‘You will be here tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’ He kissed her.
She allowed him to kiss her. When she’d been kissed to her satisfaction-for now- she pushed back a little. Deefer was jumping over and over Rocket in the dust. Bluey had come out his back door and was watching…the dogs. Honey had the curtains of the front room twitched aside and was watching…the dogs.
‘We have an audience,’ Holly murmured, and giggled.
‘Then we should put on a show,’ Andreas said and tugged her to him.
She took a deep breath, forcing her knees to steady and her voice to sound a little resolute. As resolute as she could manage. ‘Explain.’
‘Explain what?’
‘How you can just calmly walk back into my life.’
‘I’m saving my country,’ he said, sounding virtuous. ‘As a noble prince who knows his duty to his people, I can do nothing else.’
‘You’ve a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.’
He looked wounded. He set her back again and held her at arm’s length. ‘You’re saying I’m crazy? Me, who brought you your dog.’
‘Virtue all round. Bringing me my dog. Saving your country. Would you mind telling me how?’
‘Easy,’ he said, and he smiled and it was the smile that Holly loved and it was almost enough for her to say forget the explanations, just head straight to the bedroom, because it had been a really long month and that smile made her toes curl. But somehow she forced herself to be patient. Somehow she let him keep smiling at her while he had his say.
‘You were a hit,’ he said. ‘The people of Aristo love you. Or they love what they saw of you. There was a public outcry when you left.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
His smile faded. ‘You need to believe me,’ he said softly, ‘because it’s true. I’ve had to be away so much we put out rumours that I’d come home with you. Only then your local press investigated and found I wasn’t here.’
‘They phoned,’ Holly said, dismayed. ‘What was I supposed to do? Lie?’
‘I didn’t ask you to lie,’ he said. ‘I’d never expect it of you. So then Sebastian said you need to come back to Aristo.’
She sighed. ‘For a spot of wing clipping?’
‘That’s what I said,’ he told her, starting to smile again. ‘And I can’t see you with clipped wings.’
‘So…’
‘So there’s general unrest that our marriage was just for show. The people like you. The royal PR department has been putting it about that we have a Cinderella marriage. Sebastian’s been talking at me about putting my family first. And it suddenly occurred to me…’
‘What?’ she said, sounding suddenly breathless. Feeling suddenly that there was a chink in a very heavy door and light was filtering through. Just maybe…maybe…
‘That you are my family,’ he said and the smile was back for real now, tender, warm and loving. ‘I hadn’t seen it until then, but suddenly there it was. You, Holly, are my wife. You live here, a place I love and where I want to work. My son is buried here. My dog was waiting for someone to collect him to bring him home. And if our people want the Cinderella story, then what better than you choosing your prince and rescuing him, carrying him to his happy ever after? Here.’
She could scarcely breathe. She was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads. ‘You…you’d leave Aristo for me?’
‘I have,’ he said softly. Then, at the look on her face, he shook his head. ‘No. I haven’t run from my duty. The corruption commission has come to an end. I’ve done all the searching I can for the diamond, and, no, don’t ask me whether it’s been found because I can’t and won’t tell you. It’s irrelevant to us now.’
‘But…your mother. Sebastian…’
‘They were my family,’ he said gently. ‘After my father’s harsh rule they need to reassess what’s important to them as well, and maybe they are. My mother is taking the first few tentative steps right now. But for me…For me the path is clear. I have a new family. I have a wife and a dog and a vast cattle property in Australia. I have a fabulous island getaway off Aristo that we can still use for holidays. I have you.’
‘But you can’t,’ she said, dazed. ‘You’re third in line to the throne.’
‘No more,’ he said and he tugged her to him and held her tight. ‘I made that very clear when I addressed the people of Aristo on national television two nights ago. My brother’s perfectly capable of running the country. He has Alex at his side. Plus-and this is the big plus, Holly-he also has my sisters. Sebastian hasn’t seen it until now. Like me, he was brought up to believe women were to be relegated to the background, but I know he’s wrong. I told him so. I’ve told my mother and my sisters and I’ve told my country. I’ve done all I’m capable of to make my country safe, and now it’s me time. Us time,’ he corrected himself. ‘If that’s okay with you, my love. You have a pretty big place here. Do you think we could share?’
She gasped on a sob. She was holding him tight, her hands on his hips, not letting him move from her grasp, but she was watching his face as if it might disappear at any minute. As if truth could turn to falsehood. But what she saw there was only truth.
Her husband. Her love.
Did he think they could share? She turned to stare around her, at the endless plains where the cattle were just starting their first tentative exploration. As she was about to start tentatively exploring the realities of a marriage.
‘I think we might just find room,’ she whispered. ‘If you truly mean it.’
‘How can I not mean it?’ He gave a whoop of triumph, lifted her high and brought her down to kiss her. ‘My love. My Cinderella wife.’
‘My Cinderella husband,’ she said. And then she had a thought. ‘Um…does this mean I’m not a princess any more?’
‘Inherited title,’ he said, sounding smug. ‘Ancient lineage. Titles can’t be removed by mere abdication. You’re still a princess.’
‘They won’t call you prince round here. You’ll get called Rass, like you got from the men when you worked with them years ago.’
‘Rass sounds great to me.’
‘Then R…Rass?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Do you suppose we could go inside?’ she whispered. ‘Everyone’s watching.’
‘And what would you like to do that you can’t do while everyone’s watching?’
‘Come inside and find out.’
It was almost two in the morning when she stirred. This had happened these last few nights, the vague feeling in the small hours that things were not quite right.
How could they not be right tonight? She was coiled in her husband’s arms, tucked tight against him, skin against skin, naked, exposed, as one with the man she loved.
This was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. She knew it with the same certainty as she believed Andreas. He’d said it last night in the aftermath of lovemaking.
‘There’ll be times I have to go back to Aristo-for family reasons-but they’ll be visits. Short trips, Holly, and you’ll be at my side. As my wife. With no clipped wings, either. You’re not my captive wife, my love. You’re my heart, my family, my world.’
She listened now to the echoes of the words held in her heart all this night, and she knew his words would stay with her until the end.
But still this unease.
