What a total fool she had been for deluding herself into thinking that he would ever return her love.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘SO, MARCO, what is this that the Chief of Police tells me about your welcome parade? About your being threatened by some wretched insurrectionist from the mountains? Probably one of the Viallis. Mind you, you have only yourself to blame. Had you not taken it into your head to so rashly get out of the car, it would not have happened. You must remember that you are my heir and Niroli’s next king. It is not wise to court danger.’
‘There wasn’t any real danger. The boy—for he was little more than that—was simply voicing—’
‘His hostility to the throne!’ King Giorgio interrupted Marco angrily.
His grandfather had aged since he had last seen him, but the old patriarch still had about him an awesome aura of power, Marco admitted ruefully. The problem was that it no longer particularly impressed Marco—he had power of his own now, power that came from living his life in his own way. He knew that his grandfather sensed this in him and that it irked him. That was why he insisted on taking his grandson to task over the incident at his welcoming parade.
‘My feeling was that the boy was more frustrated and resentful than hostile.’
Marco watched his grandfather. There was a larger issue at stake here than the boy’s angry words, one which Marco felt was essential, but which he knew wasn’t something his grandfather would be happy to discuss.
Nevertheless, Marco had been doing some investigation of his own, and what he had discovered had highlighted potential problems within Niroli that needed addressing before they developed into much more worrying conflicts.
‘The boy was complaining about the lack of an electricity supply to his village. He resents the fact that visitors to our country have benefits that some of our own people do not.’ Marco held his ground as his grandfather’s fist came crashing down on the desk between them.
‘I will not listen to this foolish nonsense. Tourists bring money into the country and, naturally, we have to lure them here by providing them with the kind of facilities they are used to.’
‘Whilst some amongst our people go without them?’ Marco challenged him coolly. ‘Angry young men do sometimes behave rashly. But surely it is our duty to equip our subjects with what they need to move into the twenty-first century? Our schoolchildren cannot learn properly without access to computers, and if we deprive them of the ability to do so then we will be maintaining an underclass within the heart of our country.’
‘You dare to lecture me on how to rule?’ the king bellowed. ‘You, who turned your back on Niroli to live a life of your own choosing in London?’
‘You’re the one who has summoned me back, Nonno,’ Marco reminded him, lowering his voice and deliberately using his childhood pet name for his grandfather in an attempt to soften the old man’s mood. It was easy sometimes to forget his grandfather was ninety, yet still immoveable about what the right thing was for Niroli and its people. Marco didn’t want to upset the king too much.
‘Because I had no other choice,’ Giorgio growled. ‘You are my direct heir, Marco, for all that you choose to behave like a commoner, rather than a member of the ruling House of Niroli. At least you had the sense to leave that… that floozy you were living with behind when you returned home.’
Anger flashed in Marco’s eyes. It was typical of his grandfather to have found out as much about his private life in London as he could. It also infuriated him that Giorgio should refer to Emily in that way and dismiss their relationship. Worse, it felt as though, somehow, his grandfather had touched a raw place within him that he didn’t want to admit existed, never mind be reminded about. Because, even though he didn’t want to own up to it, he was missing Emily. Marco shrugged the thought aside. So what if he was? Wasn’t it only natural that his body, deprived of the sexual pleasure it had shared with hers, should ache a little?
‘As to what we agreed, it was simply that I should initially return to Niroli alone,’ Marco pointed out.
Immediately the king’s anger returned. ‘What do you mean, “initially”?’
When Marco didn’t answer him, the old man bellowed, ‘You will not bring her here, Marco! I will not allow it. You are my heir, and you have a position to maintain. The people—’
Marco knew that he should reassure his grandfather and tell him he had no intention of bringing Emily to Niroli, but instead he said coolly, ‘The people, our people, will, I am sure, have more important things to worry about than the fact that I have a mistress—things like the fact that ten per cent of them do not have electricity.’
‘You are trying to meddle in things that are not your concern,’ the king told him sharply. ‘Take care, Marco, otherwise, you will have people thinking that you are more fitted to be a dissident than a leader. To rule, you must command respect and in order to do that you must show a strong hand. The people are your children and need to look up to you as their father, as someone wiser than them.’
This was an issue on which he and his grandfather would never see eye to eye, Marco knew.
‘Emily, why don’t you call it a day and go home? No one else will come into the shop now and you don’t have any more client appointments. I know you hate me keeping on about this, but you really don’t look at all well. I can lock up the premises for you.’
Emily forced herself to give her assistant an I’m-all-right smile. Jemma wasn’t wrong, though she didn’t like the fact that the girl had noticed how unwell she looked, because she didn’t want to have to answer questions about the cause. ‘It’s kind of you to offer to do that, Jemma,’ she answered, ‘but…’
‘But you’re missing Marco desperately, and you don’t want to go back to an empty house?’ Jemma suggested gently, her words slicing through the barriers Emily had tried so desperately to maintain.
She could feel betraying tears burning the backs of her eyes. She had tried so very hard to pretend that she didn’t mind that she and Marco had split up, but it was obvious that her assistant hadn’t been deceived.
‘It had to end, given Marco’s royal status,’ she told Jemma, trying to keep her voice light. Initially, she had worried about revealing the truth of Marco’s real identity. But, in the end, she’d had no need to do so because her assistant had seen one of many articles appearing in the press about Marco’s return to Niroli; most of them had been accompanied by photographs of his cavalcade and the crowd waiting to welcome him. ‘I just wish that he had told me the truth about himself, Jemma,’ Emily said in a low voice, unable to conceal her hurt.
‘I can understand that,’ Jemma agreed. ‘But according to what I’ve read, Marco came over here incognito because he wanted to prove himself in his own right. He had already done that by the time he met you, yet I suppose he could hardly tell you his real identity—not only would it have been difficult for him to just turn round and say, “Oh, by the way, perhaps I ought to tell you that I’m a prince,” he most probably wanted you to value him for himself, not for his title or position.’
Emily could see the logic of Jemma’s argument, and she knew it was one that Marco himself would have used—had they ever got to the