‘Perhaps, once you are King…’ she suggested, but Marco shook his head again.
‘My grandfather is very good at imposing conditions and I don’t want to trap myself in a situation where my hands are tied. Plus, it seems to me that some of Niroli’s youth are already beginning to resent my grandfather’s rule, just as previous generations resisted the monarchy. I do not want to inherit that resentment along with the throne, so I have decided to act now to take the heat out of the situation.’
‘But what can you do?’ Emily asked him uncertainly ‘If your grandfather has refused to allow electricity to be supplied…’
‘I can’t insist that it is, no,’ Marco agreed. ‘But I can provide it by other means. Whilst I was in London, I bought what I hope will be enough generators to at least provide some electricity for the villages. My grandfather is furious, of course, but I am hoping that he will back down and accept what I have done as a way of allowing him to change his mind without losing face. He is an old man who has ruled autocratically all his life. It is hard for him, I know that, but the Crown has to change or risk having change forced upon it.’
‘You think there will be some kind of uprising?’ Emily was horrified, instantly thinking of the danger that would bring to Marco.
‘Not immediately. But the seeds are there. And still my grandfather is so determined to hold absolute power.’
‘You pretend not to do so, but in reality you understand him very well, and I think you feel a great deal of compassion for him, Marco,’ Emily said gently.
‘On the contrary, what I feel is a great deal of irritation and anger because he refuses to see the danger he is courting,’ Marco corrected her. Her perceptiveness had startled him, making him feel that she knew him rather better than he had realised. ‘There are so many changes I want to make, Emily, so much here for me to do, but my grandfather blocks me at every turn.’
‘You’ve lived away from the island for a long time and you’ve grown used to making your own decisions without the need to consult others. Perhaps your grandfather is being difficult because he sees this and in some ways he fears it— and you. You said yourself that he’s an old man—he obviously knows that he can’t continue to be King, but my guess is that he doesn’t want to acknowledge that publicly, and that a part of him wants to continue to rule Niroli through you. When you come up with your own plans and they are opposed to his, he tries to block you because he’s afraid of losing his power to you.’
‘I doubt you would ever get him to admit any of that.’
Emily could hear the frustration in Marco’s voice and, with it, his hunger to right what he saw as wrongs. He would be a strong king morally, socially, politically and in all the other important ways, she recognised. Listening to him had brought home to her the reality of her own situation. Even if by some miracle he should return her love, there was no future for them. She could not be his queen, and she could never do anything that would prevent him from being Niroli’s king. Not now, after hearing him speak so passionately about his country and his people. If Marco had a duty to his people, then she too had duties to him and her love for him; loving someone meant putting them first and their needs before one’s own. Marco’s great need was to fulfil his duty and he could not do that with her in his life. A small, sad shadow darkened her eyes—the ghost of her dreams. Seeing it, Marco frowned.
‘I’m boring you,’ he announced curtly.
‘No,’ Emily told him. ‘No! I like listening to you talking about your plans. I just wish that you had told me who you were when we first met.’ Had he done so, she would have been so much better armoured against her vulnerability to him, and she would certainly never have started dreaming they could have a permanent future together.
‘It wasn’t a deliberate deceit on my part,’ Marco defended himself coolly.
‘Maybe not, but you could have said something… warned me. Then, at least…’ She stopped, shaking her head, not wanting to admit her own folly where he was concerned.
‘In order to live the kind of life I wanted, to prove myself on my own terms, it was necessary for me to do it with anonymity and without the trappings of royalty.
‘I grew up here as a renegade in my grandfather’s eyes. I was his heir, but I refused to conform or let him turn on me and bully me the way he did my father.’ Marco’s expression changed, and Emily ached to reach out and comfort him when she saw that look in his eyes.
‘My father was too gentle to stand up to my grandfather. As a child, I hated knowing that. As a form of compensation, I suppose, I rebelled against my grandfather’s authority and I swore that I would prove to him, and to the world, that I had the capability to succeed as myself.’
‘But while you were proving yourself, you missed the island and your family, your father?’ Emily guessed tenderly.
Marco opened his mouth to reject her words and then admitted huskily,
‘Yes. It was such a shock when he was killed in a freak accident off the island’s coast. Something I’d never imagined happening…never considered.’
And along with his natural grief at the loss of his father, Marco had had to deal with the irreversible changes in his own circumstances that had followed, Emily acknowledged silently. It must have been so hard for him—a man used to taking control of every aspect of his personal life, to have to come to terms with the fact that, as King, a huge part of his life would now be beyond his control. Just listening to him was causing a change within her own thoughts, turning her angry bitterness and pain into compassionate understanding and acceptance. It altered everything for her. Did he recognise how very alone he was emotionally? Was that a deliberate choice, or an accidental one? If he knew about it, did he care, or did he simply accept it as part of the price he paid for his royal status?
‘I would hate to be in your shoes.’ The words had slipped out before she could stop them.
Marco looked searchingly at her.
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.
‘I can hear how important your people are to you, Marco, and how strongly you feel about helping them, but…’ She paused and shook her head. ‘I couldn’t pay the price you’re about to pay for being Niroli’s king. On the one hand, yes, you will have enormous wealth and power, but on the other you won’t have any personal freedom, any right to do what you want to do. Every-thing will have to be weighed against how it affects your people. That is such a tremendously heavy responsibility.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘I suppose it’s different if you’re born to it. I’m beginning to see why princes marry princesses,’ she added ruefully. ‘You really do have to be born royal to understand.’
‘Not necessarily. You’re doing a pretty good job of showing you have a strong grasp of what’s involved,’ Marco told her dryly. They had rarely spoken so openly to one another and it surprised him how much he valued what she had said to him. Impulsively, he slowed the car and reached for her hand, giving it a small squeeze that caused her to look at him in surprise. Such a small, tender gesture was so very unlike him.
‘I’m glad you’re here with me, Emily.’
Her heart was thumping and thudding with the sweetness of the emotions pouring through her. Marco brought the car briefly to a halt and leaned across and kissed her—a hard, swift kiss that contained a message she couldn’t manage to decipher, but which sent a physical craving for him soaring through her body. She had never, ever known him exhibit such extraordinarily un-Marco behaviour before. Her heart felt as though it had wings, her own happiness dizzying her.
She mustn’t let a casual moment out of time lead her into forgetting what she had just recognised, she warned herself. But, then, should she let what she knew to be their separate futures prevent her from enjoying their shared here and now? a different voice coaxed.