A Royal Wedding

chapter TEN



THE applause rang out loud and long in the Washington auditorium, and Dr Grace Hunter smiled in her sensible suit and bowed one final time to the audience, finally able to withdraw to the quiet of the room generously labelled her dressing room—little more than a closet to store her things, really, but at least it provided her with a bolthole.

The lecture in London three months ago had been such a resounding success that she’d been booked almost solid ever since. City after city wanted to hear the story of the lost pages, wanted to see her presentation and hear the lost messages from the fabled book of healing.

She felt a fraud every time—tonight more than ever. How could it be a book of healing, she wondered, when she felt so heartsick every minute of every day? And yet she had the fame she had sought. She had the respect of her peers and her colleagues. She had a book deal and offers of chairs at universities all around the world. Even, in her latest coup, a last-minute slot on a prime time chat show.

How was it possible, with all that success, to feel so wretched?

Or had Alessandro been right? Was she the most cursed of all, loving a man who could not return her love?

She peeled the jacket from her shoulders and pulled the court shoes from her feet, remembering another outfit—a waterfall of silk atop silver sandals that shimmered with every step. His fiancée’s dress. Had he realised how much he’d hurt her when she’d heard that? Or hadn’t he cared because in his mind she’d already ceased being his fiancée before she had died? Whatever, she supposed she should be thankful that at least he’d taken the trouble to find her something that had never been worn. And it had been a beautiful dress.

She sighed, picking up her programme folder to remind herself of where she would be next. There was no point focusing on the past. She must look to the future. She had career decisions to make and continents to decide between.

There was a knock on the door and she pushed herself from her chair reluctantly, remembering the drinks organised for after her presentation. No doubt a reminder call. She was probably already late.

She pulled open the door, ready to make her excuses, but the words dried up in her throat, incinerated by the lightning bolt that coursed through her. She blinked up at him, her eyes moving past his beauty and his horror to drink in the man himself.

‘I heard your lecture,’ he told her, when he clearly realised she was incapable of speech. ‘You were amazing.’

She swallowed. ‘You heard it?’

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’ And then, perhaps because he sensed she was incapable of rational thought, ‘Perhaps you might invite me in?’

And she shook her head to scatter her woolly thoughts and remembered her manners. ‘Please, Count Volta.’

‘Alessandro,’ he corrected, and her stunned heart—not yet ready to hope—warmed just a little.

There was barely room for the two of them. He refused to sit, his wide frame shrinking what little space there was. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, knowing what it must have cost him to leave the castle—knowing what it must have cost him in the stares and whispers of strangers, in the camera flashes of the paparazzi. ‘Why are you here? Someone will have seen you.’

His tortured eyes confirmed it, but he shook his head, as if dispensing with that mentality. ‘You once said to me that I should not define myself by my scars—’

‘No—please. I had no right. I had no idea of what had really happened.’

‘Grace,’ he said, taking one of her hands in his own, ‘you had every right. You were right.’ He took a breath, and then another, and she could see how much it was costing him to tell her this. ‘Don’t you see? I became my scars. I hid behind them because it was easier to live in the dark. Because it was easier than facing the light.’

‘It’s okay,’ she said, wanting to spare him any more pain, knowing what it must have cost him in media attention to get here, suspecting there was a pack of photographers waiting outside right now to see him. ‘You don’t have to explain it to me.’

‘But I do. Don’t you see, Grace?’ He took hold of her other hand, held them both up in his. ‘You brought me back the light. You were the one who chased the darkness away. You made me see it was all right to live again.’

Her heart skipped a beat, and then another, because she didn’t want to believe what it might possibly mean. ‘I did?’

He smiled. ‘You did. You turned up in my dark world and showed me what life could be like with your enthusiasm, with your joy of discovery. At first, I admit, I hated you for it, because you reminded me of all the things I had lost and of all the things I would never know again. But bit by bit I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to share your light. I wanted to share your joy.’

She thought back to the disastrous dinner and his cruel comment about the dress. ‘You were protecting yourself.’

‘I couldn’t let myself crumble. It took me years to recover after the accident. I couldn’t let anything like that happen again, even if it meant losing the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was desperate to find some kind of outlet. I hadn’t played the piano for ten years until you came. It was something I associated with her. It was part of my former life and I couldn’t bring myself to touch the keyboard until wanting you drove me to it. Drove me back to something I loved. Just as you drove me back to life and living and I realised it didn’t have to be the same.’

Tears leaked from her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

‘You kissed my scars, Grace. I was shocked and I overreacted, but do you have any idea what was happening to me? You broke something free inside me, something dark and poisoned and toxic. And bit by bit you chased the blackness away.’

For the first time she noticed the moisture glazing his eyes too, as he brought her hands up to his mouth, closed his eyes and kissed them.

‘I had to come,’ he said at last. ‘I knew it from the first day you left. I knew I had missed an opportunity so golden that it might never come again. But still I couldn’t do it. I told myself you were busy becoming famous, that you could not possibly have any place for me in your life. Fear bound me to the castle, just as you said. But as the days and weeks went on I had to know. I had to find out for myself, whatever it took.’

He hesitated then, as if searching the depths of his soul for words. ‘Grace, you once told me you loved me. Is there any chance you might love me again? Love a man who was too blind to recognise his own love when it stared him in the face?’

Her heart swelled so large with his words she thought it might explode with happiness. She threw herself into his arms, drinking in his scent, relishing the hard plane of his chest. ‘I will always love you, Alessandro. Always.’

And he sighed, almost with relief, as if there had ever been any doubt, and drew her closer into his embrace. ‘You do not know how I have longed to hear those words again— if only for the opportunity to tell you that I love you with everything this scarred heart can offer. You have it all. But I know you have your career, and that must come first—’

Alarm bells sounded. ‘What do you mean that must come first? Before what?’

‘We can work it out. You will prefer to continue working, of course. You will not want to be tied down …’

‘Alessandro, what are you saying? Maybe you should spell it out first.’

His dark eyes were troubled and uncertain, and she had never seen him so vulnerable. He had risked everything for her today, she realised. Everything. And she would love him for what that had cost him for ever.

‘You have your work.’

‘Tell me!’

‘I hoped—I wondered—so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work—’ she glared at him ‘—I wondered if you might agree to become my wife?’

‘Yes!’ she cried, tears of joy springing to her eyes. ‘Yes, I will marry you, Alessandro. Yes, I will become your wife.’

And his face lit up brighter than she had ever seen it, until both sides of his face were beautiful, both sides of him magically, wonderfully hers.