make my blood curdle. I’m a nurse, remember? It takes a whole lot more than curses to curdle my blood.’
‘I guess it would.’
She looked at him for a long moment, gave a tiny smile and a decisive nod.
‘That’s better. Now start again. Your…father was responsible for Thierry’s death? How did it happen?’
He sighed. ‘Okay. The whole story. Not that it helps anything.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘My father…’ He sighed again. ‘Apparently there’s been contention and hatred in the royal family for generations. My father was raised thinking he was owed a birthright, that he had a claim on the throne, or at least part of its wealth, but the way the succession’s written he got nothing. He spent much of his time here, freeloading on the old prince. He married my mother which was the only sane thing he did in his life, but the marriage didn’t last. She was seventeen and besotted with royalty, and he met and married her on a whim. By the time she had Thierry she knew it was a disaster.’
‘And she couldn’t…leave?’
‘Are you kidding? My father was seeing Thierry as a potential heir to the throne. The old Crown Prince Paul was an invalid. There was only Bernard, and Bernard was…effete. There’s clauses written into most royal marriages, and ours is no exception. If the marriage ends then any children stay under the sole care of the sovereign.’
He paused, his eyes bleak and cold and distant. Pippa didn’t say anything. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘So my mother had an affair,’ he said at last. ‘Desperation? Who can blame her? She became pregnant with me, and the old prince kicked her out of the castle. He was so angry that he kicked them all out-my father and Thierry included.’
‘So then…’
‘My father was furious, of course, and humiliated, but he was back to living on his wits, and he didn’t want a baby. So he turned his back on all of us. Mama was permitted to return to her parents’ farm, taking Thierry with her. We saw no more of the royal family. Only then the old prince died. Bernard became Crown Prince but still hadn’t married, so Thierry was his heir and my father appeared on the scene again. Thierry was seventeen-a rebellious teenager hating the poverty we were living in-and my father was demanding to show him his heritage.’
‘But not you,’ she whispered. ‘Where do you fit in?’
‘I don’t. I was the product of an affair. I was worthless.’
She swallowed. But then she thought of the things that weren’t making sense. Blake’s insistence on Max’s royalty. The servants’ insistence. They’d all been in the castle then…
They’d have known. There was something in the way they deferred to Max, as if he were the Crown Prince.
‘You were really his son,’ she whispered, knowing suddenly that it had to be true, and he didn’t deny it.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘But I’ve only known myself for a few weeks. I was approached to take on the regency. I refused and finally my mother told me who I really was. She’d never spoken of it. I know it now, and, for some reason I can’t figure, Blake knows it. But as far as I know, no one else. She lied because she couldn’t bear to live here, and by lying about my parentage at least she’d still have me.’
‘Oh, Max…’
‘So there you have it,’ he said bleakly. ‘The makings of tragedy, from which I, as a supposed bastard, was excluded. My father, in his expensive car, in his amazing royal regalia, must have seemed like something out of a fairy story to seventeen-year-old Thierry. But my mother was appalled. I still remember the shouting. The tears. Finally Mama agreed that Thierry could visit the castle, but she insisted on accompanying him.’
‘Of course.’
‘You know, my mother would love you,’ he said dryly. ‘You sound just like her-a mother hen ready to take on all comers.’ He smiled but she didn’t smile back
‘So what happened?’
‘Boring really. Predictably horrible. He loaded them into his too-fast car, he drove erratically-probably shouting at my mother all the time-and they all came off one of the cliffs somewhere close to here. My father and Thierry were killed instantly. My mother’s now a paraplegic.’
Pippa had stopped looking at her hands. Instead she was staring down at the river, looping lazily round the base of the cliffs below.
‘Oh, Max,’ she said at last. ‘Oh, poor lady.’
‘Mama knows as I do that someone has to accept the Crown if the people aren’t to face ruin. But she won’t go back on what she’s said. That I was the result of an affair. That I have no connection to the palace. The fact that I look like a damned de Gautier…’
‘There’s DNA testing.’
‘So there is. If I wanted to prove it.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I won’t do it to her. For why? To take a throne I don’t want? If I can organise things without it…if I can set up the regency…’ He sighed. ‘You do what you have to do.’
‘Of course.’ She linked her fingers again, but her gaze was still on the river. The trap was closing in on her, she thought dully, as it had closed on Max. It might be a gilded cage, but it was a cage for all that. ‘You know what I’d really like?’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘To go back to nursing.’
‘Nursing!’
‘Don’t say it like it’s a bad smell,’ she snapped, and suddenly she was furious. Here she was again, in the middle of a mess, expected to pick up the pieces with no complaint. Well, she might, but, dammit, he was going to understand that she was giving up something too. ‘If you knew how hard I worked to get my nursing qualifications…Every summer I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to get enough money to keep me at school. That started from the time I was ten, working illegally peeling potatoes for our local fish and chip shop. But somehow I did it. I finally qualified as a nurse and I loved it. Independence! You can’t imagine. I kept right on studying. I wanted to be the best nurse in the world, but you know what? Life just got in the way.’
‘Life as in Marc and Claire and Sophie.’
‘And you,’ she said bitterly. She glared at him. ‘Oh, there’s no use complaining. But don’t you dare look at me now and say there’s a really luxurious castle and you’ll be waited on hand and foot so what else can you possibly want from life? I bet that’s what your father told your mother. So here I am. I don’t even have a definite role. I’m not royal. I can’t help in the running of this country. I’m going to have to put up with people like Levout patronising me until Marc is twenty-one and I can get on with my own life. Whatever that is. I don’t think I have one,’ she said. ‘You sure as hell don’t think I do.’
‘Pippa…’
‘Start the car,’ she said wearily. ‘Yes, you’re in a bind, but I am too. I need to think. Meanwhile there’s no need to be nice to me any more. I know what you want now and I need to decide on my own terms. Let’s find this dress.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re on track to get out of here. Start the car.’
‘If I could-’
‘Yeah, and if I could,’ she retorted. ‘But we can’t. We’re stuck in this royal groove and you have three and a half weeks of it left and I’m looking at thirteen years. Let’s go.’
‘I don’t feel I can.’
She sighed. ‘Of course you can,’ she said. ‘Like me, you have no choice. I agree, your mother’s given you no choice. I bet if I met her I’d agree with your decision entirely. I’m sorry I flung that at you. It served no purpose.’
‘Except to make me see what I should have seen last week.’
‘There’s no point.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Max, it was dumb for me to say that. It was just…anger, and anger achieves nothing. I don’t usually let fly. It won’t happen again.’
‘I hate this.’
