The Prince's Bride

by Sophie Weston

  Hope’s heart lurched. Jonas! She stopped dead so that poor Moby skidded on the marble tiles and yelped. It couldn’t be!

  It was.

  He was talking to a man in an impressive-looking uniform, whom Hope judged to be the Post Master. It looked like a disagreement, but for once the bureaucrat seemed to be the one who was pleading. Hope smiled at that and, equilibrium restored, went forward.

  “Good morning,” she said breezily.

  Jonas spun round, made a noise remarkably like Moby’s and dropped a sheaf of papers as substantial as her own. They shot across the marble like ball bearings on ice. The woman in the headscarf flung herself after them clucking and twittering in her own language as she gathered them up.

  “You!” he said. He looked genuinely shocked.

  “Nice to see you again too.”

  “I didn’t – I was just saying –” He broke off, looking harassed, as the head-scarfed woman pressed his retrieved papers into his hand, nodding and smiling and damn near curtseying. He smiled and shook her hand, then said something rapid to the Post Master. The woman backed away, bobbing and smiling. The Post Master bowed and started to retreat as well.

  “Hey,” Hope called after him. “Don’t go. I need to collect some post.”

  But the Post Master seemed tongue-tied. He looked wildly at Jonas.

  “Sorry. I thought everyone spoke English,” said Hope with a friendly smile. She fished her phrase book out of her shoulder bag and began to flick through it.

  Jonas said something in his own language and the Post Master stepped forward, straightening his jacket.

  “How can I help you, Miss?”

  She explained her errand and prepared to break out her supply of signed instructions, proofs of identity and assorted passwords and other codes but it all seemed too much for the Post Master. He looked at Jonas, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “There is no need for formality,” said the Post Master. “Since you have a – er – resident to vouch for you. And you are also accompanied by Mr Anton’s dog, I see. I shall attend to the matter at once.”

  He departed in a stately way, leaving Hope standing with her folder of unwanted documents, feeling foolish.

  “I thought it would be more bureaucratic than that.”

  Jonas was smiling into her eyes as if they were old friends. More than friends. “It’s a small town. Everyone knows everybody else’s business.”

  Hope felt breathless. Suddenly the world was full of sunshine, in spite of the scudding clouds outside. She said something; she didn’t know what.

  “You haven’t been back to the forest?”

  She managed not to blush and said vaguely, “Busy. You know how it is.”

  “Oh, I do.” He looked at his watch. “Look, do you have to be somewhere? Or have you time for a coffee?”

  Which nicely got rid of the need to decide whether to go to the Rangers’ Centre.

  “I think I could manage that.”

  He gave a sigh of relief. “Great.”

  The Post Master returned with a canvas bag of post and a leather-bound embossed register. He ceremonially completed the details, took note of the number of her passport and, with a minatory look at Jonas, pointedly asked her to sign that she had received the Anton family’s post.

  Jonas hoisted the bag over his shoulder as Hope thanked the Post Master and shook hands with him.

  Hope was curious about that odd look. “What was that about?”

  Jonas didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I was asking if he’d met you. Knew where you lived. But he started quoting clauses of the Post Office Act and talking about confidentiality.”

  She was taken aback. “Sounds a bit extreme!”

  He nodded, rueful. “I was on the point of calling him a drama queen when you arrived. So thank you for saving me from that.”

  He took her to a pretty café with lace curtains and a delicious smell of coffee.

  “Ah,” said Hope, stopping in the doorway to inhale luxuriously.

  “Yes, I thought you would go for that,” he said, watching her with amusement.

  He identified a table and snapped his fingers at Moby, who slid underneath and tucked in his paws and tail as if he were born to undercover surveillance.

  “He’s done that before,” they both said, in unison, and their eyes met as they laughed.

  The laughter died away but their eyes stayed locked. A fatherly waiter came over and Jonas ordered in his own language, without asking Hope what she wanted. She barely noticed. He seemed to be saying everything important with his eyes.

  She hadn’t a clue what it meant, but it made her feel as if her blood were fizzing and she could dance on the table and burst into song if she wanted.

  I’ve never felt like this before. What is happening to me?

  Somebody ought to say something. The café wasn’t busy but if they just sat and stared at each other like this, people would start to notice.

  She said at random, “I thought you were on a course with the Rangers. What are you doing in town?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I’d drawn a blank everywhere else,” he said, injured. “You’d said you were working for a lawyer but you didn’t give us a name. None of the Rangers recognized your vehicle or even Moby. And social media was a washout.”

  That gave her a nasty jolt. The creepy employer’s friend had uncovered her family scandal and tried to use it to make her, as he put it, grateful. That was what had precipitated the final showdown. She winced. “Did you google me?”

  “Yes. Nothing useful. You’re a woman of mystery. I couldn’t find so much as a discontinued Facebook page.”

  Well, he wouldn’t. When her father was first arrested there had been a deluge of abuse against all the family. In particular, the Facebook page of fourteen-year-old Hope, at an exclusive boarding school, had been irresistible to the crazier sort of trolls. Hope had closed down all her social media outlets within a month of the news getting into the papers.

  She had to ask. “Did you look just for me? Nobody else?”

  “I don’t know anyone else to look for.”

  “Not my family?”

  He shrugged. “I admit that eventually I took a gamble and added British. That netted me a few possible sightings, all on other people’s blogs. One in the French Alps last year. Another in Queensland, Australia, the year before. Were they you?”

  It wasn’t a complete answer. Was he being deliberately evasive? She pretended to consider, while she weighed her options. “Sounds about right.”

  To tell him or not to tell him? Tell Jonas her late father was a convicted fraudster and watch him withdraw? Or let the fantasy run a little longer? Just while they had coffee and he looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world. Just once.

  “You ran a ski chalet in France? And a flying school in Oz?”

  Was once too much to ask?

  “I didn’t run the flying school. Just the office.”

  “That’s not how the blog described it,” he said dryly. “But that’s not the point. Why the different jobs? And the country-hopping?”

  Hope took refuge in flippancy. “I like variety.”

  “And you never go back,” he said.

  Ah. Mrs Brass from the chalet group must have put that on her blog after Hope left. And heaven knows what else. There was no point in trying to keep secrets. It had left her vulnerable when the creep at the chalet had made his move on her. Anyway, if Jonas was interested he’d find out sooner or later. Why not get it over with now?

  They were interrupted by the waiter bringing coffee and a dish of almond biscuits. A turbulence under the table indicated that Moby had sniffed out the cookies. Jonas laughed and slid one down to the dog.

  It felt so sweet and normal, somehow. Hope made a decision. She always told the truth when asked, anyway. This time she didn’t want to wait.

  She cradled her coffee cup, trying to think of a w
ay to introduce the subject. Jonas waited, relaxed but watchful. Eventually she said, “You know British English, right? The idioms, I mean.”

  He looked blank. “I suppose so.”

  “Have you heard the term a guest of Her Majesty?”

  He tensed. “Don’t think so. Why?”

  Her mouth was very dry. She took a sip of coffee. It was too hot. She pushed it away. She didn’t look at him. “It means being in prison.”

  He didn’t ask why, again. Just sat very still, listening.

  She looked at her hands on the pretty tablecloth. They were competent, neat-fingered and strong. She liked her hands. “When I was growing up my father went to prison.”

  He said slowly, “He’s still there?”

  She shook her head. “He died in prison before I started travelling. Kidney disease. He’d never been strong.” For no reason she could think of she added. “It wasn’t the prison’s fault. They were quite kind to him, I think. He said so, anyway.”

  “Does that help?” It was very gentle.

  She looked up then, searching his face. Jonas looked concerned but he didn’t seem shocked. She blinked rapidly. “Do you know, no one’s ever asked me that before. Yes, maybe it does.”

  “You visited him? They let children visit prisons in Britain?”

  “I was a teenager, not a kid. And yes, if you follow procedure. I’m good with procedures now.” She ticked it off on her fingers. “Organize a date with an accompanying adult. Book in. Take my passport along for the security checks. And a pound coin to put my belongings in a locker. You’re not allowed to take anything with you when you see the prisoner, you see. It’s a bit of a faff but it’s not rocket science.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” He reached across the table to take her hands.

  Hope hadn’t expected it and shied away. “Don’t be kind to me. I just wanted you to know. From me.

  His arm fell to his side. Eventually he said, “So you started travelling when he died?”

  That was much easier to talk about. She smiled, remembering. “No, not immediately. I’d made a deal with my brother. If he’d be my required adult when I went to visit the prison, I’d finish school. So I did.”

  “You keep your promises.” It seemed to please him.

  “Oh yes. It’s bad luck not to. I’ve got a real hang-up about it.” Her father had never understood about keeping promises, poor lamb. He’d faced up to what he’d done, in the end, but he’d never been able to grasp why it was so wrong.

  “Was it hard?”

  She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “You do what you have to when there’s no alternative. It was tougher for my brother than me, I think. His marriage broke up. Of course, my mother was long gone by then.”

  Jonas sat bolt upright at that. “What?”

  Hope was rueful but resigned. She’d had a long time to come to terms with it, after all. Now she pulled a face. “Mama took off as soon as Dad was arrested. She had friends who gathered her up and took her off on lots of holidays. She left my brother and me to get on with it.”

  Jonas looked affronted. “You’re joking.”

  Hope was surprised, because this was something that had never really hurt her. “Max was grown up and married.”

  “What on earth did the woman think she was doing?” He sounded furious.

  “Doubt if she thought much at all,” said Hope dispassionately. “I was pretty much an adult by then anyway.”

  “Hell’s teeth, Hope!”

  “Look, I liked my mother but we were never close, even before the crash. I was always getting muddy and driving tractors, while she was a real girly girl. When my father fell by the wayside, she just found someone else, that’s all. Nobody was surprised.”

  Jonas blinked. “Phew! If that’s what you say about someone you like, heaven help me if you take against me.”

  Hope laughed then, really laughed. “My mother would have said the same, herself. She was quite honest about it.”

  Jonas shook his head, disbelieving.

  “You’d have liked her,” said Hope, entertained. “She was very charming.”

  “Was?”

  Hope sobered. “Yes. That was a bad shock. She died two years after Dad. Dived off a yacht one night after a party and hit her head.”

  “That must have been tough.”

  “Ye-es. Up to a point.” The truth was more complicated than that. She eyed him speculatively. Would he be shocked by how she and Max had reacted? She took a gamble and said, “Max said it must have been a helluva party.”

  There was stunned silence. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

  Hope smiled brilliantly, relieved and a little shy. “We decided to be glad that she died when she was having fun. We raise a glass of champagne to her whenever we get together.”

  Jonas stopped laughing. “That sounds good,” he said slowly. “Really good. My mother died when I was small. I don’t know if she ever had any fun.” It sounded bleak. As if he heard it himself and needed to banish the feelings he’d brought up, he leaned forward, suddenly alert. “Look, why don’t we have some fun? Spend the rest of the day together?”

  Hope could feel her smile stretching from ear to ear. “Kick up our heels? That’s what my mother used to call it.”

  “Kick up our heels,” he agreed. “And I know just the way to do it.”

  It was the start of a wholly new experience. Jonas had never thought so much about a woman, nor worked so hard at a relationship in his life.

  Certainly not with the well-connected young ladies Anna kept trawling in front of him. Nor with any of the girlfriends he’d had in England. Even in the States, where he’d hung out with the fans of his room-mate’s band and learned to dance the night away with experts, he’d never set out to plan a major exercise in fun.

  It was great. Partly, he admitted to himself, that was a purely masculine relish of the challenge. But partly, it was because of the way Hope threw herself into things.

  She hadn’t lied when she said she liked variety. She scrambled up a steep slope, under the spray of a waterfall that was fed to torrent-power by melting mountain snow, and just laughed when it knocked her off her feet and drenched her. She clawed her way up the wall-mounted iron ladder inside the disused fire tower like a bandy-legged monkey and swore the view from the top was worth every bruise and scrape.

  Above all, he persuaded her to come with him on his routine forest patrols, much to the amusement of his fellow Rangers. She brought Moby whose exuberance in jumping in last year’s leaves made them both laugh. But most important of all, she had such genuine curiosity about all the familiar plants and creatures and landscape, that he felt he was seeing them afresh.

  He noticed that she never mentioned her family again and she never asked him one thing about his own. So he followed her lead. They would live wholly in the present until she changed her mind.

  So the present had better last as long as he could make it. He called his brother the Crown Prince, now returned from his business trip. As Senior Partner, Carlo was technically Jonas’s boss.

  “Hi, Jonas,” said Carlo cheerily. “Having a good time? Working hard?” He knew that the main object of the holiday was the Rangers’ refresher course.

  Jonas laughed. “Holiday is more like it. We only work in the mornings and this week it’s all about search and rescue. So another guy and I roam round the forest with the instructor, flexing our muscles and being Tarzan.”

  “Sounds exciting,” said Carlo, just a touch wistfully, Jonas thought.

  “You should try it. But look, Carlo, there’s a lot of stuff to do, too, and I could do with some extra leave.”

  Carlo hesitated audibly.

  “A week? Maybe ten days?” said Jonas, trying not to sound too urgent. When Carlo still said nothing, he saw he would have to come clean. “There’s this woman. She’s – different.”

  There was another silence from Carlo. “Tell.”

  Jonas sighed. “No
thing to tell. That’s why I need more time.”

  “I – see.” Carlo was uncomfortable. “I know Anna’s been pushing eligible girls at you. This isn’t some sort statement, is it? I’ll have a fling if I want to, sort of thing?”

  Jonas was shocked that his brother could think that. “Of course not.”

  “So it’s serious?”

  Oh yes, it was serious all right. On his side. “Early days. You know how it is.”

  “I’m not sure I do.” Carlo sounded sad.

  Jonas said gently, “That’s why I need more time to be with her. See if she might feel the same.”

  “Ah. Yes, of course.” Jonas could almost see his brother pulling himself together. “Well, I don’t see why not. You’d cleared your desk beautifully, I hear. Is anything likely to blow up with any of your clients?”

  “If it does, call me and I’ll sort it.”

  “In that case, take as long as you want,” said Carlo and rang off.

  Jonas was grateful. He did all the refresher stuff conscientiously but his day didn’t really start until Hope arrived. He was beginning to think she felt the same. And her delight in the forest just bubbled out of her.

  “I’m so happy,” she said one day, just as he looked up at the sky and raised his binoculars to a distant speck. “Oh, what is it?”

  “It could be a golden eagle.” He tried to refocus the binoculars. “I’m not sure. I can’t see the shape of its wings properly. The light’s not right and it’s too far without a proper ’scope. It could just be a buzzard.”

  She chuckled. “You make the poor buzzard sound like a second-class citizen.”

  Jonas lowered the binoculars. “I do, don’t I? And he’s an impressive chap, too. But the eagle is half as big again. More important, they’re rare. They were nearly wiped out by hunting and DDT. Their numbers are only just beginning to recover.”

  “So it’s one for the whiteboard.”

  He had pulled out the notebook from his inner pocket and was making a note of place, date and time of the sighting but at this he looked up, enchanted. “We’ll make a Ranger of you yet.”

  “Sous ranger, maybe.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like sous chef. Junior assistant to fetch, carry and learn.”