The Prince's Chambermaid

‘Casimiro,’ said Xaviero heavily. ‘I would like you to meet my wife.’

And Cathy went through the motions of sinking in a low curtsey. The head nurse had advised her that the King might be able to hear her, and that she should talk to him. And so, shrugging off any feelings of self-consciousness, she sat and told the stricken monarch how happy she was to have married into his family and how she would do everything in her power to be a good princess. She found herself searching his inert, cold features for some kind of reaction—any kind of reaction. Could he understand anything she was saying to him? How terrible if his mind was locked in some frustrating prison—hearing everything and yet unable to respond.

By the time they left, a small crowd had gathered outside the hospital and Cathy was aware of the flash of a camera exploding in her face as Xaviero’s security ushered them through to the car.

But once the powerful vehicle had moved off, her new husband reached out and pulled her close to him, staring down into her too-white face. ‘I have been harsh with you, Cathy,’ he said bitterly. ‘Can you forgive me?’

‘It…it doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh, but it does.’

‘No, I have been putting my own concerns first,’ she whispered. ‘Instead of realising all the responsibilities which have been pressing down on you.’

He pushed her hair back from her cheek. ‘Having you so close—and yet unable to touch you—has been driving me half crazy with desire.’ His mouth softened into a smile tinged with sadness. ‘And you were brilliant with my brother.’

Basking beneath the unexpected compliment and sinking into the longed-for warmth of his embrace, Cathy found herself wanting to smooth away those hard lines of strain from his formidable features. ‘Does he get many visitors?’

All Xaviero wanted to do was to block out the nightmare image of what they had just seen, but her eyes were dark with a question he had no right to ignore. ‘We have no other living relatives.’ He shrugged. ‘I go, when I have time…although every second is now planned out for me, as you know, so it is not as often as it should be. And, of course, I do not find it as easy to talk to him as you just did.’

‘That’s because women are better at that kind of thing.’

‘Are they?’ He allowed himself a brief smile. ‘And naturally, the King’s security and privacy is paramount, which means that no other visitors are permitted—not even his aides.’

Cathy thought about Casimiro’s terrible loneliness and isolation, lying there with only the nurses going about their daily duties of helping keep him alive, and she bit her lip. ‘Could I…could I go and visit him—would that be all right? I mean, I’m a relative now, aren’t I?’

Xaviero looked into her shimmering blue eyes, taken aback by her tentative request—since a desire to visit the sickbay would not have been a request made by any of his past lovers. ‘I don’t see any reason why not,’ he said gruffly.

‘Then I’ll ask Flavia to sort it out.’

He pulled her properly into his arms at last—and the sweet, fresh smell of her after the sterility of the hospital bay made him want to weep for all the joys his brother had lost. ‘Oh, Cathy,’ he said as he stared down at the uncertainty written on her trembling lips, wanting her to wipe some of the pain away with the tenderness of her touch. ‘Cathy, Cathy, Cathy.’

Trembling with the pent-up emotion of all that had happened, she paid no heed to the fact that he had rebuffed her more than once. She was just empowered by a need which matched the naked hunger in his eyes and her arms reached up to lock themselves around his neck while their lips collided in a kiss. She heard the small ragged sigh which escaped him and felt the beat of his heart so close against her own. ‘Xaviero,’ she whispered.

‘I want you,’ he declared unevenly.

And, oh, how she wanted him. Back in a suite decorated with fragrant white roses, Cathy let him carry her straight to the bed, where he began undressing her with a sudden urgency.

‘You haven’t carried me over the threshold,’ she teased.

‘You want to go outside and come in again?’ he demanded, lifting his head from her breasts, which he was baring—button by button—his eyes almost jet-black with desire.

Terrified of tempting a fate that had kept them segregated since she’d arrived and too transfixed by the shivers of desire which were skating inexorably over her skin, Cathy shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I just want you.’

‘Then you shall have me, mia bella. All night long, I am yours.’ Making a sound a little like a low growl, Xaviero stripped the clothes from her body almost ruthlessly, his fingers and his lips reacquainting themselves so deliciously with her flesh that she immediately choked out a little gasp of pleasure.