Читать книгу His to Command: the Housekeeper - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 13

‘GOING out somewhere tonight, are you, Cathy?’

Momentarily, Cathy froze in the act of picking up her handbag as Rupert’s words stopped her in her tracks. Composing her face, she turned around, preparing to face him—remembering what Xaviero had told her when she’d worried aloud about people finding out that they were lovers.

‘So what? You have nothing to hide, cara,’ he had murmured casually. ‘And neither do I. Every man is entitled to a mistress.’

It had made her briefly wonder why he had used the term ‘mistress’ instead of ‘girlfriend’, when he wasn’t even married. But maybe that was what princes did when they acquired a lover who was also a commoner. They erected boundaries—so that the lover wouldn’t ever make the mistake of thinking that there might be some kind of future in their affair.

Trying to hide her nerves, she gave a slightly wobbly smile because Rupert was still standing in front of her, blocking her way and clearly expecting some kind of answer to his question.

‘Actually, I’m staying home tonight,’ she said, noticing her boss’s eyes straying to the bulging carrier bags at her feet. She’d rushed down to the village at lunchtime and had bought crusty wholemeal bread and some thick slices of ham from the butcher.

‘Cooking dinner for lover-boy, are we?’ he sneered.

Cathy swallowed and then drew her shoulders back. If Xaviero liked her enough to want to spend time with her, then there was no way she was going to let Rupert Sanderson look down his nose at her! ‘No, we’re having salad tonight,’ she answered calmly.

Rupert looked irritated. ‘He could have a silver-service dinner any night of the week right here and yet he seems to prefer slumming it with you! And we all know why that is, don’t we?’ His petulant voice lowered to a kind of hiss. ‘But better not get too used to it. You may have managed to entice a prince into your bed, Cathy—but he’ll drop you like a hot potato once the novelty has worn off.’

Cathy froze—because wasn’t her boss only articulating thoughts she’d had a hundred times herself since she’d become Xaviero’s lover? Heart pounding, she lifted up her chin and looked him directly in the eye. ‘May I please pass?’ she questioned politely.

‘Feel free.’ He fixed his gaze on her breasts. ‘Nice blouse, Cathy—is it new?’

As she passed by Cathy blushed—because yes, it was a nice blouse. In fact, it was an extremely beautiful blouse—made out of the softest silk chiffon imaginable, and covered in lots of tiny little flowers so that it resembled a summer meadow. And Xaviero had bought it for her.

It had arrived in a fancy box, which she’d had to collect from the village post office. Cathy had no experience of costly clothes, but even with her untutored eye she immediately sensed that the blouse was worth a small fortune. It transformed an old pair of jeans into an eye-catching outfit and had made Xaviero’s eyes narrow with appreciation.

Next, a large box of fine French lingerie had been delivered—and the Prince had waved her protests aside with a careless gesture of his hand. He didn’t care that she was reluctant to accept gifts from him, he told her—he wanted to give them to her, and his wishes were paramount.

‘I don’t want you in cheap underwear,’ he had murmured as he’d slowly peeled off a pair of sheer lace cami-knickers and watched her squirm with delight. ‘My mistress must be clothed in silk and satin.’

It had made her feel rather odd. A bit like an object. But then his expert lips and seeking fingers would get to work and dissolve any lingering doubts—replacing them with a sense of wonder that he should desire her as much as he did.

As she walked down the flower-banked path to her cottage Cathy reflected that her weeks with the Prince had been everything that any woman could ever have wished for.

Well, maybe some women might have objected to the fact that they didn’t go out very much—though he had certainly offered to take her. The trouble was that going out with a prince was beset with difficulties. A supposedly incognito visit to the cinema had been spoiled when word had got out that a European royal was present. Maybe it had been the attendance of his bodyguards who had given the game away, no matter how discreet they had tried to be. And consequently, the staff had made a fawning kind of fuss of him.

Cathy had noticed how much he hated being recognised; she hated it, too—and not just because she was thrust aside into the shadows. Understandably Xaviero was much more uptight when he was being observed by other people. So she had suggested that they stay at home, in her little cottage. They could eat supper outside if the weather was fine—in the seclusion of the small garden. And if it rained, then they could watch DVDs while cuddled up on the sofa, just like any other couple.

To her surprise, he had agreed—and to her even greater surprise, he hadn’t grown bored with the arrangement. On the contrary, Xaviero seemed to love the simple life, which was all she could offer him. And it gave Cathy almost as much pleasure as his love-making—to see her prince relax in the relative anonymity of her little home.

He’s not your prince, she reminded herself fiercely as she dumped the two carrier bags on the kitchen table and went out into the garden to pull some potatoes from the ground.

She was so busy tugging at the tiny little vegetables that she didn’t hear anyone come into the garden. In fact, the first she knew that Xaviero was present was the touch of his hands at her waist. Such an innocent touch and yet it had the power to make her feel weak with wanting.

‘Xaviero,’ she breathed.

‘You were expecting someone else?’ came his wry reply as he turned her round to face him.

‘I’m all muddy!’

He stared down into her flushed and healthy-looking cheeks—at the bright aquamarine eyes which sparkled like blue stars. She was…enchanting. Completely without guile or affectation. ‘Who cares?’ he murmured as he lowered his head to kiss her.

The kiss became breathless—and the potatoes scattered around their feet. Inside, she quickly washed the mud from her hands and then her lover carried her to bed, where they made love with an urgent kind of fervour which suggested that they might have been apart for weeks, rather than mere hours.

And afterwards he pulled her up to lie against his warm body, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the silky scent of her hair.

‘That was…amazing,’ he murmured, his fingers settling over one soft breast. ‘Who taught you to do that?’

‘You did,’ she whispered. Just as he had taught her everything. Tightening her arms around him, Cathy felt the powerful body relax against hers and wished that the world outside this cottage didn’t exist. That they could stay marooned in here in a world of make-believe, where she could pretend that he was simply Xaviero—the man whose golden-eyed beauty had grown to dominate her world.

He began to drift off to sleep beside her and she could hear nothing but the steadying of his breathing, and the ticking of her bedside clock. Oh, how she hated that little clock which ruthlessly whittled away the minutes they spent with each other. Hands which crept round so agonisingly slowly when Xaviero was absent that they seemed almost stationary. But when he was here…well, that was when time would play cruel tricks—greedily running away with itself until the alarm on his cell phone reminded him that it was time to leave.

Then, in the early hours he would prise himself from her warm embrace, pulling on his clothes to slip out into the balmy summer air where his chauffeur was waiting patiently at the end of the lane, ready to drive him the short distance to the hotel.

‘Why don’t you…stay?’ she had ventured, on that blissful first night in his arms—when she had lain there dazed in the sweet aftermath of his love-making.

‘I can never stay the night with you, Cathy,’ he had stated, his voice suddenly hard and resolute.

Too full of emotion and pleasure to heed the unmistakable caution which smouldered at the depths of his golden eyes, she had looked up into his face with innocent bewilderment. ‘Why not?’

‘Because staying a whole night is a statement. It implies a commitment which is not present—and to do so will compromise both of us.’ He had lifted her chin then. Stared hard into her eyes. ‘And you know that this is nothing but a very temporary affair, don’t you—because I made that clear from the beginning?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I do,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Telling herself that at least he wasn’t lying to her—or keeping false hopes alive by pretending that there might be some kind of future in it. Because she had known from the outset that there wasn’t. Far better to simply revel in every glorious and unbelievable moment than try to hang onto a hopeless dream.

Beside her, Xaviero stirred from his brief sleep. ‘Cathy?’

She rolled over to face him, their gazes meeting in the confined space of her bed, and her heart turned over with longing. ‘What?’

‘This.’ He slid her hand between his thighs until her fingers collided with his hotly aroused flesh and Cathy’s lips parted.

‘Again?’ she whispered breathlessly.

‘Sì, again,’ he agreed unsteadily.

She swallowed as the familiar heat of desire began to unfurl in her stomach. ‘So…soon?’she managed huskily.

‘Always. Always! Because you drive me crazy!’he said fiercely. ‘Crazier than any woman I have ever bedded!’

Feeling his hands encircle her waist, Cathy drifted her lips to his neck and trailed her mouth lightly over his silken flesh. ‘Do I?’

‘Oddio, I think I have taught you a little too well,’ he said unsteadily as he lifted her up and then brought her slowly down on top of him and she gasped as she felt him fill her.

She didn’t have the time or the inclination to question him—not then, when he was moving her up and down on his swollen shaft like that. Taking her to that sweet place of release where the rest of the world and all its nagging doubts could be forgotten. When she could cry out his name with uninhibited joy and he would think it was simply the orgasm speaking and not a shout of fervour from her heart.

Much later, they clambered back into their clothes and Cathy concocted a meal, while Xaviero opened some of the wine he’d brought with him. Tipping the ruby liquid into the chunky little tumblers she kept in her kitchen, he smiled.

‘One of the finest wines in the world,’ he murmured. ‘And here we are drinking it from tooth-mugs!’

Cathy put a little bowl of cherry tomatoes on the table and turned to look at him. ‘You want me to get some proper wine glasses?’

He looked at her, and at that moment Xaviero felt a sharp longing for a world he would never really know—where every purchase had to be calculated and assessed. Where things were bought for necessity and governed by cost—without bringing elegance or beauty into the equation. He would no more have drunk from glasses like this in his own home than he would have lapped wine from a saucer—but for now they seemed to symbolise a sense of simplicity he had never known.

‘I don’t want you to change anything,’ he said.

Cathy bit her lip as she went back inside the cottage to get the butter dish—afraid that her sudden fears would show on her face, and scare him. The very real fear of how on earth she was going to cope with life once Xaviero had left it.

But doubts could grow in your mind—even if you didn’t want them to—and Cathy barely touched her meal, though she drank deeply of the rich Italian wine. Xaviero had shared her life these past weeks and yet she realised that she knew very little about him. Or at least about his other life. His royal life.

‘Tell me about Zaffirinthos,’ she said suddenly.

‘Not now, Cathy.’ He yawned.

‘Yes, now,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Why not?’

His lips curved into a reluctant smile as he watched her push a stray strand of thick blonde hair from her flushed cheek, recognising that she was a beguiling mixture of innocence and outspokenness. She was a complete natural, he realised—and it was still enough of a novelty not to irritate him. And yet wasn’t one of her most appealing qualities the fact that she was so biddable—so willing to be taught? Why, if he’d told her that it increased his sexual pleasure to have her dance naked around him beforehand, she would have gone about it in an instant!

His smile was one of rare indulgence. ‘And what—specifically—do you want to know about Zaffirinthos?’

‘Everything,’ she answered, wondering if she had imagined that faintly patronising tone.

‘But surely you must already know something? Some facts you picked up on the Internet. Because I can’t believe you didn’t look me up when you discovered who I was,’ he drawled. ‘People always do.’

Cathy found herself colouring, like a child who had been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. Or some stupid little royal groupie. ‘Obviously I found out some things—’

‘Of course you did.’ His smile was faintly cynical. ‘What things?’

‘Not the kind of things I’d really like to know.’

‘And what might they be?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She screwed the lid back on the mayonnaise. ‘Like what kind of childhood you had?’

If anyone else had dared quiz him about something so personal, he would have dismissed it as an outrageous imposition—but Cathy had a soft way of asking which was hard to resist. ‘It was a childhood in two halves,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The first bit was idyllic—and then my mother died.’

Her heart went out to him—because didn’t she know only too well the pain of that? ‘And everything changed?’ she prompted quietly.

‘Totally. My father was utterly bereft.’ He stared at the ceiling. The depth of his father’s grief had taught him the dangers of emotional dependence as well as the temporary nature of happiness. ‘And then he turned all his attention into grooming my older brother to succeed him, as King. It meant a lot of freedom for me—so I was able to concentrate on my riding. That’s when I first started to learn about polo.’

Cathy experienced another wrench of sympathy—because too much freedom for a child could sometimes mean loneliness. She tried to imagine Xaviero as a little boy, doubly bereaved in a way—first by his mother’s death and then by his father’s withdrawal. And while she knew all about bereavement, at least she had enjoyed a close relationship with her great-aunt. ‘And your brother is now King,’ she said.

‘That’s right. My father died last year and big brother is now in charge,’ said Xaviero, a sudden edge to his voice. ‘Busy modernising Zaffirinthos with his sweeping reforms.’

But Cathy wasn’t interested in sweeping reforms—she wanted to see the island through her lover’s eyes. ‘And is it very beautiful?’ she asked. ‘Zaffirinthos?’

‘Very beautiful,’ he murmured. But somehow her questions made him realise how long he’d been away—and reinforced his sense of exile. He had not returned since his brother’s coronation, for reasons which were essentially primitive and guilt-inducing. Boyhood rivalries ran deep as blood itself, he thought grimly—and hadn’t there been a part of him which had always resented the accident of birth which had ensured that Casimiro would inherit the crown? Power was easy to come by, and Xaviero had built up his own power-base through his own hard work—but no one could deny the lure of ruling a country…

He realised that Cathy was still looking at him, her aquamarine eyes searching his face as she waited for him to paint the perfect, holiday-brochure picture of his paradise home.

He shrugged his shoulders. Well, he would give her the brochure version. Why not? He would be her fantasy prince in his fantasy land and that could be the memory she would keep of him. ‘It has forests so green that, like Ireland, it is known as the emerald isle. And the best beaches in the world, with sand as pale as sugar. And we have a bay with the bluest water—even bluer than your eyes, cara—where the rare caretta-caretta turtles come to lay their eggs on summer nights so still that you can almost hear the stars shooting across the sky.’

Cathy looked at him and couldn’t suppress a little sigh of longing. His lyrical words painted pictures, yes—but also helped create an image of the man she wanted him to be. One who was romantic, and caring. Would it be too much to hope that he cared a little bit about her? Hadn’t he just compared her eyes to the bluest sea and then called her ‘darling’ in Italian? How easy it would be to read too much into a simple remark like that—perhaps imagining that he wanted more from her than just being his willing bed-partner. ‘It sounds…it sounds like paradise,’ she said wistfully.

‘Oh, it is,’ he agreed evenly, because he knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted him to say that he would take her there. Was she building little fantasies about visiting the magnificent palace, perhaps—mistakenly imagining that she might have some place there? In which case, she should be very careful not to confuse fantasy with reality.

‘But you know, of course, that I can never take you there,’ he said softly, and, reaching out, he pulled her down onto his lap.

On one level, of course she had known that—but on another, she had hoped… Cathy bit her lip. She had hoped for what every woman in her situation would hope for—no matter how foolish that hope. And why had he made that completely unnecessary statement, which necessitated her asking a question she didn’t really want to ask? Suddenly, she found herself on the defensive.

‘Why not?’

He lifted her chin with the tip of his finger. ‘Because my people would never accept me openly flaunting a lover there. They are less accepting of modern sexual manners than you are here.’

‘They would look down on me, I suppose?’ she questioned shakily.

‘Cathy,’ he appealed. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘Because, of course, it’s always the woman who takes the blame, isn’t it? They would never dare to think that their darling Prince might have something to do with it.’

‘That,’ he said warningly, ‘is enough.’

Her lips were trembling. ‘All right, it’s enough. And actually, I’m pretty bored with the subject myself!’

‘Well, you’re the one who brought it up.’

‘And you’re the one who spoilt it.’

‘Are you aware,’ he questioned silkily, ‘that if you spoke to me in such a way in the presence of others you could be accused of gross insubordination?’

Pull yourself together, Cathy told herself fiercely, banishing her foolish longings and pressing her lips hungrily to the base of his throat instead. ‘You could—but only if I were your subject,’ she objected as she inhaled his raw, masculine scent. ‘Which, of course, I’m not.’

As he laughed Xaviero felt his irritation dissolve, acknowledging that her native intelligence was surprising. And in a curious way she could have almost held her own when compared with other women he had bedded—all of them more high-born than her.

He had slept with heiresses whose own fortune could almost have matched his and he had slept with super-models whose rangy bodies and exquisite features had graced countless glossy magazines.

Once, he had even dated an Oscar-winning English actress and had watched from his hotel suite while she had tearfully—and rather embarrassingly—accepted the award and dedicated it to ‘the only man I have ever loved. The other man with the golden eyes.’ The press had gone crazy when they had worked out just who she was referring to. Later that night, they had made love beneath the metallic gaze of the statuette and a week later he had told her it was over—that public declarations of love had never been on the agenda.

But, out of all those confident and accomplished women, none had spoken to him with quite the same sunny simplicity as Cathy. It perplexed him—and he was not a man who did perplexity. Was it because her whole life had been spent in service that she seemed totally without guile or expectation? Or was it because she had been a virgin, and he had taken her innocence that she was so eager to be moulded by him?

He could see her looking at him questioningly, and he stroked at her silken hair. ‘Who’d have thought,’ he murmured, ‘that a couple of weeks of intensive sexual tuition could make a humble little chambermaid such a perfect partner in bed?’

Cathy’s smile didn’t slip. She told herself not to react. That he probably wasn’t intending to insult her. To concentrate instead on the way he made her feel when his fingers were stroking sweet enchantment over her skin. Anyway, perhaps he couldn’t help it—maybe that arrogance was inbuilt and part of his unique royal make-up. Maybe princes from Zaffirinthos were expected to be arrogant. Far better to accept him for who he was and not try to change him. Why spoil what was never intended to be anything other than a brief, beautiful liaison? ‘Who’d have thought it?’ she agreed.

‘So how do you do it?’ he persisted.

‘Oh, Xaviero—’

‘No, I’m interested. It’s more than a learning of sexual technique—though you are a surprisingly fast learner and a very satisfactory pupil. What’s your secret, Cathy? Did you back up your practical skills with a little theory? Maybe you quietly read up one of those self-help books which advise women on the most effective way to deal with a powerful man?’

Leaning on her elbow, she looked at him. His arrogance was breathtaking—but sometimes even he overstepped the mark. Yet what could she say? Wouldn’t he laugh in her face if she told him that her ‘secret’—if that was what you could call it—was that she had schooled herself to forget that he was a prince? That at least in his arms she could pretend that he was the uncomplicated flirty man in denim she’d been so powerfully attracted to—the man with the golden eyes. And maybe he would take it the wrong way—because he wasn’t that man, was he? Not really.

‘Actually, no—I haven’t. Those books aren’t really directed at chambermaids,’ she answered, deadpan.

‘No. I don’t suppose they are.’ He surveyed her thoughtfully, and realised he couldn’t keep putting off the inevitable. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking…do you want me to help you find some other kind of job? Something different to do when…’

Cathy stilled as his words trailed off, the unusual hesitation alerting her to trouble. ‘When…what, Xaviero?’

His eyes narrowed as he watched her, sizing up her reaction and preparing for tears, maybe hysteria. ‘When all this is over.’

The silence grew like a gathering storm cloud while Cathy tried to dampen down the terrible feeling of fear which was clutching at her heart. Telling herself that she had known this was coming. It was just she hadn’t been expecting it. Not now. Not yet.

‘And…and is it all over?’ she managed at last.

Xaviero relaxed a little. No tears. That was good. ‘Not yet. But soon,’ he murmured as he kissed the curving line of her jaw. ‘Probably sooner than I thought.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’ve known all along that I’ve been planning to go to South America for the winter to look at horses?’

‘Yes, of course,’ answered Cathy, marvelling at the way she could make her voice sound so bright when inside her heart felt as if it were breaking in two.

‘Well, a stallion I’ve had my eye on may be coming onto the market and it makes sense to go out there to look at it within the next few days. I complete on the hotel next week and I’ve been meeting with architects. The whole building is going to be remodelled to my specifications while I’m away—and I’m planning to keep on any existing staff who may wish to stay once it reverts into being a private house again.’ He looked into her wary blue eyes. ‘I’m just not sure how appropriate that might be, in your case.’

In the pause which followed, Cathy felt as if someone had taken a jagged shard of glass and speared it hard through her heart. She felt faint, dizzy, as his words had sent a chill of fear icing down her spine. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean,’ she said slowly.

Xaviero sighed. He had hoped that she might make this easy for him—without him actually having to spell out the gulf of inequality which would make any further liaison impossible. ‘You know we can’t continue being lovers when I return,’he said softly. ‘I’ll be building a settled life here, and it won’t look good—not for either of us.’

‘But especially not for you?’

He saw the hurt in her eyes which she was doing her best to disguise, but he knew he had to be honest with her. With a sudden sharp pang, he remembered how the doctors and even his own father had prevaricated when he had asked them whether his mother would live. They had given him hope. Stupid, misplaced hope. So that Xaviero had learnt there was only one solution to misplaced hope—and that was to kill it.

‘No,’ he agreed heavily. ‘You may find it uncomfortable if you stay here, Cathy. One of these days I may get around to looking around for a suitable partner,’ he said, and then added, just so that there could be no possible misunderstanding, ‘A bride. Because sooner or later I’m going to have to think about settling down.’ He felt her stiffen. ‘And I’m not sure how easy you might find that, either. If you were still employed here in some kind of chambermaid capacity, and I was bringing a woman back here and—’

‘Asking me to change your dirty sheets?’ she questioned bluntly.

‘Cathy!’

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’ Because he had sketched out the possible scenario and now wasn’t it up to her to colour in the blanks? To imagine the whole ghastly reality of what he was saying to her. And that way, surely, there would be no space left for illusion or any more hurt? ‘And, yes, you’re right, Xaviero. It really would be very awkward for both of you if I were still around.’

‘Well, there isn’t any both, is there? At least, not yet there isn’t.’ He traced the trembling line of her lips with a questing fingertip but she did not clamp her little white teeth around it and suck on it, as usually she would have done. ‘Though I don’t want you to feel you have to leave, just because of me.’

She stared at him, his royal status now forgotten—because in the circumstances it was irrelevant. This was her life, she realised—a life so very different from his. And it was where their two lives had merged and were now about to divide again, propelling her towards a scary and unknown future. ‘Oh, of course I have to leave, Xaviero. There’s no other alternative.’ Or did he imagine that she would hover in the background of his life—some pale-faced little ghost of a woman he’d once known, while he made a new life and a family with his suitable bride?

Desperately, she tried to scrabble back a little dignity. ‘But please don’t feel bad about it, when we both know it’s inevitable—we’ve known that all along. It’s probably just the kick-start I needed. I’ve been telling myself I’ve been in a rut for ages and kept meaning to change—I just never got around to it before.’

His eyes narrowed as they studied her. ‘If you want—I could perhaps help.’ He saw the confusion in her face. ‘You know—set you up in something, somewhere else.’

She recoiled. ‘You mean…like…pay me off? What’s that for—services rendered?’

‘That isn’t what I meant at all!’ he snapped.

‘Well, that’s what it sounded like!’

For a moment he was tempted to leave her right then, to storm out of her little cottage and its surprisingly beautiful garden. A place where he had been able to shrug off privilege and position with his biddable little virgin whom he’d transformed into a near-perfect lover. And another man would one day benefit from all his tuition, he thought—with a sudden and unexpected spear of jealousy.

‘Cathy, don’t let’s fight—not now,’ he said, in as placating a tone as he had ever used, pulling her face towards his.

And to Cathy’s everlasting shame, she let him begin to kiss her. Even after all the things he had said to her, she just let him. All those stark statements he’d made which had hammered home her rightful place in the Prince’s life. Which was nowhere. What woman with a shred of pride could sink back and revel in his expert caresses like this? But she wanted one more taste of him. One more erotic coupling with a man she recognised would never be equalled—not in anyone’s life, but certainly not in hers.

He lifted his head and looked down into her wide aquamarine eyes and saw in them the telltale glimmer of tears. But for once he accepted the unnecessary intrusion of emotion—knowing that his biddable little pupil was about to learn that saying goodbye was the hardest lesson of all.