Da Rocha's Convenient Heir by Lynne Graham

Author:Lynne Graham [Graham, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS A breathtaking dress, Freddie reflected, dizzily studying her appearance in the mirror in Claire’s bedroom. Getting ready in her own room had proved impossible because there simply wasn’t enough space.

The sleek handmade lace bodice with a low back clung from shoulder to hip, playing up her small curves and making her look taller. The skirt fell in intricate cobweb-fine lace folds shimmering with beadwork. At her throat glittered a diamond pendant, a wedding gift from Zac. Her hair was up in an elaborate coronet to support the diamond-studded tiara that Zac had told her had belonged to his late mother, along with the diamond earrings and bracelet she wore.

‘Do I look like a Christmas tree?’ she asked her aunt worriedly.

‘Like I should have that problem!’ Claire quipped enviously. ‘But diamonds are the family business, so I suppose you have to put the finest on display. Your life will be so different, Freddie. It’ll be champagne and caviar all the way now.’

Freddie swallowed hard at the thought because she still couldn’t imagine it. A hair stylist and a beautician might have come to the house to prepare her for the wedding, but that had seemed more of a necessity than a luxury when she was marrying Zac and she needed to look like the sort of woman that he would marry. Heaven forbid that he would ever look at her and feel embarrassed by her and, thanks to that family dinner, she already knew that even those closest to him could be both critical and judgemental.

Zac, waiting at the church, forced a polite smile when Vitale came to join his two brothers. ‘Your majesty,’ he said, acknowledging that his half-brother had become the King of Lerovia since his mother’s abdication even though the formal coronation would not be held for several months. ‘I should be bowing, right?’

‘No...not within the family,’ King Vitale declared. ‘And I intend to have a modern court, so there’ll be a lot less bowing and scraping in Lerovia as well. By the way, our wedding present, which is car-shaped, is on its way back to you.’

Zac frowned at that reference to the prized sports car he had lost in that ill-judged bet with his half-brother. ‘Back to me?’

Vitale shrugged. ‘Nobody won that bet. You may not have brought Freddie to the royal ball but now you’re marrying her—’

‘You won fair and square,’ Zac began inflexibly.

Angel frowned with the air of a man who would have liked to knock both his stiff-necked brothers’ heads together. ‘He’ll be delighted to accept his car back.’

With a stark exhalation of breath, Zac accepted that loaded hint and murmured through gritted teeth, ‘That’s very generous of you, Vitale...thanks.’

‘And within the family circle there will be neither bows nor any more bets,’ Angel suggested with quiet emphasis.

Zac sank back into brooding silence, disturbed that he was so tense. People got married every day, he reminded himself. He didn’t, though, and the surroundings and the stifling traditions made him feel constrained. The whole event was much more formal than he had expected.

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