They set off on the main road and Poppy pointed out various sights. The small church.
Caius asked, ‘Was anyone ever married there?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘Not in recent history. It was the first dwelling on the island though, so we think maybe it was used in medieval times. It dates back that far. Want to have a look?’
‘Sure.’
Poppy stopped the buggy and they got out. The doors to the small church weren’t locked and she pushed them open, revealing the small, hushed interior. Musky and dusty. It was simple inside. Plain. About four rows of pews on either side and an altar.
Caius seemed to easily dominate the space with his broad shoulders and height. He wandered in, looking around, and up at the vaulted ceiling.
In a bid to stop herself staring at him, Poppy said, ‘This must be quite the change from your usual haunts.’
He’d pushed his glasses on top of his head, like her, and he looked at her. She groaned inwardly. Yes, she could confirm that his eyes were even more ridiculously blue wearing that shirt.
‘I actually like churches.’
Poppy nearly tripped over her own feet. ‘Sorry, what?’
He gave a half-rueful smile. ‘I had, well, that is, Cassie and I had an Irish nanny for a while. Cassie was only a baby. I was about five. Her name was Mary, and she was very religious and she used to go into churches to light candles all the time. I found the churches…peaceful. Probably because my parents were always arguing, so they felt somewhat comforting.’
Intrigued by this snippet, she said, ‘Your, um, parents didn’t get on?’ There’d been rumours about the king and queen of Sadat Sur Mer and their acrimonious relationship, but when Poppy had been younger she’d tuned out gossip among the palace staff. She wished she’d listened more now.
Caius shook his head, his expression visibly closing a little. ‘They despised each other but for the main the public perception was that they were blissfully in love. Everyone wants to believe in a fairy tale.’ The bitterness in Caius’s voice was evident.
He continued, ‘It was only palace insiders and staff and some other royal circles who knew the truth. From as far back as I can remember, they argued, over every little thing. It didn’t help that my mother flaunted her affairs under my father’s nose. And then he would return the favour.’
Poppy’s heart constricted. ‘That wasn’t very nice.’
‘No, they weren’t very nice people.’
It was almost refreshing to hear someone describe their parents like that. Poppy found herself saying, ‘My father didn’t have affairs but he kept marrying to try and have the son he wanted. Needless to say that didn’t make for good relationships.’
‘Why didn’t he have any more children?’
Poppy shrugged. ‘I remember a fight he had with my mother shortly before they split up where she was telling him her tests had come back fine so the problem must be his. I didn’t understand it at the time but I figure my father obviously became infertile for some reason.’
Poppy realised that she’d never told anyone else that and suddenly became aware of how intimate the space was in the small building. Caius had told her to trust him and here she was spilling her guts ten minutes later. She was pathetic. ‘Shall we keep going?’
‘Lead the way,’ Caius said, putting out a hand indicating for her to precede him out of the church. Like that first night they’d met, it struck her that he was courteous, polite. Not traits associated with selfish playboys. What he’d said came back to her:About twenty per cent of what they reported was true. Still, considering the life he’d led, twenty per cent of bedding beautiful women and frequenting the world’s most glittering nightclubs and bars and parties was still more than the average human would ever experience.
But that knowledge pricked under her skin like a little burr as they got back into the buggy and went on with their tour around the island. She had to acknowledge that there was more to him than—
‘You’re thinking so hard I can hear you.’
Poppy almost veered off the road but Caius put a hand to the wheel, steadying it. ‘OK?’
Poppy nodded. She was mortified that Caius had witnessed her overthinkinghim, literally as he was beside her. She decided to articulate her thoughts. ‘Why finance? When presumably you didn’t have to work at all?’
She glanced at him and back to the road. Eventually he answered, ‘I was never comfortable with the thought of doing nothing—aside from my duties as a crown prince. I was always good at numbers, they made sense to me. I interned in the City of London after university and started building my own investment business.’
Poppy frowned, taking a corner carefully, as the road started to climb. ‘I don’t recall reading about the internship in your bio.’
Caius shifted beside her and stretched out his arm behind her along the seat. Poppy’s skin tingled and she had to concentrate hard on driving.
He said, ‘I kept it low-key, didn’t broadcast my title. A few people knew but they soon lost interest. They only cared if I could manage clients’ portfolios. It lasted at least until the media got wind of what I was doing and that…was the end of that. I had to leave.’
Poppy heard a thread of weariness in his voice. She guessed his days of being crowned as Europe’s most eligible royal bachelor must have started around then.
