horse and her expression softened.
‘You still love them,’ he said gently.
‘Because I’m pathetic,’ she admitted. ‘I keep thinking of Tamsin.’
‘Not of Kass?’ he said, suddenly hopeful, and she shook her head.
‘Not of Kass. Never of Kass. I think all this trouble started with a horse. I need my head read to be here now, with you. With the horses.’
‘And yet you’re here.’
‘I…’
‘Kelly,’ he said and he placed his hands on either side of her face; he stooped and kissed her gently on the mouth. It was over before she could object, a feather kiss of reassurance, nothing more. Demanding nothing. Expecting nothing.
But the beginning of loving.
‘Kelly, work it out,’ he said softly. ‘Take your time. I’ll not rush you. For me…I think I’m falling in love. I didn’t intend to. In fact, it’s the last thing I intended. But hey, it’s happening. I know what’s before us is hard. But maybe…maybe we could do it together. Maybe we could even give this royalty thing a go. Given time. Given trust.’
‘Yeah? Like riding again,’ Kelly said and she knew she sounded bitter but she couldn’t help it. ‘How many years will it take before you get on a horse?’
‘We don’t have to ride before we trust each other.’
‘We don’t have to do anything,’ Kelly said and then, with a tiny sound between a laugh and a sob, she tugged away. ‘Please, Rafael, don’t do this. I’m not royal. I never, ever should have learned to ride. I never, ever should have met Kass. And I never, ever should give my heart to anyone but my son. That’s all I want. I’m not royal. I’m not part of this household. I’m just me.’
And, before he could say a word in response, she turned and fled.
He let her go. There was nothing else to do. For he even agreed with her.
He didn’t want to be royal. How could he persuade Kelly to be something he didn’t want himself?
He couldn’t.
But things had changed. Or maybe they hadn’t changed but he’d suddenly seen them for what they really were.
He’d suddenly seen inside his heart, and what he saw there…It was terrifying, but then again, he wouldn’t want it any other way.
Kelly…
Kelly. Princess Kellyn Marie de Boutaine.
Could he persuade her to take on the royal role a second time? He must.
But how?
The Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel stood in the doorway of the stables, looking across the empty palace forecourt for a very long time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHERE there was a death and a new Crown Prince, there was also a coronation. Rafael had put it off for as long as possible but it had to be faced. In the days that followed, as Kelly retreated to her study, as the routine of the palace formed some semblance of normality, Crater’s insistence that the coronation take place had to be considered.
‘Matty’s far too young,’ Rafael growled when it was first brought up.
‘You’ll be at his side,’ Crater told him. ‘You make the vows on his behalf. It will be you who carries them out until he’s twenty-five.’
‘And what about his mother?’
‘Kellyn wishes to be treated as a commoner,’ Crater said. ‘She’ll attend but not in an official capacity.’
‘She’s still officially Kass’s widow. She should have a place in the ceremony.’
‘See if you can persuade her,’ Crater said. ‘I can’t.’
And neither could Rafael. In truth, since the night in the stables he hardly saw her. Matty spent time with her, but she’d intensified her planned routine of study and self-containment.
She’d opened herself a little, he thought. In doing so she’d terrified herself and had then retreated.
He hated it. He hated that she hid herself away. Damn her parents, he thought, and wondered if it wasn’t too late to find them and horsewhip them. Damn Kass for being dead so he couldn’t do the same to him.
He felt like weeping on her behalf-for the stupid waste of it, for the fact that the laughing, happy woman she could be had been repressed in such a brutal manner.
And damn if the weather didn’t agree with him. The glorious sunshine that had greeted their arrival had given way to steady dripping rain, making everything grey, dreary and waterlogged.
Not the best time for a coronation.
‘There’ll never be a perfect time,’ Crater told him. ‘But I’ve approached each of the royal houses of Alp d’Azuri, Alp d’Estella and Alp de Montez. The royals are all available at the end of this month. If we leave it much longer, Phillippa, the Princess Royal of Alp d’Estella, risks being confined with their first child. Max won’t leave her. We need their presence.’
‘Why?’
‘If we’re to gain any economic strength,’ Crater said tentatively, ‘we need to get the four countries working together. It was a dream of your father’s. Until now I’ve hardly dared to hope the four Alp countries could become a Federation. But if you brought in reforms to bring Alp de Ciel into line with them politically…’
‘Hey…’
‘It would take commitment on your part,’ Crater said. ‘But you’ve come this far.’
‘I don’t want…’
‘To commit yourself yet,’ Crater said hurriedly, clearly not wanting him to veto a dream in an instant. ‘But if we have the coronation soon and we have Raoul and Max and Nikolai and Rose here…It seems a wonderful opportunity.’
‘You’re steamrollering me.’
‘No, sir,’ Crater said sadly, ‘I can’t. I’m just saying it’s a dream you might wish to pursue. Meanwhile, this coronation has to happen. The country’s expecting it. Can I announce that it’ll be on the twenty-sixth of this month?’
‘Fine,’ Rafael growled. ‘But there’s no way I can sit up in the back in the dark like someone else we could mention?’
‘No, sir,’ Crater said firmly. ‘No chance at all.’
‘Come and see.’
Kelly was mid-manuscript. The pages dated from the seventeenth century. They should be locked away in a temperature-controlled vault. Instead, they’d been sitting in the bookshelves here for the last four hundred years, an unnoticed, untouched treasure trove.
It was historian heaven. She should be in heaven.
Instead, she was lonely and bored. If she could pick Matty up and take him back to the goldfields it’d be great, she thought. Other than that, she had to bury herself in the studies her parents had loved, but every time there were voices in the forecourt she’d look down and sometimes it’d be Rafael and she thought her equilibrium had been messed with for ever.
Somehow she had to restore it. She had to forget those dangerous kisses and get on with…her boring life.
But here was Matty, at a time when he was scheduled for a lesson with Crater, bursting into her room and grabbing her hand and tugging her after him.
‘Mama, the clothes are here. For the coronation. They’re here, they’re here, and Ellen says I have to try them on now, and there’s a sword just like my Uncle Rafael’s. It’s splendid. Mama, you have to see.’
Bemused, she let him lead her downstairs, along the corridor to the workrooms behind the kitchen. She could
