Книга - Princess of Convenience

Princess of Convenience
Marion Lennox


Raoul needs a bride, fast, if he's to be Prince Regent of Alp'Azuri. He'd rather carry on his work as a doctor with a medical aid agency, but his country's future is at stake - and so is his nephew's life. Beautiful yet vulnerable Jessica agrees to marry Raoul, but she will return home to Australia the next day.She could all too easily risk her heart in a place like this, married to a man like Raoul. Except Raoul is a man with a heart big enough not only to save a country, but to heal her broken heart, too.












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Dear Reader,

I do like a good dose of royalty. Not day-to-day, opening fetes and greeting-dignitaries-type royalty, but castles and footmen and glass coaches—the full fantastic fairy tale. Wouldn’t it be fun to be a part of it for a while?

Oh, I hear you say, but it surely never happens in real life. Normal people don’t find themselves in the middle of such a soap bubble. But what if…what if…?

That’s where I come in. I can’t resist a good romance and here we have two lovely people—normalish people even if Raoul’s a wee bit gorgeous—catapulted into wonder.

It’s fun, it’s fantastic and I believed every word of it as I wrote. I did enjoy donning a tiara, and I trust you’ll enjoy wearing one, too.

Marion Lennox

Sit back and enjoy this wonderfully emotional new story from award-winning author Marion Lennox.




PRINCESS OF CONVENIENCE

Marion Lennox













Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories! Marion writes for the Medical Romance


and Harlequin Romance


lines. In her non-writing life Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, kids, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive. As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories; her stories allow her to travel, and if ever there was one advertisement for following your dream, she’d be it!

In Princess of Convenience Marion takes us into a wonderful mix of reality and fairy tale; where Jessica finds there’s more to this royal business than meets the eye, and her royal prince finds his thoroughly modern princess is more likely to wear Wellingtons than glass slippers.

You can contact Marion at www.marionlennox.com




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE




CHAPTER ONE


SHE should be driving on this side of the road. Surely?

This was the most fabulous autoroute in Alp’Azuri. The road spiralled around snow-capped mountains, with the sea crashing hundreds of feet below. Every twist in the road seemed to reveal postcard magic. Medieval castles, ancient fishing villages, lush pastures dotted with long-haired goats and alpacas—every sight was seemingly designed to take the breath away.

The twist she’d just taken had given her a fleeting glimpse of the home of the Alp’Azuri royal family. Made of glistening white stone, with turrets, towers and battlements and set high on the crags overlooking the sea, the castle looked as if it had been taken straight out of a fairy tale.

Two years ago Jessica Devlin would have been entranced. But now she was concentrating on reaching the next of her suppliers—concentrating on not thinking about the empty passenger seat—concentrating simply on staying on the right side of the road.

She was sure she was on the right side of the road.

The autoroute consisted of blind bends winding around the mountain. As she drove, Jess caught sight of the road looping above and below.

The road above was the worry. Was she imagining it?

She drove cautiously around the next bend and caught a glimpse of a blue, open-topped sports car. The car was two curves above. Coming fast.

Driving against the cliff edge.

Her side.

Surely it should be on the other side?

She braked hard, turning her car onto a slight verge between cliff and road. The bend ahead was blind. If the car ahead came round on the wrong side…

It had to be her imagination. She was basing this fear on a flash of blue, now out of sight.

Maybe the driver ahead had better vision of the road than she did. She was being too cautious.

But she still felt the first claws of fear. Too much had happened in her life to trust that the worst wouldn’t happen now. Thus Jess was almost stopped when the blue car swept around the bend. Travelling far, far too fast.

On her side of the road.

She was as far onto the verge as she could be without melting into the cliff. There was nowhere she could go.

‘No.’ She put her hands out, blindly. ‘No.’

No one heard.



Today was meant to have been his wedding day. Instead…it made a great day for a funeral.

‘Do you suppose she meant to do it?’ Lionel, Archduke of Alp’Azuri, looked at the flag-draped coffin with distaste. He was supposed to be supporting his great-nephew in his grief, but neither man could summon much energy for strong emotion.

There’d been too much grief in the past few weeks for another death to destroy them.

‘What, kill herself?’ Raoul, Lionel’s great-nephew, didn’t even try to sound devastated. He sounded furious, which was exactly how he felt. ‘Sarah? You have to be kidding.’

This was crazy, he decided. What on earth was he doing here, playing the wounded lover at the funeral of his fiancée?

But he knew his duty. Raoul, Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri for at least another six days, stood at rigid attention while his fiancée was committed for burial, but all he felt was distaste.

‘She had what she wanted,’ he told his uncle, and there was no way he could disguise his anger. ‘She was drunk, Lionel, and it was only because the woman she hit was an incredibly careful driver that she didn’t manage to take someone else with her.’

‘But why?’ Lionel was clearly at a loss.

‘She had her girlfriends here for a pre-bridal lunch. Then she decided to drive down to Vesey to meet her lover. Her lover! Six days before the wedding, with every camera in the country trained on her. Do you know what her blood alcohol content was?’

‘Raoul, look distraught,’ his uncle hissed. ‘The cameras are on you.’

‘I’m suffering in stoic agony,’ Raoul said grimly. ‘All the papers say so. Just as well she crashed before she met her latest interest.’

‘Hell, Raoul…’

‘You want me to be sympathetic?’ Raoul demanded. ‘Oh, you know I didn’t want her dead but I never wanted to marry her. She might have been a distant cousin but I hardly knew her. This was your idea. Of all the stupid…’

‘I thought she’d be OK,’ Lionel said, and if the cameras were on his face now they would certainly see distress. ‘Sarah was brought up to royalty. She knew what was expected of her. She could handle the media.’

‘So well that she managed to disguise the fact that she had a lover she intended keeping. How long would the marriage have lasted before the media found out?’

Lionel hesitated. ‘I suspect that Sarah didn’t think you’d care.’

‘You know I wouldn’t. But the media is a different matter.’

‘They understood. It was a marriage of convenience. Such things have been happening in royal families forever, and every person in this country wants you to marry.’ Lionel grimaced. ‘Except your cousin, Marcel. Why you’ve held out for so long before marrying… Hell, Raoul, it puts us in an appalling position.’

‘Not me,’ Raoul said grimly. ‘I’ve done enough. I’m out of here.’

‘Which leaves your nephew—and your country—where?’ Lionel cast a nervous glance at Sarah’s family, who seemed to be arguing over whose flower arrangement would take precedence. ‘In the hands of yet another like your brother—another government puppet. The only thing that could have saved us was this marriage.’ His grimace grew more pronounced. ‘Look at that. Her family are like vultures.’

‘They are vultures. They wanted this marriage because of the money.’ Raoul glanced at his once prospective in-laws with the air of a man who’d seen his destiny and escaped by a hair’s breadth. ‘That was all Sarah wanted. Money and power and prestige. She would have screwed this principality.’

‘But not as much as our prime minister and Marcel.’ Lionel sounded morose. ‘So it was a mistake. But now…’

Raoul stared grimly at the coffin. ‘I’ve done as much as I can. You’ll have to take over. Exert some influence over Marcel.’

His uncle forgot about looking bereft and just looked appalled. ‘Me? You have to be joking. I’m seventy-seven, Raoul, and Marcel hasn’t listened to me for forty years. You know he and his wife don’t want the boy. Sure, anyone who takes on the prince regent role has to be married, but married or not, Marcel and Marguerite are no more fit to be parents than…well, than your brother and his wife. Begging your pardon, Raoul.’

‘You don’t have to beg my pardon. Jean-Paul was a dissolute fool, just like my father.’

‘Your father was my nephew.’

‘Then you knew how inexcusable his conduct was,’ Raoul said savagely. ‘And what he left of the royal family were exactly the same. Jean-Paul, Cherie and Sarah. My brother, his wife and my cousin. Now they’re all dead, two from taking pure heroin instead of the normal dope they’ve been living on for years, and one from drunken speeding on her way to meet a lover. And now Sarah’s death means that Marcel takes control. God help this country and God help the crown prince. But there’s nothing more I can do now, Lionel. I want out.’

‘Your mother—’

‘My mother is the reason I agreed to marry Sarah. She wants the child.’ He hesitated. ‘But there’s nothing more I can do. She can’t have him.’

‘No,’ Lionel said reflectively and turned to where the dignitaries were attempting to reason with Sarah’s family. ‘It looks like Marcel will take him, and you know Marcel is a government puppet. They’ll never let your mother have access.’

‘I can’t help that,’ Raoul said roughly. ‘I’ve done my best.’

‘Choosing Sarah wasn’t your best.’

‘Lionel…’

‘OK, I helped choose. I concede she wasn’t a great choice but you hardly gave us time. Now we’ve got six days.’

‘To find a bride so I can stay on as Prince Regent? You have to be kidding.’

‘If she’d just waited to kill herself until the week after the wedding rather than the week before…’ Lionel sighed. ‘But she didn’t. We’re in a mess, boy.’

‘We are at that.’ Raoul grimaced and then put a hand on his uncle’s shoulder, as if gaining support and strength from his elder. He almost visibly braced himself.

‘Enough. I’m going to put my flowers on Sarah’s coffin.’

‘Because you want to?’

‘Because her mother and her father and her ex-husband and two of her lovers are all out there threatening to kill each other if I don’t,’ he said grimly. ‘It’s time for a man to take a stand. I’ll put flowers on Sarah’s grave, I’ll do the best I can to see my mother has access to her grandson and then I’m going back to my medicine in Africa. Where I belong. This royalty business is for someone else. I resign.’



For the first two days after the accident Jessica was asked no questions. Concussion, shock and the anaesthetic she was given for a dislocated shoulder were enough to send her drifting into a space no one could reach.

After that she was aware of questions being softly asked. Not too many, but essentials for all that. The questions were asked first in English, and then as those around her realised she spoke their language, in the soft and lilting mix of French and Italian used throughout Alp’Azuri.

Who was she?

That was easy. ‘Jessica Devlin.’

Where was she from? Her passport said Australia. Was that right?

‘Yes. I’m Australian.’

Who did she want them to contact?

‘No one. Unless I’m dead, in which case my cousin, Cordelia, but don’t you dare let her know where I am if there’s the slightest chance that I might live. Please.’

After that they backed off a bit—these gentle people who nursed her. Who were they? She didn’t ask.

There was a woman with elegant clothes and silver hair and a worried look that seemed to be more worried every time she saw her. There was a silver-haired old gentleman who deferred to the lady. He called her ma’am and carried in trays and he also looked worried.

Who else? Two nurses—one at night, one during the day, and a doctor who patted her hand and said, ‘You’ll be fine, my dear. You’re young and you’re strong.’

Of course. She was young and strong.

The doctor asked the hardest question and that was the only one that she had real trouble making herself answer. When the nurses and the others were gone the doctor touched her gently on the hand and asked, ‘Girl, your child. Your family. I have to know. There was no sign of anyone else in the car. There’s no wedding ring on your finger, but there are signs on your body that tell me you’ve had a child. There wasn’t a little one in the car, was there?’ His face stilled as he prepared for the worst. ‘No one else went over the cliff?’

She fought to answer that. Fought to say the words. But they had to be said to stop this kindly old doctor panicking more. He had no need to fear the worst. The worst had already happened.

‘I only have… I’ve only had the one child and he’s dead. Back in Australia. Before I came here.’

There was a pause. Then, ‘Maybe you’re not so young after all,’ he murmured. ‘My dear.’

But her eyes had closed and he let her be. He didn’t intrude. None of them did. They let her lie in this luxurious bed draped in crimson velvet and gold tassels, sinking into a mattress that felt like clouds, and they let her sleep.

She’d hardly slept since Dom died, she thought drearily in one of her tiny lucid moments. It was as if her body was now screaming at her that it had to catch up.

She slept and slept and slept.

On day six—or was it day seven?—she opened her eyes and for the first time she really looked around her. Until now she’d simply accepted this bed, this room, the astounding view through her casement windows as the next in a series of events fate was throwing at her. She’d been out of control for so long that she’d ceased asking questions.

Now, though, sunlight was streaming in over sumptuous furnishings and she gave herself up to astonishment. This was no hospital.

The nurses were no longer here. Now there was only this fairy-tale bedroom and an elderly lady, sitting by the window gazing out at the morning.

Was she crying?

‘What’s wrong?’ Jess asked and the lady turned, sadness replaced by concern in an instant.

‘Oh, my dear. It’s not you who should be asking that.’

Jess gazed cautiously around her. She’d been awake but not awake. In some dream world. Taking the time out she so desperately needed. ‘I guess I should have been asking questions before now,’ she tried. ‘Like…where am I?’

‘This is the royal palace of Alp’Azuri.’

‘Right.’ Jess let that sink in for a while. Alp’Azuri. She knew she was in Alp’Azuri. This tiny country was famous all over the world for its fabulous weavers and she’d come here because…

Because of fabric and yarns. She thought about it, remembering a long-ago conversation with her cousin, Cordelia. ‘You take the trip, dear. Research your suppliers on the ground. It’ll take your mind off things best forgotten.’

Things best forgotten. Dominic?

This wasn’t the time to be thinking of Dom.

‘Um…why am I in the royal palace instead of a hospital?’ she asked, and grief washed back over the older woman’s face.

‘Do you remember the accident?’

‘I…’ Jess swallowed. She did remember. The sports car coming fast. Unbelievably fast. It was right in front of her and all she could do was put up her hand and say…

‘No.’

Then as the lady winced, thinking she’d have to start at the beginning, she corrected herself. ‘I do remember a little. I remember a blue sports car on the wrong side of the road. At least I think it was on the wrong side.’

‘That was Sarah’s car,’ the lady said. ‘Lady Sarah Veerharch was my son’s fiancée.’

Jess swallowed. There was something about the lady’s face that made her not want to go on, but she had to. Even though she already knew the answer. Was. The woman had said was. ‘I… Sarah was…killed?’ How had she made herself say it? And to her horror the woman was nodding.

‘She was killed instantly. Her car glanced off yours—the fact that you were able to stop before the cars hit apparently saved your life—but Sarah slewed off the cliff and into the sea.’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear, but yes.’

Jess’s eyes closed in anguish. So much death. It followed her everywhere. Dominic, and now this…

Concentrate on practicalities, she told herself fiercely. If you think about death you’ll go quietly crazy.

‘So why am I in a royal palace?’ she asked and the lady’s face grew grave.

‘This is my home. Mine, my son’s and my grandson’s. For…for now. There’s such media coverage—such interest. Dr Briet thought that, seeing your injuries were relatively minor, you’d be better off here where we could protect you from the worst of it.’

‘Such media coverage.’ Jess’s face had lost whatever colour it had. ‘Lady Sarah… Your future daughter-in-law. Your son’s the…’

‘Raoul is the Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri,’ his mother told her. ‘At least… Well, for now he is. I’m Louise d’Apergenet. My son is Raoul Louis d’Apergenet, second in line to the crown. He is… He was to succeed to his position as regent on the occasion of his marriage. Which was to have been yesterday.’

‘And I’ve killed his bride.’ Jess’s voice subsided to an appalled whisper.

‘Sarah killed herself. You had nothing to do with it.’

The strong male voice startled them both. Jess’s gaze flew to the open door.

She hadn’t seen this man before. Nurses, doctor, servants…this man fitted none of these categories.

He was…royal?

Royalty was her first impression and maybe it wouldn’t have been her first impression if she wasn’t sitting under a velvet draped canopy in a fairy-tale castle. He was wearing light chinos, a dark polo shirt and faded loafers. These were casual clothes, but there was nothing casual about this man.

Tall, dark, superbly muscled, the man’s strongly-boned face was lean, appearing almost sculpted. His eyes were hawk-like and shadowed, revealing nothing. But indefinable or not, the aura of power he exuded was unmistakable.

Was he really a prince? His skin was weathered to a deep bronze, his eyes were creased as if accustomed to a too-harsh sun and there was a long, hairline scar running the length of his jaw. And his hands… These were no prince’s hands. They’d worked hard.

There was no trace of easy living on this man’s frame. Jess stared up at him, stunned. Even a little afraid?

But then he smiled—and the fear evaporated, just like that.

You couldn’t fear a man with a smile like this.

‘Good morning,’ he said softly. ‘You must be Jessica. How are you feeling?’

‘I… Yes. I’m Jessica and I’m fine.’ Unconsciously her hands tugged her bedcovers to her chin, in a naïve gesture of defence. Why? He didn’t make her feel afraid, she thought. He just made her feel—small? Young? In her flimsy cotton nightgown, with her short crop of chestnut curls tousled from sleep and her freckled face devoid of make-up, she felt about twelve.

‘I’m Raoul,’ he told her.

She’d guessed. ‘Y…Your Highness.’

‘Raoul.’ His voice firmed, and there was even a tinge of anger, as if he was repudiating something he found offensive.

‘Jessica’s been fretting about Sarah’s death,’ his mother told him. ‘I’ve told her she’s not to blame herself.’

‘How can you blame yourself?’ Raoul was speaking in English. His voice was strong and deep, and only faintly tinged with the accent of his native country.

Where did he fit in? How did this family fit into the government of this place? Jess thought, trying desperately to remember what she’d learned of this country before she came here. Not much. Her trip this time been more an excuse to get away than to learn about another culture, and her only other visit here had been fleeting and had ended in disaster.

But she knew a little. Alp’Azuri was a principality, a tiny country edged by the sea. There’d been some recent tragedy, she thought, remembering flashes of international news in the past few weeks. A dissolute prince and his princess found dead. A tiny crown prince, orphaned.

Where did that leave Raoul?

‘I’ll not have you blaming yourself for Sarah’s death,’ Raoul was saying, and she blinked, trying to haul herself back to reality. To now.

‘Um…’

‘Sarah killed herself.’ Raoul’s voice was stern, sure of what had to be said. ‘Oh, not intentionally. We’re sure of that. But she’d been drinking. She was driving too fast on the wrong side of the road and the police say the only reason you weren’t killed also was because you were being incredibly cautious. Somehow, miraculously, you managed to avoid a double tragedy.’

‘But if I hadn’t been there…’

‘Then she might have hit someone else further down. Maybe with even worse consequences.’ He shook his head. ‘If it had been a family…’ He closed his eyes, as if to shut out a tragedy that could have been. ‘We’re all grateful that you were there, Jessica, and that you somehow prevented what could have been a lot, lot worse.’

‘But your fiancée…’

‘Yes.’ His eyes were open again now, and behind their cool, appraising look she could see pain. And something else. Despair? Defeat? ‘But we move on.’

‘Edouard will stay with me,’ his mother said softly and Jess frowned at this strange twist in the conversation. ‘We will fight for him. We must.’

Jess was lost. Edouard? Fighting?

Was this yet another tragedy? She pulled her covers even higher, in a gesture of protection that was as crazy as it was unhelpful.

‘I’ve been lying here for too long,’ she managed and Louise smiled.

‘My dear, it’s been six days. You were concussed and you dislocated your shoulder. But Dr Briet says—and Raoul concurs—that you seem to have been suffering more than that. He says you seem exhausted. You were taken initially to the Vesey hospital but when it was clear that all you needed to do was to sleep, it seemed best to bring you here.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not possible to keep the Press away anywhere else, and Raoul has been on hand if needed.’

This was making less and less sense. ‘You’ve been very good,’ Jess managed, ‘in the face of your own tragedy.’ She hesitated, but there was more to be said. Edouard. The name had brought back a memory now, remembrance of news reports she’d read surely less than a month ago. ‘And it’s not just Sarah, is it?’

‘You can’t know…’ Louise started but Jess was too distressed to stop.

‘I’m remembering the deaths of the crown prince and his princess,’ Jess said. ‘And your grandson being orphaned. I heard of it back in Australia. I’d just…forgotten.’

Of course. When her own world had collapsed, so had her ability to take in tragedies of those about her. But the deaths had been front-page news at home at a time when her world had been blank and meaningless, and it had been dreadful enough to haul her out of her pool of misery, into someone else’s.

She remembered cringing inside. The prince and his princess, in a chalet high in the mountains. An avalanche? A storm? She couldn’t remember. But she remembered that the child was alive, unharmed, but with his parents both dead.

The world had been captivated.

Deep in her own personal tragedy, Jess had hardly taken it in. But now… She forced herself to think back to those half-remembered newspaper headlines. Rumours that it hadn’t been a storm that had killed them. That the storm had cut off access to the cabin and meant that normal checks couldn’t be made. The royal couple had escaped their minders and there’d been drugs.

This was not her scene, she told herself fiercely. It was not her business.

She looked up at Raoul and there was that look on his face that precluded questions—and how to ask a question like the ones that were forming in the back of her mind? She couldn’t. She didn’t need to. Thankfully.

She was so tired.

She lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, allowing the exhaustion and distress to wash through.

Unexpectedly Raoul stepped forward and lifted her hand. The gesture was a measure of comfort that was surprisingly successful. It was strong and reassuring and compelling. ‘Don’t distress yourself,’ he told her. ‘You mustn’t.’

His touch warmed her more than she’d thought such a gesture could. It was unexpected, a gesture that he didn’t need to make. Maybe in the same circumstances she’d find it impossible to make this gesture herself, she thought. To touch the cause of more sadness…

‘Jess, you’re not to focus on this,’ he told her, his voice, like his touch, strong and warm and sure. ‘You’re here as our guest for as long as you need before you feel strong enough to face the world.’

‘I’m well now.’ She opened her eyes and he was close, she thought, dazed. Too close.

‘You’ve had a hell of a time,’ he told her. ‘And maybe not just this week?’

It was a question. She swallowed. This man was wounded too, she thought.

‘We’re a pair,’ she whispered and there was a stillness.

‘I…’

‘I’ll leave you as soon as I can pack,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m fine. It was very good of you to let me stay this long.’

‘Jess, as soon as you leave this place you’ll be inundated,’ he said warningly. ‘The world’s Press want interviews. This tragedy has caught the attention of the international media and you won’t be left alone. Plus after six days in bed you’ll be as weak as a kitten. Stay here. Within the walls of this castle I can protect you. At least for the next few days. Outside…I’m afraid you’re alone.’

Silence.

Within the walls of this castle he’d protect her?

It was crazy. She didn’t need protection.

She couldn’t stay.

Where could she go?

Home?

Home was where the heart was.

She had no home.

‘Stay for a few more days.’ It was Louise, gently adding her urging to her son’s. ‘We feel so responsible. You have no idea what the Press will be like. You seem exhausted. Let us give you just a little time out.’

Time out.

It was an idea that was almost incredibly appealing. And it was the only thing she could think of to do. What else? Pick up the threads?

What threads?

She was bone-weary and she was faced with a choice. These pillows and the protection of castle walls for a few more days—or the scrutiny of the world’s Press. There was suddenly no choice. Especially as Raoul was smiling down at her like…like…

She didn’t know. All she knew was that his smile warmed parts of her that desperately needed to be warmed. Stay? Of course she’d stay.

She must.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and she was rewarded by a widening of that killer smile.

‘Good.’ Raoul’s voice was strong again, commanding and sure. His eyes met hers, filled with warmth and pleasure that she’d decided to be sensible. ‘Join the world slowly again, no? Start with dinner tonight. With us.’

‘I…’

‘It’s very informal,’ Louise told her, guessing immediately the confusion such an invitation would cause. ‘Just my son and myself.’ She smiled, and her smile was ineffably sad. ‘And the odd servant or six.’

‘Have just Henri serve us tonight, Mama,’ Raoul told her. ‘Give the other servants the night off.’

She nodded. ‘That would be lovely. If you don’t think it’s cowardly.’

‘Maybe we need to be cowardly,’ he told her. ‘Maybe we all do. For a while.’




CHAPTER TWO


JESS wallowed—that had to be the word for what one did in such a sumptuous bathtub—and thought about what she was about to experience.

Dinner with the Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri…

As a little girl she’d read the tale of Cinderella—of course she had—and she’d dreamed of princes. But now…

Reality was very different, she thought. Real princes weren’t riding white chargers ready to whisk a woman away from the troubles of the world. Real princes came with tragedies of their own.

It made the whole situation seem surreal, so much so that as she dried and dressed, slowly, in deference to her aching muscles and myriad scratches, she didn’t cringe that she had no fabulous evening gown to wear, or a fairy godmother on hand to transform her.

She should wear severe black, she thought, but she shoved that thought aside as well. Black? When had she ever?

At least she had her stock-in-trade—the reason she was in this country. Her wardrobe had been brought more to show suppliers what she wanted than to wear herself. Tonight she chose a simple skirt, cut on the bias so it swirled softly to her knees. The skirt combined three tones of aquamarine, blended in soft waves. The colours were almost identical but not quite, and when spun together they were somehow magical. She teamed the skirt with an embroidered, white-on-white blouse with a mandarin collar and tiny sleeves. It hid her bruises perfectly.

That was that. No make-up. Like black, make-up was also something she didn’t do. Not since long before Dominic.

She brushed her close-cropped chestnut curls until they shone, then gazed at her reflection in the mirror.

These were great clothes, she conceded, but it was a pity about the model. This model had far too many freckles. This model had eyes that were too big and permanently shadowed with grief.

The model needed a good…life?

‘You’ve had your life,’ she told her reflection. ‘Move on. They’re waiting for you to go to dinner.’

But still she gazed in the mirror, and something akin to panic was threatening to overwhelm her.

This was a suite of rooms. ‘It’s one of several guest suites we have, dear,’ Louise had told her. It consisted of a vast bedroom, a fantastic bathroom and a furnished sitting room where the fire had crackled in the hearth the whole time she’d been here, its heat augmenting the spring sunshine that glimmered through the south-facing windows. The windows looked down over lawns that stretched away to parks and woodland beyond.

The whole place was breathtakingly beautiful, yet until now Jess had simply accepted it as it was. It was as if her mind had shut down. For the last few days she’d simply submitted to these people’s care.

Now she had to move. She’d said she’d go to dinner. She was dressed and ready. But outside was a castle. A castle!

How had Cinderella coped with collywobbles?

But then there was a knock on the door and Henri was there. The elderly butler was someone she was starting to recognise, and his smiling presence was steadying and welcome.

Her own private fairy godfather?

‘I thought I’d accompany you down, miss,’ he told her, his twinkling eyes letting her know that he recognised her butterflies and that was exactly why he was here. ‘It’s easy to get lost in these corridors.’ He surveyed her clothes with approval. ‘And if I may say so, miss, you look too lovely to lose.’

Jess smiled back, knowing if she was inappropriately dressed he would have warned her, but his smile said she was fine. He held out his arm and she hesitated a little and then stepped forward to take it. Yep, he was definitely a fairy godfather and she wasn’t letting go of his arm for anything.

‘You know, they’re just people,’ he told her as they started the long trek toward the distant royal dining room. ‘They’re people in trouble. Just like you.’



That initial time Jess had seen Raoul—the one time he’d entered her bedroom—she’d thought he was stunningly good-looking. Now, as Henri opened the dining-room door, she saw he was dressed for the evening, and good-looking didn’t come close.

The cut of his jet-black suit and his blue-black silk tie clearly delineated his clothes as Italian-designed and expensive. The crisp white linen of his shirt set off his deeply tanned skin to perfection. And his smile…

Good-looking? No. He was just plain drop-dead gorgeous, she decided. Toe-curlingly gorgeous.

Henri paused at the dining-room door, smiling, waiting for Raoul to react. And he did. He rose swiftly, crossed to take her arm from Henri’s, led her to her seat and handed her into it with care.

It’s just like I’m a princess, Jess thought, and she even managed to get a bit breathless. OK, she’d been shocked into a stupor where she’d hardly noticed her surroundings these last few weeks, but there were certain things that could pierce the thickest stupor.

Raoul Louis d’Apergenet was certainly one of them.

Her outfit was too simple for this setting, she thought fleetingly, with a tiny niggle of dismay, but Raoul was smiling at her as if she was indeed a princess and Louise was gazing at her skirt with admiration and saying,

‘Snap.’

‘Snap?’ Jess sat down—absurdly aware of Raoul’s hands adjusting her chair—and gazed at the array of silver and crystal before her. Snap? Card games was the last thing she was thinking about.

The table must be one of the palace’s smallest. It was only meant for eight or ten—but it was magnificent. The array of crystal and silverware made her blink in astonishment.

‘I think the word is wow,’ she said softly. ‘Snap has nothing to do with it.’

‘I meant your skirt.’ Louise was still smiling. ‘If I’m not mistaken that’s a Waves original. The same as mine.’

Jess focused—which was really hard when there was so much to take in. And when Raoul was smiling with that gentle, half-sad smile, the smile that said he knew…

She was being ridiculous.

Louise’s skirt. Concentrate.

Her hostess was indeed wearing a Waves skirt. It was one of Jess’s early designs, much more flamboyant than the one she was wearing, a calf-length circle of soft spun silk, aqua and white, the colours mingling in the shimmering waves that were Jess’s trademark—the colours of the sea.

‘I love the Waves work,’ Louise was saying. ‘And you must, too. But then you’re Australian. Waves is by an Australian designer, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Jess said and then because she couldn’t think of anything else to say she added, ‘Um, she’s me. Waves, that is. It’s what I do.’

‘You work for Waves?’

‘I am Waves,’ she said a trifle self-consciously. Actually, until a year ago she wouldn’t have said that. She would have said she was half of Waves. But then, that had never been true. She’d supported Warren, and when she’d needed him…

No. She closed her eyes and when she opened them Henri was setting a plate before her.

‘Lobster broth, miss,’ he said and it gave her a chance to catch her breath, to look gratefully up at him, to smile and to recover.

‘I own Waves,’ she told them, conscious of Louise’s eyes worrying about her and Raoul’s eyes…doing what? He seemed distant, assessing, but then maybe he had room for caution. ‘I started designing at school and it’s grown.’

‘You’re not serious? You own Waves?’ Louise’s expression was one of pure admiration. ‘Raoul, do you hear that? Waves is known throughout the world. We have a famous person in our midst.’

‘I’m hardly famous,’ she managed. She tried the broth. ‘This is lovely,’ she told Henri, though in truth she tasted nothing.

‘Are you here on a holiday?’ Raoul was gently probing, his eyes resting on her face. He seemed to be appraising, she thought, as if maybe he suspected his mother needed protecting from impostors and she might just be one.

She was being fanciful.

‘I… No. I’m here on a fabric-buying mission.’

‘There was no fabric in your car,’ Raoul said.

Once again, that impression of distrust.

‘Maybe because my plane landed the morning of the crash,’ she told him and there was an edge to her voice that she hadn’t intended. She tried to soften it. ‘I’m here to buy but I’ve hardly started. I’d heard that the Alp’Azuri weavers are wonderful and the yarns here are fabulous.’ She hesitated but couldn’t help herself. ‘I have already been to one supplier. If you’ve searched my luggage you’ll have found yarns.’

‘I didn’t search your luggage,’ Raoul said, swiftly, and Jess raised her brows and managed a slight, disbelieving smile. Good. It was good to have him defensive.

Why? She didn’t know. And maybe she was being dumb. To get a European prince of the blood offside…

Whoa, Jess. Back off.

‘My son didn’t mean to be offensive,’ Louise was saying and to Jess’s delight Raoul was getting a look of reproof from his mother. Hey, she’d won this round. ‘And the Alp’Azuri spinners certainly are amazing.’ Louise was animated now as if here at last was a safe subject, a subject they could indulge in where everything wasn’t raw. ‘I could take you out and introduce—’

‘No, Mama,’ Raoul told her. ‘You can’t go out. Not while there’s this drama. You forget.’

His mother flushed and bit her lip. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Are the Press hounding you?’ Jess looked from one to the other, her spurt of childish satisfaction fading. Their faces were tight with strain. She’d been so caught up in her own misery that she’d hardly noticed, but she was noticing now. There was more behind these expressions than their recent tragedy, awful as that was.

‘The Press are certainly hounding us,’ Raoul said heavily. ‘They’re waiting for us to leave.’

‘We need to leave the castle eventually,’ Louise whispered. ‘We can’t stay here indefinitely.’

‘Why would you want to leave?’ Jess said, astonished.

‘We’re a bit under siege,’ Louise said and then bit her lip and looked ruefully at her son. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t… Jess, you’re not interested in our troubles.’

‘Too many troubles,’ Raoul muttered. ‘None of our making. Drink your soup, Jess. Forget it.’

But it seemed that trouble couldn’t be forgotten. Henri reentered the room almost as he said the words, and he wasn’t bearing food. He looked distressed.

Definitely trouble.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he told Raoul, ‘but your cousin, the Comte Marcel, is here. He’s been here three times today already and this time he refuses to leave.’

‘Of course I refuse to leave.’

The voice was a ponderous, pompous baritone, and before Henri had time to withdraw, the dining-room door was shoved wide. Henri was shoved roughly aside. ‘This is my home from now on, man,’ the newcomer said. ‘You and my so dear relatives will just have to grow accustomed to it. Now.’

Was it possible to take a dislike to someone on sight? Whether it was the imperiousness of his tone, the audacity of his statement or the way he’d shoved Henri, Jess’s first reaction was revulsion. She wasn’t alone in her reaction. Raoul was rising to his feet and his face was dark with anger.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, shoving your way into my mother’s dining room?’ he snapped and the man’s eyes rose in supercilious reproof.

‘Surely you mean my dining room.’

He was in his late fifties, short and balding, with what was left of his hair oiled flatly down over a shiny scalp. He was dressed in expensive evening wear but his clothes weren’t flattering. His stomach protruded over his sash, and nothing could disguise the flab beneath the suit.

‘This is my husband’s nephew, the Comte Marcel d’Apergenet,’ Louise murmured to Jess, and there was real distress in her tone now as she attempted introductions. ‘Raoul, please sit down. Jess, this is the…the new regent as of next week. Marcel, this is Jessica Devlin.’

The man’s eyes were already sweeping the room. They flickered over Raoul with dislike, they moved past Louise with disdain and now they rested on Jess with something akin to approval.

‘Ha. The girl who killed Lady Sarah.’

‘She did not kill—’ Louise started hotly, but the man held up his hands as if to ward off attack. He even smiled.

‘Now, even if she did, who am I to criticise? Sarah might have been a distant relative but she wasn’t close. Are any of our family close? No. And her death destroyed your plans very neatly. But that means we need to move on. I’ve been trying for days to see the pair of you, but your damned butler refuses me admission. It’s time to face the future.’

‘No.’ Louise’s voice broke on a faint sob. ‘Sarah’s only been dead for six days. And Edouard’s so traumatised. Marcel, surely you mean to give us time.’

‘Monday’s changeover,’ the man snapped. ‘No matter who’s dead. You know the terms of the regency. I take over the castle and I take over responsibility for the child until he’s of an age to accept the crown. You left this country twenty-five years ago and you have no place here. Our politicians agree with me. They want you out of here, and the regency is mine.’

There was a deathly silence, and then Louise seemed to brace herself. ‘My grandson stays with me,’ she said but her voice faltered as if she knew already what the response would be.

‘Like hell he does.’ The man smiled again, and Jessica shivered. She didn’t have a clue what was going on but the more she saw of this man the more she wanted to cringe. ‘The constitution says that the role of regent can only be held by a married man,’ he said. His tone had slowed now, as if he was speaking to a group of imbeciles. ‘The incumbent to the regency has to take over within a month of the death of the monarch, and if he can’t do it by then, then the next in line to the throne—the next married man—takes over. I therefore have complete constitutional control, including custody of the crown prince and residency of the castle. I want you out.’

‘Not until Monday.’ Raoul looked as if he wanted to hit someone. Badly. His hands were clenched into fists and his voice was laced with the strain of keeping himself under rigid control. ‘You get nothing until Monday. Not until the month is legally up. Meanwhile this place is our home and you have no place in it.’

‘The child would be better handed over immediately,’ the man snapped. ‘I have staff waiting to care for him.’

‘He’ll stay with me,’ Louise said with distress, but Marcel smiled still more.

‘Not unless there’s a constitutional change and there’s no way a constitutional change can take place without the approval of the prince regent. Which would be me. You know the rules. You tried to avoid them by a hasty marriage, but Lady Sarah’s death has ended that. The child will be raised as I decree.’ Once again his hands were raised, as if to ward off objections that might occur to them. His smile became almost a smirk. ‘You need have no fear. Every care will be taken of him.’

‘You mean you’ll let the government do as they want with him just as long as they keep your coffers filled.’ Raoul’s voice was barely a whisper, but there was no disguising the fury behind it. ‘You’ll destroy him, just as you and my father destroyed my brother.’

‘He’s such a little boy,’ Louise stammered. ‘He’s three. Marcel, you can’t take him away from his family.’

‘I’ll take him anywhere I want. I have that right.’

‘Not until Monday, you can’t.’ Raoul’s rigid control had snapped. ‘You bottom-feeding low-life, you have no right to be here and I’ll not accept your presence here a moment longer.’

‘You can’t—’

‘Watch me.’ With no more hesitation, Raoul walked steadily forward and gripped his relative’s collar in both his hands, lifting him right off the floor. He swung him around and shoved—hard.

‘Get your hands off me.’ Marcel’s voice was an indignant splutter.

‘This is our home. Until Monday you don’t have any say in who enters here.’

‘That’s in less than a week. This is preposterous.’ But he was out the door and still being propelled. ‘I’ll have you arrested.’

‘Try it.’

Jess could no longer see what was happening. Raoul had kept propelling, out into the hall and further toward the grand entrance.

She didn’t understand.

She turned to Louise—but Louise was crumpling back into her chair. Her hands were up to her face and she was weeping.

‘Louise.’ Dignity or not, royalty or not, Jess was crouching beside her, hugging. Louise responded with a shattered sob as she subsided into Jessica’s shoulder. She only sobbed out loud the once but Jess could feel as the shuddering sobs continued to rack her frail body.

Louise was far too thin, she thought. She was gaunt, as if this suffering was nothing new. She’d lost a son and a daughter-in-law less than a month ago. Then she’d lost Sarah. And now…

Somewhere there was a little boy who was being threatened.

She’d never seen a child here.

Still, until tonight she’d never been out of her suite of rooms.

‘Will you tell me what’s happening?’ she asked, but Louise couldn’t answer.

Henri was fluttering uselessly behind them and Jess could see that he was just as distressed as Louise. ‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered, and a tear rolled unchecked down the elderly man’s wrinkled cheek.

‘It’s the little prince,’ Henri murmured, looking down in concern at Louise. ‘Ma’am…’

‘Mama.’ Raoul was back with them, kneeling beside Jess and his mother. He took his mother’s shoulders in his big hands, transferring her weight to him.

There was such gentleness here, Jess thought as she moved aside. He was a big man; he’d handled Marcel with barely suppressed violence, yet he held his mother with absolute love.

‘Mama, we’ll think of something,’ he was saying, whispering softly into her hair. ‘We’ll take it to the courts. They can’t enforce this.’

‘They will,’ his mother said brokenly. ‘You know there’s no access at all to the crown prince by anyone other than his legal guardian. When your father and I split up I wasn’t allowed near Jean-Paul. God knows I tried.’

‘This is crazy,’ Jess said, not wanting to interrupt such distress but overcome by her urge to know. ‘Can someone tell me what’s happening?’

‘It’s easy, miss.’ It was Henri, speaking up behind her as Raoul hugged his mother. The elderly servant had stared down at the pair of them and then he’d turned away. Maybe talking to Jess helped. Or maybe it was that he couldn’t think of what else to do. ‘Or…maybe it’s hard.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Do you know that if a ruling monarch dies and the heir is still a child, then the appointed prince regent is responsible for raising him? And making decisions in his stead?’

‘That’s right,’ Jess said, thinking it through. ‘I’ve read that. It’s to stop a child king—or a crown prince in a principality—having responsibility too young.’

‘That’s right.’ Henri gave a wintry smile. ‘But the rules in this country are hard. Prince Raoul is second in line to the throne after Edouard, so Prince Raoul would normally be prince regent, but, as he’s not married, he’s not eligible. The rules are rigid. Cruelly rigid.’ He hesitated and glanced again at Louise and Raoul—but Raoul was deeply enmeshed in his mother’s distress and had no room to listen to what his butler was saying.

‘In truth, the Prince Raoul hardly wants the role,’ the butler told her. ‘Since the Princess Louise separated from the old prince, she and Prince Raoul have not been permitted to come here. They’ve made their home in Paris, and lately Prince Raoul has been working overseas. But for the child’s sake, and for the country’s sake, Raoul decided to return. Lady Sarah agreed to marry him so he could take on guardianship of the child, the idea being that Her Highness would take care of her grandchild. But then Lady Sarah was killed.’

He hesitated again but then he shrugged, as if he’d decided that having gone this far, he might as well go all the way. ‘You must realise that Lady Sarah was no better than she ought to be,’ he said softly. ‘She was the prince’s cousin, and she agreed to the marriage merely for the money and prestige it would bring. Unfortunately she didn’t have the sense to stay alive to enjoy the consequences.’

There were places she didn’t want to go, Jess decided as she thought this through, and Sarah’s death was one of them. There was too much to think of here already. But the child… The little prince…

‘I haven’t seen a child here,’ Jess whispered. ‘Where is he?’

‘Edouard’s a quiet one,’ Henri told her. ‘He’s little more than three years old and he’s not very strong. He’ll be well asleep by now. And he doesn’t know his grandmother enough yet for her to spend much time with him. He’s very, very nervy.’

‘But the Princess Louise wants to keep him?’ She shook her head, bewildered. ‘Why doesn’t she know him very well? I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Henri said grimly, with a sideways glance at the two bowed heads. Raoul was still intent on his mother’s grief and was taking no notice—and Louise seemed to be taking nothing in. ‘But maybe it’s not so uncommon. Marriages splitting; children being raised apart. Raoul was just six years old when his parents’ marriage failed. The old prince was only interested in his heir, so Princess Louise was permitted to take her younger children away with her. But Raoul’s older brother was kept here, and Her Highness was granted no access. It’s been breaking her heart for over thirty years over the son she left behind, and, for the last three years, for the grandson she wasn’t allowed to know. And now the tragedy continues. Prince Jean-Paul grew up wild and unfettered and he died because of it. Now it seems that that Princess Louise’s grandson will grow up in the same sterile environment. The Comte Marcel is just as…devoid of morality as his cousin; his wife’s no better, and they care for nothing but themselves. The whole country knows it. Everyone here wanted Raoul to return. But now he can’t. And our little prince is lost.’

There was surging anger in the elderly man’s voice and he’d forgotten to speak in an undervoice. Unnoticed, the sobs had stopped. Louise had heard.

‘So now you know,’ she told Jess, her voice breaking in despair. ‘Sarah’s death is only a tiny fragment of our tragedy.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Jess whispered and Louise’s face crumpled again.

‘I wish I’d never married into this family,’ she whispered. ‘Despite my children. My wonderful children and now my grandson.’ She broke away from Raoul and rose on feet that were decidedly unsteady. ‘I’ve let them all down and I can’t bear it.’

‘Mama…’ Raoul started but she shook her head.

‘Enough. I need my bed. Jess, I’m so sorry your first dinner up was so badly interrupted. But you’ll have to excuse me.’

‘I’ll take you,’ Raoul told her but once again she shook her head.

‘No. You stay and take care of Jess. Henri, can you escort me upstairs? I think…I may need your arm.’

‘Certainly, Ma’am,’ Henri said.

This was a long-standing friendship, Jess realised. It was not just a mistress-servant relationship. Henri moved forward and took the support of Louise from Raoul. The two silver heads moved together in mutual distress and together they left the room.

Jess was left staring after them.

With Raoul.

There was a long silence. An awful silence. Jess could think of nothing to say.

Finally she caught herself. She had no place here in these people’s troubles. They were in distress. She needed to leave.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll leave first thing in the morning. I’m only adding to your troubles by staying.’

‘You’re not adding to our troubles.’ She saw Raoul almost visibly stiffen, moving on. ‘It’s me who’s sorry,’ he told her. ‘We invite you to dinner, and here our soup’s cold and Henri’s gone. I’ll try and find someone to bring something more.’

She looked at him, appraising. He’d missed out on his dinner, too, she thought. Food. When she was in deep trouble she remembered kindly people forcing her to eat and she knew that sometimes it helped.

‘Could we give the servants a miss?’ she told him. ‘You show me a kitchen and I’ll feed myself.’

‘What?’ He almost sounded astonished.

‘You do have kitchens in palaces?’ she said in an attempt to keep it light. ‘You have toasters and bread and butter? And marmalade? I’m particularly partial to marmalade.’

He stared some more—and then the corners of his mouth twisted in a crooked smile as he realised what she was doing. She was doing her best to convert tragedy to the domestic.

‘I’d imagine so,’ he managed. ‘I’ve never investigated.’

‘You live here and you’ve never investigated the kitchen? You don’t even know if there’s marmalade?’

‘I’ve only been here for two weeks,’ he said, his smile fading. ‘I came to prepare for the wedding. After that I was going straight back to…to work.’

‘With your bride?’

‘Sarah was a bride of convenience,’ he said stiffly, his smile disappearing altogether. ‘It was a business proposition. I had no intention of staying here.’

A business proposition. She stared at his face and there was nothing there to show what he was thinking. Just the cold words: a business proposition. And then he was leaving. Leaving his mother with the child? Leaving his bride?

Running?

‘Were you afraid to stay?’

Why had she said that? It had just slipped out and it was unfair. She knew it as soon as she had said it and she bit her lip in distress. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

‘If you meant was I leaving the care of my nephew to my mother, maybe I was,’ he told her. ‘But my mother wants to be here. I don’t.’

She was puzzled. ‘Even if you’d become regent? Wouldn’t that be a cool thing to be? A real royal?’

‘I intended to take care of the business side of the job from a distance. I’m certainly not interested in the ceremonial duties.’ He shrugged. ‘So no, it wouldn’t be cool. Not that it matters. I’m no longer in line for the job.’

Trouble slammed back with a capital T—and Jess took a deep breath and decided the only option here was to return to what she knew.

Food. Marmalade.

She actually was hungry, and she bet this man was, too.

‘So let’s find the kitchen,’ she suggested. ‘Do you really not know if there’s marmalade?’

‘No, I…’

‘You’ve been in a castle for two weeks and not explored?’

‘Why would I want to explore?’

‘Why would you not?’ she asked in astonishment. ‘A real live palace. A royal residence. I’ll bet you run to six types of marmalade, Your Highness.’ She smiled at him, teasing, trying to elicit his smile again. There was so much going on in this man’s life that light-hearted banter seemed the only way to go. ‘You know, I’ll bet you have a whole team of cooks lined up in the galley, ready with the next eleven courses of our twelve-course feast.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ he told her, ‘but, if you recall, we’ve given the servants the night off. My mother was desperate for a little quiet, and thus we had only Henri. And I’m not Your Highness. I’m Raoul.’

‘So Henri’s been cooking—Raoul.’

It was odd calling him Raoul. There was a barrier between them that she seemed to be stepping over every time she smiled. And she stepped over it a lot more when she called him by his name.

Maybe he was aware of it, too. His tone had become strangely stiff and formal. ‘I gather the cook pre-prepared things but essentially yes,’ he told her, ‘Henri was cooking. Maybe I can contact the cook and ask her to come back.’

‘Why?’ Jess frowned—and then sniffed. And thought about the sequence of events until now. ‘So Henri was cooking. And now he’s taken your mother up to her apartments,’ she said. Still sniffing. ‘Your Highness—sorry—Raoul, I hate to say it but we may have a mess in the kitchen.’

‘How on earth…?’

‘How on earth do I know that?’ She even managed a grin. ‘Pure intelligence,’ she told him and sniffed again. ‘Sherlock Holmes, that’s me. The Hound of the Baskervilles has nothing on my nose. And you know something else? I figure that even if you don’t know where the kitchens are…’

‘I do know that.’

‘Even if you don’t, then I can follow my nose,’ she told him. ‘There’s something burning and I’m betting it’s our dinner. Let’s go save your castle from conflagration. That seems a really essential thing to do and, in times of trouble, essentials are…essential.’




CHAPTER THREE


THEY walked down a long corridor and through four arches. ‘You know, it’s amazing the soup was still warm by the time it reached the table,’ Jess said. ‘No wonder Henri’s thin. The poor man must walk a marathon every day.’

Raoul didn’t smile. He was preoccupied, Jess knew, and all she could do was try and keep it light.

When they finally reached the kitchen there wasn’t a conflagration, but there was Jess’s predicted mess. Henri had obviously just put the steak on when their unwelcome visitor had arrived. There were three plates laid out with a salad on the side, but now the steak was sending up clouds of black smoke and a saucepan of tiny potatoes had boiled dry. The potatoes were turning black from the bottom up, and they smelled disgusting.

‘Ugh.’ Jess looked around her, taking in the vast range built to cook for an army, the huge beams overhead, the massive wooden table and the ancient flagstones on the floor. This kitchen was the size of a normal house. It was fantastic. But right now it was horrid.

Still Raoul seemed bemused. He was thinking of tragedy, Jess thought, whereas right now was the time for thinking of right now. ‘You want to open a few windows and doors, Your Highness?’ she prodded, moving toward the frying-pan with a handful of dishcloths and a martial look. ‘I’ll get rid of this.’

Raoul stared at her for a moment as if he didn’t understand—and then crossed to the sink. ‘Shove it in here,’ he told her.

She raised her brows in incredulity. He really was distracted. ‘You’re proposing we pour cold water on red-hot cast iron?’

‘Well…’

She grinned. ‘What do you do in real life, Your Highness? Don’t tell me. You’re an engineer?’

‘I’m a doctor,’ he told her and she paused.

‘A doctor. A people doctor?’

‘That’s right.’ He frowned, almost as if he was hauling himself back to the here and now. ‘Why did you think I might be an engineer?’

That was easy. ‘On account of your practicality,’ she told him, grinning. ‘My cousin’s an engineer and he has a four-inch-diameter scar on his shoulder because of just the practicality you’re proposing.’

Raoul’s brows snapped down in confusion. ‘Pardon?’

‘Patrick’s brilliant,’ she told him, folding her dishcloths into a pad. She was trying not to stare at the way his eyebrows worked when he was confused. It was sort of…sort of very attractive. ‘One late night when he was still at university, Patrick got hungry—so he did what any brilliant engineer would do, faced with a can of baked beans and hunger. He heated them on his college-room gas heater. Without opening them. When he finally applied the can opener, the can hit his shoulder and darn near passed straight through.’ Her smile was easier now, less forced. ‘And here you are, proposing to stick a red-hot cast-iron pan into cold water. You figure.’ She twisted her cloth around the pan and lifted. Doctor or not, prince or not, there was work to be done. ‘Open the door,’ she ordered. ‘Now.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He gave her a bemused look and opened the door.

The cool air of early evening washed in—and smoke rushed out. Jess carried her pan with care straight past Raoul. He stared at her for a minute as if he couldn’t work her out.

‘Spuds,’ she told him, talking back over her shoulder.

‘Spuds?’

‘You might guess,’ she said kindly. ‘The little black balls with the disgusting smell.’

He caught himself—he even managed a smile—and he followed. With spuds.

After the smoke-filled kitchen, outside was lovely. A warm sea breeze was drifting across the kitchen garden, and the setting sun was leaving a lingering halo of colour over the distant mountains.

Jess paused on the bottom step and Raoul stopped beside her. Holding his pan.

Hesitating.

This was dumb, Jess thought. It was as if there was some sort of constraining force between them. Something she didn’t understand.

Move on, Jess, she told herself firmly. She set her pan down on the stone step and Raoul followed suit. A bunch of hens who looked as if they’d been about to head for the henhouse diverted and gathered round the pots.

Raoul looked at the hens—and then looked back at the pots with indecision.

‘These guys will attack these if we leave them here,’ he said.

‘I guess that’s fine,’ Jess told him. ‘Chooks generally clean off everything edible.’

‘Chooks?

‘Australian for hens.’ She put on her broadest Australian drawl. ‘Chook, chook, chook… It’s a much better descriptor than hen, d’ya reckon?’

‘Maybe,’ he said faintly, sounding stunned. ‘Um, the…chooks…aren’t going to do so much cleaning as you’d notice. There’s not a lot there that’s edible.’

‘No.’ She smiled down at the chickens and said, ‘Sorry, guys. I’ll give you some toast in a minute to make up for it.’

‘We should put them to soak,’ Raoul said doubtfully and she sighed and put her hands on her hips.

‘Typical male. Of course we should put them to soak. When they’re cool. But…did you say Marcel was taking control of this castle in five days?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then I suggest we leave them to soak for, ooh, I’d say about five days,’ she said, and she grinned.

He stared at her in something akin to amazement—and then the smile returned.

It was like the sun coming out. It was a killer smile. It made Jess stare up at him and feel something inside twist.

She did not want something inside her to twist.

There was a tentative cluck and a chicken stepped forward toward the pan. It was enough to divert her. Especially as she badly needed to be diverted.

‘Don’t do it, chook,’ she told the bird. ‘It’s really hot.’ She turned to Raoul. ‘You say you’re a doctor. Have you ever treated chook burns?’

‘Um…no.’

‘Chooks are pretty dumb,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘And…you’re saying that as of Monday these pans are legally in Marcel’s control?’

‘For the next eighteen years,’ he said. ‘Until Edouard turns twenty-one.’

‘Hmm. And it’s my guess he won’t be into counting pots and pans. There’s nothing for it, then.’ Her smile widened. ‘Let’s do it.’

She wiped her hands on her skirt in the gesture of a woman preparing for hard work. ‘Stand back, all. In the interest of chook health there’s nothing else to do.’ She walked across to a hose attached to the tap by the back door.

Raoul watched her as if she was something that had appeared on a magic carpet.

‘Stand back,’ she told him again. ‘And whoosh those chooks away.’

‘Whoosh?’ he asked faintly and her grin deepened.

‘Like you did to Marcel,’ she told him. ‘Only don’t whoosh quite so hard.’

There was that smile again. Faint. Just.

She really liked it. They grinned at each other like fools. Then he whooshed the chooks.

She turned on the hose.

It was a very satisfying moment. The jet of cold water, seemingly coming straight from the distant snow-capped mountains, hit the pan with a really satisfactory hiss. The pan erupted in a cloud of steam—and then there was a solid crack as the cast-iron pan split clean in two.

‘Whoops,’ Jess said and tried to look contrite. Not very successfully.

Raoul was still looking at her as if she might sprout antennae. ‘Whoops?’

‘You want to do the spud pan?’ she demanded, proffering the hose, and he appeared to collect himself.

‘Absolutely,’ he told her. He took the hose from her grasp—and pointed.

Crack.

Another pot less for Edouard to inherit.

‘How truly satisfying,’ Jess said and rubbed her hands on her skirt again—job well done. ‘You reckon we could find some more pans to heat up?’

‘You’re not a designer. You’re a demolition expert,’ he said on a note of discovery.

‘Yep.’ She gazed round, considering. ‘This is fun. What else can we do here? If Marcel is going to own all this then maybe we could do some real damage.’

‘Not fair,’ Raoul said, though there was a note at the back of his voice that said he wouldn’t mind swinging an axe.

‘OK.’ She let her demolition work go with reluctance and moved on. ‘If we can’t demolish, let’s eat. But what?’ she demanded, returning to the kitchen with purpose. She gazed down at the plates of salad. Delicate. Mouthwatering. Small. ‘This won’t cut it. I’m hungry.’

‘I thought you were an invalid.’

‘Invalids need feeding,’ she told him. ‘Besides, I’m better. As of now. I’m leaving in the morning.’ Then as the lightness faded from his face she regrouped. ‘But first, food. Bread. Now. Search.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She turned her back on him—his look of bemusement was starting to disconcert her—and hauled open the huge refrigerator. That was enough to deflect her thoughts from the man behind her. Or almost. This wasn’t a fridge, it was a delicatessen. ‘There are six types of cheese in here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Wow!’

‘You’re in Alp’Azuri,’ he said, still obviously bemused. ‘Cheese-making is our speciality.’

‘Then the menu is toasted cheese sandwiches,’ she declared. ‘Followed—I trust—by toast and marmalade. Have you found the marmalade yet?’

‘No, I—’

‘Then search faster,’ she told him with exaggerated patience. ‘What sort of prince are you, after all?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said faintly. ‘I have no idea at all.’



It was a really strange meal. They made slabs of cheese sandwiches. They fried them until they were crispy gold, and then they sat at the vast kitchen table and ate them in companionable silence. Raoul continued to be bemused and Jess left him to it. This man had his problems. All she could do was feed him and keep her questions to herself.

Henri appeared just as they finished their second round of sandwiches. He’d come to search for something for Louise to eat. Raoul poured him a glass of wine and then he and Jess combined forces to cook him a mound of sandwiches. They then sent Henri off with another bottle of wine and the toasted sandwiches for Louise and himself to eat in the privacy of her apartments.

‘I can’t eat with her,’ Henri told them but Raoul shook his head. Firmly.

‘You’re the only one she’ll eat with, Henri. You know that. Though whether she’ll eat door-stop sandwiches…’

‘I suspect she’ll love them,’ Henri said, looking down at his inelegant pile with a faint smile. ‘Ever since we came back here she’s been served nothing but five-star cuisine and it gets tiring. I’ll tell her that her son made them for her, shall I?’

‘She’ll never believe you,’ Raoul told him. ‘But if it’ll make her eat them…’

‘Certainly tell her that her son made them,’ Jess said promptly. ‘And tell her that Prince Raoul is also turning out to be a whiz in the washing-up department. There’s a cast-iron pot outside, cracked from side to side, with his name on it.’

‘Hey, Jess cracked one, too,’ Raoul said and they actually giggled in unison—and Henri looked at the pair of them as if they’d taken leave of their senses. But like Raoul, he seemed to have too much on his mind to comment. He left them with his sandwiches and his wine and a bemused smile.

Bemusement seemed to be the order of the day.

‘Now for toast and marmalade for us,’ Jess said as he left and Raoul looked at her in astonishment.

‘I thought you were joking. Where are you putting this?’

‘I’m making up for lost time,’ she said and then gave a rueful smile. ‘Like your mother, I’ve been off my food for a bit. Maybe I’ll be off my food again tomorrow but for tonight there’s toast and marmalade and I refuse to worry.’

He gave her a strange look but asked no questions. They made and ate toast and marmalade. Jess made a couple of extra slices and went out to feed some to the hens, who were standing mournfully around the remains of the pots. They accepted her offering with gratitude and then clucked off to the henhouse.

Raoul watched her all the time, as if stunned.

Did she have two heads? she wondered. She was starting to be really self-conscious here.

What next? she asked herself. What next, besides ignoring the strange looks Raoul was giving her?

With the hens safely locked up for the night, she returned inside and crossed to the sink.

‘The servants will cope with the mess in the morning,’ Raoul told her but she was already running the water.

‘You might be a prince but I’m not. No servant’s going to clean up my mess.’

‘But…’

‘And you’ve been saying that you’re not really a prince,’ she told him. She lifted a tea towel and tossed it at him. ‘Prove it.’

So she washed and he wiped, once more in silence, and then she drew breath and decided the night had to end.

‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘This was a great…time out.’

‘Time out from what, Jess?’ he asked softly, laying down his tea towel and turning to give her his undivided attention.

She caught herself.

‘I mean, time out for you,’ she tried. ‘Time out from worrying.’

‘You were just as in need of time out as I was,’ he told her. Then, at her look of confusion, he took her hands in his, lifting them to stare down at her fingers. ‘You’re what, thirty?’

‘Hey! No!’ Not quite.

‘Close guess?’ He smiled.

Close? He was too close. He shouldn’t smile when he was this close. It was very disconcerting.

What had he asked? It was taking her a lot of trouble to collect enough breath to answer.

‘Twenty-nine, if you don’t mind,’ she managed.

‘Twenty-nine. You run a hugely successful design business in Australia. Yet you come here alone, and when you’re injured you contact no one and you want no one contacted. No husband?’

‘No, I…’

‘Parents?’

‘Dead.’

‘Brothers? Sisters?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re alone in the world.’

‘Do you mind?’ she said, startled. ‘I’m an independent career woman. If we’re going to get personal, there are questions I’d like to ask you, too.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, you’re how old?’

‘Thirty-five, but—’

‘So why aren’t you married? Are you gay?’

‘No!’ The eyes creased into almost laughter.

‘Then—’

‘I’m not into marriage,’ he told her. ‘My parents’ marriage was foul and I remember enough of it to steer well clear.’

‘Until now. Until Sarah. Do you really think a marriage of convenience would have worked?’

‘Of course it would have worked. Why not?’

‘And if you met the girl of your dreams?’

‘Sarah wouldn’t have minded. She probably wouldn’t have even known. We’d have done the right thing in public—at least, that was the agreement—but if I met a woman I was attracted to then we’d have a passionate affair until the dream faded.’

She hesitated, strangely chilled. ‘Is that right?’ she said slowly. ‘Until the dream faded. Do dreams always fade?’

‘Of course they do,’ he told her, almost harshly, and there was that in his face that told her it wasn’t just his parents’ failed marriage he was basing his life choices on.

‘Bad love affair, huh?’ she said sympathetically. ‘Like me, you dreamed the wrong dream.’

‘Hell, Jess…’

‘I know. It’s none of my business.’ She released his hand from hers—almost reluctantly—and faced him square on. She was going nowhere probing further, and she had no right. ‘Raoul, I wish you all the best,’ she told him. ‘I’m really sorry for your troubles, but…it’s time I got back to my life and butted out of yours. Thank you for tonight. Thank you for my time out. But I’m going to bed now and I’ll leave at first light.’

‘Your car’s not ready.’

‘I’ll hire one in the town,’ she told him, and smiled. ‘You needn’t worry. One thing about being successful is that I’m not short of money.’ She hesitated. She shouldn’t ask more but she really wanted to know. ‘And you…you’ll go back to Paris?’

‘For a while,’ he told her. ‘Until my mother’s settled. I’ll try and organise access for her to Edouard. But after that, I’ll go back to Africa.’

‘Africa?’ She sounded astounded. Maybe because she was astounded. ‘What are you doing in Africa?’

‘I’m a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been working in Somalia for the past three years.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Why should I kid you?’

No reason. No reason at all. Except it required just a bit of readjusting.

‘So you’d given up your medicine,’ she said slowly, ‘to be a prince.’

‘If you think I wanted to…’ There was a sudden surge of anger, bitten back fast. He hesitated, striving for a reasonable answer to a question he clearly thought was unreasonable. Or a demand on him he clearly thought was unreasonable.

‘Jess, this country has been known as one of the most corrupt places in Europe,’ he told her, his voice calm again. Logical. But still she could hear the suppressed anger behind the words. ‘When Jean-Paul died I had a visit from no less than three heads of state of neighbouring countries. The ordinary citizens here have been bled dry. They’ve been taxed to the hilt and given nothing in return, so much so that there’s the threat of real revolt. The country has become a hotbed of illicit activity with corruption undermining neighbouring stability as well as ours. Change has to occur and it can only change through the constitution—through the ruling prince or regent. And Marcel is appalling. Which was why I was persuaded to marry Sarah and try and do some good. The idea was that I’d come, I’d accept the guardianship of my nephew and leave him with my mother, I’d set in place the changes that have to happen if this country’s citizens are not to be exploited—and then I’d leave again.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t think I want to be a prince?’

‘Most people would jump at the chance.’

‘I’m not most people,’ he said grimly. ‘Who was it said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I watched my father and my brother and I want no part of it.’

‘Médecins Sans Frontières is hardly a life career,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Doctors Without Borders… They go to the most desperately needy places in the world. I’ve heard that most people burn out after one or two years. You’ve been doing it for three?’

‘It’s not long enough. I’m hardly burned out.’

‘Maybe you could stay here and work on the Alp’Azuri medical infrastructure,’ she said, and for a fraction of a moment she let her guard slip. ‘It’s hardly on a par with most western countries. In truth, it’s appalling.’

And he got it. He heard the pain of someone speaking from personal experience. She saw the recognition in his eyes. Recognition of tragedy.

‘There is that about you,’ he said softly, on a note of discovery. ‘You’re running.’

‘I am not running,’ she snapped, angry with herself for revealing more than she wanted. ‘Any more than you, practising medicine in Somalia when your people need you here.’

‘This is not my country. These are not my people.’

‘No?’

She took a deep breath. What was she doing? she thought suddenly. What drove this man was nothing to do with her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last while he stared at her with anger showing clearly on his face. ‘OK. This is not your country and you’ll be leaving it almost immediately.’ She hesitated, trying to find some safer ground. Her perceptions were swinging wildly. This man was a prince. This man was a doctor who fought for lives in third-world countries.

He’d make a wonderful doctor, she thought suddenly and glanced down at his hands. Big, caring, skilled…

Move on, she told herself fiercely. Once again there was that twisting inside that she scarcely understood. She had to find some safe ground.

‘And your mother?’ she managed. ‘What will she do?’

He smiled, albeit faintly. ‘My mother has an apartment on the Left Bank. And before you accuse me of deserting her as well as my country, she has Henri.’ He saw her look of surprise and explained. ‘Henri left the palace when my mother left my father thirty years ago. He’s been with my mother ever since, her loyal and devoted servant. Where she goes, Henri goes.’





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