The Royal House of Niroli Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ Marco stopped her ruthlessly. ‘The child is my child, Emily.’

      She looked at him uncertainly. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would react like this. He sounded almost as though he felt as possessive about the baby as she did herself.

      ‘I don’t want to discuss it any more, Marco. There’s no point. I can’t stay here now.’

      The morning sun was slanting across the courtyard. The coffee Maria had brought him half an hour earlier had grown cold as Marco sat deep in thought. He was not going to let Emily leave. And he was not going to allow his child to grow up anywhere other than here on Niroli. Both were unassailable and unchangeable tenets of what he felt about his role as king-in-waiting and as the father of Emily’s expected baby. It wasn’t any longer a matter of what he did or didn’t want; it was a matter of his royal duty, to his pride, to his name and to his first-born.

      It was ridiculous of Emily to suggest that their child would have benefits that his so-called legitimate children would not, folly for her to claim that he would one day thank her for denying him his royal status. Marco might have enjoyed the freedom of his time in London, but he had also never forgotten who and what he was. Having royal blood and being able to lay claim to it, even if one was born on the wrong side of the blanket, was a life-enhancing benefit that couldn’t be ignored. His son, growing up here on Niroli as his accepted child, could look forward to the best of everything and, when grown, a position of authority at his father’s court. He would be revered and respected, he would wield power and he would be on hand to support his legitimate half-sibling when finally he became King. Would he be imprisoned by his royal status, as Marco had sometimes felt he had been? No!

      All of that and more could be made possible for this child, provided that Emily was prepared to see sense. She didn’t have the status of a proper royal mistress, that was true. But his grandfather, for all his faults and stubbornness, also had a strong sense of duty and family. He, too, would want his greatgrandchild to remain on Niroli. There was a way in which it could be made possible for her to stay and be elevated to a position in which she and their baby would have the respect of the people.

      He swung round as he heard Emily come out into the courtyard. The sun had brushed her skin a warm gold, driving away its London pallor. She wasn’t showing any visible sign of her pregnancy yet, but there was a rich glow about her, somehow, a sense of ripeness to come. Watching her, Marco experienced a swift surge of possessive determination not to let her go. She was having his child; whether by accident and not by design, that did not alter his paternal responsibilities or that a baby of royal blood was to be born. Who other than he could tell that child about his heritage and where better a place to do that than here on Niroli?

      ‘I’ve just seen Maria and she’s going to bring out some fresh coffee for you.’ How domestic and comfortable that sounded, Emily thought tiredly as she sat down on the chair Marco had pulled out for her. She had hardly slept, her thoughts circling helplessly and tumultuously.

      ‘I’m not prepared to let you leave the island, Emily. You, and my child, are going to stay here where both of you belong. It seems to me that marriage is the best way to secure our son’s future and your position at court.’

      Marriage! Emily almost dropped the glass of water she had been drinking. Marco wanted to marry her? She was shaking from head to foot with the intensity of her joy. Emotional tears filled her eyes. She put down the glass, and protested shakily, ‘Marco! You can’t mean that. How can you marry me?’

      She realised immediately from his expression that something was wrong.

      ‘I can’t marry you,’ he told her flatly. ‘You know that. What on earth made you think that I could?’ Why did he feel this dragging weight wrapping itself around him? He couldn’t marry Emily, and he was surprised that she had thought he might. And, yet, just for a moment, seeing the joy in her eyes, he had felt… He had felt what? A reciprocal surge of joy within himself? That was ridiculous.

      ‘You need a husband, Emily, and a position at court. There is within European royal families a tradition whereby noblemen close to the throne marry royal mistresses. This kind of marriage is rather like a business arrangement, in that it benefits all parties and, in the eyes of the world, bestows respectability on the mistress and any children she may bear. The nobleman in question is of course rewarded for his role and—’

      ‘Stop it. Stop it. I have heard enough!’ Emily had pushed back her chair and got to her feet. She could hardly breathe but she struggled to speak. ‘I thought I knew you, Marco. I even felt sorry for you, because of the heavy responsibility your duty to the Crown lays upon you! But now I realise that I never really knew you. The man I thought I knew would never in a thousand years have allowed himself to become so corrupted by power and pride that he would suggest what you have just suggested to me!’

      ‘What I propose is a traditional solution to a uniquely royal problem,’ Marco persisted curtly. ‘You are overreacting.’ Her outburst had made him feel as though he were doing something wrong, instead of recommending a logical solution to their problem. A logical solution of the kind his grandfather would have suggested? Was the pressure of becoming King turning him into a man like his grandfathe, the kind of man he had once sworn he would never allow himself to be? His critical inner voice would not be silenced, and its contempt echoed uncomfortably inside him.

      ‘Am I? Take a look at yourself, Marco, and try seeing yourself through my eyes, and then repeat what you have just offered as a solution. You want to bribe another man to marry me so that—so that what? You can have your child here, conveniently legitimised by a convenient marriage between two strangers, though I’m sure that won’t stop the gossip. But what about me? Am I expected to be a dutiful bride to this noble husband you’re going to find for me? Am I supposed to submit willingly to having sex with him, bear his children, be his wife in all senses of the word?’

      ‘No, there will be no question of that.’ The harshness of his own immediate denial caught Marco off guard. But he couldn’t retract his words, nor deny the feeling of fierce possessiveness that had gripped him at the thought of Emily in another man’s bed.

      ‘What kind of man are you, Marco, if you think that I would be willing to sell myself into such an arrangement? But then I was forgetting: you aren’t a mere man, are you? You are a king! I’m not staying on the island a minute longer than I have to. Everything you’ve just said underlines all the reasons why I don’t want my son growing up here. Your proximity to the throne has corrupted you, but I don’t intend to let it corrupt my child.’

      ‘And I don’t intend to let you leave Niroli.’ They had been the closest of lovers, but now they were enemies locked in a battle to the bitter end for the right to decide the future of their child.

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      THE plane had taken off, but Emily was holding her breath, half expecting that, somehow, Marco still could prevent her from leaving Niroli.

      She’d hated having to appeal to Marco’s grandfather for help behind his back. At first, the king had refused to see her when she’d made her secret visit to the palace. She had been expecting his rejection, though, and so had lifted her chin and told the stiff-faced, uniformed equerry who had told her that the king would not receive her, ‘Please tell His Majesty that the favour I want to ask him will benefit both of us and the throne of Niroli.’

      She had been made to wait over an hour before she had finally been shown into the royal presence. It had shocked her to see how very like the king Marco was, traces of Marco’s stunning good looks still visible in the older man’s profile.

      She had chosen her moment with care, СКАЧАТЬ