The aide-de-camp, who was carrying his own plumed hat as protocol demanded, stood beside his king-to-be as the doors to the royal jet were opened. He bowed as Marco walked past him and stepped out onto the gangway steps and into Niroli’s sunshine. Just for a few seconds, Marco stood motionless and ramrod-straight at the top of the steps, not because he was the island’s future ruler, but because he was one of its returning sons. He had almost forgotten the unique scent of sunshine and sea, mimosa and lemons, all of which hit him on a surge of hot wind. Not even the strong smell of jet fuel and tarmac could detract from them, and Marco felt emotion sting his eyes: this was his home, his country, and the crowds he could see lining the wide straight road that ran from the airport to the main town were his people. Many of them had not had the benefit of being part of a wider, modern world, but he intended to change that. He would give to Niroli’s young the opportunities his grandfather’s old-fashioned rule had denied them. Determinedly, Marco stepped forward. The waiting military band broke into Niroli’s national anthem and the waiting officials removed their hats and bowed their heads. Their faces were familiar to Marco, although more wrinkled and lined than he remembered—the faces of old men.
As he reached his grandfather’s most senior minister the elderly gentleman placed his hands on Marco’s arms, greeting him with a traditional continental embrace. His voice shook with emotion and Marco could see that beneath his proud, stern expression and the determinedly upright stance there was a very aged, tired man, who probably would have preferred to spend his last years with his grandchildren than doing his king’s bidding. Tactfully, Marco adjusted his own walking pace to that of the courtiers surrounding him as they escorted him unsteadily to the waiting open-topped royal limousine.
At least his grandfather hadn’t sent the coronation carriage to collect him, Marco reflected ruefully; its motion was sickeningly rocky and its velvet padded seats unpleasantly hard.
This should be his moment of triumph, the public endorsement of the strength he had gained in becoming his own man. Soon the power of the Royal House of Niroli would become his, and he would step into his grandfather’s shoes and fulfil his destiny. So why didn’t he feel more excited, and why was there this sense of emptiness within him, this sense of loss, of something missing?
The cavalcade started to move, the waiting crowds began to cheer, children clutching Niroli flags and leaning dangerously into the road, the better to see him. Marco lifted his hand and began to wave. The cool air-conditioned luxury of the limo protected him from the midday heat. But what about the people? They must be feeling the heat, Marco. As clearly as though she were seated at his side, he could hear Emily’s gently reproachful voice. Angrily he banished it. The limousine travelled a few more yards and then Marco reached forward, rapping on the glass separating him from the driver and an armed guard.
‘Highness?’ the guard queried anxiously.
‘Stop the car!’ Marco ordered. ‘I want to get out and walk.’ As he reached to open his door the guard looked horrified. ‘Sire,’ he protested, ‘the king… it may not be safe.’
Marco’s eyebrow rose. ‘Knowing my grandfather as I do, I cannot imagine he has not had ordered that plain-clothes security men be posted amongst the crowd. Besides, these are our people, not our enemy.’
As they saw Marco stepping out of the limousine the crowd fell silent. At no time in living memory had their ruler done anything so informal as walk amongst them. Marco shook the gnarled hands of working men, his smile causing pretty girls to glow with excitement and older women to feel a reawakening frisson of their youths.
One aged woman pushed her way through the people to reach him. Marco could see from her traditional peasant costume that she came from the mountains of Niroli. Her back was bent from long years spent working in the orange groves and vineyards that covered their lower slopes, her face as brown and lined as a wrinkled walnut. But there was still a fiery flash of pride in her dark eyes and as she held out to him the clumsy leather purse she had obviously made herself Marco felt as though a giant hand were gripping his heart in a tight vice.
‘Highness, please take this humble gift,’ she begged him. ‘May it always be kept full, just like the coffers and the nurseries of the House of Niroli.’ It was plain that the old peasant could ill afford to give him anything. Indeed, Marco felt he should be the one to give something to her, so he was not surprised to see the angry, hostile glower on the face of the shabbily dressed youth at her side.
‘This is your grandson?’ Marco asked her as he thanked her for her gift.
‘Aye, he is, sire, and he shames me with his sullen looks and lack of appreciation for all that we have here on our island.’
‘That is because we have nothing!’ the youth burst out angrily, his face now seemingly on fire with emotion. ‘We have nothing, whilst others have everything! We come to the town, and we see foreigners with their expensive yachts and their fancy clothes. Our king bends over backwards to welcome them, whilst we mountain-dwellers do not even have electricity. They look at us as though we are nothing, and that is because, to our king, we are nothing!’
Suddenly, like a cloud passing over the sun, the mood of the crowd gathered around Marco had changed. He could see the anger in the faces of the group of rough-looking, poorly dressed young men who had joined the outspoken youth. The first of his grandfather’s security guards rushed to protect Marco, but very firmly he stepped between them, saying clearly, ‘It is good to know that the people of Niroli are able to speak their minds freely to me. This issue of getting electricity to the more remote parts of our island is one that has, I know, taxed His Majesty’s thoughts for a long time.’ Marco put his hand on the angry youth’s shoulder, drawing him closer to him, whilst he gave the hovering guards a small dismissive shake of his head. He could see the grateful tears in the old peasant woman’s eyes.
‘My grandson speaks without thinking,’ she told him huskily. ‘But, at heart, he is a good boy and as devoted to the king as anyone.’
The youth’s friends were hurrying him away and Marco allowed himself to be escorted back to his limo. Once inside, he realised that he was still holding the old woman’s carefully made purse. There was anger in his heart now, pressing down on him like an unwanted heavy weight. Niroli’s royal family was the richest in the world and yet some of its subjects were living lives of utmost poverty. He could well imagine how upset and shocked Emily would have been if she had witnessed what had just happened. The leather purse felt soft and warm to his touch. He was the one who should be giving to his people, not the other way around. His time away from the island had changed him more than he had realised, Marco acknowledged, and somehow he didn’t think his grandfather was going to like what he had in mind.
Huddled into an armchair in the sitting room of her small Chelsea house, a prettily embroidered throw wrapped around her like a comfort blanket, Emily let the full rip-tide of her anguish take her over. What was the point in trying to fight it or escape it? The reality was that Marco, no, Prince Marco, soon to be King Marco, she corrected herself miserably, had gone, not just from her life, but from Britain itself, to return to his home, his throne and his people. Ultimately her place in his life would be filled by someone else. She gave a small low cry as more pain seized her, and then reminded herself angrily that the man she loved did not exist; he had been a creation of her own imagination and his deceit. Everything they had shared had been based on lies; every time he had held her or touched her she had been giving the whole of herself to him, whilst he had been withholding virtually everything of his true self. But even knowing this, as the numbing shock of her discovery of the truth rose and retreated, she was left with the agonising reality that she still loved him.
As much