Princess Of Convenience

the smile which still lingered at the corners of his mouth disappeared. His brow furrowed. Royalty was displeased?

‘Why so soon?’

‘I need to be back.’

‘You were here on a buying trip. You’ve done virtually no buying.’

She hesitated. Say it like it is, a little voice told her-so she did.

‘It’s not just wanting to avoid fuss,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t want to get any more fond of Edouard.’

Or of his uncle, she added, but she didn’t say that.

A thousand women? There was no way she intended becoming number one thousand and one.

‘I’m not sure you can leave tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘There’ll be formalities. I need to consult the lawyers.’

‘Raoul, you can stay in my room tonight,’ she said generously. ‘Have as many people outside as you like so we prove the marriage is consummated. We’ll stuff a tissue in the keyhole and you sleep on the settee. You can even stick an X-rated video on the telly if you like so our audience can have some sound effects. I’ll close the bedroom door and won’t listen.’

‘Um…’ he said faintly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Think nothing of it. That’ll be the formalities over, but that’s it. We’re free to spend the rest of our wedded bliss safely on separate sides of the world.’

‘Seriously, Jess…’

‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘Seriously it’s best this way. I leave here fast before there are any complications.’

‘And you want nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Jess, I can’t let you…’

But she was no longer listening. She was staring ahead. There was a farmer walking steadily along on the verge. He was leading…

‘Alpacas,’ she breathed, suddenly totally distracted. ‘Oh, Raoul, look at that.’

Three alpacas.

One large alpaca being led by a harness.

Two tiny alpacas, stumbling along behind.

‘What the…?’ He pulled the car to a halt, but she was out of the car before it had stopped.

Alpacas?

Raoul parked the van safely far off the road and emerged to find his bride crouched on the roadside. She was examining alpaca babies. Crias. One white. One brown.

Alpacas were the weirdest animals, he thought as he walked back along the verge. Crias-baby alpacas-were even more weird than their adult counterparts. They seemed a cross between a camel and a goat, and their faces looked as if they’d come straight off the pages of a comic book. They were quizzical, comical and very, very cute.

The sight of them brought back a rush of memories-of the time before his family had been ripped apart. Lisle had loved alpacas, he remembered. She’d had a pet one…

This day was turning into an emotional roller coaster. He took a grip-sort of-and attempted to move on.

‘Jess, we can’t stay here. It’s not a safe place to park.’

‘These are suri,’ she told him, without looking up from admiring the babies. ‘Do you know how rare these are?’ She beamed up at the man leading the adult alpaca. ‘You have twins. A boy and a girl. They are twins?’ she asked him in his own language.

‘Yes.’ The man, an elderly farmer, dressed rough, seemed less than enchanted with his babies. ‘Twins.’

She didn’t notice his disenchantment. ‘Twins are about a one in fifty thousand chance in alpacas,’ she told Raoul. ‘What a blessing. And different colours…’ She sat back on the grassy verge, smiling in delight. Their tiny faces peered back at her and she fondled each face in turn. ‘What are you calling them?’ she asked.

‘A nuisance.’ Like Raoul, the farmer didn’t seem to want to stop. ‘Miss…’ He glanced up at Raoul, as if asking for help.

But then he froze. His face stilled in recognition.

‘Your Highness.’ His voice was a gasp and there was something else besides shock there. Fear? ‘Prince Raoul?’ he stammered.

It was definitely fear. This wasn’t the first time he’d met fear when the locals recognised him, Raoul thought bitterly, momentarily diverted from Jess and her alpacas. His brother and his father had done some real damage. For this man to be afraid…

This had repercussions for the whole country. The population had been betrayed by their royal family and by their government. He closed his eyes as the realisation sank in one stage deeper. Jess was right in imposing her conditions. She might be able to walk away from this country, but he couldn’t.

He was trapped.

He was also stuck at this roadside while his bride patted alpacas-and with the local farmer looking as if he was expecting to be shot for blocking the road.

He wasn’t even blocking the road.

‘Yes, I’m Prince Raoul,’ he managed. ‘Relax. I’m not about to bite.’ He smiled down at the crias-even though the last thing he wanted to do was smile at alpaca babies. On top of everything else, there was a bit of domesticity happening here that he wasn’t too sure about. Watching Jess cuddle babies of any sort… There was gut clenching going on inside him that he didn’t want to think about.

‘Where are you taking them?’ he asked, trying to sound formal. Even prince-like. Royalty taking a benign interest in the peasantry.

He didn’t get it right. The man looked astonished. Jess flashed him a glance that was almost amused and he thought: OK, maybe I don’t have the royal thing down pat yet. There had to be a level between fear and bemusement. It needed work.

He could work on it better if Jess wasn’t looking at him like…like…

‘I’m taking them to the market,’ the man said, but there was still caution behind his eyes as if he was afraid Raoul might turn on him at any moment.

‘You’re selling them?’ Jess asked, diverted from Raoul. She looked up at the adult alpaca-who looked indifferently over her head out to sea-and then she looked at the babies again. ‘You breed them?’

‘Yes. I sell the fibre.’

‘I know the suri fibre,’ Jess said warmly. ‘It’s one of the reasons I came here. It’s fabulous.’ She frowned, fingering the babies’ coats. ‘These babies have the most beautiful fleece I’ve ever seen.’ She twisted up to look at Raoul, explaining. ‘Suri fleece is known throughout the world for its softness and its lustre. It just shines. And this is the best.’ She went back to examining the babies, her frown deepening as she took in exactly what she was looking at. ‘Surely these babies have the very best fleece,’ she told the man. ‘Why aren’t you keeping them?’

‘Ask Angel,’ he said bitterly, and turned and spat over the cliff.

‘Angel?’

‘The mother.’ The farmer poked the adult alpaca with a gentle nudge that spoke of exasperated affection. ‘Angel had one baby and was only a little interested. Maybe I could have encouraged her to take it. But then she had the second and she turned away as if it was all too much trouble. I’ve tried and tried to get her to suckle but to no effect. And I’ve promised my wife that we can go down to Cieste to stay with our daughter, who’s due to have a baby herself. Now we have these two to care for. Angel won’t feed them. I won’t be here to hand-raise them and I can’t afford anyone to do it for me. So I’ll sell them.’

‘And what about Angel?’ Jess sounded confused.

‘I’ve brought her with me so the babies will walk behind,’ the man said. ‘I can’t carry them down to the market and I can no longer afford to keep a truck. They follow Angel. But I won’t sell Angel. She’ll come home with me and we’ll try again.’ He brightened a little. ‘She’s young. Maybe another year’s maturity will see her become a mother. And her fleece is wonderful.’

‘So the babies will be sold alone.’

‘Yes.’

‘If you sell them…they’ll be separated?’