It took courage to start again, and she didn’t have it.
Dominic’s ashes were back in Australia.
She was going home.
‘Mama?’
Louise woke as Raoul called her name. For a moment Louise was confused. There was a piece of hay tickling her face. She was warm, she was more comfortable than she’d ever felt in her life and she felt just wonderful.
Jess had given her this.
She’d checked Edouard before she’d gone to bed last night and found him fretting about his alpacas. So she and Edouard-and of course Sebastian-Bear-had set off on a torchlight expedition to the stables. They’d found Henri trying to feed them.
He’d finally succeeded, but in the end they hadn’t wanted to settle. Edouard had been distressed so Henri had suggested they stay.
So they’d stayed. Well, why not? Her son was married. She could stay in this castle and raise her grandson. There was light in Louise’s world as there hadn’t been for a very long time.
And at some time in the night Henri’s hand had caught hers and something more had changed. This elderly widower who’d been her faithful servant for so long was suddenly so much more.
It was right. Jess had given her this, she thought, lying on the straw, gazing up at her son, smiling…
‘Wow,’ Raoul was saying. His face was strained, she thought, but he was taking in what was before him with a sense of awe. ‘This is some bedroom.’
‘We camped here,’ Edouard told him proudly, waking up in an instant at the sound of his uncle’s voice. ‘And we’re going to do it again tonight. Do you want to camp, too?’
‘Maybe,’ Raoul told him, but the strain was obvious in his voice. He turned back to Louise. ‘Mama…’
‘Henri and I are getting married,’ she said, serenely, and he blinked-but then he smiled.
‘That’s wonderful. You ought to have done it years ago.’
‘Henri wouldn’t,’ she told him. ‘But now… I told him if you could marry Jess after knowing her for only one day then I could marry Henri after knowing him for thirty years.’
Great. It was great but he needed to move on to things of even more import. ‘Mama, has Jess been here?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, she has,’ Edouard said and they all stared.
‘She came in for a minute a long, long time ago,’ Edouard ventured. ‘I pretended I was asleep. And then I was again so it was all right.’
‘You saw her?’
‘Mm. She stood and looked down at me and she was crying.’
‘Crying,’ Raoul said, and his heart stilled. His Jess was crying.
‘Can’t you find her?’ Louise was pushing herself upright from the straw. She could see the worry in his eyes. ‘The palace is big.’
‘Mama, she was crying.’
‘So…’
‘So maybe she’s left us.’
‘How could she have left us?’ Louise demanded, confused. ‘Raoul, what are you talking about?’
‘Her return plane ticket was booked for this morning,’ Henri ventured, trying-with some difficulty-to turn himself back into a dignified servant. ‘She was only supposed to be in this country for ten days. I did ask her if she’d cancelled her booking and she said it was taken care of. But…’ He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say the words, but they had to be said. ‘Maybe she intended to take the flight after all.’
Silence. Then,
‘Do you love her?’ Louise asked into the stillness.
‘I think…’
‘You think that you do.’
‘I told her I thought I was falling…’
‘But you haven’t fallen? You haven’t fallen yet?’
‘Mama…’
There was another long silence. Then, ‘Well, it was only a wedding of convenience, after all,’ Louise said, watching her son’s face. ‘If it ends this morning, is there any harm done? If you’re not really sure you love her.’
Not really sure. What kind of stupid statement was that?
‘What time is the flight?’ he snapped.
‘I don’t know,’ Henri told him. ‘But I’d imagine she’s probably taken the daily connection to London which leaves at ten. Has she taken her luggage?’
‘At ten?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten!’
‘But if you’re not really sure,’ Louise started but he was no longer listening.
He’d started to run.
It was a long journey down the mountain to Vesey Airport. Claire herself hadn’t made the trip. She’d sent a driver, an in-articulate man who listened to rap music so loud that Jess could hear it through his headphones. He wasn’t the least bit bothered as to whom he was carrying as a passenger.
For which Jess was inordinately grateful. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She sat, huddled in the back seat, feeling small and cowardly.
‘You didn’t even say goodbye,’ she told herself. ‘To anybody.
‘If I had, then Raoul would have talked me into staying.
‘So what’s wrong with that?
‘I can’t start again. I can’t. And here, in this place…with such a man…you must see it’s impossible.’
If anyone could have heard her they would have thought she was crazy, but her driver’s headphones were impervious to outside interference. She could talk at will.
But she didn’t talk any more. She’d run out of arguments.
She sat and stared at nothing. She was a coward and she knew it.
But there were no arguments left.
Airports were the loneliest places in the world.
Jess booked in. No luggage. No fuss. She now had three hours to kill.
A middle-aged lady came up to her, polite and deferential. ‘Excuse me, dear, but aren’t you the lady who…?’
Jess stared at her blankly.
The lady stared some more and then gave an embarrassed titter.
‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. It’s just for a minute the resemblance to our new princess seemed very marked. I thought you must be related.’
She motioned to the stacks of newspapers which were selling like hot cakes from every news vendor. On the front, a truly regal couple.
Prince Raoul and his bride.
‘No relation,’ Jess said. She managed a weak, embarrassed smile and the lady gave her a weak, embarrassed smile back. But thoughtful. As if she wasn’t quite sure.
No matter. Jess bought a coffee and a newspaper and settled to read.
FAIRY-TALE WEDDING, the headlines screamed.
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED.
PRINCE RAOUL, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.
The last caught her attention. The article was based on previous knowledge of Raoul. There was a description of his medical qualifications and skills that made her feel insignificant in the face of such ability. Then there was the rest of the article, based on an interview they’d had with him yesterday.
