik had taken Jonas’s young nephew to an all-day Spider-Man marathon just before Christmas. A faint smile twitched the corner of Count Fredrik’s firm mouth at last. “Full military uniform.”

  “What?”

  “With sword.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I never joke on duty,” said the Count and hustled him into the old tack room.

  Jonas saw that it had been set up with long trestle tables. People sat at them, studying screens. Nobody took any notice of the new arrivals. Jonas peered over one woman’s shoulder and saw that she was watching glamorous guests at the foot of the Palace’s grandest staircase. She was wearing an earpiece with a tiny microphone attached.

  “Wow,” he said, genuinely startled. “Real-time surveillance. Who’s here?”

  “Hollywood A-listers and money,” the Count told him crisply. “You can change through there.”

  And no, he hadn’t been joking. The white dress uniform of the San Michele Hussars, with epaulettes, gleaming buttons, row of medals and a ceremonial scarlet sash hung on the back of the door of what must once have been a broom cupboard. Someone had added gold-braid aiguillettes.

  Jonas stared at it. “Aiguillettes?”

  “Special request of Crown Princess Anna.” In spite of not joking on duty Count Fredrik was having difficulty keeping a straight face. “Look, I found you a uniform, OK? Thank you, Fredrik, for your foresight and efficiency. Not at all, Your Serene Highness, all in a day’s work.”

  Jonas was contrite. “I’m really very grateful, Fredrik. Honest. You’ve saved my bacon.”

  “Let’s say, I’ve given your bacon a sporting chance.”

  The former broom cupboard, though cold, had a businesslike-looking shower and a plentiful supply of towels. Jonas began to wrestle with his stained shirt.

  A button shot across the room like a bullet. Count Fredrik sidestepped.

  Jonas gave up on buttons and started to haul the shirt over his head. “Pass me my pack?”

  He kicked off his office shoes, then tried to remove one sock with the other foot, failed, and staggered painfully into the wall. He swore under his breath.

  “Pack’s on the bench,” said his friend helpfully. “I draw the line at excavating for your underwear.”

  Jonas, still muffled, was absorbed in his own struggles.

  “You’re hopping,” said Count Fredrik dispassionately. “We have no time for you to hop.”

  “How long have we got?”

  “Twenty minutes, give or take. Try undoing the shirt cuffs.”

  “I know. I forgot. Can you please turn on the damn shower? This will only take a minute.”

  Count Fredrik trod round him, reached into the shower and swung a dial before stepping smartly away from the water.

  “AAARGH,” yelled Jonas, finally dragging the shirt over his head and lobbing it away from him.

  Count Fredrik caught it on the fly, bundled it up and tossed it onto the growing pile of Jonas’s discarded garments.

  His Serene Highness flung himself under the spray, muttering. He reached for the shower gel and raised his voice in challenge. “Has it occurred to you that I could stay here until someone brings me a sensible change of clothing?”

  “Define sensible.”

  Jonas had no trouble doing that. “No gold aiguillettes. No medals. What would Anna do then, eh?”

  Count Fredrik was unmoved. “Remind you that you’re also two hours late. You haven’t done your duty on the receiving line. And you missed the English tea and speeches entirely.”

  Jonas gasped, swallowed water, coughed until his eyes watered and opened the shower door, towelling hard. “English tea? I don’t remember that.”

  “It entered the programme about ten days ago.”

  “That would account for it. But why?”

  “You’d have to ask Princess Anna. I just do what I’m told.”

  Conscience struck again. “Oh Lord yes. You should be out there securing something, shouldn’t you? Leave me. I can finish up and head for the battlements.”

  “My team will alert me if there’s anything that needs my attention.”

  “But –”

  “I’ll see you to the starting gate. We’re both in enough hot water already.”

  “Greater love hath no man than he will stand up to a Crown Princess for his friend,” said Jonas, moved.

  “You’d better believe it.”

  Jonas rummaged through his pack for socks and underwear. When he found them,
Fredrik stuffed the clutch of discarded clothes into it and zipped it up.

  “Thanks. I suppose Anna is really mad at me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blast.”

  The Count passed him a pile of neatly folded undergarments. “Standard Hussars issue, sourced from the regiment. We’re both going to owe those guys.”

  The first was not much more than a silk T-shirt. “At least there are no buttons on this to fly off and take someone’s eye out,” said Jonas with satisfaction. “How’s the time going?”

  “Fifteen minutes and counting.”

  Jonas pulled up the dress trousers, flexed the white braces and pulled them up onto his shoulders. “Nearly there. No patent leather shoes?” he asked mischievously.

  “Gentlemen,” said the Count with dignity, “do not wear patent leather shoes with San Michele Hussar formal dress uniform. Mess boots are correct, ideally well polished.”

  They both looked at Jonas’s scuffed footwear. Jonas hauled his torn shirt back out of his pack and rubbed the worst of the soil and twiggery off them.

  They both considered the result.

  “No,” Jonas agreed sadly.

  Fredrik produced a pair of pull-on ankle boots in soft black leather, polished so you could see your face in them. “They may be a little big.”

  “Don’t worry. I can wade, if I have to.”

  “Which is why I’ve spared you the spurs. Exceptionally.”

  “Did I say you’re a lifesaver, Fredrik?”

  Fredrik gave a mock bow, acknowledging the compliment, and handed him the white jacket. Jonas shrugged into it, flexing his arms under the heavy material. The cuffs were stiff with navy blue frogging and gold braid. He pulled them down, smoothed each sleeve and began to do up the brightly polished buttons, fumbling with haste.

  The Count picked up Jonas’s watch and signet ring and observed him critically. “Do you want a hand?”

  Jonas waved him away. The medals danced and twisted as he wrestled with tight buttonholes and missed. “Dammit. Why are there so many bloody buttons?”

  “Sure you don’t want help?”

  “Maybe just the top button and the collar.” And, as the Count complied, “God, this jacket is uncomfortable. Where’s my watch? Ring?”