by Julia James
Ben’s mouth opened wide in wonder.
‘Here it is,’ said Rico. He’d crossed to the wall into which a fireplace had been set, and felt for the concealed button that operated the door mechanism. He hadn’t used it in a while, but it still worked, if creakingly, revealing a narrow entrance to an even narrower staircase.
He gave a sudden grin, his mood lightening for a nanosecond.
‘It’s the reason I chose these apartments as a teenager. It was a great way to evade curfew. Come on.’
Ben needed no second invitation. He surged forward, his expression blissful, and Rico had to hold him while he flicked on the interior light, got them all inside, and then shut the door.
The concealed staircase opened into a side street in the palace precincts. The car was waiting, its tinted windows closed. Even so, he made his nephew and his mother lie on the floor of the back seat.
‘Drive,’ he instructed Gianni.
Only as he sat back in his seat, Ben excitedly clutching at his leg and asking him if it were another adventure, did the emotions start to come through.
The violence of them shook him to the core.
They made it to the border in under twenty minutes. He’d debated between speed via the coastal autostrada versus heading for the hills, and had gone for the former. He had to take a gamble, and it was absolutely vital they get on to Italian soil.
As they passed through the unmanned border he spoke.
‘We’re out,’ he said. He leant down to haul up Ben, followed by his mother. She busied herself with seat-belts.
‘What now?’ she asked. Her voice was expressionless, but Rico heard the tremor in it. Heard the tightness of her throat. Heard the fear. The terror.
He looked at her. The chalky complexion, the bones stark in her face. Emotion surged in him, and he clamped it down yet again.
‘We get to a priest,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE savage irony of it was that she still balked at marrying him. In the end he had to be brutal.
‘It is the only way I can protect you. Protect Ben.’
She stared at him, her face a web of fear.
‘It’s another trick. A trap.’ Her voice was hollow.
‘No, I swear it. I swear I did not know what they were planning—I swear. If I could, I would get you back to England—but I can’t. I’ve got you into Italy, and now you are safer, because my father will have to work through the Italian authorities and that will slow him down. But if you try and return to England you’ll be taken into custody. I can’t even get you into Switzerland. All the Italian borders will be watched. And don’t think my father won’t be able to do it—he’ll have some charge against you trumped up. It doesn’t matter what—it matters only to prevent you taking Ben back to the UK. You’ll be separated, and there’ll be some kind of court order taking him into care—something. Anything. Whatever it takes to separate you. And he’ll find a way to keep you separated.’
He took a searing breath. ‘The only way I can keep you safe is by doing what I’ve just said. Once we’re married they can’t touch you, and they can’t touch Ben. Neither legally nor because of the publicity. They will have to accept a fait accompli. I know my father—he won’t risk an open break with me. He won’t cause that kind of scandal.’
He looked at her as she sat, her arm tight around Ben, who had lolled off to sleep with the motion of the car, steadily being driven further north towards the alpine foothills. ‘I’m the only person who can protect you—keep you and Ben together.’
She stared at him.
‘Why?’ The question was a breath, almost inaudible. ‘Why do you want to do that?’
It echoed through him, reverberating through his being.
Why? She had asked why.
‘I gave you my word,’ he said. ‘Not to let Ben be parted from you. That’s why.’
In his head he heard again Luca’s voice, describing the nightmare childhood that had been planned for Ben.
Anger blinded him.
Anger at his father, his mother, his brother…the whole damn, twisted, duplicitous, hard-hearted, callous lot of them.
How could they do it? How could they even think it?
But he knew how. To them, the only important thing was duty and reputation, avoiding scandal, awkwardness, embarrassment.
And to achieve that they were prepared to take a four-year-old child and wrench it from its mother—trick the mother into coming here in good faith and then throw her out like a piece of rubbish.
His eyes went to her, went to her arm so tight around Ben, and to Ben, his head resting on her side, his hand lying in her lap. Mother and child.
Genetically she might only be his aunt, but to Ben she was everything—the whole world. So what if she were some ordinary member of the masses, utterly unfit to be a royal princess, the mother of a royal prince?
His lips pressed together. And so what that she was utterly unlike any woman he would have chosen for his wife? A woman who knew that brutal, cruel truth…
Grotesque.
That was what she thought a marriage between them would be.
Grotesque. The word tolled through him again.
Shaming him.
Shaming him with its pitiless honesty.
Well, now it didn’t matter. Didn’t matter what either of them thought about such a marriage. Because neither of them was important now—only Ben.
And this was the only way to keep him safe.
Savage humour filled him. So Luca had set him up like a patsy, had he? Despatching him to mount a charm offensive on Ben’s aunt that would steal her child from her, duping him into offering to marry her simply to lull her into a false sense of security. His mouth tightened.
Thanks for the idea, Luca—it’s a really good one.
And it would beat his family on all points.
And keep Ben safe with his mother.
His eyes went to the boy. He was still asleep, lolling against his mother.
He met her eyes. They were huge, strained.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice low and tight.
She felt as if she was falling. Falling very far, into a deep, bottomless pit. All she had to cling to was Ben. And it was imperative she did. Imperative she keep hold of him, never, ever to loosen her hold on him—because otherwise he would fall away from her and be lost for ever.
Fear shot through her like a grid of hot wires in her veins. Over and over again the horror of what had happened in the palace, when she had realised she had been locked in that room, when she had realised that it could mean only one thing, still drenched through her.
Her eyes went to the man standing beside her in the chill, stone-built church, his expression drawn and shuttered.
Trust me, he had said.
I give you my word, he had said.
Could she trust him? Was he really rescuing her? Or simply tricking her again?
But how could he be tricking her? He was prepared to do something that would change his life for ever. Something so drastic that it made her feel faint with the enormity of it. He had disobeyed his father, knocked his own brother out cold so he could rescue her, so he could get Ben and her away to freedom…safety.
Safety with him.
He’s doing it for Ben. Because he knows it would be unspeakably cruel for him to lose me. And that was why she’d do it too. For Ben.
Nothing else mattered.
The priest was starting to speak. The dimly lit, tiny whitewashed church, scarcely more than a chapel, was in a small village somewhere in the hills. She had no idea where. There had been a low-voiced, urgent conversation in the car between the Prince and his bodyguard, who was, so it seemed, not merely loyal enough to his employer to have stood by him, but also possessed of a great-uncle who was a priest.
A frail, elderly man, he stood before them now, clasping their hands together with his and intoning words she did not understand, but which, she knew, were binding her in holy matrimony
to the man at her side.
She went on falling.
It was done. Ben and his mother were safe. Relief sluiced through Rico. As he thanked the priest, mentally vowing that he would take every measure to avoid the man getting into the slightest trouble over what he had done, and thanked the housekeeper who had been the witness to the ceremony along with Gianni, Rico knew that there was one more thing to be done.
He ushered Ben and his mother back into the car. Gianni slid into the driver’s seat. He knew where to go, what to do.
‘I’m hungry,’ announced Ben. He had woken up, stood beside Gianni during the brief, hurried ceremony, passively accepting, as children did, without comprehension, what was happening to the grown-ups around him.
‘We’ll have some food soon—very soon, I promise,’ Rico said, ruffling his hair. It was still not quite dark, but they had a way to drive. He would have preferred to fly, but that was out. There was no way he could take a helicopter up without air traffic control knowing about it. But they would head cross country, by obscure routes if they could.
This car was different anyway—a lot less conspicuous. Gianni had fixed the swap—the guy was heading for an all-time bonus. Now he came up trumps yet again.
‘You like pizza?’ he asked, and passed back a large, double wrapped plastic bag. ‘Cold, but good. From my great-uncle’s housekeeper, for the bambino.’
Ben’s face lit.
‘Yes, please,’ he said.
Rico watched as his mother unwrapped the food and handed it with some paper towels to his nephew, who tucked in hungrily. As they ate, he slid his hand into his pocket and took out his phone. It took a while to be answered, but when it was, he wasted no time.
‘Jean-Paul, I’ve got a story for you…’
The conversation was lengthy, in rapid French, and when he disconnected Rico felt another wave of relief go through him. He also felt anxious eyes on him. He turned his head.
‘That was a friend of mine. The one who alerted me that there was a story building about Paolo’s long-lost son. He’s a good friend, and I trust him absolutely. I’ve told him we’ve just got married. That we’re making a family for Ben. He’ll sit on the story until I give him the word to run with it. That’s the weapon I can hold over my father. I’ll give him some time to come round, to accept what’s happened, but if he stonewalls then Jean-Paul can run the story the way I’ve given it to him—without any co-operation from the palace. That’s the only choice my father gets.’
His voice was grim as he finished.
He slid the phone into his jacket pocket again.
‘I still cannot believe that my father did what he did. I knew he was not sentimental about Luca and myself, but Paolo—Paolo was different.’ His eyes slid away into the past as he spoke, his voice low. ‘Paolo was the one son my parents could treat not as a prince, but as…as a child. As someone in his own right. Someone without a royal function. Who could just be himself. That’s why—’ His voice halted a moment, then he went on. ‘That’s why I thought they really wanted Ben. Because he’s Paolo’s son. I thought they would…’ He swallowed. ‘I thought they would love him. Love him enough to know that what was important for Ben was what should be done. Love him enough to know that you were important to him.’
His eyes looked troubled. ‘I am ashamed of them. Ashamed of what they did to you.’
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he touched her arm. Lightly. Just for a moment.
‘And I am ashamed of myself as well.’
Lizzy’s expression was troubled.
‘You’re taking the fall for this,’ she said, and her voice was low and strained. ‘I’m sorry—I’m really, really sorry that you had to…had to do what you’ve just done. I’ll try…I’ll try not to be—’ She swallowed, then fell silent.
What could she say? I’ll try not to be too grotesque a wife to you? She felt her throat tightening.
He was silent a moment. Then he spoke.
‘It will work out. For all the reasons I told you in England, when I believed that this marriage was what my father wanted. All those reasons are still true.’
She could not reply. What could she say?
That the reason for her refusing him in England was still the same as well?
Well, it was too late for that.
The car drove on into the night. At her side, Ben finished his pizza. She cleared away the remains, then let him cuddle against her and fall asleep. His little body was warm and sturdy, and her love for him flooded through her.
I’ve done the right thing. I’ve done the only thing. The only thing possible to keep him safe.
Her eyes met his uncle’s, on the other side of Ben.
A strange emotion pricked through him.
He had done what he had had to do. No other course of action had been possible—anything else had been unthinkable.
I did what I had to do. That is all.
It was my duty.
Duty. But of a different type.
Carrying, strangely, no burden of resentment. Only relief.
Relief that he had done, if nothing else, the right thing. By Paolo, by his son, and by the girl whom he now protected. Who had no one but him to do so. The strange emotion quickened. Quite different from all the emotions that had stormed through him since Jean-Paul’s first phone call to him, which seemed now to have been a long, long time ago. He tried to think what the emotion was, to identify it. Then it came to him.
It was a sense of purpose. Doing something that mattered.
A new emotion for him.
‘Where are we?’ Lizzy’s voice sounded bleary, even to her own ears. She had been roused from heavy, uneasy sleep as the car had come to a stop. She straightened up, feeling stiff. Ben was still slouched heavily against her, fast asleep.
‘Capo d’Angeli. Jean-Paul has hired a villa here for us. We can stay here as long as we want. No one will disturb us.’
She let him undo the safety catch and she scooped the sleeping Ben into her arms, while Gianni helped her out of the car. A cool breeze came in the night, and all she could make out was a house with a gravelled drive immediately beneath her feet, and a front door opening. She heard Italian spoken, and then she and Ben were being ushered inside. There were people, more Italian, but she was too tired to do anything other than carry Ben upstairs, following the tall, besuited figure ascending in front of her, blocking out of her head everything except the overriding need to get to bed. Get back to sleep.
Like a zombie, she followed him into a room—a large bedroom with a larger bed. A maid was turning it down on either side. She hurried forward to help Lizzy, and within a few minutes—blessedly so—Lizzy was laying her head down on the pillow beside her sleeping son, her eyelids closing.
She wanted to sleep for ever and never wake up. Never face up to what she had just done.
Married Prince Enrico of San Lucenzo.
Downstairs, Rico took out his mobile once more, and pressed the number he knew he had to call.
Luca answered immediately. His voice was taut with fury. Incomprehension. Rico cut him off in mid-denunciation. He called his brother a word he had never used to him before. It silenced Luca long enough for Rico to tell him the new situation. Then, slowly, in a different voice, his older brother spoke again.
‘Rico—it’s not too late. We’ll send a helicopter, and you and the boy can be back here by morning. We’ll fix an instant annulment. The girl can be taken care of—we can get her deported from Italy. We can—’
‘Wrong again.’ Rico’s voice was a tight, vicious drawl. ‘All you and our father can do is—’ He gave instructions that were crude—and anatomically impossible. ‘And now, if you please, you can inform my revered father that I am going to start my honeymoon, with my bride and my new son. And there is nothing you can do about it. Do you understand me? Nothing. They are in my care now. Mine. And if you had a shred of honour in you, you would never speak to our father again.’
He hung up.
Lizzy was dreaming. She was back in that hospital, with her sister. But her sister was not in a coma. Instead she was sitting up, cradling a baby, her golden hair like a veil. There was someone else sitting on the bed—a young man with blond hair. They were both fixated on the baby in Maria’s arms. They didn’t see Lizzy. Didn’t even look up.
Then her parents were coming into the ward. They walked past Lizzy, their arms full of presents wrapped up in baby blue. She tried to walk forward, but she couldn’t. She had a present for the baby, but there was only room to put the present on the end of the bed. It slid onto the floor. Her mother looked round sharply.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘Maria doesn’t need you. No one needs you. And no one wants you either.’
She reached for the curtain and drew it around Maria’s bed. Shutting Lizzy out.
Lizzy woke up.
Guilt drenched through her.
She had taken something that was not hers to take. Something she’d had no right to. She turned her head. Ben was asleep on the far side of the huge double bed, his little figure swathed in the light coverlet. Ben—her sister’s son. Not hers. Not hers at all.
Anguish filled her. Her hand reached to him, touching his hair. Soft and golden. Like his mother’s. His father’s.
Not like hers at all.
Not mine. Not mine. Not mine.
The litany rang through her head.
And now she had taken something else she’d had no right to take. Something else she didn’t deserve.
And yet she knew bitterly that the theft had come with its own punishment. Heat flushed through her—the heat of mortification. Grotesque, she had called the very idea of a marriage between them, the two most opposite people in the world. And yet she had gone ahead with it. She had inflicted herself on him because there was no other way to keep safe the child she had taken from her sister. The child she had no right to. No right to love the way she did.
She felt Ben stir and wake. His eyes opened. Trusting. Instantly content to see her. Knowing that if she was there, then all was well.