Society Secrets: The Royal Baby Revelation / Back in the Headlines / A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby

But Casimiro was aware of a pair of eyes burning into him. A pair of eyes which were startlingly green—their expression fierce and intent as the Englishwoman who had come to his study earlier now stared at him from across the ballroom. On her face was a look he could never remember seeing before—and novelty was rare enough to command his attention, even though the import of what he was about to do tonight hung like the sword of Damocles above his head.

More trumpets sounded and announced the entrance of the infant Prince and huge cheers went up round the ballroom. Yet Casimiro saw that the Englishwoman’s attention was still fixed firmly to him when everyone else was vying for a glimpse of the baby. He should have been irritated at yet another shocking lack of protocol and yet, intriguingly, she had captured his attention. Maybe it was a kind of distraction technique to take his mind off what lay ahead, but he found himself studying her back with an intensity which her appearance did not merit—certainly not when you compared her to the other women in the room.

The dress she wore tonight covered the long legs which had briefly captured his attention earlier. Plain black and silky, the long gown rippled to the ground from a fairly modest scooped neckline and yet, curiously, she drew the eye because she was so understated.

Well, of course she is understated, he told himself as he saw the banks of cameras lining up like hunters in front of the baby Prince—she’s a member of staff. It was like seeing a lump of bread and cheese set down at a lavish banquet—sometimes the commonplace had its own inexplicable power to capture the attention.

But as her gaze burned into him Casimiro felt the vaguest stirring of disquiet. As if someone had tugged at the invisible cord in his mind.

Despite a complete lack of appetite, he endured the overlong banquet with equanimity—though course after exquisite course of the finest produce failed to interest him, and neither did the princess seated next to him who was attempting to flirt with him. Increasingly, Casimiro could feel the darkness creeping over his heart and the only distraction to his troubled thoughts was the sight of the Englishwoman who stood in a discreet alcove at the other end of the banqueting hall—her eyes fixed intently on him every time he looked up.

He was used to being looked at by women—though rarely with such outrageous blatancy—but even he was surprised by her tenacious adoration. How on earth had she survived in her job so long? he wondered idly. Did she not realise that it was discourteous in the extreme to stare so openly at the monarch?

He found himself speculating on how much he might miss some areas of protocol when, to his astonishment, he saw her begin to weave her way through the glittering tables towards him—the almost shy look of resolve on her face making it abundantly clear that he, the King, was her target.

He frowned. Did she think that their brief interview had given her the right of access? Did she imagine that she was free to speak to him any time she liked?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Orso stir—his muscle-packed frame as imposing as the bear after which he’d been named. Yet he moved with surprising agility to speak softly into Casimiro’s ear.

‘Shall I get rid of her, Majesty?’ he questioned, in the Greek in which both men were fluent and which was less widely understood than their first language of Italian.

Casimiro’s instinctive response was to say yes as etiquette demanded—but as the woman called Melissa drew nearer her unquestionable breach of protocol was enough to again capture his interest. And something written on her face struck at a chord within him—an echo of the expression he had seen there earlier. Something which set off some far-distant warning bell ringing deep inside him.

Instinct told him to speak to her—and now that he was about to cast off the strictures of royal life, then surely he could listen to his instincts at long last. Surely he could satisfy his curiosity about what she wanted—if only as a distraction until this interminable meal ended, when the speech was burning a hole in his pocket and, unexpectedly, his heart was aching at the thought of delivering it.

‘No. Let her speak. She intrigues me. Perhaps there is some problem to which she wishes to alert me. This ball is part of my gift to my brother and therefore my responsibility, after all.’

‘But, Majesty—’

‘Let her approach, Orso—but guide her more discreetly. All eyes are upon her and she has neither the poise nor the beauty to withstand such scrutiny.’

‘Ochi, Majesty.’

Melissa walked towards the King, her heart crashing madly against her chest, feeling a rivulet of sweat beginning to trickle its way down between her breasts. She was scarcely able to believe that she was actually going through with this, but as she had been getting ready for tonight she’d realised that she couldn’t delay telling him. Not for a moment longer. She had blown her opportunity when they’d been alone together earlier—sheer nerves had defeated her, along with her stupid and over-optimistic plan of waiting for the ‘right’ time. And there never was going to be a ‘right’ time—not when the situation was as wrong as could be. Even she, guided by fierce maternal love, could see that.

She had thought about delaying it until after the King’s speech—but surely she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting near him then? Not with people clamouring around to tell him how wonderful he was as they inevitably would.

She saw the towering form of his aide beginning to advance towards her with grim intent in his black eyes and she wondered if he had been told to act as a buffer between them. So that for one crazy moment, she actually thought of making a run for it. Of flying straight over to the King and blurting out her secret before anyone could stop her. But the man he had called Orso was lighter on his feet than his huge frame suggested—and suddenly he was by her side, with a light but iron-firm grip to her elbow which meant she was going nowhere without his say-so, and she felt her nerve begin to desert her.

‘You wish to speak to the King?’

‘Y-yes.’

‘About what?’ snapped Orso.

Meeting the glare from his eyes, Melissa knew it was imperative that she held her nerve. She had come this far and she would not be fobbed off with a member of his entourage. ‘That’s between me and the King. I wish to speak privately with him.’

‘Then you will approach His Majesty with more caution.’ Orso’s heavily accented voice was harsh with disapproval. ‘Unless you wish for a posse of his armed guards to spring on you and to throw you in the jail-house at Ghalazamba?’

‘Of c-course I don’t,’ she stumbled, some of her nerve deserting her.

‘Then walk with me,’ instructed Orso tersely.

He led her by a circuitous route to the long dais where Casimiro sat along with the other exulted guests. Melissa stood looking at the backs of them all—at the women’s jewel-encrusted necklaces and priceless earrings which dangled down to their naked shoulders—and there was a moment when she wondered if he’d forgotten she was there. Until suddenly he turned, fastening her in the amber snare of his eyes—the faintest inclination of his dark head the only outward sign that he was summoning her towards him.

Heart crashing, she approached him. Had anyone noticed that she wasn’t busying herself on the sidelines with Stephen—helping deal with every little crisis as it arose? Which was what she should have been doing. But Melissa didn’t care. It didn’t even matter if her job was on the line. She could always find another job—but never find another father for her son.

‘You are very impertinent,’ Casimiro mused as she grew close enough to hear the whispered disapproval in his voice. ‘To stare at me as the hyena regards the glistening flesh.’

Had she come over as predatory? ‘I don’t mean to be, Your Majesty.’

Again, he detected the faint drift of lilac as she leaned towards him. The sense of something tantalisingly close—like a wave which washed against the shoreline before retreating again. He frowned, his interest unexpectedly awakened. ‘Do you always behave this way at functions?’

She wanted to say no—but hadn’t she been pretty unprofessional the last time she’d met him? Yet he had been the one who had driven it, she reminded herself. Who had started this whole thing between them. And was she really so invisible—so inconsequential—that he couldn’t remember a single thing about her or anything they’d done together?

‘This is not the way I normally behave, no. Perhaps…perhaps it’s the effect you have on me, Your Majesty.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You don’t remember, do you?’ she whispered.

Sabre-sharp, her words sliced through him as she found his Achilles heel and Casimiro stilled. ‘Remember what?’ he bit out.

Was she going to have to spell it out for him? Was she really so unforgettable that he still didn’t remember their affair? Staring at the august presence in front of her, Melissa allowed herself the bittersweet luxury of recall, remembering the night she’d first laid eyes on him.

It had been when London’s biggest museum had exhibited the fabulous statues excavated during an archaeological dig on the island of Zaffirinthos. The after-show party had been held at the house of a minor British royal—a magnificent mansion which had overlooked Green Park itself.

What had made the evening stand out had been the presence of the King of Zaffirinthos, who had flown in especially to witness the first stage of the international tour of the statues. And he had turned out to be an attraction who had proved even more newsworthy than the precious artefacts. An outrageously gorgeous man in his early thirties, he was quickly dubbed by the press: “The Most Eligible Man In Europe.”

Melissa’s first glimpse of the royal had certainly borne out all the hype. As he’d been shown around the museum for a private view of the show she could see why his face had been raved about in all the gossip columns and why every hostess in the capital was clamouring to get him onto her guest list.

It was an amazing face—all carved aristocratic features and skin which gleamed like gold. His eyes were golden too, a deeper, darker shade which was closer to amber—and the jet-dark waves of his hair looked as if they had been swirled onto his head with the bold brush-strokes of some master artist’s charcoal pencil. Why, with his powerful presence she had found herself thinking that he looked almost like a statue himself.

But the stillness of his muscular body did nothing to deflect the fact that he had about him some nebulous quality which transcended his royal status. Melissa felt there was something rather wild and untamed about him.

And, of course, she hadn’t spoken to him. She had been too busy supervising the mass of summer flowers which had garlanded the entrance to the grand house in an attempt to detract from the unseasonably heavy rain outside—and reporting back to her hostess, who was a particularly exacting woman.

The evening had been memorable for another reason, too—the one which could always activate the dark aching hole inside her: the anniversary of her mother’s death in that terrible car crash. Melissa knew it was slightly pathetic for a young adult like herself to describe herself as an orphan, but on this one night of the year—when she relived the terror of the midnight phone-call and the subsequent horror which had unfolded in the intensive care ward—that was exactly what she felt like.

She had put her emotions on hold until the end of the evening when she had been unable to stem the tide of tears any longer and in a cloakroom in a deserted part of the basement she had lost the battle, and given into quiet sobs of sorrow.

Eventually, emerging red-eyed into the corridor which led back up to the main part of the house, she had almost cannoned into a tall man—quickly turning her face to one side, too embarrassed to be seen by anyone in such a fragile state as she had tried to avoid him.

‘Hey,’ came a silken voice whose marked accent should have alerted her but she was so busy dabbing at her eyes with a crumpled-up tissue that she failed to make the connection. ‘What’s the rush?’

‘Go away.’ Melissa gulped and the moment she’d said it she realised just who he was and stared up at him in horror.

He looked as if he hadn’t quite decided to be irritated or bemused—as if he wasn’t used to people saying that to him. And then his eyes drifted over her and Melissa wondered how vile she must look with her shiny red nose and blotchy skin.