Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

THE dark-haired figure seated at the antique desk and illuminated by an ornate, gold trimmed lamp slapped shut the leather folder, placed it on the growing pile to his right, and reached for yet another folder, opening it with an impatient flick. Dio, was there no end to these damned documents? How could so small a place as San Lucenzo generate so many of the things? Everything from officers’ commissions to resolutions of the Great Council, all needing to be signed and sealed—by him.

Prince Rico gave a caustic twist of his well-shaped mouth. Perhaps he should be grateful the task seldom came his way. But with his older brother, the Crown Prince, in Scandinavia, representing the House of Ceraldi at a royal wedding, the temporarily indisposed Prince Regnant—their father—had for once been obliged to turn to his younger son to carry out those deputised duties he was generally excluded from.

Rico’s eyes darkened for a moment with an old bitterness. Excluded from any involvement in the running of the principality—however tedious or trivial—yet his father still condemned him for the life he perforce led. The twist in his mouth deepened in cynicism. His father might deplore his younger son’s well-earned reputation as the Playboy Prince, yet his exploits both in the world of expensive sports like powerboat racing, and on the glittering international social circuit—including the bedrooms of its most beautiful women—generated invaluable publicity for San Lucenzo. And, considering just how much of the principality’s revenues derived from it being one of the world’s most glamorous locales, his part in contributing to that glamour was not small. Not that either his father or older brother saw it that way. To them, his exploits brought the attention of the paparazzi and the constant risk of scandal—both of which were anathema to the strait-laced Ruling Prince of San Lucenzo and his upright heir.

Not, Rico grudgingly allowed, as he scanned through the document in his hand, that they were not sometimes justified in their concerns. Carina Collingham was an unfortunate instance in that respect—though how he could have been expected to know she was lying when she told him her divorce was through was beyond him.

Despite his instantly having dissociated himself from her the moment he’d discovered the unpalatable truth about the marital status of the film actress, the damage had been done, and now his father had yet another complaint to lay at his younger son’s door.

His older brother, Luca, had taken him to task as well, berating him for not having had Carina security-checked adequately before bedding her. Better to exercise some self-restraint when it came to picking women out of the box like so much candy.

‘There’s safety in numbers,’ Rico had replied acerbically. ‘While I play the field, no woman thinks she has the ticket on me. Unlike you.’ He’d cast a mordant look at his brother, along whose high Ceraldi cheekbones a line had been etched. ‘You watch yourself, Luca,’ he’d told him. ‘Christabel Pasoni has plans for you.’

‘Christa’s perfectly content with the way things are,’ Luca had responded repressively. ‘And she does not cause a scandal in the press.’

‘That’s because her fond papa owns so much of it! Dio, Luca, can’t you damn well ask her to tell Papa to instruct his editors to lay off me?’

But Luca had been unsympathetic.

‘They wouldn’t write about you if they had nothing to write. Don’t you think it’s time to grow up, Rico, and face your responsibilities?’

Rico’s expression had hardened.

‘If I had any, I might just do that,’ he’d shot back, and walked away.

Well, he’d wanted responsibilities and now he’d got some—signing documents because there was no one else available to do so, and atoning for having had a misplaced affair with a stilltechnically-married woman.

Maybe if I sign every damn document in my best handwriting before Luca gets back I’ll have earned a royal pardon…

But his caustic musing was without humour, and impatiently he scanned the document now in front of him. Something to do with a petition from a convent to be rescinded of the obligation to pay property tax on land on which a hospital had been built in the seventeenth century—a petition which, so the helpful handwritten note appended by his father’s equerry reminded him, was nothing more than a pro forma request, made annually and granted annually since 1647, requiring nothing more than the customary royal assent. Dutifully, Rico scrawled the royal signature, put down the quill, and reached for the sealing wax, melting the required dark scarlet blob below his name, and then waiting a few moments for it to cool before impressing on it the royal seal. He was just replacing the seal when his phone went.

Not the phone on the desk, but his own mobile—to which very, very few people had the number. Frowning slightly, he slid a long fingered hand inside his jacket pocket and flicked open the handset.

‘Rico?’

He recognised the voice at once, and his frown deepened. Whenever Jean-Paul phoned it was seldom good news—certainly not at this late hour of the night. The hour when, Rico knew from experience, the press went to bed. And what a certain section of the press across Europe all too often went to bed with was a story of just who he had gone to bed with.

Damn—had the vultures stirred yet more trouble for him over Carina Collingham? Had she been milking the situation for yet more publicity for her career?

‘OK, Jean-Paul, tell me the worst,’ he said, when foreboding.

The gossip-columnist, who was also the impoverished grandson of a French count, as well as a rare genuine friend in the press, started to speak. But the story that he’d heard was about to break had nothing to do with Carina Collingham. Nothing to do with any of Rico’s affaires.

‘Rico,’ said Jean-Paul, and his voice was unusually grave, ‘it’s about Paolo.’

Rico stilled. Slowly he released his hand from the back of his neck and slipped it down on to the leather surface of the desk. It tensed, unconsciously, into a fist.

‘If anyone—’ his voice was a soft, deadly snarl ‘—thinks they are going to dig any dirt on him, they are—’

He could hear the wariness in the other man’s voice as he interrupted.

‘I wouldn’t call it dirt, Rico. But I would…’ he paused minutely ‘…call it trouble. Seriously big trouble.’

Emotion splintered through Rico.

‘Dio, Paolo is dead. His broken body got pulled from the wreckage of a car over four years ago.’

Pain stabbed him. Even now he could not bear to think about, to remember, how Paolo—the golden prince, the only one of his father’s three sons who had ever won his parents’ indulgence—had been snuffed out before he was even twentytwo. Like a bright flame extinguished by the dark.

The news had devastated the family. Even Luca had wept openly at the funeral, where the two of them had been the chief pallbearers who had carried their young brother’s blackswathed coffin into the cathedral on that unbearable day.

And now, years later, some slimeball hack dared to write some kind of sleaze about Paolo.

‘What kind of trouble?’ he demanded icily. On the desk, his hand fisted more tightly.

There was a distinct pause, as if Jean-Paul were mentally gathering courage. Then he spoke.

‘It’s about the girl who was in the car crash with him…’

Rico froze.

‘What girl?’ he asked slowly, as every drop of blood in his veins turned to ice.

Haltingly, Jean-Paul told him.

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH MYdarling, oh my darling, oh my darling Benjy-mine—You are mucky, oh, so mucky, so it’s Benjy’s bathy-time.’

Lizzy chirruped away, pushing the laden buggy along the narrow country lane as dusk gathered in the hedgerows. Crows were cawing overhead in the trees near the top of the hill, and the last light of day dwindled in the west, towards the sea, half a mile back down the coombe. It was still only late spring, and primroses gleamed palely in the verges and clustered in the long grass of the lower part of the hedge. The upper part was made of stunted beech, its branches slanted by the prevailing west wind off the Atlantic, which, even now, was combing along the lane and whipping her hair into yet more of a frizz—though she’d fastened it back as tightly as she could. But what did she care about her awful hair, charity shop clothes and total lack of looks? Ben didn’t, and he was all she cared about in the world.

‘Not mucky, Mummy. Sandy,’ Ben corrected her, craning his head round reprovingly in the buggy.

‘Mucky with sand,’ compromised Lizzy.

‘Keep singing,’ instructed Ben.

She obeyed. At least Ben was an uncritical audience. She had no singing voice at all, she knew, but for her four-year-old son that was not a problem. Nor was it a problem that everything he wore, and all his toys—such as they were—came from jumble sales or from charity shops in the local Cornish seaside town.

Nor was it a problem that he had no daddy, like most other children seemed to have.

He’s got me, and that’s all he needs, Lizzy thought fiercely, her hands gripping the buggy handles as she pushed it along up the steepening road, hastening her pace slightly. It was growing late, and therefore dark, but Ben had been enjoying himself so much on the beach, even though it was far too cold yet to swim, that she had stayed later than she had intended.

But its proximity to the beach had been the chief reason that Lizzy had bought the tiny cottage, despite its run-down condition, eleven months ago, after selling her flat in the London suburbs. It was much better to bring a child up in the country.

Her face softened.

Ben. Benedict.

Blessed.

That was what his name meant, and it was true—oh, so true! He had been blessed with life against all the odds, and she had been blessed with him. No mother, she knew, could love her child more than she did.

Not even a birth mother.

Grief stabbed at her with a familiar pain. Maria had been so young. Far too young to leave home, far too young to be a model, far too young to get pregnant and far too young to die. To be smashed to pieces in a hideous pile-up on a French motorway before she was twenty.

Lizzy’s eyes were pierced with sorrow. Maria—so lovely, so pretty. The original golden girl. Her long blonde hair, her wide-set blue eyes and angelic smile. Her slender beauty had been the kind of beauty that turned heads.

And sold clothes.

Their parents had been aghast when Maria had bounded in from school, still in her uniform, and told them that she’d been spotted by a scout for a modelling agency. Lizzy had been despatched to chaperon the eighteen-year-old Maria when she went up to the West End for her try-out shoot. The two girls had reacted very differently to the experience, Lizzy recalled. Maria had been ecstatic, instantly looking completely at home in the fashionable milieu, while Lizzy couldn’t have felt more out of place or more awkward—as if she were contaminated by some dreadful disease.

Lizzy knew what that disease was. She’d known it ever since her blue-eyed, golden-haired sister had been born, two years after her, when, overnight, she had become supremely unimportant to her parents. Her sole function had been to look out for Maria. And that was what she’d done. Walked Maria to school, stayed late at clubs Maria had belonged to, helped her with her homework and then, later, with exam revision. Although Maria, being naturally clever, had not, so her parents had often reminded her, needed much help from her—especially as Lizzy’s own exam results had hardly been dazzling. But then, who had expected them to be dazzling? No one. Just as no one had expected her to make any kind of mark in the world at all. And because of that, and because going to college cost money, Lizzy had not gone to college. The pennies had been put by to see Maria through university.

But all their hopes had been ruined—Maria had been offered a modelling contract. She’d been over the moon, telling her parents that she could always go to university later, and pay for it herself out of her earnings. Her parents had not been pleased, they had looked forward to spending their money on Maria.

‘Well, now you can pay for Lizzy to go to college instead,’ Maria had said. ‘You know she always wanted to go.’

But it had been ridiculous to think of that. At twenty, Lizzy had been too old to be a student, and not nearly bright enough. Besides, they’d needed Lizzy to work in the corner shop that her father owned, in one of London’s outer suburbs.

‘Lizzy, leave home,’ Maria had urged, the first time she’d come back after starting her new career. ‘They treat you like a drudge like some kind of lesser mortal. Come up to London and flat with me. It’s a hoot, honestly. Loads of fun and parties. I’ll get you glammed up, and we can—’

‘No.’ Lizzy’s voice had been sharp.

Maria had meant it kindly. For all her parents’ attention to her she had never been spoilt, and her warm, sunny nature had been as genuine as her golden looks. But what she’d suggested would have been unbearable. The thought of being the plain, lumpy older sister dumped in a flat full of teenage models who all looked as beautiful as Maria had been hideous.

But she should have gone, she knew. Had known as soon as that terrible, terrible call had come, summoning her to the hospital in France where Maria had been taken.

If she’d been living with Maria surely she’d have found out about the affair she’d started? Perhaps even been able to stop it? Guilt stabbed her. At least she’d have known who Maria was having an affair with.

Which would have meant—she glanced down at Ben’s fair head—she would have known who had got her pregnant.

But she did not know and now she would never know.

She paused in her tuneless singing. Further back down the lane she could hear the sound of a car engine. Instinctively she tucked the buggy closer to the verge. There was a passing place further along, but she doubted she could reach it before the approaching vehicle did. Wishing it weren’t quite so dusky, she paused, half lifting one set of buggy wheels on to the verge, and warning Ben that a car was coming along.

Headlights cut through the gathering gloom and swept up the lane, followed by a powerful vehicle. It slowed as the lights picked her out, and for a moment Lizzy thought it was going to stop. Then it was past them, and accelerating forward. As it did so, she frowned slightly. The lane she was walking along led inland, whereas the road back to the seaside town ran parallel to the coast. Little traffic came along this lane. Well, maybe the occupants were staying at a farm or a holiday cottage inland. Or maybe they were just lost. She went on pushing the buggy up the final part of the slope, and then around the bend to where her cottage was.

As she finally rounded the curve she saw, to her surprise, that the big four-by-four had parked outside her cottage.

A shiver of apprehension flickered through her. This was a very safe part of the world, compared to the city, but crime wasn’t unknown. She slid her hand inside her jacket and flicked her mobile phone on, ready to dial 999 if she had to. As she approached her garden gate she saw two tall figures get out of the car and come towards her. She paused, right by her gate, one hand in her pocket, her finger hovering over the emergency number.

‘Are you lost?’ she asked politely.

They didn’t answer, just closed in on her. Every nerve in her body started to fire. Then, abruptly, one of them spoke.

‘Miss Mitchell?’

His voice was deep, and accented. She didn’t know what accent. Something foreign, that was all. She looked at him, still with every nerve firing. His face was shadowed in the deepening dusk; she just got an impression of height, of dark eyes—and something else. Something she couldn’t put a name to.

Except that it made her say slowly, ‘Yes. Why do you want to know?’

Instinctively she moved closer to the buggy, putting herself between it and the strangers.

‘Who are those men?’ Ben piped up. His little head craned around as he tried to see, because she’d pointed the buggy straight at the gate to the garden.

She heard the man give a rasp in his throat. Then he was speaking again. ‘We need to speak to you, Miss Mitchell. About the boy.’ There was a frown across his brow, a deep frown, as he looked at her.

‘Who are you?’ Lizzy’s voice was shrill suddenly, infected with fear.

Then the other man, more slightly built, and older, spoke.

‘There is no cause for alarm, Miss Mitchell. I am a police officer, and you are perfectly safe. Be assured.’

A police officer? Lizzy stared at him. His voice had the same accent as the taller, younger man, whose gaze had gone back fixedly to Ben.

‘You’re not English.’

The first man’s eyebrows rose as he turned back to her. ‘Of course not,’ he said, as if that were a ridiculous observation. Then, with a note of impatience in his voice, he went on, ‘Miss Mitchell, we have a great deal to discuss. Please be so good as to go inside. You have my word that you are perfectly safe.’

The other man was reaching forward, pushing open the gate and ushering her along the short path to her front door. Numbly she did as she was bade. Tension and a deep unease were still ripping through her. As she gained the tiny entrance hall of the cottage she paused to unlatch Ben from his safety harness. He struggled out immediately, and turned to survey the two tall men waiting in the doorway to gain entrance.

Lizzy straightened, and flicked on the hall light, surveying the two men herself. As her gaze rested on the younger of the two, she saw he was staring, riveted, at Ben.

There were two other things she registered about him that sent conflicting emotions shooting through her.

The first was, quite simply, that in the stark light of the electric bulb the man staring down at Ben was the most devastatingly good-looking male she’d ever seen.

The second was that he looked terrifyingly like her sister’s son.

In shocked slow motion Lizzy helped Ben out of his jacket and boots, then her own, then folded up the buggy and leant it against the wall. Her stomach was tying itself into knots. Oh, God, what was happening? Fear shot through her, and convulsed in her throat.

‘This is the way to the kitchen,’ announced Ben, and led the way, looking with great interest at these unexpected visitors.

The warmth of the kitchen from the wood-burning range made Lizzy feel breathless, and the room seemed tiny with the two men standing in it. Instinctively she stood behind Ben as he climbed on to a chair to be higher. Both men were still regarding him intently. Fear jerked through her again.

‘Look, what is this?’ she demanded sharply. Her arm came around Ben’s shoulder in a protective gesture. The man who looked like Ben turned briefly to the other man, and said something low and rapid in a foreign language.

Italian, she registered. But the recognition did nothing to help her. She didn’t understand Italian, and what the man had just said to the other one she’d no idea. But she understood what he said next.

‘Prego,’ he murmured. ‘Captain Falieri will look after the boy in another room while we…’ he paused heavily ‘…talk.’

‘No.’ Her response was automatic. Panicked.

‘The boy will be as safe,’ said the man heavily, ‘as if he had his own personal bodyguard.’ He looked down at Ben. ‘Have you got any toys? Captain Falieri would like to see them. Will you show them to him? Can you do that?’

‘Yes,’ said Ben importantly. He scrambled down. Then he glanced at Lizzy. ‘May I, please?’

She nodded. Her heart was still pounding as she watched the older man accompany Ben out of the kitchen. Supposing the other man just walked out of the house with Ben. Supposing he drove off with him. Supposing…

‘The boy is quite safe. I merely require to talk to you without him hearing at this stage. That much is obvious, I would have thought.’

There was reproof in the voice. As though she were making trouble. Making a nuisance of herself.

She dragged her eyes to him, away from Ben leading the other man into the chilly living room.

He was looking at her from across the table. Again, like a blow to her chest, his resemblance to Ben impacted through her. Ben was fair, and this man was dark, but the features were so similar.

Fear and shock buckled her again.

What if this was Ben’s father?

Her stomach churned, his heartbeat racing. Desperately she tried to calm herself.

Even if he’s Ben’s father he can’t take him from me—he can’t!

Faintness drummed through her. Her hand clung on to the back of the kitchen chair for strength.

‘You are shocked.’ The deep, accented voice did not hold reproof any more, but the dark eyes were looking at her assessingly. As if he were deciding whether she really was shocked.

She threw her head back.

‘What else did you expect?’ she countered.

His eyes pulled away from her and swept the room. Seeing the old-fashioned range, the almost as old-fashioned electric cooker, ancient sink, worn work surfaces and the scrubbed kitchen table standing on old flagstones.

‘Not this,’ he murmured. Now there was disparagement clear in his voice. His face.

The face that looked so terrifyingly like Ben’s.

‘Why are you here?’ The words burst from her.

The dark eyebrows snapped together. So dark, he was, and yet Ben so fair. And yet despite the difference in colouring, the bones were the same, the features terrifyingly similar.

‘Because of the boy, obviously. He cannot remain here.’

She felt the blood drain from her.

‘You can’t take him. You can’t swan in here five years after conceiving him and—’

‘What?’ The single word was so explosive that it stopped Lizzy dead in her tracks.

For one long, shattering moment he just stared at her with a look of total and utter stupefaction on his face. As if the world completely and absolutely did not make sense. Lizzy stared back. Why was he looking at her like that? As if she were insane. Deranged.

‘I am not Ben’s father.’

The words bit from him. Relief washed through her, knocking the wind out of her. The terror that had been dissolving her stomach—the terror that, for all her defiance, this man invading her home had the power to take Ben from her, or at the very least to demand a presence in her son’s life—the fear that had gripped her since she had seen the startling resemblance in their faces, began to subside.

‘I am Ben’s uncle.’ The words were flat. Irrefutable. ‘It was my brother, Paolo, who was Ben’s father. And, as you must know, Paolo—like your sister Maria, Ben’s mother—is dead.’ Now his voice was bleak, stark.

Lizzy waited for the flush of relief to go through her again. The man who had got her sister pregnant was dead. He could never threaten her. Could never threaten Ben. She should feel relief at that.

But no such emotion came. Instead, only a terrible empty grief filled her.

Dead. Both dead. Both parents. And suddenly it seemed just so incredibly, blindingly sad. So cruel that Ben had had ripped from him both the people who had created him.

‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ she heard herself saying, her throat tight suddenly.

For just a moment the expression in his eyes changed, as if just for the briefest second they were both feeling the same emotion, the same grief at such loss. Then, like a door shutting, it was gone.

‘I’ve…I’ve never known who Ben’s father was.’ Lizzy’s voice was bleak. ‘My sister never regained consciousness. She stayed in a coma until Ben was full-term, and then—’ She broke off. Something struck her. She looked at the man who looked so much like Ben, who was his uncle. ‘Did…did you know about Ben?’

The brows snapped together. ‘Of course not. His existence was entirely unknown. That might seem impossible, given the circumstances of his parents’ death, which seem to have concealed even from you the identity of his father. However, thanks to the mercenary investigations of a muck-raking journalist, about which thankfully I have been recently informed, his existence is unknown no longer. Which is why—’ his voice sharpened, the initial impatience and imperiousness returning ‘—he must immediately be removed from here.’ His mouth pressed tightly a moment. ‘We may have located you ahead of the press, but if we can find you, so can they. Which means that both you and the boy must leave with us immediately. A safe house has been organised.’

‘What journalist? What do you mean, the press?’

A frown darkened his brow.

‘Do not be obtuse. The moment the boy’s location is discovered, the press will arrive like a pack of jackals. We must leave immediately.’

Lizzy stared uncomprehendingly. This was insane. What was going on?

‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Why would the press come here?’

‘To find my nephew. What do you imagine?’ Impatience and exasperation were snapping through him.

‘But why? What possible interest can the press have in Ben?’

He was staring at her. Staring at her as if she were completely insane.

Across the hall, Ben’s piping voice came from the living room, talking about his trainset.

‘This is the level crossing, and that’s the turntable.’

His voice faded again.

The man who was Ben’s uncle was still staring at her. Lizzy started to feel cold seep through her.

‘We haven’t done anything.’ Her voice was thin. ‘Why would any journalist be interested in Ben? He’s a four-year-old child.’

That look was still in his eye. He stood, quite motionless.

‘He was born. That is quite enough. His parentage ensures that.’ Exasperated anger suddenly bit through his voice. ‘Surely to God you have intelligence enough to understand that?’

Slowly, Lizzy took another careful step backwards. She did not like being so physically close to this man. It was overpowering, disturbing. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

What did he mean, Ben’s parentage? She stared at him. Apart from his being so extraordinarily, devastatingly good-looking, she did not recognise him. He looked like Ben, that was all. A dark version. Very Italian. He must be quite well-off, she registered. The four-by-four was a gleaming brand-new model. And he was wearing expensive clothes; she could see that. He had the sleek, impeccably groomed appearance of someone who wore clothes which, however deceptively casual, had cost a lot of money. And he had that air about him of someone who was used to others jumping to do his bidding. So he could easily be rich.

But why would that bring the press down in droves? Rich Italians were not so unique that the press wrote stories about them.

A frown crossed her face. But what about his brother, Paolo? His dead brother who was Ben’s father. Had he been someone the press would be interested in?

He’d said that surely she must know that Paolo was dead. But how should she? She knew nothing about him.

Carefully, very carefully, she spoke.

‘My sister was not a supermodel, she was just starting out on her career—just making a name for herself. No journalist would be interested in her. But your brother—the man she…she had a child by. Was he—I don’t know—someone well known in Italy? Was he a film star there, or on the television? Or a footballer, a racing driver? Something like that? Some kind of celebrity? Is that what you mean by Ben’s parentage?’

She stared at him, a questioning look on her face. Slowly, it changed to one of bewilderment.

He was looking at her as if she were an alien. Fear stabbed her again.

‘What—what is it?’

His eyes were boring into her face. As if he were trying to penetrate into her brain.

‘This cannot be,’ he said flatly. ‘It is not possible.’

Lizzy stared. What was not possible?

He was holding himself in; she could see it.

‘It is not possible that you have just said what you said.’ His expression changed, and now he was not talking to her as if she were retarded, but as if she were—unreal. As if this entire exchange were unreal.

‘My brother—’he spoke, each word falling as heavy as lead into the space between them ‘—was Paolo Ceraldi.’

Nothing changed in her expression. She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry—the name does not mean anything to me. Perhaps in Italy it might, but—’

A muscle worked in his cheek. His eyes were like black holes.

‘Do not, Miss Mitchell, play games with me. That name is not unknown to you. It cannot be. Nor can the name of San Lucenzo.’

Her face frowned slightly. San Lucenzo? Perhaps that was where Ben’s father had come from. But, even if he had, why the big deal?

‘That’s…that’s that place near Italy that’s like Monaco. One of those places left over from the Middle Ages.’ She spoke cautiously. ‘On the Riviera or somewhere. Lots of rich people live there. But…but I’m sorry. The name Paolo Ceraldi still doesn’t mean anything to me, so if he was famous there, I’m afraid I just don’t—’

The flash in his eyes had come again. With cold, chilling courtesy he spoke, but it was not civil.

‘The House of Ceraldi, Miss Mitchell, has ruled San Lucenzo for eight hundred years,’ he said sibilantly.

There was silence. Complete silence. Some incredibly complicated arcane equation was trying to work itself out in her brain, but she couldn’t do it.

Then the deep, chilling voice came again, icy with a courtesy that was not courteous at all.

‘Paolo’s father is the Ruling Prince.’ He paused, brief and deadly, while his eyes speared hers. ‘He is your nephew’s grandfather.’

CHAPTER TWO

MIST was rolling in, like thick cotton wool. She felt the room start to swirl around her. Instinctively, she grabbed out with her hand and caught the edge of the kitchen table. She clung on to it.

Not true.

Not true. Not true. Not true.

If she just kept saying it, it would be true. True that it was not true. Not true what this man had just said. Because of course it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. It was absurd. Stupid. Impossible. A lie. Some stupid, absurd, impossible lie—or joke. Maybe it was a joke. That must be it. Just a joke. She threw her head back to suck in deep draughts of air. Then she steadied herself, forcibly, and made herself look across at the man who had just said such a stupid, absurd, impossible thing.

‘This isn’t true.’

Her voice was flat. As flat, she realised, with a hideous, gaping recognition in her guts, as his had been when she’d said she had no idea who…

Ben’s father. Ben’s father was.

‘No.’ She’d spoken out loud. Her legs were starting to shake. ‘No. This is a joke. It’s impossible. It has to be. It’s just not possible. I haven’t understood it properly.’

‘You had better sit down.’ The voice was still chill, but less so. Lizzy gazed at him with wide, shock-splintered eyes. Her eyebrows shot together in a frown.

That complicated, arcane equation was still running in her head.

He had just said that Ben’s father had been the son of…she forced her mind to say it…the son of the Prince of San Lucenzo. But he had said he was Ben’s uncle. His dead father’s brother. Which meant that his father was also…

She stared. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible.

He let her stare. She could see it. Could see he was just standing there while she clung to the edge of the table in the kitchen in her tiny little Cornish cottage where, a few feet away, from her stood.

‘I am Enrico Ceraldi,’ he enlightened her.

She sat down. Collapsing on the kitchen chair with a heavy thud.

He cast a look at her.

‘Did you really not know who I was?’ There was almost curiosity in his voice. And something flickered in his eyes.

‘Of course I bloody didn’t.’ The return burst from her lips without her thinking. Then, as if she’d just realised what she’d done, her face stiffened.

‘I’m sorry,’ she spoke abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean to be—’ She broke off. Something changed in her face again. She lifted her chin, looking directly into his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to speak rudely. But, no,’ she said heavily, yet still with her chin lifted, ‘I did not recognise you. I’ve heard of you—it would be hard not to have.’ Her voice tightened with disapproval. ‘But not with the surname, of course. Just your first name and…’ she paused, then said it ‘…your title.’

She got to her feet. The room swayed, but she ignored it. A bomb had exploded in her head, ripping everything to shreds. But she had to cope with it. She straightened her spine.

‘I find this very hard to deal with. I’m sure you understand. And I am also sure you understand that I have a great many questions I need to ask. But also—’ she held his eyes and spoke resolutely ‘—I need time to come to terms with this. It is, after all, quite unbelievable.’

She looked at him directly. Refusing to look away.

Long, sooted lashes swept down over his dark eyes. Eyes, she realised, with the now familiar hollowing still going on inside her stomach, that were more used to looking out of photographs in celebrity magazines and the gossip pages of newspapers.

I didn’t recognise him. I simply didn’t recognise him. He’s all over the press and I never recognised him.

But why should I? And why should I think that someone like him could turn up here and tell me that…that Ben is…

Shock kicked through her again.

She bowed her head. It was too much. It was all too much.

‘I can’t take any more.’

She must have spoken aloud, defeat in her voice.

For one long, hopeless minute she just stared blankly into the eyes of the man standing opposite her. The brother of Ben’s father. Who was dead. Who had been the son of the Reigning Prince of San Lucenzo. Who was also the father of the man standing opposite her.

Who was therefore a prince.

Standing in her living room.

‘I can’t take any more,’ she said again.

Rico shifted his head slightly, and glanced behind him as the occasional dazzle of other traffic on the motorway illuminated the interior of the vehicle.

She was asleep. So was the boy. She was holding his hand, reaching out to him in the child seat he was fastened into.

His mouth pressed together and he looked away again, back out over the glowing stream of red tail-lights ahead of him. Beside him, Falieri drove steadily and fast, the big four-by-four eating up the miles.

Rico stared out over the motorway.

Paolo’s son. Paolo’s son was sitting in the car. A son that none of his family had known about.

How could it have happened?

The question seared through him, as it had done so often since Jean-Paul had told him the story that was set to break in the press. It seemed impossible that Paolo’s son should have disappeared, without anyone even knowing of his existence. And yet, in the nightmare of that motorway pile-up in France all those years ago, with smashed cars and smashed bodies, he could see how rescue workers, finding the female occupant of Paolo’s car still alive and clearly pregnant, had cut her free first and rushed her to hospital. A different hospital from the one where Paolo’s mangled body had been taken hours later, when all those still living had been dealt with.

Cold horror chilled through him. In the carnage no one had made the connection between the two—the dead Prince Paolo Ceraldi and the unknown young woman, comatose and pregnant.

Never to regain consciousness.

Never to tell who had fathered her child.

And so no one had known. No one until some get-lucky hack had decided to see if there was any mileage in a rehash of the tragedy of Paolo’s death, and his investigations had turned up, against all the odds, a French fireman who’d mentioned he had freed a woman from the wreckage of the very type of sports car that the journalist knew Paolo Ceraldi had been driving. From that single item the hack had burrowed and burrowed, until he had pieced together the extraordinary, unbelievable story.

How Prince Paolo Ceraldi, dead at twenty-one, had left an orphaned son behind.

The story would blaze across the tabloids.

‘Get the boy.’

Luca’s urgent command echoed in Rico’s head. He’d phoned Luca the moment he’d hung up on Jean-Paul.

‘We have to get the boy before the press does,’ Luca had said. ‘Get Falieri on to it tonight. But, Rico, it’s essential we look as if we don’t know about the story. If they think we are trying to stop it, they’ll run with it immediately. In the meantime—’ his voice had hardened ‘—I will contact Christa. Maybe for once I will, after all, exact a favour from her father…it won’t stifle the story, but it may just delay it. Buy us some time. Enough for Falieri to get the child safely out of their reach.’ He’d paused, then gone on, his voice dry. ‘It seems, just for once, Rico, that your close proximity to the press has come in handy.’

‘Glad to be of use,’ Rico had replied, his voice even drier. ‘For once.’

‘Well, you can really be of use now,’ Luca had cut back. ‘I can’t leave this wedding, if I did it would simply arouse suspicion, so I’m stuck here for the duration. I’m counting on you to hold the fort. But Rico?’ His voice had held a warning note in it. ‘Leave it to me to tell our father about this debacle, OK? He’ll take it a lot better from me.’

Rico hadn’t stuck around to find out how his father had taken the news that the Ceraldis were about to face their biggest trial by tabloid yet. He’d had only one imperative. To find Paolo’s son.

Emotion buckled him. He’d been holding it back as much as he could, because there had been no time for it. No time to do anything other than get hold of Falieri and track down the child his brother had fathered.

He felt his heart squeeze tightly. It was incredible that here, now, just in the seat behind him, his brother’s son was sleeping. It was almost like having Paolo back again.

Debacle, Luca had called it. And Rico knew he was right. He loathed the thought of all the tabloid coverage that was inevitably going to erupt, even with the boy safely with him now, but far more powerful was the sense of wonder and gratitude coursing through him.

He turned in his seat, his eyes resting on the sleeping form of the small boy.

His heart squeezed again. Even in the poor light he could see Paolo’s features, see the resemblance. To think that his brother’s blood pulsed in those delicate veins, that that small child was his own nephew.

Paolo’s son. His brother’s child. The brother who had been killed so senselessly, so tragically.

And yet—

He had had a son.

All these years, growing up here, in this foreign country, raised by a woman who was not even his own mother, not knowing who he was.

We didn’t know. How could we not have known?

A cold, icy chill went through him.

For a long moment his eyes watched over the sleeping boy, seeing his little chest rise and fall, the long lashes folded down on his fair skin.

Then, slowly, they moved to the figure beside the child seat.

His expression changed, mouth tightening.

This was a complication they could do without.

His gaze rested on her. A frown gathered between his brows. Had she really not realised who he was? It seemed incredible, and yet her shock had been genuine. His frown deepened. He had never before encountered anyone who did not know who he was.

He dragged his mind away. It was irrelevant that his reaction to her evident complete ignorance of his identity had…had what? Irritated him? Piqued him? No, none of those, he asserted to himself. He was merely totally unaccustomed to not being recognised. He had been recognised wherever he went, all his life. Everyone always knew who he was.

So being stared at as if he were the man in the moon had simply been a new experience for him. That was all.

Dio, he dismissed impatiently. What did he care if the girl hadn’t realised who he was? It was, as he had said, irrelevant. She knew now. That was all that mattered. And once she’d accepted it—not that the look of glazed shock had left her face until she’d fallen asleep in the vehicle—it had at least had the thankful effect of making her co-operate finally. Silently, numbly, but docilely.

She’d made sandwiches and drinks for herself and Ben, telling him while he ate that they were going on an adventure, and then heading upstairs to pack. Ben had shown no anxiety, only curiosity and excitement. Rico had done his best to give him an explanation he could understand.

‘I…’He had hesitated, then said it, a shaft of emotion going through him as he did so. ‘I am your uncle, Ben, and I have only just found out that you live here. So I am taking you on a little holiday. We’ll need to leave now, though, and drive in the night.’

It had seemed to suffice.

He had fallen asleep almost instantly, the car having only gone a few miles, and it had not taken a great deal longer for the aunt to fall asleep as well. Rico was glad. A car was not the place for the next conversation they must have.

He glanced at her now, his face tightening in automatic male distaste at the plain-faced female, with her unflattering frizzy hair and even more unflattering nondescript clothes.

She couldn’t be more different from Maria Mitchell. She possessed not a scrap of her sister’s looks. Maria had been one of those naturally eye-catching blondes, tall and slender, with wide-set blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. No wonder she’d become a model. The photos Falieri had dug up of her had shown exactly how she must have attracted Paolo.

They would have made a golden couple.

Pain bit at him, again. Dio, both of them wiped out, their young lives cut short in a crush of metal. But leaving behind a secret legacy.

Rico’s eyes went back to his nephew, softening.

We’ll take care of you now—don’t worry. You’re safe with us.

Oblivious, Ben slept on.

Lizzy stirred. Even as the first threads of consciousness returned, she reached automatically across the wide bed.

It was all right. Ben was there. For a moment she let her hand rest on the warm, pyjama-covered back of her son, still fast asleep on the far side of the huge double bed. They were in some kind of private house, at which they’d arrived in the middle of the night—specially rented, and staffed by San Lucenzans flown in from the royal palace, or so she had been told by Captain Falieri. A safe house. Safe from prying journalists.

Disbelief washed through her, as it had done over and over again since that moment when she’d stared at the man who had invaded her cottage and realised who he was.

She was still in shock, she knew. She had to be. Because why else was she so calm? Partly it was for Ben’s sake. Above all he must not be upset, or distressed. For his sake she must treat this as normal.

Impossible as that was.

What’s going to happen?

The question arrowed through her, bringing a churning anxiety to her stomach.

Was the Prince still here? Or had he left her with Captain Falieri. She hoped he was gone. She was not comfortable with him.

She shifted in her bed. Even had he not been royal, let alone infamous in the press—what did they call him? The Playboy Prince? Was that it?—she could never have been comfortable in his company. No man that good-looking could make her feel anything other than awkward and embarrassed.

Just as, she knew with her usual searing honesty, a man like that could never be comfortable with her around. Men like that wanted to be surrounded by beautiful women—women like Maria. Females who were plain and unattractive, as she was, simply didn’t exist for them. Hadn’t she learnt that lesson early, knowing that for men she was simply invisible? How many times had male eyes slid automatically past her to seek out Maria?

She jerked her mind away from such irrelevancies, back to what she did not want to think about. The paternity of her son.

And his uncle. Prince Enrico Ceraldi.

He won’t be here still, she guessed. He’ll have left—returned to his palace and his socialite chums. Why would he hang around? He probably only came to the cottage in person because he wanted to check out that Ben really did look like his brother.

She opened her eyes, looking around her. The bedroom was large, and from what she could tell the house was some kind of small, Regency period country house. Presumably sufficiently remote for the press not to find Ben. How long would they need to stay here? she wondered anxiously. The sooner the story broke, the better—because then the fuss would die down and she and Ben could go home.

She frowned. Would Ben be upset that this mysteriously arrived uncle had simply disappeared again? She would far rather he had not known who he was. Her frown etched deeper. Why had he told Ben? It seemed a pointless thing to do. The news story would just be a nine-day wonder, and, although she could understand why the Ceraldi family would want to tuck Ben out of sight while it was going on, there was no need to have told Ben anything.

She’d have to tell Ben that even though Prince Enrico was his uncle, he lived abroad, and that was why he wouldn’t see him again.

Even so, it seemed cruel to have told him in the first place. Ben had asked about his father sometimes, and all Lizzy had been able to do was say that it had been someone who had loved the mummy in whose tummy he had grown, but that that mummy had been too ill to say who his daddy was.

For the hundredth time since the bombshell about Maria’s lover had fallen, Lizzy felt disbelief wash through her. And a terrible chill. With all the horror of having to rush out to France, to the hospital her mortally injured sister had been taken to, the news that the pile-up had claimed the life of the youngest prince of San Lucenzo had simply passed her by. She had made no connection—how could she have?

And yet he had been Ben’s father. Maria had had an affair with Prince Paolo of San Lucenzo. And nobody had known. No one at all.

It was extraordinary, unbelievable. But it was true.

I have to accept it. I have to come to terms with it.

She stared bleakly out over the room. Deliberately, she forced herself to think instead of feel.

It makes no difference. Once all the fuss in the news has died down, we can just go back home. Everything will be the same again. I just have to wait it out, that’s all.

Beneath her hand, she could feel Ben start to stir and wake. A rush of emotion went through her.

Nothing would hurt Ben. Nothing. She would keep him safe always. Nothing on this earth would ever come between her and the son she adored with all her heart. Ever.

CHAPTER THREE

‘GOOD morning.’

Rico walked into the drawing room. Ben was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, occupied with a pile of brightly coloured building blocks. His aunt was beside him. He nodded brief acknowledgement of her, then turned his attention to Ben.

‘What are you making?’ he asked his nephew.

‘The tallest tower in the world.’ Ben announced. ‘Come and see.’

Rico did not need an invitation. As his eyes had lit on his nephew, his heart had squeezed. Memories flooded back in. He could remember Paolo being that age.

A shadow fleetingly crossed his eyes. Paolo had been different from Luca and himself. As his adult self, he knew why. Luca had been born the heir. The firstborn Prince, the Crown Prince, the heir apparent, destined to rule San Lucenzo just as their father, Prince Eduardo, had been destined to inherit the throne from his own father a generation earlier. For eight hundred years the Ceraldis had ruled the tiny principality, which had escaped conquest by any of the other Italian states, or even the invading foreign powers that had plagued the Italian peninsula throughout history. Generation after generation of reigning princes had kept San Lucenzo independent—even in this age of European union the principality was still a sovereign state. Some saw it as a time-warped historical anomaly, others merely as a tax haven and a luxury playground for the very rich. But to his father and his older brother it was their inheritance, their destiny.

And it was an inheritance that would always need protection. Not, these days, against foreign powers, or any territorial interests of the Italian state—relations with Italy were excellent. What made San Lucenzo safe was continuity. The continuity of its ruling family. In many ways the principality was the personal fiefdom of the Ceraldis, and yet it was because of that that it retained its independence. Rico accepted that. Without the Ceraldis it would surely have been merged into Italy, just as all the earlier duchies and city states and papal territories had been during the great Risorgimento of the nineteenth century, that had freed Italy from foreign oppression, and united it as a nation.

The Ceraldis were essential to San Lucenzo, and for that reason, it was essential that every reigning prince had an assured heir apparent.

And—Rico’s mouth tightened—that the heir apparent had a back up in case of emergency.

The traditional ‘heir and a spare’—with himself as the spare.

It was what he had been all his life, growing up knowing that he was simply there in case of disaster. To assure continuity of the Ceraldi line.

But Paolo—ah, Paolo had been different. He had been special to his parents because he’d been an unexpected addition, coming several years after their two older sons. Paolo had had no dynastic function, and so he had been allowed merely to be a boy. A son. A golden boy whose sunny temper had won round even his strait-laced father and his emotionally distant mother.

Which was why his premature death had been all the more tragic, all the more bitter.

Rico hunkered down beside his nephew, taking scant notice of the way his aunt immediately shrank away. Yes, Paolo’s son. No doubt about it. No DNA tests would be required; his paternity was undeniable, blazing from every feature. Perhaps there might be a little of his birth mother about him, but one look at him told the world that he was a Ceraldi.

Benedict. That was what he’d been called. And it was a true name for him.

Blessed.

His heart gave that familiar catch again. Yes, he was blessed, all right. He didn’t know it yet, but he would. And he was more than blessed—he was a blessing himself.

Because, beyond all the publicity and press coverage and gossip that was going to explode at any moment now, the boy was going to be seen as the blessing he was.

The final consolation to his parents for the son they had lost so tragically.

Lizzy moved backwards across the carpet and lifted herself into a nearby armchair. She had hoped, at the fact that she and Ben had had the breakfast room to themselves, that it meant Prince Enrico had gone.

She wished he had.

She felt excruciatingly awkward with him there. She tried not to look at him, but it was hard not to feel intensely aware of his presence in the room. Even without a drop of royal blood in him he would have been impossible to ignore.

By day he seemed even taller, outlined against the light from the window behind him, and his startling good looks automatically drew her eyes. He was wearing designer jeans, immaculately cut, and an open-necked shirt, clearly handmade. Immediately she felt the full force of just how shabbily she was dressed in comparison. Her cheap chainstore skirt and top had probably cost less than his monogrammed handkerchief.

At least, apart from that brief initial nod in her direction, he wasn’t paying any attention to her. It was all on Ben, or helping him build his tower.

Resentment and embarrassment warred within her.

Ben was chattering away confidently, without a trace of shyness, his smiles sunny. He was like Maria in that, Lizzy knew. Hindsight over the years since her terrible death had made things clearer to her. It had been a miracle that Maria’s sunny-tempered nature had not been warped by her upbringing. Despite the way her parents had doted on her, obsessed over her, she really had seemed to escape being spoilt. And yet, for all her sunny nature, she had known what she wanted, and what she’d wanted was to be a model, to live an exciting, glamorous life. And that was what she’d done, smiling happily, ignoring her parents’ dismay, and waltzing off to the life she’d wanted.

And the man she’d wanted.

Disbelief was etched through Lizzy for the thousandth time. That Maria had actually had an affair with Prince Paolo of San Lucenzo and none of them had known. Not even his family, let alone hers.

How had they managed it? He must have been very different from his brother. Even though she hadn’t recognised Enrico, she’d still heard of him—and of his reputation. The Playboy Prince. Her covert gaze rested on him a second. He certainly had the looks for it, all right. Tall, broad-shouldered, sablehaired, with strong, well-cut, aristocratic features.

And those eyes.

Dark, long-lashed, with flecks of gold in them if you looked deeply. Not that she could—or would.

She looked away. It was completely irrelevant what he looked like. It was nothing to do with her. All she had to be concerned about was how long she and Ben would have to hide here before they could go back home.

Ben had paused in his tower-building. He was looking curiously at his helper.

‘Are you really my uncle?’

Immediately Lizzy stiffened.

‘Yes,’ he answered. He spoke in a very matter of fact way. ‘You can call me Tio Rico. That means Uncle Rico. My brother was your father. But he died. It was in the car crash with your mother.’

Ben nodded. ‘I was still growing in her tummy. Then I came out, and she died.’

The Prince’s eyes were carefully watching his nephew. Lizzy could see as she held her breath.

Please, please don’t say anything about the royalty stuff. Please.

There was no point Ben knowing. None at all. It wouldn’t make sense to him, wouldn’t mean anything. One day, when he was much older, she would have to tell him, but till then it was an irrelevance.

Then, to her relief, Ben himself changed the subject.

‘We’ve finished the tower,’ he announced. ‘What shall we make next?’

He seemed to take it for granted his helper would stick around.

But the Prince got to his feet.

‘I’m sorry, Ben. I don’t have time. I have to leave very soon, and first I must talk with your aunt.’

He flicked his gaze across to the figure sitting tensely in the armchair. She got to her feet jerkily. Rico found himself regarding her without pleasure.

How could any female look so dire? No figure, no face, and hair like a bush. His eyes flicked away again, and he did not see her face mottle with colour.

‘Please come this way,’ he said, as he headed towards the door.

He went through into a room that was evidently a library, courteously holding the door open for the aunt, who walked hurriedly past him. He took up a position in front of the fireplace. She stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

‘You had better sit down.’

His voice was cool and remote. Very formal.

Lizzy tensed even more. The ease of manner he’d displayed towards Ben had disappeared completely.

What did he want to talk to her about? Hopefully it would be to tell her how long she and Ben had to stay here. She hoped it would not be long. This was so unsettling for Ben. She wanted to get him home again. Back to normal. Back to the cottage, where she could try to forget all about who Ben’s father had been.

She took a seat on the long leather sofa facing the fire about ten feet away. The Prince went on standing. He seemed very tall. Lizzy wished she had remained standing too.

He started to speak.

‘I hope you have begun to come to terms with what has transpired. This has been a considerable shock; I acknowledge that.’

‘I still can’t really believe it,’ Lizzy heard herself say, giving voice to her thoughts. ‘It just seems so impossible. How on earth did Maria get to meet a prince?’

Prince Enrico arched an eyebrow. ‘Not as impossible as you might think. Your sister’s career as a model would have taken her into the social circles frequented by my brother.’

She could read his expression quite clearly. Maria’s life had been a world away from her own.

‘However, now that you are aware of the situation, clearly you will appreciate that the first priority must be Ben’s wellbeing.’

Lizzy’s expression tightened. Did he think she didn’t know that?

‘How long are we going to have stay here?’

The question blurted from her.

There was a pause before the Prince answered her. Lizzy didn’t care if she’d offended him, or annoyed him by asking a question of him like that. Simply being in the same room with him was just too embarrassing for her to want anything but to minimise the time she had to endure it. Besides, she didn’t want to leave Ben on his own any longer than she had to.

‘It is expected that the news story will break any day,’ Prince Enrico informed her tersely. ‘I doubt that it can be put off any longer. As for how long the story will run—’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That depends on how much the press are fed.’

Lizzy’s eyes sparked. Was that some kind of sly remark about whether she would talk to any journalists when she got back home again?

But the Prince was speaking still.

‘The press feed off each other, each trying to outdo the other, rehashing each other’s stories, then seeking to add their own exclusive “revelation” to milk the story as much as they can, for as long as they can. It’s cheap copy.’

There was a bitter note in his voice she would have had to be deaf not to hear. It was obvious he was speaking from experience. For a moment she felt a tinge of sympathy for him, then she pushed it aside. Prince Rico of San Lucenzo had not had his playboy lifestyle forced upon him, and if he didn’t like being hounded by the press he shouldn’t live the way he did. But Ben was innocent, a small child.

She could feel her fiercely protective maternal instincts take over. Ben was not responsible for his parentage. So Prince Paolo of San Lucenzo had taken a shine to Maria, had an affair with her, and got her pregnant—well, that was not Ben’s fault.

‘How long will we have to stay here?’ she urged again.

‘As long as is necessary. I can say no more than that.’ His expression changed. ‘I am returning to San Lucenzo this morning. I must report on the situation to my father. You and my nephew will stay here. You will be well looked after, naturally, but you will not be allowed to leave the house and gardens.’

Lizzy frowned. ‘You don’t imagine I want to run into any journalists, do you?’

‘Nevertheless.’ There was a note of implacability in the Prince’s voice.

Lizzy looked at him. Did the Ceraldis think that she wanted this nightmare to be true? Did they really think she would do anything to make what was already a horrible situation worse by talking to the press?

Well, it didn’t matter what Prince Rico or any of the Ceraldi family thought about her intentions. Right now she was in no position to do anything other than accept that she and Ben could not be at home, and she might as well be relieved—if not actually grateful—that the Ceraldis had moved so swiftly to get her and Ben away.

‘However—’ The Prince had started speaking again, addressing her in that same terse, impersonal tone, but he broke off abruptly. ‘Si?’

His head swivelled to the door, which had opened silently. A man stood there, quite young, but tough and muscularlooking, despite his sober dark suit. He looked like a bodyguard, Lizzy realised. He said something in low, rapid Italian, and the Prince nodded curtly. Then he turned back to Lizzy.

‘I am informed my plane is on standby and has air traffic clearance. Excuse me. I must leave.’

Lizzy watched him go. It was frustrating not to know how long she would have to stay here, but presumably not even the San Lucenzan royal family could know exactly what the press would do, or how long it would take for the story to die away.

Her mouth tightened. Had Prince Enrico really implied that she might try and talk to the press herself? It was the very last thing on earth she’d do.

She gave a mental shrug. There was no point her getting angry over it. Royals lived in a goldfish bowl; their wariness was understandable.

She went back to Ben, next door. He seemed to be taking all this in his stride, and she was grateful. Nor did he seem bothered by their enforced incarceration.

He seemed to take the following days in his stride too. They were left very much to themselves. Captain Falieri and the man who was probably Prince Enrico’s bodyguard had disappeared as well, and she saw no sign of anyone else in the house except for the efficient Italian-speaking staff.

She was glad of the time to herself. Her mind seemed completely split in two. On the one hand she was as normal as she could be with Ben—playing with him, reading to him, taking him swimming, to his huge excitement, in the covered swimming pool built into a conservatory-style annexe off the main house—but inside her head her thoughts teemed with emotion.

She was still reeling from it all, but she did her best to hide it from Ben. He was, thank heavens, far too young to understand. He took what had happened at face value, absorbing it into his life as naturally as he had anything else, just as when they’d moved to Cornwall. The centre of his life was her, not his surroundings, and providing she was there, everything, for him, was as it should be.

It was inevitable, however, Lizzy acknowledged, that Ben would ask questions about the man who had so unnecessarily told him that he was his uncle.

‘Where has he gone?’ Ben asked.

‘To Italy.’ Lizzy told him. ‘That’s where he lives.’

‘Will he come back?’

‘I don’t think so, Ben.’

Inwardly she cursed the man. Why had he gone and told Ben he was his uncle? Obviously a child would be interested—especially one who had no other relations. But what possible concern was Ben to Prince Enrico, other than being the unfortunate target of a salacious news story which threatened scandal to the San Lucenzan royal family?

Ben frowned. ‘Well, what about Captain Fally-eery? Will he come back? He played trains with me.’

Lizzy shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’ll come back either, Ben. He lives in Italy too.’ Deliberately, she changed the subject. ‘Now, shall we go and have our tea?’

Ben looked at her. ‘Is this a hotel, Mummy, where they cook for you?’

She nodded. ‘Sort of.’ It seemed the easiest explanation to give.

‘I like it here,’ said Ben decidedly, looking around him approvingly. ‘I like the swimming pool. Can we swim again after tea?’

‘We’ll see,’ said Lizzy.

Rico stood at one of the windows of his apartments in the palace. It gave a dazzling view over the marina, with its brightly lit-up yachts, and the elegant promenade beyond. Paolo’s apartments had been nearby, and had enjoyed similar views. His eyes shadowed.

To think that Paolo’s young son was alive in England. That he had been there all along, brought up by a woman who did not even know who he was. It seemed incredible.

His thoughts went back to that ramshackle cottage he’d extracted his nephew from. His eyes darkened. It had shocked him to find Paolo’s son living in such conditions.

Paolo’s son.

He had known it the instant he had set eyes on him. And so he had told Luca.

‘There won’t be any need for DNA tests,’ he’d told him.

‘Well, they’ll be done anyway. It’s necessary.’

Rico had shrugged. He could understand it, but he also knew that when his family saw Ben in the flesh they would know instantly he was Paolo’s child.

‘And this aunt? What about her?’ Luca had gone on.

‘Shocked. That’s understandable. She really seemed to have no idea at all.’ He’d decided not to tell his brother that she’d failed to recognise him. Luca would find that darkly humorous.

‘Can’t believe her luck, more likely. She’s got it made now.’ There had been a cynical note in Luca’s voice, and Rico frowned in recollection. Ben’s aunt had given no indication of any emotion other than disbelief, and dread of the impending news story.

Then Luca had picked up one of the modelling shots of Maria Mitchell that was in the dossier Falieri had compiled, and glanced at it.

‘Blonde bimbo like the sister?’ he’d asked casually.

Rico had snorted. ‘You’re joking. Utterly plain.’

His brother had laughed sardonically. ‘Well, at least that should stop the press being interested in her, and that’s all to the good. She won’t make good copy if she’s nothing to look at.’

Rico, his attention half taken by the latest version of a particular super-car that he liked to drive, which was wending its way along the edge of the marina, found himself frowning again at Luca’s comment. It was a cruel way to speak about the girl, even if it was true.

He shifted his mind away from her. Ben’s aunt was a complication that would be sorted out very soon now.

His father, during a brief interview with him, had made his wishes clear. And his instructions.

‘I leave you to handle the matter,’ his father had said.

Rico’s mouth twisted. He need not take it as a compliment. As Luca had pointed out, ‘It has to be you, Rico. You’re the only one of us that can come and go freely. And besides—’ the sardonic glint had been clear in his brother’s eye ‘—if there’s a female in the equation you’re the expert—just as well she’s plain, mind you. You’ll be immune to her.’

He stepped away from the window. The woman who was his nephew’s aunt was of no concern to him.

Only his nephew.

The news story on Paolo Ceraldi’s unknown son broke the following morning. The lurid exclusive in a French tabloid was instantly picked up, and exactly the kind of media feeding frenzy ensued that his father so deplored. As Rico knew too well from personal experience, when he had been the subject of press attention.

There was nothing to be done about it except ignore it. His father ordered a policy of silence, and to carry on as if nothing had happened. The royal family’s public life was not altered in any way. Rico’s mother attended her usual opera, ballet and philharmonia performances, his father carried out his customary duties and Luca his. As for himself, he flew down to southern Africa to participate in a gruelling long-distance rally, as he always did at this time of year.

‘No comment,’ became his only words in half a dozen languages during the checkpoints, and he couldn’t wait to get back into the driving seat and head out across the savannah again.

But there was something else he couldn’t wait to do either. Get back to his nephew again. He was counting the days.

CHAPTER FOUR

LIZZY walked into the breakfast room and stopped dead. Prince Enrico was sitting at the table.

She’d had absolutely no idea that he was here.

At her side, Ben showed only pleasure.

‘Tio Rico! You came back.’

Lizzy watched the Prince lever his long frame upright.

‘Of course. Especially to see you.’

Ben’s expression perked expectantly.

‘Will you play with me?’

‘After breakfast. Would you like to go swimming later?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Good. Well, let’s have breakfast first, shall we?’

He waited pointedly while Lizzy took her place, Ben beside her, before resuming his.

Lizzy watched as Ben chatted to his uncle. Tension laced through her instantly. He must have arrived back late last night. She had heard nothing.

But then she did not stay up late. In the strange, dislocated days she had spent here she had always retired with Ben, after supper, and once he was bathed and asleep she would spend the time in their room reading. The house came with a wellstocked library, and she was grateful for it. She had made a point of not watching television, quite deliberately. She had not wanted to catch anything of whatever the press might be saying by now about her sister and Ben. She didn’t want to think about it.

But now, with Prince Enrico sitting at the head of the breakfast table, it all suddenly seemed horribly real again.

Her eyes had gone to him immediately as she’d entered the room—but then it would have been difficult for them to do otherwise, prince or no prince. He was the kind of man that drew all eyes instantly. She felt again that squirming awkwardness go through her, and wished that she and Ben had got up earlier, and so missed this ordeal.

Not that Ben thought it was an ordeal, evidently. He was chatting away with his uncle, and Lizzy felt her mouth tighten with disapproval.

‘There is a problem?’

The accented voice was cool. Lizzy realised that Prince Enrico was looking at her.

‘Why are you here? Has something happened? Something worse?’

Her voice was staccato, and probably sounded abrupt. She didn’t care.

A frowning expression formed on his face.

‘Is there more bad news?’ Lizzy persisted.

‘Other than what was expected? No. Did you not see any of the coverage?’

‘No. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But in which case, if nothing worse has happened, why are you here?’

He looked at her. He had that closed expression on his face. Obviously he wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, thought Lizzy. But she didn’t care. Tension bit in her.

‘I am here at the behest of my father. For reasons that must be obvious even to yourself, Miss Mitchell.’

His words were terse.

She looked blank. ‘I don’t understand.’

His mouth pressed together tightly, and he looked impatiently at her.

‘We will discuss this matter later.’ He turned his attention back to Ben. Shutting her out.

Dismissing her.

Anxiety and tension warred within her.

How she got through breakfast she did not know. She could not relax, and, although she deplored it, she knew she was grateful that Ben was chattering away to the Prince, making it possible for her to swallow a few morsels of food through a tight throat.

The moment Ben had finished, she got to her feet.

‘Come along, Ben,’ she said.

‘Tio Rico said we’d go swimming,’ Ben protested.

‘Not straight after eating,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ll get a sore tummy. And anyway, you need to brush your teeth,’ she added, steering him out of the room.

As she gained the large hallway, she felt her stomach sink. Oh, God, now what? Why had he come back here? And why should it be obvious to her? Nothing was obvious to her. Nothing. Only that she was desperate for all this to be over, and for her to be able to go home with Ben.

But it seemed that she would have to get through another morning here.

After Ben had brushed his teeth they went back down to the drawing room, where Ben’s toys were.

Prince Enrico was there before them. Lizzy tensed immediately.

‘This is a good train track, Ben,’ he said.

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