Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

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 Ramon’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.

Ramon 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 Ramon want her to?

And if she did face them down for Ramon’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. Ramon 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 Ramon 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 Ramon 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 Ramon? 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 Ramon lifted him from the car, he jerked awake, then sobbed and clung. Shaken, Ramon 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 Ramon 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. ‘Ramon, 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, Ramon. 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. Sofia saw that even before I arrived. Philippe’s illegitimate. The country would shun him.’

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