Royal Marriage Of Convenience

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-old 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…