PENNY JORDAN - Scandals

‘The country has a population of three million, most of whom are scratching a living under the burden of a feudal system,’ Robert told his parents. ‘It’s practically bankrupt financially and the governing élite are certainly bankrupt morally.’

‘But that doesn’t mean you have to become Saint Robert and go riding to its rescue,’ Emerald pointed out.

Robert laughed. He knew his mother, and he knew all about the old enmity that existed between her and his paternal grandmother. They were both very strongminded and determined women who liked getting their own way.

‘I’ve agreed to go back and talk with my grandmother again in the New Year, once I’ve had a chance to think things through. The country does have potential, its people could be so much better off if things were handled differently. All the royal and government buildings in the old city are early eighteenth century and desperately in need of renovation. As an architect I’d love to get my teeth into that challenge.’

That was true, but Robert was deliberately promoting that project as a means of concealing from his mother how he really felt.

‘Think of it,’ he teased her. ‘All that scope for using Denby Mill silks. Surely that would be a form of revenge worth having? The mill could do with the business, after all, from what you’ve been saying.’

Emerald sighed, distracted, as Robert had intended that she would be.

‘That’s true. This current fashion for glazed chintz swagged everywhere has affected our sales, although we have had some success with the new Sweetpea design. I envy Angelli Silk, and their historical connections with Italy’s opera houses, which mean that they get the commissions when they need refurbishment.’

‘Denby Silk has its contracts with the National Trust,’ Robert pointed out.

‘We do have some contracts with them, yes, but they don’t use us exclusively. The American market is where the future lies and where we need to succeed. I’m going to have a word with Ella whilst she’s over about seeing if we can get some of the top-rank New York interior designers to start using our silks…and it’s all very well you sidetracking me, Robert,’ she continued, returning to their earlier topic of conversation, ‘but if you go ahead and become Crown Prince you will have to marry, because it will be your duty to produce an heir.’

Robert had dated any number of young women over the years but hadn’t as yet shown any inclination to settle down, and for a very good reason, but it was not one he could communicate to his mother. The early years of Robert’s life, before his mother had married Drogo, had been very turbulent. Emerald had partied hard and lived life to the full, as the saying went. One of her lovers had been a notorious East End gangster, Max Preston. Robert had been seven then.

Memories he preferred to keep safely locked away would surface abruptly against his will: his mother’s frightening changes of mood; the sound of slammed doors and screaming arguments; the sounds from her bedroom one night when he had woken up in the dark feeling afraid and alone, and had gone there seeking comfort. He had been afraid for her when he had heard the noise, the man’s voice thick and harsh, his mother’s begging over and over again, ‘Please…please…please…’

He had opened the door and seen…

Perhaps every child inadvertently witnessing a parent having sex retained the same feeling of revulsion that he felt. Perhaps, like him, they put those memories in a box and buried that box very deeply with a stone slab on top of it. Perhaps they also grew to adulthood too sharply aware of the danger of out-of-control passion, fearful of it and determined, like him, never to let it take control of them. Perhaps. But Robert didn’t know, because it wasn’t the kind of thing that anyone discussed.

Now, whilst sexually his taste ran to intelligent, feisty, exciting, passionate and even challenging women, his experiences as a child meant that he had decided that he would never want to commit permanently to such a woman. They were too intense, too adversarial, too demanding and high maintenance emotionally and mentally for the men who loved them, and to their families. Life with them was a roller coaster that mowed down everything and everyone in its path. Robert had no intention of allowing himself to ride such a roller coaster. Better to enjoy the passion and the excitement, but to keep the woman who provided it at a safe distance, to make sure she was dispensable. For that reason he had decided that he would not marry. There had been, after all, no need. But the death of his father and his grandmother’s approach to him had changed all of that. If he was to satisfy his now driving ambition to become Crown Prince of Lauranto then he would have to marry, as his mother had just pointed out.

His mother and his paternal grandmother would fight – virtually to the death, he suspected – to be the one to select his bride for him, so it was far better that he selected his own bride. He had, in fact, already done so. The right wife for him, as Crown Prince of Lauranto, would be a wife whose whole loyalty was to him, who supported him unquestioningly, and whose temperament was such that she would accept that her role must be a supportive rather than a leading one. She must love him and only him, but at the same time she must not be passionately possessive or openly sexual in her attitude or behaviour. She must have the intelligence, the education, the confidence and the right kind of nature to be his consort, and she must, of course, look good. It was a long list of requirements but Robert knew someone who filled them all.

Olivia, the cousin he knew already loved him. Olivia, who was elegant, well groomed, well educated, calm, and whose loyalty to him would be absolute.

However, he had no intention of telling his mother what was in his mind – yet.

It was only later, when Robert had returned to his own home – the penthouse apartment in a stylish new block for which he had been the lead architect – that Emerald showed Drogo how anxious she really was about her son’s future.

‘Is it selfish of me to hope that Robert will turn down Alessandro’s mother, and refuse the Crown?’

‘I don’t know,’ Drogo replied carefully, ‘but I do know that it won’t help if you keep running her down to him, because ultimately if he does decide to accept that could put him in an awkward position.’

Strong-willed Emerald might be, but she hated feeling that her husband disapproved of something she’d said or done.

‘But she is such a horrendous monster,’ she insisted, turning on the slender heel of her damson-coloured Charles Jourdan court shoes and walking towards the window, the cut of her Chanel tweed suit, flecked with lilac, damson and white against a black background, discreetly outlining her curves.

Even with the sharp winter light falling on her, to Drogo she still looked as stunning as she had done when he had first seen her.

When she finally turned and saw the look of love and concern on her husband’s face, she walked back to him and put her head on his shoulder.

‘I only want Robert to be happy, Drogo – is that so very wrong?’ She paused and then added in a voice shorn of her normal confidence, ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s true what they say about being careful what you wish for.’

‘Meaning?’ Drogo invited.

‘When Robert was born I felt triumphant because no matter what Alessandro’s mother might choose to think, Robert would always be Alessandro’s first-born son and his rightful heir. Since then I’ve wished so often that you had been his father. That way he’d always be here, with us, part of us and our way of life.’

It was so unlike Emerald to show any hint of vulnerability or regret, that Drogo took her in his arms, wanting to comfort her.