Princess Of Convenience

knows the child needs Cosette and he knows my mother will break her heart over a distressed child. She’ll do anything to have Cosette stay. Edouard’s lost so much already.’

‘So he’s trying to push you out faster.’

‘He’s trying to punish us for his treatment tonight.’ Raoul’s hands were clenching so hard by his sides that Jess could see the whites of his knuckles beneath his skin. ‘Damn him. This will work. My mother will be so distressed that she’ll agree to leaving. Cosette will be reinstalled and Edouard will go back to being placed in front of a television every waking minute.’

‘And you?’ she asked softly. They were climbing stairs now, the grand staircase, and Raoul was taking them three steps at a time. ‘You’ll go back to Somalia, to your medicine.’ She hesitated. ‘Raoul, if you’d succeeded in marrying Sarah…what then?’

‘I’d have allowed Cosette to stay until Edouard got some sort of link established with my mother,’ Raoul snapped. ‘Then I’d have asked her to leave. More. I’d have sacked the parliament…’

‘Can you do that?’

‘I’d have had the constitutional power call a general election,’ he told her. ‘And I’d have had the power to oversee that it was fair, as no election has been in the history of this country. Marcel’s appalling friends would be out on their ear and they know it. But it’s not possible.’ He reached the top of the stairs and headed left. ‘Sarah was our last chance. Now it’s over. If Edouard’s distraught then there’s nothing for it. We’ll have to hand over straight away. Give him back his precious Cosette.’

‘But how can you do that? Cosette mustn’t care too much for him if she’s prepared to abandon him as she did tonight.’

‘But she’ll have him permanently from Monday,’ Raoul said savagely. ‘Making him suffer for the next few days achieves nothing. Nobody cares about Edouard and the damnable thing is that there’s not one thing I can do about it. You know…’ He hesitated, waiting for her to catch up and she had to puff a bit to do so. ‘People have pitied me because I’ve been the second son and didn’t stand to inherit the throne. If they only knew.’

He strode on and all she could do was follow.

Finally he paused. At the end of a long corridor there was a pair of baize doors. He hesitated-once more waiting for her to catch up-and then he threw them wide.

‘Welcome to hell,’ he said enigmatically and stood aside for her to enter.

This, then, was the nursery. It must be a quarter of a mile from the main rooms, Jess thought. It was as far away from the main apartments as it was possible to be. If the little boy’s parents had lived in this castle it must have been a ten-minute trek for them to reach him.

Maybe they’d rarely made the trek.

The suite was opulent. That was hardly surprising-everything in this castle was opulent. But this was more than opulent. Some designer somewhere had obviously been given a brief to turn this into a child’s fantasy and they’d done just that.

There seemed to be a number of rooms. There was a huge one, the one they’d just entered, with smaller rooms leading off at the side.

The main room was set up as a jungle.

Nothing had been spared. No cost. No flight of imagination. No impingement to copying reality. The setting seemed straight out of Kipling’s Jungle Book, Jess thought, staring round in incredulity.

There were vast tree trunks-real-and artificial hanging vines. There were stuffed monkeys in the branches. There were snakes slithering down from the trees, stars were painted on the high ceiling, the stars were twinkling through the trees-though dark clouds hovered to the side of the crescent moon as if a giant storm was about to sweep through. Underneath lay a lush green grass-carpet, higher than her ankles.

It was so real that she felt like lifting her feet gingerly in case of snakes.

There was a clearing mid-jungle, where two huge beanbags lay, and here was the only discordant note. In front of the beanbags was a television. A huge television. And on the screen…

‘It’s Extreme Makeover.’ Jess stared at the screen in disbelief as some unfortunate larger-than-life woman was having a knife applied to her fatty abdomen. Liposuction? She closed her eyes and turned away.

‘Your nurse and your nephew have been watching Extreme Makeover?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t believe it.’

Raoul strode forward and flicked it off. Fast. The fatty abdomen faded to nothing. ‘I’d imagine it’s just Cosette who’s been watching,’ he said but his tone was defensive. Maybe justifiably. Maybe she had sounded accusatory.

‘So where’s Edouard?’ she asked. ‘If he’s not learning how to liposuck.’

He glowered at her.

‘Just asking.’ She gazed around her in growing anger and decided accusations were well-justified. ‘You’re a doctor. Maybe you got to watch liposuction at three as well. Maybe that’s why you’re a doctor now.’

His glower deepened. ‘There’s no need to get on your high horse. Cosette says he’s always sound asleep after six. She says we just disturb him if we come after that. And he gets upset if we come early in the mornings. He sleeps until late.’

‘I’ll bet he does,’ Jess muttered. ‘What sort of three-year-old sleeps more than twelve hours at a stretch? None that I know of. So that’s why Louise sat with me in the evenings and mornings. She wasn’t permitted here. But to be locked out by a servant? You know, if I was a nurse who liked my television, that’s what I might tell the family as well. Don’t come bothering me in the evenings. Or the mornings. Leave me to do what I want with my charge. Or leave me to watch television while I ignore my charge.’

Raoul’s face darkened, as well it might. This was none of her business, Jess told herself. She had no right to vent her anger.

There was no way she could stop herself.

‘You must understand that we’ve come into this as strangers,’ Raoul said heavily, defensively. ‘Until a month ago we had no contact with Edouard at all. Cosette is his only stability and we’ve had to respect that.’

‘Yeah.’ Jess was feeling more and more confused. She gazed up at the snake above her head. ‘I accept that you’ve been trying-but you have a way to go. Whoever designed this place was sick.’

‘It’s a nursery.’

‘No. It’s an adventure playground, great for a brave ten-year-old with playmates and loving parents. But for a three-year-old here on his own… Every time he comes out here he’s got a ruddy great boa constrictor hanging over his head, waiting to pounce.’

‘Look, maybe I don’t like it myself,’ Raoul conceded, his tone almost as angry as hers. ‘But it’s all he knows. When my mother and I came here two weeks ago we talked to a child psychologist. She says it’s important he stays with the familiar for as long as possible.’

‘That’s right,’ Jess snapped, and she couldn’t keep sarcasm out of her voice. ‘Keep to the familiar. Cosette, who watches Extreme Makeover while she’s child-minding, and boa constrictors waiting to attack at any minute. I don’t know who your psychologist was but I beg to disagree.’

‘Look, who are you to-?’

She wasn’t going there. ‘I’m no one,’ she snapped. ‘No one at all. If you knew how much I didn’t want to do this…’ She took a deep breath. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’ll be asleep.’ He motioned to the door on the left and Jess turned.

But she hesitated.

There was a part of her-a really big part-that was screaming not to go any further.

But there was a child through this door who was three years old. Three. Orphaned. Alone. With boa constrictors for company and Extreme Makeover on television and a child psychologist with rocks in her head.

Maybe Raoul was right, she told herself desperately. Maybe the psychologist was right. She’d walk in there and he’d be asleep. Peacefully. Everything would be fine. He’d be stronger than she had imagined.

OK, so go in there, she told herself. Don’t hesitate. She could see for herself that he was fine, she could ease her stupid qualms, and tomorrow she could leave. The worst thing that could happen here was that Raoul and his mother would have to cope with a distraught child for a few days. Cosette would take over next Monday and things