He looked at her calmly, figuring out whether she meant it or not and intelligent enough to see that she did.
‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Will we play in your room?’
‘I…yes.’ Retire to her attic. ‘Why not?’
‘The Scrabble set’s in the nursery,’ he told her. ‘I’ll fetch it.’
Only he didn’t. Kelly checked on the dogs in the kitchen-the dog Marsha had been worried about was a bitch about to whelp and Kelly had promised to check on her every half hour. The bitch was lying peaceably in her basket, with three pups already at teat.
‘See, you have your priorities right,’ Kelly said, bending to fondle the big dog’s ears. ‘Home and hearth. It’d be good if we could be of help down in the village but a mother’s place is with her kids.’
The dog gave her a long lick, which cheered Kelly immeasurably. She walked up the stairs to her attic, but when she reached it Matty wasn’t there yet.
She wanted to tell him about the pups.
Maybe he’d had trouble finding the Scrabble set, she thought. She walked downstairs, along to the nursery.
She was worried, and not just about Matty. She hadn’t heard anything about what was happening out in the village. No one had come back. Rafael was out there somewhere in his magnificent uniform doing heroic stuff. Laura and Crater were down in the village helping. She was stuck here minding Matty.
Only where was Matty?
He wasn’t in the nursery.
Suddenly she felt sick.
‘Matty?’ she yelled, but her voice echoed ominously around the empty halls.
‘Matty…’
A clatter of horse hooves on the cobbles below drew her to the window.
‘Matty!’
If he heard her scream he didn’t acknowledge it. He was on a horse. Somehow he’d managed to saddle one of the smaller mares. He was firm in the saddle, his hands keeping good control, turning the mare’s head towards the gate and digging his small heels into her flanks.
‘Matty,’ she screamed again but he was gone.
Out of the gate towards the village.
For a long moment she simply stared at the gate as if she couldn’t believe what she’d seen. But she’d seen all right. Through the open window she could hear the faint clip-clop of the mare’s hooves as she disappeared from sight.
Matty was gone. Into a situation of which she knew nothing.
Her son.
Since Kass had kicked her out, Kelly had had her escape in a century past, a time warp that had held her close, protecting her from outside forces. Here she’d done her best to create a sanctuary again, where the outside world belonged to those who wanted it.
She didn’t want the outside world. But her son was riding into it, with the heart of a prince.
Something played back in her mind, some crazy lesson he’d repeated to her when she’d said it didn’t make much difference that he was a prince. When she’d talked to him of the possibility of staying in Australia.
‘They’re my people. I should be with them,’ he’d said sternly. ‘Crater says when there’s peril that’s when the people need their prince. He said in World War Two the English King and his Queen and their two little princesses should have gone to America to be safe. Only they didn’t. They stayed, and every time there was bombing the King would be there, just to say to everyone be brave.’
He was right. King George’s commitment to his people had possibly been the difference between submission or victory.
But Matty was too young to make such a call. He was her son. He was five years old.
He was her prince.
And so was Rafael. Somewhere out there was Rafael. With…his people? While she stayed here like some Cinderella, hiding in her attic. Being no one.
Not even brave enough to put on a dress.
All these thoughts took no more than seconds-seconds while her frightened mind came to terms with what had happened and what now must happen.
She wheeled away, taking the stairs at a run, across the forecourt to the stables. Tamsin would no longer be here but other horses would. The road would be impassable for cars. She had to ride.
She might be a nuisance in the village. She couldn’t see how her presence and Matty’s presence could make a difference. Her reasons for staying separate from the royal household might still hold true.
But Matty…Prince Mathieu…and Prince Rafael, Crown Prince and Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel, had decided otherwise.
What was their royal princess to do but support them?
She hit mud at the first bend after the castle and her mare reacted with alarm, seeing the damage before she did. She’d been looking ahead, not at the road, and the horse edged sideways, rearing in fright.
She looked to where the horse was looking and looked again.
There was seeping, oozing mud in the woodlands on the higher side of the road. The road was still clear but it looked as if a flood of mud-laden water had slopped down the mountainside.
The horse-a mare whose name above her stable door decreed she was Gigi-must have come this way often. She knew it was different now. She whinnied in nervousness as Kelly settled her and forced her to keep on.
They slowed. Matty was somewhere ahead but the road now had patches of silt, with small stones and bigger rocks in their path.
How fast would Matty have come? Where would he go?
And where was Rafael?
There was no other road than this. She had to follow it.
Where was everyone?
‘Come on, Gigi. Come on, girl. You can do it.’
The horse flattened her ears, but responded to her reassurance and picked her way on.
And then they were at the outskirts of the village and fear was starting to wash over in waves that made her tremble. She was frantically trying to suppress it. Horses sense fear and she had to keep Gigi calm. But…But…
The road ran through the foothills of the mountains. Above and beyond, she could see rough, jagged and newly formed scarring, a mass of ripped earth as if a great chunk of the hillside had slipped from its moorings.
There was silence as they approached the township. The mare was whinnying in fear and it took all Kelly’s skill to keep her from turning home.
She couldn’t go home. Somewhere ahead was Matty. He’d be moving faster than she was. He wouldn’t have an adult’s fear that the horse might slip on loose rocks; that he might be thrown.
He was heading for the village. Heading to his people. Was Rafael before him?
And then she rounded the final curve in the hills before the village, and as she did she drew in her breath in horror.
The full extent of the slip could now be seen. It was a great gash on the hillside, starting as a thin wedge maybe a mile above, reaching down to a slash of tossed earth maybe half a mile wide. It was as if a great chunk of the earth had simply slid out from where it should have been and lurched its way towards the village.
The village…Dear God, the village.
She could see massive destruction. Huge trees uprooted, cast aside by the power of the earth.
Houses…
What had been houses.
She put her hand to her mouth, feeling ill. She wanted to stop. She wanted to block it out.
She forced herself to look.
There were people. From here they were in the distance, like ants over an anthill, looking insignificant, moving aimlessly, or simply standing on the great mounds of tumbled earth.
She saw a red coat-a sliver of crimson on a horse…
