His Majesty's Child

by Sharon Kendrick

  Casimiro saw the way her lips were pursing up and the memory of how they had whispered over certain parts of his anatomy during the night made him adopt a more conciliatory tone. ‘Anyway, you have your own diary, bella—certainly enough to keep you occupied. And your own programme of visits.’

  Aware that she was being fobbed off, Melissa nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘How are you getting along with your lady-in-waiting?’

  ‘She’s lovely.’

  ‘And the nanny? She meets with your approval?’

  Melissa sipped her coffee. She had baulked against the idea of having child-care—jealously wanting to have Ben all to herself. And wondering guiltily if she could justify having help when she wasn’t going out to work. But she had quickly worked out that she was being unrealistic and that she couldn’t really manage without help. ‘Sandy’s lovely, too—in fact, all the staff are.’

  ‘So what’s your problem?’

  Was that how he saw her simple request to ac company him, then—as some kind of problem—when all she wanted was to show him how the quality of their lives could be improved? That if they did more stuff together then perhaps they might start getting closer. Well, he was never going to know unless she told him and time was very precious—especially when you had a baby who was fast becoming a toddler. If they weren’t careful, then Ben would be halfway to being grown-up, with two parents who barely knew one another.

  ‘You haven’t taken Ben swimming for ages.’ This time her smile was wide. ‘And he’d so love to splash around in the big palace pool with his papa.’

  A pulse began to flicker at Casimiro’s temple. ‘I think I told you,’ he said evenly, ‘that I have employed the best swimming teacher on the island to do that—all you have to do is pick up the phone and they’ll be ready to start.’

  Melissa stood her ground. ‘But it isn’t the same, Casimiro.’

  ‘No, you’re right—it isn’t.’ He smiled. ‘Good though I am, mia cara, I’ve never actually won a gold medal at the sport.’

  Her lips curved into an answering smile, but it didn’t dint her determination. ‘Ben needs to see you.’

  ‘And he does see me.’

  Something in his implacable face made her growing frustration begin to splinter and the words flew out before she could stop them. ‘Yes, he sees you—but it’s always on your terms and only on your terms, isn’t it? For a few minutes in the morning and a few more snatched minutes in the evening. The occasional lunch at the weekend—if he’s lucky. A bit of a tickle and a bit of a play but it’s all so…so snatched. He’s…’

  She willed her thudding heart to slow and looked at Casimiro with appeal in her eyes. ‘He’s at a wonderful and impressionable stage of his life, darling—and he just adores it when he’s with you. But if it doesn’t happen often enough, then I’m afraid that you’re never going to…well, to bond with him.’

  Casimiro put down his coffee cup. ‘Bond?’ he repeated scornfully, but he could feel a cold kind of dread begin to wrap itself around his heart. As if she had pushed him to the edge of a cliff and were forcing him to look down, into the unknown. Starkly it reminded him of those raw feelings he’d first experienced when his mother had died—the ones he’d blotted out. And again when he’d awoken from his coma and everything familiar seemed to have been turned upside down. How dared she? How dared she try to tell him how to run his life when she was a novice to all this?

  ‘I’d prefer it if you kept all your psycho-babble out of this,’ he iced out repressively. ‘Perhaps when you’ve been around a little longer, you will understand that this is not the way we do things around here. This is not the way of Kings.’

  Something in his imperious attitude made Melissa’s fingers stop pleating the crisp napkin—and suddenly she realised that this needed to be said. Had to be said. Maybe it would clear the air or maybe it would make things worse but she had to try. For Ben’s sake—and maybe for their sake, too.

  ‘A way of life you obviously hated so much that you were about to reject it by abdicating,’ she said quietly.

  He looked around the vaulted breakfast chamber—the huge windows open to the fragrant drift of blooms just outside. ‘Keep your voice down.’

  ‘But nobody’s here,’ she said softly. ‘Nobody to hear but you and me.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he snapped.

  ‘But I do. And we’ve never really talked about it before, have we?’ she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘The subject was never open for debate.’

  ‘The subject is closed. Finished.’

  ‘But you can’t do that. You can’t veto something just because it makes you uncomfortable, Casimiro! Otherwise things just build up and up inside you. And then they explode.’

  They were about to explode right now if she was not careful. He pushed back his chair. ‘I don’t intend discussing it.’

  ‘No, that’s right. You don’t discuss anything, do you?’ she questioned in frustration. ‘You act like nothing has happened and yet so much has. Because of Ben, you’ve been forced not only to remain as King, but to marry me—and not once have you ever told me how you feel about it. But then, you don’t “do” feelings, do you?’

  ‘Melissa—’ he said warningly.

  ‘I haven’t finished.’ She cut through his objections, ignoring the growing look of fury which had made his eyes flame like golden fire. ‘You didn’t bother warning your brother that you were about to abdicate in his favour, did you? Without even asking him whether he wanted the position.’

  He froze. ‘What did you say?’

  She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, but it does, Melissa. Really it does. If you have been spending your time engaged in idle speculation on my brother’s thoughts—’

  ‘I wasn’t speculating!’ she shot back defensively—and then the words tumbled out before she could stop them. ‘Catherine told me.’

  There was a long and disbelieving pause.

  ‘Catherine told you?’

  ‘Yes. She said that Xaviero thought you were about to do something dramatic. And let’s face it—you were.’

  ‘So you have been gossiping behind my back with the Princess?’

  ‘There you go again!’ she accused. ‘Shooting the messenger! We weren’t gossiping, as it happened. We didn’t sit down and talk about it—just that when we were out choosing my trousseau she mentioned they’d been slightly worried that you were thinking about abdicating.’

  ‘And you told them that I had?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t.’

  ‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ he flared. ‘Why didn’t you give me this information before hand?’

  ‘Maybe I couldn’t see the point, since it was no longer relevant. Or maybe I was worried that I’d get just this kind of reaction,’ she said bitterly. ‘Autocratic, overbearing—’

  ‘Overbearing?’ he echoed ominously.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you bother discussing it with Xaviero first? Were you so certain he’d want to be King? So keen to take on the life you wanted to reject?’

  Casimiro stared out of the windows to the gardens beyond without really seeing the bright beauty of the flower-beds. Yes, there had been times when his younger brother had envied him—because the heir to the throne was always singled out as special. But Casimiro had envied Xaviero, too—for the kind of freedom that he as King would never know. Each had wanted something of what the other had.

  ‘For many years, yes,’ he said slowly, almost to himself. ‘He did—especially as a boy.’

  ‘And lately?’

  Casimiro did not know about lately. The new-found weight of the monarchy had driven all personal relationships from his life so that Xaviero had become almost like a stranger to him. But hadn’t that happened with just about everyone from the moment the crown had been placed on his head—leaving him in a powerful position of complete isolation? Wasn’t that the only way that a King could properly govern his people�
��by taking full responsibility for his kingdom? ‘He did an excellent job of being my stand-in when I was ill,’ he answered. ‘And if I hadn’t recovered then he would have continued to rule. According to my aides, he settled into the job happily.’

  In spite of the tension which hung over them like a heavy storm cloud, Melissa couldn’t dampen down the flicker of hope which flared inside her. Because this was more than he’d ever admitted to her—and even though she ran the risk of angering him with her persistent line of questioning, wasn’t it better to see it through and to thrash it out? Together. To let Casimiro see that she was someone he could confide in. Because that was just as important a facet of her role as visiting schools and opening new roads.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to have sat down and talked to him about it?’ she probed gently.

  His eyes narrowed as he considered her question. Had it been arrogance which had stopped him from doing just that—or pride? Fear that his memory loss would be discovered—and make him appear vulnerable? Or was it the fact that he and Xaviero never really talked very much? Men didn’t; not in his world.

  He looked at Melissa now—at the eagerness on her face as she tried to delve beneath the surface despite his repeated warnings not to—and he sighed. She was a good mother and a pleasing lover and she had all the potential to be a great Queen. But that did not give her carte blanche to behave as if she were still living her life back in England. He would not tolerate her interference—and neither would he tolerate her springing things like this on him over breakfast. Far better that she learned that if they were to have any kind of amicable marriage, then she was going to have to learn to follow his rules. Rules which had existed in his family since they had first conquered this fertile kingdom, and which had been passed down through generation after generation.

  He rose to his feet. ‘I don’t sub scribe to the modern habit of dragging up the past and putting it under the spot light—I think I told you that on our honeymoon,’ he gritted out. ‘What’s done is done and has no relevance on our lives now. So let’s just leave it at that, shall we? And I’m warning you, Melissa—that this is your last chance. That I cannot and will not have a rerun of this conversation just to satisfy your curiosity.’

  Melissa flinched. It was as if she’d been peering into the first few pages of an open book—a book filled with beautiful pictures and a wonderful story—which told her something about her husband’s inner life and the feelings he hid from the world. But now it felt as if he’d just slammed that book shut in her face and then flung it to the floor. Her lips parting in shock, she stared up at him in disbelief. His face was hard—a beautiful golden mask, behind which his eyes were cold and forbidding. And a terrible sense of fore boding whispered over her as she recognised that they had reached an impasse and that maybe he needed to know that.

  ‘And I’m telling you that I can’t live like that,’ she whispered. ‘That if our marriage carries on in such a…a sterile environment—then it probably won’t last, because nothing can grow in that kind of atmosphere. And one of these days I might not be here when you return from one of your trips, Casimiro.’

  There was a long, dangerous pause as he studied her. ‘That sounds awfully like an ultimatum, cara,’ he observed softly.

  She bit down more of her qualms even though something in the quiet flame of his eyes warned her off saying any more. And yet how could they have any kind of relationship if she was not true to herself? ‘I’m just telling you how I feel.’

  ‘And I’m telling you that I will not be held hostage to emotional black mail!’

  He saw her flinch and for one moment Casimiro stared into the bright green glimmer of her eyes, at the brimming tears which smote at his conscience before he resolutely silenced it. Because it was preferable this way, he told himself grimly, and the sooner Melissa accepted that he would not be swayed by tantrums and tears—then the better it would be for them all.

  He left the breakfast room, slamming the door behind him, and Melissa just sat there for a long moment, staring at the empty space where he’d been. Waiting until the awful pounding of her heart had quietened. Then she went to find Ben—her spirit heavy—feeling as if the weight of the world had settled on her shoulders. But although she clutched her son tightly to her chest, the misgivings left in the wake of that bitter argument refused to budge—leaving all kinds of fears swirling around in her head. Had her challenge to Casimiro about his behaviour broken the already tenuous thread which linked them, she wondered—and where the hell did they go from here?

  Her diary was empty for that day—when she would have gladly valued the distractions of some queenly activities—and instead she threw herself into her role of mother. She took Ben swimming in the outdoor pool and then did some drawing with him—even if he was still at the stage of not really being able to hold a crayon properly. He needed some friends the same age, she realised—and wondered if he was going to be restricted to purely aristocratic buddies or whether he would be allowed to mix with ordinary children.

  But her heart was still full of nameless fears and she felt stifled by the palace—as if the walls were crowding in on her, as if the building itself had outed her as some kind of interloper. You’re only here because you have given birth to the King’s son, it seemed to say. And wasn’t that the truth?

  When Ben went down for his nap, she told Sandy that she was going out for a walk and that she wouldn’t be long.

  But Melissa did not follow any of the rules she knew she should follow. She did not say where she was going—because she had no idea—and she did not tell palace security either. Silencing the voice of her conscience, she went back to her suite and fished around in the back of one of the dressing rooms until she found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her old life which she hadn’t quite been able to bring herself to throw away.

  She stared at them. What a long way away that life seemed now—when she’d only had one pair of jeans and used to hang them to dry over night on the radiator after she’d washed them. As Queen, she rarely wore jeans, where before she’d absolutely lived in them—and the smart, neatly pressed variety which graced her wardobe these days bore little resemblance to the faded pair she now clutched.

  After first slipping on a modest black swimsuit, she put them on—along with an equally old T-shirt, welcoming the oddly comforting feel of the worn fabric before going outside into the fresh air. As she began walking around the grounds she knew so well she remembered her sense of awe when she’d first arrived to help with the ball. She sighed. It was strange, but today she almost felt like the woman who had arrived to help plan the celebrations not so very long ago—and not just because of the way she was dressed. It was as if memories were crowding into her mind to taunt her.

  Look, there was the little staff cottage they’d given her—the house where Casimiro had made that cold-blooded seduction after she’d told him about Ben. It stood alone and at some distance from the palace itself and at that moment it seemed to symbolise everything about her own position there.

  She knew where the guards were stationed and she slipped out of the complex without anyone noticing, experiencing a heady rush of pleasure as she did so and realising that this was the first time since they’d returned to the palace that she had escaped from the apparatus of power. No butlers. No ladies-in-waiting. No guards. And no formidable husband who only ever seemed to connect with her when they were exploring each other’s bodies.

  She walked for a good while before setting off down one of the rocky tracks which led to the sea—and although she knew that she was still within the vast reaches of the royal estates, the sense of freedom she felt was liberating.

  Down on the soft white sand, she realised she’d forgot ten to bring a towel—or a drink of water—and the sun was baking down hard. But she wasn’t planning to stay long. Just long enough to pretend that she was simply Melissa again—with all the lack of restrictions she’d once completely taken for granted.

 
But deep down she knew it wasn’t as easy as that. Yes, she could go through all the motions of escape. She could stand on this warm sand and try to imagine what her old self would have said about this opportunity of having a great big beach all to herself. But that old self was gone. Gone forever—and she could never get her back, no matter how hard she tried. She felt as if she didn’t know her new self very well—this Queen Melissa—and suddenly she wondered what on earth the future held for her.

  But I will not give into self-pity, she told herself fiercely. Okay, I have a husband who sometimes acts as if he’s nothing more than a beautiful, efficient machine—but I have plenty of other things to be grateful for. A beautiful son. Health. Freedom from financial worry.

  Yet despite her determination to count her blessings, Melissa could do nothing about the terrible pain which ripped right through her as she acknowledged the dark centre which lay at the very heart of her marriage.

  Peeling off her jeans and T-shirt, she decided to go for a swim, remembering what her darling mother had always told her. That exercise would wipe worry from a troubled mind. But Melissa’s heart was still heavy as she walked down towards the deserted shore line, where azure water lapped onto the fine sand. The sea wasn’t particularly cold—but the silky wash as it slid through her toes was irresistible and, slowly, she began to wade in.

  Further in she went, the water reaching to her ankles and then submerging her thighs. It made her shiver as it reached her hips and belly-button—and she gave a little squeal as it tickled against her waist, glad to forget her worries for that one brief moment.

  And somewhere in the distant sky, she heard the rhythmical clatter of a helicopter.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘AND the Greek government are perfectly willing to negotiate—that is, if you are agreeable to this last concession, Your Majesty?’