‘And Blake doesn’t have an army, does he?’
‘Um, no.’
‘And my dog’s wandering the country, friendless.’
‘He won’t be.’
‘I think I’m going to bed,’ she said, giving her hard bed another tentative poke. ‘My conversation with you is getting me nowhere.’
‘You’ll sleep?’
‘It’s almost midnight,’ she said. ‘So maybe I will. You don’t think if we asked nicely they might give us our luggage?’
‘Um…’
‘You don’t know that either,’ she said, and sighed. And then brightened. ‘Hey, but I’m set.’
‘You’re set?’
She tugged off her duffel coat and foraged in an inner pocket, then triumphantly produced a battered-looking toothbrush and a half-empty tube of toothpaste. She held it up like it was the crown jewels.
‘Bet high-flying lawyers don’t carry toothpaste on their persons,’ she said smugly.
‘Um…no. Can I ask why?’
‘I keep getting stuck,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go to a calving and it’ll be four in the morning, and as I finish the farmer will say can I hang around until his pig farrows or his neighbour’s cow calves. It’s too far to go home, so I kip on the couch and keep going. Hence the toothpaste.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll lend you toothpaste, but you’ll have to use your finger cos I’m not sharing toothbrushes. Even if we are going to be married, which I’m starting to seriously doubt.’
And she smiled, took herself to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
She slept.
He was quite frankly astonished. To have the ability to close her eyes and sleep…It was a gift.
He wished he had it. Even as a kid he’d never been able to sleep. Bad things happened when you slept…
Where had that come from? The weird background of his past, where his mother was a shadowy figure moving in and out as life’s events lurched around her.
‘She was a frightened kid,’ Ruby had told him when he was old enough to respond to his foster mother’s deep concerns about his nightmares—where people had come and gone in the dark, and sometimes his mother had wept, sometimes she’d disappeared with the shadows, and when he’d woken she wasn’t there. ‘Your mother had nightmares of her own,’ Ruby had told him. ‘They didn’t let her grow up properly. The trick is—the thing we have to do—is to take charge of your nightmares and see if we can find you a way to live through them.’
She was a wise woman, Ruby. His one true thing. He and his six foster-brothers had been blessed by her taking charge of their shattered lives.
Ruby had been sensible enough to know he could never escape completely from the nightmares. Just learn to live around them.
So, dredging up a Ruby lesson from the past, he didn’t try to sleep now. He lay and watched the ceiling as he’d lain and watched the ceiling, countless nights in his past, not trying to sleep, just letting his thoughts go where they would.
But the ceiling wasn’t interesting. There was a light on through the other side of their prison’s thick doors, and he could see faintly by the chink of light it permitted in.
He could watch Rose.
Brave, he thought. Brave and lonely. But so practical. So accustomed to moving through grief.
She’d lost her dog this day. He knew already how much Hoppy meant to her, but had she wept or made a fuss?
There was nothing she could do about it. He’d been watching her eyes as she’d spoken of Hoppy and he knew how much it had hurt, how much she’d wanted to be out looking.
But there was nothing to be done, so a fuss hadn’t been made. There was nothing to do, so she’d settled for sleep.
She was some woman. A woman in a million. Like Ruby.
Ruby would love her, he thought, and then thought maybe, just maybe, he should have told Ruby more of what was happening. He’d described this marriage to his foster mother as a political move, nothing more. She’d been horrified, for she wanted so much more for her beloved sons.
Maybe Ruby was wiser than he was, he thought ruefully, for there was nothing political about how he was thinking of Rose.
He watched on. An hour. Two. This place was cold. They’d been given one blanket each. He was still wearing all his clothes, bar his shoes. The room was chill and getting colder.
‘I’m cold,’ Rose said into the silence, and he jumped about a foot.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was,’ she said. ‘But I just woke up. One blanket isn’t going to cut it.’
‘You’ve got your duffel coat.’
‘I have,’ she agreed equably. ‘So my top half is cosy. My bottom half is jealous. Do you only have one blanket?’
‘I…Yes.’
‘Could I trust you if I said you were welcome to share my bed?’
That took his breath away. ‘You’re proposing we sleep together?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Not in the metaphoric sense,’ she said lightly. ‘In the literal sense.’
‘You mean sleep as in sleep.’
‘Take it or leave it,’ she said. ‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime offer.’
‘Never knock a lady back,’ he said, and two seconds later he was spreading his blanket over her and then diving under the covers as well.
‘I have another suggestion,’ she said before he could attempt to settle.
‘Which is?’
‘My feet are freezing,’ she said. ‘We’ve both got jackets on. If I spread my nice woolly duffel over our feet, you could put our limousine driver’s jacket over our tops. Note that this is a major concession on my part,’ she said before he could move. ‘Because my duffel is very, very warm, and your leather jacket won’t be nearly as warm, not to mention that it’s really been lent to both of us. So I could be within my rights to keep my duffel just for me, but insist that your leather jacket goes over our feet. But I’m magnanimous,’ she said in a truly magnanimous voice.
He chuckled.
They spent a convivial couple of minutes arranging their bed. Two blankets. The duffel spread-eagled over the bottom half. The leather jacket over the top. Then they were both under.
She was in her jeans and a cotton shirt. He was in his trousers and linen shirt. His tie was still in his pocket.
Sleeping in her jeans would be uncomfortable. They now had sufficient coverings that taking off their outer clothes would be sensible, but he wasn’t about to suggest it.
The bed was too narrow for them to lie apart. Their bodies touched, side by side. He lay rigid.
This was impossible. They were two mature people, and…
‘This is crazy,’ she said. ‘We’re never going to sleep like this.’
‘So what do you suppose we do about it?’
‘Relax,’ she said. ‘If I lie on my side and you lie on the same side, you’ll curve round me and keep me warm. I’m a widow. I know.’
‘I…I guess,’ he said doubtfully, trying to figure how this could stay a nice, platonic sharing of beds—and she was so close.
‘And you’re not a widower, but I’m betting you know as well that people can sleep together without wanting sex,’ she said. ‘So stop lying there like you’re standing at attention, only lying down. Relax.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘That’s better,’ she said, and he felt rather than saw her smile as she turned on her side, waited patiently for him to do the same and then wriggled until her spine was curved against his chest.
Unbidden, his arms came round to hold her.
She stiffened—just for a moment—and then she relaxed again.
‘See, it’s not just me coming up with the ideas,’ she said. ‘Excellent. Now, relax and go to sleep. Unless you’re worried about being taken out at dawn and shot. But we have Blake to stop that happening, right?’
‘Um, right.’
‘Then what else is there to worry about?’ she said. ‘Apart from Hoppy, and there’s nothing I can do about him until the
y let us out of here. So we might as well sleep. Sleep!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
And he did. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again to his unutterable astonishment he’d slept for hours.
Rose was still deeply asleep, curled against his breast as if she belonged there. He was still holding her, his left arm underneath her, tugging her tight against him even in sleep. His right arm was resting lightly on her shoulder. He had to move slightly to see his watch, but she didn’t stir.
She must have been exhausted, he thought. Damn, he should have researched her background further. He wanted to know…
He did know.
He’d never lain with a woman like this. Never. She felt different, amazing, exciting…warm, and…as if she belonged.
She did belong, he thought, with a sure knowledge starting deep within. It had started that first night he’d met her, and it had grown deeper last night as he’d watched her work the crowd with an intuitive empathy he’d never seen in his years of working in the international legal community. Then last night, tossed into prison with a man she hardly knew, losing a dog she obviously loved deeply, thrown into an uncertain future…
She’d been brave beyond belief. She’d been upbeat and courageous, laughing whenever she could, refusing to be intimidated, treating the situation as something to be faced with optimism.
She stirred a fraction in his arms and his hold on her tightened.
This woman was affianced to be his wife, he thought with something approaching incredulity. His wife.
In name only.
But now things had changed. What was inside him had changed.
Had he fallen in love?
The thought was so startling that he must have moved or gasped—or maybe she could feel the sheer force of what he was thinking. She lay motionless in his arms, but he could feel that she was awake.
He didn’t speak, letting her make the first move. If she wanted to wake up slowly, well, she’d earned the right. She’d earned the right to do whatever she wanted, he thought. Rose…
‘What’s the time?’ she whispered, and he knew she didn’t want this time to stop.
‘Seven.’
‘Do you think they’ll feed us?’
As if on cue the door swung open. A tray was put on the floor and shoved forward, and the door was slammed shut before they could see who their jailer was.
‘I guess the answer to that is yes,’ he said, and as she stirred he reluctantly released her and sat up. It was unbelievable what he was feeling about her right now. His world had changed.
‘Don’t look like that,’ she said, suddenly getting businesslike, sliding to the end of the bed so she could get out without pushing past him.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I don’t intend to ask,’ she said briskly. ‘I bags the bathroom first, and don’t you dare eat all the toast.’
There wasn’t toast. There was cereal and long-life milk, tepid water and instant coffee.
‘Not what I had in mind when I decided to be a princess again,’ Rose muttered. ‘Is this a good time to tell you I’m addicted to good coffee and if I’m deprived I’m scary?’
‘Me too,’ Nick said.
‘So what do we do now?’ Rose asked, finishing her coffee resolutely, even though wrinkling her nose in distaste.
‘I guess we wait.’
‘How long do you reckon?’
‘Twenty years?’
‘They’ll have to give us a pack of cards, then,’ Rose said, seemingly unperturbed. ‘Otherwise I’ll write a letter to the United Nations.’
He smiled. Things firmed even further.
They sat down to wait.
If anyone had told Rose that she’d tell her complete life story to a man she’d met once almost a month ago, she would have said they were crazy. Nuts. She wasn’t an extrovert. She’d married Max, but even Max had needed time to coax her out of her shell. Finally she’d learned to trust him, but that trust had landed her into a mess over her head. Her privacy had become the shared concern of Max’s family. Everything she told him his family had known too, as well as the whole village. So she’d learned once more to shut up.
Yet here she was, handing out private information like it was free.
Why? Maybe it was because Nick didn’t really want it, she told herself. He was asking because he was bored and there was nothing else to do. When this whole fiasco was over, no matter how it ended, he’d head back to his city law-firm and she’d be isolated, just as she desperately wanted.
So he was asking questions, and there was no pack of cards, and she didn’t want to spend time thinking about all the various fates in store for someone who tried to take the crown—so what was a girl to do, but answer his questions honestly and ask questions herself and pretend to be interested in the answers?
Actually she was interested, and that was the problem. It was a little like a game of snap, she thought. They’d both had bleak childhoods—their legacy from their connection to this ill-fated royal family. They’d learned to be independent, which was only a tiny factor in their shared passions.
‘Do you play tennis?’
‘No, but I love hockey. I was hopeless, as I didn’t play until I got to England, but I love it now. I still play. Or, until last week I played.’
‘You’re kidding. I played hockey for my university.’
‘Forward?’
‘Centre-forward mostly. You?’
‘Mostly right full-forward,’ she said. ‘I hit harder to the left.’
‘If we had a couple of sticks now we could have a battle.’
‘If we’re stuck in this place much longer we could pull the bed apart and use the planks,’ she said. ‘So let’s delay the hockey match till tomorrow. Meanwhile, what about ice cream? What’s your favourite flavour?’
‘I’m a chocolate man.’
‘With choc chips?’
‘Ugh, no. I like my chocolate melted in, triple or quadruple-strength chocolate, and no crunchy bits to deflect the taste.’
‘Yum,’ she said, feeling suddenly hungry. ‘When do you reckon lunch will arrive?’
‘I think our chances of ice cream for lunch are minimal. What about swimming?’
‘Five strokes and then I go under,’ she said. ‘This place never ran to a swimming pool. Maybe it has one now. Here’s hoping. What about you?’
‘My foster mother’s cottage just outside Sydney had a dam in the back paddock. We all had to learn to swim across it before we were allowed out of Ruby’s sight.’
‘So Ruby taught you?’
‘Ruby taught me everything.’
‘Lucky you,’ she said.
‘For having a foster mother?’
‘I…I guess. Sorry. Dumb comment.’
‘No, it’s okay. But you—when we get to live in this luxurious palace with an Olympic-sized swimming pool…’
‘Then we buy me some floaties and don’t let photographers near. Nick, what do you think is happening outside?’
‘I don’t know.’
They’d been aware of the noise since just after breakfast. At first it had sounded like a faint far-off rumble, as if maybe they were not too far away from a sports pavilion. It wasn’t so much individual sound—more a steady murmur, slowly building. But it was building. In the last few minutes it had become so close they could hear individual voices.
‘It’s well over time for lunch,’ she said nervously. ‘Maybe we should complain.’
‘Let’s not,’ Nick said. ‘I have a feeling whoever’s on lunch duty might be distracted.’
They listened for a while longer. The shouts became louder. Whoever it was, they weren’t going away.
‘How are you at singing?’ Nick asked, and Rose thought about singing and then thought, no, this sound was getting too loud to permit distraction. It was definitely loud. It was definitely close.
‘You know, if this is a revolution, the age-o
ld way to depose monarchy is to do a bit of head chopping,’ she whispered.
‘The Russians were the last,’ he said, obviously distracted too. ‘But royalty’s been ousted efficiently since, with nary a bruised neck to show for it. Look at the women’s magazines. There are prince and princesses all over the place, minus thrones, but necks nicely intact.’
‘Nick…’
‘I know,’ he said. He’d crossed to the door, trying hard to hear individual noises from the background din. But there’d been need in her voice. She’d heard it, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
This was supposed to be an adventure. How could it suddenly have got so serious? And where was Julianna? Her sister.
And Hoppy…
‘Nick,’ she said again, not even trying to disguise her need this time. And he reacted. In three long strides he’d crossed the room and hugged her close.
‘We’re in this together,’ he whispered, and his lips brushed the top of her hair.
That should make her feel safer. It did—sort of. It made her feel as if she could face anything with his arms around her for support, but that was scary all by itself. The feeling that she was starting to depend on him.
This man was an international businessman—a jet-setter who’d agreed to a marriage of convenience.
What had she done? A normal woman would have listened to Erhard’s proposition and treated him like a very polite madman. To leave her home and come halfway across Europe to claim a throne—to threaten her sister, to involve herself in a power struggle where she had no idea who the players were, much less how to deal with them…It was like she’d stepped into a James Bond movie, but it was real.
She’d guessed there’d be risks. At some subliminal level she’d figured that this couldn’t be as easy as Erhard had suggested—arrive here, say ‘move over’ to Julianna, and become a princess. Yet things had been closing in on her so tightly at home that she’d come regardless. And the really frightening thing now was that although she should be terrified of outside factors—like a crowd of what sounded like thousands gathering in the castle surrounds—she hugged tight to this man and she still thought that it was okay. Better to go down fighting with this man by her side than to stay for ever in Yorkshire and keep calmly on living Max’s life.
A Royal Marriage of Convenience Page 10