Princess Of Convenience

CHAPTER FIVE

WHAT followed was a truly excellent hour.

Jess’s fingers were true weaver’s fingers. Edouard chose his yarns: red, gold, a deep blue and a soft lemon that made her smile. She attached the threads, she considered for a little, and then she set to work. The shuttles flew in her hands, back, forth, pressing each thread into place in her chosen pattern while the boys looked on in wonder.

Edouard watched for a few minutes and after a bit she asked him if he’d like to place the shuttles for her. To her surprise his fingers were nimble and sure, and he seemed to sense the pattern she was working without being told. She’d want a thread and his fingers were already reaching for the right shuttle.

This little boy was intelligent and he was fascinated. As was Raoul. She had his undivided attention. It made her feel strange, but the shimmer of joy was still with her. The grey that had been with her since Dom’s death was held at bay by their absorption.

She worked fast, and in half an hour there was a good half a yard of cloth; enough for any bear’s trousers.

‘Now what?’ Raoul said faintly as she drew the cloth from her frame and gazed at it, considering. ‘It’s beautiful. We should frame it.’

‘Frame it? When it can be useful?’ That was what she’d been doing with Sebastian himself, she thought, her joy fading a little. She’d been shoving the little bear down the bottom of her suitcase. Unable to cope with holding him, unable to look at him but also unable to let go. Holding him in store for when he could be useful.

Like now.

‘What is it, Jess?’ Raoul asked, and she hauled herself out of her introspection and made herself focus.

‘Nothing,’ she said abruptly, reaching for scissors. ‘There’ll be no more framing. This might be a pretty piece of cloth but Sebastian needs trousers.’

It was a very rough pair of trousers. She had no sewing machine and Edouard was starting to droop, but she badly wanted the trousers to be finished tonight. So she cut a front and a back and sewed them together swiftly with a neat, fast backstitch, using a rough blanket stitch to stop fraying. She turned the band at the waist, plaited the remainder of the skeins and threaded the resulting cord through the band. She deliberately released threads at the hems to give the trousers a Robinson Crusoe look, and Sebastian’s trousers were complete.

‘There.’ She held them up for inspection. ‘What do you think?’

They were all still sitting on the floor. Edouard was back on Raoul’s lap-whoops-knee. He was fighting weariness but there was no way he’d sleep while his Sebastian was being clothed.

Jess held out the trousers and he accepted them as a man might accept a piece of priceless artwork. He looked doubtfully up at Raoul. Raoul smiled. He took a deep breath, and then he started pulling the trousers onto his bear.

Two heads, one dark, one fair, bent over the teddy while Jess looked on and fought back another stupid urge to cry.

‘They fit,’ Edouard said in a voice of wonder and Raoul smiled down at the teddy and touched Sebastian’s nose as Edouard himself had done.

‘How could you doubt they would fit?’ he demanded of his nephew. ‘We have a master weaver and seamstress in our midst. A wonder weaver. Our Jess.’

Our Jess. Damn, there were the tears again.

She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.

‘Can I take him to bed?’ Edouard asked, and there was a sudden quaver in his voice. Bed. He’d had time out, his voice said. Now he had to face his too-big bed again-and his jungle.

And it was out before she could help herself. ‘Would you like to sleep here?’

What was she doing? How could she have asked it? She felt the colour drain from her face as she said the words, and Raoul’s eyes snapped down in confusion.

‘In your bed?’ Edouard whispered, and it was too late to back out.

‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘Just for tonight.’

Edouard looked through to Jess’s big bedroom. The light was off but there a fire was lit in there as well, making the room look incredibly appealing. It seemed a million miles from his horrible nursery.

‘Yes, please,’ Edouard whispered-and then there was nothing to do but to watch as Raoul prepared his little nephew for bed.

She stared into the flames while he carried him through to the bathroom. She stared at some more flames while he settled him into Jess’s bed. He tucked Edouard between the sheets-and tucked Sebastian-Bear between the sheets as well.

The flames were riveting. She wouldn’t watch-she couldn’t-as Raoul kissed his nephew goodnight and then stroked his fair curls until the wide eyes drooped and he drifted into sleep.

When Raoul finally turned away, Jess was still crouched on the floor, surrounded by the remains of her weaving and her trouser-making. She was staring at her flames as if she was trying to remember every flicker.

She didn’t say a word. She couldn’t.

Finally Raoul sank into the floor beside her, as if he’d come to some major decision.

‘I think it’s time you told me, Jess,’ he said softly.

‘Told me?’

‘Start with Sebastian-Bear,’ he said gently, and he lifted her hand. ‘Sebastian belonged to you. Now he belongs to Edouard. But there was someone in the middle. Your child? Tell me who, Jess.’

‘Dominic.’

How could it hurt to say the word? she thought. It was a magical little name. She’d always loved it. She loved it still.

‘Dominic was your son?’ he asked, still in the soft, half-whisper that the firelight seemed to encourage. He’d flicked down the power of the overhead light as he’d returned to her, so the light was kind; a soft dusk of flickering firelight that hid the distress on her face. Or she hoped it hid the distress. He was acute, this man. He saw…

‘Dominic was my son,’ she whispered. ‘He died three months ago.’

‘How old?’

‘He was four.’ Four years, two days. He’d celebrated his fourth birthday.

Just.

‘How did he die?’

‘Leukaemia,’ Jess told him, her voice growing mechanical now. Dull. ‘He was ill for almost two years. I fought so hard, and so did he. He had every treatment possible. I tried everything.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Tragedies happen,’ she said wearily. ‘You move on.’

‘Do you?’

Silence. The fire crackled and hissed, absorbing pain.

‘You tried so hard,’ Raoul said at last, speaking slowly, as if absorbing every thought. ‘And Dominic fought. You don’t mention Dominic’s father.’

‘Warren didn’t like illness.’ This was easier, she thought thankfully. Talking about Warren was like talking about…nothing. ‘He left us a month after Dominic was diagnosed. By the time Dominic died, Warren had a new wife and a baby daughter. He didn’t even come to the funeral.’

Raoul’s face stilled, appalled. ‘Tough,’ he whispered and she shook her head.

‘Warren wasn’t tough,’ she told him. ‘He was weak. Not like his son. Dominic was just the bravest…’

She stopped. There was a long pause, broken only by the sound of the fire.

‘So you’ve come here to try and recuperate,’ he said at last, and she flinched.

‘You don’t recuperate from a child’s death,’ she whispered, and she couldn’t stop the sudden flash of anger. ‘But that’s what they all said. You go overseas and forget, they told me. Start again. How can I start again? Why would I want to?’

‘Like me,’ he said softly and her eyes flew to his. ‘Only harder.’

‘What…what do you mean?’

‘I believed them,’ he told her, his voice gentling. ‘Or maybe, like you, they just wore me down by repeating their mantra and I hoped like hell they were right.’

She paused. The fire died down a little. It was crazily intimate; crazily close. It was as if the world had stopped, paused, giving them a tiny cocoon of unreality. Space in the face of shared tragedy.

‘You’ve lost someone, too?’ she whispered, though she already knew the answer.

‘My twin. My sister. Lisle.’

His twin sister. She stared at his face and she saw the bleakness of loss.

‘How long ago?’

‘Three years.’ He shrugged. ‘I know. I should be over it.’

‘Of course you shouldn’t be over it,’ she snapped. She stared some more into his strained face. ‘I guessed it,’ she said, savagely, angry at herself for not letting the thought surface before. ‘I knew.’

‘How?’

‘It’s a look,’ she told him. ‘I saw it in the hospital. I saw it in the faces of those who knew there was no longer hope. It’s an emptiness, a hole. You and your mother… Jean-Paul’s death has hurt, but it’s also brought back Lisle’s death.’

‘I don’t have an emptiness,’ he said but she shook her head.

‘No? Then why Médecins Sans Frontières?’

‘I just… It seemed the right thing to do, to be a doctor.’ He hesitated but the firelight was enough to encourage him to go on. It was like the confessional, Jess thought. This night there were no secrets. ‘Lisle was deprived of oxygen during birth,’ he told her. ‘She had cerebral palsy. She was so bright, so damned intelligent, and her body was a prison.’

He paused for a moment and she thought he’d stop. But she didn’t speak. She simply waited.

‘That’s why my mother left my father,’ he told her. ‘As soon as my father realised Lisle would be disabled, he demanded she be placed in an institution. Of course, my mother refused. We had servants here to help with Lisle’s physical needs, and Lisle was as intelligent as any of us. She loved us. To do anything but keep her as an integral part of our family seemed unthinkable. But physical disability horrified my father and he insisted. Mama fought him-she held out for six long years. But then it was time for schooling, and there were to be no tutors here. My father refused to have them. And he started being cruel to Lisle. So Mama had a choice and it was a hellish one. Place Lisle into an institution, or walk away from the palace. There was no way my father would release his grip on his heir so that also meant walking away from my brother.’

‘Oh, no. Oh, Raoul.’

‘It broke her heart,’ Raoul said bitterly. ‘Jean-Paul was twelve. She’d hoped she could maintain access-she’d hoped that Jean-Paul himself could understand her decision, but of course he couldn’t. He hated her for leaving. And my father… I think my father just dismissed her. She was forgotten the moment she walked out of the palace and she was never permitted back.’

To make a choice between her children… Jess’s heart recoiled in horror. ‘I can’t imagine how she can have managed.’

‘Oh, she managed,’ Raoul said and a hint of a remembering smile played across his lips as he left the tragedy of his childhood and moved on. ‘She took Lisle and me to Paris. She raised us with love, and she tried not to let the tragedy of leaving her eldest child spoil our childhood. No one answered our phone calls to the palace but we wrote to Jean-Paul every week. Every one of us did. But he never answered. Mama thought for a long while that my father was keeping the letters from him, but no. The servants confirmed for us…Jean-Paul, like my father, had simply moved on.’

‘And Lisle?’ Jess asked, and his face softened. Pleasure returning.

‘Lisle ended up with a first-class university degree,’ he told her. ‘She loved life. She had friends, she had the best sense of humour… We were so proud of her. She was a truly wonderful person.’

‘But she died.’

The smile faded. ‘In the end her body defeated her,’ he said softly. ‘She suffered infection after infection and finally we couldn’t save her.’

He fell silent, and she saw the pain etched across his face. There was a part of her-a really big part of her-that wanted to reach out and touch him. No. But it took an almost superhuman effort to keep her hands to herself.

‘As I said, that was three years ago,’ he continued and maybe he didn’t sense what she was thinking. He was staring into the firelight-not at her. ‘I was already a practising doctor and I thought, after watching the courage with which Lisle faced life, that the least I could do was try to help others. And, of course, everyone said I should get away and forget.’

‘Hence Médecins Sans Frontières?’

‘Mm.’

‘Hence the scar?’ she asked, wanting suddenly to reach out-to trace its course. She did no such thing.

‘Tribesmen involved in a who-gets-the-doctor-first dispute,’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘I tried to referee and then there were three of us needing attention.’

She couldn’t touch it. She musn’t.

‘And now you’re back here,’ she said softly, gripping her hands firmly into place; staring at the firelight and not looking at him. ‘You’re trying to save your country. And your mother is facing losing again. Losing her grandson. Walking away.’

‘It’s damnable,’ he told her. He glanced through the door to the bed, where Edouard lay clutching his Sebastian in sleep. ‘He’s so…desperate. You know, in the weeks we’ve been here my mother has given him toys but he’s not looked at anything. Tonight has been magic.’ He hesitated, and she saw him form the question she knew had to come. ‘Sebastian is Dominic’s teddy?’

‘He’s Edouard’s teddy,’ she told him, her voice firming.

‘But…’

‘Edouard needs him now.’ She was speaking more firmly than she felt, but she knew this was right. ‘We move on, Raoul. We both need to move on. We need to remember Lisle and Dominic-but we also need to get on with our lives.’

‘Easier to say than do.’

‘It’s not so hard. You just have to be definite. You just have to remember toast and marmalade makes you feel good.’

‘And firelight,’ he told her. ‘And making trousers for teddies.’

‘That too,’ she told him. She stared at him then, straight at him. There was such trouble in his face, she thought. She was coping with the loss of her child, but she wasn’t alone in her grief. This man was not only coping with the death of his twin and the more recent death of his brother, but he was also facing his mother’s sorrow. And in the next room, in her bed, was a little boy who would be raised alone because this man had fought and lost.

‘Why did you never marry?’ she asked for the second time, gently into the night. ‘Until now?’

It was a presumptuous question but it seemed tonight that nothing was presumptuous. For this night, for this time, there were no barriers.

‘I hardly thought of it,’ he told her. ‘I guess…Lisle’s health was so precarious and she needed so much help that there never seemed time to get heavily involved outside our family circle.’

He smiled then. It was a mere echo of the smile she loved so much but it was a smile for all that. ‘But I haven’t exactly been puritanical,’ he told her. ‘If you think I’ve led a life of pure hard work and no fun…’

‘Women, eh?’ she said, following the lead he was giving with his smile, and magically, wonderfully, he grinned. ‘Lots of women?’

‘A thousand at least,’ he told her, and she smiled straight back at him.

‘Excellent.’ She hesitated. ‘So…you’ve had a thousand-odd women but when you needed to marry there was only Sarah to choose? A relative who-from my point of view anyway-maybe didn’t seem the wisest choice.’

‘She seemed a good choice,’ he told her, and his voice was suddenly stiff again. Defensive. ‘I didn’t want to be held down.’

‘Right,’ she said drily. ‘Well, she’s surely not holding you down. And now what? If Sarah was a business proposition, can you not make another? Can’t you find another good choice by Monday? Another bride who’ll not keep you from your thousand other women?’

‘I was joking.’

‘I know you were joking,’ she told him. ‘But there must be someone. Maybe you could advertise.’

‘Oh, sure,’ he said, self-mockingly. ‘I should just put a notice up on the main palace gate. Wanted, one princess.’

‘Why not? You’d be swamped.’

‘By women who’d expect something. By a woman I didn’t know, who could lead to all sorts of complications. It’s impossible. The woman I want would have to marry and then step away. Sarah was doing it for money and prestige, but she knew enough of the rules of the monarchy to toe the line. Or I thought she did. And she didn’t mind the goldfish bowl she was stepping into. She’d have enjoyed the attention of the Press. Anyone else it’d swamp.’

Silence. More silence.

The fire crackled and Jess suddenly felt dizzy. She put a hand down onto the thick Persian rug she was kneeling on-as if she needed to steady herself.

She did need to steady herself.

Something was forming in the back of her mind. Something so preposterous it was taking her breath away.

Could she?

How could she not?

‘Unless…unless your bride didn’t live here,’ she said, softly, sounding the idea out in her head as the idea formed. ‘Unless she lived somewhere like…Australia? There’d be no media if your bride packed and left for Australia the moment the ceremony was ended.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence. Raoul’s face stilled.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked at last, but he knew. Of course he knew, and it was too late to back out now.

And she didn’t want to back out. She glanced through to the bedroom. This wasn’t a big thing, she thought. She could do this. She had her life and she could get on with it regardless. A mere marriage would make no difference to her.

And it was a positive thing to do. A definite action. It was like making toast and marmalade, but the slivers of lightness of this action wouldn’t just be for her. By her actions Edouard could be made safe.

‘I’m saying that your answer could be right here,’ she said softly. ‘I’m saying I’ll marry you.’

‘You…’

‘On terms,’ she said hurriedly. ‘On very definite terms.’

On terms.

Raoul stared at the girl beside him. She was staring into the flames, as if the thing she’d just said was an aside; of no importance.

It was as if she’d said, If you’d like, I’ll make you a cup of tea, instead of, If you’d like, I’ll marry you.

‘What are you saying?’ he asked at last and she even smiled.

‘Hey, it’s no big deal. You’re obviously desperate for a wife. I’ve ditched my spineless husband, who I married when I was too young to know better, and I’m available.’ Something occurred to her then, and her brow wrinkled into a furrow. She looked absurdly young, he thought. She was dressed for dinner, her clothes were lovely, but her freckles and her snub nose and her close-cropped curls still made her seem about seventeen. Only she wasn’t seventeen. There was a depth of world knowledge behind her eyes that more than matched his own. While he’d been fighting for his sister’s life, and for unknown lives in Somalia, she’d been fighting for the life of her tiny son, and who was to say which had taken the worst toll?

‘Um… But I’ve suddenly thought,’ she said and she did turn and look at him then, ‘there’s no rule that you marry another princess or someone royal, is there?’

‘No, but…’

Her brow wrinkled further. ‘Or a virgin? That’d be a worry.’

‘Not a virgin,’ he told her and the relief on her face made him smile. ‘I had planned to marry Sarah. She’d been married before.’

‘There you go, then,’ she said as if all problems were solved. ‘Job’s done.’

‘But you don’t want to marry me,’ he managed and she raised her brows in mock-surprise.

‘You don’t think so? I don’t see why not. You’re very handsome.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

She giggled. It was an amazing sound, he thought. When had he last heard a woman giggle?

‘Close your mouth,’ she said kindly. ‘Stop looking hornswoggled.’

‘Hornswoggled?’

‘I’m not sure of the translation,’ she told him. ‘Maybe it’s “you could have knocked me over with a porrywiggle”.’

‘I don’t think I even want to go there,’ he said faintly. ‘Jess, have you any idea what you’re offering?’

‘Yes-and it’s a really serious offer,’ she told him, and coloured. ‘I know it’s unusual-Australian dress designer proposes to Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri-but then the situation is unusual.’

‘But…’

‘But nothing. You know I don’t want anything of you,’ she told him, talking hurriedly before he could speak. As though she was fearful he was reaching all the wrong conclusions. ‘I accept that you can’t advertise for a bride because you might get crazy people and there’s no time to vet them, and of course there’s no time to vet me. You’d have to take me at my word. I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want money-my business is going very nicely, thank you-and I don’t want fame. My proposition is that I’ll marry you, I’ll see Edouard safe and then I’ll disappear back to Australia. I’ll be a one-day wonder for the media. Back home my staff can protect me from intrusion, and you can get on with ruling this country as it ought to be ruled.’

She hesitated again and then said, more than a little self-consciously, ‘You know, I do understand your qualms. But you needn’t have them. As I don’t have qualms about you. I haven’t known you for long, but I’ve known you for long enough to accept that you’d make a fairer ruler of this country than Marcel ever would. And…’ she glanced through into the bedroom ‘…you’d make a far nicer guardian for Edouard.’

‘Jess…’ He could hardly think of how to respond, but once again she stopped him.

‘It could work,’ she said, urgently now. ‘Don’t knock me back without thinking about it. I know the last thing you want is an unroyal bride-what would they call me, a commoner?-but it could work.’

It could.

His mind shifted into overdrive. Marry Jess.

He could marry Jess, quietly, swiftly. He could retain rights over this realm.

He’d never wanted this. From the time his mother had taken him and Lisle away from this palace when he was aged six, he hadn’t looked back. There’d been so much hurt. Even as he grew older he’d refused to think of himself as royal. He’d thrown himself into his medical career and he loved it.

But now…the last few weeks had shown what desperate straits this little country was in. Until Jean-Paul’s death he’d blocked it out-he hadn’t wanted to know what he could do nothing about. But the mess the country was in was now obvious even to outsiders and the moment he’d arrived here it threatened to overwhelm him. On the surface the country was a wonderful little tourist mecca, but scratch the surface and there was grinding poverty on every level.

He could install a decent government, he thought. This was what he’d planned when he’d talked Sarah into marriage. He could set up a decent infrastructure, install a government that would work, and then he could return again to the medicine and the obscurity that he…

‘You see, there’s my condition,’ she said, apologetically, as though she was reading his thoughts, and to his amazement it seemed she had been. ‘I’m not prepared to let you do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Dump it on your mother.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That’s what you planned,’ she said, and as well as apologetic she sounded defensive. ‘I know you’ll organise a better government here and things will be better for the country. But your mother’s not strong enough to cope with a little boy and you know it.’

‘She’ll have servants,’ he said, stunned, and Jess winced.

‘Edouard doesn’t need servants. He needs you.’

‘I don’t do family.’

‘Of course you do,’ she told him, as though he was being thick. ‘Oh, I know, you had to walk away from your father and your brother when you were six and that must have been appalling. And then you lost Lisle, which broke your heart. But right over there…’ She motioned to her bed. ‘Over there you have Edouard. He’s your family, whether you want it or not. He doesn’t want servants. He doesn’t want designer nurseries or money or anything you can organise from a distance while you’re off saving the world in Somalia. There’s a world here to save. I hate to say this, Your Highness. It’s absolutely none of my business, but your country needs you, your mother needs you, your nephew needs you, and your place while Edouard is growing up is right here.’

There was a long silence. A stunned silence. He stared at this chit of a girl and she stared right back. Not flinching. She’d said what she’d wanted to say, she’d made her offer and now it was up to him.

‘But what would I do?’ he asked blankly and that smile broke out again, impudent and teasing. Her toast and marmalade smile.

‘You could sit on a throne and look regal.’

‘I’d look pretty silly,’ he told her and suddenly that tension zoomed back again. That link. She’d smiled, he’d smiled back and suddenly…

Wham. It was enough to knock the air right out of him. He didn’t have the faintest idea of why he felt like this, or even how he actually felt-all he knew was that he had to get to the other side of it fast. His world was being tilted and he’d spent his life desperately trying to keep his world right way up. After Lisle’s death he’d sworn never to get that emotionally involved again-he’d never give anything or anyone the power to hurt him so much-but now…

Hell, what was he thinking? This was a marriage proposal she was making. Not a…

This was a marriage proposal!

He was just slightly out of his depth here. By about a mile.

‘What would I do?’ he asked again and if he sounded dumb that was because dumb was how he was feeling. Really, really dumb. What had she said? Knocked right over by a porrywiggle.

‘For a start you’d fix your hospitals,’ she told him, and lightness had suddenly faded. Her face was shadowed again. ‘You know, we were here when Dominic got sick.’

‘Here?’

‘Warren and I were having a rocky patch,’ she told him, and then gave a rueful smile. ‘Actually our marriage was one long rocky patch. But my designs were getting known and I’d heard about the Alp’Azuri weavers and the yarns available here. I’d also heard the place was lovely. So Warren and I brought Dominic here for a holiday. But on the flight over I noticed Dom was bruising in a way we couldn’t explain. By the time we’d been here for two days he was ill. And your hospitals… Have you spent any time at all in your hospitals?’

‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘I’ve been back in the country for two weeks.’

‘You’ve truly never been back since you left as a child?’

‘My father wanted my sister dead,’ he said, and after all this time it was still raw and painful to say it. ‘And Jean-Paul never forgave my mother for taking Lisle and me to Paris. She tried desperately to explain. After my father died she tried to see him but he refused. And his hostility extended to me. So I figured it was a closed book. I haven’t been back.’

‘So it’s your country-your responsibility-yet you don’t know it.’

‘That’s right.’

She took a deep breath. ‘OK. Then know this. Your hospitals are little better than third-world medical centres. They’re a disgrace. You need to get in there and sort them out.’

He stared. ‘You’re very direct.’

‘The word is bossy,’ she said. ‘But if I’m to make a supreme sacrifice…’

‘A supreme sacrifice?’

Once again that cheeky grin. The grin that set him back. That made him feel…that made him feel like he didn’t know how he felt.

‘Marrying you,’ she told him. ‘Throwing myself away on a mere prince regent.’

Lightness. Maybe he should follow her lead. Maybe humour was the only way to cope with this. ‘You figure you should hang out for the crown prince? For Edouard? For the real thing?’

‘Maybe I should, but he might not want to marry me when he reaches maturity,’ she conceded, smiling. ‘My bloom of fabulous beauty may have faded a little by then. They tell me it happens. Bloom fading. It’s caused by cabbage wilt or something.’

‘Cabbage wilt?’ He was so out of his depth that he thought he was drowning.

‘It happens to all the best commoners. And sooner than you think,’ she added darkly. ‘So you’ll be doing me a favour. You’ll marry me and save me from the consequences of cabbage wilt.’

Deep breath. Levity wasn’t going to work, he decided. She might be joking but he couldn’t. She had to see how serious this was. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?’ he demanded.

‘Sure I do. I’m suggesting marriage.’

Marriage. This was what his Uncle Lionel had suggested the day of Sarah’s funeral, he thought, still stunned. ‘Find someone else to marry-fast,’ Lionel had said. But even Lionel had conceded the idea was fraught with peril. And now an unknown girl was calmly proposing.

Not an unknown girl. Jess.

‘Only if you stay here,’ she said and he met her gaze head-on. Their eyes locked and held. ‘I’m only agreeing to marriage if you agree to stay.’

‘You’re really serious,’ he said at last, and she nodded.

‘I’m serious. I’m not the least bit interested in marrying anyone else-I’ve been there, done that, so I’m happy to stay married to you for as long as you need me to be. But your mother’s not fit to be Edouard’s guardian. Anyone can see that life’s knocked her round. She’ll make a lovely grandma but Edouard needs a parent. He needs you.’

He tried to make himself think. He tried to focus on Edouard. ‘He loved you tonight…’

‘And he’ll love you. Don’t stick him in a room with boa constrictors.’

‘I’m expected back in Somalia.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ she told him bluntly. ‘I know enough about organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières to know they’d say your first responsibility is to the people of your country.’

‘This is not my country.’

‘Oh, yes, it is,’ she told him. ‘You were born here. Your father was ruler. You’re rich-’

‘How do you know I’m rich?’

‘I’m guessing that not even a creepy crown prince would keep his kids starving. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re rich.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Look, stop running from it, Raoul. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, so you might as well wriggle down and make yourself comfortable.’

‘By marrying you.’

‘It’s a perfectly good offer.’

‘So what would you get out of it?’ he asked, and then watched as her face stilled and a wave of anger followed.

‘I’d get a fairy-tale wedding, a prince, a tiara and I’d get to eat caviare and cream cakes for the rest of my life. Every girl’s fantasy. What do you think?’

‘I didn’t mean-’

‘Well, don’t say it if you don’t mean it,’ she told him. ‘You needn’t worry. I don’t want a thing except the reassurance that Edouard will be safe.’

‘So why do you care?’

‘For no reason,’ she snapped, still angry. ‘Except that no one else seems to have cared. Sure, you were doing your best in offering to marry Sarah, but if Edouard had been my nephew and he looked at me like he did tonight, I would have stuck my notice on the palace gate, married the first woman who offered and worried about the consequences later. I wouldn’t have left him in the ghastly Cosette’s care for one minute longer. If you knew how important a little boy’s life is-’

‘I do know.’

‘Then do something,’ she snapped. ‘Marry me and take over your rightful role. You needn’t worry that I’ll take liberties. I’ll do whatever you need to make Edouard safe and then you won’t see me again. It’s a very good offer, Raoul. Take it or leave it. But take it or leave it now.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Because, to be honest, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m saying it. But I am. Marry me, Raoul. Yes or no.’

He gazed into her face and she gazed back, her expression calm and determined. She was totally serious, he thought, and the realisation was astounding. She’d do this thing.

And in return… He’d have to stay here.

He could marry her and then leave after she’d gone back to Australia.

No. What was being offered was a gift, and the gift wasn’t personal. It was a gift to Edouard and it was a gift to the people of Alp’Azuri. If he betrayed her trust, if he betrayed her promise…

He couldn’t and she could tell that he couldn’t. She was watching him, waiting for him to make a decision and there wasn’t the least suspicion of mistrust on her face. She’d take his promise and she’d ask no questions.

He’d still be on his own-which was the way he’d planned his life. He simply needed to reorient his career. Incorporating Edouard.

Incorporating his country.

But not Jess. Jess only in name.

She was waiting on his decision and that decision had to be made now. He glanced through to the bedroom-and there was Edouard.

Edouard.

He’d been prepared to marry Sarah because of Edouard.

There was only one answer to be given.

‘Thank you, Jess,’ he told her. ‘I would very much like to marry you.’

Raoul left soon after, walking away as a man stunned.

He might well be stunned, Jess thought as she prepared for bed. This marriage would affect her not at all. For Raoul, however, it would be life-changing. She’d thrown him a challenge he hadn’t been able to refuse but she knew very well what it meant to him.

He’d decided to marry his cousin, Sarah, and then do what she intended-leave and return to his old life. But the marriage she offered came with strings-taking up his responsibilities-and she knew that he’d be feeling as if the floor had been swept from under him.

So she made no demur as he bade her a stunned goodnight and left her.

With Edouard.

Which had its own problems. She approached the bed and stared down at the child curled up in sleep. And her gut clenched in pain. To sleep with him…to feel the warmth of his little body…

No.

She’d sleep on the settee in the sitting room, she decided.

But when she was ready for bed she checked on Edouard again and found he was awake. His eyes were wide and scared, as if he’d woken mid-nightmare. ‘Cosette,’ he whispered, but it was a hopeless little whisper, as if he didn’t really want Cosette, but she was all he knew-and who was this?-and no one would comfort him anyway.

Jess couldn’t bear it. What was she about, thinking of her own pain when this little one was so needful? She sat down on the bed beside him and she took his hand.

‘No, Edouard,’ she said softly. ‘Cosette’s left me with you for a bit. You remember me. I’m Jessie. I’m the lady who gave you Sebastian.’

The terror receded from his eyes. Just a little. He’d remembered a small comfort. ‘Sebastian,’ he said and his spare hand searched the bedclothes and found the bear in question. But his fingers still clutched hers. ‘Jessie,’ he whispered and his eyes closed again.

She was held.

She should pull away.

But she didn’t. She sat looking down at him. She moved slightly and his hand clutched her tighter. Finally she conceded defeat.

She was ready for bed. She didn’t need to leave.

She slid under the sheets.

One warm little body sidled closer. Snuggled.

Oh, God.

What had she done? She lay and stared into the night, her emotions a kaleidoscope.

She’d agreed to marry Raoul.

More. She’d fallen for one little boy. She didn’t want to do it-more than anything she was trying to hold herself rigid in the night-but he was so needful. It would have taken a superhuman effort not to put her arms around him and hold him close and let herself smell the clean-soap smell of a tiny child.

Dom…

She was going to choke. The emotions…

There was a faint knock on the door. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was going to cry.

‘Jess?’

It was Raoul. The door opened slowly and she could see his outline in the doorway. He was wearing a big, loose sweater instead of his dinner jacket. His body filled the doorway.

His presence filled the room.

‘Are you OK?’

She couldn’t answer. She was so close to tears. He approached the bed, and she looked up at him in much the same way Edouard had looked at her. Fearful. Not knowing what to say.

She saw his face twist and she knew that he realised what was happening.

‘I wanted to walk,’ he whispered, sitting down on the bed and laying his hand on her hair. It was a gesture she might have made to reassure Edouard. Like Edouard, she needed reassurance. She needed…Raoul?

‘I had so much to think about,’ he went on. ‘I’ve spent half an hour wandering the gardens thinking of what I was going to do-how I was going to cope-and then suddenly I remembered that Edouard was still here. That I’d left Edouard in your room. And for you to sleep with Edouard…’

‘It’s OK,’ she managed, and he shook his head. His fingers started raking her curls, almost absentmindedly.

‘It’s not OK,’ he told her. ‘Sure, I know it’s something that you’ll do and I can’t think what else is to be done tonight, but I know what you’re asking of yourself. After losing your Dominic, to hold Edouard… It’s one of the bravest things I’ve seen and I’ve been in some desperate situations in my time. Jess, how can I help? Shall I take him back to my room?’

She shook her head. Soundlessly. But she’d wept a little-just a little. He laid a finger on her cheek, he felt the damp track of tears and he swore.

‘You’re not responsible for Edouard,’ he told her, almost fiercely. ‘I’ll not make you responsible as well.’

‘It’s OK,’ she made herself say. ‘He needs me. For tonight he won’t let me go and I don’t blame him.’

‘But you’ve done enough.’

‘I can’t leave him.’

‘Maybe not.’ He sighed and glanced around, obviously working on a plan. ‘Tell you what. You sleep with Edouard and I will, too.’

‘What?’

‘You needn’t worry,’ he told her and there was that crooked smile she was starting to know so well. ‘I’m not insinuating myself into your bed. But you can’t tell me that being here with him by yourself isn’t painful.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘All I’m saying is that I’ll be here, too,’ he told her. He lifted a quilt that was lying over the foot of her bed and took a couple of pillows from the mound she’d discarded. ‘I’ll sleep on the settee,’ he told her. ‘Right here. It’ll make it different. You’re not sleeping alone with a child. You’re sleeping with both of us. Sort of a pyjama party without the movies and the popcorn.’ His fingers touched her hair again. Gently. Questioning. ‘Will that help?’

How could it help? But strangely she knew that it would.

‘There’s no need,’ she whispered and he nodded as if his question had been answered.

‘There is a need.’ He stooped, and ever so gently he kissed her. Lightly. Softly. Wonderingly. ‘Sleep well, my Jess. My heroine. My bride. Sleep well and know that I won’t burden you further.’

He left her then. She lay and listened as he made up the settee. It was crazy. There was no need. She couldn’t sleep if he was here.

She heard him settle in his makeshift bed.

‘Goodnight, Jess,’ he told her.

She’d never sleep.

She lay with Edouard warm against her and Raoul not ten yards away.

‘Just lie there and think of England,’ Raoul’s voice said into the night, and amazingly there was laughter behind the words. ‘Or Australia. Whatever takes your fancy.’

She smiled.

She’d never sleep.

She slept.