Like all the greatest marketing tie-ins, you simply wonder why it took so long. How, in the name of sanity, did we get to 2009 before the RFU fell into bed with Mills & Boon, and spawned eight romance titles designed "to make rugby more appealing to women"?

Who knows, but English rugby's governing body has finally seen sense, and teamed up with the publisher in a project that will at long last usher the courtly rituals of the rolling maul into the romantic fiction landscape.

The books will hit the shelves on the eve of next month's Six Nations launch, and will be known as the International Billionaires series, indicating that Mills & Boon have finally given literary voice to the game's many, many player-oligarchs, who for too long have been overshadowed by the sort of chaps without two Siberian-Ural aluminium holdings to rub together, but who can down a size 15 bootful of beer, Tabasco and earthworms in under 20 seconds.

"We know women love rugby players," is the RFU's edifying official statement on the matter, "and this is a great way for us to reach a wider audience."

Upon the desk in front of me lies a copy of the first in this historic series, and if Ashley Cole's My Defence made one yearn for a virtual Guardian Sport book club, wherein we could share our experiences of that work, then the publication of The Prince's Waitress Wife should make us arch our backs in Mills & Boon-style longing for such a forum.

I shall endeavour to share some of its magic with you, because, as Mills & Boon's marketing director maintains – "If you love rugby, you'll definitely love these books". Feel free to shout "Challenge!" at any time.

The cover of The Prince's Waitress Wife shows a prince in full white tie and medals unzipping the back of some young filly's dress, presumably in a corporate hospitality suite at Twickenham. Her name is Holly, we soon learn, and she is a virgin waitress, while he is Prince Casper, a rugby-mad HRH who is soon to impregnate her.

He is given to attending games at rugby HQ – you just know he calls it rugby HQ, though it's never explicitly stated – with women who say things like "'Oh no, the poor guy's tripped. Right on the line! Why is everyone cheering. That's SO mean.' 'He didn't trip, he scored a try,' Casper growled, simmering with masculine frustration at her inappropriate comment."

Poor Holly doesn't fare much better. "That tackle was by the Italian hooker, is that right?'" she inquires at one point. "Suddenly aware that the sun was shining down on them, and she was far too hot, she released a few buttons on her jacket. 'I can't believe they named a rugby position after a prostitute.' 'They are called hookers because they use their feet to hook the ball in the scrum. They're a key...' His voice tailed off in the middle of the sentence, and all his attention was suddenly focused on the delicate lace of her camisole. 'Sorry, what was the question?'"

Of course, this isn't the only attempt to crowbar romance into a sporting scenario – I recently read a hilarious piece of slash fiction where Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard were more than happy playing with each other – but what really sets it apart is the RFU's decision to legitimise it as some kind of outreach programme, and brand the England Rose symbol on every book. Then again, as the author of The Prince's Waitress Wife is good enough to explain, the game is attracting an increasingly large female audience because "an international rugby match is an excellent place to study the male physique at its best".

Yes, just as endless pictures of Alex Curran easing shopping bags into her Bentley are widely held to be responsible for the unstoppable surge in football attendance in recent years, so the idea that a thinly-disguised Prince Harry character might knock them up in a debenture-ticketholders-only area at Twickenham will surely encourage women to stop talking about shoes or commitment issues, or whatever it is they do, and take their place in the stands.

In the meantime, let us simply salute the RFU's brilliantly aspirational judgment as to what draws women to watch sport – namely, the chance to swoon at rich blokes who might want to marry them. Or "No Knickers at Twickers", as the headline of their sublimely modern press release has it.