His Majesty's Child (13 page)

M
ELISSA
stared into her husband's angry face and met the hot challenge in his eyes full on, her heart crashing against her ribcage in bewilderment. ‘I…I was going swimming, of course! Wh-what did you think I was doing?'

Casimiro let out a strangled sort of sigh, which seemed to have been dragged from some dark place deep inside him. ‘How should I know?' he exclaimed. ‘How the
hell
should I know?'

And suddenly Melissa saw the fear which underpinned his outward fury. The way his aristocratic features looked knife-sharp beneath the blanched colour of his olive skin. ‘You didn't think…' Confused thoughts crowded into her head. ‘You didn't think I was walking out to sea—about to end it all because we'd had a row?' Now the thoughts became more focused. And her own fury rose up to match his. ‘When I have a beautiful little son waiting for me back there at the palace? Do you really think I place so little value on him, Casimiro—or on me?'

He stared down into her green eyes and shook his head, feeling the mad race of his heart against his sodden shirt. ‘I wasn't thinking at all,' he said, in a raw voice.
‘I was acting on pure instinct.' Some primitive instinct which had made him want to run straight into the sea and haul her into the safety of his arms.

‘And instinct demanded that you rush fully clothed into the sea, did it?' she questioned, trying to pull away from him, but he wasn't having any of it, his grip like an iron clamp around her waist.

He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘Just what would you expect me to do, Melissa? When one of your staff burst into my meeting and told me they couldn't find you. That you were gone—only nobody knew where. And that you hadn't even taken a body guard with you. This is unprecedented behaviour for the monarch's consort—how was I to know
what
had happened?'

She heard the unfamiliar tremor which shook his deep voice and for the first time Melissa realised that her need to escape had been completely thoughtless. That it had fed the well-founded fears of a powerful man who had always lived his life in the shadow of danger.

‘It was never my intention to alarm you,' she said woodenly. ‘I'm sorry.'

His fingers bit into her flesh as he held her tighter. ‘So what
did
happen, Melissa? Why did you take off without warning? Was it to punish me?'

‘To
punish
you?'

He stared at her. Could he have blamed her for wanting to punish him? And wasn't he now forced to confront the truth—no matter how painful that truth might be? ‘For my high-handedness,' he said bitterly. ‘For treating you as a possession instead of as a partner. For failing to talk to you properly, or listen to you.'

Her heart began to pound. Was this the prelude to
making some kind of unexpected announcement—for telling her that it was never going to work and that he was going to give her back the freedom she so obviously craved? Had her brief flirtation with rebellion back fired spectacularly on her—had he given into the ultimatum he'd accused her of issuing?

Suddenly she caught the blinding flash of light from higher up and realised that they were being watched. And that whatever Casimiro had to tell her, she would accept it with dignity. She
had
to—for hadn't she already tried harder than most women would have done in a doomed attempt to make their relationship deeper than it could ever be? But with the best will in the world, even she didn't think she could accept the end of her marriage being played out in front of an audience.

‘You do realise that your security people have got binoculars trained on us? And that we're standing half sub merged in water—you dressed only in a shirt and a pair of trousers. And maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion here.'

Glancing upwards, he scowled. ‘Maybe you're right,' he said, and then, without warning, he bent and lifted her into his arms and began to carry her towards the shore.

‘Casimiro, please. This is crazy—'

‘Damned right it is,' he said grimly.

‘I'm perfectly capable of walking.'

‘And maybe I'm afraid that you just might run off again.'

‘Oh, don't be so ridiculous!'

‘Ridiculous, am I,
cara
? I don't think so.'

By now they had reached the dry sand, but still he had her in his arms—and her heart was racing with a
tumult of confused feelings as she felt her skin sizzling against his wet clothes. ‘Look, will you put me down?' she said breathlessly. ‘I promise I won't run anywhere. Please.'

‘No.' Still holding her, he continued to walk over to where a crop of high overhanging rocks provided a shaded haven beneath. Only then did he lower her gently to her feet, but he stood his ground, legs parted, his body gleaming with droplets of water. Fixing her in the spotlight of his gaze, his dark golden eyes captured and held her. ‘So what happened, Melissa?' he repeated softly. ‘I want to know.'

But Melissa shook her head, suddenly loath to tell him of all the doubts and fears which haunted her and made her feel so hopeless about the future—for now that the chips were down, it seemed too big a gamble to take. Wouldn't an admission like that make her more vulnerable still? A slave to his imperious mood if he knew that somehow she couldn't help herself from loving him. Hadn't he made it clear from the very start that he was not the kind of man who wanted that love—and hadn't his actions since only driven that fact home?

‘Why are you here?' she asked bluntly.

He was aware that she was stalling. Batting back his questions in a way he wasn't used to—for the King always received immediate answers. But not from his wife, it seemed. His gaze raked over her face and suddenly Casimiro saw the apprehension widening her green eyes and an overwhelming sense of remorse filled him.

Still he hesitated, knowing that he had to tell her everything—but how to begin? How did a man start to express feelings when he had done his level best to
deny their existence all his life? ‘Because I need to talk to you.'

The words sounded symbolic—but maybe that was just a figment of Melissa's imagination. She could hear the rhythm of the waves, but they sounded a long way away—just as everything seemed a long way away at that moment. It was only her and Casimiro thrashing out differences which had always seemed in surmountable—and the bitter truth was that they still did.

She stared at him. ‘Why—what have you got to say?'

The coolness in her voice chilled him as he realised that this wasn't going to be easy. That he must bare his soul to her if he was to have any kind of chance for the future—and never had a single action seemed quite so daunting. ‘What if I told you that I've been a stupid, unthinking fool—that I've put up so many barriers and risked losing the most important things in my life, which are you, and Ben? And what if I told you that I want to trust you?' he questioned quietly. ‘That I've realised we can't have any kind of marriage without trust and I can't bear to watch the growing sadness in your eyes as I throw back everything you keep trying to offer me.'

She shook her head. ‘Stop it,' she whispered. ‘Just stop it. You don't have to say things you don't mean—just because you think I want to hear them.'

‘You believe that?'

Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. ‘Can you blame me?' Melissa stared down at the sand so that he wouldn't see the traitorous tears which had blurred her eyes. ‘Why should you suddenly have changed?'

The whispered accusation hurt, but he could not deny
its accuracy. No, he couldn't blame her. Not for any thing. He thought of how he'd lashed out at her—at how his coldness and his refusal to communicate might have driven her away. Might
still
drive her away.

And as he stared at her bent head he felt a pain at his heart—a terrible tearing pain he had felt as a teenager when his father had fiercely told him that princes did not cry. That he must be dry-eyed as he walked behind his mother's coffin on that cold and leafless winter day. He had vowed never to feel that kind of pain again—to protect himself from its merciless onslaught—and yet he was feeling it now. He recognized now that pain was the price you paid for love. And recognized, too, that a hurt even greater lay waiting unless he could convince his wife that he
was
prepared to change.

He became aware that she was shivering. ‘Wait here,' he said tersely, returning just seconds later with his discarded jacket, from which he shook stray grains of sand, and then looped it gently about her shoulders.

Melissa inhaled deeply—she just couldn't help it. Because the jacket smelt of him—his own distinctive scent—all musk and sandalwood and pure, unadulterated male. She felt surrounded by him—cocooned by him—and wasn't that a perilous way to feel?

‘Sit down,' he said softly.

Aware that he was trying to cajole her—and she still wasn't quite sure why—Melissa sank down onto the shaded sand and stared up into his golden eyes. ‘Okay, I'm sitting down and I'm warm. So why don't you tell me what it is you want to say, Casimiro?'

Casimiro saw the way she had crossed her arms tightly over her chest—in a gesture which unmistakably
said
go away
. He wanted to reach out and touch her but somehow he recognised that touch would blur the edges of what he knew he had to say—that he needed to do this without any reliance on the senses.

‘When I left this morning I was furious.' There was a pause as he struggled to articulate it. ‘Mainly because you had forced me to look at myself and the way I was living my life. Forced me to confront the way I was feeling—actually, the way
you
made me feel, if only I was prepared to let go and admit it. And I realised that if I didn't act quickly, then there was a very real chance that you might leave me and the thought of that rocked the foundations of my world.'

‘Casimiro—'

‘Shh.' He stared at the faint tremble of her lips. ‘I've realised that you were right—that my life has been consumed by my kingdom and that isn't a good thing. Not for me, nor for you—or Ben—not even for Zaffirinthos. I've realised that I have to find a new way to govern—a way which will still allow me to be a good, strong King, but which will also allow me to be a good husband, and father. Because balance is important—to every human being. And I realised that I couldn't possibly let my son inherit a crown that I had grown to resent.'

Melissa looked at him, hardly daring to acknowledge the sudden leap of hope in her heart. ‘But…how is it going to change?'

‘I'm going to speak to my brother. At our wedding he told me that it had taken a move away to make him realise just how much he cared for Zaffirinthos. I don't know how much is possible—all I know is that I'm going to work something out. Do you believe that?'

‘Yes, Casimiro,' she affirmed softly. ‘I do.'

Her instant trust made him smile, but it was a smile tinged with the fear of what he might so easily have lost. ‘When I found that you'd gone—it was as if my worst fears had been realised,' he continued quietly. ‘It made me stop and imagine the reality of a world without you. One with no stead fast smile nor welcoming arms. No tender fingers to stroke and caress my stubborn face in bed at night. And it made me realise that I couldn't let that happen. Couldn't bear for it to happen. Something made me run to find you—the same something which drove me to your door on the night of the ball, when you first told me about our baby. Something you've always been able to arouse in me, Melissa—which defies protocol. The spark of it was always there, I think—even back then in England—but I've only just managed to put a name to it.'

‘And what name would that be, Casimiro?' she asked softly, aware that he was at the very edge of something—but needing him to go further. To hear him speak the raw and naked truth so that there could be no possible misunderstanding in the future.

His gaze was steady and yet his hand was anything but. Such a small word and yet surely the most powerful word in any language. ‘Love.'

There was a heart beat of a pause. ‘Love?' she questioned lightly—as if it had been a slip of the tongue and she was quite prepared to let him correct himself.

He saw the uncertainty written on her features and the hope which underpinned it despite her determination not to let it. ‘Yes, love,' he said softly. And now he
did
touch her—but only to lift the hand which wore his
wedding and engagement bands. ‘Do you realise that when I knew I was going to have to marry you because you had given birth to my child—a part of me rejoiced at the thought that you would be mine. All mine. That I could see you and have you as often as I wanted.'

‘Yet you didn't show it.'

‘Of course I didn't,' he said. ‘Because I was terrified at the way it made me feel.'

‘And how was that?'

There was a heart beat of a pause. ‘Vulnerable.'

‘
You
, vulnerable?'

‘Yes, me.' With a rueful expression, he looked into her face. ‘You see, I've come to realise that I'm no different from any other man, not really—not when it comes to matters of the heart. And that I'm certainly not immune to such feelings, no matter how hard I tried to fight them.'

She reached out to touch her hand to his cheek and he caught it, and kissed it. ‘Oh, Casimiro,' she whispered.

‘I love you, Melissa,' he said softly. ‘I love you for being you—strong enough to stand up to me and strong enough to care for me. I love you for the son you have borne and so lovingly reared—despite the adversity which fate threw at you—and I will love you both for the rest of my life, if only you will let me make up for my stubbornness. My inability to accept what was staring me in the face.'