The Prince's Chambermaid(24)

And Cathy went through the motions of sinking in a low curtsey. The head  nurse had advised her that the King might be able to hear her, and that  she should talk to him. And so, shrugging off any feelings of  self-consciousness, she sat and told the stricken monarch how happy she  was to have married into his family and how she would do everything in  her power to be a good princess. She found herself searching his inert,  cold features for some kind of reaction-any kind of reaction. Could he  understand anything she was saying to him? How terrible if his mind was  locked in some frustrating prison-hearing everything and yet unable to  respond.

By the time they left, a small crowd had gathered outside the hospital  and Cathy was aware of the flash of a camera exploding in her face as  Xaviero's security ushered them through to the car.

But once the powerful vehicle had moved off, her new husband reached out  and pulled her close to him, staring down into her too-white face. 'I  have been harsh with you, Cathy,' he said bitterly. 'Can you forgive  me?'

'It … it doesn't matter.'

'Oh, but it does.'

'No, I have been putting my own concerns first,' she whispered. 'Instead  of realising all the responsibilities which have been pressing down on  you.'                       
       
           



       

He pushed her hair back from her cheek. 'Having you so close-and yet  unable to touch you-has been driving me half crazy with desire.' His  mouth softened into a smile tinged with sadness. 'And you were brilliant  with my brother.'

Basking beneath the unexpected compliment and sinking into the  longed-for warmth of his embrace, Cathy found herself wanting to smooth  away those hard lines of strain from his formidable features. 'Does he  get many visitors?'

All Xaviero wanted to do was to block out the nightmare image of what  they had just seen, but her eyes were dark with a question he had no  right to ignore. 'We have no other living relatives.' He shrugged. 'I  go, when I have time … although every second is now planned out for me, as  you know, so it is not as often as it should be. And, of course, I do  not find it as easy to talk to him as you just did.'

'That's because women are better at that kind of thing.'

'Are they?' He allowed himself a brief smile. 'And naturally, the King's  security and privacy is paramount, which means that no other visitors  are permitted-not even his aides.'

Cathy thought about Casimiro's terrible loneliness and isolation, lying  there with only the nurses going about their daily duties of helping  keep him alive, and she bit her lip. 'Could I … could I go and visit  him-would that be all right? I mean, I'm a relative now, aren't I?'

Xaviero looked into her shimmering blue eyes, taken aback by her  tentative request-since a desire to visit the sickbay would not have  been a request made by any of his past lovers. 'I don't see any reason  why not,' he said gruffly.

'Then I'll ask Flavia to sort it out.'

He pulled her properly into his arms at last-and the sweet, fresh smell  of her after the sterility of the hospital bay made him want to weep for  all the joys his brother had lost. 'Oh, Cathy,' he said as he stared  down at the uncertainty written on her trembling lips, wanting her to  wipe some of the pain away with the tenderness of her touch. 'Cathy,  Cathy, Cathy.'

Trembling with the pent-up emotion of all that had happened, she paid no  heed to the fact that he had rebuffed her more than once. She was just  empowered by a need which matched the naked hunger in his eyes and her  arms reached up to lock themselves around his neck while their lips  collided in a kiss. She heard the small ragged sigh which escaped him  and felt the beat of his heart so close against her own. 'Xaviero,' she  whispered.

'I want you,' he declared unevenly.

And, oh, how she wanted him. Back in a suite decorated with fragrant  white roses, Cathy let him carry her straight to the bed, where he began  undressing her with a sudden urgency.

'You haven't carried me over the threshold,' she teased.

'You want to go outside and come in again?' he demanded, lifting his  head from her breasts, which he was baring-button by button-his eyes  almost jet-black with desire.

Terrified of tempting a fate that had kept them segregated since she'd  arrived and too transfixed by the shivers of desire which were skating  inexorably over her skin, Cathy shook her head. 'No,' she whispered. 'I  just want you.'

'Then you shall have me, mia bella. All night long, I am yours.' Making a  sound a little like a low growl, Xaviero stripped the clothes from her  body almost ruthlessly, his fingers and his lips reacquainting  themselves so deliciously with her flesh that she immediately choked out  a little gasp of pleasure.

But that first time of making love as man and wife was not the slow  coupling she might have hoped for. It was wild, almost primeval-though  no less thrilling because of that. And the pleasure was exquisitely  sharpened by abstinence. Yet it felt as if he was using the sex as some  kind of catharsis to exercise unknown demons. Sobbing out his name as  Xaviero shuddered inside her, Cathy clung to him as he breathed  something in Italian against her damp skin.

'I've … I've missed you,' she said eventually.

Lazily, he turned onto his side, his finger tracing an undulating line  from hip to breast, where it lingered and teased the rosy little tip  until she gave a moan of pleasure. 'And I have missed this … ' Letting the  hand now splay luxuriantly over the silken globe of her bottom, he felt  much of the strain and tension dissolving in that soft, sensual touch.  'You are … sensational,' he breathed.

'Am-am I?'

'I'd forgotten quite how much,' he declared unsteadily.

Wordlessly, they made love again and when it was over Cathy lay there  staring up at the ceiling as her heartbeats gradually began to slow-not  wanting to disturb a moment of the perfect harmony she felt. But as her  own pleasure began to fade she felt a strange foreboding creep in to  replace it. They were close, yes-but only physically close. The sense of  oneness she had longed for had so far failed to materialise. Was she  being greedy or unrealistic in expecting it to happen so soon? Or was  she foolish in hoping that it might happen at all?                       
       
           



       

All night long, I am yours, he had said.

And for the rest of the time, what then?





Chapter Ten



THE next weeks were spent immersing herself in the art of being a  princess-and Cathy was endlessly grateful for the adaptability she'd  learnt while working at the hotel. Seamlessly slipping between  chambermaiding and receptionist duties, she had been able to turn her  hand to just about anything-and these were skills which proved  invaluable in her new life.

And didn't throwing herself into her new role help her paper over the cracks in her marriage?

Busying herself with tasks befitting a brand-new royal helped Cathy  forget that her worst fears were being realised, day by day. And that  the ice-cold heart of her new husband could not be thawed, no matter how  much tenderness or passion she showed him in their bed. Only at night  did he let his guard down-but the ardent lover he became crumbled into  nothing but a memory by morning. The mask of his regency was assumed as  soon as his valet began laying out his clothes and he became a distant  stranger once more.

It was as if she had no real part in his daily life-when he treated her  with the undemonstrative civility he might show one of his aides. She  was never allowed to show affection, nor to disturb him-and if she  wanted to speak to him, she had to make an appointment like everyone  else! Reminding herself that she had been chosen as his wife primarily  because she would accept such conditions, she resolved to say nothing.  And, like generations of women before her, Cathy played down the  shortcomings in her relationship by reaching outside it for fulfilment.

Her days were spent organising her new office and deciding on what staff  she would need to help her. There were posts for a private secretary,  assistant secretaries and ladies-in-waiting as well as a hairdresser and  a language coach. Although English and Greek were taught in all the  schools, Cathy had started to study Italian, which was the main language  spoken on Zaffirinthos. From being a non-academic child herself at  school, suddenly she could see the point in learning, if it actually had  some kind of purpose.

And Xaviero's aides were proposing a grand joint tour of the island to  introduce her to the people-even though the dark cloud of Casimiro's  continuing coma meant that they were reluctant to pin down a date. But  by then Cathy had started to visit the King on a regular basis and found  that increased exposure to the inert figure on the white bed made his  incapacity seem far less shocking than it had done at first.