Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘I can see a brave young woman before me, and I’m very sure you can.’

  All of this was thoroughly disconcerting. She should just shut up, she thought. She should stick with her new found serenity. But, as she wiped as Consuela washed, she pushed just a little more. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You and Ernesto… You obviously love Philippe and you’re doing the best you can for him. But if Philippe wants to be at the palace… Why doesn’t Ramón…why doesn’t His Highness simply employ you to be there for him?’

  The woman turned and looked at Jenny as if she were crazy. ‘Us? Go to the palace?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’re just farmers.’

  ‘Um…excuse me. Didn’t you just say…?’

  ‘That’s for you,’ Consuela said, and then she sighed and dried her hands and turned to Jenny. ‘I think that for you, you’re young enough and strong enough to fight it, but for us…and for Philippe…the lines of class at the palace are immovable.’

  ‘Would you try it, though?’ she asked. ‘Would you stay in the palace if Ramón asked it of you?’

  ‘Maybe, but he won’t. He won’t risk it, and why should he?’ She sighed, as if the worries of the world were too much for her, but then she pinned on cheerfulness, smiled determinedly at Jenny and turned back to the men. Moving on. ‘Philippe. His Highness, Prince Ramón, asked if you could have your swimming costume prepared. He tells me he wishes to take you to the beach.’

  Football was abandoned in an instant. ‘In your car?’ Philippe demanded of Ramón, round-eyed.

  ‘In my car,’ Ramón said. ‘With Señorina Bertin. If it’s okay with you.’

  The little boy turned his attention to Jenny and surveyed her with grave attention. Whatever he saw there, it seemed to be enough.

  ‘That will be nice,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Get your costume, poppet,’ Consuela said, but Philippe was already gone.

  So they headed to the beach, about five minutes’ drive from the farmhouse. Philippe sat between Jenny and Ramón, absolutely silent, his eyes straight ahead. But Jenny watched his body language. He could have sat ramrod still and not touched either of them, but instead he slid slightly to Ramón’s side so his small body was just touching his big cousin.

  Ramón was forging something huge here, Jenny thought. Did he know?

  Maybe he did. Maybe he couldn’t help but know. As he drove he kept up a stream of light-hearted banter, speaking to Jenny, but most of what he said was aimed at Philippe.

  Did Gianetta know this little car was the most wonderful car in the world? Did she know he thought this was the only one of its kind that had ever been fitted with bench seats-designed so two people could have a picnic in the car if it was raining? Why, only two weeks ago he and Philippe had eaten a picnic while watching a storm over the sea, and they’d seen dolphins. And now the bench seat meant there was room for the three of them. How about that for perfect? And it was red. Didn’t Jenny think red was great?

  ‘I like pink,’ Jenny said, and Ramón looked as if she’d just committed blasphemy.

  ‘You’d have me buy a pink car?’

  ‘No, that’d be a waste. You could spray paint this one,’ she retorted, and chuckled at their combined manly horror.

  Philippe didn’t contribute a word but she saw him gradually relax, responding to their banter, realizing that nothing was expected of him but that he relax and enjoy himself.

  And he did enjoy himself. They arrived at the beach and Ramón had him in the water in minutes.

  Jenny was slower. Señor Rodriguez had told her they often went swimming so she’d worn her bikini under her jeans, but for now she was content to paddle and watch.

  The beach was glorious, a tiny cove with sun-bleached sand, gentle waves and shallow turquoise water. There were no buildings, no people and the mountains rose straight from the sea like sentinels guarding their privacy.

  There’d be bodyguards. She’d been vaguely aware of cars ahead and behind them all day and shadowy figures at the farmhouse, but as they’d arrived at the beach the security presence was nowhere to be seen. The guards must be under orders to give the illusion of total privacy, she thought, and that was what they had.

  Ramón had set this time up for Philippe. For a little cousin he was not beholden to in any way. A little boy who’d be miserable at the palace?

  She paddled on, casually kicking water out in front of her, pretending she wasn’t watching.

  She was definitely watching.

  Ramón was teaching Philippe to float. The little boy was listening with all the seriousness in the world. He was aching to do what his big cousin was asking of him. His body language said he’d almost die for his big cousin.

  ‘If you float with your face in the water and count to ten, then I’ll lift you out of the water,’ Ramón was saying. ‘My hand will be under your tummy until we reach ten and I’ll count aloud. Then I’ll lift you high. Do you trust me to do that?’

  He received a solemn nod.

  ‘Right,’ Ramón said and Philippe leaned forward, leaned further so he was floating on Ramón’s hand. And put his face in the water.

  ‘One, two three…ten!’ and the little boy was lifted high and hugged.

  ‘Did you feel my hand fall away before I lifted you up? You floated? Hey, Gianetta, Philippe floated!’ Ramón was spinning Philippe around and around until he squealed. His squeal was almost the first natural sound she’d heard from him. It was a squeal of delight, of joy, of life.

  Philippe was just a little bit older than Matty would be right now. Ramón had worried about it. She’d dismissed his worry but now, suddenly, the knowledge hit her so hard that she flinched. She was watching a little boy learn to swim, and her Matty never would. Everything inside her seemed to shrink. Pain surged back, as it had surged over and over since she’d lost her little son.

  But something about this time made it different. Something told her it must be different. So for once, somehow, she let the pain envelop her, not trying to deflect it, simply riding it out, letting it take her where it would. Trying to see, if she allowed it to take its course, whether it would destroy her or whether finally she could come out on the other side.

  She was looking at a man holding a little boy who wasn’t Matty-a little boy who against all the odds, she was starting to care about.

  The heart swells to fit all comers.

  It was a cliché. She’d never believed it. Back at the hospital, watching Matty fade, she’d looked at other children who’d come in ill, recovered then gone out again to face the world and she’d felt…nothing. It had been as if other children were on some parallel universe to the one she inhabited. There was no point of contact.

  But suddenly, unbidden, those universes seemed to have collided. For a moment she thought the pain could make her head explode-and then she knew it wouldn’t.

  Matty. Philippe. Two little boys. Did loving Matty stop her feeling Philippe’s pain?

  Did loss preclude loving?

  How could it?

  She gazed out over the water, at this big man with the responsibilities of the world on his shoulders, and at this little boy whose world had been taken away from him.

  She knew how many cares were pressing in on Ramón right now. He’d taken this day out, not for himself, but because he’d made a promise to Philippe. Every week, he’d come. Affairs of State were vital, but this, he’d decreed, was more so.

  She thought fleetingly of the man who’d fathered Matty, who’d sailed away and missed his whole short life.

  Philippe wasn’t Ramón’s son. He was the illegitimate child of a cousin he’d barely known and yet…and yet…

  She was blinking back tears, struggling to take in the surge of emotions flooding through her, but slowly the knot of pain within was easing its grip, letting her see what lay past its vicious hold.

  Ramón had lost his family
and he’d been a loner ever since, but now he was being asked to take on the cares of this country and the care of this little boy. This country depended on him. Philippe depended on him. But for him to do it alone…

  Class barriers were just that, she thought. Grief was another barrier-and barriers could be smashed.

  Could she face them all down?

  Would Ramón want her to?

  And if she did face them down for Ramón’s sake, and for hers, she thought, for her thoughts were flowing in all sorts of tangents that hardly made sense, could she love Philippe as well? Could the knot of pain she’d held within since Matty’s death be untied, maybe used to embrace instead of to exclude?

  Her vision was blurred with tears and it was growing more blurred by the second. Ramón looked across at her and waved, as if to say, what’s keeping you; come in and join us. She waved back and turned her back on them, supposedly to walk up the beach and strip off her outer clothes. In reality it was to get her face in order-and to figure if she had the courage to put it to the test.

  Maybe they didn’t want her. Maybe her instinctive feelings for Philippe were wrong, and maybe what Ramón was feeling for her stemmed from nothing more than a casual affair. Her heart told her it was much more, but then her heart was a fickle thing.

  No matter. If she was mistaken she could walk away-but first she could try.

  And Matty…

  Surely loving again could never be a betrayal.

  This was crazy, she told herself as she slipped off her clothes and tried to get her thoughts in order. She was thinking way ahead of what was really happening. She was imagining things that could never be.

  Should she back off?

  But then she glanced back at the two males in the shallows and she felt so proprietorial that it threatened to overwhelm her. My two men, she thought mistily, or they could be. Maybe they could be.

  The country can have what it needs from Ramón but I’m lining up for my share, she told herself fiercely. If I have the courage. And maybe the shadows of Matty can be settled, warmed, even honoured by another love.

  She sniffed and sniffed again, found a tissue in her bag, blew her nose and decided her face was in order as much as she could make it. She wriggled her bare toes in the sand and wriggled them again. If she dived straight into the waves and swam a bit to start with, she might even look respectable before she reached them.

  And if she didn’t…

  Warts and all, she thought. That was what she was offering.

  For they all had baggage, she decided, as she headed for the water. Her grief for Matty was still raw and real. This must inevitably still hurt.

  And Ramón? He was an unknown, he was Crown Prince of Cepheus to her Jenny.

  She was risking rejection, and everything that went with it.

  Consuela said she had courage. Maybe Consuela was wrong.

  ‘Maybe I’m just pig-headed stubborn,’ she muttered to herself, heading into the shallows. ‘Maybe I’m reading this all wrong and he doesn’t want me and Philippe doesn’t need me and today is all I have left of the pair of them.’

  ‘So get in the water and get on with it,’ she told herself.

  ‘And if I’m right?’

  ‘Then maybe serenity’s not the way to go,’ she muttered. ‘Maybe the opposite’s what’s needed. Oh, but to fight for a prince…’

  Maybe she would. For a prince’s happiness.

  And for the happiness of one small boy who wasn’t Matty.

  They swam, they ate a palace-prepared picnic on the sand and then they took a sleepy Philippe back to the farmhouse. Once again they drove in silence. What was between them seemed too complicated for words.

  Dared she?

  By the time they reached the farm, Philippe was asleep but, as Ramón lifted him from the car, he jerked awake, then sobbed and clung. Shaken, Ramón carried him into the house, while Jenny stared straight ahead and wondered whether she could be brave enough.

  It was like staring into the night sky, overwhelmed by what she couldn’t see as much as what she could see. The concept of serenity seemed ridiculous now. This was facing her demons, fighting for what she believed in, fighting for what she knew was right.

  Dared she?

  Two minutes later Ramón was back. He slid behind the wheel, still without a word, and sat, grim-faced and silent.

  Now or never. Jenny took a deep breath, reached over and put her hand over his.

  ‘He loves you,’ she whispered.

  He stared down at their linked hands and his mouth tightened into a grim line of denial. ‘He can’t. If it’s going to upset him then I should stop coming.’

  ‘Do you want to stop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why not take him back to the palace? Why not take him home?’

  There was a moment’s silence. Then, ‘What, take him back to the palace and wedge him into a few moments a day between my appointments? And the rest of the time?’

  ‘Leave him with people who love him.’

  ‘Like…’

  ‘Like Consuela and Ernesto.’ Then, at the look on his face, she pressed his hand tighter. ‘Ramón, you’re taking all of this on as it is. Why not take it as it could be?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Just try,’ she said, figuring it out as she went. ‘Try for change. You say the palace is a dreadful place to live. So it is, but the servants are terrified of your title. They won’t let you close because they’re afraid. The place isn’t a home, it’s a mausoleum. Oh, it’s a gorgeous mausoleum but it’s a mausoleum for all that. But it could change. People like Consuela and Ernesto could change it.’

  ‘Or be swallowed by it.’

  ‘There’s no need to be melodramatic. You could just invite them to stay for a couple of days to start with. Tell Philippe that his home is here-make that clear so he won’t get distraught if…when he has to return. You can see how it goes. You won’t be throwing him back anywhere.’

  ‘I won’t make him sleep in those rooms.’

  And there it was, out in the open, raw and dreadful as it had been all those years ago. And, even worse, Jenny was looking at him as if she understood.

  And maybe she did.

  ‘You were alone,’ she whispered. ‘ Your father brought you to the palace and he was killed and you were alone.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It’s everything. Of course it is. But this is now, Ramón. This is Philippe. As it’s not Matty, it’s also not you. Philippe won’t be alone.’

  ‘This is nonsense,’ he said roughly, trying to recover some sort of footing. ‘It’s impossible. Sofía saw that even before I arrived. Philippe’s illegitimate. The country would shun him.’

  ‘They’d love him, given half a chance.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he snapped. ‘He was there for over four years and no one cared.’

  ‘Maybe no one had a chance. The maid I talked to this morning said no one was permitted near except the nursery staff, and Philippe’s mother was constantly changing the people who worked with him. He’s better off here if no one loves him at the palace, of course he is. But you could change that.’ She hesitated. ‘Ramón, I’m thinking you already have.’

  He shook his head, shaking off demons. ‘This is nonsense. I won’t risk this.’

  ‘This?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ His face grew even more strained. ‘Gianetta…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I hate it,’ he said explosively. ‘The paparazzi almost mobbed you yesterday. The threat from Carlos… How can anyone live in that sort of environment? How could you?’

  Her world stilled. Her heart seemed to forget to beat. How could you? They were no longer talking about Philippe, then. ‘Am I…am I being invited?’ she managed.

  ‘No!’ There was a long silence, loaded with so many undercurrents she couldn’t begin to figure them out. Through the silence Ramón held the steering wheel, his knuckles clenched white.
Fighting demons she could hardly fathom.

  ‘We need to get back,’ he said at last.

  ‘Of course we do,’ she said softly, but she knew this man now. Maybe two weeks of living together was too soon to judge someone-or maybe not. Maybe she’d judged him the first time she’d seen him. Okay, she hardly understood his demons, but demons there were and, prince or not, maybe the leap had to be hers.

  ‘You know that I love you,’ she said gently into the warm breeze, but his expression became even more grim.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t say what I feel?’

  ‘You don’t want this life.’

  ‘I like tiaras,’ she ventured, trying desperately for lightness. ‘And caviar and French champagne. At least,’ she added honestly, ‘I haven’t tasted caviar yet, but I’m sure I’ll like it. And if I don’t, I’m very good at faking.’

  ‘Jenny, don’t make this any harder than it has to be,’ he snapped, refusing to be deflected by humour. ‘I was a fool to bring you to Cepheus. I will not drag you into this royal life.’

  ‘You don’t have to drag me anywhere. I choose where to go. All you need to do is ask.’

  ‘Just leave it. You don’t know… The paparazzi yesterday was just a taste. Right now you’re seeing the romance, the fairy tale. You’ll wake in a year’s time and find nothing but a cage.’

  ‘You don’t think you might be overreacting?’ she ventured. ‘Not everyone at the Coronation ball looked like they’ve been locked up all their lives. Surely caviar can’t be that bad.’

  But he wasn’t listening. ‘You’re my beautiful Jenny,’ he said. ‘You’re wild and free, and I won’t mess with who you are. You’ll always be my Jenny, and I’ll hold you in my heart for ever. From a distance.’

  ‘From how big a distance? From a photo in a frame?’ she demanded, indignant. ‘That sounds appalling. Or, better still, do you mean as your mistress on your island?’