His Majesty's Child (6 page)

Melissa stared up at the shifting shadows of his aristocratic face.

‘Now what?' she questioned unsteadily.

‘B
EN
, Ben…' Too late, Melissa reached for the pot of organic rasp berry yoghurt her son was waving in the air—just in time to see it spill in a pink and lumpy cascade onto his dark curls. ‘Oh,
Ben
!' she cried in horror.

‘Den!' came his ecstatic response, because he hadn't yet got to grips with the letter B, and he fixed his mother with a gappy, happy grin.

Melissa plucked him out of his high chair and sent an agonised glance at the clock which was ticking on the wall. Only fifteen minutes before Casimiro was due to get here and the little boy she'd dressed so carefully was covered in gunge and smelling like a fruit sundae. His woefully inadequate bib was now sodden and she rued her decision to feed him this close to the King's arrival—but she hadn't bargained on him deciding that he was hungry and deciding that he was going to have a screaming paddy if he didn't have some pudding.

And if you hadn't been gazing at yourself in the mirror—you might have realised that he was about to dress himself in yoghurt
.

Trying to calm the worryingly baleful expression in his wide amber eyes, she began to remove the ruined clothing. She'd been having a last minute look at herself
only because she'd been so busy—frantically trying to make Ben look like the best-dressed and most well-adjusted baby in the world. So that she'd barely had time to do anything about her own appearance. And realising too late that she looked awful. Just the way she always seemed to look awful when Casimiro was around.

But this wasn't supposed to be about her!

She stripped Ben off and gave him a rapid bath in a few inches of tepid and soapy water before putting his nappy back on—but by now he had begun to grow furious.

‘Shh, darling. Shh,' she soothed as he jerked his head away from his second-best T-shirt. But all her pacifying was to no avail and she was soon engaged in a classic mother and baby battle. Normally, she would have given in gracefully—deciding that it wasn't worth falling out over a different taste in clothes.

The sound of the doorbell stopped her in her tracks and Melissa felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and dread begin to grow. Casimiro. When he had telephoned and told her that he was flying to England, she hadn't really believed it. Hadn't dared believe it in case it hadn't happened. For hadn't there been a part of her which had wondered if he might just try consigning her to oblivion? Waiting to see what she would do next.

Well, it seemed that he was true to his word because he was here. Casimiro was
here
!

‘This is very important, darling Ben,' she whispered as she scooped the baby up in her arms. ‘There's a very important man at the door.'
He's your
Daddy, she thought, her heart thundering as she went to answer it.

From his position on the grubby doorstep, Casimiro waited impatiently for Melissa to let him in—even though he wasn't exactly overjoyed at the prospect. From the moment the car had pulled up outside the poorly built apartment block—and he'd tapped impatiently on the window and asked the driver if he'd made some kind of mistake—his senses had been shaken to the core.

A letter was missing from the communal sign on the wall and there was a smashed window on the fourth floor, which someone had repaired with a piece of cardboard. Scorched brown earth stood where grass should have been and a wilting tree was the only vegetation in sight. He had seen the two body guards accompanying him look around in alarm but he had ignored their repeated requests to drive on.

‘I need to be here,' he stated resolutely.

‘But, Majesty.'

‘Enough!' he clipped out. ‘You will wait here in the car until I return—do you understand?'

Clearly they could tell he meant it—though it was equally clear they didn't like it. He had made sure he'd looked as incognito as possible for this visit to see the boy who Melissa claimed was his flesh and blood, but one thing was for sure—what Casimiro had seen had taken him by surprise.

During his life, he had travelled as much as his role as heir apparent allowed—and his father had seen to it that every summer he had been schooled by tutors from a variety of different countries. Of
course
he knew that he was immensely privileged and wealthy—and of
course
he knew that not everyone enjoyed such a rarefied stan
dard of living as he did. But he had never known anyone on a personal level who actually
lived
like this.

It didn't get any better. The stone stair well leading to Melissa's flat was dark and dank and the paint on her front door was peeling. His mouth curved as he uttered a silent prayer that the whole thing had been some kind of terrible error. That in the fort night since she'd left Zaffirinthos she'd discovered the identity of the
real
father. And it wasn't him. Some postman perhaps. Or a man who worked in the local garage. Anyone but him.

Jamming his thumb on the doorbell, he was forced to wait what seemed like an age until Melissa appeared at the door holding a squirming baby who seemed only half dressed.

‘I'm s-so sorry,' she stumbled. ‘Ben's had a bit of an accident.'

‘An
accident
?' he bit out, feeling an instinctive chill of alarm.

‘Oh, nothing serious. He's just tipped yoghurt over himself and is furious because he had to have an emergency bath and now he's refusing to let me dress him.'

Casimiro frowned. He was no stranger to babies—for didn't Xaviero and Catherine have the infant Cosimo, whom he saw from time to time? But Cosimo was always drafted in on high days and holidays—looking immaculate in crisp white romper suits embroidered with blue silken rabbits or little yellow aero planes. Once he had seen his nephew after his bathtime but he looked nothing like this angry little creature—with his red cheeks and mop of dark curls. And the idea that he could possibly be the father of this little boy became more far-fetched by the minute.

‘May I come in?' he questioned curtly.

‘Yes, yes—of course. Do—please—come in.' She hated herself for caring—but naturally she cared how Casimiro saw her little home. Yes, it was humble and, no, she had neither the time nor the funds to attempt an extensive and expensive redecoration of a place she didn't want to be living in for much longer. But she had done her best with what she'd got—and for that she was grateful to the artistic eye that her boss was always raving on about.

There were bunches of cheap flowering pot-plants from the market crammed into funky little containers, a pot of coffee bubbling away and everything was as clean and as tidy as it had ever been…except for the spilt yoghurt on the high chair, of course.

Casimiro stepped over the thresh old and his towering height and general air of powerful male dominance were enough to make Ben look at his mother in alarm and then open his mouth and begin to howl.

‘Shh, Ben—it's all right. The man won't hurt you. Shh, darling.'

Perplexed, Casimiro stared at the bawling baby whose eyes were tightly squeezed shut and who seemed to be building up to a crescendo of tears while Melissa just stood there, chewing at her lips and looking completely powerless to stop him. He didn't know what made him do it but suddenly he expelled a low but surprisingly piercing whistle—the kind he had used to summon his beloved horse before he'd had the damned accident.

Suddenly, the child quietened. Opened his tear-filled eyes with a mixture of surprise and alarm and stared straight into Casimiro's face.

And Casimiro found himself looking into amber eyes a shade lighter than his own.

A shiver travelled up the entire length of his spine. A tiptoeing of some emotion he couldn't have described with any word from his extensive and multilingual vocabulary. Perhaps shock was there. Yes, definitely shock. And recognition, too. For Casimiro might have been described by his enemies as stubborn and arrogant—but he was not a fool. And instantly he recognised the amber eye colour which had run through his aristocratic family tree since his ancestors had first settled on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Zaffirinthos.

Melissa found herself regarding the profile of the man who dominated her small sitting room while unable to stop a sense of hope from fizzing through her veins as she saw his body suddenly tense.

‘What…what do you think?' she questioned anxiously.

Casimiro turned to her. And as the possible consequences of his discovery began to dawn on him his sense of bitter frustration increased. Could this…this sturdy little scrap of humanity really be his? And yet, given the evidence of his eyes—could he belong to anyone
but
him? He saw the eagerness which had crumpled Melissa's lips and he thought that she looked like a stall-holder at the end of an unprofitable market day—who sensed that they were about to make their biggest sale of all.

‘Perhaps you could be a little more specific?' he said tightly.

The tone didn't
sound
hopeful—but Melissa refused
to quieten the small prayer which was running through her mind.

‘About…' She didn't want to say ‘your son'—not now, not when he was here. It seemed a little pre sumptuous, under the circumstances. ‘About Ben,' she finished, with a quick, apprehensive smile.

Ignoring the unfamiliar ache in his heart as he looked down at the wet-haired baby who wore nothing but a nappy, Casimiro dealt with the question on an entirely superficial level as kings could do almost better than anyone. ‘Is this how he always greets guests?'

Hiding her hurt, she drew her shoulders back defensively. ‘I told you—he tipped yoghurt over himself.'

Glancing around the shabby room, he returned his gaze to her face, but his voice was filled with concern rather than censure. ‘And is this any way to bring up a child who you claim is heir to my throne?'

‘We haven't a lot of choice,' she said defensively—too proud to spell out in detail her precarious financial state. ‘And anyway—he's happy.'

‘Is he?'

Dark brows were elevated in disbelief and Melissa realised that it was a stupid thing to say under the circum stances since Ben had only just stopped crying. And looking at the scruffy room through Casimiro's privileged eyes—could she really blame him for thinking otherwise?

‘Yes! Yes, of course he's happy!'

But Ben had now started squirming and rubbing his fist into each eye in the way he always did when he was tired. And even though she longed to put him down in
his cot—some sense of fore boding made her want to keep him up for as long as possible.

To act as a buffer between her and Casimiro? she wondered guiltily.

Ben gave another wriggle and Melissa sighed as she gave into the inevitable. ‘I'll have to go and put him to bed.' She hesitated as she was over whelmed by a terrible and slightly hysterical urge to ask him in a sing-song voice if he wanted ‘to say good night to Daddy'? But common sense prevailed and she turned on her heel and went to get her son ready for bed, aware that Casimiro didn't follow her. So there was to be no touching fairy-tale scene where the King's hard heart melted over a bedtime story.

Somehow, she carried on with her usual routine. She wound up the brightly coloured plastic mobile above his bed which played ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep' and she joined in with the nursery rhyme the way she always did. Smoothing her fingers through the silken tumble of his curls, she ran a gentle and loving palm down the side of his peachy-soft skin.

‘Goodnight, darling Ben,' she whispered as she turned on the night light.

She had taken so long to settle him that, when she returned to the sitting room, Melissa half hoped that Casimiro might have grown bored with waiting and gone away—knowing that such a hope was foolish and irrational considering all the trouble she'd gone to in order to get him here. But, no, he was still there—a captive if unwilling audience—and it was up to her to make him realise that she was telling the truth.

It had been a fort night since she'd seen him—when
she'd stupidly let him seduce her on his island of Zaffirinthos. He had left her lying naked and confused on the sofa—his back turned to her as he had dressed in stony silence—and then suddenly agreed to travel to England to meet Ben for himself.

In those two weeks she had thought about him—actually, she'd thought about little else. Not just as a prospective father, but as a lover. He had been…what? Melissa bit her lip. He had been technically perfect yet emotionally cold during that swift coupling. Like a block of ice. Almost as if he'd enjoyed the power of bringing her to orgasm so quickly. Watching her shudder and gasp with an arrogant and triumphant look on his mockingly handsome face. And then distancing himself afterwards as if he couldn't wait to get away from her.

Well, she wasn't going to be such easy prey today—that was for sure.

‘Can I offer you coffee?' she questioned politely.

‘I haven't come here to endure pointless social niceties.'

‘So I'll take that as a no?'

His eyes narrowed, for he did not like that hint of sarcasm in her soft English voice. He did not like it one bit. ‘I have come here to discuss your extraordinary claim.'

For a moment there was silence and Melissa knew that she could dance to his particular tune all evening. Both skirting around the inevitable with nothing being achieved except more and more layers of confusion. She looked into his amber eyes, knowing that she should probably feel cowed by his mighty presence in her humble home. Or slightly ashamed at the ease with
which she had let him seduce her for a second time. But in truth she felt neither. Motherhood took as much from a woman as it gave—but what it infused you with more than anything was the urgent need to fight for what was your child's right.

‘Except that it's not so extraordinary now that you've seen him, is it?' she questioned quietly.