A Prince at Last! Read online

  “Do you have it here at the palace?”

  Juliet nodded. “I was going to use it as part of my thesis presentation.”

  “I think you’ll be putting it to a much better use this way,” the dowager queen stated.

  “I agree.” Luc put his arm around Juliet and hugged her to his side.

  His grandmother eyed them both doubtfully. “But still, we have less than forty-eight hours….”

  “No wedding, no coronation,” Luc stated.

  His grandmother threw her hands in the air. “All right, all right. I didn’t say it would be impossible. Just difficult.”

  Luc leaned down to kiss her. “You can manage ‘difficult’ with both hands tied behind your back.”

  “You charming sweet-talker, you. All right, leave it to me,” his grandmother stated in her most regal voice. “We’ll have your wedding on Sunday.”

  “I really don’t need a bridal shower,” Juliet was telling the dowager queen the next evening.

  “Nonsense. It’s tradition. My granddaughters have a lovely evening planned for you. Come, it’s time to open your gifts. We all worked together on this.”

  “Before we start, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say.” Ariane stood to face Juliet. “I know that throughout the years, while you never actually said anything about it, you’ve never quite felt as if you fit in, and I feel badly that I never did more to make you feel welcome.”

  “Me, too,” Marie-Claire said.

  “And I do, as well,” Lise agreed.

  Juliet blinked away the tears. “Thank you. That’s so sweet of you all. I realize now that my feelings of insecurity were rooted within me and weren’t caused by any of you deliberately trying to make me feel like an outsider.”

  “Maybe so, but we could have done more, included you more. We were too self-absorbed,” Ariane said.

  “We were princesses, it was our job to be self-absorbed.” Marie-Claire grinned.

  “Anyway, as Grandmama said, we all got together in planning our gifts for you,” Jacqueline continued. “Not that you gave us much time, but we like a challenge, or so Grandmama tells us. Our theme, of course, is something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

  “Open this one first.” Ariane handed her a large box, beautifully wrapped.

  Inside, Juliet found a gorgeous antique veil. “It’s the veil I wore at my wedding,” the dowager queen said.

  “And I at mine,” Marie-Claire said.

  “Then I wore it at my wedding,” Ariane said. “Now we would love for you to wear it.”

  Nothing could have indicated more their intention to include her as family, and nothing could have touched her more. For the first time in her life she really felt at home with these women. Juliet blinked, the tears in her eyes right on the verge of rolling down her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, “except thank you so very much.”

  “I get to wear the veil after you,” Jacqueline said. “As my something borrowed.”

  Juliet laughed. “I hope not for a few years yet.”

  The presents continued—a lovely string of pearls from Ariane for something new, a beautiful set of antique cameo earrings from Lise for something old, a racy pale-blue lingerie set from Marie-Claire, and, from the royal jewels, a stunning sapphire bracelet from the dowager queen as something blue. The bracelet matched the ring that she and Luc had selected from the many rings in the royal collection.

  And from Jacqueline came a ring box. “It’s not sapphires or anything like that,” she warned, a bit selfconsciously. “It’s our mother’s ring. With posies all around it. It’s very small, but I thought you’d like to wear it as a pinkie ring when you get married. Do you like it?”

  Juliet responded with a huge hug. Their mother hadn’t had much jewelry, because when she’d married King Philippe, he’d insisted she give it all away and start fresh. This ring was the only thing she’d kept. “Thank you.” Looking over her younger sister’s head, she told everyone, “Thank you all!”

  “Well, now.” Juliet could almost have sworn she saw a shimmer of tears in the dowager queen’s eyes as she announced, “It’s after nine. I fear that Jacqueline and I will have to leave now. We need our beauty sleep.”

  “Me, too,” Lise said. “A pregnant woman needs her rest.”

  “So do I,” Juliet said. “After all, I’m getting married in the morning.”

  “No, you stay a little longer,” the dowager queen told her. “Ariane and Marie-Claire have something else for you.”

  Ariane waited until they’d left before turning to Juliet. “Given the premise that less is more, I’ve arranged for a little entertainment for us this evening.”

  “Did you get the Dauberville String Quartet?” Juliet inquired.

  Ariane shook her head. “No, they weren’t available. Alistair,” she addressed the always reserved palace steward, “is the entertainment ready?”

  Alistair fixed her with a disapproving look before donning his customary look of blandness. “Yes, your highness.”

  “Good. Tell them to proceed. Come sit down, Juliet. Right here on this couch. Yes, that should give you a good view.”

  View? Of what? A second later Juliet had her answer as the door to the Ruby Salon burst open and a quartet of men marched in.

  “I told you to get good-looking men for this job,” Marie-Claire hissed to her sister.

  Ariane shrugged. “They were all booked. Regular Joe Party Boys Incorporated were all that was left at such short notice.”

  Juliet stared in disbelief at the out-of-shape, middle-aged men who were gyrating madly to the sound of “I’m Too Sexy.” Then they ripped open their shirts, revealing bulging bellies. She felt like sinking under the couch.

  Just when she thought matters couldn’t get any worse, as the men finished their production number by prancing in thongs, revealing a row of pudgy behinds, Luc walked into the room.

  Juliet sent him a silent plea to rescue her from this fiasco, but he just grinned at her. “Sorry to interrupt. I can see you ladies are busy at present. I’ll come back a bit later.”

  “No, Luc, wait!” Juliet called out, but he was gone.

  Ten minutes later the exotic dancers, as they called themselves, had completed their act and departed. Ariane and Marie-Claire were still wiping tears of mirth from their eyes, and Juliet had had to giggle a time or two herself at the men’s deliberately outrageous moves. They’d clearly been laughing at themselves and enjoying every moment of it.

  “Now can I go to bed?” Juliet asked the sisters.

  “Not quite yet,” Alistair surprised everyone by saying. “There’s one more item on the agenda this evening.”

  “Did you arrange this?” Ariane asked Marie-Claire, who shook her head.

  The music this time was Carly Simon’s classic “Simply the Best.” Alistair stepped out of the room and the door opened. Juliet, Ariane and Marie-Claire all gasped simultaneously.

  For in walked three sexy men dressed in flowing white shirts and well-fitted jeans. And they weren’t just any three men—they were none other than Marie-Claire’s husband Sebastian, Ariane’s husband Prince Etienne, and Juliet’s fiancé Luc.

  Of course, Juliet only had eyes for Luc. “We heard you ladies were looking for a little entertainment this evening,” he drawled, his smoky blue gaze fixed on Juliet.

  A moment later, they ripped off their shirts and let them drop to the floor. Juliet’s heart raced at the sight of Luc wearing nothing but a wicked grin and jeans that hung low on his lean hips, revealing his sexy navel.

  Coming closer, Luc held out his hand, inviting her to join with him in a royal version of salsa dancing that was more like swaying to the music while wrapped in each other’s arms, his thighs pressed between hers.

  “Never let it be said the de Bergeron girls don’t know how to throw a bridal shower!” Ariane and Marie-Claire laughed as they and their husbands danced their way out of the room.

  “An
d never let it be said that their men don’t know how to keep them on their toes and make them happy,” Luc added with a wicked smile.

  The only thing Juliet remembered about her wedding the next afternoon was Luc looking incredibly handsome as he said his vows to her. The Victorian-style wedding dress Juliet’s friend had made looked wonderful with the dowager queen’s veil and the jewelry her sisters had given her.

  Juliet felt part of a strong bond as she smiled at the sisters, who were her bridesmaids—Jacqueline, Ariane, Marie-Claire and Lise. All were lovely in ivory gowns shimmering with beadwork. Once again, the dowager queen’s favorite dressmaker Madame Chantille had come to the rescue. And Juliet’s brother Georges had flown in from summer skiing in South America to give Juliet away.

  It was a perfect day.

  The coronation ceremony would begin immediately following their wedding. The body of the St. Michel Cathedral was packed. Invitations were at a premium and overflow accommodation was provided in the gallery above the east door. Some sixty European royals were there, filling the pews. Television cameras covered the ceremony while reporters waited outside.

  But, just as last night, Juliet only had eyes for Luc.

  She said her vows with the utter confidence of a woman marrying the man she loved. And when the priest said, “You may now kiss your bride, your majesty,” Luc lifted the veil from her face and took Juliet in his arms. Her happiness was complete, not with this happy ending but with this happy beginning of the rest of her life—a life shared with Luc.

  Epilogue

  One year later…

  Juliet sadly shook her head at King Luc of St. Michel. “I never thought you’d leave me for another woman.”

  “I didn’t leave you,” Luc denied as he climbed back into bed with her. “I just went to change Michelle’s diaper.”

  Juliet sighed. “She’s a gorgeous baby girl, isn’t she? And I’m not just saying that because she’s my daughter.”

  “Of course not.”

  She gazed at him earnestly. “I mean, other babies are cute. Yvette’s two little ones, Anise and Paul, are cute.” DNA testing had confirmed that Celeste’s baby girl had indeed been sired by her lover Claude and not by King Philippe. Yvette had renamed her son Paul and, as promised, was raising both children as her own with assistance from the palace. Luc had said, rightly so, that it wasn’t fair to burden Yvette with the extra cost of another child without providing financial help.

  “Yes, they are cute and a handful now that they are over a year old.”

  “And Lise’s little girl is adorable, as is Ariane’s newborn son. And Marie-Claire told me just yesterday that she’s pregnant.”

  “First you girls all get married within a few months, now you all have babies.” He shook his head.

  “We’re a close family,” Juliet noted with a grin. “But our Michelle is special.”

  “Of course she is. I’m sure she smiled at me while I changed her diaper tonight.”

  “She probably was showing her appreciation, not only for the changing of her diaper but for the changing of the constitution, allowing females to inherit the throne of St. Michel.”

  Luc shrugged modestly. “It was nothing. It was time for St. Michel to join the twenty-first century.”

  “It was a big thing, Luc.”

  “Want me to show you another big thing?” he murmured seductively, snaring her in his arms.

  “Why, you wicked man, you!” She pulled him even closer.

  “I was referring to my smile. What did you think I meant?”

  Juliet just grinned at him. “I love you so much, Luc.”

  “Show me,” he whispered.

  She did, with great enthusiasm. She’d found her prince at last and he was the king of her heart.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cathie Linz for her contribution to the ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR series.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5339-4

  A PRINCE AT LAST!

  Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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  *Men of Honor

  †Three Weddings and a Gift