by Penny Jordan
It had taken all of Marco’s considerable negotiating skills, and the cool reminder that he was Niroli’s future king, to persuade the police chief to change his mind and go against what he described to Marco almost fearfully as ‘orders from the palace’.
Because of this Marco had decided to drive into the mountains himself to make sure that the generators were delivered safely. If his grandfather thought he could outmanoeuvre him, then he was going to have to learn the hard way that it was just not going to happen.
Marco’s mouth compressed. As a successful entrepreneur whose views were respected he wasn’t used to having his decisions questioned and countermanded. Had his grandfather really no idea of the potential damage he was inflicting on the island by his stubborn refusal to recognise that the world had changed and its people with it, and that it was no longer viable for a king as hugely wealthy as Niroli’s to allow some of his subjects to live in conditions of severe poverty? Apart from anything else, there was the threat of civil unrest amongst the mountain-dwellers, which would be seized upon and further orchestrated by the Vialli gang that lived amongst them.
His step-grandmother had in part to be behind this, Marco decided grimly. Queen Eva was his grandfather’s second wife, and it was Marco’s personal opinion that she was and always had been hostile towards her predecessor’s side of the family. That naturally included Marco and his two sisters. Given their step-grandmother’s attitude, it was no wonder that Isabella rarely visited the palace, and that Rosa preferred not to live on the island, just as he hadn’t, until recently…
* * *
Emily had been deeply engrossed in the notes she was making, but some sixth sense alerted her to Marco’s presence, causing her to put down her pen and turn to look towards the entrance to the courtyard. Despite the sombreness of her earlier thoughts, the minute she saw Marco standing watching her all the feelings she had promised herself she would learn to control rushed through her. Pushing back her chair, she got up and hurried over to him.
As he watched her coming towards him Marco could feel the anger his morning had caused being eased from his body by the warmth of her welcome. He wanted to go to her and take hold of her, he wanted to take her to bed and lose himself and his problems within her. His need for her was so intense… He tensed once more. There it was again, that word need, that feeling he didn’t want to have.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Emily asked him uncertainly when she saw his sudden tension.
‘Nothing for you to worry about. An administrative problem I need to sort out,’ he told her dismissively. ‘I’ll be gone for most of the afternoon.’
Emily did her best to hide her disappointment, but she knew she hadn’t succeeded when she heard him exhaling irritably.
‘Emily—’ he began warningly.
‘It’s all right, I know. You’re a king-in-waiting and you have far more important things to do than be with me,’ she interrupted him briskly.
Marco looked at her downbent head.
‘You can come with me if you wish, but it will mean a long, hot drive along dusty roads, followed by some boring delays whilst I speak with people. And since you haven’t been feeling well…’
Emily wanted to tell him that being with him could never bore her, but she managed to stop herself just in time. Instead she assured him quickly, ‘I’m feeling much better now. I’ve had a look round the villa and I could run some options by you in the car, unless…’ She paused uncertainly, suddenly realising how very little she knew about what was expected of him in his new role. ‘That is, will you be driving yourself, or…?’
‘We aren’t going on some kind of royal progress in a formal cavalcade, if that’s what you mean, and, yes, I shall be driving myself,’ Marco answered her. ‘You’ll need a hat to protect your head from the sun and a pair of sensible shoes for if you do get out of the car. Some of the villages we shall be going to are pretty remote and along single-track mountain roads. I don’t want to delay too long though.’ He didn’t want the police chief getting cold feet and instructing the haulier to stop his fleet of lorries, or, worse, turn back.
Emily’s eyes were shining as though he had offered her some kind of priceless gift, he reflected. He had a sudden impulse to take hold of her and draw her close to him, to kiss her slowly and tenderly. He shook the impulse away, not sure where it had come from or why, but knowing that it was dangerous.
CHAPTER TEN
‘AM I allowed to ask any questions?’ Emily said lightly. It was nearly an hour since they had left the villa. Marco had driven them through the main town and then out and up into the hills. ‘Or is this trip a state secret?’
‘No secret, but it is certainly a contentious issue so far as my grandfather is concerned,’ Marco told her.
‘If it’s private family business,’ she began, but Marco stopped her, shaking his head.
‘No. It’s very much a public business, since it involves some of the poorest communities on the island. But instead of acknowledging their need and doing something about it, my grandfather prefers to ignore it, which is why I have decided to take matters into my own hands. The more remote parts of the island do not have the benefit of electricity,’ he explained. ‘Because of that, these people are denied modern comforts and communication, and their children are denied access to technology and education. My grandfather believes in his divine and royal right to impose his will and keep them living as peasants. He also believes he knows what is best for them and for Niroli. Because there has been a history of insurrection amongst our mountain population, led by the Viallis, in the past, he also fears that by encouraging them to become part of today’s world he will be encouraging them to challenge the Crown’s supremacy.’
‘And you don’t agree,’ Emily guessed sympathetically.
‘I believe that every child has the right to a good education, and that every parent has the right to want to provide their child with the best opportunities available. My grandfather feels that by educating our poorest citizens, we will encourage them to want much more than the simple lives they presently have, he fears that some will rise up, others will desert the land and maybe even the island. But I say it’s wrong to imprison them in poverty and lack of opportunity. We have a duty to them, and for me that means giving them freedom of choice. You and I know what happens when young people are disenfranchised, Emily. We have already seen it in the urban ghettos of Europe: angry young men ganging up together and becoming feral, respecting only violence and greed, because that is all they have ever known. I don’t want to see that happening here.
‘I have tried to persuade my grandfather to invest some of the Crown’s vast financial reserves in paying to install electricity in these remote areas, but he refuses to do so. Just as he refuses to see the potential trouble he is storing up for the island.’
Emily could hear the frustration in his voice. It had touched her immensely that Marco had connected the two of them together in their shared awareness of the downsides of keeping people impoverished and powerless.
‘Perhaps, once you are King…’ she suggested, but Marco shook his head again.
‘My grandfather is very good at imposing conditions and I don’t want to trap myself in a situation where my hands are tied. Plus, it seems to me that some of Niroli’s youth are already beginning to resent my grandfather’s rule, just as previous generations resisted the monarchy. I do not want to inherit that resentment along with the throne, so I have decided to act now to take the heat out of the situation.’
‘But what can you do?’ Emily asked him uncertainly ‘If your grandfather has refused to allow electricity to be supplied…’
‘I can’t insist that it is, no,’ Marco agreed. ‘But I can provide it by other means. Whilst I was in London, I bought what I hope will be enough generators to at least provide some electricity for the villages. My grandfather is furious, of course, but I am hoping that he will back down and accept what I have done as a way of allowing him
to change his mind without losing face. He is an old man who has ruled autocratically all his life. It is hard for him, I know that, but the Crown has to change or risk having change forced upon it.’
‘You think there will be some kind of uprising?’ Emily was horrified, instantly thinking of the danger that would bring to Marco.
‘Not immediately. But the seeds are there. And still my grandfather is so determined to hold absolute power.’
‘You pretend not to do so, but in reality you understand him very well, and I think you feel a great deal of compassion for him, Marco,’ Emily said gently.
‘On the contrary, what I feel is a great deal of irritation and anger because he refuses to see the danger he is courting,’ Marco corrected her. Her perceptiveness had startled him, making him feel that she knew him rather better than he had realised. ‘There are so many changes I want to make, Emily, so much here for me to do, but my grandfather blocks me at every turn.’
‘You’ve lived away from the island for a long time and you’ve grown used to making your own decisions without the need to consult others. Perhaps your grandfather is being difficult because he sees this and in some ways he fears it—and you. You said yourself that he’s an old man—he obviously knows that he can’t continue to be King, but my guess is that he doesn’t want to acknowledge that publicly, and that a part of him wants to continue to rule Niroli through you. When you come up with your own plans and they are opposed to his, he tries to block you because he’s afraid of losing his power to you.’
‘I doubt you would ever get him to admit any of that.’
Emily could hear the frustration in Marco’s voice and, with it, his hunger to right what he saw as wrongs. He would be a strong king morally, socially, politically and in all the other important ways, she recognised. Listening to him had brought home to her the reality of her own situation. Even if by some miracle he should return her love, there was no future for them. She could not be his queen, and she could never do anything that would prevent him from being Niroli’s king. Not now, after hearing him speak so passionately about his country and his people. If Marco had a duty to his people, then she too had duties to him and her love for him; loving someone meant putting them first and their needs before one’s own. Marco’s great need was to fulfil his duty and he could not do that with her in his life. A small, sad shadow darkened her eyes—the ghost of her dreams. Seeing it, Marco frowned.
‘I’m boring you,’ he announced curtly.
‘No,’ Emily told him. ‘No! I like listening to you talking about your plans. I just wish that you had told me who you were when we first met.’ Had he done so, she would have been so much better armoured against her vulnerability to him, and she would certainly never have started dreaming they could have a permanent future together.
‘It wasn’t a deliberate deceit on my part,’ Marco defended himself coolly.
‘Maybe not, but you could have said something. warned me. Then, at least…’ She stopped, shaking her head, not wanting to admit her own folly where he was concerned.
‘In order to live the kind of life I wanted, to prove myself on my own terms, it was necessary for me to do it with anonymity and without the trappings of royalty.
‘I grew up here as a renegade in my grandfather’s eyes. I was his heir, but I refused to conform or let him turn on me and bully me the way he did my father.’ Marco’s expression changed, and Emily ached to reach out and comfort him when she saw that look in his eyes.
‘My father was too gentle to stand up to my grandfather. As a child, I hated knowing that. As a form of compensation, I suppose, I rebelled against my grandfather’s authority and I swore that I would prove to him, and to the world, that I had the capability to succeed as myself.’
‘But while you were proving yourself, you missed the island and your family, your father?’ Emily guessed tenderly.
Marco opened his mouth to reject her words and then admitted huskily,
‘Yes. It was such a shock when he was killed in a freak accident off the island’s coast. Something I’d never imagined happening.never considered.’
And along with his natural grief at the loss of his father, Marco had had to deal with the irreversible changes in his own circumstances that had followed, Emily acknowledged silently. It must have been so hard for him—a man used to taking control of every aspect of his personal life, to have to come to terms with the fact that, as King, a huge part of his life would now be beyond his control. Just listening to him was causing a change within her own thoughts, turning her angry bitterness and pain into compassionate understanding and acceptance. It altered everything for her. Did he recognise how very alone he was emotionally? Was that a deliberate choice, or an accidental one? If he knew about it, did he care, or did he simply accept it as part of the price he paid for his royal status?
‘I would hate to be in your shoes.’ The words had slipped out before she could stop them.
Marco looked searchingly at her.
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.
‘I can hear how important your people are to you, Marco, and how strongly you feel about helping them, but…’ She paused and shook her head. ‘I couldn’t pay the price you’re about to pay for being Niroli’s king. On the one hand, yes, you will have enormous wealth and power, but on the other you won’t have any personal freedom, any right to do what you want to do. Every-thing will have to be weighed against how it affects your people. That is such a tremendously heavy responsibility.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘I suppose it’s different if you’re born to it. I’m beginning to see why princes marry princesses,’ she added ruefully. ‘You really do have to be born royal to understand.’
‘Not necessarily. You’re doing a pretty good job of showing you have a strong grasp of what’s involved,’ Marco told her dryly. They had rarely spoken so openly to one another and it surprised him how much he valued what she had said to him. Impulsively, he slowed the car and reached for her hand, giving it a small squeeze that caused her to look at him in surprise. Such a small, tender gesture was so very unlike him.
‘I’m glad you’re here with me, Emily.’
Her heart was thumping and thudding with the sweetness of the emotions pouring through her. Marco brought the car briefly to a halt and leaned across and kissed her—a hard, swift kiss that contained a message she couldn’t manage to decipher, but which sent a physical craving for him soaring through her body. She had never, ever known him exhibit such extraordinarily un-Marco behaviour before. Her heart felt as though it had wings, her own happiness dizzying her.
She mustn’t let a casual moment out of time lead her into forgetting what she had just recognised, she warned herself. But, then, should she let what she knew to be their separate futures prevent her from enjoying their shared here and now? a different voice coaxed.
‘At this stage of the game, when you’ve got so much to deal with, it’s only natural that you need someone to bounce ideas off and confide in,’ she told him, ‘and…’ She paused, unsure of just how much she dared say without giving herself away completely.
‘And?’ Marco probed as they bounced along the narrow track past a cluster of small houses.
‘And I wouldn’t want that someone to be anyone else but me,’ Emily told him simply.
A young man, tall and gangly and outgrowing his clothes, was standing in the middle of the road in front of Marco’s car waving his hands, his face alight with excitement.
Emily looked questioningly at Marco.
‘Tomasso,’ he informed her as he brought the car to a halt. ‘He is the leader of a gang of young Vialli hotheads, and he is also the person I have chosen to be my representative in taking care of the generator and introducing his village to its benefits.’
The moment Marco opened the car door and got out, Tomasso bounded up to him exclaiming, ‘Highness, Highness, it is here! The generator, just as you promised. We have built a special place for it. Let me show you…’
An el
derly woman appeared from the nearest house, tutting and looking very disapproving as she came over to join them.
‘What is this—where is your respect for our Crown?’ she demanded. ‘Highness, forgive my thought-less grandson,’ Emily could hear her saying as she curtseyed to Marco.
This was a side of him she had never seen, Emily thought to herself as Marco leaned forward and assisted the elderly woman to her feet, accepting her homage with easy grace,whilst maintaining a very specific formal dignity that Emily could see the elderly woman liked. As more villagers surrounded him, he was very much the future king, so much so that Emily’s emotions blocked her throat. She felt so proud sitting in the car watching him and yet, at the same time, so painfully distanced from him. What she was witnessing was making her even more aware of how impossible it would be for them to sustain a long-term relationship. Already she could see the curious and even hostile glances being directed towards her, and she guessed when Marco turned to look at the car that he was being asked who she was.
She looked away, her gaze caught by an array of brightly painted and beaded leather purses spilling out of a basket, just outside the door to one of the houses. Her artist’s eye could immediately see how, with some discreet direction, highly desirable objects could be made by adapting the leather and bead-work to cover boxes. She was constantly on the lookout for such accessories to dress her decorating schemes; they walked out of her shop faster than she could buy them. She made a mental note to ask Marco a bit more about the leather-work and those who produced it.
It was nearly half an hour before he returned to the car, having been pressed into going and viewing the generator in its new home. When he returned he was accompanied by a group of laughing young men, whilst Emily noticed the older people of the village held back a little, still eyeing her warily. One of them, a bearded and obviously very old man, went up to Marco and said something to him, shaking his head and pointing to the car. Emily saw the way Marco’s expression hardened as he listened.