The Prince's Chambermaid(25)

She found herself actually looking forward to the visits-at least they  made her feel as if she was being properly useful. She soon got to know  all the nurses, who-once they'd stopped viewing her with a certain  suspicion-soon started to warm to her. Because here, in this stark and  bleak setting, all status and privilege seemed completely irrelevant.

Each day Cathy would sit with the King, while a bodyguard stood keeping  his own vigil behind the bullet-proofed glass which had been specially  installed. She found herself telling him about her blundering attempts  to learn Italian and about how much all the staff at the palace talked  about him and missed him. She described her little garden in England and  how she hoped her tenants were looking after it properly.

And despite her own increasing loneliness, she tried to do what she had  promised herself from the very beginning-to be a good wife to Xaviero,  even though their time together was so restricted. Her foolish heart  leapt with pleasure whenever they had a joint meeting scheduled, when  they would sit at opposite ends of a long, polished table while their  aides tossed out subjects for discussion. Or, briefly, they might  exchange smiles if their respective retinues happened to pass each other  along the wide, marble corridors of the palace.

They were rarely alone, except in bed when they would fall into each  other's arms as if their lives depended on it. And in the pleasure that  followed, Cathy couldn't bring herself to spoil the moment with a litany  of complaints about how little they saw of each other. Maybe it was the  same for every royal wife-one of the downsides behind the supposed  fairy tale of privilege. In a way, with her limited access to him, she  still felt a bit like a mistress-despite the bright band of gold on her  finger and the royal crest which adorned her notepaper.

At meal times, there were always members of staff hovering silently in  the background, pretending not to listen but watching carefully for any  sign that the royal couple might require something-leaving Cathy to eat  rather self-consciously, worried that her table manners might not be up  to scratch. Perhaps that might explain why the waistbands on some of her  dresses had become a little loose of late.                       
       
           



       

'You've lost weight,' said Xaviero one evening as she was dressing for a  formal dinner arranged for a visiting Italian dignitary.

'Have I?' she questioned. And if her voice sounded a little dazed, it  was because she was still reeling from the fact that Xaviero was here-in  her dressing room. He had wandered in to ask her to fix his cufflinks-a  ridiculously simple and yet oddly intimate request which had left her  feeling slightly flustered, until she had gathered her thoughts together  enough to realise why.

Because they didn't do intimacy-not unless it was in the purely sexual  sense. Xaviero had a valet to do his cufflinks. A tailor to measure his  clothes. Aides he could confide in, and question about current affairs.  Chefs to prepare his meals. He didn't need a wife in the way that other  men did. His wife was an accessory-a compliant woman who was fast  learning to be a competent princess.

'You know you have,' he said as he slowly circled her, like a predator  eyeing up his victim. 'That dress fitted you perfectly the last time you  wore it.'

'Only a few pounds,' said Cathy. 'And I'm … I'm surprised you noticed.'

Xaviero's eyes narrowed, allowing his gaze to drift over the creamy  décolletage which was displayed to perfection by the soft sheen of the  scarlet gown she wore. His voice thickened and he felt the familiar kick  of lust. 'I notice everything about your magnificent body, mia  bella-and you certainly don't need to lose any weight.'

'I wasn't trying to.'

She looked strained, he thought. The slight weight loss had made her  cheekbones appear sharp and slanted, so that her face looked all eyes.  Was she doing too much? Driving herself too hard in her attempts to fit  in-attempts which hadn't gone unnoticed. Hadn't the court already  expressed approval of her induction into the di Cesere family-despite  initial misgivings about the wisdom of his hasty marriage to such a  woman?

'Would you like a weekend away?' he questioned suddenly.

Cathy finished clipping in a diamond earring and met his eyes in the  mirror, her heart beginning to thud with hope. A weekend away? Maybe  like the honeymoon they'd never had? She turned round in the chair, a  smile on her face as she beamed up at him. 'Oh, Xaviero-I'd love it! Do  you really mean it?'

'Why not?' His lips curved into a speculative smile. She had been  remarkably modest in her outgoings-in spite of him giving her carte  blanche to spend his fortune as the mood took her. In fact, as far as he  knew she had asked for nothing. If she had been trying to impress him  with her restraint, then she had succeeded admirably-and maybe now was  the time to reward her. 'You and Flavia could fly to Milan,' he  suggested softly. 'Buy yourself something from the latest collections.'

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?