by Penny Jordan
In the space of a few heated sentences, they had become opponents, Emily recognised.
‘It doesn’t matter how much we argue about our own feelings,’ she told him. ‘You are not yet King Marco, and I doubt that your grandfather would welcome the birth of an illegitimate child to a woman of such lowly status as me.’
There was just enough edge to her voice to warn Marco that, at some stage, she had learned of his grandfather’s opinion of her.
‘The fact that I am his father automatically gives him his own status,’ Marco retaliated, and then realised his words had added to Emily’s fury rather than soft-ened it.
‘Yes, as your bastard—a royal bastard, I know. But he will still be your bastard. I won’t let him suffer that, Marco. I’m going home.’
‘Niroli is my child’s home, and this is where you and he are staying. When did you find out—about the child?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘Very recently. I had no idea…’ Emily looked away from Marco, remembering how shocked she had been. ‘I would never have agreed to come here with you, if I’d known.’
‘So how would you have informed me that I’d become a father? Via a birth notice in The Times?’
Emily flinched as she heard the savagery in his voice. ‘That wouldn’t happen,’ she told him quietly. It had been foolish of her to give in to her urge to comfort him, because now she had created a new set of problems. Why had she told him? Because secretly she had been hoping—what? That he would sweep her up into his arms and say that he was thrilled she was expecting their child?
‘I’m sorry if I’ve given you a shock. I was stunned myself when I realised. But I didn’t want you to think I was leaving because…’ The words ‘because I don’t love you’ formed a tight knot that blocked her throat. How could she say them when she knew he didn’t want her love? ‘I wanted you to know that I have a valid reason for leaving the island,’ she amended, her voice growing firmer as she underlined, ‘a reason that matters to both of us. We already knew that one day we would have to part. The fact that I have accidentally conceived your child only makes that parting all the more essential. We both know that. I will not be your pregnant mistress, Marco.’
Emily was having his child, their child! A complex mixture of unfamiliar emotions were curling their fingers into his heart and tugging hard on it.
‘How far advanced is this pregnancy?’ he askedher brusquely.
Emily felt as though her whole body had been plunged into ice-cold water. This was what she had dreaded. An argument with him, in which he would try to demand that she terminate her pregnancy—something she had absolutely no intention of doing.
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted honestly. ‘I think that possibly it could have happened when I had that stomach bug. I remember reading somewhere that that kind of thing can neutralise the effect of the contraceptive pill. I should have thought about that at the time, but I didn’t.’ She lifted her head and told him firmly, ‘You needn’t worry about the consequences, though, Marco. I am fully prepared to take sole responsibility for my child.’
‘My child.’ Marco stopped her ruthlessly. ‘The child is my child, Emily.’
She looked at him uncertainly. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would react like this. He sounded almost as though he felt as possessive about the baby as she did herself.
‘I don’t want to discuss it any more, Marco. There’s no point. I can’t stay here now.’
The morning sun was slanting across the courtyard. The coffee Maria had brought him half an hour earlier had grown cold as Marco sat deep in thought. He was not going to let Emily leave. And he was not going to allow his child to grow up anywhere other than here on Niroli. Both were unassailable and unchangeable tenets of what he felt about his role as king-in-waiting and as the father of Emily’s expected baby. It wasn’t any longer a matter of what he did or didn’t want; it was a matter of his royal duty, to his pride, to his name and to his first-born.
It was ridiculous of Emily to suggest that their child would have benefits that his so-called legitimate children would not, folly for her to claim that he would one day thank her for denying him his royal status. Marco might have enjoyed the freedom of his time in London, but he had also never forgotten who and what he was. Having royal blood and being able to lay claim to it, even if one was born on the wrong side of the blanket, was a life-enhancing benefit that couldn’t be ignored. His son, growing up here on Niroli as his accepted child, could look forward to the best of everything and, when grown, a position of authority at his father’s court. He would be revered and respected, he would wield power and he would be on hand to support his legitimate half-sibling when finally he became King. Would he be imprisoned by his royal status, as Marco had sometimes felt he had been? No!
All of that and more could be made possible for this child, provided that Emily was prepared to see sense. She didn’t have the status of a proper royal mistress, that was true. But his grandfather, for all his faults and stubbornness, also had a strong sense of duty and family. He, too, would want his greatgrandchild to remain on Niroli. There was a way in which it could be made possible for her to stay and be elevated to a position in which she and their baby would have the respect of the people.
He swung round as he heard Emily come out into the courtyard. The sun had brushed her skin a warm gold, driving away its London pallor. She wasn’t showing any visible sign of her pregnancy yet, but there was a rich glow about her, somehow, a sense of ripeness to come. Watching her, Marco experienced a swift surge of possessive determination not to let her go. She was having his child; whether by accident and not by design, that did not alter his paternal responsibilities or that a baby of royal blood was to be born. Who other than he could tell that child about his heritage and where better a place to do that than here on Niroli?
‘I’ve just seen Maria and she’s going to bring out some fresh coffee for you.’ How domestic and comfortable that sounded, Emily thought tiredly as she sat down on the chair Marco had pulled out for her. She had hardly slept, her thoughts circling helplessly and tumultuously.
‘I’m not prepared to let you leave the island, Emily. You, and my child, are going to stay here where both of you belong. It seems to me that marriage is the best way to secure our son’s future and your position at court.’
Marriage! Emily almost dropped the glass of water she had been drinking. Marco wanted to marry her? She was shaking from head to foot with the intensity of her joy. Emotional tears filled her eyes. She put down the glass, and protested shakily, ‘Marco! You can’t mean that. How can you marry me?’
She realised immediately from his expression that something was wrong.
‘I can’t marry you,’ he told her flatly. ‘You know that. What on earth made you think that I could?’ Why did he feel this dragging weight wrapping itself around him? He couldn’t marry Emily, and he was surprised that she had thought he might. And, yet, just for a moment, seeing the joy in her eyes, he had felt. He had felt what? A reciprocal surge of joy within himself? That was ridiculous.
‘You need a husband, Emily, and a position at court. There is within European royal families a tradition whereby noblemen close to the throne marry royal mistresses. This kind of marriage is rather like a business arrangement, in that it benefits all parties and, in the eyes of the world, bestows respectability on the mistress and any children she may bear. The nobleman in question is of course rewarded for his role and—’
‘Stop it. Stop it. I have heard enough!’ Emily had pushed back her chair and got to her feet. She could hardly breathe but she struggled to speak. ‘I thought I knew you, Marco. I even felt sorry for you, because of the heavy responsibility your duty to the Crown lays upon you! But now I realise that I never really knew you. The man I thought I knew would never in a thousand years have allowed himself to become so corrupted by power and pride that he would suggest what you have just suggested to me!’
‘What I propose is a traditional solution to a
uniquely royal problem,’ Marco persisted curtly. ‘You are overreacting.’ Her outburst had made him feel as though he were doing something wrong, instead of recommending a logical solution to their problem. A logical solution of the kind his grandfather would have suggested? Was the pressure of becoming King turning him into a man like his grandfathe, the kind of man he had once sworn he would never allow himself to be? His critical inner voice would not be silenced, and its contempt echoed uncomfortably inside him.
‘Am I? Take a look at yourself, Marco, and try seeing yourself through my eyes, and then repeat what you have just offered as a solution. You want to bribe another man to marry me so that—so that what? You can have your child here, conveniently legitimised by a convenient marriage between two strangers, though I’m sure that won’t stop the gossip. But what about me? Am I expected to be a dutiful bride to this noble husband you’re going to find for me? Am I supposed to submit willingly to having sex with him, bear his children, be his wife in all senses of the word?’
‘No, there will be no question of that.’ The harshness of his own immediate denial caught Marco off guard. But he couldn’t retract his words, nor deny the feeling of fierce possessiveness that had gripped him at the thought of Emily in another man’s bed.
‘What kind of man are you, Marco, if you think that I would be willing to sell myself into such an arrangement? But then I was forgetting: you aren’t a mere man, are you? You are a king! I’m not staying on the island a minute longer than I have to. Everything you’ve just said underlines all the reasons why I don’t want my son growing up here. Your proximity to the throne has corrupted you, but I don’t intend to let it corrupt my child.’
‘And I don’t intend to let you leave Niroli.’
They had been the closest of lovers, but now they were enemies locked in a battle to the bitter end for the right to decide the future of their child.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEplane had taken off, but Emily was holding her breath, half expecting that, somehow, Marco still could prevent her from leaving Niroli.
She’d hated having to appeal to Marco’s grandfather for help behind his back. At first, the king had refused to see her when she’d made her secret visit to the palace. She had been expecting his rejection, though, and so had lifted her chin and told the stiff-faced, uniformed equerry who had told her that the king would not receive her, ‘Please tell His Majesty that the favour I want to ask him will benefit both of us and the throne of Niroli.’
She had been made to wait over an hour before she had finally been shown into the royal presence. It had shocked her to see how very like the king Marco was, traces of Marco’s stunning good looks still visible in the older man’s profile.
She had chosen her moment with care, waiting until she knew that Marco had gone up to the mountains to see Rafael before she visited the palace.
‘I want to leave Niroli,’ she told King Giorgio. ‘But Marco does not wish me to leave. He has said he will do everything in his power to stop me and to keep me here.’ She didn’t tell the king about her pregnancy, just in case he echoed Marco’s insistence that her child be brought up under the cover of an arranged marriage between herself and a nobleman.
‘Only you have the authority to enable me to leave without Marco knowing.’
‘Why should I do that?’ the king challenged her.
Emily was ready for that. ‘Because you do not want me here,’ she replied. ‘You do not consider me good enough to be Marco’s mistress.’
‘He is not the man I thought if he cannot provide sufficient inducement to keep you in his bed, if that is where he wants you.’
‘Marco is more than man enough for any woman,’ Emily defended. ‘But I am too much of a woman to be prepared to share him with the throne and everything else that entails.’
She thought she saw a glimmer of grudging respect in the king’s eyes before he gave a stiff nod of his head. ‘Very well. I will help you. A royal flight will be made ready for you, and I shall ensure that Marco is kept out of the way until it has taken off.’
The king had kept his promise to her, and now she was on her way home. She closed her eyes against the acid burn of her tears and pressed her hand against her body as though in mute apology to her baby for what she was doing. ‘You may not understand it now, but I’m doing this for you and for your future,’ she whispered to him.
‘How dare you do this?’ White-faced with rage, Marco towered over his grandfather, royal protocol forgotten in his fury. Now he knew why Rafael had kept him at the village for so long with his endless complaints against young Tomasso and his friends.
When he had returned to the villa to find Emily missing, he had summoned Maria, and she had been the one who had told him that a car bearing the royal crest had arrived for her.
He had gone straight to the palace, demanding to see his grandfather.
‘Emily applied to me for aid, because she feared you would force her to remain here on Niroli against her will. Naturally, I helped her.’
‘Naturally,’ Marco agreed grimly, registering even more grimly that her departure had elevated Emily from being a floozy to someone his grandfather was prepared to speak of with far more intimacy. ‘After all, you never wanted her here.’
‘Whatever role she might have played in your life in London, there is no place for her here on Niroli. She herself accepts this and, in doing so, she shows far more sense and awareness of the importance of your future role than you do, Marco. I confess that she impressed me with her grasp of your responsibility. She fully understands what will entail when you become Niroli’s king.’
‘She also fully understands that she is to be the mother of my child,’ Marco told his grandfather sharply. ‘That is why she has left—but I don’t expect she told you that, did she?’
‘She is having your child?’
‘Yes,’ Marco confirmed unashamedly.
The king was frowning imperiously. ‘But that alters everything. Why did you not say something to me about this? She must be brought back, and at once! What if this child she is carrying should be a son? It is unthinkable that he should be brought up anywhere but here. Sons are a precious commodity, Marco, even if they are illegitimate. It is important that this child grows up on Niroli knowing his duty and his responsibility to the Crown. That knowledge cannot be instilled in him too early. When is the birth expected? There is much to do—the royal nursery will have to be prepared, and a suitable household established to take charge of him. The mother can stay in London if she wishes, in fact it would be better if she did,’ the king continued dismissively.
His grandfather was only painting a picture that was similar to the one he himself had put before Emily. But instead of feeling vindicated, Marco could feel a cold heaviness seeping through him, as though leaden weights had been tied to his hands so that he was effectively imprisoned.
‘You will order the woman to return, and when you do you will inform her that it is against the law of Niroli for anyone to remove a child of royal blood from the island, on penalty of death.’
Marco shook his head.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Grandfather. Once in some mediaeval age it might have been possible to make such a threat, but I can tell you now that the British courts will take a dim view of it, and that Emily is totally within her rights to want to keep her child with her. I would certainly support her in that. I want my child to grow up here, yes, but I also want his mother to be here for him, as well.’
‘Ridiculous sentimentality. I blame your mother for it. And your father. He should have insisted that she followed tradition and handed you over to those appointed to be responsible for your care as a future king, instead of meddling in matters that did not concern her. It is thanks to her that you developed this stubborn streak that puts you at odds with your duty.’
Marco forced himself not to say anything. Instead he focused on his childhood. He could see himself playing, running and his mother chasing him, and he could
see too the disapproving looks of the elderly courtiers his grandfather had insisted were to be responsible for his upbringing and formation. His mother, had she still been alive, would have supported Emily and helped her. They would have got on well. His father had struggled to oppose the king’s insistence that Marco was brought up to be a prince, rather than as a member of a warm and loving family. His grandfather would try to impose his will on his great-grandchild, Marco knew. He frowned, suddenly sharply aware of his own desire to protect his child from the cold discipline and royal training he had known in his own childhood. He was not his father, he reminded himself. He was more than strong enough to ensure that his son was not subjected to the misery of his boyhood.
‘Whilst you are here,’ his grandfather was continuing imperiously, ‘I have decided that the generators will have to be removed from the island completely. They are causing too much conflict between our peoples. It is just as I had thought, these young dissidents in the mountains have been encouraged by the Viallis to band together and challenge the authority of their village elders. And the blame for that can be laid at our door, Marco. By publicly going against my wishes, you have turned yourself into a figurehead for their rebellion. Various informants have told me of their concern that they are only waiting until you are on the throne to force your hand and make demands that can never be granted. If there is any more trouble, I shall impose a curfew—that will teach them to respect the law and the Crown.’
‘If these youngsters are angry and filled with resentment, who can blame them?’ Marco demanded. ‘They need the controls on their lives relaxing, not tightening to the point where there is bound to be increased conflict. By imposing a curfew, all you will be doing is driving their feelings underground and alienating them further. What we need is to establish a forum in which they feel they can be heard and their views properly addressed.’