CHAPTER FOUR

      OVERNIGHT, THE BALMY weather of the past few weeks turned into torrential rain. Even Monte Cleure, famed for its year-round sun, had to deal with winter in some form or other.

      The weather hadn’t been enough to deter the well-wishers however. Peering through binoculars from her bedroom window, Catalina could see them lining the palace perimeter, huddled under umbrellas.

      The people of Monte Cleure clearly hadn’t taken the palace’s statement that today’s wedding would be a ‘small, private affair’ to heart.

      It touched her to see them there and it warmed her too.

      This was what she was doing it for. These people without whose good wishes and consent her family would have nothing. Her father ruled but, as with all monarchies in this day and age, his grip was not as firm as it had once been. If the people revolted, he could do nothing to turn the tide.

      In order for the House of Fernandez to endure, it had to bring peace and prosperity to its people. The House of Fernandez had to be loved. And it had to be above reproach. Dominic’s lusty antics were tolerated with ironic smiles; his public persona very much at odds with the private man behind closed doors. When he finally took the plunge and married, the whole country would unite as one to celebrate. Catalina hoped he put the day off for as long as possible. She couldn’t bear to think of how he would treat his wife.

      But now was not the time to worry about her hypothetical future sister-in-law. She had her own wedding to get through. In three hours she would marry Nathaniel. Tonight she would move into his apartment.

      The thought of living with him...it should terrify her. But the bubbles in her stomach didn’t feel like terror. They felt more like excitement. They would be a married couple. And that meant sharing a bed...

      She hated the excitement she felt at that. He’d made his disinterest abundantly clear during their night at the opera a week ago. Not only had he spelt it out in so many words, he’d then compounded it by leaving her in the first interval. She hadn’t seen anything of him since. He hadn’t taken her out or asked to see her or even called.

      There was a knock on her bedroom door. Marion, naturally hanging around like a bad smell, went to open it.

      Expecting to see her other companions, ready to start preparations to beautify Catalina for the main event, she was surprised to find her father’s private secretary, Lauren, standing there. Behind her stood four of her father’s more junior assistants.

      ‘Excuse me for disturbing you, Your Highness,’ Lauren said, ‘but we need to do an inventory of your jewellery.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘Your father has requested a full list of all the jewellery in your possession.’

      ‘What for?’ she repeated, wishing that Marion weren’t there watching her act like such a simpleton.

      ‘I’m not privy to his reasons. I assume it has something to do with your move.’ There was no mistaking the pity in Lauren’s eyes, but it didn’t detract from her matter-of-fact tone. ‘Your father is in his rooms if you wish to discuss it with him, but I have my orders and I need to report back in two hours. I will also need to take an inventory of your clothes.’

      ‘I’m getting married in three hours.’

      ‘It has to be done now. Your father will use it to decide which of your possessions will remain in the palace. He has staff in place to package the remainder during the celebrations for you.’

      ‘Marion, get my father on the line for me,’ Catalina said in a far snappier tone than she normally used.

      First the press release issued the other day without any prior warning, stating that all her royal duties and patronages were being suspended ‘for the foreseeable future’, ostensibly to allow her time to settle into her new marriage, and now this?

      What punishment would her father inflict next? Would he force her to strip to her underwear and do the walk of shame like her ancestors had done in medieval times?

      From the look on her cousin’s face, Marion was as much in the dark as she was. That was the only bright spot in this situation.

      But either her father really was unavailable or he didn’t want to talk to her. Marion reported back that he would see her when it was time to walk her down the aisle.

      Her mind awhirl over what this all meant, Catalina forced herself to remain outwardly calm. There was nothing she could do about any of it at that moment.

      But when an excited Aliana and Louisa arrived, and Catalina was sitting at her dresser as they began their work, she couldn’t switch off her mind.

      Was it really such a shameful thing she had done? After all, Isabella, her younger sister, had been allowed to marry non-royalty. Their father had even given his blessing. But then, Isabella’s husband, although he was a commoner too, didn’t have Nathaniel’s lousy reputation.

      And Isabella had always been able to twist both their father and Dominic around her little finger.

      Catalina had always been the good, dutiful daughter but now one mistake had turned her into an outcast.

      Make that two mistakes. She’d let Helios go. In her father’s eyes, their broken engagement was her fault and the subsequent perceived shame heaped on the House of Fernandez her fault too. In his eyes, she hadn’t tried hard enough to keep him. The daughter he had groomed to marry one of the Kalliakis Princes—and any of them would have done—had let them all slip through her fingers, destroying the Great Marriage he had engineered from the day of her birth.

      Isabella was lucky she had fallen in love with Sebastien before any of the Kalliakis Princes had married, Catalina thought ruefully. Their father had given his blessing to his favourite daughter, arrogantly assuming Catalina would snare the greatest prize.

      As serene as she tried to appear to be, as she sat there with her companions fussing over her, applying her make-up and doing her hair, it felt like nails scraping down a blackboard to witness Lauren and her assistants trawl through her wardrobes and jewellery boxes, carefully and efficiently itemising each and every single one of her possessions. One of them even made a note of the earrings she had on.

      Nothing felt right. She’d left the opera with little peace, and the disquiet within her had grown as the days had passed. She was marrying Nathaniel for the sake of her family. All her life she had put duty above her own feelings. Always, she had accepted that was the way things were. But for the first time, she wanted to rail against it. The serenity with which she had endured her life had dissolved and now bubbled in her veins like carbonated lava.

      Knowing Nathaniel was only marrying her to protect his investment...it sent those bubbles into a frenzy. It was the polar opposite of the way she’d felt while engaged to Helios, who had only intended to marry her for the blueness of her blood and the heir she was supposed to provide. Whoever she married after Nathaniel would also expect an heir.

      Somehow being regarded as a blue-blooded breeding machine didn’t evoke a fraction of the anger the thought of marrying Nathaniel did.

      Marrying Nathaniel...

      She had never felt so many heightened emotions in her life.

      She had never been more scared in her life.

      She was also scared for her future. How would Johann, the Swedish duke, or whoever she was forced to marry after Nathaniel, treat her child? How would they treat