‘Love, we need to think…’
But there was no time to think. Not now. ‘Uncle Raoul!’ It was a child’s high-pitched call from outside the stables.
Edouard.
‘Raoul?’
That was Louise.
Jess stiffened. She pulled away a little more, brushing hay from her clothes, from her hair.
Raoul stayed where he was, watching her.
‘Jess…’
‘This is nonsense.’ Of course it had to be nonsense. A fairy tale with a happy ending. ‘What…what a thing to say.’
‘I’m stuck here,’ he told her. ‘It might not be so bad. We could work things out.’
‘You want to be stuck here with a wife?’
‘It’d be better than being alone,’ he told her and she stared at him, astounded.
‘Are you proposing?’
‘I might be.’
‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped. ‘Of all the romantic-’
‘Jess, we both know that romance doesn’t work.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ She was glaring at him, her glare on high beam. ‘You’d know. Of course you’d know. A thousand women…’
‘Hey, I was joking about the thousand women.’
‘And I was fooling around when I let you kiss me,’ she snapped.
‘You were kissing back.’
‘I was being kind.’ She glowered. ‘You’ve got hay stuck in your hair.’
‘I need to be compromised.’
‘By sleeping on the settee in my bedroom. Not by rolling in the hay.’
‘It’d be more fun rolling in the hay.’
He was laughing. The rat was laughing. ‘Cut it out, Raoul,’ she managed. ‘Edouard is looking for us.’
‘So he is. You want to hide?’
Enough. Raoul had dragged a bale of hay into the stables to make a bed for the alpacas. He’d spread out most of the bale but there was a sizeable chunk still intact, pressed together in a square. He stood, smiling softly at her, inviting her to seduction-and she cracked.
She lifted the square of hay and threw it. Hard.
So when Edouard and his grandmother reached the door of their stall they found a glowering bride and a bridegroom who was covered in a cloud of hay.
CHAPTER NINE
‘SO TELL us what’s happening.’
They were all settled in the hay: Raoul, Jess, Louise and Edouard, and Henri. Louise had taken one look at the incoherent pair and had called Henri for back-up. ‘Because I can’t get any sense out of them and maybe you can.’ Now she was demanding answers.
Only Edouard wasn’t interested. The little boy had Sebastian in one hand and he was gently stroking Balthazar’s nose with the other. He was totally entranced. Leaving his elders to sort out the non-important stuff.
‘The phone’s going crazy,’ Louise told them. ‘Henri tells me you sneaked out at dawn…’
‘We didn’t sneak,’ Raoul objected but Jess cast him a withering look.
‘Yes, we did.’ She was in the mood for contradiction. What had he said? Try marriage because it’s better than being stuck here alone? He had to be kidding.
‘We snook,’ she told Louise and Henri. ‘And it worked. We’re legally married.’
Louise stared from one to the other in disbelief. ‘You can’t be.’
‘We are,’ she said. ‘Dopey as it sounds, I’ve married your son.’
‘Hey, who’s dopey?’ Raoul complained. He was smiling at her with a smile she didn’t understand-and didn’t trust a bit. ‘It’s not dopey. The more I think about it, the more I’m deciding that marriage is a good idea.’
‘For today.’
‘Or maybe a bit longer,’ Raoul said.
Yeah, right.
‘Momentarily,’ she said, in the firmest voice she could muster. ‘It’s a momentary marriage so you can keep Edouard safe.’
‘Momentary?’ Louise looked really confused.
‘Oh, the marriage can last,’ she told her, casting a repressive glance at her bridegroom. ‘But the bride goes back to Australia tomorrow.’
Louise stared from Jess to Raoul and back again, her face saying she didn’t believe a word of it. She turned to Henri, doubtful. ‘Is this true?’
‘I’ve been talking to Monsieur Luiten on the telephone,’ Henri told her. ‘It’s true.’
‘When were you talking to Monsieur Luiten?’
‘Just now.’
‘While Edouard and I were searching.’ She cast him a look of disbelief. ‘You knew of this?’
‘It was Henri’s suggestion,’ Jess told Louise.
‘Hey, the marriage was your suggestion,’ Raoul objected. ‘Mama, I was propositioned, just like that. Marry me, she said, and what was a chivalrous prince supposed to do?’
‘You really have married Jessie,’ Louise said. She stared down at Jess’s hand-at the plaited band of ancient gold. ‘It’s my mother’s ring.’
‘I couldn’t find anything else at short notice,’ Raoul said apologetically. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Louise whispered. ‘Why would I mind? My mother’s ring to be used for this…’
‘Hey,’ Jess said, suddenly even more uneasy than she was. ‘It’s not a real marriage.’
‘Not…’
‘It is a real marriage,’ Raoul told them. ‘Forever and ever. That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it, Jess?’
‘Yes, but not together,’ she managed. He was too near, she decided. Too close. Too…Raoul. ‘As I said, I’m going back to Australia.’
‘I am very, very confused,’ Louise complained. ‘You’re going back to Australia-but you’re married. A momentary marriage. Would you mind starting at the beginning and telling me just what is going on?’
So they told her. Or Raoul told her and Jess listened while he outlined the very sensible reasons they’d decided to marry. She listened while he talked about their early-morning marriage ceremony, of Monsieur Luiten’s assurances that all would be right with their world. She listened while he described the advent of the twins into their lives-how the news of their marriage had become public. She listened while he finished off with,
‘But I’ve been thinking, Mama. If we can persuade Jess to stay on for a bit…it’d be so much easier.’
Easier? Easier for whom?
‘It’d be good for the little one,’ Henri said with a glance across to Edouard. Only it was an uneasy glance. Henri at least had realised there might be problems.
Of course there were problems, Jess thought savagely. She watched as Henri’s eyes turned doubtfully to her and she thought, This old man has more sensitivity than his master.
They were all looking at Edouard now-and there was the crux of the matter.
Edouard.
Of course it’d be good for Edouard, Jess thought. Of course it would be easier. She looked at the little boy, who was stroking the tiny alpacas as if he couldn’t believe they were real, and she knew that she could make a difference to this child. She could love him to bits. She could…
