answered her. ‘You’ll need a hat to protect your head from the sun and a pair of sensible shoes for if you do get out of the car. Some of the villages we shall be going to are pretty remote and along single-track mountain roads. I don’t want to delay too long though.’ He didn’t want the police chief getting cold feet and instructing the haulier to stop his fleet of lorries, or, worse, turn back.
Emily’s eyes were shining as though he had offered her some kind of priceless gift, he reflected. He had a sudden impulse to take hold of her and draw her close to him, to kiss her slowly and tenderly. He shook the impulse away, not sure where it had come from or why, but knowing that it was dangerous…
CHAPTER TEN
‘AM I allowed to ask any questions?’ Emily said lightly. It was nearly an hour since they had left the villa. Marco had driven them through the main town and then out and up into the hills. ‘Or is this trip a state secret?’
‘No secret, but it is certainly a contentious issue so far as my grandfather is concerned,’ Marco told her.
‘If it’s private family business,’ she began, but Marco stopped her, shaking his head.
‘No. It’s very much a public business, since it involves some of the poorest communities on the island. But instead of acknowledging their need and doing something about it, my grandfather prefers to ignore it, which is why I have decided to take matters into my own hands. The more remote parts of the island do not have the benefit of electricity,’ he explained. ‘Because of that, these people are denied modern comforts and communication, and their children are denied access to technology and education. My grandfather believes in his divine and royal right to impose his will and keep them living as peasants. He also believes he knows what is best for them and for Niroli. Because there has been a history of insurrection amongst our mountain population, led by the Viallis, in the past, he also fears that by encouraging them to become part of today’s world he will be encouraging them to challenge the Crown’s supremacy.’
‘And you don’t agree,’ Emily guessed sympathetically.
‘I believe that every child has the right to a good education, and that every parent has the right to want to provide their child with the best opportunities available. My grandfather feels that by educating our poorest citizens, we will encourage them to want much more than the simple lives they presently have, he fears that some will rise up, others will desert the land and maybe even the island. But I say it’s wrong to imprison them in poverty and lack of opportunity. We have a duty to them, and for me that means giving them freedom of choice. You and I know what happens when young people are disenfranchised, Emily. We have already seen it in the urban ghettos of Europe: angry young men ganging up together and becoming feral, respecting only violence and greed, because that is all they have ever known. I don’t want to see that happening here.
‘I have tried to persuade my grandfather to invest some of the Crown’s vast financial reserves in paying to install electricity in these remote areas, but he refuses to do so. Just as he refuses to see the potential trouble he is storing up for the island.’
Emily could hear the frustration in his voice. It had touched her immensely that Marco had connected the two of them together in their shared awareness of the downsides of keeping people impoverished and powerless.
‘Perhaps, once you are King…’ she suggested, but Marco shook his head again.
‘My grandfather is very good at imposing conditions and I don’t want to trap myself in a situation where my hands are tied. Plus, it seems to me that some of Niroli’s youth are already beginning to resent my grandfather’s rule, just as previous generations resisted the monarchy. I do not want to inherit that resentment along with the throne, so I have decided to act now to take the heat out of the situation.’
‘But what can you do?’ Emily asked him uncertainly ‘If your grandfather has refused to allow electricity to be supplied…’
‘I can’t insist that it is, no,’ Marco agreed. ‘But I can provide it by other means. Whilst I was in London, I bought what I hope will be enough generators to at least provide some electricity for the villages. My grandfather is furious, of course, but I am hoping that he will back down and accept what I have done as a way of allowing him to change his mind without losing face. He is an old man who has ruled autocratically all his life. It is hard for him, I know that, but the Crown has to change or risk having change forced upon it.’
‘You think there will be some kind of uprising?’ Emily was horrified, instantly thinking of the danger that would bring to Marco.
‘Not immediately. But the seeds are there. And still my grandfather is so determined to hold absolute power.’
‘You pretend not to do so, but in reality you understand him very well, and I think you feel a great deal of compassion for him, Marco,’ Emily said gently.
‘On the contrary, what I feel is a great deal of irritation and anger because he refuses to see the danger he is courting,’ Marco corrected her. Her perceptiveness had startled him, making him feel that she knew him rather better than he had realised. ‘There are so many changes I want to make, Emily, so much here for me to do, but my grandfather blocks me at every turn.’
‘You’ve lived away from the island for a long time and you’ve grown used to making your own decisions without the need to consult others. Perhaps your grandfather is being difficult because he sees this and in some ways he fears it— and you. You said yourself that he’s an old man—he obviously knows that he can’t continue to be King, but my guess is that he doesn’t want to acknowledge that publicly, and that a part of him wants to continue to rule Niroli through you. When you come up with your own plans and they are opposed to his, he tries to block you because he’s afraid of losing his power to you.’
‘I doubt you would ever get him to admit any of that.’
Emily could hear the frustration in Marco’s voice and, with it, his hunger to right what he saw as wrongs. He would be a strong king morally, socially, politically and in all the other important ways, she recognised. Listening to him had brought home to her the reality of her own situation. Even if by some miracle he should return her love, there was no future for them. She could not be his queen, and she could never do anything that would prevent him from being Niroli’s king. Not now, after hearing him speak so passionately about his country and his people. If Marco had a duty to his people, then she too had duties to him and her love for him; loving someone meant putting them first and their needs before one’s own. Marco’s great need was to fulfil his duty and he could not do that with her in his life. A small, sad shadow darkened her eyes—the ghost of her dreams. Seeing it, Marco frowned.
‘I’m boring you,’ he announced curtly.
‘No,’ Emily told him. ‘No! I like listening to you talking about your plans. I just wish that you had told me who you were when we first met.’ Had he done so, she would have been so much better armoured against her vulnerability to him, and she would certainly never have started dreaming they could have a permanent future together.
‘It wasn’t a deliberate deceit on my part,’ Marco defended himself coolly.
‘Maybe not, but you could have said something… warned me. Then, at least…’ She stopped, shaking her head, not wanting to admit her own folly where he was concerned.
‘In order to live the kind of life I wanted, to prove myself on my own terms, it was necessary for me to do it with anonymity and without the trappings of royalty.
‘I
