‘The same as a king.’
‘If you like.’
‘But with a retirement date.’
‘Mm.’ He grimaced. ‘It’ll be the only thing that keeps me sane. I get to retire at fifty-three.’
‘And go back to Somalia?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You know,’ she said cautiously, ‘what you’ve just done…I hadn’t really thought it through from your angle. I’ve been married. I’ve had a son. But you… If you’re settling here for eighteen years, won’t you want a wife?’
‘I already have one.’
‘No, but a real one.’
‘You’re real enough for me, Jess.’
She gave him a distracted smile. ‘You know what I mean,’ she told him. ‘Not one in name only. You might find it hard to move on to your next thousand women in the confines of the royal spotlight.’
‘My next thousand women?’
‘You said you’d had a thousand,’ she told him. They were watching the babies still nuzzling each other in sleepy satisfaction as they wriggled down on the grass.
‘Right,’ he said faintly. ‘I’d forgotten.’
‘So if you want a divorce…’ she said.
‘I don’t want a divorce.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t think I can get a divorce. Not until I’m fifty-three.’
‘We might be able to manage one while Marcel’s not looking,’ she said. ‘If you meet someone highly desirable we could fix it so we were divorced and you were remarried two minutes afterwards so Edouard will still be safe.’
‘I don’t want to be divorced.’
It was a strange statement. A weird statement. It hung between them, a bit like an upraised sword. Threatening damage?
Surely threatening peace.
‘You never know,’ she managed and if she didn’t manage to get her voice to work quite right then who could blame her? By anyone’s reckoning it had been a very strange morning.
‘These babies need feeding,’ Raoul told her and his voice was suddenly rough. She looked at him strangely. Was he feeling like she was?
Alpacas. Think of alpacas. What had he said? The babies need feeding?
‘Um…sure.’
‘Do you have any idea what to feed alpaca babies?’
‘Alpaca milk, preferably,’ she said. ‘But failing that, my best guess is skimmed milk. We can ring a vet and find out. But I’m sure skimmed milk won’t hurt in the interim.’ She thought about it. ‘We need baby bottles. Do you suppose there’s somewhere in the kitchen who can find such things?’
‘I doubt it.’
Goodness, was there no end to what she had to do for this family? She was going to turn out bossy, she thought, and then she thought of Cordelia and grinned.
Cordelia would tell her she’d been born bossy.
‘You take the babies across to the stables,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go see what I can find.’ She hesitated, seeing her own doubt reflected in his eyes. ‘You know, weird as it seems, rooting around in a castle kitchen to see if I can find baby bottles is strangely appealing.’
‘No stopping for toast and marmalade,’ he told her and her smile faltered a little. Damn, how was it that he made her feel like this? As if he knew her so well? As if there was a part of her that was missing? Or had been missing up until now.
‘I’m off on a bottle hunt,’ she told him, more tersely than she’d meant. ‘You go find our babies a bed.’
‘Right,’ he told her and there was still that strange look on his face. ‘Right.’
It took her longer than she’d intended. Henri and Louise and Edouard were nowhere to be seen, and there were certainly no servants to ask, so she had to search the kitchen herself. She found what she was looking for-in the end she found a whole cupboard filled with baby paraphernalia-but then she had to figure out how to operate the microwave. She failed dismally. Finally she found a pot and stuck it on the range and heated her milk the hard way. She filled two bottles with care and carried them back to the stables.
She’d never been in the stables before-she’d been hardly anywhere in this vast, rambling castle-but the stables were unmistakable. They consisted of a vast undercover walkway with stall after stall on either side. Each stall had a horse’s name above. The alleyway in front of the stalls was cobbled and the cobbles were worn with generation upon generation of boots and horseshoes.
Where were all these horses? The stalls were deserted.
Except the first stall. She peered in and found them. Raoul had located fresh hay and spread it liberally. He was sitting against the back wall, with an alpaca baby on each knee.
For a moment the sight of him took her breath away. A big man, a prince, dressed in casual clothes, dressed for the outdoors, a physician…a man with hay in his hair and with a tiny baby on each knee.
‘About time,’ he told her and the spell was broken-or broken a bit-and she managed to smile and go sit down beside him in the hay.
‘I’m not sure how we do this,’ she told him.
‘I’d guess that we stick the teat end of the bottle in the mouth end of the alpaca and see what happens,’ he told her.
‘Gee,’ she said admiringly. ‘That’s what a medical degree teaches you, huh?’
‘That’s not the half of it, lady,’ he told her. ‘Let’s give it a try.’
So they did. And it worked.
And then it became even more unsettling, Jess decided. Sitting on the fresh-smelling hay, her shoulder just brushing the man beside her, with the babies sucking greedily at their bottles as they nestled into the knees of their human carers…
It was so domestic it was scary, Jess thought, and then she thought, yep, she was beginning to be scared. She was definitely scared. Since Dominic’s death-well, ever since his diagnosis-she’d felt way out of control, and now…it was as if there was an edge somewhere really close, and she was about to go into free-fall.
They didn’t speak. Jess couldn’t think of a thing to say, and it seemed Raoul was no smarter. The tiny alpacas drank most of their bottles, but it had been a huge day for the baby alpacas. As the level of the bottles dropped, their drinking slowed, and as the last of the milk drained away the babies drifted off to sleep.
They were twins. They gave each other comfort. Their mother had never fed them, they knew humans as the source of their food and they had each other. So, fed and warm, they nestled together without fear on the soft hay and slept.
‘I guess we can leave them,’ Jess said and her voice sounded funny. That edge was definitely closer.
Raoul had risen and was holding out his hand to pull her up. She took it, uncertainly. ‘I’ll bring Edouard down later to introduce him to them,’ he said. He tugged her to her feet and she rose and was suddenly too close.
Far too close.
‘I guess we should go tell the others what we’ve done,’ Raoul said, but he didn’t move.
‘I guess.’
‘Jess, I want to thank you.’
‘No thanks needed.’ Her voice had fallen to a whisper. She didn’t know why, but it had. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Step away from the edge.
‘Without you…’
‘Without me you would have found someone else.’
‘No one else,’ he said, softly. He was already holding one of her hands. Suddenly he was holding the other. He was looking down into her eyes, he was tugging her against him-and then, without her willing it, without her knowing exactly how it had happened-or why-he was kissing her.
She didn’t want to kiss Raoul Louis d’Apergenet. She did not!
Who was she kidding? She wanted to kiss Raoul Louis d’Apergenet more than anything-anyone!-in the world. He was lowering his mouth onto hers, she was opening her lips to him and it felt the most natural, the most wonderful thing that she’d ever done in her life.
It felt as if she had found her home.
This man could kiss! The sensations she’d experienced during their wedding kiss came flooding back. Raoul was r
ight for her. He was the other half of her whole. They fitted together perfectly, and he filled a need in her that she hadn’t known she had-that she hadn’t known existed. Now it felt so good, so right, that to tear herself away was unthinkable.
He smelled wonderful. New-mown hay, milk, baby alpaca and…and Raoul.
He felt wonderful.
He tasted just fine.
She could forget herself in this man’s arms, she thought blissfully, and promptly did.
For Jess, the last two years had been a blur of misery and despair. She’d emerged at the end of the struggle for Dom’s life thinking she could never again feel life above the grey fog she lived in.
But in these few days…no, in these last few hours the fog had been blasted clear. There was life outside her fog. Life was waiting. Raoul was waiting.
But he was no longer waiting. Raoul was claiming her for life. Life was…beginning.
And she gloried in the sensation. Her fingers were entwined in his hair, claiming him, deepening the kiss. She felt her body respond, aroused as it had never been aroused, wanting as it had never wanted…
Raoul.
How did he make her feel like this? She didn’t know and she wasn’t asking questions. For now there was only this moment, this sensation of pure pleasure, of aching need fulfilled, and the feeling that it was reciprocated.
This man was her husband.
‘My wife,’ he murmured in her ear and it felt right.
This was the start of the rest of her life?
His hands were on her blouse, unfastening the buttons. She wasn’t objecting. Why would she? His hands were rough and warm and tender on her breasts and she wanted this as much as he wanted it.
Raoul. Her husband.
‘We don’t have witnesses,’ she murmured and she felt him smile.
‘Excellent.’
Excellent was good. Excellent was…well, excellent. No more questions.
Or maybe just the one. His hands were moving lower, caressing her hips. She felt herself ache with pleasure and with need, and she knew…she knew that the question that had to be asked must be asked now. Now!
‘Um…do we have protection?’
That gave pause. He pulled back, enough to look down into her eyes-and he groaned.
‘Hell.’
Hell indeed.
‘Hay’s prickly anyway, my love,’ she whispered, trying to ignore the jolt of dismay that she felt run through her whole body. But she couldn’t ignore it. Something had happened to her here that was unfathomable. Every inch of her was screaming that she was married-joined-and they should begin their marriage right now. Protection or not. In this sweet-smelling hay, with sleeping babies beside them…
Babies. Not! They both thought the same thing at the same time and their bodies jerked apart a whole half-inch.
‘Hell.’ It was a deeper groan, heartfelt. Raoul raked his hair in dismay, but he took her into his arms again, tender and yet proprietorial. Claiming his own. Claiming his wife?
‘I guess it does matter,’ he whispered into her hair.
‘It surely does.’ Her words sounded firm. She wasn’t the least bit firm inside though. She was very, very wobbly. ‘If you think I’m going back to Australia pregnant…’
‘Do you need to go back to Australia?’
It was her turn to pause then. To pull back. To stare at his face and try to read his eyes.
‘Of course I need to go.’
‘We could wait and see if this marriage could work.’
Another pause. Everything seemed to still. What was he saying? ‘Yeah?’ she managed, but it was a squeak.
‘Love, we need to think…’
But there was no time to think. Not now. ‘Uncle Raoul!’ It was a child’s high-pitched call from outside the stables.
Edouard.
‘Raoul?’
That was Louise.
Jess stiffened. She pulled away a little more, brushing hay from her clothes, from her hair.
Raoul stayed where he was, watching her.
‘Jess…’
‘This is nonsense.’ Of course it had to be nonsense. A fairy tale with a happy ending. ‘What…what a thing to say.’
‘I’m stuck here,’ he told her. ‘It might not be so bad. We could work things out.’
‘You want to be stuck here with a wife?’
‘It’d be better than being alone,’ he told her and she stared at him, astounded.
‘Are you proposing?’
‘I might be.’
‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped. ‘Of all the romantic-’
‘Jess, we both know that romance doesn’t work.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ She was glaring at him, her glare on high beam. ‘You’d know. Of course you’d know. A thousand women…’
‘Hey, I was joking about the thousand women.’
‘And I was fooling around when I let you kiss me,’ she snapped.
‘You were kissing back.’
‘I was being kind.’ She glowered. ‘You’ve got hay stuck in your hair.’
‘I need to be compromised.’
‘By sleeping on the settee in my bedroom. Not by rolling in the hay.’
‘It’d be more fun rolling in the hay.’
He was laughing. The rat was laughing. ‘Cut it out, Raoul,’ she managed. ‘Edouard is looking for us.’
‘So he is. You want to hide?’
Enough. Raoul had dragged a bale of hay into the stables to make a bed for the alpacas. He’d spread out most of the bale but there was a sizeable chunk still intact, pressed together in a square. He stood, smiling softly at her, inviting her to seduction-and she cracked.
She lifted the square of hay and threw it. Hard.
So when Edouard and his grandmother reached the door of their stall they found a glowering bride and a bridegroom who was covered in a cloud of hay.
CHAPTER NINE
‘SO TELL us what’s happening.’
They were all settled in the hay: Raoul, Jess, Louise and Edouard, and Henri. Louise had taken one look at the incoherent pair and had called Henri for back-up. ‘Because I can’t get any sense out of them and maybe you can.’ Now she was demanding answers.
Only Edouard wasn’t interested. The little boy had Sebastian in one hand and he was gently stroking Balthazar’s nose with the other. He was totally entranced. Leaving his elders to sort out the non-important stuff.
‘The phone’s going crazy,’ Louise told them. ‘Henri tells me you sneaked out at dawn…’
‘We didn’t sneak,’ Raoul objected but Jess cast him a withering look.
‘Yes, we did.’ She was in the mood for contradiction. What had he said? Try marriage because it’s better than being stuck here alone? He had to be kidding.
‘We snook,’ she told Louise and Henri. ‘And it worked. We’re legally married.’
Louise stared from one to the other in disbelief. ‘You can’t be.’
‘We are,’ she said. ‘Dopey as it sounds, I’ve married your son.’
‘Hey, who’s dopey?’ Raoul complained. He was smiling at her with a smile she didn’t understand-and didn’t trust a bit. ‘It’s not dopey. The more I think about it, the more I’m deciding that marriage is a good idea.’
‘For today.’
‘Or maybe a bit longer,’ Raoul said.
Yeah, right.
‘Momentarily,’ she said, in the firmest voice she could muster. ‘It’s a momentary marriage so you can keep Edouard safe.’
‘Momentary?’ Louise looked really confused.
‘Oh, the marriage can last,’ she told her, casting a repressive glance at her bridegroom. ‘But the bride goes back to Australia tomorrow.’
Louise stared from Jess to Raoul and back again, her face saying she didn’t believe a word of it. She turned to Henri, doubtful. ‘Is this true?’
‘I’ve been talking to Monsieur Luiten on the telephone,’ Henri told her. ‘It’s true.’
‘When were you talking
to Monsieur Luiten?’
‘Just now.’
‘While Edouard and I were searching.’ She cast him a look of disbelief. ‘You knew of this?’
‘It was Henri’s suggestion,’ Jess told Louise.
‘Hey, the marriage was your suggestion,’ Raoul objected. ‘Mama, I was propositioned, just like that. Marry me, she said, and what was a chivalrous prince supposed to do?’
‘You really have married Jessie,’ Louise said. She stared down at Jess’s hand-at the plaited band of ancient gold. ‘It’s my mother’s ring.’
‘I couldn’t find anything else at short notice,’ Raoul said apologetically. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Louise whispered. ‘Why would I mind? My mother’s ring to be used for this…’
‘Hey,’ Jess said, suddenly even more uneasy than she was. ‘It’s not a real marriage.’
‘Not…’
‘It is a real marriage,’ Raoul told them. ‘Forever and ever. That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it, Jess?’
‘Yes, but not together,’ she managed. He was too near, she decided. Too close. Too…Raoul. ‘As I said, I’m going back to Australia.’
‘I am very, very confused,’ Louise complained. ‘You’re going back to Australia-but you’re married. A momentary marriage. Would you mind starting at the beginning and telling me just what is going on?’
So they told her. Or Raoul told her and Jess listened while he outlined the very sensible reasons they’d decided to marry. She listened while he talked about their early-morning marriage ceremony, of Monsieur Luiten’s assurances that all would be right with their world. She listened while he described the advent of the twins into their lives-how the news of their marriage had become public. She listened while he finished off with,
‘But I’ve been thinking, Mama. If we can persuade Jess to stay on for a bit…it’d be so much easier.’
Easier? Easier for whom?
‘It’d be good for the little one,’ Henri said with a glance across to Edouard. Only it was an uneasy glance. Henri at least had realised there might be problems.
Of course there were problems, Jess thought savagely. She watched as Henri’s eyes turned doubtfully to her and she thought, This old man has more sensitivity than his master.
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