The Princess Bride

by Rebecca Winters

  There were deeper reasons than that for your reluctance. Your parents’ marriage…

  His bodyguard moved away, and Rik pushed that thought away, too. He wasn’t crazy. He was taking action. On these thoughts Rik turned his attention to the sleeping woman. Her hair fell in a soft honey-blonde curtain. Though her face still showed the ravages of her allergy problem, her features were appealing.

  Long thick brown eyelashes covered eyes that he knew were a warm brown colour. She had soft pink lips, a slim straight nose and pretty rounded cheeks. She looked younger in the flesh than in the photo she’d emailed, than Rik had thought she would look now…

  She sighed and Rik had an unexpected urge to gently kiss her. It was a strange reaction to what was, in the end, a business arrangement with a woman he’d never have chosen to know more than peripherally if not for this. A response perhaps brought on because she seemed vulnerable right now. When she woke from this sleep she would be once again nothing but the ladder-climbing socialite he’d approached, and this momentary consciousness would be gone.

  The pilot commenced take-off. Rik’s guest stirred, fought for a moment to wake. Her hand rose to her cheek.

  ‘You may sleep, Nicolette. Soon enough we will take the next step.’ He said it in his native Braston tongue, and frowned again as the low words emerged. He rarely spoke in anything but French or English, unless to one of the older villagers or palace staff.

  Nicolette turned her head into the seat. Her lashes stopped fluttering and she sighed. She’d cut her hair too, since the emailed photo she’d sent him. The shoulder-length cut went well with the flattering feminine skirt and silk top she wore with a short cardigan tied in a knot at her waist. The clothing would be nowhere near warm enough for their arrival in Braston, but that would be taken care of.

  Rik made his chair comfortable, did the same for his sleeping guest, and took his rest while he could find it. When Nicolette sighed again in her sleep and her head came to rest on his shoulder, Rik shifted to make sure she was comfortable, inhaled the soft scent of a light, citrus perfume, and put down the feeling of contentment to knowing he was soon to take a step to get his country’s economy back on its feet, and outwit his father, King Georgio, at the same time. Put like that, why wouldn’t Rik feel content?

  * * *

  ‘You had an uneventful flight, I hope, Your Highness?’

  ‘Not too much longer and we’ll be able to disembark, Prince Rikardo.’

  Mel woke to voices, snippets of conversation in English and another language and the low, lovely tones of her taxi driver responding regally while something soft and light and beautifully warm was draped around her shoulders.

  ‘What—?’ Heart pounding, she sat up abruptly.

  This wasn’t a commercial flight.

  There were no rows of passengers, just some very well-dressed attendants who all seemed to make her taxi driver the centre of attention in a revering kind of way.

  Mel’s allergy was gone. The effects of the medication had worn off. That was good, but it also meant she couldn’t be hallucinating right now.

  She had vague memories of sleeping…on an accommodating shoulder.

  Yet she didn’t remember even boarding a flight!

  This plane was luxurious. It had landed somewhere. Outside it was dark rather than the sunshiny day she’d looked forward to in Melbourne, and Mel could feel freezing air coming in through the aperture where another attendant waited for a set of steps to be wheeled to the edge of the plane.

  She should be feeling Sydney summer air.

  Memory of that expensive-looking car rose. Had she been kidnapped? Tension coiled in her tummy. If anything was wrong, she’d left a note saying she was moving to Sydney. Her relatives might be angry to lose their underpaid cook, but she doubted that they would go looking for her. Not at the expense of their time or resources.

  Breathe, Melanie. Pull yourself together and think about this.

  The driver had asked her if she was ‘sure about this’. As though they already had an arrangement? That would make it unlikely that she’d been kidnapped.

  But they didn’t have an arrangement!

  Mel turned her head sharply, and looked straight into the stunning gaze of the man who’d placed her in that car.

  She’d thought, earlier, that he was attractive. Now Mel realised he was also a man of presence and

  charisma. All those around him seemed to almost feel as though…they were his servants?

  Words filtered through to Mel again. French words and, among those words, ‘Prince Rikardo’.

  They were addressing her driver as a prince?

  That was easy, then, Mel thought a little hysterically. She’d fallen down a rabbit hole into some kind of alternative world. Any moment now she would sprout sparkling red shoes. That’s two different fairy tales, Mel. Actually it’s a fairy tale and a classic movie. Oh, as though that mattered! Yet in this moment, this particular rabbit hole felt all too real. And maybe there’d been a book first, anyway.

  Stop it!

  ‘You’re fully refreshed? How are the allergies? You slept almost twenty-four hours. I hope the rest helped you.’

  Did kidnappers sound calm, rational and solicitous?

  Mel drew a breath, said shakily and with an edge of uncertainty she couldn’t entirely hide, ‘I feel a bit exhausted. The allergies are gone. I guess I slept them off while we travelled between Melbourne and…?’

  ‘Braston.’ He spoke the word with a slight dip of his head.

  ‘Right. Yes. Braston.’ A small country planted deep in the heart of Europe. Mel had heard of it. She didn’t really know anything about it. She certainly shouldn’t be anywhere near it. ‘I’m just not quite sure— You see, I thought I’d be flying from Melbourne to Sydney—’

  ‘We were able to fly very directly.’ He leaned towards her and surprised her by taking her hand. ‘You don’t need to be nervous or concerned. Just stick to what we’ve agreed and let me do the talking around my father, the king.’

  ‘K-king.’ As in, a king who was the father of a prince? As in, this man, Rikardo, was a prince? A royal prince of Braston?

  Stick with the issue at hand, Mel. Why are you here? That’s the question you need answered.

  ‘You are different somehow to what I have remembered.’ His words were thoughtful.

  ‘Remembered from our drive to the airport? I don’t understand.’ Her words should have emerged in a strong tone. Instead they were a nervous croak drowned by the clatter of a baggage trolley being wheeled closer to the plane.

  Well, this was not the time for Mel to impersonate a scaredy frog waiting to be kissed into reassurance by a handsome prince.

  Will you stop with the fairy-tale metaphors already, Melanie!

  ‘You’re nervous. I understand. I’ll walk you through this process. Just rely on me, and it will be easy for both of us to honour our agreement.’

  Mel drew a deep breath. ‘Seriously, about this “agreement”. There’s been—’

  ‘Your Highness, if you and your guest would please come this way.’ An attendant waved them forward.

  The prince, Rikardo, took Mel’s elbow, tucked the wonderful warm wrap more snugly about her shoulders, and escorted her to the steps and down them onto the tarmac.

  Icy wind whipped at Mel’s hair and stung her face but, inside the wrap, she remained warm. Floodlights lit the small, private airstrip. A retinue of people waited just off the tarmac.

  Mel had an overwhelming urge to turn around and climb back onto the plane. She might not be down a rabbit hole, but she was definitely Alice in Crazyland. None of this would have happened if she’d been completely herself when she ordered that ride to the airport and believed it had arrived. Mel would never take someone else’s medication again, even if it were just an over-the
-counter one that anyone could buy!

  ‘Please. Prince…Your Highness…’ As she spoke they moved further along the tarmac. ‘There truly has been some kind of mistake.’

  What could have happened? As Mel asked the silent question puzzle pieces started to come together.

  If he’d called at the right address, then he had expected to collect a woman from there.

  Her cousin had been in a strange mood, filled with secrecy and frenetic energy. At the end of the dinner party, Nicolette had rushed to her room and started rummaging around in there. Had Nicolette been…packing for a trip?

  Rik had said he’d arrived earlier than he’d expected to. That would explain Nicolette not being ready. Mel had thought that he’d called her by her first name of Nicole, but it could have easily been ‘Nicolette’ that he said. She and her cousin looked heaps alike. Horror started to dawn. ‘It must have been Nicolette—’

  ‘Allow me to welcome you on to Braston soil, Nicolette.’ Rikardo, Prince Rikardo, spoke at the same time. He stopped. ‘Excuse me?’

  Oh. My. God.

  He’d mistaken Mel for Nicolette. Mel’s cousin had made some kind of plan with this man. That meant Rikardo really was a prince. Of this country! As in, royalty who had made an arrangement with Nicolette.

  Mel, the girl who’d worked in her aunt and uncle’s kitchen for years, was standing here in a foreign country with an heir to the throne, when it was her cousin who should be here for whatever reasons she should be here. How could the prince not realise the mistake? Surely he’d have seen that Mel wasn’t Nicolette, even in dawn light and with Mel affected by allergies? Just how well did this prince know Nicolette?

  Yes, Mel? And how many times has Nicolette become furious when one of her acquaintances mistook you for her when they called at the house?

  ‘Unless we’re in the public eye, please just call me Rik.’ He hustled her into the rear of another waiting car and climbed in beside her. A man in a dark suit climbed into the front, spoke a few words to the prince in French, and set the vehicle in motion.

  The prince added, ‘Or Rikardo.’

  ‘You probably have five given names and are heir to a whole lot of different dukedoms or things like that.’ Mel sucked up a breath. ‘I do watch the news and see the royal families coming and going.’ She just hadn’t seen this particular royal. ‘The most famous ones. What I mean is, I’m not an overt royal-watcher, but I’m also not completely uninformed.’

  Which made her sound like some kind of overawed hick who wouldn’t have a clue how to behave in such august company. Exactly what Mel was! ‘Please…Prince…Rik…I need to speak to you. It’s urgent!’

  ‘We have arrived, Your Highness.’ The words, spoken in careful English, came again from the driver.

  He’d drawn the car to a whisper-quiet halt and now held the door open for them to alight. Rikardo would get out first, of course, because he was, after all, a prince.

  A burst of something a little too close to hysteria rose inside Mel’s breast.

  ‘Thank you, Artor, and also for speaking in English for the benefit of our guest.’ Rikardo helped Mel from the car. He glanced down into her face. ‘I know you may be nervous but once we get inside I will take you to our suite of rooms and you can relax and not feel so pressured.’

  ‘S-straight to the rooms? We won’t see anyone?’ Well, of course they would see people. They were seeing people right now. And what did he mean by their suite? ‘Can we talk when we get there? Please!’

  ‘Yes, we will talk. It shouldn’t be necessary at this late stage, but we will discuss whatever is concerning you.’ He seemed every inch the royal as he said this, and rather forbidding.

  Mel’s stomach sank even further. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. She hadn’t meant to do anything other than take a taxi to the airport. She had to hope it would be relatively easy to fix the mistake that had been made.

  Rik whisked her up an awe-inspiring set of steps that led to a pair of equally stunning studded doors. As they approached the doors were thrown open, as though someone had been watching from within.

  They would have been, wouldn’t they? Mel glanced up, and up again, and still couldn’t see the ending of the outside of this enormous palace. Parts of it were lit, other parts melted into the surrounding darkness. It looked as though it had been birthed here at the dawn of time. Mel shivered as the cold began to register, and then Prince Rik’s hand was at her back to propel her the final steps forward and inside.

  Voices welcomed their prince. Members of the royal retinue of staff stood to attention while others stepped forward to take the prince’s coat, and Mel’s wrap.

  How silly to feel as though the small of her back physically held the imprint of the prince’s fingers. Yet if he hadn’t been supporting her Mel might have fainted from the combination of anxiety and feeling overwhelmed by the opulence.

  The area they entered was large, reaching up three levels with ornate cornicing and inlaid life-sized portraits of royal family members fixed into the walls. A bronze statue stood to one side on a raised dais. Creams and gold and red filled the foyer with warm resplendence. It would be real gold worth more than an entire jewellery store.

  ‘Welcome to the palace.’ Rik leaned closer to speak quietly into Mel’s ear.

  ‘Thank you. That is…’ Mel’s breath caught in her throat as she became suddenly very aware of his closeness.

  She’d laid her head on his shoulder, had slept the hours of the flight away inhaling the scent of his cologne. On some level of consciousness, Mel knew the pace of his breathing, knew how it felt to have him sleep with his ear tucked against the top of her head. The feel of the cloth of his suit coat against her arm, his body warmth reaching her through the fabric.

  For a moment consciousness and subconscious memory, nearness and scent and whatever else it was that had made her aware of him even initially through a fog of medication, filled Mel. She forgot the vital need to explain to him that he’d made a mistake and she had, too. She forgot everything but his nearness, and the uneven beat of her heart.

  And then Prince Rikardo of Braston spoke again, softly, for her ears only.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to help me fulfil my father’s demands and yet maintain my freedom…by temporarily marrying me.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘THERE’S been a terrible mistake.’ Rik’s bride-to-be paced the sitting room of his personal suite. Tension edged her words. One hand gestured. ‘I don’t belong here. I’m not the right girl. Look at all this, and I’m—’

  ‘You won’t be staying here all that long.’ Not for ever. A few months… Rik tried to understand her unease. She’d been fully willing to enter into this arrangement. Why suffer a bout of cold feet about it now? She’d stepped into his suite, taken one glance around and had launched into speech.

  ‘This is an interlude,’ he said, ‘nothing more.’ And one they’d agreed upon, even if she hadn’t yet signed the official contract. Rik’s aide had the paperwork in a safe place, but it was ready and waiting, and Nicolette had made it clear that she was, too. So what had changed?

  She drew a shuddery breath. ‘This is gilt and gold and deep red velvet drapes and priceless original artworks and cornices in enormous entryways that take my breath away. This is more than a rabbit hole and a golden pumpkin coach and a few other fables meshed together. This is—’ Her brown-eyed gaze locked with his and she said hotly as though it were the basis of evil: ‘You’re a prince!’

  ‘My royal status is no surprise to you.’ What did surprise Rik was how attractive he found the sparkle in her eyes as indignation warred with guilt and concern on her lovely face. He’d never responded this way to Nicolette. He didn’t want to now. This was a business arrangement. His lack of attraction to Nicolette was one of the reasons he’d chosen her. It would be easy to e
nd their marriage and walk away.

  So no more thoughts such as those about her, Rik!

  ‘But it is a surprise. I mean, it wouldn’t be if I’d already read about you in a magazine or something and I certainly completely believe you.’ Shaking fingers tucked her hair behind her ear.

  She didn’t even sound like the woman he remembered. She sounded more concerned somehow, and almost a little naïve.

  A frown started on his brow. He’d put down her openness, the blurting of a secret or two to him when he collected her, to the influence of the allergy medication. But that had worn off now. Suspicion, a sense of something not right, formed deep in his gut. He took a step towards her, studied her face more closely and wished he had taken more notice of Nicolette’s features years ago. Those freckles on her nose—? ‘Why do you seem different?’

  ‘Because I’m not who you think I am,’ she blurted, and drew a sharp breath. Silence reigned for a few seconds as she seemed to gather herself together and then she squared her shoulders. ‘My full name is Nicole Melanie Watson.’

  ‘Nicole…’

  ‘Yes.’ She rushed on. ‘I’m known as Melanie and have been since I went to live with my aunt, uncle, and cousin Nicolette when I was eight years old. Nicolette would fit right in here. I’ve tried to figure this out since I woke up in your private jet and realised I wasn’t at Sydney airport about to get off a plane there and go find a hostel to stay in while I searched for work because I could no longer stay—’

  She broke off abruptly.

  Sydney airport? Hostel? Search for work? There was something else about her statement, too, but Rik lost the thought as he focused on the most immediate concerns.

  ‘I am not certain I understand you.’ His tone as he delivered this statement was formal—his way of throwing up his guard. ‘Are you trying to tell me—?’

  ‘I think you meant to collect Nicolette and you got me by mistake. I don’t see what else could have happened. When you said my name before, I thought you said Nicole, not Nicolette. I thought I must have given my full name when I ordered the taxi.’