by Various
‘Luis. I need to see him.’
The words came out in a dry croak, and instantly she knew she had made a mistake. Josefina’s face hardened.
‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question,’ she snapped, and then visibly reined back her impatience. ‘Please, sit down. Prince Luis is king now, and this is going to be a very difficult time for him. It needs to be handled very…sensitively and carefully.’
Emily sank back onto her chair, gripped by a growing sense of dread. ‘I don’t understand.’
Josefina sighed, folding her hands together on the desk. ‘King Marcos Fernando was enormously popular amongst the people, and his passing will cause genuine grief, especially coming so soon after Prince Rico’s death,’ she explained, as if she was talking to a small child. ‘For the past year, since he became the crown prince, we have been working extensively on Prince Luis’s public image, in anticipation of this. Opinion polls show that what we’ve achieved has been a little short of miraculous. The public now regard him almost as favourably as they did Prince Rico.’
She looked at Emily across the table, as if waiting for a response. Emily would have obliged had she had any clue as to what the correct one would be. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what this has to do with me…’
The mulberry lips widened into a patronising smile. ‘Well, of course, to a certain extent we have you to thank for it.’ Suddenly businesslike Josefina seized the computer mouse and clicked briskly, then swivelled the monitor screen around so Emily could see it. ‘Involving you in the PR campaign was a gamble, but one that has proved surprisingly successful.’
‘PR campaign?’ Emily whispered, through lips that were suddenly dry. A succession of images flashed up on the screen before her eyes—newspaper front pages, showing various pictures of her with Luis. Kissing by the steps of the plane when she’d arrived in Santosa. Side by side in the back of a car. Shot with a long lens getting into another car. With Luciana. Arriving at the opera house on the night of the ballet. Leaving later, Luis holding her face between his hands as he kissed her.
His words from last night came back to her, along with a clammy wave of nausea. I just have to accept the stage management and the manipulation of the truth and the blatant bloody lies the palace press office spin in the name of my ‘image.’ He’d been trying to tell her, she realised now. Trying to break it to her that everything that had happened between them was part of that stage management.
‘We needed someone who would provide a complete contrast with the kind of…lifestyle with which the Prince had formerly been associated, and you’ve been perfect.’ Josefina bestowed on Emily the smile of a headmistress handing out gold stars for good work. ‘Unfortunately now, things have changed again,’ she went on, the smile fading slightly as if she’d decided Emily’s performance hadn’t actually made the grade after all. ‘And now the Prince is to become the King, we need to start thinking long term. About his marriage.’
The door opened and a girl came in with a tray of tea and biscuits. Emily’s stomach gave an ominous lurch.
‘Obrigado, Ana.’ Josefina dismissed the girl and turned her attention back to Emily. ‘Now is the time that we need to introduce—in a very low-key way, of course—the woman who will in due course become Queen of Santosa. We’d like her to be in the background, unobtrusively supporting the Prince through this difficult time.’
Everything was going way too fast. Suddenly drenched in sweat Emily clutched the arms of the chair, fighting faintness, unable to take in the fact that the woman in front of her with the black, spiky eyelashes and the painted mouth was talking about Luis. Luis, in whose arms she had woken up only a couple of hours ago, who now it seemed was virtually engaged to someone else.
‘Who is she?’ she said, in a voice that sounded nothing like her own.
‘The Duchess de Mesa comes from an old and very distinguished Portuguese family,’ Josefina explained smugly, pouring tea. ‘She’s been being groomed for this role for many years. She’s the ideal person to be at his side both now and in the future.’
Emily wished she hadn’t asked. With nerveless fingers she picked at the frayed edge of her shorts, trying to take it all in, but it was like looking at a mosaic with a magnifying glass, and she could only see one meaningless piece at a time. ‘What about me?’ she whispered. ‘What about the jubilee event?’
‘Regrettably it’s going to have to be cancelled. You’re welcome to stay in Santosa if you wish, but it might be slightly…awkward if you were to continue to remain at the palace after the Duchess arrives.’
Emily nodded. She felt a split second of ridiculous relief that she wouldn’t have to dance the pas de deux before horror descended on her, blanking out everything else. It’s over, she thought in disbelief. It’s over already. The period of grace she had bargained for had come to an end before she had even had a chance to catch her breath, and now the devil had come to take his payment.
‘I’m sorry, Senhora. It was not supposed to happen like this.’ Josefina spoke carefully, her words faintly tinged with guilt. ‘The prince was so sure we could keep all this…under control. Hurting you was the last thing we wanted.’
‘I understand,’ Emily whispered.
And she did. Luis had all but told her all this himself. I was wrong to do this to you, he’d said last night, his voice raw with remorse. He had never deceived her. She had known the risks and she had plunged in anyway. Into the wild woods.
Emily got to her feet, but as she did so she caught the scent of Luis on her skin and her legs almost gave way again beneath her. The door suddenly seemed a long way away and it was all she could do to get herself across the room and open it.
‘I am grateful to you for making it easier for him,’ Josefina said, as she reached it. ‘I had thought you might be difficult about going, but I can see I underestimated you. Thank you.’ For the first time she sounded completely sincere. Sincere and relieved. But when Emily looked back she had already moved on and was scribbling something on a piece of paper while reaching for the phone.
Out in the corridor with its rows of windows pouring sunlight onto the polished parquet Emily took a deep, tearing breath and had to lean against the wall to steady herself. Someone was walking towards her and she ducked her head. Her life might be over but she still had enough pride to feel self-conscious about falling apart in front of palace staff.
But through the blur of tears there was something about the approaching figure that made her heart stop. And then he spoke, and his voice was clipped, English and wrenchingly familiar.
‘Emily? My God…darling.’
She gave a whimper, her last shreds of self-control snapping as she ran forward into Oscar Balfour’s outstretched arms.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he murmured, his voice cracking with emotion.
‘Daddy,’ she sobbed, breathing in the familiar scent of cologne and Jermyn Street shaving soap. ‘You’re here—oh, thank God, you’re here. Please, Daddy—can I come home?’
Chapter Fifteen
AND in the end this was all there was, Luis thought numbly.
A narrow bed. A sheet folded neatly. A sense of things finished.
Or that’s how it was for his father. A life well lived. A job well done. A grieving public and an official period of mourning. A son who couldn’t feel much at all.
He dropped his head into his hands, and anyone passing the door would have thought that he was stricken with loss for his father, when the truth was he had barely known him. Marcos Fernando had been a King before he was a parent. He had been someone whose picture appeared on postage stamps rather than in family albums. Someone to bow to rather than hug.
Luis wanted so much more from life than that.
He straightened up, dragging a hand over his face with a rasp of stubble. There was no point in going down that particular well-worn track again, he told himself wearily. It was strewn with landmines and it led only to places that were locked and barred to him.
To Emi
ly, in other words.
In the hour that had elapsed since his father’s body had been unhooked from its wires and tubes and the room had emptied of doctors and officials and palace staff, he had sat there alone, obsessively thinking over the possibilities like a prisoner exploring his cell for a means of escape.
There wasn’t one, of course, he’d known that all along. But he kept coming back to that thing she’d said last night on the beach, about him being king. Do it your way, she’d said. You’ll be brilliant. Emily, who did everything passionately, wholeheartedly. Who couldn’t pretend. Whom he loved and admired and trusted more than anyone else in the world.
He got to his feet, swaying slightly, his heart beating very hard. On the bed the figure of his father lay, already as cold and pale as an effigy on a tomb, but as if to prove a point, his own body fizzed and pulsed with energy and adrenaline. Quickly he took his father’s lifeless hand and held it for a moment, and then he walked to the door without looking back.
The guards outside jerked to attention as he passed, shooting each other uneasy glances as he headed straight for the lift. The doors slid open and he punched the button for the ground floor. At that moment Tomás appeared in the doorway of the room opposite, an expression of alarm on his face.
‘Your Highness! I mean…Your Majesty! Where are you—?’
The doors began to close. Realising that Luis had no intention of stopping them, Tomás made it into the lift just in time.
‘Sir, what are you doing?’
His tone was a mixture of incredulity and disapproval, laced with pure panic. By contrast Luis was icy calm.
‘Going back to the palace.’
‘B-but the press are out there, sir. They’re waiting for statements and photographs, and the suit I brought for you is still—’
Ruthlessly Luis cut through the details. ‘I need to speak to Emily.’
‘Ah.’ It was a swift, defeated exhalation, but immediately Tomás drew himself up, visibly preparing to deliver bad news. ‘I’m afraid Miss Balfour is returning to England, sir. I spoke to Josefina just a moment ago. She had a meeting with her this morning, after which it appears Miss Balfour’s father arrived, quite by coincidence. In view of everything that’s happened it seems that Miss Balfour has decided to go home.’
The lift came to a halt and Luis’s lip curled into a sneer of contempt. ‘Miss Balfour decided that, or Josefina did?’ he asked, moving towards the door.
‘Wait.’ With uncharacteristic vehemence Tomás pressed the button to close the doors, and kept his hand there. ‘It’s too late, sir,’ he said desperately. ‘The helicopter is being prepared for take-off right now. By the time you get through the crowd outside and back to the palace she’ll be gone. So why don’t you go back upstairs and change into the suit and—’
He didn’t get any further. The lift shook as, in one lightning-swift movement, Luis lunged at him grasping him by the collar and holding him up against the wall.
‘No.’ It was a low, savage growl. ‘I will not wait, and I will not go back and get changed because I don’t care about wearing the correct clothes or saying the correct thing. I never have, and if I’m going to do this thing…’ His voice cracked a little, but he gritted his teeth and carried on. ‘If I’m going to play this role for the rest of my life, I’ve got to do it my way. I’ve got to be myself—not my father or brother—and if people don’t like it that’s tough. But I can’t just go through the motions any more. And I can’t—’
He stopped, letting Tomás go and turning away.
‘Sir?’
‘I can’t do it unless she’s with me too.’ Raising his arm Luis leaned briefly against the wall in an attitude of utter despair. ‘Do you understand?’
There was a long pause. Then, very tentatively, Tomás reached out and put his hand on Luis’s bunched, rigid shoulder. ‘Yes,’ he said so quietly it was almost a sigh. ‘Yes, I think so.’
Luis raised his head and for a moment their eyes met, but then the lift doors were opening and through the glass front of the building they could see the crowd of people that had gathered to wait for news—camera crews, reporters, paparazzi—all unusually subdued by the grimness of the situation. The reception area was filled with palace security, who looked surprised and flustered by the unexpected appearance of the new King. There was a flurry of uneasy bowing.
With just the barest of nods Luis walked through them all to the doors. Following him, Tomás’s face was drained of colour and covered in a sickly sheen of perspiration and he signalled a look of panic to the bodyguards.
Outside it took a moment for what was happening to filter through the crowd, and a ripple of feverish excitement disturbed the sombre mood as everyone pressed forward to get a glimpse of the new King—ashen with exhaustion, shirtless and in surf shorts. Security had gone into discreet overdrive and they held the crowd back as Luis went up to the small dais.
He hesitated for a moment, looking down and clearing his throat before speaking. ‘I’m sorry to have to announce the death of my father, King Marcos Fernando,’ he said slowly, pausing again as the gathered crowd gave a muted groan. ‘He suffered a stroke in the early hours of this morning, and never regained consciousness. He died very peacefully just after 2:00 p.m.’
There was a moment of dead calm, and then a forest of microphones went up and questions rose in a deafening crescendo. But Luis simply held up his hands and, shaking his head, turned away. Striding over to the cordon he looked over the heads of the reporters pressed against it, to the back where the paparazzi lurked on motorbikes waiting to tail his car. A moment later there was uproar and confusion as Luis slipped beneath the cordon and into the crowd.
Security guards surged forwards from nowhere, barking instructions while Tomás, almost passing out with panic, tried to follow. But the hardened, cynical reporters had parted to let their king through and then swallowed him up completely so it was impossible to reach him. In seconds Luis found himself at the back of the press pack, camera flashes exploding like fireworks as he headed straight to the paparazzi photographer on the biggest, most powerful motorbike.
‘How would you feel about being the first paparazzi in history to be decorated for services to the king?’
Finally fighting his way to the back of the crowd a few moments later Tomás was just in time to see Luis climb onto the bike. Swiftly, grimly, he shook hands with the photographer before starting the engine with a roar. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and as he accelerated away with a squeal of tyres there was no mistaking the expression of desperate, haunted bleakness on his face.
‘Is that everything?’
Oscar picked up the small case, frowning at how light it was, and Emily looked around the beautiful suite for the last time.
‘That’s everything,’ she said in a small voice. Everything that belonged to her anyway. She was wearing the blue dress she’d worn when they went to dinner with Luciana, but other than that all the clothes Luis had ordered for her were still in the dressing room. Not that the Duchess de Mesa would need any help with her wardrobe, Emily thought bleakly. After all, she had qualified for the job of Luis’s wife on the grounds of having the perfect image already. Maybe Luciana’s nannies would get to use them.
Oh, God. Luciana. The thought of leaving her was like knives in her flesh. The hour Emily had spent with her earlier, maintaining a mask of cheerful reassurance that she’d see her very soon and talking about all the things they would do when she came over to England to visit, had left her drained, shaky and feeling sick. It was some comfort that Valentina’s maternity leave had come to an end, and with it Senhora Costa’s sterile rule in the nursery. It was a very different Luciana who tearfully hugged her goodbye to the one who had greeted her with such rigid shyness two months ago.
The helicopter was waiting on the lawn, and with every step she took towards it Emily felt her heart crack wider open. Oscar helped her into the back, settling her in as solicitously as if she was ill, holding her hand a
s the blades started up and they rose into the air. Emily watched as the palace grew smaller beneath them and had to snatch her hand from Oscar’s and press it across her mouth to muffle the sobs she couldn’t control.
‘Oh, darling girl, I can’t tell you how much I’ve longed to have you back,’ Oscar said sadly. ‘But not like this. Not with your heart broken. Tell me what happened.’
‘I fell in love with him,’ she whispered, leaning her head back and letting the tears fall down her cheeks. ‘I knew it was dangerous, but I couldn’t stop myself.’
‘And he doesn’t feel the same?’
‘No.’ She turned her face to the window and looked out over the treetops. It felt like her heart was being wrenched out of her chest as she saw the slate roof of La Guarita below. ‘For him it was practical. It was PR’, she sobbed. ‘And although in the end I desperately want to think that he did come to feel something for me it just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t love.’
Ahead, beyond the trees she could see the glitter of the sea. In a moment they would be flying over the beach where they’d danced last night, and where she’d woken up this morning in his arms. And then that would be it. Santosa would be behind them, and nothing but half a world of cold, deep ocean ahead. She closed her eyes, wondering how to get through the pain.
‘You’re sure about that?’ Oscar asked gently. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she whispered. ‘But even if I wasn’t, doesn’t that say something? I couldn’t live like that…with someone who couldn’t say it. I couldn’t live not knowing…’
‘No, sweetheart, you couldn’t.’ Oscar sighed. ‘You need—’
He stopped abruptly, midsentence, and Emily opened her eyes.
‘Daddy, what’s wrong?’
Oscar was staring out of the window, his brow creased into a frown. Heart thudding, Emily followed his gaze.
Below them the tide was out and the beach was a wide, white expanse. Already the tents had been taken down and the ashes of the fire had been covered over, leaving no trace of last night’s party. It was deserted, apart from a single figure.
