The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

‘Hello,’ she said tremulously, and a tear of relief began to slide from between her eyelids. She scrubbed it away with her fist before she looked over to see Guido’s reaction.

But he had gone to the window and was standing there, completely motionless, staring out at the fresh, pale light of the spring day.

‘Guido?’ she whispered tentatively.

He turned round, but his proud and beautiful face gave nothing away. As usual.

He bent to gently kiss her forehead, and then to brush his mouth against the cheek of his daughter.

It took a moment or two before he was able to speak with the composure which was expected of him.

‘Well done, Lucy,’ he said. ‘She is very beautiful.’ Then he turned to the midwife and the doctor with a formal smile. ‘And may I thank you for all your hard work?’

Lucy sank back onto the pillows as they took her daughter away to clean her, and an overwhelming wave of sadness swelled up to hit her like a fist. She did not know what she had been expecting him to say, but it had not been enough.

Maybe she was chasing the impossible—for with Guido it was never enough.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE books said that having any new baby was exhausting, but Lucy decided that it must be especially so if you had one as lively—and intelligent!—as Nicole Katerina Marguerite Cacciatore. The new Princess seemed to have an aversion to sleeping at times when babies should be sleeping. It was a good thing, thought Lucy, that she compensated for her active nature by being the most beautiful baby in the entire world. But then she would be, wouldn’t she?

For she looked exactly like her father.

Guido glanced up one morning to find Lucy yawning, dark shadows having planted faint blue thumb-prints beneath her eyes, and he frowned.

‘Cara, this cannot go on.’

‘What can’t?’ The fact that he hadn’t come near her since the baby had been born, bar the odd brief, perfunctory hug? Or that he had gone back to being that restless and wary Guido, who walked around like a caged lion?

He seemed to have slipped away from her again, and she wondered if he would ever come back. A woman who had newly given birth didn’t usually feel beguiling enough to play the temptress. Even in normal circumstances…

‘You are exhausted,’ he pointed out. Her tiredness was almost palpable. He had taken to sleeping in an adjoining room, because the last thing she needed at a time like this was a husband who couldn’t keep his hands off her. ‘I have never seen anyone look so tired.’

‘Well, new mothers generally are.’

‘Then why not engage a nanny?’ he questioned.

Lucy bit her lip and poured herself a cup of coffee. She could go on bottling up her fears for ever, but that meant that nothing would change and she would be destined to spend a life only half lived. Trying to be all things to a man who seemed content to operate on such a superficial level of existence that he didn’t even want to share her bed now the baby had been born!

‘Because I don’t need a nanny,’ she said stubbornly.

‘Maybe you do. Look at you! A nanny would take over at night—at least let you get some proper sleep.’

‘I want to do it all myself,’ she emphasised. ‘All my friends do.’

He wanted to point out that her friends were not princesses, except he suspected the argument would fall on deaf ears—for Lucy was weaving a strong bond with their baby which, as a father, he should commend. So what, exactly, was the problem? He drank a mouthful of inky coffee which was much too hot, but he didn’t wince.

Sometimes he watched as she played with Nicole, thinking herself unobserved. From the shadows he saw the way she kissed the tiny baby head, listened to the crooning little sounds she made, and long-buried memories resurfaced. He remembered standing by the door while his mother cradled his new brother, experiencing a sense of being an outsider—which every older sibling must feel.

And then…

He drew a deep breath, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. Patience was not one of his virtues, but he was beginning to recognise that it was what new mothers needed more than anything else.

‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘But she could help you during the day. How about that?’

Lucy looked at him—casting him the bait and hoping that he would take it. ‘But the baby gives me a raison d’être,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve set up an office for yourself and you spend all day working in it. What else am I going to do if someone else is taking care of her?’

‘Ella manages.’