The Prince's Secret (Prince Harry Fanfic)

Part 92 - The Royal Non-Wedding, Part 2

We both laughed at that and as she turned to leave I said, "Wait a minute!" and jumped up. The makeup artist stepped back with a heavy sigh.

The florist was at a table across the room, making last-minute adjustments to my bouquet. "Do you have any more of that...and a little bit of those?"

I raced across the room—bloody hell, the rooms were so large you actually could race across them—and handed Randa a length of blue silk ribbon and a few sprigs of lily of the valley. "Here—can you braid these in as well?"

"Of course."

We hugged again, but it was my non-wedding day and I expected there would be lots of hugging going on. Randa took off for the stables and I returned to my chair with a sigh, so the making-up and hair-doing could continue.

After a thoroughly boring couple of hours I was primped and curled and steamed and ready—on the outside anyway—to face the public.

The designer I had finally chosen, after interviewing over a dozen famous names, was a young unknown named Emma Greenleaf. We spent a few days together looking over my sketches and discussing ideas and visited the Victoria and Albert museum together to look at riding habits. She even came to the stables to meet Driz and match fabric samples against her, so the dress would not clash with her dapple gray coat. The fancy ladies would have groaned at the thought, but it was important to me, and I was happy that the designer was so willing to work with me.

In the end my non-wedding dress was fairly simple, by royal wedding standards. It was tightly fitted on top with a very short train, just long enough to drape beautifully when I was riding, with a series of hidden buttons to make that possible. There was very little lace but the lightly patterned damask and dozens of pearl buttons were decoration enough. After much spirited debate with the wedding ladies I opted not to wear a veil since anything longer than the dress would be hazardous on horseback. Instead I left most of my hair hanging loose, with only a bit curled and tucked up under the tiara.

Picking the tiara was a real Cinderella fairy-tale experience. Harry and I went to Buckingham Palace to look at the selection of tiaras the Queen had chosen but since she was delayed Harry and I were left to wander among the jewels alone.

Even on the gray afternoon the reception room was full of sparkling diamonds and glittering gems. I was quickly overwhelmed but Harry took my hand as we looked them over.

"There's no way I can pick one," I murmured, for the array of jewels seemed to demand respect. "They're all so...much," I said. "I mean...just look at that one." I pointed to a bandeau tiara covered in diamonds. "Who would wear that? It's way too sparkly."

"They're all sparkly, I'm afraid," Harry said with a laugh, squeezing my hand. "I don't want to influence your choice but there is one here that I asked Granny to bring over."

"Which one?"

"See if you can guess."

I groaned, not wanting the additional pressure of trying to pick Harry's favorite out of the sparkle parade. Still, it was easier to do this without the Queen hovering around as well so I tried to focus on finding one that would look good with my simple gown and eliminating those that wouldn't. The emerald one would clash with the blue tint of my dress and ditto for the one with the rubies. The diamond bandeau was too showy. The one with the sapphires was lovely but maybe a bit too tall. I really wanted something smaller and less...princess-y, as stupid as that sounded.

"Don't you want to try any of them on?" Harry asked, gesturing to the mirror that had been thoughtfully placed on a table with the tiaras.

"Yes," I said suddenly, pointing. "That one."