The Prince's Chambermaid

‘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 palefaced 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.

Chapter Seven

WITHOUT Xaviero, life suddenly felt lonely and scary—but Cathy did what all the advice columns suggested as a way of trying to forget him. Instead of sitting around and moping, she changed her life completely—deciding to grab every opportunity which came her way instead of just sitting back and going with the flow. Her Prince had gone, yes—but she had known from the beginning that he would. He had gone and he wasn’t ever coming back and so she had better start learning to live with that and hope that this gnawing pain in her heart would some day lessen.

The first step in her recovery was leaving Colbridge—though really she didn’t have much choice. Hadn’t Xaviero himself spelt out in cruel and accurate detail just how difficult it would be if she were still there when he returned from South America?

Saying goodbye to friends and colleagues was harder than she’d thought, though it was no hardship leaving an openly curious Rupert, who had spent some of his profit on a red Lamborghini and was planning to open up another hotel in the south of France.

This time he did come right out and ask her if she’d been sleeping with the Prince, but although Cathy blushed she remained tight-lipped and told him it was really none of his business.

‘I think your response speaks for itself,’ he drawled.

‘You can think what you like, Rupert.’ Her cool reply clearly startled him—but, while Xaviero might have taught her about the pain of love, there was no doubt that sleeping with a prince had given her confidence.

It was harder to leave her little cottage where she’d lived for much of her life, and harder still to walk away from the garden on which she had fostered so much love and attention. But she rented it out to a plant-lover who promised to look after it, and moved to London, where she got a job in a famous bookshop situated right on Piccadilly, just along the road from Green Park. In a big, noisy capital city a bookshop seemed a warm and friendly place to be, and when they discovered her passion for plants and flowers she was quickly assigned to the Gardening, Cookery and Sport section of the store.