Marion Lennox - Wanted - Royal Wife and Mother

Matty had reacted with joy to the news of Rafael and Kelly’s engagement, whooping and bouncing with an excitement that made him seem less of a Crown Prince and more of a little boy with the world at his feet. From the time of the landslip the castle seemed to be tumbling with new life and new puppies and a kid who’d been released from his royal imperatives.

His lessons from Crater had been quartered. ‘For there’s all the time in the world for Matty to learn his royal obligations,’ Kelly had decreed. ‘For the next twenty years, those obligations are the responsibility of his parents.’

His parents…

For Matty had parents now and he approved entirely. Rafael would be his father as well as Prince Regent. Matty thought that was the neatest thing in the whole world. In the mornings he bounced into bed with Kelly, hugging her tight, claiming to the world that he had a mother he loved.

His Aunt Laura was in the front pew, weeping into a still inevitably paint-spattered handkerchief. Matty couldn’t figure that one out. Why was she crying? He was watching this wedding with joy and love and anticipation of a very good party.

If they’d just get on with it.

And so they did.

‘With this ring I thee wed…’

Rafael took the ring from Matty and he placed it on his bride’s finger. His bride…Kelly, who’d embraced the royal wedding with enthusiasm and love. Her dress was truly wondrous. She looked like an Elizabethan bride, a true royal princess. Her dragon train swept out behind her, the golden embroidery shimmering in the sunlight streaming through the ancient stained glass windows. She looked truly regal.

But she also looked like a woman in love. She smiled mistily up at her bridegroom and the whole cathedral seemed to dissolve.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, Crater thought, wiping away a surreptitious tear himself. And then, as he thought of what approached-the formal joining of these four nations to become one mighty Federation, he abandoned trying and let his tears flow freely.

These four Princes with their brides…Who said love couldn’t conquer all? he thought. Love was making a damned fine fist of conquering all, right here, right now.

And the next morning-the first morning of their married life-they started as they meant to go on. Prince Rafael and Princess Kellyn rode together at dawn.

For their wedding gifts to each other were horses. Blaze would be ridden and loved and cared for, as would the other horses in the stables, but Blaze had been a part of Kass’s life. He belonged to Matty now.

Kelly and Rafael needed to find their own future.

So they’d stolen two days from the mad preparation for the wedding and they’d spent those days looking at horses. They’d found Kelly’s mare first. She was a silky-coated two-year-old, a soft grey with white markings, fearless and gentle in equal measure. She’d been bred for sale, but the farmer who’d bred her couldn’t bear to part with her. Until now.

When the word had gone out that the Princess Kellyn needed a horse, she’d been quietly proffered. Her name was Cher, meaning beloved, and she already was.

And for Rafael…Nero had taken longer to find, and in the end they’d had to travel to Italy. But he was worth every moment of travelling time. Nero was all black. When they’d first seen him, he’d seemed too big, too powerful, too breathtaking. But Rafael had mounted him and looked down at Kelly, his eyes gleaming with excitement and pleasure.

They’d bought him. Of course they’d bought him. For this was what the future held for them. Excitement and pleasure and challenge.

Hard work and commitment.

Love.

They rode side by side now, silent, each overwhelmed with the enormity of the step they’d taken, the pleasure-no, the bliss-of the night before and the knowledge that this was the beginning of their life together.

They emerged from the woodlands to the open pastures. Here the horses could have their heads, taking the gentle rise at a gallop. Finally they reached the summit, where the land swept down again deep into a valley before rising to the Alps beyond.

They reined in their horses and turned to look back the way they’d come.

From here they could see the castle, vast and regal in the soft, dawn light. They could see the village, and the scar of raw earth above it. But from here they could also see the mass of green, the blanket planting of trees that was the first of many such undertakings.

This country would grow now, and flourish.

As would their marriage.

Rafael leaned across and took Kelly’s hand. The horses edged together, as if sensing they were part of this partnership, part of this loving.

‘We’ve done it,’ Rafael said softly as the first rays of the sun appeared over the distant Alps, casting a golden hue over the entire landscape. ‘We can’t go back now, my love.’

‘No,’ she whispered and she trusted Cher enough to put both her arms around her husband, hold him close and raise her face to be kissed. ‘Why would we want to?’ she asked unsteadily when he finally, reluctantly, released her. ‘We have a country to rebuild. We have a family to love. We have each other.’

‘Do you think that’s enough?’ he asked, his eyes wicked with laughter and desire and happiness.

‘Not quite,’ she said, leaning against him and soaking in the first rays of the golden sun. ‘I believe I have a bus to build as well.’

‘What about a gold-mine or two to dig?’

‘Maybe that too,’ she said serenely. ‘And a library to catalogue.’

‘Just as well we have a lifetime,’ Rafael said with satisfaction and kissed her again, so deeply she felt herself melt in a pool of white-hot desire. ‘So much to do, my love, and so much loving to fit in along the way.’ He released her again with reluctance, and twisted on Nero to tug blankets free from his saddle-bags. He smiled across at her as he tossed them down on the lush pasture, his smile wicked and wanton and filled with pure, unadulterated lust.

‘Maybe we should start now,’ he said softly. ‘For I doubt if a lifetime is long enough.’

Marion Lennoxis a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on-mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a “very special doctor,” Marion writes for the Medical Romance as well as the Harlequin Romance ®lines (she used a different name for each category for a while-if you’re looking for her past Harlequin Romance novels, search for author Trisha David as well).

In her non-writing life, Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost).

Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her “other” career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritized her life, figured out what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!