She’d give him tonight.
‘Fine,’ she said, and it was as if she’d switched on a light. Relief washed over his face, lighting places she hadn’t realised were in shadow.
‘Really?’
He thought he’d messed it up, she realised, watching his face. He’d thought that his crazy proposal to extend this marriage had somehow jeopardised her agreement to do what was needed tonight.
‘Of course, really.’
‘Jess.’ It was a soft word, an utterance of her name-but he might as well have kissed her. He smiled at her and she felt…
He felt, too. He seemed to drag his eyes away, and when he spoke again his voice was strained.
But he was back to being businesslike. Maybe thankfully? ‘OK, Marie.’ He motioned to the gown Marie was carrying. ‘This is a gown Mama wore for state occasions,’ he told her. ‘It was worn by my grandmother and her mother before her. Because of its historical significance it’s one of the few things of Mama’s that my father didn’t destroy. Mama’s sure it’ll fit. You’re practically the same size as she is.’
‘But…’
‘Jess, it’s a state occasion,’ he told her. ‘A royal marriage.’ He smiled at her, his eyes holding, reassuring, teasing. ‘If I have to look like something on a biscuit tin, I don’t see why you don’t join me.’
She stared. He was laughing at her.
No. He was laughing with her. There was a difference.
She loved it.
‘You don’t look like something on a biscuit tin,’ she managed. Humour was the way to go here, she decided. If he could laugh then she could, too. It was a close call though. Could she laugh without toppling into hysteria?
‘Maybe I’d say you looked a bit tinnish if you weren’t wearing a sword,’ she told him. ‘But I’ll never describe a man wearing a sword as a tin-lid decoration. It’s a rule I’ve stuck to in the past, and I dare say it’ll serve me well in the future.’
‘I dare say it will,’ he said faintly. He was responding to her laughter with a look of pure admiration that did her anxious insides the world of good. And then he moved on.
‘OK, Princess Jessica,’ he told her. ‘Tin lids or not, we’re in this together. Shall we start being decorative now?’
Playing dressing-up had nothing on this.
The dress itself was enough to take her breath away. It was a dress one was wedged into rather than slipped on, she thought. Without a body, the dress would stand up by itself.
The rich silver brocade was heavily embroidered with crimson and gold. It was cut like the robes she’d seen of mediaeval princesses. The bodice, with its low square neckline, flattened her breasts with its heavy fabric, but at the same time it somehow accentuated her breasts’ soft swell. The sleeves fell to her fingertips, close-fitting from her shoulders and widening below the elbows, with a circlet of softer fabric at the wrists falling almost to her knees. The vast, embroidered skirt was rich and full, touching the floor at the front and sweeping to a glorious train of gold and silver at the back.
There was a brilliant crimson dragon embroidered on the train.
‘It’s the family emblem,’ Raoul told her, and she cast him a look of disbelief.
‘Think of it as a family pet. And you’re part of our family.’
‘Then let’s change the family emblem to a small, custard-yellow porrywiggle,’ she retorted. ‘Because that’s the way I’m feeling.’
He grinned-but there was no backing out now. Marie was admitting the world to admire her. And they were admiring. In moments she was surrounded by reporters and cameramen, and they were aiming straight at her.
For Jess the sensation was so unbelievable she sought refuge in humour.
‘I need one of those pointy caps,’ she said, staring at herself in the mirror as the final adjustments were made to her train, to her face, to her hair, in readiness for the official photographer. ‘Like you see on princesses in comic books.’
Silence.
‘My wife likes to laugh,’ Raoul told the assemblage.
Jess bit her lip. Uh-oh. Wasn’t humour the way to go, then?
She was his wife for a night. His dignity needed her to behave.
But he looked reproving, she thought suddenly. Reproving? If he thought she was going to buckle down and be a tin-lid…
‘Well, if I can’t have a cap I guess I’ll just have to do without,’ she said mournfully. ‘I guess, as we intend to stay in tonight-dear-then I’ll make do with this old outfit and a bare head. After all-’ she gave Raoul her kindest smile ‘-it’s not as if you’re dressed for going out.’
Raoul’s eyes creased in disbelief-and then into stunned admiration, and the assembled media stared. There was a long pause as if no one could believe what they were hearing.
And then-finally-there was laughter. Tentative at first, and then deeply appreciative.
Jess was used to reporters. Her designs were known around the world and she’d learned to manipulate the media for her own ends. Now she chose to answer exactly what she wanted to answer. Any other questions she ignored with the deftness born of practice.
Had she a family in Australia?
‘Yes.’
She’d been married before?
‘Yes.’
Then it got trickier.
‘You’ve had a child?’ someone asked. ‘Our sources in Australia have done some fast research and they say your child died of leukaemia.’
‘Dominic died, yes.’ She paused, and then said softly, as if speaking personally to each and every one of the assembled reporters, ‘That’s why I believe family is so important. It’s why it’s so important that Prince Edouard can stay with his uncle and his grandmother, rather than his distant cousin. I’m sure every person in this country would agree, and this marriage makes that possible.’
They loved her.
They thought she was fantastic, Raoul thought as, questions completed, they made their way to the tiny palace chapel. Here their marriage would be blessed in a ceremony designed-hastily-to give the people their only chance to meet their princess.
This was right.
But it needed to continue.
If she stayed it’d be so much easier, he thought. Jessie’s hand was resting on his arm as they made their way through the long corridors. Cameras were working at full speed. She wasn’t flinching.
She was wonderful.
He could do this if he had Jessie by his side.
And Jess was alone. Back in Australia she had no one, and the thought made his gut wrench. She had no family and she’d lost her child. She was going home to the grey fog he could sense had been overwhelming her, and he knew that the fog was waiting to engulf her again.
But here she’d lifted his own bleakness, and she’d smiled and entranced the media and she’d brought happiness to a place that could give her happiness in return. She could set up her design centre here, he thought, his mind racing. He’d pay to bring any staff she needed over and maybe they could build Waves up even bigger than it was now. This country had the best yarns and the best cloth. Why not the best designer?
It could work, he thought, and the more the idea whirled through his mind, the better it looked. Jess would be surrounded by her staff-and by her family. Louise would love her. Edouard would love her.
And he…
In time maybe even he…
She was laughing at something one of the reporters had said. He glanced down at the smiling woman on his
