and turned to her mother-in-law.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You’re his wife.’ She hesitated a little more but then continued. ‘You know, I’ve never told anyone this. But I thought…you really are married to him. It’s not betrayal for a woman to talk about her son to his wife.’
‘I’m a wife in name only.’
‘You’re his wife.’ Louise lifted the knife and fork and placed them firmly back in Jess’s hands. ‘Eat. And listen. I intend to tell you, like it or not.’
‘But-’
‘Listen.’
So Jess listened. Short of throwing the tray and Louise out of the room, she had no choice at all, and, looking at Louise’s face, she knew there was a need here that had been growing for a long time.
‘I’ve worried about him for years,’ Louise said, echoing her thoughts, and Jess decided there was nothing for it but to attack her steak and remain silent.
‘My husband and I had a dreadful marriage,’ Louise said softly. ‘Royalty married to youth. It didn’t work. My husband took Jean-Paul as his son and heir, and he doted on him. Then six years later the twins were born, and Lisle was not…perfect. My husband demanded perfection. Maybe he could have loved Raoul, but of course Raoul was inseparable from his sister. From the time Raoul could understand, his father was trying to split him from Lisle, and Raoul was a fighter. He fought his father. He fought me when I tried to intervene. And then…’ She hesitated while Jess ate two delicious little potatoes with parsley butter. ‘Then I finally took the twins away. It was breaking my heart that I couldn’t stay in contact with Jean-Paul. I was so bitter about marriage. So maybe…maybe Raoul was brought up thinking that marriage and relationships were doomed. Independence was everything.’ She bit her lip and looked down at her hands. ‘Maybe I’ve done even more damage. And maybe the only way for the damage to be undone is for someone to stay.’
‘You mean for me to stay.’
‘If you’ve the courage.’
‘I don’t have the courage,’ she said flatly. ‘I can’t look at Edouard without hurting. I’ve been really good at failed relationships in the past. And if Raoul thinks he can dump his responsibilities onto me and go back to saving the world-’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean that.’
‘I’ll bet he does.’
Louise rose, but she was wringing her hands, her fingers entangled and frantic. ‘I know. This is so unfair. But if you go…’
‘Then you’ll work something out. And you’ll be better off than if we hadn’t married.’
‘I know that. So it’s quite unfair to ask for more.’
‘Yes,’ Jess said flatly. She was feeling a little ill and she laid down her knife and fork for the last time. There was a dessert by her dinner plate-a concoction of meringue and berries. It looked amazing.
She’d completely lost her appetite.
‘I’ve done all I can,’ she told Louise, gazing at it in distaste. ‘Enough. Please don’t ask more.’
She didn’t see anyone then until after dusk. She lay in bed, desultorily reading magazines Louise had thoughtfully provided. She made a couple of phone calls to confirm what she needed to do tomorrow. She tried not to think about what was happening in the palace without her.
She tried not to think about Raoul.
Then, as the last of the light faded from the windows and she was thinking about the impossibility of going to sleep, there was a knock.
‘Come in,’ she called and Raoul opened the door.
Or…Prince Raoul.
He was wearing some sort of uniform, and what a uniform! It was a dress suit, of a fabric so blue it was almost black, and its magnificence took her breath away. Medals blazed across his chest. Rows of gold braid and tassels adorned his arms. A purple sash with gold edging slashed across his chest and at his side hung a jewel-encrusted sword.
He looked…breathtaking.
‘If you laugh I’m going to have to kill you,’ he told her conversationally. ‘Can I come in?’
‘You look amazing,’ she managed. This was crazy. Prince descending to the peasant quarters-like something straight out of Cinderella. Had Cinders ever been caught snoozing in bed? she wondered. She shoved
‘I look ridiculous,’ he told her, still discomfited.
‘Ridiculous is hardly the word I’d use,’ she told him. With his dark skin, his beautifully groomed hair, his deep, dark eyes creased into a rueful smile-and that uniform… No,
‘If the guys in my med team could see me now…’
‘If the girls in your med team could see you now, they’d swoon,’ she told him.
‘Are you swooning?’
‘No, but I…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t do swooning.’
‘You’re past it?’
‘Something like that.’
He appeared to consider-and then he smiled, moving on. ‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Meanwhile you’ve got your own dressing up to do. My mother was planning on helping but the veterinarian’s here to give lessons in the care of baby alpacas, so she and Edouard are down in the stables.’
‘Right,’ she said cautiously. ‘So…’
‘So we have official photographers arriving in half an hour,’ he told her. ‘Plus the Press.’ He turned aside and called to someone obviously further down the hall. ‘Marie? Her Highness is awake. We can start.’
Her Highness. That would be her?
A little dark woman appeared by Raoul’s side. She was beaming and beaming, and her arms were laden with…
A gown? Surely this wasn’t a gown?
But it seems it was. ‘Marie’s here to help you dress,’ Raoul told her. His smile deepened as he sympathised with her confusion. ‘Unless you want to get your official photographs taken in what you’re wearing?’
‘Hey.’ She tried to make her dizzy mind think. ‘What is this?’
‘You agreed on tonight, yes?’
‘Tonight.’
‘We need to stay together,’ he told her, his smile fading. ‘You remember?’
‘Y-yes, but…’
‘Well, tonight starts now,’ he told her. ‘Mama and I agreed we should get the entire thing over and done with. Marie’s here with a formal gown for official photographs and for the small ceremony of blessing we’ve planned. We have a cosmetician and a hairdresser and a bevy of reporters waiting. As soon as you’re decent we’ll let the hordes in and they can interview you.’
To say she was confused was an understatement. ‘But-’
‘It’s the shortest way,’ he told her, still sympathetic. ‘The media won’t be satisfied unless they’re given an official photo opportunity. The television crews want some sort of ceremony. Marcel’s having apoplexy, and by not producing you we’re asking for trouble. So can I ask that you be produced?’
She eyed him. She eyed his uniform.
‘Like you’ve been produced?’
‘That’s right,’ he told her and his smile suddenly reached out again to touch her. It did touch her. He looked absurdly handsome. Absurdly anxious?
He was as out of his depth as she was, she thought. He’d been thrown into the media spotlight with not much more warning than she had had.
Tonight he needed her, and she’d agreed.
