Princess Of Convenience

‘Balthazar,’ Raoul said weakly-and he knew he was lost right then.

‘Balthazar.’ She paused and gazed up at him in astonishment. ‘Why Balthazar?’

‘After…after an alpaca I once knew.’ An alpaca who looked like Mickey Rooney.

‘You’ve known an alpaca?’

‘Lisle…’

Her face changed, just like that. Crumpled. Her eyes creased into distress. ‘Lisle. Oh, Raoul, of course. What have I done? If you really don’t want them…’

She understood. He stared down at her as she knelt, gathering the second cria into her arms and looking up at him in distress, and he thought, She understands.

He didn’t do emotion. He didn’t need this empathy bit. And he didn’t want her to look at him like this.

The last thing he wanted from this woman was sympathy. It did something to him, something he wasn’t sure he could handle.

Or maybe he was sure he couldn’t handle it.

‘I’ll buy them now, but I’ll find someone else who can keep them,’ she was saying, immeasurably distressed. ‘If they’re going to cause you sadness then of course you won’t want them up at the castle. There are weavers down in the valley who’d love to take these on. I can pay for their keep. I won’t-’

‘Just put them in the van, Jess,’ he said, trying for dryness, but her look of distress intensified.

‘Look, if you don’t want to do even that much I’ll understand. I can call a taxi.’

‘A taxi? Here? And for non-housetrained alpacas?’

‘I’ll pay more for cleaning.’ She jutted her chin. ‘Raoul, I don’t want to hurt you.’

And there it was. A declaration, just like that. Raoul, I don’t want to hurt you.

What was she doing right now, by looking at him like this?

Get a grip.

‘Look, this is dumb,’ he told her. ‘Of course we can keep them. And you’re right. Edouard will love them.’

‘But if they remind you of Lisle…’

‘Maybe I need to be reminded of Lisle.’ He caught himself, tried to rethink-but he knew that he was right. ‘Maybe Lisle would tell me to get over it.’

She looked up at him, uncertain. ‘Lisle would want you to take these home?’

‘I guess she would.’ He managed a smile, albeit a lopsided one. ‘OK, I know she would. Even if I was driving the Lamborghini.’

That diverted her. ‘You drive a Lamborghini?’

‘Not when I’m transporting alpacas.’

She stared, seemingly dumbfounded. ‘My husband drives a Lamborghini,’ she said at last, and her look of sympathy was replaced by awe. And, amazingly, laughter. It was always there, Raoul thought, dazed. Ready to flash out at any opportunity. Life had kicked her round but still she laughed. ‘Ooh, I so want Cordelia to know this.’ She chuckled, including them all in her laughter. ‘Cordelia is my cousin,’ she told the farmer. ‘She thinks she’s the ant’s pants because her husband drives a Porsche.’

‘Ant’s pants?’ said the farmer. He sounded as dazed as Raoul was.

‘Jess,’ Raoul managed, trying desperately to get back on track. The world seemed to be spinning and he felt dangerously close to falling off. ‘Leave the explanations. Just get the babies into the van.’

‘She is your wife,’ the farmer said, abandoning distractions and getting back to basics as well. To what was important.

They should have swapped to speaking English, Raoul thought ruefully. But Jess was fluent; they’d been speaking to the farmer in his own language and it would have seemed rude to swap. But now…he’d heard every word. Including ant’s pants. And including the rest.

‘I remember the Princess Lisle,’ the farmer said, softly as if he was remembering something that gave him pleasure. ‘You know…’ he looked at Raoul, obviously trying to see in him the child that he’d once been ‘…you and your sister were born two days after my own daughter was born. My wife was so upset when they said the little girl-your sister-had problems. And then the old prince sent you away.’

‘We need to get on,’ Raoul said, more roughly than he intended, and the man beamed.

‘Of course you do. You’re taking the crias to the little prince?’

‘He needs them,’ Jess told the farmer and he nodded.

‘We were so afraid… We have all been so devastated that the Comte Marcel would get his hands on the little prince.’ He turned to Raoul, and his face revealed a mix of emotions that were clearly threatening to overwhelm him.

‘You married this woman so that Comte Marcel wouldn’t control the prince. So his grandmother could love him.’

There was only one answer to that. When the man looked at him like that…when he was feeling as he was feeling…

‘Yes,’ he said and the man blinked. He stood and stared at them for a long moment, and then he stared down at Jess.

Then he lifted the cheque and ripped it in two.

‘I’m not a wealthy man,’ he told them. ‘But you give me hope. How does that compare to the value of a cheque?’

‘Hey.’ Jess rose, still hugging her baby. ‘Monsieur, I wanted you to have that money,’ she told him. ‘Prince Raoul has enough. He even drives a Lamborghini.’

‘This money was yours.’

‘Now I feel like a rat,’ Raoul told them.

‘Good,’ Jess said. ‘Monsieur-’

‘I will not accept payment from you,’ the man said. ‘Not in a million years. Take these babies to the little prince, and God bless.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Jess said, clearly disconcerted. ‘You’re very good.’

‘It’s you who is good.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll take Angel home and maybe she will miss her babies and repent and maybe she won’t but even if she won’t I know they’ve gone to a noble cause.’

‘They’ll piddle on the van seats,’ Raoul said darkly but they were all smiling.

There was nothing left to do.

Jess loaded the second baby. She sat, overwhelmed by alpacas, smiling supremely, and once more Raoul steered the van toward the castle.

And on the road behind them the farmer smiled and smiled.

‘I have been very generous, no?’ he demanded of Angel, who was yet to notice that her babies had disappeared. ‘I have been wonderful. As this marriage is wonderful. But then, if this marriage is wonderful, why doesn’t the entire world know? And who is to tell them but me?’ He grinned. ‘I have been very wonderful but the fees for news stories are very, very excellent. I have, my Angel, what the world calls a scoop. Let’s see how fast we can walk to the nearest farmhouse. I need to make a very important phone call.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT TOOK twenty minutes to get from where they’d met the farmer to the palace gates.

In that twenty minutes the world had woken up.

One phone call from the farmer had produced immediate results. There had been huge media interest in the death of Lady Sarah. Everyone in the country knew the terms of the royal succession, and apart from Marcel and the politicians who would benefit, everyone had been devastated. There was general consensus that the little prince should stay with his grandmother and there had been hope that Raoul would prove a better ruler than his predecessors. Sarah’s death had dashed those hopes, but there was still avid interest in this Prince Raoul who the country knew so little of and who had lost so badly.

So there’d been media camped up at the palace gates, waiting to get interviews, photos, anything. That interest had died back over the past few days, so much so that they’d been able to get out this morning simply by