The Royal House of Niroli Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ a loggia that ran along one wall, it was the perfect spot to sit and enjoy the peaceful sound of its central marble fountain.

      Standing in it now, Emily couldn’t help thinking what a wonderful holiday home the villa would make for a family. It had room to spare for three generations; with no effort at all she could see them enjoying the refurbished villa’s luxurious comfort: the grandparents, retired but still very active, enjoying the company of their great-grandchildren, the kids themselves exuberant, and energetic, the sound of their laughter mingling with that of the fountain; the girls olive-skinned, pretty and dainty, the boys strongly built with their father’s dark hair and shrewd gaze, the baby laughing and gurgling as Marco held him, whilst the woman who was their mother and Marco’s wife—Niroli’s queen—stood watching them.

      Don’t do this to yourself, an inner voice warned Emily. Don’t go there. Don’t think about it, or her; don’t imagine what it would be like to be that woman. In reality, the home she had been busily mentally creating was not that of a king and a queen. It was the home of a couple who loved one another and their children, a home for the kind of family she admitted she had yearned for during her teenage years when she had lived with her grandfather. The kind of home that represented the life, the future, she wished desperately she would be sharing with Marco, right down to the five children. The warmth of the sun spilling into the courtyard filled it with the scent of the lavender that grew there, and Emily knew that, for the rest of her life, she would equate its scent with the pain seeping slowly through her as she acknowledged the impossibility of her dreams. If this were a fantasy, then she could magic away all those things that stood between her and Marco, and imagine a happy ending, a scenario in which he discovered that she loved him and immediately declared his own love for her. But this was real life and there was no way that was going to happen.

      One day—maybe—there would be a man with whom she could find some sense of peace, a man who would give her children they could love together and cherish. But that man could not and would not be Marco, and those dark-haired girls and boys she had seen so clearly with her mind’s eye, that gorgeous baby, were the children that another woman would bear for him.

      And, poor things, their lives would be burdened by the weight of their royal inheritance, just as Marco’s was, and that was something Emily knew she could not endure to inflict on her own babies. For them she wanted love and security and the freedom to grow into individuals, instead of being forced into the mould of royal heirs.

      It was just as well that Marco had no intentions of wanting to make her his wife, on two counts, Emily told herself determinedly as she battled with her sadness, because the revealing nature of her recent thoughts had shown her what her true feelings were about Marco’s royal blood. Plus, of course, as he had already told her, it was not permissible for him to marry a divorced woman.

      The sound of crockery rattling on a tray and the smell of coffee brought her back to the present as Maria came into the courtyard carrying a tray of coffee for her, which she put on a table shaded from the heat of the sun by an elegant parchment-coloured sun umbrella.

      Thanking her with a smile, Emily decided that she might as well start work.

      Within half an hour, she was deeply engrossed in the notes she was making, having moved the coffee-pot out of the way. Although she hadn’t felt nauseous this morning, the smell of the coffee had reminded her that her stomach was still queasy and not truly back to normal.

      An hour later, when Marco drove into the outer courtyard, Emily was still hard at work. After leaving the palace he had been to the airport where the generators had already been unloaded. He had already made a list of those villages up in the mountains most in need of their own source of power and whilst in London he had spoken with the island’s police chief and the biggest road haulier to arrange for the transport of the generators. However, whilst he had been at the airport, he had received a message from the police chief to say he had received instructions from the palace that the generators were not to be moved.

      It had taken all of Marco’s considerable negotiating skills, and the cool reminder that he was Niroli’s future king, to persuade the police chief to change his mind and go against what he described to Marco almost fearfully as ‘orders from the palace'.

      Because of this Marco had decided to drive into the mountains himself to make sure that the generators were delivered safely. If his grandfather thought he could outmanoeuvre him, then he was going to have to learn the hard way that it was just not going to happen.

      Marco’s mouth compressed. As a successful entrepreneur whose views were respected he wasn’t used to having his decisions questioned and countermanded. Had his grandfather really no idea of the potential damage he was inflicting on the island by his stubborn refusal to recognise that the world had changed and its people with it, and that it was no longer viable for a king as hugely wealthy as Niroli’s to allow some of his subjects to live in conditions of severe poverty? Apart from anything else, there was the threat of civil unrest amongst the mountain-dwellers, which would be seized upon and further orchestrated by the Vialli gang that lived amongst them.

      His step-grandmother had in part to be behind this, Marco decided grimly. Queen Eva was his grandfather’s second wife, and it was Marco’s personal opinion that she was and always had been hostile towards her predecessor’s side of the family. That naturally included Marco and his two sisters. Given their step-grandmother’s attitude, it was no wonder that Isabella rarely visited the palace, and that Rosa preferred not to live on the island, just as he hadn’t, until recently…

      * * *

      Emily had been deeply engrossed in the notes she was making, but some sixth sense alerted her to Marco’s presence, causing her to put down her pen and turn to look towards the entrance to the courtyard. Despite the sombreness of her earlier thoughts, the minute she saw Marco standing watching her all the feelings she had promised herself she would learn to control rushed through her. Pushing back her chair, she got up and hurried over to him.

      As he watched her coming towards him Marco could feel the anger his morning had caused being eased from his body by the warmth of her welcome. He wanted to go to her and take hold of her, he wanted to take her to bed and lose himself and his problems within her. His need for her was so intense… He tensed once more. There it was again, that word need, that feeling he didn’t want to have.

      ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Emily asked him uncertainly when she saw his sudden tension.

      ‘Nothing for you to worry about. An administrative problem I need to sort out,’ he told her dismissively. ‘I’ll be gone for most of the afternoon.’

      Emily did her best to hide her disappointment, but she knew she hadn’t succeeded when she heard him exhaling irritably.

      ‘Emily—’ he began warningly.

      ‘It’s all right, I know. You’re a king-in-waiting and you have far more important things to do than be with me,’ she interrupted him briskly.

      Marco looked at her downbent head.

      ‘You can come with me if you wish, but it will mean a long, hot drive along dusty roads, followed by some boring delays whilst I speak with people. And since you haven’t been feeling well…’

      Emily wanted to tell him that being with him could never bore her, but she managed to stop herself just in time. Instead she assured him quickly, ‘I’m feeling much better now. I’ve had a look round the villa and I could run some options by you in the car, unless.’ She paused uncertainly, suddenly realising how very little she knew about what was expected of him in his new role. ‘That is, will you be driving yourself, or…?’

      ‘We СКАЧАТЬ