Princess Of Convenience

‘I…’ Jess swallowed. She did remember. The sports car coming fast. Unbelievably fast. It was right in front of her and all she could do was put up her hand and say…

‘No.’

Then as the lady winced, thinking she’d have to start at the beginning, she corrected herself. ‘I do remember a little. I remember a blue sports car on the wrong side of the road. At least I think it was on the wrong side.’

‘That was Sarah’s car,’ the lady said. ‘Lady Sarah Veerharch was my son’s fiancee.’

Jess swallowed. There was something about the lady’s face that made her not want to go on, but she had to. Even though she already knew the answer. Was. The woman had said was. ‘I… Sarah was…killed?’ How had she made herself say it? And to her horror the woman was nodding.

‘She was killed instantly. Her car glanced off yours-the fact that you were able to stop before the cars hit apparently saved your life-but Sarah slewed off the cliff and into the sea.’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear, but yes.’

Jess’s eyes closed in anguish. So much death. It followed her everywhere. Dominic, and now this…

Concentrate on practicalities, she told herself fiercely. If you think about death you’ll go quietly crazy.

‘So why am I in a royal palace?’ she asked and the lady’s face grew grave.

‘This is my home. Mine, my son’s and my grandson’s. For…for now. There’s such media coverage-such interest. Dr Briet thought that, seeing your injuries were relatively minor, you’d be better off here where we could protect you from the worst of it.’

‘Such media coverage.’ Jess’s face had lost whatever colour it had. ‘Lady Sarah… Your future daughter-in-law. Your son’s the…’

‘Raoul is the Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri,’ his mother told her. ‘At least… Well, for now he is. I’m Louise d’Apergenet. My son is Raoul Louis d’Apergenet, second in line to the crown. He is… He was to succeed to his position as regent on the occasion of his marriage. Which was to have been yesterday.’

‘And I’ve killed his bride.’ Jess’s voice subsided to an appalled whisper.

‘Sarah killed herself. You had nothing to do with it.’

The strong male voice startled them both. Jess’s gaze flew to the open door.

She hadn’t seen this man before. Nurses, doctor, servants…this man fitted none of these categories.

He was…royal?

Royalty was her first impression and maybe it wouldn’t have been her first impression if she wasn’t sitting under a velvet draped canopy in a fairy-tale castle. He was wearing light chinos, a dark polo shirt and faded loafers. These were casual clothes, but there was nothing casual about this man.

Tall, dark, superbly muscled, the man’s strongly-boned face was lean, appearing almost sculpted. His eyes were hawk-like and shadowed, revealing nothing. But indefinable or not, the aura of power he exuded was unmistakable.

Was he really a prince? His skin was weathered to a deep bronze, his eyes were creased as if accustomed to a too-harsh sun and there was a long, hairline scar running the length of his jaw. And his hands… These were no prince’s hands. They’d worked hard.

There was no trace of easy living on this man’s frame. Jess stared up at him, stunned. Even a little afraid?

But then he smiled-and the fear evaporated, just like that.

You couldn’t fear a man with a smile like this.

‘Good morning,’ he said softly. ‘You must be Jessica. How are you feeling?’

‘I… Yes. I’m Jessica and I’m fine.’ Unconsciously her hands tugged her bedcovers to her chin, in a naive gesture of defence. Why? He didn’t make her feel afraid, she thought. He just made her feel-small? Young? In her flimsy cotton nightgown, with her short crop of chestnut curls tousled from sleep and her freckled face devoid of make-up, she felt about twelve.

‘I’m Raoul,’ he told her.

She’d guessed. ‘Y…Your Highness.’

‘Raoul.’ His voice firmed, and there was even a tinge of anger, as if he was repudiating something he found offensive.

‘Jessica’s been fretting about Sarah’s death,’ his mother told him. ‘I’ve told her she’s not to blame herself.’

‘How can you blame yourself?’ Raoul was speaking in English. His voice was strong and deep, and only faintly tinged with the accent of his native country.

Where did he fit in? How did this family fit into the government of this place? Jess thought, trying desperately to remember what she’d learned of this country before she came here. Not much. Her trip this time been more an excuse to get away than to learn about another culture, and her only other visit here had been fleeting and had ended in disaster.

But she knew a little. Alp’Azuri was a principality, a tiny country edged by the sea. There’d been some recent tragedy, she thought, remembering flashes of international news in the past few weeks. A dissolute prince and his princess found dead. A tiny crown prince, orphaned.

Where did that leave Raoul?

‘I’ll not have you blaming yourself for Sarah’s death,’ Raoul was saying, and she blinked, trying to haul herself back to reality. To now.

‘Um…’

‘Sarah killed herself.’ Raoul’s voice was stern, sure of what had to be said. ‘Oh, not intentionally. We’re sure of that. But she’d been drinking. She was driving too fast on the wrong side of the road and the police say the only reason you weren’t killed also was because you were being incredibly cautious. Somehow, miraculously, you managed to avoid a double tragedy.’

‘But if I hadn’t been there…’

‘Then she might have hit someone else further down. Maybe with even worse consequences.’ He shook his head. ‘If it had been a family…’ He closed his eyes, as if to shut out a tragedy that could have been. ‘We’re all grateful that you were there, Jessica, and that you somehow prevented what could have been a lot, lot worse.’

‘But your fiancee…’

‘Yes.’ His eyes were open again now, and behind their cool, appraising look she could see pain. And something else. Despair? Defeat? ‘But we move on.’

‘Edouard will stay with me,’ his mother said softly and Jess frowned at this strange twist in the conversation. ‘We will fight for him. We must.’

Jess was lost. Edouard? Fighting?

Was this yet another tragedy? She pulled her covers even higher, in a gesture of protection that was as crazy as it was unhelpful.

‘I’ve been lying here for too long,’ she managed and Louise smiled.

‘My dear, it’s been six days. You were concussed and you dislocated your shoulder. But Dr Briet says-and Raoul concurs-that you seem to have been suffering more than that. He says you seem exhausted. You were taken initially to the Vesey hospital but when it was clear that all you needed to do was to sleep, it seemed best to bring you here.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not possible to keep the Press away anywhere else, and Raoul has been on hand if needed.’

This was making less and less sense. ‘You’ve been very good,’ Jess managed, ‘in the face of your own tragedy.’ She hesitated, but there was more to be said. Edouard. The name had brought back a memory now, remembrance of news reports she’d read surely less than a month ago. ‘And it’s not just Sarah, is it?’

‘You can’t know…’ Louise started but Jess was too distressed to stop.

‘I’m remembering the deaths of the crown prince and his princess,’ Jess said. ‘And your grandson being orphaned. I heard of it back in Australia. I’d just…forgotten.’

Of course. When her own world had collapsed, so had her ability to take in tragedies of those about her. But the deaths had been front-page news at home at a time when her world had been blank and meaningless, and it had been dreadful enough to haul her out of her pool of misery, into someone else’s.

She remembered cringing inside. The prince and his princess, in a chalet high in the mountains. An avalanche?