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‘Yes.’ She turned onto her side and stared into his face, touching her fingertips to the dark shadow of new growth at his jaw reflectively. Tonight she was determined that they would talk, maybe get to know each other on a deeper level during that soft, quiet time after making love. ‘Casimiro?’
‘Mmm?’
‘What was your relationship with your own father like?’
There was a pause. Was it the wine he’d drunk with dinner or the proximity of her silken flesh which made him answer without first weighing it up? ‘Businesslike,’ he said.
‘That’s a funny word to use.’
‘Not really. Things were much more formal in those days. We—Xaviero and I—weren’t encouraged to show any outward kind of affection. At least, not towards our father.’
Her eyes widened. ‘No hugs?’
‘Definitely no hugs.’ Hugs were seen as needy. Weak. ‘We learnt lessons from our father—hugs we got from our mother.’
‘But then your mother died?’
Casimiro’s mouth tightened. Why the hell was she interrogating him like this? ‘That’s right.’
‘Oh, darling.’
The way she said it disturbed him. Just as the way she touched his face disturbed him. Was it because her actions and her words were coated in sympathy and the last thing he wanted or needed was that—especially from someone who was still brand-new to all the constraints of royal life?
He wished that her naked breasts weren’t pushing against his chest because how the hell could a man think when a woman was as unknowingly provocative as this one? And hadn’t he better teach her now that he wasn’t intending to subject himself to amateur analysis sessions every time they had sex? That peeling back the layers offered nothing but pain and then more pain. ‘I’m tired—and you must be, too. Go to sleep,’ he said, almost roughly.
But Melissa’s night was restless and haunted by insubstantial but faintly threatening dreams and when she awoke the following morning Casimiro was standing by the window—already dressed in a pair of faded jeans which hugged the muscular length of his legs and a T-shirt which kissed every taut sinew of his torso.
Some dark and unknown emotion in his face made her wonder if she’d done something wrong and Melissa sat up, brushing her tousled hair back from her face. ‘You’re…you’re up very early.’
Casimiro nodded. Her lips were kiss-crushed and her eyes looked as green as grass in the morning light. Glossy brown hair tumbled down over her naked breasts and each tiny rosy tip seemed to invite him to take it into his mouth…
But Casimiro silenced the clamouring call of his body. He had found her tender—no, prying—questions more than a little unsettling. Because somehow it seemed all wrong to break the habit of a lifetime and allow anyone to get that close—and she needed to understand that. She must be under no illusion that he was intending to share such confidences with her night after night—for what good would that do when the past was dead and buried, and best left that way?
‘I have a few things I need to deal with before breakfast.’
‘Things?’
‘King things.’
His lips curved into a mocking smile but beneath the sardonic humour Melissa could sense his unmistakable detachment. As if a faintly forbidding presence had inhabited the body of her husband overnight—so that this morning he seemed like nothing more than a familiar stranger. And suddenly she found herself longing for the man who had opened up his heart to her.
She leaned back against the pillows, telling herself that a woman on her honeymoon was surely allowed to be a little bit provocative. ‘Can’t it wait?’
Temptation hit his blood like a warm storm spattering over dry rocks. But somehow Casimiro resisted it—telling himself that he needed to resist it in order to shrug off the sudden rawness of his senses. Instead, he touched the tips of his fingers to his lips and mimed blowing her a kiss. ‘Later,’ he promised.
Then he was gone—leaving Melissa lying back against the bank of feather pillows, not only aching with frustration but feeling very slightly foolish, too. A woman having to ask her husband to come back to bed with her and then having her request refused on their honeymoon was pretty shaming. And she found herself wondering if this was how it was going to be from here on in.
Yet he joined her and Ben in time for a late breakfast and afterwards suggested taking them for a walk up the hills behind the house and she looked at him with hope flaring in her eyes.
‘But what about Ben—how will he manage?’
‘I’ll carry him, of course.’
And that was exactly what he did—despite Melissa’s reservations about whether or not Ben would deign to be carried for such a long walk. Or, indeed, whether Casimiro might flag beneath the child’s sturdy and sustained weight. As it happened, neither of these eventualities occurred and the day went perfectly. So did the next—and the one after that. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. Trying to convince herself that it was true when deep down she knew that something was different and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
To the outsider, Melissa knew they would appear to be having as perfect a honeymoon as was possible, given the unusual circumstances. She had seen the quick smiles of approval from the staff when the King lifted his baby son high onto his shoulders or coaxed him to eat a piece of watermelon at breakfast. She also knew that no new bride could possibly complain about what took place in their marital bed every night. Because even Melissa—with her complete lack of experience of any other lover—realised that Casimiro was a textbook lover. Maybe that was the problem. A textbook lover wasn’t a real lover, was he? You could go through every permutation of sex possible and you could make a woman shudder in your arms again and again and again, but…