Page 30 of His Royal Bride Replacement

Dumbfounded by that enquiry coming at her out of the blue, Rosy frowned in bewilderment. ‘Definitely not. I spent twenty years living in the same house with the same family she left behind when I was a baby. At any time, she could’ve visited, phoned or written if she had ever been curious about me…and she neverdidand that tells me all I need to know,’ she confided calmly. ‘Wherever she went, she didn’t look back on abandoning me with regret. I’m just not interested now. Vittoria gave me photos of my mother taken during the eighteen months that she lived with my father and was able to satisfy my curiosity. I look a little like her.’

‘But what if she chooses to get in touch with you?’

‘Why on earth would she do that?’

‘Our marriage has been widely covered in the newspapers and an abandoned child who has become a queen may be a more alluring prospect,’ Alessio remarked with unhidden cynicism.

‘I would still not want any interaction…or the complications that could come with it. Is it awful to admit that I’m more excited by our coming reunion with Clover?’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘Am I heartless?’

Alessio closed a hand round her clenched fingers. ‘Not at all. I admire your practicality and backbone. You can’t feel an attachment to a stranger who made it obvious that she was not attached to you.’

‘Even though I’m aware that there may have been extenuating circumstances?’ Rosy winced as she made that intervention. ‘I mean, maybe she was suffering postnatal depression and was simply too ashamed when she recovered to check up on me. Possibly my father was abusive towards her as well. There could be a lot of stuff I don’t know about her situation back then, so I’ve always tried not to be judgemental about it,’ she confessed ruefully.

‘I feel that inourcircumstances,’ he stressed, ‘it may be wise to look into her disappearance in advance and discover, if we can, whatdidhappen. Did she remarry and have more children? Are there other family members involved? She may not even still be alive…unhappily, that possibility has to be checked out. But it’s up to you what you choose you do. May we seek further info…or not?’

Rosy swallowed hard at that fair enquiry. She saw his point, she more than saw his point because, as the Queen of Sedovia, she would be very visible, and it was his job to protect the monarchy. ‘You can make enquiries if you think it’s necessary, but I would prefer not to know the results…unless she has passed away.That, I would prefer to know,’ she specified.

Although that was a partial lie she was giving him, she acknowledged inwardly. Her mind was already roaming through other various possibilities that had not occurred to her before. That she might have half-siblings? A living mother out there? Things she had never allowed herself to wonder about before because they had seemed pointless. Unsettled, she lay back in her leather recliner and closed her eyes, strivingnotto wonder.

Alessio’s gaze rested on her delicate, taut profile and he suppressed a sigh. He had suspected that his question would upset her, and it had. But hopefully, he reasoned, it would be worth it in the end because he was less concerned about some silly scandal that might shadow the throne in the future and rather more concerned with protecting Rosy from the unexpected and the risk of distress. She had dealt bravely and compassionately with her mother’s desertion, and he refused to let that issue come back to haunt her.

They had barely arrived at the palace and, indeed, were waiting in the echoing hall for the lift when a small, rather pompous man in a suit marched up to Rosy and planted a file in her hand. ‘Your schedule this week, Your Highness. I thought we should take the first possible opportunity to go over it.’

‘And this isn’t therightopportunity, Antonio,’ Alessio sliced in levelly. ‘My wife has been travelling and she is now about to move into her new home. She must have time to settle in and choose her own interests from the large number available.’

Disconcerted by that interference, the man went into retreat while Alessio guided Rosy into the waiting lift. ‘I could’ve done it,’ she told him anxiously.

‘I know you could but there’s no necessity for you to leap straight in with both feet into an unfamiliar environment. I want you to take your time and decide which ventures you wish to support. I thought possibly…’ he grinned at her as Clover surged out of the sitting room and the puppy hurled herself at Rosy’s knees and she knelt down to deal with loads of puppy kisses and licks ‘…animal rescue. There are several associations to choose from, any of which would be delighted by your support. And possibly…er, children.’

‘If that’s viable when I’ve none of my own,’ Rosy quibbled. ‘Although I’m hopefully going to be an aunt again in a few months.’

Clover bundled in her arms like a wriggling parcel, Alessio proceeded to show her around his wing of the palace. It had everything, absolutely everything, she registered in pleasurable surprise. It was far larger than she had appreciated on her brief visit to change out of her wedding gown in that bedroom two weeks earlier. There was a gym, an entire room to be devoted solely to her wardrobe, their separate offices and Alessio confided that he had had a small kitchen installed while they were in Spain in case she took the notion to cook for him. The smile in his eyes told her that he was very much hoping she succumbed to that temptation.

‘You are a fabulous cook,’ he pointed out as they traipsed on through innumerable bedrooms and reception rooms.

‘So is the palace chef,’ she traded. ‘But I do enjoy cooking sometimes.’

‘And these will beourrooms.’ Alessio thrust wide a door into the vast crown prince’s suite. ‘Not just mine but yours as well. We will rewrite historical precedent andshare.’

Rosy nodded, a singing in her heart that he had thought that out for himself. She had only the haziest concept of his usual schedule, only a vague recollection that he was always coming back and going somewhere else for the fuss made of his returns was memorable for anyone on the palace staff. He was incredibly popular with employees working for him, which was why she had been startled when he had brushed off Antonio’s request because Antonio was one of his senior advisers and probably quite unaccustomed to such treatment. If Alessio wasn’t careful, he would makeherunpopular because without a doubt any changes made would be laid at her door.

Over breakfast the next morning, Rosy listened at length to Alessio’s elaborate plans to divest them of long day schedules crammed with meetings and appearances and on her second cup of tea finally mustered the gumption to venture her own opinion. ‘Yes, but none of that is really practical just at the moment with the coronation so close,’ she remarked apologetically. ‘We’ll have to buckle down and just get on with it for the next couple of weeks andthenyou can begin making changes.’

Comprehension gripped Alessio like a vice. Possibly two heads being better than one was a more useful cliché than he had previously foreseen, he conceded grimly. He nodded. ‘Obviously. Possibly you could be free for Antonio’s meeting at some time today?’

Rosy read his air of frustration, quite understanding that Alessio had a new broom mentality, full of fire and vigour, but she was a little more realistic than he was because very little could be achieved overnight. ‘Of course. We’ll get through this stage bit by bit. It’s just unlucky that there’s onlyoneof you,’ she commented. ‘When your father was at this stage, he had an adult son to stand in for him.’

Alessio laughed at that ‘only one of you’ and cracked a joke about the unlikelihood of his parents having ever produced a second child. His less than sunny mood had dissipated as he rose from the table and they parted to go separate ways. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’

But the heavy list of dinner parties leading up to the coronation meant that they didn’t really see each other except in parting or across a room over the following ten days and Rosy was so exhausted when she fell into bed every evening, she didn’t even stay awake long enough to notice Alessio’s arrival. Most mornings she wakened to a mere dent in the pillow beside hers. She was much too busy to fret about his absence and quite saw why he had hoped to change things, even if he had picked the wrong time to try and do it. He was much more aware of such stuff than she was, she censured herself. This royal life had always been his andshehadn’t really known what she had been talking about.

And then in the space of a moment, the day before the coronation, everything changed for Rosy when a member of the PR team brought her a printout from a website, titledGold-Digger Scams Sedovian Royal Family!

Rosy was horrified as she scanned a disturbingly accurate financial estimate of her family’s hotel misfortunes and her family’s obvious prosperity since the wedding. White as milk, she read the entire lengthy report, which invited the Sedovian public to make up their own minds about how a ‘commoner’ like Rosalia had ‘forced’ herself on Alessio. Had she or her family used some secret blackmail to entrap the Crown Prince over some youthful indiscretion of his? Blatant lies followed in named quotes of people that Rosy had never heard of, vilifying her reputation with men and money. It was all nasty, sordid stuff.

‘This website has already been taken down, Your Highness. The lawyers were able to enforce that under threat of a libel suit.’

‘But how many people must haveseenit?’ Rosy gasped, upset beyond belief as she thought of her family hearing about such accusations, most especially when there was a tiny kernel of truth in the story.

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