The Prince's Chambermaid

But it was like finding a tiny tear in an old dress and poking your finger inside it—only to discover that you were making the hole much bigger. It was as if tonight had opened the floodgates on all the inadequacies in their relationship—or had Xaviero’s own words of dissatisfaction about his life helped to crystallise her own?

We’ve never even talked about children, she realised. Quickly, she gulped down a mouthful of water and felt it refresh her parched lips, but underneath the table her knees were trembling. Xaviero had continued to use protection after their marriage and she hadn’t even questioned it—just tacitly accepted it as she had done so much else. Oh, she was certainly compliant! Did he want children? And could she bring children into this kind of peculiar marriage—or was this a ‘normal’ marriage in the royal world?

I’ll ask him, she thought—though a wave of dark misery swept over her. I’ll ask him tonight.

Dessert appeared—an extravagant confection of lemon cream and spun sugar—and Cathy was eyeing it unenthusiastically when one of Xaviero’s aides entered the room and went immediately over to his side to speak softly in the Prince’s ear.

Even without her crash-course in protocol, Cathy would have known that it was rare indeed for the Prince Regent to be interrupted when he was in the middle of an official dinner. And rarer still for Xaviero to suddenly rise to his feet, his face growing ashen.

Something was wrong. Helplessly, her fingers clutched at her napkin. She wanted to ask him what was happening but, of course, she couldn’t do that for he wouldn’t dream of telling her before an audience.

And then another aide entered and Xaviero quickly joined him at the side of the room, bending his dark head as the man spoke in a low, urgent tone in his ear. By now all the guests had abandoned any pretence at continuing with their dinner—as everyone seemed to sense that something momentous was happening.

What the hell was going on?

Xaviero’s face grew suddenly taut as he spoke in a low voice to the assembled company. ‘I regret to say that urgent matters of state mean that my wife and I must now leave you,’ he said, and then paused before the golden eyes seared into her. ‘Catherine, you will please join me?’

It felt like a summons, it most definitely was a summons, and never had a walk seemed so long as Cathy found her feet and slowly walked down the long dining room towards him. Searching his face for some sort of clue for the reasons behind this extraordinary break with protocol, she found none. Just a bleak and unfathomable countenance, but then, wasn’t that Xaviero all over—because since when had she ever been able to read anything in his shuttered face?

In silence, they left the room—the aides following at a discreet distance—and once they were out of earshot of the assembled dignitaries she turned to him in perplexity.

‘Xaviero, what on earth is going on?’

He seemed to struggle to find the right words. ‘The hospital has just rung—’

Her heart missed a beat as she held her breath, sensing tragedy. ‘And?’

He swallowed. ‘My brother has tonight awakened from his coma.’

Chapter Eleven

THE car drove them straight to the hospital—but Cathy was still reeling from her husband’s shock announcement and his inexplicably bleak response to it.

‘I thought…I thought you’d be overjoyed about your brother’s recovery, and yet…’ she said slowly, registering the sombre set of his features in the dimmed light of the limousine. ‘What exactly have they told you?’

‘That he suddenly opened his eyes and began to speak. They’re running tests now—but they say…’ His voice thickened. ‘They say he’s going to make a full recovery.’

‘So why…?’ Dared she? Dared she? ‘Why your restrained response?’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it for myself,’ he said harshly as the car drew up outside the brightly lit and modern hospital, where the medical director was waiting for them.

The news was good. In fact, the news was pretty unbelievable, Cathy thought as she sat in the big, airy office and listened while the doctor explained that every test they’d run had been favourable. That every system was functioning and that the King was demanding physiotherapy as soon as possible because he wanted to—as the doctor relayed with the hint of a smile—‘get the hell out of here’.

Xaviero felt a pulse working at his temple. ‘That sounds like Casimiro. So when can I see him?’

‘I can take you to him now, Your Highness.’

He turned to her, but the golden eyes were shadowed, distracted. ‘Come, Catherine.’