THE machine that was keeping King Marcos Fernando alive was slowly and relentlessly driving Luis mad. It emitted a beeping sound at a pitch that seemed to be exactly calibrated to cause the most discomfort to the human ear as it measured each laboured breath.
The room was impossibly hot. Getting stiffly up from the plastic chair Luis felt the sweat cool in the small of his back as he went over to the window, parting the slats of the blind to look out. The sun was high in a hazy sky. How many hours had he been there now? he wondered bleakly. How many thousand times had he heard that bloody beep, and how long was it since he had woken up with his cheek against Emily’s hair and her body clasped against his?
He rested his head against the glass and closed eyes that felt gritty with exhaustion and wondered if he was going out of his mind.
‘Your Highness?’
Tomás stood in the doorway, glancing anxiously over to the still figure in the bed before turning back to Luis. ‘Perhaps it’s time for a break, sir—some coffee or something. I brought you a change of clothes.’
Luis looked down, realizing with a beat of surprise that he was still wearing yesterday’s surf shorts and T-shirt. ‘Does it really matter what I’m wearing?’ he asked wearily, looking at the suit carrier draped over Tomás’s arm. ‘At least this is cool.’ And a whisper of Emily’s perfume still clung to it.
‘The press, sir. Obviously they’re outside, and that… Well, it doesn’t quite give the right impression at a time like this.’
The right impression. Of course. Luis’s chest constricted with impotent fury as he followed Tomás out into the lobby of their private suite and into a small sitting room on the other side.
Tomás laid the suit carrier down on the sofa and set about filling the kettle on the countertop. Encased once more in tailored grey flannel it was impossible to connect him with the man who had danced on the beach with his barefoot wife a little over twelve hours ago.
‘I’ve just come from a meeting with Josefina and the King’s private secretary,’ he said. ‘We felt we had no alternative but to cancel tomorrow’s jubilee celebration.’
Luis nodded numbly, peeling the T-shirt off over his head. A light scattering of sand fell onto the carpet. The only thought that formed in his head with any clarity was the fact that he wouldn’t have to watch Emily dancing in the arms of another man.
‘I also spoke to the Duchess de Mesa, sir. She’s flying out as soon as possible.’
‘Why?’
Tomás turned and held out a mug of steaming black coffee. Luis didn’t take it.
Very carefully Tomás put it on the low table beside the sofa. ‘Josefina feels that in the difficult days ahead, it would be good to have her here. In the background, as your f—’
He faltered, unable to meet Luis’s eye.
‘My future wife.’ Luis almost spat the words. Prison doors seemed to be slamming behind him, shutting out the light, making it difficult to breathe. Suddenly choking on despair he leaned against the wall, bracing his arms against it as if he could push it back, give himself more air. In that moment he wanted Emily so much that he thought he might black out.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said, in a voice of infinite desolation. ‘It’s one relentless march now from my father’s funeral to my wedding.’ His business-merger marriage. And from there to his own funeral, whenever that might be. All of a sudden it hardly seemed to matter. The only thing that was certain was that there would be precious little happiness along the way.
‘It’s been planned that way for a long time, sir,’ Tomás said quietly. ‘You know that. It comes with the role.’
He flinched as Luis smashed his fist against the wall. ‘And what if I don’t want the role?’
Tomás blanched. ‘Then you would have to abdicate, sir. And Princess Luciana would take the throne.’
Utterly defeated, Luis slumped against the wall. He had a sudden image of Luciana’s dark curls bouncing, her little arms windmilling with joy as she ran down the sand dune yesterday. Something normal and fun, that’s what Emily had wanted to give her and she had adored every second. How much opportunity would she get to be normal if she was queen? How many chances to have fun?
From the direction of the King’s room across the lobby the electronic beep that had provided the steady background to their conversation suddenly intensified to a persistent whine. There was a flurry of activity and a surge of running feet outside, and without thinking Luis found himself rushing across the lobby towards his father’s room. The bed was surrounded by white-coated figures silently checking machinery and adjusting tubes, their faces as blank and grave as angels.
And as he leaned against the door frame watching them, he was suddenly reminded of the morning when his mother’s body was discovered—standing in the doorway of her bedroom and looking into the bathroom beyond as the paramedics lifted her from the water, checking for a pulse, trying to restart her heart. She wasn’t really cut out for royal life, his father had said. She was too emotional and sensitive. She had been dragged into a life of duty and it had killed her.
He couldn’t do that to Emily.
He turned and walked away, his jaw set like steel against the wave of total desolation that smashed through him. There was no escape.
Behind him the electronic noise that had filled his head and sliced through his thoughts for such a long time abruptly ceased, so that there was suddenly nothing. An absence of any sound, any feeling, any hope.
And then Tomás was beside him, pale and composed.
‘He’s gone.’ He bowed his head gravely. ‘I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.’
‘Would you like some tea and biscuits, Senhora Balfour?’
Emily blinked, dragging her gaze back from the bright square of sky beyond the window to the immaculately made-up face of the woman who stood behind the desk in the palace’s press office.
‘Oh. Yes,’ she stuttered dazedly. ‘Yes, thank you, that would be…good.’
The realization that she was hungry broke upon her with a flash of surprise. Since they left the beach at first light the day had taken on an odd, end-of-the-world feeling of silence and waiting, in which ordinary things like food and drink had had no place. Here, in the bright, efficient room, the feeling receded a little.
‘Thank you for coming, Senhora.’ The woman—Josefina something, she had introduced herself as—was smiling at Emily now, with glossy mulberry-coloured lips. Emily wasn’t sure how to reply. She hadn’t been aware of having a choice about obeying the summons to the press office.
‘No problem,’ she muttered, suddenly distinctly aware that she was still wearing yesterday’s frayed denim shorts and checked shirt. ‘Why did you want to see me?’
Josefina sat down, looking at Emily with an expression of intense pity. ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that the King died a short time ago.’
Emily heard the words, but it took a moment for their weighty implications to sink in. As they did she found herself stumbling to her feet, her mouth opening and her head spinning. She had to find something acceptable to say to the woman opposite, something correct and respectful, but all she could think of was…
‘Luis. I need to see him.’
The words came out in a dry croak, and instantly she knew she had made a mistake. Josefina’s face hardened.
‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question,’ she snapped, and then visibly reined back her impatience. ‘Please, sit down. Prince Luis is king now, and this is going to be a very difficult time for him. It needs to be handled very…sensitively and carefully.’
Emily sank back onto her chair, gripped by a growing sense of dread. ‘I don’t understand.’
Josefina sighed, folding her hands together on the desk. ‘King Marcos Fernando was enormously popular amongst the people, and his passing will cause genuine grief, especially coming so soon after Prince Rico’s death,’ she explained, as if she was talking to a small child. ‘For the past year, since he became the crown prince, we have been working extensively on Prince Luis’s public image, in anticipation of this. Opinion polls show that what we’ve achieved has been a little short of miraculous. The public now regard him almost as favourably as they did Prince Rico.’
She looked at Emily across the table, as if waiting for a response. Emily would have obliged had she had any clue as to what the correct one would be.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what this has to do with me…’
The mulberry lips widened into a patronising smile. ‘Well, of course, to a certain extent we have you to thank for it.’ Suddenly businesslike Josefina seized the computer mouse and clicked briskly, then swivelled the monitor screen around so Emily could see it. ‘Involving you in the PR campaign was a gamble, but one that has proved surprisingly successful.’
‘PR campaign?’ Emily whispered, through lips that were suddenly dry. A succession of images flashed up on the screen before her eyes—newspaper front pages, showing various pictures of her with Luis. Kissing by the steps of the plane when she’d arrived in Santosa. Side by side in the back of a car. Shot with a long lens getting into another car. With Luciana. Arriving at the opera house on the night of the ballet. Leaving later, Luis holding her face between his hands as he kissed her.
His words from last night came back to her, along with a clammy wave of nausea. I just have to accept the stage management and the manipulation of the truth and the blatant bloody lies the palace press office spin in the name of my ‘image.’ He’d been trying to tell her, she realised now. Trying to break it to her that everything that had happened between them was part of that stage management.
‘We needed someone who would provide a complete contrast with the kind of…lifestyle with which the Prince had formerly been associated, and you’ve been perfect.’ Josefina bestowed on Emily the smile of a headmistress handing out gold stars for good work. ‘Unfortunately now, things have changed again,’ she went on, the smile fading slightly as if she’d decided Emily’s performance hadn’t actually made the grade after all. ‘And now the Prince is to become the King, we need to start thinking long term. About his marriage.’
The door opened and a girl came in with a tray of tea and biscuits. Emily’s stomach gave an ominous lurch.
‘Obrigado, Ana.’ Josefina dismissed the girl and turned her attention back to Emily. ‘Now is the time that we need to introduce—in a very low-key way, of course—the woman who will in due course become Queen of Santosa. We’d like her to be in the background, unobtrusively supporting the Prince through this difficult time.’
Everything was going way too fast. Suddenly drenched in sweat Emily clutched the arms of the chair, fighting faintness, unable to take in the fact that the woman in front of her with the black, spiky eyelashes and the painted mouth was talking about Luis. Luis, in whose arms she had woken up only a couple of hours ago, who now it seemed was virtually engaged to someone else.
‘Who is she?’ she said, in a voice that sounded nothing like her own.
‘The Duchess de Mesa comes from an old and very distinguished Portuguese family,’ Josefina explained smugly, pouring tea. ‘She’s been being groomed for this role for many years. She’s the ideal person to be at his side both now and in the future.’
Emily wished she hadn’t asked. With nerveless fingers she picked at the frayed edge of her shorts, trying to take it all in, but it was like looking at a mosaic with a magnifying glass, and she could only see one meaningless piece at a time. ‘What about me?’ she whispered. ‘What about the jubilee event?’
‘Regrettably it’s going to have to be cancelled. You’re welcome to stay in Santosa if you wish, but it might be slightly…awkward if you were to continue to remain at the palace after the Duchess arrives.’
Emily nodded. She felt a split second of ridiculous relief that she wouldn’t have to dance the pas de deux before horror descended on her, blanking out everything else. It’s over, she thought in disbelief. It’s over already. The period of grace she had bargained for had come to an end before she had even had a chance to catch her breath, and now the devil had come to take his payment.
‘I’m sorry, Senhora. It was not supposed to happen like this.’ Josefina spoke carefully, her words faintly tinged with guilt. ‘The prince was so sure we could keep all this…under control. Hurting you was the last thing we wanted.’
‘I understand,’ Emily whispered.
And she did. Luis had all but told her all this himself. I was wrong to do this to you, he’d said last night, his voice raw with remorse. He had never deceived her. She had known the risks and she had plunged in anyway. Into the wild woods.
Emily got to her feet, but as she did so she caught the scent of Luis on her skin and her legs almost gave way again beneath her. The door suddenly seemed a long way away and it was all she could do to get herself across the room and open it.
‘I am grateful to you for making it easier for him,’ Josefina said, as she reached it. ‘I had thought you might be difficult about going, but I can see I underestimated you. Thank you.’ For the first time she sounded completely sincere. Sincere and relieved. But when Emily looked back she had already moved on and was scribbling something on a piece of paper while reaching for the phone.
Out in the corridor with its rows of windows pouring sunlight onto the polished parquet Emily took a deep, tearing breath and had to lean against the wall to steady herself. Someone was walking towards her and she ducked her head. Her life might be over but she still had enough pride to feel self-conscious about falling apart in front of palace staff.
But through the blur of tears there was something about the approaching figure that made her heart stop. And then he spoke, and his voice was clipped, English and wrenchingly familiar.
‘Emily? My God…darling.’
She gave a whimper, her last shreds of self-control snapping as she ran forward into Oscar Balfour’s outstretched arms.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he murmured, his voice cracking with emotion.
‘Daddy,’ she sobbed, breathing in the familiar scent of cologne and Jermyn Street shaving soap. ‘You’re here—oh, thank God, you’re here. Please, Daddy—can I come home?’