‘To a future together, I hope,’ she said.
She cast a sideways glance at Finn, who nodded.
Finn took Natalia’s hand. ‘We need to spend more time together, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘However, that is complicated by the fact that we live in different countries on different sides of the world.’
‘So I’m going to spend three months in Sydney with Finn,’ Natalia blurted out.
So much for diplomacy. But she had lived by the royal rules for so long—she needed to make a strong statement about how now she wanted to live her life her own way.
With Finn.
‘But first I plan to spend three months in Montovia, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘We are seeking your advice on how we can best accomplish this. And of course Natalia will want to discuss with you the logistics of her taking some time to spend in Sydney.’
Natalia marvelled at how Finn had got the tone of his speech just right.
‘Do you intend to live together?’ asked the Queen.
‘We intend to maintain separate residences,’ he said. ‘In both Montovia and Sydney. For three months in each country.’
‘The King and I have given this matter considerable thought over the last few days.’
‘What matter?’ asked Natalia. ‘Me and Finn? Mother, what do you mean, you and Father have been discussing it for the last few days? We have only just realised ourselves that we want to be together.’
The Queen quoted a Montovian saying that pretty much translated as telling them that she hadn’t come down in the last shower. ‘I saw how miserable you were when you got back from Sydney. How that misery lifted once this young man appeared at the palace.’
‘Oh...’ Natalia said, exchanging a glance with Finn.
‘And if you make your living arrangements more permanent, where do you plan to live?’
‘I would live wherever is best for Natalia,’ Finn said.
‘I realise that as second in line to the throne I am obliged to live here,’ Natalia said.
She looked around her mother’s ornate and exquisitely decorated office and thought about how much she loved the palace and the castle and being Princess of Montovia.
‘Or I can make the choice to renounce my title.’
It hurt even to say the words. Renouncing her title would mean alienation from the family she loved. But she wanted to be with Finn—whatever the cost.
The Queen smiled the stiff smile that came from her regular wrinkle-fighting injections. ‘Recent events have taken the pressure off you in that regard. Gemma is pregnant—’
Natalia clapped her hands together. ‘I knew it. How wonderful! I’m so thrilled—’
Her mother raised her hand imperiously. ‘Please let me continue, Natalia.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Gemma is pregnant with twins. A boy and a girl. She has held off from sharing the news because there is a greater risk of complication with twins. However, her consultant has given her the all-clear to make the announcement. What this means for you is that once the twins are born you will go from being second in line to the throne to fourth. I know that will make you happy.’
‘Yes, Mother it does.’ She felt as though the enormous weight that had been crushing her since Carl’s death had been lifted. ‘I am delighted for Gemma and Tristan about the twins. And for you and Father. Not just because there will be new heirs, but new grandchildren.’
‘It is happy news,’ the Queen said.
Still there was the sadness of loss in her eyes, but there was also joyful anticipation of new life. The new babies would do much to heal the wounds in her family that had made Natalia’s life so constricted.
‘The best kind of happy news,’ Natalia said.
The Queen continued. ‘You should know that if you and Finn decide to marry you have our permission.’
Was she hearing things?
‘Really?’
‘I told you—I want you to be happy. It is not just the news about the twins that has prompted our decision. However, there is a condition. If you decide to make your home in Australia we would require you to make regular return trips home to Montovia.’
‘To fulfil my royal duties?’
‘To see your mother and father. We would miss you, my darling.’
* * *
After they’d left the Queen’s office Finn asked Natalia to take him up to the arched lookouts, with their magnificent view across the lake.
‘We need some privacy and a place to think,’ he explained.
As they walked up the steps and along the battlements, holding hands, he marvelled to himself at how the castle, the town, the country that had seemed like a movie set, populated by witches and wizards, was now beginning to seem like home. Because it was Natalia’s home.
Perhaps one day she would feel the same about the view from the veranda of his house across to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
When they reached the middle archway he put his arm around her and pulled her close. In silence, they both looked out at the view. He wondered if Natalia, as he was, was taking some quiet time to process that astonishing pronouncement by the Queen—that she and the King gave their permission for him to marry her daughter.
She wasn’t wearing a hat, and a teasing chilly breeze was lifting her hair and blowing it across her face. He turned her to him and gently pushed her hair back into place. Then he cradled her chin in his hands and tilted her face upwards, so he could look into her eyes.
‘I love you, Natalia,’ he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. ‘I already know all I need to know about you and I know I could not imagine a life without you in it.’
His beautiful princess closed her eyes and then opened them again, as if scarcely able to believe she was here with him. Her mouth curved in the most joyous of smiles. ‘Oh, Finn, I love you too. I think I fell in love with you that first day in Sydney. Only because I’ve never been in love before I didn’t recognise it.’
‘The whole time we’ve been discussing our three-month plan for option two I’ve been thinking we don’t really need to spend time dating. I don’t want to live apart from you. I love you. I adore you. I want to marry you, and have children with you, and wake up every morning to your face on my pillow.’
‘Oh, Finn...’ She sighed. ‘That sounds like heaven.’
He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small velvet covered box. ‘Natalia, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? I love you and I want to honour and cherish you for the rest of our lives—not because you’re a princess, but because you’re the most wonderful woman ever put on this earth.’
She put her hand to her heart, seeming almost too overcome to speak. But she managed to choke out some words. ‘Yes, Finn—yes. I love you and I want to honour and cherish you too. More than anything I want to be your wife.’
His wife. Two such wonderful words.
He took her left hand and slid onto the third finger an engagement ring magnificent in its simplicity—a large, oval cut white diamond on a narrow platinum band. He’d guessed the size just right.
She held out her hand and splayed her fingers to admire the ring as its facets caught the light and glistened with tiny rainbows. ‘It’s beautiful. I love it. But how—?’
‘My cousin in Dublin directed me to the best jeweller in town. I didn’t think I’d get a chance to give it to you quite so soon.’
He kissed her long and sweet and tenderly.
Natalia pulled away from his kiss and leaned back against the circle of his arms. ‘You realise this is where Tristan proposed to Gemma?’
‘I do. I know how important tradition is to the older Montovians. Why not start some traditions for our generation?’
‘When we marry you’ll be a Montovian too. You become a citizen on marriage.’
‘I
’d like us to marry as soon as we can. But I’d still like to do the three months in each country. What do you think?’
‘Me too. Only, because we’re engaged, we might actually be able to live together. And, in light of your proposal, maybe I should come to Australia first, so we can be here in Montovia for the three months before the wedding.’
‘I thought something simple, private...’
She gave a snort of most un-princess-like laughter.
‘Simple? I am Princess of Montovia and my parents’ only daughter. I’m afraid we can’t have “simple”. Don’t even try to fight for it. We’ll have a spectacular royal wedding in our beautiful cathedral with all the ceremonial bling. Nothing less.’
Finn realised that his private life out of the spotlight was about to come to a screeching halt. But with Natalia by his side he didn’t care nearly as much as he’d thought he might.
‘My family will love a big cathedral wedding,’ he said. ‘What about that glass carriage drawn by white horses?’
He was joking. Natalia was not.
‘The horses—yes; the glass carriage—not possible. But there is a royal landau. It’s an open carriage, so that means a spring wedding.’
‘Six months away? Perfect timing. At the end of our time getting to know each other better.’
‘I’m going to enjoy every second of it,’ she said.
‘We have a lifetime together ahead for us, my beautiful wife-to-be,’ said Finn, drawing her into his arms.
He couldn’t imagine ever feeling happier than he did at this moment, but he suspected that being married to Natalia would mean happiness compounding upon happiness.
EPILOGUE
Six months later
NATALIA COULD FEEL the goodwill emanating from the Montovian citizens who crowded the cathedral square, hoping to catch a glimpse of their Princess in her wedding dress as she alighted from the sleek black limousine with her father King Gerard. There was a media contingent too, with cameras at the ready, so sizeable it had to be kept in check by members of the royal family’s personal guard.
There was intense interest in her love story with Finn all around the world. A beautiful European princess marrying a handsome Australian commoner was story enough. But the ‘Secret Princess’ angle was what had sent their love story viral.
Not long after they had made the formal announcement of their engagement some sharp-eyed person in Eliza’s circle had noticed the resemblance blonde wedding guest Natalie Gerard bore to dark-haired Natalia, Princess of Montovia. And when photos of her dancing with Finn at Eliza’s wedding were published, Natalia’s cover was completely blown.
Now the whole world knew how they had met. But, despite media digging, no scandal had been unearthed. Rather, their story was being celebrated for its heady level of romance.
Natalia alighted from the car, waved to the crowd, then climbed the stairs to the cathedral on her father’s arm, her long train trailing behind her.
At the top of the steps her bridesmaids were there to greet her, dressed in exquisite long gowns in gradating tones of pink—Gemma, new mother to the world’s most adorable twins, Amelie, heavily pregnant, Finn’s beautiful sister Bella, already a dear friend, and three of her close Montovian friends.
They clustered around her to pat her hair into place and adjust the filmy veil that covered her face, anchored by the diamond tiara her great-great-grandmother had worn, before it fell to the hem of her white lace gown. They fussed with her bouquet of indigenous Australian blooms—flannel flowers, white waratah and orchids, air-freighted from Sydney. Then they kissed her for good luck.
Her bridesmaids left her to walk in procession, one by one, down the long, long aisle to the high altar of the cathedral. The same altar where her ancestors, stretching back generation after generation, had wed.
Natalia stood with her father as the organ music swelled and she started her own stately march down the aisle to where Finn waited for her—her husband-to-be. There were gasps of admiration from the congregation as she made her way down the carpet.
She was pleased. She wanted Finn to gasp too. His reaction to how she looked was the only one she cared about. Her dress was made in a similar style to the pink dress she’d worn in Sydney when she’d first met him, only by the original Paris designer, and the silk lace was heavy and luxurious, the design simple in its construction.
Every pew in the cathedral was packed with people who had come to witness her wedding and wish her well. All she could see was a mass of smiling faces.
As she got to the first few rows she recognised her family and friends. The Queen in the ornately carved monarch’s pew. Her new family, Finn’s parents and his grandparents, whom she already adored. The other Party Queens and their husbands—Eliza holding her baby girl.
And next to Eliza sat her neighbour Kerry, she of the uncannily accurate prediction, who had been high on the invitation list. Her new prediction was for a long and happy life for the bride and groom and their three children yet to be born.
And then there was Finn—her beloved Finn—standing by Tristan, his best man. Her husband-to-be, tall and handsome, in an immaculately tailored morning suit. When she finally reached him, he was obviously too overcome to say anything, but his eyes told her everything she needed to know about how he felt about his bride.
Her father handed her over to the new man in her life and slid back to his pew.
‘You are the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen,’ Finn whispered when he found his words. ‘I’m a lucky, lucky man.’
‘I’m the lucky one—to have found you,’ she whispered back. ‘Want to see my “something borrowed”?’
Her ‘something old’ was the diamond tiara. The ‘something new’ her gown. The ‘something blue’ was the sapphire and diamond necklace and earrings gifted to her by her parents.
She held up her right wrist. ‘This is my “something borrowed”.’
Finn stared at the fine platinum bangle from which dangled the cufflink he had left behind in her hotel room back in Sydney, where it had all started.
‘So that’s where it went,’ he said. ‘I was too busy searching for you to look for it.’
‘I kept it close to my heart, always hoping I’d see you again,’ she whispered.
Every day she fell more and more in love with him.
‘We’ll never be parted again, I promise you,’ he said, taking her hand, drawing her close and facing the archbishop as the ceremony that would make them husband and wife commenced.
After the service had ended—having been conducted in both Montovian and English—Finn sat back in the antique open landau drawn by four perfectly matched white horses that was taking him and his brand-new wife on a ceremonial tour through the ancient cobbled streets of the old town of Montovia. It was a perfect May day.
The narrow thoroughfares were lined with well-wishers waving the Montovian flag, with its emblem of an eagle with a sword in its beak, and the occasional Australian flag. Along with Natalia he waved back, soon losing his self-consciousness at doing such an unaccustomed thing.
Again, he felt as though he’d been plunged into the set of a fantasy movie as the carriage wound its way through the shadow of the ancient castle that stood guard over the town, past the famous medieval clock and the rows of quaint houses that were multiple centuries older than anything in Australia—all to the accompaniment of the glorious chiming of bells from one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe and the cheers of the crowd in a language he was only just beginning to master.
He turned to his bride. ‘I love you, Natalia, my wife, for ever and for always,’ he said as he kissed her.
The crowd erupted with joyous cheering.
His heart was full of love and gratitude that, as in the best of fantasies, he and his real-life Princess Natalia were being given their very own fairy tale happy-ever-after and beginn
ing their new life together.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Kandy Shepherd
Second Chance with the Single Dad
Best Man and the Runaway Bride
Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon
Conveniently Wed to the Greek
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Island Fling with the Tycoon by Therese Beharrie.
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Island Fling with the Tycoon
by Therese Beharrie
CHAPTER ONE
Falling for the Secret Princess Page 17
