Excerpt

‘WHAT DO YOU think would tempt the Princess into returning here, Your Majesty?’ The government special advisor, Massimo Caccia, pressed in frustration.’ We’re not having any luck with her. The people want her back here because of her saintly mother and her reputation…as if she’d be some sort of good-luck symbol. Mandovia really needs her to be part of this deal.’

‘I don’t know her,’ Orazio, generally known as Raz to his friends, countered levelly, unable to avoid the reality that he thoroughly disliked the older man for his specious manners. Usually, he was very much the smoothie politician but the aggressive soldier he had been showed through too often.

‘You’re the only one of this generation who has even met her, Your Majesty,’ Massimo pointed out.

‘I was ten years old and she was a toddler of three,’ Orazio reminded him. ‘I can only tell you that she was a little girl who liked to climb trees—’

‘But your father and hers arranged a betrothal between you.’

Raz breathed in so deep and long to suppress his exasperation that his executive assistant, Fiero, planted a deft hand on his arm as though to restrain his sovereign.

‘Agreed, but I doubt that even back then either my father or the dictator ever thought their little gentlemen’s agreement would become anything more than an expression of goodwill between neighbouring countries.’

‘I disagree,’ Massimo argued vehemently. ‘The dictator knew his days were numbered and he had no son. He hoped that announcing that betrothal would satisfy the revolutionaries that change was truly on the horizon.’

‘You could be right,’ Fiero slotted in lightly.

‘I’m rarely wrong.’ Massimo smirked and it took years of court training for Raz to resist the urge to roll his eyes. ‘And resurrecting that betrothal now would delight many people.’

It would not delight Orazio but he did not waste his time saying so. ‘You’re chasing a fairy tale, Massimo. You already know everything there is to know about Princess Annunziata. She’s in London and apparently content to work there as a chambermaid. The government offered her an all-expenses-paid trip to Mandovia and she ignored the invitation. When they tried to visit her home, the door was slammed in their faces. Upper Mandovians killed her father and Lower Mandovians killed her mother. Maybe she simply wants to forget her heritage—’

‘Her mother’s death was a horrible accident at the border and everyone accepts that!’ Massimo protested in an angry, defensive tone that reminded everybody present that he had been a military commander during that troubled period. ‘It offends Upper Mandovians that their Princess should be living in such reduced circumstances and the Princess owes a duty of responsibility towards her people at a time when they need that reassurance.’

Orazio released his breath in a slow, measured hiss. ‘Annunziata left this country at the age of three. She wasn’t raised with such concepts. Who knows what horrors she saw in the street-fighting the night that her mother’s companion fled with her?’

Massimo, a thickset rather portly male, rose to his feet heavily. ‘If she were here and willing, would you marry her, Your Majesty?’ he demanded with startling abruptness.

The prime minister, a small, slight, older male very much less vigorous in personality than his advisor, also stood up and cleared his throat in the smouldering silence. ‘I don’t think it’s fair to ask our King to answer such a question about a woman he’s never met.’

‘If both she and my people wanted it, I would do it,’ Orazio ground out with the chilling hauteur of extreme reluctance. ‘But, short of a miracle, I don’t believe that situation will ever arise.’

‘I apologise,’ the prime minister murmured uncomfortably as his advisor stomped out of the room, ignoring all court protocol. ‘Massimo gets on his favourite hobby horse and forgets who you are. He’s obsessed with getting the Princess back on her home soil and that betrothal nonsense. But he does mean well. He’s devoted to our country and he’s desperate for the reunification to continue smoothly.’

‘As are we all,’ Orazio conceded easily, thinking that it had still taken almost twenty years for the rudimentary, inexperienced revolutionary government in Upper Mandovia to agree to the reintegration of the two parts of Mandovia that should never have been separated in the first place. The upper part was landlocked, staunchly traditional and very poor, the lower rich and prosperous. The dictator, Annunziata’s late and unlamented father, Octavio Giordano, had denied his people the education, medical care and opportunities freely available in the kingdom next door. Eventually the people themselves had risen up to overthrow Octavio and reclaim democracy.

‘I don’t like Massimo,’ Raz breathed as he and Fiero trudged back across the castle to the monarch’s private accommodation. ‘He’s sly and scheming.’

‘Nobody likes him,’ Fiero chuckled. ‘He can be very rude. I don’t know how you kept your temper, Raz.’

‘The prime minister was as red in the face as a tomato,’ Raz sighed.’ I felt sorry for him. He has to cope with Massimo every day. I see him only once a month or so. I’m fortunate.’

‘Sometimes, I don’t know why you took on this gig,’ his childhood friend and executive assistant admitted.

‘Or why you accompanied me and left the business world behind where you were flourishing? For the same reasons as my own,’ Raz replied with confidence. ‘First and foremost, this is our country and we want to do the best we can for it and steer it in the right direction.’

‘But you never wanted to be King—’

‘I didn’t expect to have people begging me to come back and step into my father’s shoes. Not only did I think the monarchy would eventually be abolished, but I also didn’t expect my father to die in his fifties,’ Orazio acknowledged, a bleak look in the emerald-green eyes, so bright against his bronzed skin and the caramel-blond contrast of his hair. ‘I was content in my life but here I’m not just making money, I can really make a difference and push reforms through by engaging the right people in the process.’

‘Your mother’s still in shock that you accepted the throne.’

‘She has her take on Mandovia and I have mine.’ His mother, Luisa, had separated from his father years before their split became public. She had refused to live with a cheating husband and, once the word was out, she had returned to her native Venezuela and the family diamond mines, happily rediscovering the wealthy socialite lifestyle she had lost when she’d married. Bitter years spent in an unhappy marriage had left her with a strong aversion to anything related to Mandovia.

Orazio, conversely, had been forced to live between two worlds and several countries from the day of his parents’ official separation. He had been schooled in business by his billionaire grandfather for one half of the year and schooled in the monarchy for the other half. If anything, his father’s corruption had given Raz a distaste for hereditary rulership. The former King Luciano had been much more interested in feathering his own nest than in instigating a benevolent reign aimed at stabilising Mandovia under one unifying figurehead.

Even so, his parent’s talent for schmoozing the rich into investing in Lower Mandovia had been unparalleled. As a result Lower Mandovia was as rich as Upper Mandovia was poor and those glaring inequalities were unacceptable in the twenty-first century. That challenge was precisely why Orazio had finally agreed to accept the throne, although it had not occurred to him then that one day a government official would dare to demand that he marry a total stranger.

‘What do you remember about Annunziata?’ Fiero asked him curiously.

‘She was a very cute toddler when she wasn’t kicking or scratching me,’ Orazio recalled with a sudden laugh. ‘She was in a tree and her nursemaid couldn’t get her down.

At the maid’s request, I lifted her down and, even though she was really tiny, she fought me like a tigress, ripping her fancy dress and shouting at the top of her voice. She reminded me more of a wild animal than a princess…’

‘Suffice it to say that she could never be your dream match,’ Fiero quipped. ‘You like sophisticated, tranquil women. In any case, she works as a chambermaid. She couldn’t cut it here in this world and you’ve never lived anything other than a very privileged life. You’d be oil and water.’

‘Don’t be weird,’ Orazio urged, disliking the tone of the conversation as he poured both of them a drink. He wondered if Fiero knew just how snobbish he sounded. Harvey, his father’s much-prized English butler and the major domo of the current King’s household, frowned at them both from the doorway. ‘Go away,’ Orazio told the older man quietly. ‘You’re still supposed to be on medical leave after your surgery. You shouldn’t be coming downstairs to serve us drinks.’

‘You are royal, Your Majesty,’ Harvey reminded him stubbornly. ‘You do not need to serve your own drinks.’

‘Unlike my father, I’m a modern monarch. I don’t expect to be waited on hand and foot like some feudal king.’

‘Nonetheless and with respect,’ Harvey responded heavily, ‘you are the King and it is your place to be served by staff and my place and my honour to wait on you, Your Majesty.’

‘And that’s us told,’ Orazio quipped as the door closed on Harvey’s censorious exit. ‘Poor Harvey, sentenced to wait on a king who still doesn’t know his place.’

‘He learnt his role under your father, and your father wouldn’t have got off his feet to do anything for himself,’ Fiero pointed out with amusement. ‘Your problem is too much compassion and, according to Harvey, that’s not your role.’

‘But if it isn’t, what is?’ Orazio asked ruefully.

*

Zia hurtled through the door of the basement flat and bestowed a fleeting kiss on the top of the greying head of the older woman wrapped in a blanket in an armchair, knitting. ‘Sorry I’m late. I had to do Sandrine’s shopping for her supper party tonight.’

‘I forgot about that. You should tell her how tired you are after your shift at the hotel,’ Alina suggested, but she did so in a lacklustre undertone, already foreseeing how such a remark would be received by Sandrine.

As an excitable miniature dachshund danced round Zia’s feet in welcome, flapping ears flying, pink tongue licking at her hand as she patted him, Zia laughed. Her former nursemaid and her pet were the two bright spots in her dreary day. After all, she didn’t get to put her feet up when she got home after work. No, she simply worked for Sandrine instead—Sandrine, once her guardian, who now treated her like a servant.

As Alina had aged and become less capable, Zia had taken over the older woman’s duties of cooking for Sandrine and cleaning her house upstairs. If she had refused, Sandrine would have thrown Alina out on the street. Alina didn’t seem to appreciate how often Sandrine had made that threat or that the tough older woman meant what she said. And while Zia believed she could have coped, she didn’t earn enough to take care of Alina as well or Sausage, the little dog who had become theirs.

Over the years, Alina had gradually become Zia’s family and the closest thing she had ever had to a grandmother. In the space of months after the revolution that had killed her parents, Zia had gone from being a much-indulged only child to a battered little girl and a shadow of her former self. Sandrine Beccari might have willingly ferried the little Princess, who had been born in London, to the safety of the UK but she hadn’t expected the tragedies that had followed and she certainly hadn’t planned to be saddled for years with the responsibility of a young child.

Temperamentally unsuited to parenting, Sandrine had fiercely resented Zia’s existence and the loss of her glamorous life in Mandovia at the late Princess Vittoria’s side. She had taken her temper and disappointment out on Zia, and Alina, subjected to similar abuse as a lifelong servant in backward Upper Mandovia, had proved incapable of protecting her former charge. Life had only improved for the two of them when they had been forced to move into the small damp basement flat. It had been cheaply renovated for tenants, but the tenants had infuriated Sandrine with their complaints and had made too much noise. Getting rid of them, she had been relieved to turf Alina and Zia out of her much more comfortable house upstairs while continuing to expect Zia to act as free labour. And since they couldn’t afford to pay Sandrine rent for the flat, how was she ever supposed to break free of the arrangement?

In reality, Zia did have an escape plan but it was taking time to accomplish her goals. Currently it entailed getting the education that Sandrine had denied her by insisting that she be homeschooled. Zia had pretty much educated herself because Alina, put in charge of that home-based programme, had left school at the age of fourteen to start work and had only ever learned the basics. Year after year, once Zia was officially out in the working world, she had studied for exams to acquire the qualifications she needed to get into college. It was a slow process, however, because she didn’t have much free time to study.

At twenty-two years of age, she had only recently reached the stage where she could even apply for further education and she dreaded taking on the loans she would need to allow her to become a student. But it would be worth it, she kept on telling herself, because once she qualified as a primary school teacher she would be earning and then her real life could begin.

She barely recalled the life she had been born into, wincing at the truth that she was a princess only on paper, a title that meant nothing in terms of cold, hard cash or respect. Her mother was a perfumed memory of warmth but she still remembered her father shouting and slapping her away from him when she knocked over a cup and then her mother scooping her up and murmuring loving words in comfort. Zia had been careful to stay out of her father’s way after that. The much feared and loathed dictator of Upper Mandovia had not been any kinder in his domestic life.

‘We have a Mandovian guest at the hotel right now,’ Zia informed Alina, knowing that that rare event would engage the older woman’s interest.

‘If she’s staying at the Astor Place she must be a very rich woman. What’s her name?’ Alina asked, dark eyes sparkling with curiosity.

‘Sofia Marone and she has a maid travelling with her. I heard them speaking Italian and referring to Lower Mandovia’s capital city while I was changing the bathroom towels and the maid kept on calling her mistress “my lady”, so she must be someone titled.’

Alina frowned and hummed, ‘Marone…Marone. There was a count with that family name. I suspect that’ll be the connection.’

The older woman embarked on an animated recitation of what she knew of the Marone family history and perked up considerably while deciding that the hotel guest was very probably the wealthy count’s second wife. Zia made their evening meal in the tiny scullery and served it on trays before heading upstairs, laden with groceries and receipts, to embark on the supper-party preparations. The connecting door brought her straight into Sandrine’s sleek contemporary kitchen, which as usual required cleaning before she could prepare the dish that had been requested.

The click of Sandrine’s stiletto heels approaching stiffened Zia’s spine to steel. ‘What are you making?’ she demanded imperiously.

‘Chicken Alfredo.’

‘And for dessert?’

‘I’m not making one. You said it was a casual gathering to drink wine and play cards. I brought the snacks and the wine but I won’t be able to stay and serve it. I have a class tonight.’

‘That’s not acceptable!’ Sandrine hissed and Zia spun round.

‘I’m afraid it has to be. I keep your house clean, do the washing, the shopping and I cook whenever you ask. Surely that’s sufficient to cover us not paying rent,’ she responded, quelling her instinctive fear of the older woman.

A tall, emaciated brunette in a skintight black dress, her red-lipsticked mouth pursed, Sandrine glowered down at her. ‘I decide what’s sufficient, not you. Have you any idea how much rent you should be paying me?’

‘It’s a damp one-bedroom flat with heating that doesn’t work, not a palace,’ Zia dared, tilting her chin, which took courage because she was five feet one inch tall and, in her heels, Sandrine was almost a foot taller than her.

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Sandrine launched, half an octave higher.

‘I do almost everything you ask me to do,’ Zia responded quietly. ‘I do work for a living as well.’

‘Poor little princess,’ the brunette sneered. ‘And more fool me that I’ve kept you all these years! I should’ve handed you over to social services and thrown that old crippled crone out years ago! Instead, out of the goodness of my heart, I looked after you both at my own expense.’

‘I’ll leave everything prepared for you,’ Zia promised soothingly. ‘And clean up tomorrow.’

‘I’m thinking of advertising for live-in help to take your place.’ Sandrine dropped the news on her with a razor-edged smile. ‘Someone properly trained as a housekeeper.’

Zia nodded in silence, not trusting herself to speak. It was pointless engaging with Sandrine when she was in a temper or making threats. The older woman had little self-control and Zia was careful not to invite assault. She had suffered quite enough violence from Sandrine while she was growing up and she refused to stand for it as an adult.

‘Nothing to say to that?’ Sandrine prompted provocatively as she strolled back to the door.

‘Of course not, you must do as you wish,’ Zia breathed before turning back to the sink to finish her task.

The dish prepared, she set out plates and cutlery and a note with cooking instructions on reheating. Returning to the basement, she grabbed her file and headed out to her class on early child development. Later that evening she fell into her bed across the small, cramped room from Alina, exhausted, and contemplated her early start the next day with a stoic grimace.

Late morning in the hotel, she was waiting to clean the last luxury suite on her schedule when one of the doors in the hallway flew open and the young woman she had identified as a maid gesticulated fiercely at her. ‘Come here!’ she shouted.

Abandoning her trolley, Zia approached. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously.

‘My employer has misplaced a valuable diamond brooch!’ she exclaimed. ‘Help us look for it…come on, what are you waiting for?’

Zia really didn’t want to get involved but it was management policy to always try to please guests and, mastering her reluctance, she stepped into the suite where the guest, surrounded by designer shopping bags, was frantically tipping out drawers in a dresser to search for her missing jewellery.

Zia got down on her hands and knees to check under the furniture, while wondering where the maid had gone. ‘Did you see my brooch when you were in here earlier making the bed?’ the guest demanded.

‘No, there were items sitting on the dressing table but I didn’t go over to them or touch anything. I cleaned, changed the bed and put fresh towels in the en suite,’ she recounted.

The young maid stalked in. ‘Have her trolley searched! She must’ve been in here while we were out,’ she condemned.

And then there was a whole fracas with Zia steadily proclaiming her blamelessness, various other guests appearing to ask what was going on and then finally the manager arrived looking world-weary and put upon.

‘My brooch has gone. The girl’s trolley should be searched,’ the guest insisted, treating Zia to a suspicious appraisal.

The manager told her to bring her trolley in and Zia retrieved it with resentment mounting high inside her small frame. On request, she unloaded the trolley, stacking soiled towels into an untidy heap, and when she reached the final one, as she shook it out, something bright and glittering fell out and clinked on the polished floor. It was a big brooch. Astonished, Zia froze while the manager stooped to pick it up and show it to the guest, who swiftly identified it and pinned it to her jacket.
As accusing eyes settled on Zia, she reddened. ‘I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t touch it or take it,’ she said through taut lips, her face as rigid as the rest of her.

‘We’ll discuss this downstairs in my office,’ the manager announced.

‘I want the police called. I want the thief to be arrested and punished,’ the guest declared fiercely. ‘What sort of hotel are you running that a guest’s jewellery can be stolen by one of your staff?’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ Zia murmured again but everyone simply ignored her.

She sat in the waiting area outside the manager’s officer while the angry guest chattered in her own language as she rang the Mandovian Embassy for assistance. Why she should require assistance when her jewellery had been returned and the supposed perpetrator had been apprehended, Zia had no idea. But Zia would’ve been glad of any kind of help or advice because she was feeling both sick and scared.

It went without saying that she had lost her job in the hotel where she had been working—not always legally—since she was fifteen as the owners were very friendly with Sandrine. Unhappily, she had no way of proving her innocence. Furthermore, if she was charged and arrested, a conviction for dishonesty could send her to prison and the resulting criminal record would destroy her future. She felt sick and alone and very, very scared.

When a swaggering older man arrived and urged the complaining guest straight across the fancy lobby into the traditional tea room on the other side, Zia relaxed infinitesimally, relieved to no longer be the target of the woman’s accusing, angry stare.