Princess Of Convenience

by Marion Lennox

  She’d known this man for two days. Could she spend the rest of her life beside him?

  Yes, her heart was saying, but in the coldness before dawn there was room for her head to work as well.

  Dominic’s ashes were back in Australia and the ink was barely dry on his death certificate.

  And she had an appointment.

  Yesterday she’d rung a business acquaintance-the woman who organised the export of her yarns. Claire lived in Vesey and it had been Claire who’d organised her initial itinerary. Jess scarcely knew her but Claire’s business depended on Jess’s custom and yesterday it had seemed time to call in favours.

  Claire knew all about what had happened to her-by now all the country did. She’d sounded astounded and sympathetic, but above all she’d been businesslike. If Jess wanted to get back to Australia-as yesterday Jess had assured her she did-then certainly Claire would organise a car to meet her. At the back entrance to the castle? Surely. Why so early? To avoid the Press? Yes, she understood that, too.

  Those arrangements had been made yesterday, with her head.

  And forgotten last night, with her heart.

  She checked her watch in the stillness. Raoul stirred a little and murmured as she moved away from him. For a moment she thought he’d wake-but he settled again.

  It was too late to ring Claire to stop the car. She’d have already left from Vesey.

  She needed to go out and find her. Apologise. Tell her she was staying.

  Was she staying?

  Yes, her heart screamed. Raoul… Maybe Raoul loved her?

  But how could he be thinking that, when he’d known her for such a short time? She’d thought she’d loved Warren. How could she be sure that this was different?

  It was different.

  But to leave Dominic’s home country…

  She turned in the bed, away from her husband. The fire was still glowing, sending a soft light over the room, but the first faint tinges of morning were turning the windows grey and bleak.

  She slid out of bed and went to the window.

  For a long time she stood there, staring outward over the grey, pre-dawn sea.

  A princess in her tower?

  This was a fairy tale, she thought. An impossibility. Real women didn’t marry princes and become princesses.

  Real women didn’t get happy ever after.

  This was a marriage of convenience. She knew that. The love and laughter of the night before had simply camouflaged it for a little. Now the greyness of the morning was hauling back the thick blanket of depression that had hung over her since Dominic’s death.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ she demanded of herself. ‘A real-life princess? Be serious.’

  Still…

  She looked back at Raoul and he was waking, reaching for her and finding her gone. His eyes were open and he was smiling and her heart twisted within.

  Any minute now he’d be irrevocably tied. Any minute now he’d fall in love.

  She had already.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he told her, holding out his hand in an imperious order. ‘My wife.’

  His wife.

  How could that be? She was no one’s wife. She was no one’s mother. She’d told herself that after Warren’s betrayal; after Dominic’s loss. She’d had enough pain to last a lifetime. How could she expose herself to more?

  She couldn’t. That was why she’d made this offer to Raoul. He could safely use her as his wife in name only, because she intended to be no one’s wife and no one’s mother forever.

  Could one night’s love and laughter change her mind?

  Raoul was watching her, his eyes concerned. ‘What is it, my love?’

  ‘It’s all been so fast.’

  ‘It has,’ he said softly. ‘But I’m old enough to believe in magic. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Magic has happened for me,’ he murmured. ‘You asked me why I hadn’t married before? I thought I didn’t want to marry. But Jess, if I’d met you ten years ago…’

  ‘Don’t,’ she begged, and as he made to rise she backed a little. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘My head’s having trouble holding this in.’

  ‘And your heart?’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ she told him, seriously, knowing that he wouldn’t push. ‘My heart is jumping round like a stupid jumping bean. There’s Dominic…’

  ‘Jess, I’m not asking you to be unfaithful to Dominic,’ he said gently. ‘Dominic is your son. He’s your love. Your baby. He’ll always have the place of honour in your heart, and in mine also. His presence will stay in our family with love. Jess, can we be family? Can you let us share?’

  She was so close to tears. They were threatening to spill and if they did she knew he’d reach for her and take her and she’d let herself sink into him.

  No. She needed time.

  ‘I’ll just… Raoul, I’ll just go down and check on the alpacas.’

  ‘To give yourself space?’

  He understood. Of course he understood, but somehow that made it worse.

  ‘Please…’

  ‘Go, my Jess,’ he told her. ‘Go and ask Balthazar and Matilda what you should do. But I suspect they’ll tell you… Wrap yourself in love, my heart.’ And then he smiled, his eyes caressing her from the top of her head to the tip of her-bare-toes. ‘But maybe also wrap yourself in something a little more tangible? Like clothes?’

  Why did he have to smile like this? It made her heart twist so much it hurt. It made the sane, sensible-grey?-Jessica want to leap right back into bed with him.

  She grabbed a towel and she glowered, using her glower to keep him at bay. ‘I have a choice between a wedding dress and a towel,’ she managed, searching for lightness. ‘The men from the ministry will be shocked. But it might give me some peace. I’ll tell them I’m going back to my apartment to find some clothes. They can hardly argue.’

  ‘And you’ll come straight back to me after your…consultation? Your quiet time with your alpacas?’

  ‘Y…yes.’

  And then she hesitated. If a decision had to be made, then she had to know the facts. ‘They can go home now, anyway, can’t they?’ she asked. ‘The men from the ministry? I’d imagine we’re well and truly compromised.’

  His face stilled. ‘We are at that.’

  ‘Nothing can undo this marriage?’

  ‘Unless you decide you want out. Jess, you can’t really be thinking…’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m thinking.’ Her voice was almost a wail. ‘All I know is that I can’t think while I’m staring at you.’

  ‘Really?’ he said-hopefully-and her heart twisted all over again. All she wanted was to abandon her towel and dive straight back between the sheets. But…

  ‘I need space. Raoul…’

  ‘I understand,’ he said gently. ‘I won’t push you any faster than you want to go. You go and talk to your babies.’ He smiled again, a caress all by itself. ‘At least now that you’re gone I have room in this tiny bed to stretch my toes. Oh, and Jess…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think that I love you. I think maybe that I love you forever.’

  Forever. The word hung over her head, and it was suddenly terrifying.

  She stared at him for a long moment-and then she fled.

  She opened the door expecting to run the gauntlet of suits, but the suits were gone. They’d have been thinking this arrangement was ridiculous, she decided, and as soon as it was apparent that she and Raoul really had spent the night together they’d have headed home.

  Well, it was ridiculous. The place was running on outmoded laws-laws that Raoul could now change. He could do it because of her.

  But not with her.

  The trickle of fear that had crept through her while she lay in the bed was now turning to a flood. She’d been swept away, she thought desperately. She’d fallen for a gentle smile, for a sweet prince, and she’d been seduced into something
she’d promised to avoid for the rest of her life.

  Loving.

  Space. She had to have space.

  She had thirty minutes before Claire would be here. Thirty minutes to think.

  The palace was deserted. There’d been too much celebrating last night for anyone to be stirring now.

  There was no one and no one and no one.

  Back in her apartment she showered fast and donned jeans, windcheater and jacket. The morning was cool and no one had lit the fire in her apartment. Well, why would they?

  Her suitcase was standing inside the opened wardrobe. Waiting?

  She could leave now, she thought. She could meet Claire’s car and she could go. The sensible Jessica Devlin would do just that.

  But the sensible Jessica Devlin was having trouble.

  She looked at the suitcase for a long minute, trying to let her jumbled thoughts settle.

  No.

  ‘I’ll leave,’ she said, softly to herself. ‘Or…probably I’ll leave. But not like this. I need to talk to Raoul for longer. If…when I leave, I need to say goodbye to him, and to Louise and Henri and Edouard. I’ll find Claire and tell her I need more time. ‘If you spend more time with Raoul then he’ll change your mind.

  ‘Good. That’s really good,’ she told her suitcase. ‘Maybe I’m being a coward, not giving him that opportunity. Meanwhile you stay where you are.’ And she slammed her wardrobe door on her suitcase before she could change her mind.

  Alpacas.

  Swiftly she made her way down the back stairs, outside into the cool morning, and across to the stables.

  She reached the stable door, and walked through to the alpacas’ stall.

  And paused.

  Balthazar and Matilda were asleep in the hay, but they weren’t alone.

  Edouard was there, too. They formed a confused ball of child and alpaca, three babies curled together for comfort and for warmth.

  And there was more.

  A mound of bedding had been piled into the corner. Soft blankets and a pile of pillows were mounded in the fresh-smelling hay. Louise was there, curled into sleep, and the strain she’d worn on her face for all the time Jess had known her was gone. She looked years younger, Jess thought. She had her grandson and she could move on.

  And Henri… Louise’s butler was asleep beside her, a chivalrous knight guarding his lady at rest.

  The royal family of Alp’Azuri.

  Jess stood and stared down at them all, and suddenly she was fighting back those stupid tears again. She bit them back with fury. She didn’t cry. She never cried.

  She was crying now.

  Why?

  How many times since Dominic died had she looked at families? At mothers pushing strollers, at fathers with toddlers on their shoulders, families laughing, playing, living. Raoul had this wonderful, loving family. Edouard was safe.

  But Dominic wasn’t here, and the thought broke her heart. For if Dominic wasn’t here, what right did she have to stay? It was a betrayal.

  She wanted her baby so much it was physical anguish, and he wasn’t here, and how could she be part of any family without him?

  The ache in her heart grew heavier, harder, and she backed out of the stables with tears streaming down her face.

  Dominic.

  The longing for him was so awful that she felt sick.

  What was she doing, thinking she could possibly start again? How could she fill her heart with someone who wasn’t Dominic? How could she cuddle Edouard, maybe even start a new little life…?

  She couldn’t. The greyness was back with a vengeance. She delved into her jacket pocket to find a handkerchief and her fingers found…

  Her passport.

  All her documents.

  She’d taken them with her yesterday, the morning of her marriage. They were still here.

  She stared down at them. Then, below her in the valley, she saw a tiny car, growing bigger as it grew closer.

  Claire.

  How could she go?

  How could she stay?

  She couldn’t. She turned back and glanced from where she’d come.

  It took courage to start again, and she didn’t have it.

  Dominic’s ashes were back in Australia.

  She was going home.

  ‘Mama?’

  Louise woke as Raoul called her name. For a moment Louise was confused. There was a piece of hay tickling her face. She was warm, she was more comfortable than she’d ever felt in her life and she felt just wonderful.

  Jess had given her this.

  She’d checked Edouard before she’d gone to bed last night and found him fretting about his alpacas. So she and Edouard-and of course Sebastian-Bear-had set off on a torchlight expedition to the stables. They’d found Henri trying to feed them.

  He’d finally succeeded, but in the end they hadn’t wanted to settle. Edouard had been distressed so Henri had suggested they stay.

  So they’d stayed. Well, why not? Her son was married. She could stay in this castle and raise her grandson. There was light in Louise’s world as there hadn’t been for a very long time.

  And at some time in the night Henri’s hand had caught hers and something more had changed. This elderly widower who’d been her faithful servant for so long was suddenly so much more.

  It was right. Jess had given her this, she thought, lying on the straw, gazing up at her son, smiling…

  ‘Wow,’ Raoul was saying. His face was strained, she thought, but he was taking in what was before him with a sense of awe. ‘This is some bedroom.’

  ‘We camped here,’ Edouard told him proudly, waking up in an instant at the sound of his uncle’s voice. ‘And we’re going to do it again tonight. Do you want to camp, too?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Raoul told him, but the strain was obvious in his voice. He turned back to Louise. ‘Mama…’

  ‘Henri and I are getting married,’ she said, serenely, and he blinked-but then he smiled.

  ‘That’s wonderful. You ought to have done it years ago.’

  ‘Henri wouldn’t,’ she told him. ‘But now… I told him if you could marry Jess after knowing her for only one day then I could marry Henri after knowing him for thirty years.’

  Great. It was great but he needed to move on to things of even more import. ‘Mama, has Jess been here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, she has,’ Edouard said and they all stared.

  ‘She came in for a minute a long, long time ago,’ Edouard ventured. ‘I pretended I was asleep. And then I was again so it was all right.’

  ‘You saw her?’

  ‘Mm. She stood and looked down at me and she was crying.’

  ‘Crying,’ Raoul said, and his heart stilled. His Jess was crying.

  ‘Can’t you find her?’ Louise was pushing herself upright from the straw. She could see the worry in his eyes. ‘The palace is big.’

  ‘Mama, she was crying.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So maybe she’s left us.’

  ‘How could she have left us?’ Louise demanded, confused. ‘Raoul, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Her return plane ticket was booked for this morning,’ Henri ventured, trying-with some difficulty-to turn himself back into a dignified servant. ‘She was only supposed to be in this country for ten days. I did ask her if she’d cancelled her booking and she said it was taken care of. But…’ He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say the words, but they had to be said. ‘Maybe she intended to take the flight after all.’

  Silence. Then,

  ‘Do you love her?’ Louise asked into the stillness.

  ‘I think…’

  ‘You think that you do.’

  ‘I told her I thought I was falling…’

  ‘But you haven’t fallen? You haven’t fallen yet?’

  ‘Mama…’

  There was another long silence. Then, ‘Well, it was only a wedding of convenience, after all,’ Louise said, watching her son’s face. ‘If it ends th
is morning, is there any harm done? If you’re not really sure you love her.’

  Not really sure. What kind of stupid statement was that?

  ‘What time is the flight?’ he snapped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Henri told him. ‘But I’d imagine she’s probably taken the daily connection to London which leaves at ten. Has she taken her luggage?’

  ‘At ten?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten!’

  ‘But if you’re not really sure,’ Louise started but he was no longer listening.

  He’d started to run.

  It was a long journey down the mountain to Vesey Airport. Claire herself hadn’t made the trip. She’d sent a driver, an in-articulate man who listened to rap music so loud that Jess could hear it through his headphones. He wasn’t the least bit bothered as to whom he was carrying as a passenger.

  For which Jess was inordinately grateful. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She sat, huddled in the back seat, feeling small and cowardly.

  ‘You didn’t even say goodbye,’ she told herself. ‘To anybody.

  ‘If I had, then Raoul would have talked me into staying.

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?

  ‘I can’t start again. I can’t. And here, in this place…with such a man…you must see it’s impossible.’

  If anyone could have heard her they would have thought she was crazy, but her driver’s headphones were impervious to outside interference. She could talk at will.

  But she didn’t talk any more. She’d run out of arguments.

  She sat and stared at nothing. She was a coward and she knew it.

  But there were no arguments left.

  Airports were the loneliest places in the world.

  Jess booked in. No luggage. No fuss. She now had three hours to kill.

  A middle-aged lady came up to her, polite and deferential. ‘Excuse me, dear, but aren’t you the lady who…?’

  Jess stared at her blankly.

  The lady stared some more and then gave an embarrassed titter.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. It’s just for a minute the resemblance to our new princess seemed very marked. I thought you must be related.’

  She motioned to the stacks of newspapers which were selling like hot cakes from every news vendor. On the front, a truly regal couple.