anyone else.’
‘Because of the gorgeous white coat?’ the woman reporter teased and there was more laughter.
‘I haven’t actually seen the white coat,’ she admitted. ‘And maybe it’s just as well if I don’t. As I said, my job here is done. I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘Let us photograph you together,’ someone begged and she hesitated but then she glanced across at Raoul and his eyes were sending her a message.
Let’s do this. Let’s get it over with.
So she nodded. She walked across to the verge where Whatshername was starting to fret again. She handed Balthazar to Raoul and she lifted Whatshername into her arms. Then she turned and smiled at the media. With her husband. And her children?
‘OK,’ she told them. ‘Take as many pictures as you like. Behold the royal family.’
Raoul was smiling, relaxing, seemingly enormously relieved. He moved in close and he held her around the waist with the arm that wasn’t holding Balthazar.
A smiling couple holding an alpaca apiece.
Raoul was holding her. She was pulled tight against him as the photographers took aim. She felt…she felt…
She didn’t know how she felt. Very, very confused?
I definitely do not want to see that white coat, Jess thought grimly as she pasted on her very nicest camera- facing smile. If one arm could do so much damage, imagine what a white coat could do. There was such warmth, such strength…
His smile…
I do not want to see that white coat, she told herself again. I mustn’t see it. I need to get out of here fast!
‘You were incredible.’
Somehow they’d got away. Once they were inside the palace grounds the gates swung closed behind them. Without servants the castle forecourt was deserted. They emerged to soft sunshine and silence-and strangeness. Married life?
‘I can’t believe how you twisted them around your little finger,’ Raoul was saying. He lifted Whatshername out of the van and set her on the lawn.
‘Sheer idiocy,’ Jess told him, taking Balthazar to join his twin.
‘There was no idiocy about what you just did. You’ve saved our bacon. You have the Press on our side. There’ll be no questions about our marriage. Marcel won’t have a leg to stand on if he tries to drum up support to kick us out.’
‘Will he do that?’
‘He was certainly making noises before I married Sarah. But tomorrow the country will wake to you and your alpaca twins and the knowledge that I’m taking over. I already explained my logic to the Press before Sarah died. The population knows my marriage will mean free elections and a move to a proper democracy.’
‘Where will that leave you?’ she asked curiously and he shrugged.
‘As Regent I’ll get to sign all important papers. I can dissolve parliament if I wish-as I’ll do now-but there’s no way I’ll do that after we get a decent government. I’ll even be moving to change the constitution so that no ruling prince ever has the powers that I have again. It’s time this country moved out of the Dark Ages.’
‘You have all these powers?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Even if you’re just Regent?’
‘Hey, there’s no just about it.’ He was watching the two little alpacas nose each other in the morning sun, then settle down on the lush lawn for a nap. ‘For the next eighteen years I’m effective ruler.’
‘The same as a king.’
‘If you like.’
‘But with a retirement date.’
‘Mm.’ He grimaced. ‘It’ll be the only thing that keeps me sane. I get to retire at fifty-three.’
‘And go back to Somalia?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You know,’ she said cautiously, ‘what you’ve just done…I hadn’t really thought it through from your angle. I’ve been married. I’ve had a son. But you… If you’re settling here for eighteen years, won’t you want a wife?’
‘I already have one.’
‘No, but a real one.’
‘You’re real enough for me, Jess.’
She gave him a distracted smile. ‘You know what I mean,’ she told him. ‘Not one in name only. You might find it hard to move on to your next thousand women in the confines of the royal spotlight.’
‘My next thousand women?’
‘You said you’d had a thousand,’ she told him. They were watching the babies still nuzzling each other in sleepy satisfaction as they wriggled down on the grass.
‘Right,’ he said faintly. ‘I’d forgotten.’
‘So if you want a divorce…’ she said.
‘I don’t want a divorce.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t think I can get a divorce. Not until I’m fifty-three.’
‘We might be able to manage one while Marcel’s not looking,’ she said. ‘If you meet someone highly desirable we could fix it so we were divorced and you were remarried two minutes afterwards so Edouard will still be safe.’
‘I don’t want to be divorced.’
It was a strange statement. A weird statement. It hung between them, a bit like an upraised sword. Threatening damage?
Surely threatening peace.
‘You never know,’ she managed and if she didn’t manage to get her voice to work quite right then who could blame her? By anyone’s reckoning it had been a very strange morning.
‘These babies need feeding,’ Raoul told her and his voice was suddenly rough. She looked at him strangely. Was he feeling like she was?
Alpacas. Think of alpacas. What had he said? The babies need feeding?
‘Um…sure.’
‘Do you have any idea what to feed alpaca babies?’
‘Alpaca milk, preferably,’ she said. ‘But failing that, my best guess is skimmed milk. We can ring a vet and find out. But I’m sure skimmed milk won’t hurt in the interim.’ She thought about it. ‘We need baby bottles. Do you suppose there’s somewhere in the kitchen who can find such things?’
‘I doubt it.’
Goodness, was there no end to what she had to do for this family? She was going to turn out bossy, she thought, and then she thought of Cordelia and grinned.
Cordelia would tell her she’d been born bossy.
‘You take the babies across to the stables,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go see what I can find.’ She hesitated, seeing her own doubt reflected in his eyes. ‘You know, weird as it seems, rooting around in a castle kitchen to see if I can find baby bottles is strangely appealing.’
‘No stopping for toast and marmalade,’ he told her and her smile faltered a little. Damn, how was it that he made her feel like this? As if he knew her so well? As if there was a part of her that was missing? Or had been missing up until now.
‘I’m off on a bottle hunt,’ she told him, more tersely than she’d meant. ‘You go find our babies a bed.’
‘Right,’ he told her and there was still that strange look on his face. ‘Right.’
It took her longer than she’d intended. Henri and Louise and Edouard were nowhere to be seen, and there were certainly no servants to ask, so she had to search the kitchen herself. She found what she was looking for-in the end she found a whole cupboard filled with baby paraphernalia-but then she had to figure out how to operate the microwave. She failed dismally. Finally she found a pot and stuck it on the range and heated her milk the hard way. She filled two bottles with care and carried them back to the stables.
