‘I need you to choose four skeins for the cross thread-the weft,’ she told the boys. ‘If we’re to do trousers tonight we can’t work with any more. Edouard, can you count to four?’
Edouard was clutching Sebastian tightly. He climbed down from Raoul’s lap and he held up four fingers.
Jess beamed. This tiny man-child was turning more and more into a child as she watched. ‘I usually say one, two, three, four because I’m Australian,’ she told him. ‘Sebastian is Australian, too. But he’s a fast learner. I bet you he understands you right now. OK, choose…what do you say?
‘Wouldn’t it be easier if we cut up a sheet or something?’ Raoul ventured and he was given a pitying look for his pains.
‘Trousers? From a sheet? Would you wear trousers made from a sheet?’
‘Maybe not,’ he said faintly and she grinned.
‘There you go, then. Sebastian deserves splendid trousers and that’s what we’ll make him. All hands on deck.’
‘I don’t understand all hands on deck,’ Edouard complained and she grinned still more.
‘It means I’m the captain and I’m saying we have work to do. I’ve never had two princes to boss around before but I’m bossing now. Work. Now.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Raoul told her and she smiled up at him.
Damn, there was that gut-twisting sensation that was threatening to spiral out of control.
She had work to do.
She couldn’t keep smiling at Raoul forever.
No matter how much she wanted to.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHAT followed was a truly excellent hour.
Jess’s fingers were true weaver’s fingers. Edouard chose his yarns: red, gold, a deep blue and a soft lemon that made her smile. She attached the threads, she considered for a little, and then she set to work. The shuttles flew in her hands, back, forth, pressing each thread into place in her chosen pattern while the boys looked on in wonder.
Edouard watched for a few minutes and after a bit she asked him if he’d like to place the shuttles for her. To her surprise his fingers were nimble and sure, and he seemed to sense the pattern she was working without being told. She’d want a thread and his fingers were already reaching for the right shuttle.
This little boy was intelligent and he was fascinated. As was Raoul. She had his undivided attention. It made her feel strange, but the shimmer of joy was still with her. The grey that had been with her since Dom’s death was held at bay by their absorption.
She worked fast, and in half an hour there was a good half a yard of cloth; enough for any bear’s trousers.
‘Now what?’ Raoul said faintly as she drew the cloth from her frame and gazed at it, considering. ‘It’s beautiful. We should frame it.’
‘Frame it? When it can be useful?’ That was what she’d been doing with Sebastian himself, she thought, her joy fading a little. She’d been shoving the little bear down the bottom of her suitcase. Unable to cope with holding him, unable to look at him but also unable to let go. Holding him in store for when he could be useful.
Like now.
‘What is it, Jess?’ Raoul asked, and she hauled herself out of her introspection and made herself focus.
‘Nothing,’ she said abruptly, reaching for scissors. ‘There’ll be no more framing. This might be a pretty piece of cloth but Sebastian needs trousers.’
It was a very rough pair of trousers. She had no sewing machine and Edouard was starting to droop, but she badly wanted the trousers to be finished tonight. So she cut a front and a back and sewed them together swiftly with a neat, fast backstitch, using a rough blanket stitch to stop fraying. She turned the band at the waist, plaited the remainder of the skeins and threaded the resulting cord through the band. She deliberately released threads at the hems to give the trousers a Robinson Crusoe look, and Sebastian’s trousers were complete.
‘There.’ She held them up for inspection. ‘What do you think?’
They were all still sitting on the floor. Edouard was back on Raoul’s lap-whoops-knee. He was fighting weariness but there was no way he’d sleep while his Sebastian was being clothed.
Jess held out the trousers and he accepted them as a man might accept a piece of priceless artwork. He looked doubtfully up at Raoul. Raoul smiled. He took a deep breath, and then he started pulling the trousers onto his bear.
Two heads, one dark, one fair, bent over the teddy while Jess looked on and fought back another stupid urge to cry.
‘They fit,’ Edouard said in a voice of wonder and Raoul smiled down at the teddy and touched Sebastian’s nose as Edouard himself had done.
‘How could you doubt they would fit?’ he demanded of his nephew. ‘We have a master weaver and seamstress in our midst. A wonder weaver. Our Jess.’
Our Jess. Damn, there were the tears again.
She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.
‘Can I take him to bed?’ Edouard asked, and there was a sudden quaver in his voice. Bed. He’d had time out, his voice said. Now he had to face his too-big bed again-and his jungle.
And it was out before she could help herself. ‘Would you like to sleep here?’
What was she doing? How could she have asked it? She felt the colour drain from her face as she said the words, and Raoul’s eyes snapped down in confusion.
‘In your bed?’ Edouard whispered, and it was too late to back out.
‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘Just for tonight.’
Edouard looked through to Jess’s big bedroom. The light was off but there a fire was lit in there as well, making the room look incredibly appealing. It seemed a million miles from his horrible nursery.
‘Yes, please,’ Edouard whispered-and then there was nothing to do but to watch as Raoul prepared his little nephew for bed.
She stared into the flames while he carried him through to the bathroom. She stared at some more flames while he settled him into Jess’s bed. He tucked Edouard between the sheets-and tucked Sebastian-Bear between the sheets as well.
The flames were riveting. She wouldn’t watch-she couldn’t-as Raoul kissed his nephew goodnight and then stroked his fair curls until the wide eyes drooped and he drifted into sleep.
When Raoul finally turned away, Jess was still crouched on the floor, surrounded by the remains of her weaving and her trouser-making. She was staring at her flames as if she was trying to remember every flicker.
She didn’t say a word. She couldn’t.
Finally Raoul sank into the floor beside her, as if he’d come to some major decision.
‘I think it’s time you told me, Jess,’ he said softly.
‘Told me?’
‘Start with Sebastian-Bear,’ he said gently, and he lifted her hand. ‘Sebastian belonged to you. Now he belongs to Edouard. But there was someone in the middle. Your child? Tell me who, Jess.’
‘Dominic.’
How could it hurt to say the word? she thought. It was a magical little name. She’d always loved it. She loved it still.
‘Dominic was your son?’ he asked, still in the soft, half-whisper that the firelight seemed to encourage. He’d flicked down the power of the overhead light as he’d returned to her, so the light was kind; a soft dusk of flickering firelight that hid the distress on her face. Or she hoped it hid the distress. He was acute, this man. He saw…
‘Dominic was my son,’ she whispered. ‘He died three months ago.’
‘How old?’
