Kandy Shepherd - Falling For The Secret Princess

Natalia hadn’t mourned the death of her grandfather, and her grandmother had remained a distant, disapproving figure. She’d never known her mother’s parents.

‘Really?’ she said, fascinated to know every detail of his life in the short time she had with him. Through him she could view life through a very different lens. ‘I’d love to hear about it.’

‘My grandfather and grandmother met each other in high school. It was like Romeo and Juliet set in the western suburbs of Sydney. His family owned the local Chinese restaurant—her family the Italian. Neither family was happy for their child to marry out of their culture—the old migrant story.’

Natalia leaned closer, sensing a real-life romance very different from her own family history of loveless arranged marriages. She was better off being single than being pushed into that kind of marriage—although to be fair to her parents, they had not pressured her, even when she’d said no to each of the unsuitable and unlovable six.

Anyway, how could you be sure of love? Her late brother Carl’s marriage to Sylvie, the daughter of a duke, had supposedly been a ‘love match’. Carl had been head over heels with her, and she’d seemed the same with him. But once she’d had her lavish wedding in the cathedral she’d proved to be greedy and avaricious, more in love with the wealth and status of being Crown Princess than with her husband. And there was no divorce for Montovian royalty. Make a bad choice and you were stuck with it for life.

‘It must have been difficult for them if they had to defy their families,’ she said.

‘They say it only made them all the more determined to be together,’ said Finn. ‘Once they were twenty-one they could marry without their families’ consent and they did. Fortunately they were both passionate about food, and my grandparents ended up running both restaurants. Their parents imported authentic ingredients from Asia and Europe, supplying other restaurants too. My nonna was a canny businesswoman and she soon grew the import side of the business so that it eclipsed the actual restaurants and they sold them.’

‘So where did you come in?’

‘I inherited their interest in food. However, my family also had a passion for education. I did a business degree at university, but worked all my vacations in the business. I went full-time when I graduated. I soon saw the opportunities for export as well as import. My grandparents handed the business over to me and I expanded it way beyond its original parameters. They still have a stake in it, but they’re enjoying their retirement. I take all the risks.’

‘Didn’t your parents and your sister feel they’d been passed over?’

The rules for inheritance were very strict in Montovia—for everyone, not just royals.

‘Not at all. My mother is a pharmacist. My father has his own construction company. My sister works with him. Seems we like keeping things in the family.’

‘Sounds like your family is very close.’

‘Yeah. It is. But that’s enough about me. What about you?’

‘My family story isn’t as interesting as yours,’ she said.

Of course it was—an unbroken line of rulers stretching back hundreds of years—but she couldn’t share that.

‘Just ordinary, really. I have a brother.’ It was too painful to mention her other brother, whom she had adored; his loss still cut too deeply. ‘My parents take rather too much interest in my life—which is annoying, considering I’m twenty-seven—but I guess that’s okay.’

‘It would be worse if they didn’t take an interest, wouldn’t it?’ he said with a smile.

‘True,’ she said, returning his smile and gazing into his green eyes for rather longer than was polite on a shared table.

Their heads had been bowed closely together, their voices low for the duration of the conversation. Reluctantly she broke her gaze away and returned her attention to the other people at the table, as good manners dictated.

A pleasant middle-aged couple sat opposite them—Eliza’s neighbours. Natalia and Finn chatted with them about how much they were enjoying the meal.

Once the plates for the main course had been cleared, the woman—Kerry—sat back in her chair. Her narrow-eyed gaze went from Natalia to Finn and back again. ‘So, is all the romance of this lovely wedding giving you two ideas?’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Natalia, completely taken aback.

‘You and Finn. Any plans for a wedding of your own?’

Natalia wasn’t often lost for a diplomatic reply to an unexpected question. But the Australian woman’s blunt questioning had her floundering. She looked up to Finn for help, only to see him struggling too.

‘No plans yet,’ he finally choked out.

‘You haven’t popped the question?’

‘No!’ he said.

‘How long have you been together?’

‘We...er...we only just met,’ Natalia said, flushing hot with embarrassment.

The woman frowned. ‘Really? Forgive me. It’s just that...’

‘Just that what?’ Natalia prompted, suddenly curious.

‘I’ve been around a while, and I can usually tell a perfectly matched couple. You two look so right together.’

Natalia gasped. She didn’t dare look at Finn, and was at a complete loss as to what to say. But Finn diplomatically came to the rescue.

‘I think we’re right together too,’ he said smoothly. ‘But it’s very early days.’

Natalia wished she could sink through the floor.

The woman smiled. ‘I see a wedding and I’m never wrong,’ she said, before turning her attention to her husband, who’d been trying to shush her.

Mortified, Natalia kept her eyes on her plate.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ Finn murmured in her ear. ‘She seems harmless. Unfortunately I seem to attract matchmakers. Weddings bring out the worst in them.’

If he only knew the level of matchmaking that had gone on—and continued to go on—when it came to Princess Natalia of Montovia. Finn O’Neill from Sydney, Australia—a merchant—would seem, in the eyes of her parents and the royal court, like a very unsuitable match indeed.

She was glad when the speeches started and she was able to turn away from the odd woman and any talk of matchmaking and marriage to face the top table.

THE SPEECHES WERE over and the bride and groom were dancing their first dance together. All the guests had been invited on to the dance floor to share the bridal waltz. At last Finn had Natalie in his arms—if only as a dance partner.

There was something intimate about an old-fashioned waltz. With her hand on his shoulder, his arms around her waist, she was kissing-distance close, her flowery perfume already familiar but no less alluring. Her body so near to his was warm, soft, sensual, and her innate rhythm kept them perfectly in step.

‘You dance very well,’ she said.

‘I tried to get out of lessons at school but there was no escape.’

‘You learned to waltz at school ?’

‘Private boys’ school. Ballroom dancing was seen as a social skill. But I only waltz at weddings.’ He twirled her around the room until she was breathless and laughing. ‘You’re a good dancer yourself.’

‘I also had lessons,’ she said.

Finn noticed she didn’t elaborate in any of her answers. Perhaps her life really had been ordinary, even dull, although he wondered how someone as poised and vivacious as Natalie could come from dullness. Maybe she hadn’t had the same opportunities in life he had been fortunate enough to have. Or the truth might be that her life hadn’t been very happy and she was reticent about reliving an unhappy past even in social conversation.