Princess Of Convenience

by Marion Lennox

  Prince Raoul and his bride.

  ‘No relation,’ Jess said. She managed a weak, embarrassed smile and the lady gave her a weak, embarrassed smile back. But thoughtful. As if she wasn’t quite sure.

  No matter. Jess bought a coffee and a newspaper and settled to read.

  FAIRY-TALE WEDDING, the headlines screamed.

  JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED.

  PRINCE RAOUL, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

  The last caught her attention. The article was based on previous knowledge of Raoul. There was a description of his medical qualifications and skills that made her feel insignificant in the face of such ability. Then there was the rest of the article, based on an interview they’d had with him yesterday.

  In it Raoul outlined his hopes and his plans for this country. His intentions to transform the hospitals, the schools, the living conditions of the country’s impoverished elderly.

  He finished with the words, ‘With Princess Jessica’s help, all of these things are possible.’

  ‘You’ve had my help,’ she whispered to his photograph. ‘Now you’re on your own.’

  She read on. Inside was a photograph of Edouard. ‘We’re so grateful to Princess Jessica,’ Louise was quoted as saying. ‘Edouard will now have a grandmother. He needs a mother, but it’s not possible. We’re all he has.’

  He needs a mother. Jess stared down into the small boy’s tentative smile, and she didn’t smile back.

  She couldn’t.

  Because of Dominic?

  ‘I can’t expose myself to that sort of pain,’ she said out loud.

  ‘How selfish is that?

  ‘Really selfish. But that’s just the way you are.’

  An elderly couple at the next table were looking at her strangely and she gave them an embarrassed smile. Talking to yourself. The first sign of madness. She was going nuts.

  Her cell-phone rang.

  Who…?

  The only person to have her number was Cordelia, and why would her cousin ring?

  Maybe she’s found out about the wedding, Jess thought, and she didn’t answer.

  But the ringing went on. It stopped and started again. The lady at the table opposite leaned over and said, ‘Excuse me, dear, your phone is ringing.’

  She sighed-but finally she answered.

  And of course she’d given the number to one person other than Cordelia. The rumbling voice was unmistakable.

  ‘Your Highness? Am I speaking to the lady who bought my twins? The wife of our prince?’

  The farmer.

  ‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat and tried to focus. ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Angel’s in trouble. My Angel.’ There was a sound very like a sob from the other end of the line. ‘The mother of the twins.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said cautiously, and her question started a flood.

  ‘Oh, Your Highness, I brought Angel home, but by the time she got here she was looking over her shoulder as if she’d forgotten something. And then she refused to drink…and we’d walked for so long…and she refuses to eat. And now she’ll hardly stand. And this morning my wife and I are to leave. My daughter is due to have a baby right now and my wife says we go or she’ll divorce me and how can I leave my Angel?’

  There was no doubt about it. He was sobbing.

  ‘Maybe you should ring the palace,’ she told him. This was Raoul’s problem, she thought, feeling dizzy. This was not her problem. She was going home.

  ‘There’s no one at the palace who will speak to me,’ he told her. ‘There’s a receptionist who says no calls are being taken. And it’s in an hour that we need to catch the train, and my Angel’s dying and how can I leave her like this?’

  The same way I did, Jess thought bitterly. You just walk away.

  ‘I’m sure they still need their mother,’ the farmer told her. ‘I should have tried harder. I jumped into selling them because it seemed the easy solution. I should have had courage.’

  Ouch.

  ‘Please, Your Highness, can you help? You’re at the castle. You could organise a horse trailer and take Angel back to her babies. If you manage to save her then she’s yours. Your wedding gift. And if you don’t…how much better to have tried and failed than not to have tried? Please, Your Highness, will you try?’

  There was a long, long silence.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ she managed. ‘Hush.’

  He hushed.

  She thought some more.

  Ouch!

  Angel was dying because she’d lost her babies.

  If she went back now… All it took was courage.

  ‘Can I do it, Dominic?’ she asked out loud; right out loud, so that people were turning to see who she was talking to. ‘Can I start over? Can I possibly let myself love again?’

  There was a moment’s hush from those around her. Then,

  ‘Sure you can, sweetheart,’ someone told her from the other side of the table, and she realised that she had an audience.

  ‘Loving again is what life is all about,’ someone else said. ‘The more you love, the more you get loved.’

  ‘You sound like a fortune cookie,’ someone else said, and everybody laughed.

  But they were with her. The people around her were smiling in sympathy. All these people-this odd assortment of random airport humanity, some of whom would have been lucky in love, but there must be others whom tragedy had hit. Somehow they’d picked themselves up and kept going, and maybe it was those who’d been hit worst who were giving her advice now.

  ‘I can try,’ she told the assemblage, almost defiant. ‘I can go back and think about it. Maybe it could work.’

  ‘Of course it’ll work.’ The farmer clearly had no idea what was happening, but he was prepared to stick in his oar in any way that sounded even vaguely optimistic.

  ‘I might need help,’ she said, and the middle-aged woman who’d thought she was Princess Jessica touched her arm. Clearly she was wondering if help meant leading her gently to a lunatic asylum.

  ‘What sort of help?’

  ‘I need a car,’ Jess told her. And then she took a deep breath. ‘I need to hire a car with an alpaca trailer attached. Right now.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE should be driving on this side of the road. Surely?

  She was back where this had all started. The road was spiralling around snow-capped mountains, with the sea crashing a hundred feet below.

  As it had before.

  There were mediaeval castles, ancient fishing villages, lush pastures dotted with long-haired goats and alpacas-every sight seemingly designed to take the breath away.

  She was past losing breath over this scenery.

  The twist she’d just taken had given her a fleeting glimpse of the home of the Alp’Azuri royal family. Built of glistening white stone, set high on the crags overlooking the sea, the castle’s high walls, its turrets and its towers looked straight out of a fairy tale.

  Yeah, right. Not such a fairy tale. Raoul’s home.

  But she wasn’t concentrating on Raoul’s home. Up above she’d caught a glimpse of a brilliant-yellow sports car, coming fast.

  She wasn’t even going to think about what side of the road it was on this time. She was driving an ancient rent-a-heap and she was towing an even more ancient horse-trailer. She made a really big target.

  Carefully she pulled off the road, onto a verge which was wider than the one she’d pulled onto when she’d crashed with Sarah. She was safe here, whatever side of the road the car was on.

  The Lamborghini came around the bend fast, but not so fast to make it unsafe. It was a truly elegant sports car.

  It was on the right side of the road.

  It was a yellow Lamborghini.

  Raoul.

  The hood was down. Raoul was concentrating on the road.

  Jessica’s window was also down. As the Lamborghini swept past she stared across.

  Raoul flicked a gl
ance sideways and Comte Marcel came close to getting his way after all. The Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri came really, really close to driving straight off a cliff.

  Somehow he didn’t crash. Somehow Raoul managed to park, backing up until the Lamborghini was at rest beside the battered heap of junk Jess was driving. He stared across, unable to believe that he’d found her. She was looking across at him with wide, grave eyes that held an expression he couldn’t read.

  ‘You’ve come back,’ he said, stupidly, and she nodded.

  ‘I had to bring Angel.’

  ‘Right.’ He didn’t understand but he wasn’t arguing.

  He was in his car. She was in hers. It was a thoroughly unsatisfactory arrangement which needed to be corrected immediately. It was easy enough for him to get out of his car-it was done in seconds-but that still left her.

  ‘Jess, will you get out of the car?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to kiss you.’

  ‘Um… It’s just a marriage of convenience,’ she said tentatively, mechanically, as if she wasn’t sure what she was feeling.

  ‘Like hell it is.’ He tugged at the door. It didn’t open. ‘You’ve locked the door.’

  ‘Only the passenger door opens. You have to climb over the gear stick to get in or out.’

  ‘Well, climb over the gear stick.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you. I want to kiss you.’

  ‘You’re not mad because I ran away?’

  ‘I’m mad because you haven’t climbed over the gear stick.’ He strode around the back of the trailer to reach the passenger door. Angel stuck her head out over the trailer gate and she pushed her nose in his neck. He jumped a foot.

  ‘Why is Angel here?’ He took a deep breath, regrouped and abandoned Angel. ‘No, never mind. Where were we?’ He hauled open the passenger door.

  Jess was coming out feet first.

  He wanted the other end.

  ‘Why do you want to kiss me?’ she asked, muffled by the car seat.

  ‘You’re my wife. I love you.’

  ‘You love me?’

  ‘Of course I love you,’ he told her. ‘Of course I do.’ She was out, and he was turning her to face him.

  ‘Last night…you never said you did,’ she whispered cautiously. ‘You said you might.’

  ‘That’s because you wouldn’t let me win at slot-cars.’ He was tugging her into his arms, holding her close. ‘I never tell anyone I love them when they won’t let me win at slot-cars.’

  ‘And if I let you win?’

  ‘Then I’ll love you forever and ever.’ He bent to kiss her-but she pushed away. Just a little.

  ‘Raoul…’

  Laughter faded. The joy at finding her took a back step as he recognised the seriousness and the deep doubts in her voice. He heard the echo of tears and he drew back. His hands were cupping her face, his eyes were searching hers and he thought: how could he have ever thought that he might in time come to love this woman? He loved her with his whole heart. Right now.

  ‘Jess, you can win at slot-cars any time you want,’ he said, and he couldn’t keep his voice steady. It was doing this quaver thing that he didn’t recognise-that he couldn’t control. ‘I’ve been a fool,’ he said and in that instant any hint of levity fell away. There was only room for truth between them, and both of them knew it. ‘Jess, darling Jess, I love you now, with all my heart, with everything I have. You are my wife, Jess, whether or not you want to stay with me. But I so hope you do. I do so hope you can. When I thought you’d left me… Oh, Jess.’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘It’s Dominic, isn’t it?’ he asked, and his hands caressed her face, willing the pain to disappear from her eyes. ‘Jess, loving again isn’t a betrayal of Dominic. How can it be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered and he heard the agony of indecision. ‘It just seems…wrong.’

  ‘I know. It’s far too soon.’ He was seeking desperately to understand her pain. He was smoothing her face, tracing her spent tears. Loving her with his whole heart. ‘For you to lose your baby and then have us thrust on you; it’s far too fast. But it’s happened. Magically it’s happened, my love.’ He hesitated. ‘Surely Dominic wouldn’t want your world to stay grey.’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t.’

  He hadn’t got it right. She was suddenly angry, pushing him away in distress. ‘Of course he wouldn’t. Dominic didn’t want anything except to be. To live. But he didn’t. I couldn’t save him. And he can’t be part of this. How can I have a happy ending when he can’t?’

  There was a moment’s hush. The waves washed in and out beneath them while he tried desperately, frantically, to find the right words.

  ‘And Lisle can’t,’ he said softly, at last. ‘And Jean-Paul and Cherie and Sarah. And the people I’m working with in Somalia. So much death. It eats away at you. I know it, my Jess, and I hate it. The waste.’

  ‘I don’t… I just want my Dominic.’

  It was a wail of aching sorrow and it was too much. He pulled her against his shoulder and he stroked the close-cropped curls and kissed the top of her head. She shuddered against him and he held her closer.

  ‘Did you cry, my love?’ he asked softly. ‘When Dominic died-did you cry then?’

  ‘I… No. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Yet this morning you cried.’

  ‘When I looked at Edouard. With his family.’

  Damn, his heart was breaking just listening to her. If he could take this pain away… He’d cut his own heart out to spare her this desolation.

  But he couldn’t. The death of her son was something that would stay with her forever and all he could do was be there for her.

  ‘You know, families are strange things,’ he said, softly into her curls. He was barely touching her with his hands, aware that at any minute she could pull away. She was leaning into him but his hands didn’t lock her to him.

  The sea air was warm on their skin. The sound of the surf was a gentle hush-hush of a backdrop. But he wasn’t noticing. He was fighting, and he was fighting with everything he had.

  ‘In Somalia…’ he told her, going sideways to her desolation but sensing it was maybe the right thing to do. ‘In Somalia the people are being decimated by AIDS. I see tragedies every day as I work there. So many orphans. So many deaths. But you know, the inter-aid agencies have gone down the road of adopting children out of their own countries and they’ve drawn back. Because no matter how dreadful the circumstances, no matter how many deaths there are in families, families seem to reform. Regroup. Two families become one. Two teenage girls, friends, get together to raise siblings. Grandmas and uncles and second cousins once removed are stepping in to pick up the pieces. I’ve watched it over and over, with awe. And you know what, my Jess? The only linking they have is love.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Don’t stop me,’ he told her, still stroking her hair. Aching for her to understand this with him. ‘Because I’m only just figuring this out for myself. Since Lisle’s death, I’ve been an outsider looking in. I didn’t think I had any love left to give. But of course I did. Love expands to fill the void. Edouard needs my love. My mother and Henri… I love them and they love me. And I love my memories of Lisle. How could I have said I had no more love when I still love my twin? She’s part of my life forever. Dominic’s death has brought you over to my country, despairing, and his life will stay in my heart for always as well. Because of you, my darling Jess, Dominic will live on, with us, with those we love now and with those who come after. But only if we let that legacy live on, my love. Love can’t look back all the time. What I’ve found with you…it’s given me so much joy that I feel I can face anything. With you. Because most of all, best of all, greatest of all, I love you.’

  He set her back from him then, just a little, holding her at arm’s length so he could see her face. She stared up at him with eyes that were unfathomable and he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell…

  ‘I�
��m asking you to give me a chance,’ he whispered. ‘I’m asking you to let me teach you that we can be a family. That we’re not excluding anyone or dishonouring anyone. If you agree, if you let me love you, then we’ll be taking our love for Dominic and for Lisle and Edouard and Mama and Henri-and cousin Cordelia and whoever else comes along-but most of all we’ll be taking our love for each other and we’ll be moving forward. I love you so much, my beautiful Jessica, and I want more than anything else in the world to make you happy. Will you give me that chance? Can we move forward…together?’

  There was no answer. She was reaching up for him. She had her hands in his hair, tugging his face down to hers.

  ‘Is this for real?’ she asked. ‘Is this truly how you feel about me?’

  ‘How can you doubt it?’

  ‘It’s just…it’s a bit of a shock,’ she told him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You see, I’ve been driving up this road for the last hour, pushing this stupid alpaca into the trailer, bringing her home, and every step of the way I’ve been thinking exactly what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I never kid,’ she told him. ‘Not when you’re concerned. I’ve been missing Dominic so much, but then when I had to leave I thought I was adding yet another loss to my collection. I wanted you so much it just…cut. And now, here you are, saying all the right things, making it…fine.’

  ‘Fine?’

  ‘It’s not a great description for how I’m feeling,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s the best I can do without a scriptwriter. Does being a princess make me eligible to have a scriptwriter?’

  ‘You’re doing just fine on your own,’ he told her. ‘But if you want a scriptwriter you shall have one. You shall have anything you wish. Forever.’ He smiled. And smiled and smiled and smiled.

  So…’ Her nose was two inches from his nose and she was smiling almost as much as he was. ‘Let’s get this straight. Even if I don’t let you win at slot-cars, you’ll still love me.’

  The sun was coming out, he thought, a blazing sun that warmed every inch of his being. She was so close. She was laughing into his eyes, her eyes were wet with tears and she was his. His own, his lovely Jessica!