driving the gardener’s van. No one had been stirring in the camp. No one had expected anything except maybe a statement of misery as the royals moved out.
But the farmer’s phone call had changed things.
As they approached the castle gates, the media seemed to burst from nowhere. Photographers and reporters and their associated equipment were spread over the road and their excitement was obvious from five hundred yards.
‘Uh-oh,’ Raoul muttered.
‘M. Luiten must have told them,’ Jess whispered, horrified.
‘Maybe it was your own declaration down the mountain,’ Raoul said drily. ‘You can hardly go round calling me your husband if you don’t want anyone to know.’
‘But the farmer didn’t have a phone.’
‘Maybe not but I’m guessing he and Angel found a phone faster than I can drive.’
‘So you’re saying this is my fault?’
‘Absolutely.’ He grinned.
‘Raoul…’
‘It’ll be fine,’ he told her. ‘Pretend you don’t speak our language.’
‘I can do that. And they can hardly photograph me,’ she said, cheering up as she hugged her babies. Raoul was smiling his reassurance. It couldn’t be all bad. ‘I’m covered in alpaca.’ She peered out at the pack ahead, blocking the road. ‘Can they stop us? Can’t we keep driving?’
‘Squashing the odd reporter?’
‘I think reporters are unsquashable,’ she said doubtfully. ‘It’s in their job description.’
‘A bulldozer probably wouldn’t squash this lot and we’re going to have to face this some time,’ he told her, drawing reluctantly to a halt. ‘We might as well face this now.’
‘Wrong.’
‘Wrong?’
‘You’re going to have to face this some time,’ she told him. ‘I’m going back to Australia.’
‘After the Press conference, my love,’ he told her. ‘Which is scheduled to start right now.’
My love…
Why had he called her that? Jess sat in the passenger seat and hugged Balthazar and Whatshername while Raoul got out of the van and started answering questions.
He’d called her my love. It had been a throw-away line, she thought. A dry reference to that fact that they were now married. It didn’t mean anything.
Heck, why was she thinking about two little words when she had so much more to think about? She shoved the two words away-not so far that she couldn’t haul them up at some later date and inspect them, but far enough away so she could think about what was happening.
The window on her side was closed but Raoul had left his side open and she could hear every word. There were microphones in his face and cameras flashing. Ugh. She slunk down and held her alpacas close; forming a barrier from the crowd trying to peer in.
The babies wriggled, not liking the flashes.
‘Shush,’ she told them. ‘We’re not on display here. Raoul is.’
Her husband?
He’d called her his love. Damn, the words wouldn’t stay where she’d put them. They were demanding immediate inspection.
‘I bet that’s what he called every one of his thousand previous women,’ she told the alpacas, and then she corrected herself. ‘I mean…they’re not previous to me. I do not make one thousand and one.’
She wasn’t making sense, even to herself.
She might as well listen to what was going on outside.
‘We’ve received reports that you’re married.’ That statement in many different forms was being thrown at him from all sides.
Did he mind? He seemed assured, Jess thought. A prince in charge of his world. Or maybe as a doctor working where he’d been, he’d had practice handling the Press. Whatever, Raoul had himself settled now. He was leaning back against his closed car door, protecting his bride as he faced the media.
‘That’s right,’ he told them. ‘I’m married. As of an hour ago.’
There was a moment’s shocked silence-a vast aura of stunned amazement from a contingent of the media who clearly were unused to being this shocked-and then a surge of questions.
‘When?’
‘Why?’
‘Who?’
‘Is it the lady in the car?’ someone demanded, and Raoul’s quiet yes led to another moment’s silence.
Jess pushed the lock down on her side of the van. Just in time. Someone grabbed her door and tried to open it.
She manoeuvred Balthazar so he was between her and the window.
‘Questions to me, please,’ Raoul told them. ‘My wife is understandably overwrought.’
Overwrought? She thought about that, while she cowered behind her alpacas. Overwrought. It made her sound like a frail little princess.
Balthazar licked her hand and she thought, No, I’m not frail. She hugged the little cria closer. It was she who should be reassuring Balthazar. What was he doing licking her?
‘This is a marriage of convenience, right?’ someone else asked and Raoul let the question hang, as though considering. But obviously he’d decided that the only way forward here was with honesty.
‘You all understand the rules of the succession,’ he told them. ‘And I’d imagine you all understand what’s happened. My mother desperately wants to be permitted to raise her grandson. The Comte Marcel refuses her that right. My cousin, Lady Sarah, agreed to marry me so that the succession could stay with me. Tragically, Lady Sarah’s untimely death meant that my nephew would be placed in the viscount’s care on Monday. Ms Devlin kindly made the offer of marriage and I was left with no choice but to accept.’
Hey! She thought about that. It sounded really reasonable, she decided, but there were parts of it that she couldn’t quite like.
Poor Raoul, forced into marriage with the likes of her.
Hmmph.
Listen some more, she told herself. Let’s not get your knickers in a knot quite yet. Focus.
‘Has Ms Devlin been married before?’
‘Yes. As had Lady Sarah. That’s no impediment to the succession.’
‘Will you stay in the country now?’
A moment’s hesitation. Then, ‘Yes. There is a lot that needs attending to in this country. I’m prepared to stay here and see that changes are made.’
There was a general rumbling of interest, and Jess heard the transparent murmur of approval. And…hope?
But they were focusing back on her again.
‘Will Ms Devlin help care for the prince?’
‘Ms Devlin intends to leave for Australia tomorrow and have nothing further to do with us.’
‘She’s now a princess, right?’ someone asked.
‘Legally, yes.’
‘We need photographs.’
‘I’m sure you’ll understand that my wife was in a severe car accident only a week ago,’ he said, smoothly. ‘She’s not up to photographs or answering questions.’
Ooh, she was a real wilting violet. Jess could feel herself getting frailer by the minute.
‘If she’s not up to answering questions, how can she be up to deciding to marry you?’ someone demanded. ‘Surely that’s a bigger question than any we can put to her?’
The train of thought took hold. There were more flashes in her direction. Wall of alpaca, with bride somewhere