The Earl's Marriage Bargain

by Louise Allen

  18th October—Merton Tower

  ‘You look wonderful,’ said Verity, Duchess of Aylsham, as she tweaked the veil held in place by the wonderful Merton tiara.

  ‘I feel wonderful,’ Jane confessed. ‘I actually look...pretty?’ Through the gauze her image in the mirror was a little blurred.

  ‘No, you are not pretty,’ Melissa said, frowning at her. ‘You will never be pretty.’ There was a sharp intake of breath from her other two friends, Lucy and Prue. ‘You are beautiful,’ Melissa concluded.

  ‘That is love,’ Jane said as she took up her bouquet. ‘Come along, I cannot wait another moment to be married.’

  It took more than a few moments, swishing along the corridors, down the great staircase where Mama was waiting, handkerchief in hand, to tweak and fuss.

  Jem, newly promoted hall boy, was standing to attention in his smart new uniform, a big grin on his face as she passed him. Then they had reached the chapel door and poor Papa, who was white with nerves as Mama hurried past him to take her place.

  There was a swell of music, the rustle of silks and broadcloth as the congregation rose to their feet and ahead of her, beyond the pools of coloured light cast by the stained-glass windows, was Ivo. He was looking at her and even at this distance she knew the expression in his eyes, the tenderness of his smile. He held out his hand and Jane, not waiting to take her father’s arm, went straight down the aisle to her love.

  Ivo took her hand as she reached him, raised it to his lips. ‘At last,’ he said.

  ‘For ever,’ Jane whispered back.

  * * *

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from A Royal Kiss & Tell by Julia London.

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  A Royal Kiss & Tell

  by Julia London

  Chapter One

  Helenamar, Alucia

  1846

  It is an absolute truth that men and women alike desire the earnest vow of someone to love and cherish them all their days, and that nothing elicits joy in the breast of all mankind quite like a wedding.

  Recently, the most joyous occasion was the wedding of the universally admired Lady Eliza Tricklebank and His Royal Highness Sebastian Charles Iver Chartier, the Crown Prince of Alucia.

  The bride entered Saint Paul’s Cathedral in the Alucian capital city of Helenamar at half past twelve. She wore a gown of white silk and chiffon. It was fashioned in the Alucian style, cut close to the body and featuring a customary train thirty feet in length. The train was hand stitched in silver and gold thread with the symbols of Alucia and England, including the famous Alucian racehorses, the mountain buttercup and the Chartier coat of arms. England was duly represented in the Tudor rose, the lion and the English royal banner. The Alucian national motto, Libertatem et Honorem, was embroidered in tiny scalloped letters around the hems of the sleeves.

  The bride wore a veil anchored with a diamond tiara with a center stone weighing ten carats, lent to her by Her Majesty Queen Daria. Around her neck she wore a pearl necklace comprising twenty-three pearls, one for each of the provinces in Alucia, a gift from His Majesty King Karl. On her breast Lady Tricklebank wore a sapphire-and-gold brooch, a wedding gift from her fiancé, Prince Sebastian.

  The prince was dressed in a black frock of superfine wool, worn to midcalf, a white waistcoat embroidered in miniature with the same symbols of Alucia and England as the bride’s train, and a silk cravat trimmed in silver and gold thread. He wore the crown bestowed on him at his investiture as crown prince.

  After the ceremony, the newlyweds rode in open carriage to Constantine Palace through a throng of well-wishers that lined the avenue for three miles.

  The king granted the prince and his new bride the titles of Duke and Duchess of Tannymeade. They will reside in the port city at Tannymeade Palace.

  Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

  THE PROMISE INHERENT in any wedding was delightful, but if it were a royal wedding, the paroxysms of joy might very well result in smiles permanently frozen to all the cheerful faces. It would turn the most jaded heart to gold. And if the beatific royal bride were one’s dearest friend, it would provoke cascading waves of unbridled happiness.

  Lady Caroline Hawke was over the moon at the good fortune of her dearest friend, Eliza Tricklebank, who was, at that very moment, swearing her love and fealty to Prince Sebastian. Until a scant few months ago, Eliza had been determined to be a spinster and care for her blind father for the rest of his days. She spent her days in plain gowns and aprons, alternately reading to her father or engaging in her curious hobby of repairing clocks. But then Eliza was invited to a royal ball, and a man was murdered, and she was given some gossip that pointed to the identity of the killer, and the next thing Caroline knew, her Eliza was marrying a man who would one day be king of this country. Which meant Eliza would be queen.

  It was so improbable, so impossible, that it went well beyond even the wildest fairy tale Caroline had ever heard or had the capacity to imagine.

  Seated in the front row of the cathedral, a place of honor awarded to her as Eliza’s dearest friend, Caroline was a little misty about it. Eliza radiated happiness. Caroline had never considered herself the sentimental type, but here she was.

  She shifted her gaze to Prince Leopold, standing beside his brother, Prince Sebastian. She wondered what he thought of the occasion and the happy couple. He was quite tall and had a robust and muscular figure. The broad shoulders of his coat tapered to a slim waist, then flared out again. He looked so regal and masculine that Caroline allowed herself a bit of a daydream—she imagined walking down this very aisle on his arm.

  She refused to ruin this pleasant little dream by recalling his wretched reception of her at the royal banquet. At that august event, he’d looked at her as if she were a servant come to take away his soiled clothing. He’d done it again during a morning ride through Klevauten Park that had been arranged for the wedding guests. On that day, when she’d galloped up beside him and his friends, he’d frowned and said, “You must be lost, madam.” As if she were some ragamuffin who had slipped into a royal party!

  Fortunately for him, Caroline had a forgiving nature and, in spite of her pique, could still imagine what it would be like if Prince Leopold were to smile at her the way Prince Sebastian smiled at Eliza. What joy it would be to walk down the aisle with him while wearing a gown as beautiful as Eliza’s, which, naturally, Caroline had helped the royal dressmakers to design. She had a keen eye for fashion.

  Next to Eliza stood her sister, Mrs. Hollis Honeycutt, the matron of honor. Hollis had the help of eight little cherubs to oversee the elaborate train affixed to Eliza’s wedding dress. The cherubs were dressed identically to Eliza, without the train, of course, because only the most seasoned of ladies could maneuver in them. Instead, the girls wore flower crowns on their heads. There were no bridesmaids.

  If it were Caroline’s wedding, she would have had a fleet of bridesmaids.

  But in Alucia, Eliza explained, that was not the custom. “Flower girls,” she’d said. “They come from all over the country. It’s quite an honor to be named a flower girl, as I understand it.”

  “But why can’t you have what you like?” Caroline complained, assuming, of course, that Eliza liked what she liked. Since the day of Eliza’s betrothal to Prince Sebastian, Caro
line had also assumed, quite incorrectly, that she would be the principal bridesmaid. After all, she and Eliza and Hollis had been entwined in one another’s lives since they were very little girls.

  “I am content with flower girls, honestly,” Eliza said. “I’d be content with a very simple affair. I was content with the civil ceremony. But Queen Daria prefers otherwise.”

  “Naturally, she does. This is the wedding where you will be seen by all the people you will rule one day.”

  Eliza snorted. “I will not rule, Caroline. I’ll be fortunate if I can find my husband in this massive place.” She’d gestured to the decorative walls around them. It was not an exaggeration—Constantine Palace appeared to be bigger than even Buckingham.

  “Let me be the maid of honor,” Caroline had begged her. “I am much better equipped to see to your train than Hollis is.”

  “I beg your pardon! I am her sister,” Hollis reminded Caroline.

  “The train is thirty feet, Hollis. How will you ever manage? You’ve scarcely managed your own train since we’ve been in Alucia. And my gown should be seen. I spared no expense for it.”

  Eliza and Hollis looked at Caroline.

  “I mean, of course, after your gown is seen.”

  The sisters continued to stare at her.

  Caroline shrugged a very tiny bit. “Obviously,” she added.

  “I rather thought that’s what you meant,” Eliza said charitably.

  The three of them had gleefully adopted the Alucian style of dress since arriving a month ago in Helenamar. The English style of dress—full skirts, high necks and long sleeves—was hot and heavy. They’d admired the beautiful Alucian gowns that fit the curves of a woman’s body, with the long flowing sleeves, and, most of all, the elaborately embroidered trains...until they discovered that the unusually long trains were a bit of a bother to wear.

  “I will manage,” Hollis had insisted. “No one has come to this wedding to see your gown, Caro.”

  “Well, obviously, Hollis, they haven’t. But they will be delighted all the same, won’t they? And by the bye, there’s no law that says the attendant of honor must be one’s sister.”

  “There is no law, but she is my sister and she will be the attendant of honor,” Eliza said. “And besides, if you were to stand with me, I’d fret the entire ceremony that you were too enthralled with Leo to even notice my train.” She’d arched a golden brow directly at Caroline.

  As if Caroline had done something wrong.

  She most certainly had not. “Leo? Is that what we’re calling him now?” she drawled. Leo was Prince Sebastian’s younger brother. His Royal Highness Prince Leopold.

  Prince Leopold, as everyone knew, had spent the last several years in England, “attending” Cambridge, which meant, in reality, that he spent more time at soirees and gentlemen’s clubs and hunting lodges than studying. Caroline had encountered him last summer in Chichester at a country house party. They’d engaged in a charming little exchange that Caroline recalled perfectly, word for word. Prince Leopold, on the other hand, remembered it not at all. Worse, he didn’t seem to remember her.

  The archbishop’s voice suddenly rose into a chant of some sort, drawing Caroline’s attention back to the ceremony. Oh dear, she was thinking about Prince Leopold again when she should be watching her best friend marry a prince. At that moment, Eliza slipped her hand into Prince Sebastian’s hand and held on tightly as the archbishop asked her to repeat after him in English. To love, to honor, to protect and defend.

  So romantic.

  Caroline glanced to her right. She was seated next to her brother, the baron Beckett Hawke. He was older than her by half a dozen years and had been her guardian since she was eight and he was fourteen. She leaned against him. “Isn’t she lovely?” she whispered.

  “Ssh.”

  “I think she is lovelier than even Queen Victoria on her wedding day,” Caroline whispered. “Her gown is beautiful. It was my idea to use the gold and silver thread on the train.”

  Beck pretended not to have heard a word.

  “Do you know, I think I could have made that train.”

  Her brother put his hand on Caroline’s knee and squeezed as he turned his pale green eyes to hers. He frowned darkly.

  Caroline pushed his hand away and glanced around her. It was massive, this Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Painted ceilings soared overhead with visions of angels and other godly images. All the fixtures were gold plated, particularly the pulpit, which looked more like a monument than a stand for the Bible. There was so much stained glass that the morning light fractured across Eliza’s long train, turning it into a moving rainbow as sunlight shimmered through the panes.

  Every seat in the massive cathedral was taken, filled with beautiful people of varying skin tones and colorful costumes and glittering jewels. They had come far and wide, Caroline understood, from countries she’d never even heard of.

  In a cove above the altar, a choir of young men and boys sang the hymns that had accompanied Eliza down the center aisle to meet her prince. It had sounded as if the heavens had parted and the angels were singing for this bride.

  The ceremony, almost an hour of it now, was filled with a lot of pomp and circumstance. Caroline wasn’t entirely certain what was happening, as the ceremony was conducted in Latin and Alucian and, for the parts Eliza had to say, in English. It seemed to her that Eliza and Sebastian were up and down quite a lot, one minute on their knees with their heads bowed, and standing the next, staring starry-eyed at each other. There was a somber moment when Eliza was directed down onto her knees alone. It looked as if she were knighted or anointed in some way, and when it was done, the archbishop put his hand to her head, the king and queen stood, and then Prince Sebastian lifted her up and pinned a gorgeous sapphire-and-gold brooch to her breast.

  “She’s a real princess now,” Caroline whispered to Beck.

  Predictably, he ignored her.

  Eliza looked like a princess, too, and Caroline wished Eliza’s father, Justice Tricklebank, could be here. Alas, his advanced age and blindness had made it impossible for him to attend. There had been a smaller, private ceremony in England—the first civil union—before Sebastian had returned to Alucia. That ceremony, which her father had attended, had been necessitated by the fact that Eliza and Sebastian could not seem to keep their hands from each other for as much as a few hours.

  There was another civil union once Eliza had arrived in Alucia so there would be no question of impropriety, as the heat between Eliza and her prince had only grown. It was embarrassing, really.

  But neither ceremony had been anything like this. This was a pageant, a feast for the eyes and hearts of romantics everywhere.

  Caroline’s mind drifted, and she wondered if all these people would be at the ball tonight. She hoped so. She had a beautiful blue Alucian gown trimmed in gold that was astoundingly beautiful. She’d made the train herself. The ball would be her moment to shine...next to Eliza, of course.

  Yesterday, Eliza had nervously counted out the heads of state that would attend the wedding and the ball and had turned a bit pale as the number mounted. Caroline’s pulse had leapt with delight.

  “I can’t bear it!” Eliza had exclaimed, unnerved by the number of dignitaries, of the many kings and queens. “What if I say something wrong? You know how I am. Have you any idea how many gifts we’ve received? Am I to remember them all? I’ve never seen so many gold chalices and silver platters and fine porcelain in all my life! What if I trip? What if I spill something on my gown?”

  “My advice, darling, is not to fill your plate to overflowing,” Hollis had said absently. She was bent over her paper, making notes for the periodical she published, the Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies. The twice-monthly gazette covered such topics as the latest fashions, domesticity and health advice, and—the most interesting part—the mo
st tantalizing on-dits swirling about London’s high society.

  Hollis could hardly keep up with the ravenous demand for society news now. She was planning to publish a gazette that would be twice the length of her normal offering with all the news of the royal wedding the moment she returned to London. She’d been busily dispatching letters to her manservant, Donovan, for safekeeping throughout the month they’d been in Alucia.

  She was so preoccupied that her advice, while offered freely, was not offered with much thought, and Eliza took exception. “I beg your pardon! I’ve hardly eaten a thing since I’ve arrived in Alucia. At every meal the queen looks at me as if she disapproves of everything I do! I’m afraid to do anything, much less eat,” Eliza complained. “They’ll all be looking at me. They’ll be waiting for me to do something wrong, or speculating if I’m already carrying the heir. You cannot imagine how much interest there is in my ability to bear an heir.”

  “Well, of course!” Caroline said cheerfully. “You’ll have to be a broodmare, darling, but after you’ve given them what they want, you may live in conjugal bliss for the rest of your days surrounded by wealth and privilege and many, many servants.”

  “They won’t all be looking at you, Eliza. At least half the room will be looking at your handsome husband,” Hollis had said with a wink.

  Caroline was once again jolted back into the present when the archbishop lifted a heavy jeweled chalice above the heads of Eliza and Prince Sebastian. Surely that meant they were nearly done? Prince Sebastian took Eliza’s hand, and they turned away from the archbishop, facing the guests with ridiculously happy grins on their faces. They were married!

  Hollis turned, too, and even from where Caroline sat, she could see Hollis’s dark blue eyes shining with tears of joy. The guests rose to their feet as the prince and his bride began their procession away from the altar. Rose petals rained down on the couple and their guests from above. The little flower girls fluttered around behind Eliza like butterflies, flanking her train as they followed the couple down the aisle. Prince Leopold offered his arm to Hollis, and she beamed up at him. Caroline felt left out. Hollis and Eliza were near and dear to her heart, the closest thing to sisters she’d ever had, and she longed to be with them now.