‘It could work,’ she said, urgently now. ‘Don’t knock me back without thinking about it. I know the last thing you want is an unroyal bride-what would they call me, a commoner?-but it could work.’
It could.
His mind shifted into overdrive. Marry Jess.
He could marry Jess, quietly, swiftly. He could retain rights over this realm.
He’d never wanted this. From the time his mother had taken him and Lisle away from this palace when he was aged six, he hadn’t looked back. There’d been so much hurt. Even as he grew older he’d refused to think of himself as royal. He’d thrown himself into his medical career and he loved it.
But now…the last few weeks had shown what desperate straits this little country was in. Until Jean-Paul’s death he’d blocked it out-he hadn’t wanted to know what he could do nothing about. But the mess the country was in was now obvious even to outsiders and the moment he’d arrived here it threatened to overwhelm him. On the surface the country was a wonderful little tourist mecca, but scratch the surface and there was grinding poverty on every level.
He could install a decent government, he thought. This was what he’d planned when he’d talked Sarah into marriage. He could set up a decent infrastructure, install a government that would work, and then he could return again to the medicine and the obscurity that he…
‘You see, there’s my condition,’ she said, apologetically, as though she was reading his thoughts, and to his amazement it seemed she had been. ‘I’m not prepared to let you do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Dump it on your mother.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s what you planned,’ she said, and as well as apologetic she sounded defensive. ‘I know you’ll organise a better government here and things will be better for the country. But your mother’s not strong enough to cope with a little boy and you know it.’
‘She’ll have servants,’ he said, stunned, and Jess winced.
‘Edouard doesn’t need servants. He needs you.’
‘I don’t do family.’
‘Of course you do,’ she told him, as though he was being thick. ‘Oh, I know, you had to walk away from your father and your brother when you were six and that must have been appalling. And then you lost Lisle, which broke your heart. But right over there…’ She motioned to her bed. ‘Over there you have Edouard. He’s your family, whether you want it or not. He doesn’t want servants. He doesn’t want designer nurseries or money or anything you can organise from a distance while you’re off saving the world in Somalia. There’s a world here to save. I hate to say this, Your Highness. It’s absolutely none of my business, but your country needs you, your mother needs you, your nephew needs you, and your place while Edouard is growing up is right here.’
There was a long silence. A stunned silence. He stared at this chit of a girl and she stared right back. Not flinching. She’d said what she’d wanted to say, she’d made her offer and now it was up to him.
‘But what would I do?’ he asked blankly and that smile broke out again, impudent and teasing. Her toast and marmalade smile.
‘You could sit on a throne and look regal.’
‘I’d look pretty silly,’ he told her and suddenly that tension zoomed back again. That link. She’d smiled, he’d smiled back and suddenly…
Wham. It was enough to knock the air right out of him. He didn’t have the faintest idea of why he felt like this, or even how he actually felt-all he knew was that he had to get to the other side of it fast. His world was being tilted and he’d spent his life desperately trying to keep his world right way up. After Lisle’s death he’d sworn never to get that emotionally involved again-he’d never give anything or anyone the power to hurt him so much-but now…
Hell, what was he thinking? This was a marriage proposal she was making. Not a…
This was a marriage proposal!
He was just slightly out of his depth here. By about a mile.
‘What would I do?’ he asked again and if he sounded dumb that was because dumb was how he was feeling. Really, really dumb. What had she said? Knocked right over by a porrywiggle.
‘For a start you’d fix your hospitals,’ she told him, and lightness had suddenly faded. Her face was shadowed again. ‘You know, we were here when Dominic got sick.’
‘Here?’
‘Warren and I were having a rocky patch,’ she told him, and then gave a rueful smile. ‘Actually our marriage was one long rocky patch. But my designs were getting known and I’d heard about the Alp’Azuri weavers and the yarns available here. I’d also heard the place was lovely. So Warren and I brought Dominic here for a holiday. But on the flight over I noticed Dom was bruising in a way we couldn’t explain. By the time we’d been here for two days he was ill. And your hospitals… Have you spent any time at all in your hospitals?’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘I’ve been back in the country for two weeks.’
‘You’ve truly never been back since you left as a child?’
‘My father wanted my sister dead,’ he said, and after all this time it was still raw and painful to say it. ‘And Jean-Paul never forgave my mother for taking Lisle and me to Paris. She tried desperately to explain. After my father died she tried to see him but he refused. And his hostility extended to me. So I figured it was a closed book. I haven’t been back.’
‘So it’s your country-your responsibility-yet you don’t know it.’
‘That’s right.’
She took a deep breath. ‘OK. Then know this. Your hospitals are little better than third-world medical centres. They’re a disgrace. You need to get in there and sort them out.’
He stared. ‘You’re very direct.’
‘The word is bossy,’ she said. ‘But if I’m to make a supreme sacrifice…’
‘A supreme sacrifice?’
Once again that cheeky grin. The grin that set him back. That made him feel…that made him feel like he didn’t know how he felt.
‘Marrying you,’ she told him. ‘Throwing myself away on a mere prince regent.’
Lightness. Maybe he should follow her lead. Maybe humour was the only way to cope with this. ‘You figure you should hang out for the crown prince? For Edouard? For the real thing?’
‘Maybe I should, but he might not want to marry me when he reaches maturity,’ she conceded, smiling. ‘My bloom of fabulous beauty may have faded a little by then. They tell me it happens. Bloom fading. It’s caused by cabbage wilt or something.’
‘Cabbage wilt?’ He was so out of his depth that he thought he was drowning.
‘It happens to all the best commoners. And sooner than you think,’ she added darkly. ‘So you’ll be doing me a favour. You’ll marry me and save me from the consequences of cabbage wilt.’
Deep breath. Levity wasn’t going to work, he decided. She might be joking but he couldn’t. She had to see how serious this was. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?’ he demanded.
‘Sure I do. I’m suggesting marriage.’
Marriage. This was what his Uncle Lionel had suggested the day of Sarah’s funeral, he thought, still stunned. ‘Find someone else to marry-fast,’ Lionel had said. But even Lionel had conceded the idea was fraught with peril. And now an unknown girl was calmly proposing.
Not an unknown girl. Jess.
‘Only if you stay here,’ she said and he met her gaze head-on. Their eyes locked and held. ‘I’m only agreeing to marriage if you agree to stay.’
‘You’re really serious,’ he said at last, and she nodded.
‘I’m serious. I’m not the least bit interested in marrying anyone else-I’ve been there, done that, so I’m happy to stay married to you for as long as you need me to be. But your mother’s not fit to be Edouard’s guardian. Anyone can see that life’s knocked her round. She’ll make a lovely grandma but Edouard needs a parent. He needs you.’
He tried to make himself think. He tried to focus on Edouard. ‘He loved you tonight…’
‘And he’ll love you. Don’t stick him in a room with boa constrictors.’
