Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHERE there was a death and a new Crown Prince, there was also a coronation. Rafael had put it off for as long as possible but it had to be faced. In the days that followed, as Kelly retreated to her study, as the routine of the palace formed some semblance of normality, Crater’s insistence that the coronation take place had to be considered.

‘Matty’s far too young,’ Rafael growled when it was first brought up.

‘You’ll be at his side,’ Crater told him. ‘You make the vows on his behalf. It will be you who carries them out until he’s twenty-five.’

‘And what about his mother?’

‘Kellyn wishes to be treated as a commoner,’ Crater said. ‘She’ll attend but not in an official capacity.’

‘She’s still officially Kass’s widow. She should have a place in the ceremony.’

‘See if you can persuade her,’ Crater said. ‘I can’t.’

And neither could Rafael. In truth, since the night in the stables he hardly saw her. Matty spent time with her, but she’d intensified her planned routine of study and self-containment.

She’d opened herself a little, he thought. In doing so she’d terrified herself and had then retreated.

He hated it. He hated that she hid herself away. Damn her parents, he thought, and wondered if it wasn’t too late to find them and horsewhip them. Damn Kass for being dead so he couldn’t do the same to him.

He felt like weeping on her behalf-for the stupid waste of it, for the fact that the laughing, happy woman she could be had been repressed in such a brutal manner.

And damn if the weather didn’t agree with him. The glorious sunshine that had greeted their arrival had given way to steady dripping rain, making everything grey, dreary and waterlogged.

Not the best time for a coronation.

‘There’ll never be a perfect time,’ Crater told him. ‘But I’ve approached each of the royal houses of Alp d’Azuri, Alp d’Estella and Alp de Montez. The royals are all available at the end of this month. If we leave it much longer, Phillippa, the Princess Royal of Alp d’Estella, risks being confined with their first child. Max won’t leave her. We need their presence.’

‘Why?’

‘If we’re to gain any economic strength,’ Crater said tentatively, ‘we need to get the four countries working together. It was a dream of your father’s. Until now I’ve hardly dared to hope the four Alp countries could become a Federation. But if you brought in reforms to bring Alp de Ciel into line with them politically…’

‘Hey…’

‘It would take commitment on your part,’ Crater said. ‘But you’ve come this far.’

‘I don’t want…’

‘To commit yourself yet,’ Crater said hurriedly, clearly not wanting him to veto a dream in an instant. ‘But if we have the coronation soon and we have Raoul and Max and Nikolai and Rose here…It seems a wonderful opportunity.’

‘You’re steamrollering me.’

‘No, sir,’ Crater said sadly, ‘I can’t. I’m just saying it’s a dream you might wish to pursue. Meanwhile, this coronation has to happen. The country’s expecting it. Can I announce that it’ll be on the twenty-sixth of this month?’

‘Fine,’ Rafael growled. ‘But there’s no way I can sit up in the back in the dark like someone else we could mention?’

‘No, sir,’ Crater said firmly. ‘No chance at all.’

‘Come and see.’

Kelly was mid-manuscript. The pages dated from the seventeenth century. They should be locked away in a temperature-controlled vault. Instead, they’d been sitting in the bookshelves here for the last four hundred years, an unnoticed, untouched treasure trove.

It was historian heaven. She should be in heaven.

Instead, she was lonely and bored. If she could pick Matty up and take him back to the goldfields it’d be great, she thought. Other than that, she had to bury herself in the studies her parents had loved, but every time there were voices in the forecourt she’d look down and sometimes it’d be Rafael and she thought her equilibrium had been messed with for ever.

Somehow she had to restore it. She had to forget those dangerous kisses and get on with…her boring life.

But here was Matty, at a time when he was scheduled for a lesson with Crater, bursting into her room and grabbing her hand and tugging her after him.

‘Mama, the clothes are here. For the coronation. They’re here, they’re here, and Ellen says I have to try them on now, and there’s a sword just like my Uncle Rafael’s. It’s splendid. Mama, you have to see.’

Bemused, she let him lead her downstairs, along the corridor to the workrooms behind the kitchen. She could hear the murmur of women’s voices as she approached, and she relaxed. Matty’s coronation outfit had been a source of interest and enthusiasm for the last week. Needlewomen had come in from Zunderfied and the castle had been humming.

‘You should have something royal to wear,’ Crater had said, reproving, but there was no way she was going down that road. She’d married in simple clothes in Paris. She’d never been a royal bride.

She wasn’t royal now.

Matty was tugging her forward, hurrying her on. He reached the big oak doors of the workrooms and threw them open.

Rafael was there.

She stopped breathing.

He was gorgeous. Stunning. Breathtakingly amazing.

A real prince.

His clothes fitted like a second skin. Deep black leggings-skintight. Glossy Hessian boots, jet-black with tassels. What looked to be a morning jacket, but inset with red, black and gold panels, intricately embroidered. The royal crest was emblazoned on the jacket breast. A deep gold sash lay across his breast. There were rows of medallions, epaulettes, gold tassels…

A sword lay at his side, longer than the one she’d seen in Australia, its grip a cunningly wrought gold three-dimensional symbol of the royal house of de Boutaine.

His black curls were flicked back as they always were, raked back by fingers that worried. He’d been gazing in the mirror, his cool grey eyes smiling, half mocking. As the door opened and he turned to see who entered, his smile still lingered.

He was laughing at himself, she thought, but there was no way she was laughing.

Rafael…

It was as much as she could do not to sink into a curtsey. As it was, she gripped the door handle and held.

‘It’s a bit much,’ he said, smiling across at her, and she thought wildly, Don’t do that-don’t smile, don’t!

‘Mine’s just like it,’ Matty said with deep satisfaction. ‘Aren’t we gorgeous?’

‘Gorgeous,’ she agreed faintly.

‘What will you be wearing, Mama?’ Matty asked. He crossed to where Ellen was waiting to help him into his costume. ‘It’ll have to be something very beautiful to match my Uncle Rafael and me.’

‘I couldn’t come near matching you,’ she whispered.

‘But you will wear a pretty dress.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. Thinking of those gowns. Thinking of what had happened the one night she’d worn one.

‘One of the pretty ones you wore on the goldfields?’ Matty said hopefully. He was in leggings now, turning to the mirror and sticking his small chest out with manly pride. ‘Are they pretty enough for the coronation, Uncle Rafael?’

‘No,’ Rafael said.

‘Then it’s just as well I didn’t bring them,’ she retorted.

‘If you please, ma’am…’

There were four women in the room. One had been adjusting the base of Rafael’s coat. Two were sitting at the table sewing, and Ellen was helping Matty on with his vest. But now she interjected. She rose stiffly to her feet and stood, unsure. ‘I…we have a suggestion.’

‘A suggestion?’ Kelly frowned and glanced suspiciously at Rafael, but he was looking as in the dark as she was.

‘The clothes Prince Rafael and Prince Mathieu will wear are traditional. We wondered…seeing you’re a historian…’ Ellen gave a nervous gasp, looked to her friends for support and crossed to the corner of the room. There was a mannequin there, shrouded with dust-sheets.

Ellen cast Kelly another nervous glance and then she tugged off the dust-sheet.

The dress was breathtaking. It looked almost Elizabethan, a creation of the most exquisitely cut gold and ivory silk, skilfully set over a rich crimson underskirt. The neckline was almost square, cut low to reveal the swell of breasts. Filigree sleeves were gathered into elegant lace wristbands in the finest of gold. The waist cinched into a deep V, designed to make any woman’s waist look tiny.

And the embroidery. Such embroidery-all fire, swirls and curves. The gown shimmered and glistened as Ellen pulled the dust-sheet free, almost assuming a life of its own. There were hoops underneath, spreading the dress almost as wide at the hem as the gown was high. There was a train-Ellen was setting it out now. It was embroidered to represent a golden dragon, running from waist to maybe ten metres behind.

Kelly gasped with shock. She couldn’t help herself. She stepped forward, almost reverently, hardly brave enough to touch it.

‘It’s…’

‘Over two hundred years old,’ Ellen breathed. ‘When the old Prince was pressuring Kass to be married, he ordered it to be restored. But then…then Kass married you.’

‘Not a princess,’ she whispered.

‘But you are a princess,’ Ellen said stubbornly. ‘You should have had the right to wear it. You have the right to wear it now. We’ve measured it against your gowns here. It’ll take very little alteration.’

‘Wow,’ Rafael breathed. ‘Kelly, you have to wear it.’

‘I don’t,’ she said, feeling so out of her depth she was close to tears. ‘I’m not royal.’

‘No, but you are,’ Matty repeated. ‘You were married to my father. You’re a real princess.’

‘I’m a commoner.’

‘You’re Australian,’ Ellen said with satisfaction.

‘So what?’ She was bewildered. Maybe she even sounded angry, but she couldn’t help it. The sight of the dress was so awesome it took her breath away. And the way Rafael was looking at her didn’t help. Plus the way Rafael looked…She had a sudden vision of the two of them. Rafael in his dress uniform and she in this dress.

No and no and no.

But Ellen was speaking. She had to listen. What did being an Australian have to do with anything?

‘The palace gossip was that was why Kass chose you,’ Ellen said, answering her question before she’d framed it. ‘When Kass’s father heard of Prince Raoul’s marriage to Jessica in Alp d’Azuri to a commoner-to an Australian-he laughed about it. He said Raoul was a fool and the country would never accept such a marriage. And then you and your team were working so close to here…’

‘So he just picked me,’ Kelly whispered.

‘And we were so excited,’ Ellen said stoutly. ‘The people of Alp d’Azuri have had nothing but prosperity since their prince’s marriage. We had such hopes…’

‘Of me?’

‘You were our princess from the time Prince Kass married you,’ Ellen retorted. ‘We hated that you went away. We’ve always wanted you to come home. And we hated that the old Prince made us put this gown away.’ She faltered and bent her head over the train, pretending to straighten a crease. ‘We…we need a royal family.’

‘You have Rafael and Matty,’ Kelly whispered.

‘It’s not a family.’

‘Leave her,’ Rafael said, sounding suddenly angry. ‘Ellen, this isn’t fair.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You don’t need to defend me,’ Kelly told him.

‘Don’t I?’

‘No,’ she flashed, and he grinned that heart-stopping grin and lifted his sword from its scabbard.

‘I guess it’s not me alone. You have two men to do it now,’ he said, seemingly determined to turn what had been too serious a moment into a joke. ‘The decision about the dress can be made later. Matty, we need you to have some fencing lessons. En garde, petit…’

‘Not here,’ Ellen shrieked as Matty picked up his sword and giggled. ‘Not near the dress.’

But Rafael was changing the subject away from the dress, away from her, distracting them all from a topic she found too hard. She could merge into the background, she thought thankfully.

He was protecting her.

But…but…

We had such hopes.

She’d never thought of it from the people’s point of view. She’d always believed they’d thought her a tramp. Someone they were lucky to be rid of.

She swallowed. Ellen had caught Matty’s sword which, mercifully, had a blunt end. She’d put it firmly aside. Now she was manoeuvring him into a jacket that matched Rafael’s.

Her two royal princes.

A family?

No. No, they weren’t. Matty was her family, but he also belonged to another.

She was on the outside of that other, not even wanting to look in.

The dress was there. A dare. A challenge.

A role that was already hers.

‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ Rafael said softly and she blinked at him in astonishment.

‘I don’t…’

‘I know.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can.’

‘Rafael…’

And then the earth moved.

It was a mere tremor-a shift that made the light above Ellen’s head sway slightly on its long lead from the high ceiling. A vase sitting on the edge of the mantelpiece slipped sideways and crashed on to the hearth. It left Kelly feeling just slightly off balance, as if she’d stood up too fast and felt a little dizzy, but then balance was restored and things were okay.

But the light was still swinging, casting weird shadows over the half dressed Matty. Ellen was staring upward, mesmerized by the swinging light, but Kelly was over the far side of the room in an instant, grabbing Matty to her, holding him close.

The light was still swaying. The vase was still smashed on the hearth.

‘Outside,’ Rafael said harshly into the stunned silence. ‘Get outside, everyone-into the forecourt and away from the building.’

He didn’t have to say it twice. Kelly was already moving, carrying Matty as she ran. Rafael moved to intercept her but she shook her head and kept running.

‘We’re fine. Get everyone out.’

She’d experienced this before-an earth tremor. It had been a small quake, measuring three on the Richter scale, and it had shaken some of her parents’ beloved books from the shelves. That had been all the damage.

That was all this would be, she told herself as she ran.

‘Mama…’ Matty quavered.

‘It’s just an earth tremor,’ she said, not pausing. She could put him down but he was in bare feet and she had him in her arms and that was where it felt like he belonged. She was running down the vast stone steps that led out to the forecourt. Behind her, she could hear Rafael shouting orders.

‘Assemble outside, everyone, and I mean everyone. Ellen, take a roll call. Crater, go over to the dower house and see if my mother’s okay. Get her outside too. Marsha, the dogs are already outside, you go back inside and I’ll come after you with a whip…’

It was just an earth tremor. A minor one. Kelly sank to the ground on the lawns beside the forecourt and looked up at the towering castle walls. This castle had stood intact for centuries. It was clearly intending to stay intact for longer. There was no movement.

‘We wait outside,’ Rafael commanded into the morning stillness. ‘We wait.’

So they waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Luckily, the constant rain of the past few days had given way to warm sunshine so waiting wasn’t a hardship. Rafael had them all gathered together. He was still dressed in his royal finery.

Laura ducked back into the dower house-against her son’s orders-and fetched shoes for Matty. He accepted them with gratitude, left the safety of his mother’s arms-he’d clung really close while the tremors had been happening-and started to be a little prince again.

‘We’ve had an earthquake,’ he said importantly. ‘An earthquake’s very dangerous.’

‘An earth tremor,’ Kelly corrected. ‘Not so bad.’

‘What’s the difference between an earthquake and an earth tremor?’

‘A tremor happens a lot,’ Kelly said. ‘When a little bit of the earth moves way, way down deep and everything on the top settles a bit. In an earthquake a whole lot of the earth settles. Your Uncle Rafael says we should stay outside until we’re sure it won’t get any worse but I think it’s okay.’

Everyone else obviously did too. After half an hour standing in the sun Rafael decided it seemed safe to return to normal.

‘The phone lines are down.’ Crater was fretting. ‘There must be damage somewhere.’

‘I’ll have someone check in the village,’ Rafael said, but as he did there was a shout from outside the castle gates.

There was a boy running. Shouting. Rafael stepped forward to meet him.

Rafael looked like a man in charge, Kelly thought, in his full royal regalia, his dress sword still in its scabbard, his whole bearing royal. The boy ran naturally to him. He was a teenager, sixteen maybe, wide-eyed with shock and breathless with worry.

‘Sir,’ he gasped in his own language. ‘Sir, we’re in trouble. The landslip…There’s been a huge landslip above the village. The houses…There are people buried. The road’s blocked. Sir, you have to come. Please.’

Rafael gripped the boy’s shoulder while he told his story. The boy looked to Rafael to take charge but Rafael’s wonderful uniform didn’t give him the local knowledge he needed now.

He’d hardly been home since he was fifteen. Crater knew the land, the people, the emergency drills. He was in his seventies but he stepped forward now and started giving orders.

The road was cut. They needed to get an assessment of what the damage was. He’d send a team to climb high above the castle to where a man could see right across the valley.

‘I’ll go,’ Rafael said. ‘I have radio gear in the workshop. I can use that to contact the outside world if the telephones stay cut. Crater, I’ll give you a handset as well so I can get back to you.’

‘You won’t get up there.’

‘I’ll take a horse,’ Rafael said and Kelly gasped. For him to ride again…

‘The villagers might need you,’ Crater said, not hearing the implications of what Rafael had said, thinking only of what was before them.

‘I’ll get back down and help dig, whatever you want, as soon as I can.’

‘You’re our prince,’ Crater said obliquely. ‘We’ll want you in the village.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ Rafael said. ‘Kelly, love, make sure things stay safe here. Any more tremors, you’re in charge.’

She was in charge but there was nothing to do. Everyone else left. Even Laura disappeared, donning stout walking boots and going with Ellen and Marguerite down to the little village hospital to see if they could be of help.

Kelly stayed with Matty.

‘We should be down in the village too,’ Matty said, more and more insistently as the afternoon wore on.

‘We’d just get in the way,’ she told him. ‘Crater’s taken everyone who can dig with him. Your Uncle Rafael will be down there by now. We need to look after the castle.’

‘It’s cowardly to stay in the castle when our people need us.’

It did feel wrong. But every able-bodied man and woman had joined the team to go to the village, so Kelly needed to stay here with her son. Even though it killed her not to know what was happening. Where Rafael was. What had happened in the village.

‘I’m the Prince and you’re the Princess,’ Matty told her, deeply disapproving of her decision to stay where they were. ‘Crater says it’s the job of a prince to lead his people.’

‘You’re five years old and I’m not a princess,’ she said helplessly. ‘Maybe we could play Scrabble.’

He looked at her calmly, figuring out whether she meant it or not and intelligent enough to see that she did.

‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Will we play in your room?’

‘I…yes.’ Retire to her attic. ‘Why not?’

‘The Scrabble set’s in the nursery,’ he told her. ‘I’ll fetch it.’

Only he didn’t. Kelly checked on the dogs in the kitchen-the dog Marsha had been worried about was a bitch about to whelp and Kelly had promised to check on her every half hour. The bitch was lying peaceably in her basket, with three pups already at teat.

‘See, you have your priorities right,’ Kelly said, bending to fondle the big dog’s ears. ‘Home and hearth. It’d be good if we could be of help down in the village but a mother’s place is with her kids.’

The dog gave her a long lick, which cheered Kelly immeasurably. She walked up the stairs to her attic, but when she reached it Matty wasn’t there yet.

She wanted to tell him about the pups.

Maybe he’d had trouble finding the Scrabble set, she thought. She walked downstairs, along to the nursery.

She was worried, and not just about Matty. She hadn’t heard anything about what was happening out in the village. No one had come back. Rafael was out there somewhere in his magnificent uniform doing heroic stuff. Laura and Crater were down in the village helping. She was stuck here minding Matty.

Only where was Matty?

He wasn’t in the nursery.

Suddenly she felt sick.

‘Matty?’ she yelled, but her voice echoed ominously around the empty halls.

‘Matty…’

A clatter of horse hooves on the cobbles below drew her to the window.

‘Matty!’

If he heard her scream he didn’t acknowledge it. He was on a horse. Somehow he’d managed to saddle one of the smaller mares. He was firm in the saddle, his hands keeping good control, turning the mare’s head towards the gate and digging his small heels into her flanks.

‘Matty,’ she screamed again but he was gone.

Out of the gate towards the village.

For a long moment she simply stared at the gate as if she couldn’t believe what she’d seen. But she’d seen all right. Through the open window she could hear the faint clip-clop of the mare’s hooves as she disappeared from sight.

Matty was gone. Into a situation of which she knew nothing.

Her son.

Since Kass had kicked her out, Kelly had had her escape in a century past, a time warp that had held her close, protecting her from outside forces. Here she’d done her best to create a sanctuary again, where the outside world belonged to those who wanted it.

She didn’t want the outside world. But her son was riding into it, with the heart of a prince.

Something played back in her mind, some crazy lesson he’d repeated to her when she’d said it didn’t make much difference that he was a prince. When she’d talked to him of the possibility of staying in Australia.

‘They’re my people. I should be with them,’ he’d said sternly. ‘Crater says when there’s peril that’s when the people need their prince. He said in World War Two the English King and his Queen and their two little princesses should have gone to America to be safe. Only they didn’t. They stayed, and every time there was bombing the King would be there, just to say to everyone be brave.’

He was right. King George’s commitment to his people had possibly been the difference between submission or victory.

But Matty was too young to make such a call. He was her son. He was five years old.

He was her prince.

And so was Rafael. Somewhere out there was Rafael. With…his people? While she stayed here like some Cinderella, hiding in her attic. Being no one.

Not even brave enough to put on a dress.

All these thoughts took no more than seconds-seconds while her frightened mind came to terms with what had happened and what now must happen.

She wheeled away, taking the stairs at a run, across the forecourt to the stables. Tamsin would no longer be here but other horses would. The road would be impassable for cars. She had to ride.

She might be a nuisance in the village. She couldn’t see how her presence and Matty’s presence could make a difference. Her reasons for staying separate from the royal household might still hold true.

But Matty…Prince Mathieu…and Prince Rafael, Crown Prince and Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel, had decided otherwise.

What was their royal princess to do but support them?

She hit mud at the first bend after the castle and her mare reacted with alarm, seeing the damage before she did. She’d been looking ahead, not at the road, and the horse edged sideways, rearing in fright.

She looked to where the horse was looking and looked again.

There was seeping, oozing mud in the woodlands on the higher side of the road. The road was still clear but it looked as if a flood of mud-laden water had slopped down the mountainside.

The horse-a mare whose name above her stable door decreed she was Gigi-must have come this way often. She knew it was different now. She whinnied in nervousness as Kelly settled her and forced her to keep on.

They slowed. Matty was somewhere ahead but the road now had patches of silt, with small stones and bigger rocks in their path.

How fast would Matty have come? Where would he go?

And where was Rafael?

There was no other road than this. She had to follow it.

Where was everyone?

‘Come on, Gigi. Come on, girl. You can do it.’

The horse flattened her ears, but responded to her reassurance and picked her way on.

And then they were at the outskirts of the village and fear was starting to wash over in waves that made her tremble. She was frantically trying to suppress it. Horses sense fear and she had to keep Gigi calm. But…But…

The road ran through the foothills of the mountains. Above and beyond, she could see rough, jagged and newly formed scarring, a mass of ripped earth as if a great chunk of the hillside had slipped from its moorings.

There was silence as they approached the township. The mare was whinnying in fear and it took all Kelly’s skill to keep her from turning home.

She couldn’t go home. Somewhere ahead was Matty. He’d be moving faster than she was. He wouldn’t have an adult’s fear that the horse might slip on loose rocks; that he might be thrown.

He was heading for the village. Heading to his people. Was Rafael before him?

And then she rounded the final curve in the hills before the village, and as she did she drew in her breath in horror.

The full extent of the slip could now be seen. It was a great gash on the hillside, starting as a thin wedge maybe a mile above, reaching down to a slash of tossed earth maybe half a mile wide. It was as if a great chunk of the earth had simply slid out from where it should have been and lurched its way towards the village.

The village…Dear God, the village.

She could see massive destruction. Huge trees uprooted, cast aside by the power of the earth.

Houses…

What had been houses.

She put her hand to her mouth, feeling ill. She wanted to stop. She wanted to block it out.

She forced herself to look.

There were people. From here they were in the distance, like ants over an anthill, looking insignificant, moving aimlessly, or simply standing on the great mounds of tumbled earth.

She saw a red coat-a sliver of crimson on a horse…

Matty.

Sick at heart, she motioned her mare forward. ‘It’s okay, Gigi. It’s okay.’

Only of course it wasn’t. She could see from here…

Houses crushed. Roads impassable…

She pressed on. The ants became people, tearing at their houses, working furiously. The mud was everywhere. They didn’t notice her as she passed-tragedy was everywhere.

Matty…

She reached him. He hadn’t seen her approach. He’d stopped in the middle of the road. He was still on his horse, staring before him, his eyes wide with terror.

There was another horse beside his. He was holding the reins in his hand. He looked crazily small so near such a great creature.

The horse was Blaze. Kass’s stallion.

How had Blaze reached here?

Rafael?

‘Matty,’ she whispered and the child turned to her, his face devoid of all colour. She had him, reaching across to take him from his horse, hauling him into her arms whether he willed it or not. He came but he was still enough of a horseman-enough of a prince-to keep the reins of both the other horses in his hand.

Before them were people, men and women, attacking a vast mound of debris with their hands. The silence was broken by sobbing.

A sign on a flattened gate told her what horror they were facing.

A school. Crushed.

‘Matty,’ she whispered into his hair and he crumpled against her, his face soaked with tears.

‘My Uncle Rafael,’ he whispered against her breast. ‘He’s gone in there. He’s gone in there and the stuff moved on top of him and no one can get him out.’