‘But you’re a prince.’
‘I’m not a prince. My grandparents had a farm.’
‘Hey, Pippa,’ breathed Marc. ‘He really can milk cows.’ He turned back to Max. ‘You can stay the night and help Pippa again in the morning. The morning milking’s really cold.’
‘Hey,’ said Pippa.
‘He can have Mum and Dad’s bedroom. No one else uses it.’
‘Who’s the adult in this family?’ Pippa asked, sounding desperate. ‘I haven’t invited him to stay.’
‘Why can’t he stay?’ Marc sounded astonished.
Pippa blinked, obviously searching for an answer. ‘What if I don’t like him?’
‘What’s not to like?’ Marc demanded and Max’s chest puffed out a little. ‘I know he looks dumb in your pants…’ his chest subsided ‘…but he’s bought us all this stuff. I bet he’s rich.’
Rich is better than nothing, he guessed.
‘I won’t stay if Pippa doesn’t want me,’ he offered.
‘She does want you,’ Marc said.
‘Pippa gets lonely,’ Sophie added, distracted momentarily from her pastry. ‘Claire and me have got friends at kindergarten and Marc has friends at school. Not now though ’ cos school’s closed for winter holidays. But no one talks to Pippa.’
‘Sophie…’ Pippa said helplessly and spread her hands as if she didn’t know where to go from here. ‘That’s not true.’
‘It is,’ Marc said stolidly. ‘No one likes us ’cos you won’t sell the farm.’
‘I don’t want Max to…’ She bit her lip and fell silent. Max looked at her for a long minute. She really was battling the odds, he thought. But then she tilted her chin and steadied.
It’d take a lot to get this woman off course.
‘I will help with the milking,’ he told her gently. ‘And if you don’t mind, I would like to stay for dinner. I need to talk to you about the children.’
Pippa’s face had been wary. Suddenly now though he saw the edges of fear. ‘No.’
‘No?’
Her chin jutted just a little higher. ‘Alice wasn’t proud of her royal heritage,’ she told him. ‘She said she fled all the way to Australia to get away from it and she was never going back. She said it was utterly corrupt, so if that’s why you’re here we don’t want anything to do with it.’
‘You don’t think you might be jumping to conclusions?’
‘Maybe I am. But you haven’t come all this way to buy fish and chips. You want something.’
‘Maybe I do.’
‘Then tell me now.’
‘I’d rather do that when we’re alone.’
‘No. I don’t keep things from the kids and they don’t keep things from me. I’m their godmother, their guardian and their friend, and I want to keep it that way.’
She met his look, their gaze holding. She didn’t look as if she’d budge.
Why not say it? The twins were involved in artwork with leftover pastry. Marc, though, was listening intently. He was only eight years old. Surely decisions should be made for him.
But he glanced at Marc and he saw the same courage and determination that Pippa had. No, he thought. Pippa’s right. He wasn’t sure what Marc had been through, but his eyes were wiser than his years. Between Marc and Pippa there seemed to be a bond of unbreakable trust.
So he had to say what he’d come to say. To both of them.
‘The Crown Prince of Alp d’Estella died last month,’ he said. ‘Bernard died childless and there’s no one left of his line. The succession therefore goes back to Bernard’s grandfather and follows the line down. Thus we reach Marc. Marc is heir to the throne. He’s the new Crown Prince of Alp d’Estella.’
CHAPTER THREE
EVEN the twins heard that. Or maybe they heard the loaded silence where Pippa stared at Max, appalled, and he tried to figure what she’d say when she finally found her tongue.
In the end it was Marc who spoke first. ‘What’s a Crown Prince?’
‘It’s like a king,’ Max told him. ‘It’s a head of a country that’s called a principality rather than a kingdom.’
‘Is a Crown Prince rich?’
‘Very.’
‘We’re not rich,’ Marc said.
‘I realise you’re not.’ Max turned to Pippa. ‘But there is money. Bernard was never…scrupulous in his financial dealings, but as Marc is his heir there should have been provisions. There will be now. I expect this may take all sorts of pressures off.’
‘What sort of pressures?’ Pippa asked
He hesitated again, still unsure. ‘Maybe we need to talk away from the children.’
‘The girls aren’t listening and this is more Marc’s business than mine. I need to milk but I guess we need to have this out first.’ She perched on the edge of the table and folded her arms. Marc gave her a dubious glance, then did likewise.
Max had come a long way to say this. It had to be said. But first…
‘I didn’t expect to see the girls,’ he said, tentatively. ‘Palace sources said that Marc was an only child.’
‘He’s not. Claire and Sophie were born just before Gina died. Maybe your palace sources didn’t keep up.’ Pippa put a hand on Marc’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Will we tell him what happened, Marc?’
‘Yes,’ Marc whispered. ’Cos he’s sort of a cousin.’
‘So he is.’ Pippa’s eyes were carefully expressionless. She sighed, seeming to dredge up energy to tell a dreary story.
‘Gina was my best friend,’ she said. ‘Alice was friend to my mum and she practically adopted me when my mother died. So Gina and I were like sisters. I was bridesmaid at Gina’s wedding and godmother to Marc. Gina and Donald were very much in love but they battled to keep this farm going. Alice lived here with them, and I was here a lot, too. Anyway, Alice died just before the twins were conceived. The pregnancy was problematic-Gina was ill and the money was tight. For their wedding anniversary I paid for them to have a weekend in a plush hotel in the city and I came here to milk and to look after Marc. They were killed that weekend.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was a freak accident,’ she said sadly. ‘A lorry lost its load and a ton of logs crashed onto them. Donald was killed instantly. Gina lived for six more weeks-long enough for the twins to be born-but she never regained consciousness. She never saw her babies.’
There was a moment’s pause. He should say something, he thought. What? ‘So you stayed,’ he asked at last and she sent him a look that said he was stupid to think she could have done anything else.
‘Of course I did. Gina and Donald were my friends. Maybe if it had only been the twins we could have thought of…other options. But I love Marc to bits, and now I love the twins as well.’
‘I see.’ He hesitated but it had to be said-what needed to be said. ‘So you’ve put your life on hold since Gina’s death?’
‘I’ve done no such thing,’ she retorted, anger flaring.
‘There’s no other family?’
‘Donald was an only child of elderly parents. They predeceased him by many years. There’s no one else.’
‘But you were a nurse.’
‘And now I’m a dairy farmer. I’m milking cows and sharing my life with Marc and Sophie and Claire and Dolores.’
‘My sources say you were a highly skilled nurse.’
‘I’m getting pretty renowned in cow circles.’
‘This isn’t helping,’ he said, and she stared at him in astonishment.
