by Penny Jordan
‘What was that old man saying to you?’ she asked him, once he was back in the car and they had driven out of the village.
‘Nothing much.’
‘Yes, he was. He was saying something about me, wasn’t he?’ Emily pressed him. ‘He didn’t like you taking me there.’
Marco looked at her. Rafael, the elder of the village, was very much his grandfather’s man. He did not approve of the generator and had said so, and then, when he had seen Emily in the car, he had berated Marco for—as he had put it—‘bringing such a woman to Niroli’. ‘Where is her shame?’ Rafael had demanded. ‘She shows her face here as boldly as though she has none. In my day, such a woman would have known her place. It is an insult to us, the people of Niroli, that you have brought her here,’ he had told Marco fiercely.
‘Rafael has a reputation as someone with very strong views. He is even older than my grandfather and tends to think of himself as the guardian of the island’s morals…’
‘You mean he disapproves of me being here with you,’ Emily guessed.
Marco was negotiating a tight bend, and Emily had to wait for him to answer her.
‘What he thinks or feels is his business. What I choose to do is my own,’ he told her grimly.
But the reality was that it wasn’t, and that whatever Marco chose to do was the business of the people of Niroli.
In an attempt to change the subject, she asked him brightly,
‘I saw a basket of leather purses…’
‘Yes, the women of the villages make them. They sell them to tourists, if they can, although these days the visitors who come to Niroli would far rather have a designer piece than something fashioned out of home-made leather.’
‘Mmm…I was thinking that, with a bit of time and effort, the leather could be used to cover trinket boxes, the bead ornamentation was so pretty, and I know from my own experience there is a huge market for that kind of thing. If, as you say, the villagers are short of money, then…’
‘It’s worth thinking about, but there’s no way I want my people involved in any kind of exploitation.’
‘It was only a thought.’
‘And a good one. Leave it with me.’
When the time came for him to marry, Marco reflected, he would need a wife who would take on the role of helping him to help his people. Emily could easily fulfil that role. Somehow, that thought had slipped under his guard and into his head where it had no right to be. Just as he had no right to allow Emily into his heart. Into his heart? Now, what was he thinking? Just because Rafael’s objection to her presence had made him feel so angry and protective of her, that didn’t mean that she had found her way into his heart. Did it?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EMILY sighed to herself as she parked the car Marco had hired for her to use whilst she was staying on Niroli outside the island’s elegant spa. Although he had made love to her last night and it was at his suggestion that she was visiting the spa today, she knew that she would far rather have had his company. Marco, though, was too busy with royal affairs to spend time with her. His purchase and distribution of the generators had led to yet another row with his grandfather, which had resulted in Emily asking Marco if there wasn’t someone within his family who could mediate between the two of them.
‘Someone, you mean, like my sister Isabella?’ he had replied. ‘She claims that my grandfather doesn’t value her because she is female. No, Emily.’ He had shaken his head. ‘This is something I have to deal with myself.’
To Emily’s relief, she had now gone three whole days without being sick, although she had noticed that, despite the fact that she wasn’t eating very much, the waistline of one of her favourite skirts was now uncomfortably tight, and even more uncomfortable were her breasts, which felt swollen and tender. It must be due to too-rapid a change of climate, she had told herself this morning as she’d dressed.
Marco had told her that the spa was owned and run by Natalia Carini, daughter of Giovanni, the Royal Vine-keeper. Emily had been a bit hesitant about coming here and putting herself forward for ‘inspection’ when she was at her most vulnerable. But as she walked into the spa foyer she heard the pretty girl behind the reception desk saying to another client, ‘I’m sorry, but Miss Carini isn’t here today.’
Emily hadn’t really been sure how she felt about meeting someone who might have known Marco when he was younger. Like any woman in love, she longed to know everything there was to know about him and yet, at the same time, the reality of her position in his life made her feel that she wanted to remain anonymous. In London, it might be acceptable for a couple to live together as lovers without any intention of making their relationship permanent, but she suspected that things were different here on Niroli—even if Marco weren’t who he was and destined to be King and, no doubt, to make a dynastic marriage.
‘May I help you?’
Emily returned the receptionist’s smile. ‘I don’t have an appointment, but I was wondering if it was possible to have a treatment?’
‘Since it isn’t the height of the tourist season yet, we should be able to fit you in. What kind of treatment would you like? We specialise here in using natural substances, especially the island’s own volcanic mud. It’s very therapeutic, especially when we use it in conjunction with our specially designed massage treatments.
‘Here’s a list of the treatments we offer, and a medical questionnaire.’ The girl smiled again. ‘The owner of the spa takes her responsibility to our clients very seriously, and I should point out to you that some of the more vigorous massages are not suitable for women who are pregnant.’
Pregnant! Emily almost laughed. Well, she certainly wasn’t. And then suddenly it hit her, her brain mentally registering the facts and assembling them: her sickness, her aching breasts, her growing waist. A wave of sickening shock and disbelief thundered through her, and she could hear the receptionist asking her anxiously if she was all right.
‘I’m…fine…’ she lied.
But of course she wasn’t. She was anything but. How could she be ‘fine’, when the reason for the sickness she’d been suffering these last few weeks, and the fact that, oddly, her waist seemed to have expanded making her clothes feel tight, had suddenly been made blindingly obvious to her?
Was she right? Was she pregnant? She did some hasty mental calculations, whilst her heart banged anxiously against her ribs.
She needed very badly to sit down, but not here. Not anywhere where the truth might out and there could be any hint of a threat to her unborn child. It had only been seconds, minutes at the most, since she had realised the reality, but already she knew that there was nothing she would not do to protect the new life growing inside her. She would allow nothing or no one to imperil her child’s safety and right to life!
Emily stared at her own reflection in the bedroom mirror and tried not to panic. There was little to show that she was pregnant as yet, apart from that slight thickening of her waist, but how much longer would she have before Marco became suspicious? She couldn’t afford to be still here on Niroli by then. Her throat went dry. Inside her head she could hear Marco’s voice telling her, at the very beginning of their relationship, that there would be no accidents, and what he expected her to do if one occurred.
Of course, what he had meant and not said was that he didn’t want any royal bastards.
But there was no way she could destroy her child. She would rather destroy herself.
However, logically, Emily knew that, even if Marco had not made it plain he did not want her to have his child, there would be no place here on Niroli for the future king’s pregnant mistress, or his illegitimate baby! What on earth was she going to do? She had never felt more alone.
‘And now the village elder says that his orders have been ignored, and that the generator-shed has been broken into and the generator itself stolen. You see what you have done, what trouble you have caused by your interference?’
Marco forced himself to count slow
ly to ten before responding to his grandfather’s angry but also triumphant accusations.
‘You say that Rafael gave orders that the shed housing the generator was to be boarded up for the safety of the villagers. What is that supposed to mean?’
One of his grandfather’s aides bent his head close to the Royal Ear and murmured something in it.
‘The peace of the village was being destroyed—by the noise of the generator and various electrical appliances. Several villagers had complained to him that it had put their hens off laying and stopped their cows producing milk.’
Marco didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘And because of that he stopped the villagers using the generator?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘No wonder they decided to ignore him!’
‘Rafael says that he has long had concerns about the rebellious Vialli tendencies amongst this group of young men. Now that they have stolen the generator and are refusing to say where it is, he has had no other option but to order that they are punished.’
‘What?’
‘Furthermore, Rafael has told me his village is on the verge of anarchy, and that it will spread to other villages in the mountains.’
‘This is crazy,’ Marco told his grandfather. ‘If anyone should be locked up, it’s Rafael with his prehistoric views. Grandfather, you must see how foolish it was for him to have done this,’ Marco implored. His grandfather was after all an educated, astute and wily man, whilst Rafael was a simple peasant.
‘What I see is that you are the cause of this trouble with your reckless refusal to obey my commands.’
Marco didn’t trust himself to stay and listen to any more, in case it provoked him into open warfare with his grandfather and his outdated ideas. Giving King Giorgio a small, formal half-bow, he then turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
In the corridors dust motes danced on the warm afternoon air. Emily would be back at the villa by now. An image of her slid into his head: she would be sitting in the shade, and when she saw him walking towards her she would look up at him and give him that welcoming smile. She would also look cool and calm, and just seeing her would take the edge off his own frustration. Right now, he admitted, he would give anything to share his experiences of the morning with her. Emily, with her understanding and her sympathetic ear—he needed both of those very badly.
He paused. There it was again, that word, ‘need’. It suddenly struck him how very alone he would be feeling right now if Emily hadn’t been here on Niroli with him. It was only since bringing her to the island that he had recognised how good she was with people, and at problem-solving, and how much it meant to him to have the safety valve of being able to talk openly to her about the situation with his grandfather. Increasingly he was beginning to feel that he didn’t want her to leave either the island or his bed. But whilst he might flout the royal rules for the benefit of his people, where his personal life was concerned he couldn’t do the same and succeed. The only way he could keep Emily on the island was by elevating her to the position of Royal Mistress, and to do that he would have to procure a suitably noble husband for her, one who understood the way in which these things were done. Whilst he knew he would be able to find such a husband, he also knew that Emily would refuse point-blank to enter that kind of marriage and, besides. Besides what? He didn’t want her to have a husband.
He had no time to delve into the inner workings of his mind at the moment, he reminded himself; nor could he go back to the villa—and Emily—no matter how much he wanted to do so. First he must go up to Rafael’s village and deal with the situation there before it got any worse. And what about his growing dependence on Emily? When was he going to deal with that—before it got worse?
‘Emily.’
She tensed as she heard Marco call out her name as he came out into the sheltered inner courtyard, where she was seated in the shade, one hand lying protectively against her stomach as she tried to come to terms with everything.
It was early evening and she could hear the sharp edge of something unfamiliar in his voice. What was it? Not tiredness or irritation, and certainly not anxiety, but somehow a something that made her heart ache for him, above and beyond her own pain and fear for herself and their child. Was it always going to be like this? Was she always going to have this instinctive need to give him the best of her love? How could she do so now?
‘I would have been back earlier,’ Marco told her, ‘but I had to go up to Rafael’s village to put an end to some trouble brewing there, as my grandfather informed me with great delight earlier.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ Emily asked anxiously.
Marco sat down next to her. She could smell the dusty heat of the day on him, but under it she was, as always, acutely conscious of the scent that was so sensually him. However, this evening, instead of filling her with desire, it filled her with a complex mix of emotions so intense that they clogged her throat with tears—tears for their baby, who would never know and recognise his father’s scent, tears for herself because she would have to live without Marco. But, most of all, tears for Marco himself, because he could never share with her the unique feeling that came from knowing they had created a life together. Her child, their child, his first-born child. The huge tremor of emotion that seized her shook her whole body, overwhelming her with a flood of love and pain in equal proportions. She wanted this baby—his child—so very much. Its conception might have been wholly unplanned, but if she could go back and change things she knew that she would not do so. She was a modern woman, financially independent, with her own home and her own business, and more than enough love to give to her baby. A baby that would never know its father’s love, she reminded herself as Marco answered her question, forcing her to focus on what he was saying and to put her own thoughts to one side.
‘Rafael had tried to stop the villagers using the generator,’ he explained. ‘So Tomasso and some of his friends rebelled and hijacked it. Then Rafael—with my grandfather’s approval—had the young fools punished. They were already antagonistic towards a way of life that traps them in the past and my grandfather’s old-fashioned determination to enforce a way of life on them to their detriment.’
‘It can’t be good that they feel so disenfranchised,’ Emily felt bound to comment.
‘I know,’ Marco acknowledged. ‘If my grandfather was more reasonable, I could discuss with him my concern that these youngsters could, if handled the wrong way, become so disaffected that ultimately it could result in civil unrest and even violence. But the minute I tell him that, his reaction will be to have them imprisoned.’
‘You need to find a way of getting them onside and opening a dialogue with them that allows them to feel their concerns are being addressed,’ Emily offered.
‘My views exactly,’ Marco agreed. ‘I’ve told them that it’s an issue I intend to take on board once I take over from my grandfather and I’ve asked them to be patient until then. But I also know that the moment I start instituting any reforms, the old guard is going to react against them, because my grandfather has drip-fed them the fear that change means that they will lose out in some way.’
Emily listened sympathetically. She could see how passionately Marco felt about the situation. But she also sensed that the more angry and opposed to his grandfather Marco became, the less chance there was of them reaching a mutually acceptable solution.
‘I don’t have to tell you that your grandfather is an old man,’ she replied. ‘It may be that his pride won’t allow him to admit that he has got things wrong and they’ve gone too far, or that the way the island is ruled needs to change. You might have to backtrack a little, Marco, and find a way to offer him a face-saving way of accepting your changes. Maybe you could handle them in such a way that he could feel they were his ideas—in public at least.’ She could see from Marco’s expression that he wasn’t willing to take on board what she was saying. It seemed to her that he and his grandfather were two very proud and stubborn men and that neither was p
repared to give in to the other.
‘You haven’t seen anything of the island yet,’ he told her abruptly. ‘We’ll remedy that tomorrow.’ For Emily’s benefit, or for his own, because he needed to put some distance between himself and his grandfather?
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘ARE you sure you’ve got time to do this?’ Emily queried as Marco held open the door of the car for her before they set off to see something of the island. The morning sunshine cast sharp patterns on the worn flagstones of the courtyard and Emily was glad of the welcome coolness of the air-conditioned car. Hadn’t she read somewhere that pregnancy increased the blood flow and made one feel warmer? Pregnancy. She ached to be able to share her joy with Marco and yet, at the same time, she was also afraid of his reaction. If he should try to pressure her into having a termination it would break her heart, but, logically, what else could he do? Even if he was prepared to understand and accept that she wanted to have this baby and bring it up alone, she suspected that his grandfather would be totally opposed to the idea. The old king would surely put pressure on Marco to deal with her. She didn’t want to put Marco in that position and she wanted to keep her child as far away as possible from what increasingly she felt was a very negative kind of environment. The Nirolian royal family might be the richest in the world, but so far as Emily was concerned they seemed to be as dysfunctional as they were wealthy. Money wasn’t important to her, so long as she had enough for her needs. She wanted her child to grow up confident that he or she was rich in love rather than money. What she wanted, she admitted, was for her child to be raised somewhere very far away from Niroli and without the burden of being a royal bastard. So what was she going to do? Return to London without telling Marco she was having his child?