by Jessica Hart
Caro was dismayed. ‘How can they even think about it?’
‘There are only a few villages in this valley. Yes, it’s beautiful, but what is one valley compared to the energy needs of millions of people? It’s not as if Europe is short of beautiful valleys either, they’ll say. And who cares about Montluce, anyway?’
‘You do,’ said Caro, and he turned his head to meet her eyes for a long moment.
‘I can refuse to sign the agreement,’ he said. ‘I can say that the plan is unacceptable as it stands at the moment, and that construction and energy companies are exploiting our need for international support. I can say that the environmental cost is too high. But, if I do, my father will take it as a direct rejection of his authority. He’s over his operation, so that’s something, but what if the stress affects him the way they say it might? I don’t want to be responsible for my father’s death as well as my brother’s,’ he finished bitterly.
‘He won’t die,’ said Caro. ‘He’s just using his illness to manipulate you, and it’s not fair. You can’t threaten to collapse every time your will is crossed!’
‘You’re probably right,’ he said after a moment. ‘The best case scenario is that he loses his temper with no side effects. I can live with that, but he won’t forgive me.’
Behind the matter-of-factness, Caro could sense what a difficult decision it was for Philippe and her heart ached for him. He might say that he was resigned to his family’s contempt, but deep down she knew that he yearned for his father to accept him, to approve of him, to forgive him for living when his brother died. It wasn’t too much to ask, surely?
Philippe was watching the mountains. ‘But it’s not just about me and my father, I know that,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ve been thinking about all the people I’ve met over last few weeks. Decent, ordinary people, who have trusted my family for centuries to do the right thing for the country. Montluce is theirs. They don’t want it ripped up and exploited unnecessarily, and if I’m in a position to make sure that doesn’t happen, I can’t let them down. I can do what’s right for them, or for my father, but not both.’
Caro didn’t answer immediately. She was trying to find an answer that would make the decision easy for Philippe, but she couldn’t do it. ‘Your father trusts you to do the right thing, or he’d never have made you regent,’ she said gently, but Philippe shook his head.
‘He’ll never trust me.’
The bleakness in his face made Caro put out a hand without thinking. ‘Give him a reason to trust you now,’ she said, twining her fingers with his. ‘I trust you.’
Philippe looked down at their linked hands. ‘You’re touching me,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘There’s no one around to see us.’
A smile trembled on her lips. ‘I know.’
He smiled too, then, and leant towards her, and Caro met him halfway for a kiss that made her senses reel with its sweetness. Disentangling their hands, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed into him, and when Philippe kissed her again something unlocked inside her and she abandoned herself to the rush of pleasure. The sunlight poured around them, in them, spilling through Caro, and there was nothing but Philippe, the taste of him and the feel of him and the rightness of being in his arms.
‘We’d better go back,’ Philippe sighed against her hair a long time later, and Caro didn’t resist when he took her hand as they walked back to the car.
Fishing the car key out of his pocket, he held it out to Caro. ‘Do you want to drive?’
Caro’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’d let me drive?’
‘If you want to.’
She took the key slowly. ‘I thought you’d have to be besotted to let a woman drive your car?’
‘Maybe I am,’ said Philippe.
There was uproar when Philippe announced that he was refusing permission for the pipeline to go ahead under the existing agreement. The Dowager Blanche was incandescent, and there were worried reports about the Crown Prince’s condition from the doctors in Paris. Lefebvre and the Montlucian government quailed before the might of the great energy companies and all those invested in them.
But the people cheered. On the way back from the river, Caro had dropped Philippe at the protestors’ camp and he’d walked calmly into the middle of the angry mob. ‘I’ll listen,’ he had said. ‘Let’s see if we can work something out.’
Dismissing Lefebvre’s spluttering objections, Philippe renegotiated the pipeline deal over the course of a long and bruising session, at the end of which it was agreed that the pipeline would be laid underground, not just in Montluce but along the entire route. Jobs would still be created, energy still supplied, but Philippe had won a package of concessions on the environment that the protestors had put forward.
The public response was astonishing. Philippe’s stand made headlines across Europe. Plucky little Montluce takes on energy giants trumpeted the headlines. Suddenly everybody wanted to know about the country and visitors poured in, to the delight of the fledgling tourist trade.
Philippe himself missed most of the excitement. He went to Paris to tell his father in person about the agreement he had made on his behalf. ‘He may refuse to see me,’ he told Caro, ‘but I have to try. Will you be all right here on your own for a couple of days?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. I hope your father’s proud of you, Philippe,’ she added. ‘I am.’
Barely had Philippe left the palace before Caro was summoned to see the Dowager Blanche.
It was soon clear who the Dowager blamed for Philippe’s rebellion. Caro had never been subject to the full force of the Dowager’s anger before, and she was more daunted than she wanted to admit, but she thought of how often Philippe had endured tongue-lashings from his great-aunt and gritted her teeth. Arguing would only make things worse, she knew, but when the Dowager started on Philippe, she could hold her tongue no longer. ‘He is not spoilt!’ she said furiously. ‘How could he be spoilt when nobody in his family apart from his brother has ever given him any attention or credit for anything he does? And he’s not selfish, either! A selfish man would have left the father who had ignored him for years to deal with his cancer by himself. Philippe didn’t do that. He gave up his life and came back, and he’s had nothing but contempt from you and everyone else as a result.’
The Dowager was outraged. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’
‘I dare because no one else will speak up for Philippe, and the truth is that he cares for you too much to tell you this himself. But you should look around you, Altesse. The people outside the gates don’t despise him. They think he’s going to be a bold, innovative prince who will take this country into the twenty-first century a decade after the rest of the world. They like him. He’s not stuffy or aloof. He’s warm and accessible and he listens. He is a good man who’s just discovering what he can do with his position.’
‘He’s gone directly against his father’s wishes and my wishes and the wishes of the government in the matter of this pipeline,’ said the Dowager, her voice icy with fury.
‘He hasn’t done it lightly, but he knows it’s the right thing to do. Philippe isn’t thinking about what’s easy for himself, or even what’s easy for you. He’s thinking about what’s right for Montluce.’
‘We will decide what’s right for this country!’
‘No,’ said Caro. ‘The people will decide.’
Philippe returned two days later to a rapturous welcome that moved him more than he wanted to admit. People lined the streets, cheering as the cavalcade from the border swept past and outside the palace, they thronged around the roundabout.
He wished Caro was with him to share it.
She was waiting for him in the apartments, and Philippe’s heart contracted at the sight of her smile. The footman closed the door behind him and she threw herself at him with a squeal of excitement. ‘You’re a hero!’ she said as he swung her round. ‘Have you seen the papers?�
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‘Some of them.’ Philippe grinned, pleased by her reaction. ‘But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you, Caro.’
‘Me? I didn’t do anything!’
‘I wouldn’t have had the courage to stick to my guns without you,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m not sure I would have cared enough.’
‘But you care now.’ Belatedly, Caro realised that she was still clinging to him and disentangled herself. ‘This is your place, Philippe. You can make a difference here.’
‘Perhaps.’
He told her about his father, who had been on the point of disinheriting him before it became clear just how popular Philippe’s stand had been. ‘He bawled me out for not following orders, of course, but in the end he acknowledged that it hadn’t been a bad decision. Coming from him, that’s high praise!’
‘That’s good,’ said Caro, pleased. Personally, she thought the Crown Prince should have gone down on his knees and thanked Philippe for single-handedly transforming Montluce’s standing in the world, but ‘not a bad decision’ was progress of sorts.
Philippe picked up a book Caro had been reading and made a show of looking at it. ‘He asked if I would stay on after he gets back,’ he said abruptly, dropping the book back on the table. ‘He thinks he’ll find it more tiring now, and I could take on some of his duties.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I would as long as I could continue to take some decisions.’
‘Well…’ Caro’s smile seemed forced. ‘That’s great.’
CHAPTER NINE
THERE was a long pause. Philippe could practically see the excitement draining out of the air.
Caro hugged her arms together. ‘This changes things, doesn’t it?’ she said at last.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, now you’re ready to be here permanently, you really need the right kind of woman by your side,’ she said with difficulty. ‘Maybe the Dowager was right about that, at least. You should be looking for a princess.’
Philippe stiffened, instinctively resisting the suggestion. ‘I don’t have to think about that yet.’
‘Why wait? There’s no point in us pretending much longer if you’re going to stay anyway. I’m just a distraction, Philippe,’ said Caro. ‘It’s been fun, but I think it’s time I went home.’
A cold feeling settled in the pit of Philippe’s belly. ‘You said you’d stay two months.’
‘That’s only a week or so away. I’m ready to go back,’ she said. ‘I want to be ordinary again.’ She smiled brightly at him. ‘All of this…it’s been amazing, and I’ll never forget this time we’ve spent together, but none of it’s been real, has it?’
It had felt real to Philippe. Smoothing his hands over her skin, listening to her breathe, watching her sleep. The taste of her, the smell of her. That had all been real.
Caro moistened her lips as if unnerved by his silence. ‘I’ve had enough of the fairy tale. I’m not what you need, Philippe, and you can’t give me what I really want. I need to go home and meet someone I can build a real relationship with. A real life.’
You can’t give me what I really want.
Philippe’s face was shuttered. It was true. Caro deserved to be loved in a way he never could. She deserved commitment and security and a belief in happy-ever-afters that he just couldn’t give her.
‘Very well,’ he said, his voice tight.
Caro had done exactly what she had promised to do. She had enjoyed herself, but she had never forgotten that it was all a pretence, and now she had had enough of pretending. It had just been fun for her.
The cold feeling solidified into a stone lodged deep inside him. He wasn’t going to show her how hurt he was. He wasn’t.
‘If that’s how you feel,’ he said, ‘I’ll make arrangements for you to fly home tomorrow.’
The Dowager Blanche, however, had other ideas. Before Philippe had a chance to arrange anything, they were both summoned to see her.
‘I think she’s going to have my head chopped off for insubordination,’ said Caro nervously. ‘We had a bit of a row last time.’
‘You argued with the Dowager? You’re a brave woman!’
The Dowager looked coldly at Caro when she curtsied before her but, instead of whipping out the blindfold, she gestured them both to the sofa opposite. This was possibly the most uncomfortable piece of furniture Caro had ever sat on. Designed for elaborate hooped skirts, there were no cushions so you had to sit bolt upright, and its gilt legs were so spindly that Caro was afraid the whole thing would collapse when Philippe sat beside her.
There was a frigid silence, broken by Apollo’s wheezing as he recognised Caro. He waddled over to wag his bottom at her, and she patted his head.
‘Good boy,’ she said. He was never going to be the most beautiful dog in the world, and he had steadfastly refused to compromise his dignity by running after a stick, but she was quite fond of him now.
The Dowager was sitting very erect on the facing sofa. ‘Well, I see you have been putting Montluce on the map,’ she said to Philippe with a true aristocrat’s disdain for popularity. ‘I was disappointed that you directly disobeyed your father, I admit, but it seems that the decision is not quite the disaster we feared it would be. Indeed, your father tells me that you will be staying on to share his duties with him. I am pleased to hear it. You have learnt responsibility, it seems.’
Philippe manufactured a smile and kept his reflections to himself. ‘I hope so.’
‘I am getting old,’ she said, not looking in the least old with her gimlet eyes and rigidly elegant posture. ‘Hosting the ball this year will be too much for me. It is time to hand on responsibility to the next generation, so I would like you two to host it on my behalf.’
She ignored the aghast look that Philippe and Caro exchanged. ‘Mademoiselle Cartwright tells me that you are much more competent than I give you credit for,’ she added to Philippe in her crisp tones. ‘I trust that, between you, you can manage a ball without creating the kind of furore we’ve seen over the last few days?’
‘You can’t go now,’ Philippe muttered to Caro when the Dowager finally let them go. ‘I’m not hosting that ball on my own!’
‘I’ve never even been to a ball,’ objected Caro. ‘I haven’t got a clue what to do.’
‘You just have to stand there and greet people when they come in. Look as if you’re enjoying yourself, and I know you can do that.’ He stopped halfway down the great sweeping staircase. ‘I know you want to go, Caro,’ he said, ‘but please stay until after that.’
Caro bit her lip. The ball would be the first time the Dowager had trusted Philippe with anything, and it was an important test. She couldn’t leave him to do it on his own, apparently abandoned by his girlfriend only days before.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay for the ball, but then I’ll go.’
This was one last thing she could do for Philippe. She would stand by his side and help him show the Dowager Blanche what a great prince he could be if given the chance.
And that meant looking the part for once, Caro decided. This was one occasion her vintage clothes just wouldn’t do.
There was an extra buzz of excitement about the preparations for the ball that year. Montluce wasn’t used to being in the news, and it suddenly found itself at the top of the cool destinations list. Two days before the ball, Philippe’s A-list friends began to arrive, exclaiming at the quaintness of the country. The jet set were enchanted to discover that this was one place they couldn’t jet to, and that made it all the more charming.
Philippe was torn between pride in his country and a sense of dislocation. These were his friends. He had partied with them, danced with them, skied with them, dined with them…they shouldn’t feel like strangers, but they did. Only Jack, fellow black sheep and hellraising companion for many years was the same.
‘I like Caro,’ he said to Philippe. ‘She’s not your usual type.’
‘No,’ said Ph
ilippe shortly. He was trying not to think about Caro.
They were having dinner, about twenty of them, and in one of her mad vintage outfits, Caro was outshone by everyone. She was wearing the same dress she had worn to that dinner with the First Minister, the one she had worn the night they’d first made love, and Philippe’s body clenched at the thought of easing that zip down once more.
Beside him, Francesca Allen had an incandescent beauty. She was witty and intelligent and charming, and everything he could want in a princess. He should have been dazzled by her.
But it was Caro who kept catching at the edge of his vision: her smile, the way she waved her hands around, the hair falling out of its clip as usual. She’d said she would be intimidated by his friends, by their confidence and glamour, but Philippe thought she was the most confident of all. She was just herself. Caro didn’t have to put on a front because she didn’t care. She was going back to Ellerby.
‘She’s been a refreshing change,’ he said to Jack, deliberately careless. ‘But she’s going home soon. It’s been fun,’ he said, using Caro’s line, ‘but it’s run its course.’
He shrugged. If Caro was desperate to leave, he wasn’t going to beg her to stay. He was a Montvivennes prince, after all, and he had his pride. ‘And, let’s face it, she’s not exactly princess material. I was wondering if Francesca might need consoling after her recent divorce…’ Philippe let his voice trail away suggestively.
‘Good idea,’ said Jack. ‘Francesca would put Montluce on the map. She’s got that whole Grace Kelly thing going on.’ He eyed Francesca critically. ‘High maintenance, but worth it if you’re in the market for a princess. She’d be perfect, in fact.’ His eyes strayed down the table to where Caro was laughing. ‘And you won’t mind if I chat Caro up then, will you?’ Yes, Philippe did mind, but he couldn’t say so. He had to watch jealously as Jack manoeuvred himself into a seat next to Caro and set about entertaining her. Jack was all wrong for her, Philippe thought vengefully. He just hoped Caro had the wit to see through him. Jack could be charm itself when he chose.