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But she said it kindly, and Antonietta knew that Francesca really cared. In truth, she ached for a more mature woman’s advice. ‘Why foolish?’
‘I thought that you at least knew what you were doing and that it was a business arrangement.’
‘You’d rather that he was paying me?’
‘Yes,’ Francesca admitted. ‘I’d rather that than you give your heart to a man who is using you.’
‘But heisn’tusing me.’
‘No—you offered yourself to him on a plate.’
She had.
Antonietta’s eyes screwed closed as realisation started to hit and she recalled that first night, outside her cottage, and her reaction to her very first kiss.Take me to bed.It had felt at the time as necessary and straightforward as that.
‘Sit down, Antonietta,’ Francesca said gently.
She offered tissues, and poured water, and then pulled her chair around so she sat next to Antonietta.
The older woman took her hand. ‘I won’t tell anyone, and neither will I lose my job over this, or you yours, but there is a condition.’
‘What?’
‘You are to go and tell Signor Dupont—or rather, Crown Prince Rafael—that you have kept your job only on the condition that, after your conversation, you will never speak to him again.’
Antonietta swallowed.
‘You are not to be in his suite and he is not to come to your home. There will be no more contact between the two of you.’
‘But—’
Francesca spoke over her. ‘And after you tell him that I can guarantee that within hours he will leave. Crown Prince Rafael was not expected to stay here for even a few days. I was told that as soon as he was even partway healed he would grow bored and fly out.’
‘He didn’t leave, though.’
‘Of course not. He was getting sex and nightly entertainment. Tell me, Antonietta, whywouldhe leave?’
‘It wasn’t like that—’
‘It wasexactlylike that, and I should know,’ Francesca said. ‘I was taken advantage of by a man a year after my husband left me. I’m guessing that you were lonely?’
Antonietta opened her mouth to argue, but the truth was shehadbeen lonely—desperately so. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But Rafe did not take advantage of that fact. I was complicit.’
‘You were out of your depth,’ Francesca countered. ‘He is a notorious playboy. Have you not seen him in the scandal rags?’ Francesca answered her own question. ‘Of course not—you wouldn’t read them. But, Antonietta, not all gossip is bad. It can serve as a warning.’
‘I doubt I would have heeded any warning.’
Antonietta thought back and knew that there might have been a group of protesters on the lawn that first night, as she had walked to his suite, and they could have been holding placards attesting to his reputation, and still she would not have let go of his hand.
‘He told me from the start it could go nowhere...’
‘Of course not.’
‘Even before I knew who he was.’
‘And now that you do, be the one to end it.’
Francesca gave her shy and somewhat naive chambermaid a little cuddle, and felt angry on her behalf—and not just with Prince Rafael.
