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Because something was troubling him and it all boiled down to a simple sense of logic…if he didn’t ‘do’ feelings—then what the hell could explain this bleak kind of emptiness which seemed to have descended on him like a dark cloud?
He tried to shake off the inexplicable gloom by glancing across the table at Orso—knowing that his loyal aide could always gauge the mood of others, and could instinctively communicate to him what that mood was. And there had been many times when he had been grateful for Orso’s instinct in the past—when he had been shielding his memory loss from the world.
Yet now he was free of that amnesia—and it had been Melissa who had jogged his memory and made it return. Melissa who had freed him from the burden and the worry about the blankness in his mind. Had he ever thanked her for that? Made her realise how liberating it felt?
Raising his eyebrows, he turned to his aide. ‘What do you think about this proposed concession, Orso?’
Orso bowed his head in response. ‘You are the King, Your Majesty.’
Casimiro knew that his aide was playing the procrastination card and that this was a term suggesting that the deal should not be sealed today. But for once, he saw beyond the diplomatic shorthand they habitually used. For once, he took the words at face value—and what he saw in them brought him up short, so that he frowned with a mixture of concern and comprehension.
Because, yes, he was the King, yet sometimes he felt more of a puppet—his strings jerked by the demands of his people. By their expectations of him and his own ideas about how those expectations should be met. Ideas which had been passed on down to him by his father, who had governed in a very different time.
Yet he was the King, he reminded himself again. And his power was absolute. He could rule this kingdom of Zaffirinthos as he saw fit—and the monarchy was not set in stone. It was his—to be forged and formed as suited him and his life. And Casimiro suddenly realised that if he did not embrace the changes which were necessary to take the monarchy forward, then surely the institution ran the risk of stultifying, or dying—or simply becoming a crushing burden which no one in their right mind would want to take on.
And what kind of poisoned chalice would that be to hand onto his own son?
He was about to suggest reconvening the meeting, when they were interrupted by one of the Queen’s assistants, her face so wreathed with anxiety and her curtsey so clumsy that Casimiro bit back his instinctive rebuke at the unexpected disruption.
‘Yes, what is it?’ he clipped out.
‘It’s…it’s the Queen, Your Majesty!’
Casimiro rose from his chair. ‘What of the Queen?’
‘She has…gone!’
‘Gone?’ he bit out, unprepared for the sudden chill which iced his skin. ‘Gone where?’
‘We don’t know, sire. All we know is that the Prince Benjamin has been crying for his mother and that the Queen always wishes to be informed whenever he—’
‘Where the hell is she?’ he demanded again. ‘Somebody must know.’
‘She just said she was going out for a walk, Your Majesty.’
‘She didn’t say where?’
‘No, sire.’
With a heart which now felt like ice, Casimiro recalled more of the words Melissa had whispered to him: I’m telling you that I can’t live like that—and one of these days I might not be here when you return from one of your trips, Casimiro.
Had she meant it? Literally meant it? Found him so overbearing and forbidding that she had run away? He felt the sharp tearing of pain and the realisation of what a fool he had been. A stupid, thoughtless fool.
‘Send out search parties immediately,’ he commanded. ‘And mobilise the helicopter. Alert the airport, too. I don’t care what you have to do, just find her. Find her.’ Hands gripping into tight fists, he headed towards the door—his aides and ministers instantly moving aside as they looked at him with fear written on their faces.
He ran into the grounds, his eyes scanning the vast expanse of green lawns—as if expecting to see her suddenly walking towards him. But there was no sign of her—and the nearby whoosh of air as the helicopter began its ascent somehow filled him with a new sense of foreboding instead of providing reassurance.
Uselessly, he watched as the helicopter grew smaller—a small black dot which began to head for the dark sapphire haze of the sea—and Casimiro set out at a run in the opposite direction, when his cell phone began to sound furiously in his pocket.
Snatching it up, he listened in silence for a moment and then his mouth hardened. ‘Send the car to me. Now!’ he ordered tersely, in Greek.
Within minutes, the four-wheel drive came scorching to a halt beside him and Casimiro leapt into the front seat, exchanging no conversation with the driver or the bodyguard other than the clipped order to hurry as they raced along the cliff path.
Overhead, the helicopter was buzzing in one particular spot and as soon as the car screeched to a halt Casimiro jumped out, running to the edge of the jaggedly high cliff—to see the unmistakable vision of his wife wading into the clear blue water beneath.
The fierce, ragged sound he made was a cry—but instead of issuing from his lungs it seemed to have been torn from his soul itself.
‘Melissa!’
