The Prince's Chambermaid

by Sharon Kendrick

  It felt like a slap to the face but Cathy’s smile didn’t waver. How quickly she had become skilled at the royal art of never giving away your feelings by your facial expression. ‘Flavia?’ she echoed.

  ‘Sì. The two of you get on well, don’t you?’

  ‘’Well, yes, we do—but that isn’t the point. I thought you meant us…the two of us.’

  He frowned. ‘And how precisely would that happen, Cathy?’ he questioned drily. ‘Would someone magically step in to fill my shoes while I’m away? I am a busy man.’

  With fingers which were trying not to tremble, she turned back to the mirror and pretended to fuss with her hair. She knew he was busy—that his diary was jampacked—but surely even Prince Regents were allowed a holiday sometimes?

  ‘Of course you’re busy.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re always busy. I’m sorry. It was a stupid assumption for me to make.’

  Something in the resigned tone of her voice stayed him, and he came up behind her, his fingers slipping to her bare shoulders and beginning to massage them. ‘No, it was an easy assumption to make…but there aren’t going to be any holidays, bella—at least, not for a while.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ she said brightly. ‘I guess it’ll be all the better when it happens.’

  Frowning, he felt the tight tension in her shoulders as he attempted to explain something of his dilemma—he who had never had to offer anyone an explanation in his life. ‘Taking over a monarchy like this is a bit like being brought in to head up a powerful organisation—except much of this I cannot delegate, because the buck stops with me. And yet because, ultimately, mine is only a substitute authority, I must run every decision past the government to ensure that I am acting in the country’s best interests. Porca miseria—but your muscles are tight, mia bella.’ Gold seared into aquamarine as their eyes locked in the looking glass. ‘Perhaps I should take you to bed and help you relax in a way which would please us both,’ he said softly.

  For a moment, she allowed herself to dream. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’ she whispered.

  His hand slipped beneath her gown to tease a nipple between thumb and forefinger, a smile curving his lips as he felt its immediate response. ‘Mmm. It would be perfetto.’

  She felt like a child who had been offered an ice cream, only to discover that the store had just closed. ‘But…but there isn’t time, is there?’ she said, jerking away from the temptation of his touch. ‘Not with forty people waiting to have dinner with us.’

  Reality intruded like a cold shower—washing away the soft heat which always suffused his skin when she was near. What a distraction she was, with her pale hair and her trembling lips and that way she had of looking up at him. Swallowing down his frustration, Xaviero said something harsh and raw in Greek—in a tone she had never heard him use before—and Cathy held his gaze as she put her hairbrush down, with a hand which wasn’t quite steady.

  ‘Why don’t you say it in English so at least I can understand?’

  His mouth hardened. ‘You don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do. Aren’t wives supposed to know what’s troubling their husbands, even if they’re Prince Regents?’ she questioned, her heart suddenly beginning to thump with a cold dread which made the palms of her hands grow clammy. ‘And…and something is troubling you, isn’t it, Xaviero?’

  There was a split second of a pause. Because didn’t articulating something make it real? And yet if he didn’t tell someone he thought he just might explode. He shrugged, and then let out a ragged sigh. ‘I just said how much I hate this life.’

  Quietly spoken, his words ripped through her:…how much I hate this life. Powerful words which laid bare a dissatisfaction she had suspected from the moment she’d arrived on the island. Was she implicated in that unhappiness? she wondered painfully. Yet how could she not be—for wasn’t she part of the whole package?

  ‘Anything specific?’ she questioned, in a light tone. The kind of tone she’d once used to ask people if they’d like an extra blanket or not.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know—everything.’ The words left his mouth with soft, explosive savagery, a torrent he’d been trying to deny for too long—even to himself. ‘I hate it all. The demands. The lack of freedom and privacy. The way that everyone wants something from you. Everybody has a damned agenda.’

  ‘But surely that was always the case? You’ve been royal all your life, Xaviero.’

  ‘Only when I had to be.’ He lifted his hand up to rake it back through the ebony hair, the light glinting off the pale gold of his crested cufflink. ‘Why do you think I went to live in New York, where I was able to live a reasonably anonymous life? Because I didn’t want to stand out. It’s why I picked the isolation of the countryside, when I decided to settle in England.’

  ‘Then this happened, out of the blue,’ she said slowly, praying that his valet or her lady-in-waiting wouldn’t come in and disturb them—because Xaviero had never talked to her like this before. ‘And there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.’

  ‘No. My fate has been sealed,’ he said, with an air of finality, and then his face darkened. ‘And yet I have no right to express any kind of dissatisfaction with my lot. How can I—when my brother is lying insensible in what seems like a cruel enactment of our mother’s demise? And if I’m honest—really honest—weren’t there times in our childhood when I wanted the monarchy? When I wished it was me being prepared for the kingdom, not Casimiro. What is it that they say,’ he added bitterly. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  Cathy flinched, praying for the right words as she saw the deepening of the painful lines etched in his face. Something which could lessen his grief and his guilt and might make him see the positives in a life he would never have chosen for himself. Couldn’t she persuade him that together they could learn a different way of living—if he was prepared to give it a try? But before she could speak, there was a gentle tap on the door and Xaviero opened it himself to find one of the butlers standing there.

  Black eyebrows were arched in impatient query. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Highness, your guests have arrived.’

  Xaviero nodded, wishing for a brief and crazy moment that he were back in her tiny cottage, sitting in the soft, scented oasis of her garden, drinking wine from those ridiculous cheap little tumblers she used to use. But there was no use yearning for the impossible—because hadn’t he learnt by now that duty always came first? And how could he expect Cathy to adhere to that principle if he found he was trying to shirk it himself? ‘We’ll be right down.’ He turned to her. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘Xaviero, there must be something you could—’

  ‘Forget it.’ Although soft, his tone was emphatic. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She wanted to say that it did—but her heart sank as she saw the now familiar cool mask back in place and she sensed his confidences of just a moment ago already being erased from his mind. And yet his disclosures—far from bringing her closer to him—had left her feeling distinctly unsettled. Insecurity flooded through her as she realised she hadn’t been imagining his frustration at his life here at all. And what would happen if that frustration built and built?

  Side by side they walked into the anteroom where the assembled guests were waiting and Cathy carefully composed her face to prepare herself for the inevitable scrutiny. She was used to this by now—the way the women always looked her over and sized her up, as if trying to decide whether she was fit to be married to such a devastatingly handsome and eligible prince.

  This was the part of the evening where she and Xaviero again went their separate ways—she to chat to the wives of the visiting delegation and to sip at a glass of water. She had given up taking wine before or during the meal—it made her grow too pink and uninhibited and sometimes she had to bite back things she really wanted to say.

  It’s as much a prison for me as it is for Xaviero, she realised suddenly as they were led into dinner, to opposite ends of t
he formally decorated table.

  She watched Xaviero during the meal, her eyes straying to him despite her determination to respond enthusiastically to the man seated next to her. From time to time he would look up, his golden eyes sparking out a silent question—occasionally, he would even toss her a slow smile. And Cathy was aware that she seized on these little crumbs of affection as a starving dog would a piece of meat.

  She saw the sultry woman at his side slant him a beguiling smile—and, to be fair to Xaviero, he didn’t respond to it at all. No telltale silent flirtation in return. But that was because they were newlyweds—when she was still completely captivating to him in the bedroom and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. What would happen when that wore off—as people always said it did?

  Trapped within the confines of their largely separate lives—might not Xaviero choose to dabble a little elsewhere, as royal men throughout history had been inclined to do? The opportunity was always there for them—they could have their pick of women so eager to bed a prince that discretion would be guaranteed. Why, didn’t weak and ambitious men sometimes even offer up their wives as some kind of noble sexual sacrifice?

  Maybe that was another reason why he had chosen a compliant wife—one so grateful to be married to him that she would put up with just about anything. Was he expecting her to turn a blind eye to his indiscretions as royal wives were famous for doing? She shuddered, quickly putting her heavy fork down before she did something unforgivable—like dropping it on one of the porcelain plates.

  But it was like finding a tiny tear in an old dress and poking your finger inside it—only to discover that you were making the hole much bigger. It was as if tonight had opened the floodgates on all the inadequacies in their relationship—or had Xaviero’s own words of dissatisfaction about his life helped to crystallise her own?

  We’ve never even talked about children, she realised. Quickly, she gulped down a mouthful of water and felt it refresh her parched lips, but underneath the table her knees were trembling. Xaviero had continued to use protection after their marriage and she hadn’t even questioned it—just tacitly accepted it as she had done so much else. Oh, she was certainly compliant! Did he want children? And could she bring children into this kind of peculiar marriage—or was this a ‘normal’ marriage in the royal world?

  I’ll ask him, she thought—though a wave of dark misery swept over her. I’ll ask him tonight.

  Dessert appeared—an extravagant confection of lemon cream and spun sugar—and Cathy was eyeing it unenthusiastically when one of Xaviero’s aides entered the room and went immediately over to his side to speak softly in the Prince’s ear.

  Even without her crash-course in protocol, Cathy would have known that it was rare indeed for the Prince Regent to be interrupted when he was in the middle of an official dinner. And rarer still for Xaviero to suddenly rise to his feet, his face growing ashen.

  Something was wrong. Helplessly, her fingers clutched at her napkin. She wanted to ask him what was happening but, of course, she couldn’t do that for he wouldn’t dream of telling her before an audience.

  And then another aide entered and Xaviero quickly joined him at the side of the room, bending his dark head as the man spoke in a low, urgent tone in his ear. By now all the guests had abandoned any pretence at continuing with their dinner—as everyone seemed to sense that something momentous was happening.

  What the hell was going on?

  Xaviero’s face grew suddenly taut as he spoke in a low voice to the assembled company. ‘I regret to say that urgent matters of state mean that my wife and I must now leave you,’ he said, and then paused before the golden eyes seared into her. ‘Catherine, you will please join me?’

  It felt like a summons, it most definitely was a summons, and never had a walk seemed so long as Cathy found her feet and slowly walked down the long dining room towards him. Searching his face for some sort of clue for the reasons behind this extraordinary break with protocol, she found none. Just a bleak and unfathomable countenance, but then, wasn’t that Xaviero all over—because since when had she ever been able to read anything in his shuttered face?

  In silence, they left the room—the aides following at a discreet distance—and once they were out of earshot of the assembled dignitaries she turned to him in perplexity.

  ‘Xaviero, what on earth is going on?’

  He seemed to struggle to find the right words. ‘The hospital has just rung—’

  Her heart missed a beat as she held her breath, sensing tragedy. ‘And?’

  He swallowed. ‘My brother has tonight awakened from his coma.’

  Chapter Eleven

  THE car drove them straight to the hospital—but Cathy was still reeling from her husband’s shock announcement and his inexplicably bleak response to it.

  ‘I thought…I thought you’d be overjoyed about your brother’s recovery, and yet…’ she said slowly, registering the sombre set of his features in the dimmed light of the limousine. ‘What exactly have they told you?’

  ‘That he suddenly opened his eyes and began to speak. They’re running tests now—but they say…’ His voice thickened. ‘They say he’s going to make a full recovery.’

  ‘So why…?’ Dared she? Dared she? ‘Why your restrained response?’

  ‘I’ll believe it when I see it for myself,’ he said harshly as the car drew up outside the brightly lit and modern hospital, where the medical director was waiting for them.

  The news was good. In fact, the news was pretty unbelievable, Cathy thought as she sat in the big, airy office and listened while the doctor explained that every test they’d run had been favourable. That every system was functioning and that the King was demanding physiotherapy as soon as possible because he wanted to—as the doctor relayed with the hint of a smile—‘get the hell out of here’.

  Xaviero felt a pulse working at his temple. ‘That sounds like Casimiro. So when can I see him?’

  ‘I can take you to him now, Your Highness.’

  He turned to her, but the golden eyes were shadowed, distracted. ‘Come, Catherine.’

  Cathy was suddenly acutely aware that she was dressed in a scarlet evening gown—even though her shoulders were covered in a pashmina which had been thrust at her by an aide before their hasty departure. And aware too that her presence was superfluous to what would—and should—be an emotional reunion between the two brothers. She shook her head. ‘No. Better that you see him alone,’ she said quietly.

  Eyebrows arrowed together in a frown. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  She sat drinking coffee while she waited, unable to stop the stream of thoughts pouring into her mind—no matter how much she tried to stop them. But shamefully the one which dominated all others was purely selfish. And while Cathy’s heart felt fit to burst for joy that the young King should have come back to life, she wouldn’t have been human if a deep dark wave of fear hadn’t washed over her.

  Because my place here is now redundant.

  Xaviero didn’t need her any more. He didn’t need a wife by his side to ease the burden of unwanted duty thrust upon him by circumstance. He didn’t even need to be here himself—not now. Judging by what the doctor had told them, the King was well on the way to recovery and would soon resume his rightful place on the throne.

  She was so caught up in her troubled thoughts that when Xaviero appeared in the doorway for a moment she scarcely recognised him. Because this was a man she had never seen before—one transformed by a sudden sense of joy. It was as if he had been carrying around with him an impossibly heavy burden—and someone had suddenly lifted it from his shoulders and the weight had vanished. He was free, she thought—with another shiver of foreboding.

  ‘How…how is he?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s unbelievable.’ Xaviero expelled a ragged sigh—because hadn’t the past come back to haunt him as he had stood beside his brother’s bed? Didn’t he know better than anyone that doctors sometimes ra
ised hopes when those hopes were better to let wither, and die? But the spectre of his mother’s own failed recovery had been banished by the first sight of his brother’s smile. ‘He’s…’

  He had been about to say that Casimiro was the same as he’d ever been, but that would be a lie. His brother had changed—Xaviero had sensed that from the moment he had walked into the intensive care unit. And when you stopped to think about it an experience like that was bound to change you profoundly—for didn’t death’s dark shadow throw the rest of your life into focus and force you to reevaluate it?

  ‘He’s going to be okay,’ he said, in a shaky voice which didn’t sound like his own voice.

  Her own fears forgotten, Cathy went to him then—putting her arms very tightly around him and resting her head against his shoulder, breathing in the raw masculine scent that was all his.

  ‘Oh, Xaviero,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so very happy for you. So happy for him.’

  ‘Not as happy as I’m feeling right now,’ he whispered, his arms snaking round her waist as he buried his face in the silken tumble of her hair.

  The car took them back to the palace, and, after telling the assembled staff the news, they hurried to their suite with matched and urgent steps. Xaviero was on fire, and so was she—he barely waited until the door was shut before impatiently sliding the soft silk-satin up over her hips. Questing fingers found her searing heat and he didn’t even bother to remove the delicate lace panties—just hurriedly thrust the panel aside, as he unzipped and freed himself and pushed her back against the wall.

  Cathy gasped as she felt the tip of him nudging intimately against her—wanting to squirm her hips to accommodate him—longing to feel his hard power filling her and completing her. But as he prepared to thrust into her—it was she who realised what was about to happen. Who cried out a little protest before firmly pushing against his chest before it was too late—before he risked trapping himself again, only this time by something which was preventable.