by Penny Jordan
Giselle looked down into Saul’s sleeping face, gently tracing the curve of his eyebrows with her fingertip, and then the bold thrust of his nose. He was such an intensely male man, virile and proud and—yes—sometimes demanding, but the essence of him held an echo of the sweetness he must have had as a little boy. Her smile disappeared, her mouth trembling and her eyes clouding with tears as a mental image of the child she would never have—Saul’s child, with Saul’s features—tormented her.
Her emotions were so intense and close to the surface at that moment that the tears overwhelmed her. One escaped before she could wipe them all away with the back of her hand, to drop onto Saul’s face. Immediately he was awake, his early-morning smile for her changing to a concerned frown as he saw her tears.
‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Giselle fibbed. ‘Just too much emotion.’
‘Too much emotion for what?’ Saul wanted to know.
‘I don’t know,’ Giselle fibbed again. ‘Probably the children we saw yesterday.’
‘The children or one child?’ Saul frowned.
Guilt burned hotly beneath Giselle’s skin.
‘It’s that little girl, isn’t it?’ Saul demanded curtly, seeing her guilt-stained face and misunderstanding the cause of it because of his own growing fear that Giselle was tiring of it just being the two of them and now wanting children.
Logically Saul might know that his thoughts had their roots in his own childhood, but as an alpha-man who still sometimes felt unnerved by the strength of his feelings for his wife, he was not always very good at understanding the deepest subterranean currents of his own emotions. He felt vulnerable and he reacted by attacking, hoping to vanquish the cause of the threat.
‘No,’ Giselle denied, torn between relief and guilt. After all, the last thing she wanted was for Saul to tell her that he wanted them to start trying for a baby, even if deep down inside herself every time she held a child she longed for that child to be hers.
As though he hadn’t heard her Saul sat up in bed, the early-morning light coming in through the open windows to their private courtyard emphasising the warm gold of his tanned skin and highlighting the male structure of the muscles beneath his flesh. Saul had the body to pose for any designer male underwear advertisement, Giselle thought ruefully.
‘This is what all that talk about me needing an heir was about, wasn’t it?’ he accused her shortly. ‘You want to renege on our agreement not to have children and—’
‘No,’ Giselle denied again, her voice softening with love for him as she assured him. ‘That isn’t why I brought up the subject of you needing an heir, Saul. If you want the truth, I’m glad that you want things to stay as they are, just the two of us.’
Saul shook his head and then apologised. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose the truth is that I’m afraid of losing you. And because of that I don’t want to share you with anyone—not even our own child.’
‘Because of your mother?’ Giselle said gently.
For a minute she thought that Saul wasn’t going to answer her, but then he agreed reluctantly. ‘Probably. Although why I should feel like that about you having our child when my mother never cared very much for me, her own child, I don’t know.’
‘You feel like that because your mother never put you or your needs first—because she let you know that other people’s needs were more important to her than yours. No one will ever be more important to me than you, Saul.’ She paused, then, unable to stop her own emotions spilling out, she pointed out to him, ‘You’re the one who decided that your promise to Aldo was more important than the future we agreed on before we got married, not me. It’s only because of that that we even need to talk about having a child. You chose to adhere to your promise to Aldo, and that means that you will have to have an heir.’
‘And you’re still angry with me because we’re here?’ Saul guessed.
‘Not really angry now,’ Giselle told him truthfully. ‘You were right to say that there is a great deal to be done here for the people, but we were so very happy when we were just us.’ This was as close as she could come to admitting to her own fear.
‘We will always be us, and we will always be happy together,’ Saul told her firmly, before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
They were late getting up, and breakfasted lazily, dressed in thick white towelling robes in the courtyard after their shared shower. When Saul announced that he had a lunchtime meeting with Aldo’s ministers, Giselle decided that she would start work on plans for the new orphanage, hospital and school.
They’d used a similar pattern for the orphanages: simple sturdy houses in which they tried to keep siblings together, with no more than ten children to each house, no more than two same-sex children to each bedroom, a bedroom for the house’s foster parents, a large kitchen-diner, a family room, and a quiet room where the children could read and do their homework. Each orphanage had its own vegetable garden, which the children helped to maintain, and a central square. In the middle of this was the school—the centre of the children’s lives—which would provide them with an education and hopefully a future.
In addition to the orphanages, Saul and Giselle’s charity also provided teaching and help for foster parents, and offered mentored and monitored six-month tours for gap-year students wanting to do voluntary work.
Here, building housing, an orphanage, hospital and a school would be more difficult because of the enclosed nature of the town, surrounded as it was by mountains, and the fact that there would not be much land to spare.
It was easy to push the future to one side and concentrate on the immediate needs of the orphans, at least for a while. But her guilt refused to be pushed away for very long. After Saul had told her that he intended to take Aldo’s place here she had focused initially on how that would impact on her, and on how distraught and filled with despair she felt at the thought of losing Saul. Now, though, after listening to Saul this morning, she realised that she had been so caught up in her own misery that she had not fully recognised how her leaving him would impact on Saul himself. He loved her.
But the human heart could love more than once, and Saul had a duty to his country to provide it with an heir, she reasoned. Which meant that he would find someone else to take her place, someone else to love as he had once loved her, someone else to give him the child—children—she must not.
However, she had missed out from these calculations one very important fact, and that was the emotional damage that Saul’s mother had done to him—the vulnerability that damage had left within him. When the time came for her to leave, whilst logically he would understand the reasons why she must do so, deep down inside himself he might well end up feeling that she was abandoning him, turning her back on him as his mother had done.
Giselle’s guilt intensified. The prospect of the pain she might cause Saul was a hundred times worse to bear than any pain she herself would have to endure. Now she could see the true depth of the damage her deceit would cause, and how her cowardice, her selfishness would hurt Saul, who was innocent of anything other than loving her and trusting her, believing her to have told him the truth about the reasons she did not wish to have a child.
It was too late now to remind herself of her original vow that she would never allow anyone to get close to her—not just because she was afraid of falling in love, but to protect them from falling in love with her when she knew the limitations there must be on their relationship. She had known that and yet she had ignored it, because she had not been able to bear loving Saul and not being with him. Now she would be as guilty of causing him terrible hurt as his mother had been.
She tried to defend herself from her own inner critical voice. She had not meant this to happen. She had believed it was safe for both of them to be together. But she of all people should have known that human life was not immortal, and that fate demanded payment from those who chose to ignore its warnings and its
embargoes.
Chapter Six
SAUL LOOKED ACROSS the room of the apartment they had turned into a shared office. Its tall windows looked out on part of the formal gardens of the palace—the Duchess’s Garden, so called because it had been designed as a wedding gift for the wife of a late sixteenth-century ruler. Its classical design incorporated a formal rectangular fish pond and an Italianate summer house. Giselle, though, was oblivious to the view beyond the window. She was working at her computer, her blonde hair clipped up on top of her head, small wisps of it escaping to frame the elegant oval delicacy of her face. Her manner was one of total concentration on the computer screen in front of her.
Despite the fact that he had opened unlimited accounts for her at Harvey Nichols in London and Barney’s in New York, Giselle still preferred to dress casually in jeans and a simple top when they were alone and when she was working, keeping her designer gowns for official and public functions—unlike his late cousin’s wife, Natasha, who had been almost addicted to shopping and had often changed her expensive clothes several times a day. Saul had frequently tried to warn Aldo that his wife’s extravagance would only antagonise the population of a country that had so little money.
But it was Giselle who concerned him and occupied his thoughts right now, though, not his late cousin. She had been very quiet these last few days, almost withdrawn, her mood sombre and reflective. Was that because of the enormity of the challenge that faced them in modernising the country? Was he asking too much of her? Expecting too much in wanting her to share his vision for the country’s future, wanting her to work with him towards achieving that future?
At night in his arms, in contrast to her manner during the day, her sensuality burned more fiercely and passionately than ever, her hunger for their lovemaking so intense that he felt they were constantly touching new heights. And yet despite that Saul felt there was a distance between them, like a glass wall so fine that you didn’t even think it was there until you walked into it. And he was the cause of that wall being there, he suspected, because of the promise he had given Aldo. Because of that and perhaps also because of the discussion they had had about him having a heir.
Where Aldo was concerned Giselle might understand logically how Saul had felt obliged to make his vow, but deep down inside he believed that she still thought of his agreement as an act of betrayal of her. And in a sense she was right, Saul was forced to acknowledge. But what alternative had he had? His cousin had been dying. There might be some people who felt that they could ignore a deathbed promise, but he wasn’t one of them.
When it came to the matter of an heir, however, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Their original discussion had made him think very seriously about the whole issue of the country’s future. He had come to a decision, and it was only right that he discussed that decision and his reasons for it with Giselle—that he set them before her and asked for her opinion. The truth was, though, that he wasn’t entirely sure she would agree with what he wanted to do. And if she didn’t…
‘How are the plans for the orphanage coming on?’ he asked Giselle, sliding his thoughts to one side and telling himself that the best way to heal the breach between them was for him to show Giselle how important she was to him.
‘Slowly,’ Giselle admitted, pushing a tendril of hair back off her face as she swung round in her chair to face him. ‘The lack of available land is a problem—although I think I’ve solved it by planning to build in blocks of four, four storeys high, so that they take up less room. They’ll be tall and narrow, rather than wide and low. That works with the lack of land, but I’m concerned about different floors separating the household when what we want is to bond the children with one another and with their foster parents. Normally we’d have a large kitchen-diner, a sitting room and a quiet room all on the same floor. With this design there’d be a large kitchen-diner on the ground floor, with the sitting room and quiet room above it.’
‘What about a circular staircase going up from the kitchen-diner to the sitting room, in addition to the normal stairs?’ Saul suggested.
Giselle’s frown disappeared. ‘Thank you, that’s an excellent idea,’ she told him truthfully, giving him a rueful look that acknowledged his skill.
‘Team work.’ Saul smiled. ‘Something you and I are very good at when the team is the two of us.’ He paused. ‘There’s something I want to talk over with you—about the future of the country and about our future too. But if now isn’t a good time…’
Giselle’s heart started to thump heavily against her ribs. She could tell from Saul’s expression as well as what he had said that whatever it was he wanted to discuss was important.
‘Now is fine,’ she answered. It was almost lunchtime after all, and they’d planned to drive out to what Saul had told her was the country’s beautiful lake area, taking a picnic lunch with them.
There was a brief knock on the door and a maid appeared with what was usually a mid-morning indulgence of freshly made filter coffee for both of them. Giselle raised an eyebrow in query once she had gone, asking Saul wryly, ‘I take it you think I’m going to need this? So that means whatever it is you want to discuss is something very important.’
She was trying to strive for a light note, but when Saul didn’t deny her claim her anxiety and tension increased.
She knew that Saul had recognised her apprehension when he was the one to pour the coffee, blending her own with just the amount of hot milk she liked. His actions reminded her that whilst Saul did not always say anything he was an extremely acute observer, picking up the smallest of details. Had he guessed that she was keeping something from him?
He handed her the coffee and then said quietly, ‘What I want to discuss with you is the matter of the tradition of royal succession.’
Giselle almost spilled her coffee. Her hand shook violently with dread. ‘I thought we had already discussed that, and that you’d made up your mind that it could wait until you’d achieved other things?’ Giselle could hear the defensive anger in her own voice, but if Saul could hear it too he wasn’t letting her see it. If anything his manner was that which she remembered from when they had first met: cool, determined, and very alpha-male. The manner and attitude of a man who was used to getting what he wanted.
‘Yes,’ Saul agreed, the businesslike tone of his voice confirming what she was thinking. ‘And that was an adequate decision as far as it went. However, it merely puts the whole issue of the future governance of the country on the back burner, rather than dealing with it. I have to accept that when Aldo asked me to step into his shoes as his cousin and only living male relative, in effect the last of our line, it would have been his expectation that I follow in the tradition of our family and produce an heir—preferably a son I would bring up and train to rule after me.’
Now it was time for Giselle to agree, and she forced out a, ‘Yes…’ which she hoped was neutral enough not to give away what she was really feeling. To hide her apprehension she raised her cup to her lips, and then had to lower it when her stomach heaved with nausea. That the very smell of the coffee she normally loved should make her feel sick was surely a sign of her fear and dread.
‘I need your help, Giselle,’ Saul told her. ‘I know what I want to do, and what I believe it is one hundred percent right to do, but I can’t do it without your support.’
Such uncharacteristic humility from Saul of all men increased her despair. He must indeed be desperate to have an heir if he was prepared to beg for her acquiescence. But then he already knew how she felt, and she had believed that she knew how he felt. Anguished tears she could not allow herself to shed smarted at the backs of her eyes. Saul had told her that he would not want an heir for several years and she had believed him, had trusted his declaration. Just as he had believed her and trusted her when she had let him think that he knew why she didn’t want children, when in reality he knew nothing of the real truth because she had kept it from him.
Now he was going to
tell her that he had changed his mind and he wanted them to start trying for a baby—an heir. She knew it.
Giselle’s silence and lack of response was not the reaction Saul had hoped for, but he wasn’t going to give up. That wasn’t the kind of man he was—especially not where the principles he held dear were concerned.
‘Part of the reason I made Aldo that promise was because I felt and still feel guilty about the fact that he married Natasha,’ he reminded Giselle, repeating what he had already told her before adding, ‘Yes, I know what you are going to say. Aldo loved Natasha. And that is true. He did love her. But she did not love him, and sadly I think in his heart he knew that. If I had not introduced them his life could have been so different. Aldo would, I think, have been open to the kind of traditional semi-arranged marriage his advisers would have recommended. He might even have had a child by now, and he certainly would not have been killed in an assassination aimed at his father-in-law. Because of that…’
‘You want a child—an heir. For Aldo,’ Giselle guessed. With every word Saul had uttered she had become more and more revolted by what she was hearing, by Saul’s assumption that she would allow any child, never mind her own child, to be used as a living pawn, forced into a life they might not want out of a misguided sense of duty to a family tradition which in Giselle’s eyes had no place in modern society.
The strength of those feelings overwhelmed her guilt and despair for herself. What Saul wanted to propose ran counter to everything she had believed about him, the democratic beliefs she had thought they shared. Her fury at his betrayal was every bit as strong as though he had betrayed her with another woman, and her voice was filled with angry passion and contempt as she told Saul, ‘Even if I wanted to have a child I would never agree to having one because you feel you owe it to Aldo. I would never sacrifice my child on the altar of your deathbed promise to your cousin, trapping him or her into such a set role even before they are conceived, never mind born. I won’t agree, Saul. Not because I don’t want children, but because I could never agree to…to the sacrifice of any child into a life of such rigidity that they can never be free to make their own choices.’