Read Online A Queen for the Taking? by Kate Hewitt - Free Book Online Page B

‘No cameras or publicity, like before.’
    Before, when Alyse and Leo’s charade had blown up in their faces, Liana knew, and they’d been exposed as having faked their fairy-tale love story for the entirety of their engagement. This time there was no charade, yet Liana still felt as if everything could explode around her. As if it already had.
    ‘All right, then.’ Paula touched her briefly on her shoulder. ‘You look lovely. Don’t forget to smile.’
    Somehow Liana managed to make the corners of her mouth turn up. Paula didn’t look all that satisfied by this expression of expectant marital joy, but she nodded and left Liana alone to face the double doors that led to the chapel, the small crowd, and Sandro.
    Drawing a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin. She was doing this for a good reason. Forget her own feelings, which she’d tried to forget for so long anyway. There was a good reason, the best reason, to marry Sandro, to make her life worth something. Her sister.
    For a second, no more, she allowed herself to think of Chiara. Chi-Chi. Her button eyes, her impish smile, her sudden laugh.
    I’m doing this for you, Chi-Chi , she thought, and tears, tears she hadn’t let herself cry for twenty years, rose in her eyes. She blinked them back furiously.
    Forward.
    ‘Lady Liana?’
    Liana turned to see Alyse Barras—now Diomedi—walking towards her, a warm smile on her pretty face. She wore an understated dress of rose silk, with a matching coat and hat. Silk gloves reached up to the elbow on each slender arm. She looked every inch the elegant, confident royal.
    Liana had met Alyse briefly at the dinner last night, but they hadn’t spoken beyond a few pleasantries.
    ‘I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk properly,’ Alyse said, extending one hand that Liana took stiffly, still conscious of the tears crowding under her lids. ‘I just wanted to tell you I know how you feel. Walking down an aisle alone can be a little frightening. A little lonely.’ Her gaze swept over Liana’s pale figure in obvious sympathy, and she instinctively stiffened, afraid those treacherous tears would spill right over. If they did, she feared there would be no coming back from it.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, and she knew her voice sounded too cool. It was her only defence against losing it completely in this moment. ‘I’m sure I’ll manage.’
    Alyse blinked, her mouth turning down slightly before she nodded. ‘Of course you will. I just wanted to say... I hope we have a chance to get to know one another now that we’re both part of this family.’ Her smile returned. ‘For better or for worse.’
    And right now felt like worse. Liana nodded, too wretchedly emotional to respond any further to Alyse’s friendly overture.
    ‘Thank you,’ she finally managed. ‘I should go.’
    ‘Of course.’ Alyse nodded and stepped back. ‘Of course.’
    Two footmen came forward to throw open the doors of the chapel, and with that icy numbness now hastily reassembled, her chin lifted and her head held high, Liana stepped into her future.
    The chapel was as quiet and sombre as if a funeral were taking place rather than a wedding. A handful of guests she didn’t know, her parents in the left front row. Sandro’s back, broad and resolute, turned towards her. She felt the tears sting her eyes again, her throat tighten and she willed the emotion away.
    This was the right thing to do. The only thing she could do. This was her duty to her parents, to the memory of her sister. She was doing it for them, not for herself. For Chiara....
    She repeated the words inside her head, a desperate chant, an appeal to everything she’d done and been in the twenty years since Chiara’s death.
    This was her duty. Her atonement. Her absolution. She had no other choice, no other need but to serve her parents and the memory of her sister as best she could.
    And as she came down the aisle she finally made herself believe it