almost ludicrous caution, moving with so much care that it took them three long hours-hours when Matty and Kelly seemed to turn to stone.
But finally it was done. There was a growl of satisfaction as the trench stayed intact, that the shoring timbers held. And then the first child-a tiny girl, coated with thick, oozing clay, was handed up through the gap. She was grabbed by willing hands. A faint scream sounded behind them as the child was handed back, hand over hand, until she reached the end of the trench.
The last hands to reach her were her parents.
‘Evaline,’ a woman’s voice said brokenly, and there was the sound of a man’s hoarse sobs.
But those in the trench weren’t hearing. Already more children were being handed out. Speed was of the essence here. This mass of mud and debris was unstable to say the least. It only needed one more earth tremor…
They had a chain operating. The children were being lifted out. There was no talking-just solid effort.
They seemed okay, Kelly thought, dazed. She’d left Matty with the women again and was at the neck of the trench where it narrowed down into the cavity under the slab. But she wasn’t strong enough to be part of the chain handing back the children, so she slipped back to lean against the shoring timber and simply watched. Every face appearing at the hole under the slab she watched with terror. She’d forgotten to breathe. She’d forgotten to do anything.
So few injuries…There were cuts and bruises, but most of the children could put their arms up to be lifted. Most could cling to their rescuers. Most could reach out to their parents and sob and hold and sink into their parents’ embrace as if they’d never let go.
One or two were hurt. There was one small boy with what looked like a broken arm. He whimpered as he was pulled out, but he still managed a smile when his mother whispered his name. There was an older boy with a nasty laceration to his cheek. ‘I had to help Prince Rafael move the door,’ he said with weak bravado, and it looked doubtful that he’d let such a wound be stitched. His parents were clasping him with pride and there was a shining pride in his own eyes. This was clearly a hero’s wound. He’d helped his prince save the children.
Rafael…
Her heart was whispering the word, over and over. She glanced back along the line and saw Matty. His face was as white as hers. He was seeing all these happy endings but, like Kelly, he wanted his own.
She should ask. She should say to the boy with the cut face, What of Rafael?
She couldn’t.
‘That’s twenty,’ someone said in a gruff voice that wasn’t quite concealing tears. ‘Just the schoolteacher and the Prince to go.’
‘You,’ said a fierce woman’s voice from under the slab, and the weary voice came in reply.
‘When you’re all out I’ll be out but not before. Stop wasting time.’
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Go!’
He was hurt. She’d known it. Dear God…
Hands were reaching up, small woman’s hands. The schoolteacher was grasped and tugged free and hugged fiercely by the man who’d pulled her up.
‘Romain, I have my dignity,’ the little lady managed in between hugs and the men laughed and ignored her dignity and handed her back along the line as if she was also a child. As if she were made of the most precious porcelain…
And then…And then…
One hand came through the gap under the slab. A man’s hand with a signet ring she recognized.
‘Both hands,’ the man at the front said, in a voice that was none too steady. ‘We need a grip.’
‘One hand.’ Rafael’s voice was muffled and pain-filled.
‘You want us to come under and help?’
‘No one comes under this slab. Get me out of here.’
‘Rafael,’ Kelly cried before she could help herself.
‘Kelly,’ Rafael muttered. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Come out and find out,’ she whispered.
‘Will we hurt you pulling you out?’ someone asked him.
‘A lot less than if this whole thing collapses.’ His one hand was the only thing in sight and he pushed it higher. ‘Pull.’
Each of the children and the schoolteacher too, had been lifted. But there was no one to lift Rafael. They were tugging him up by his one arm, holding his entire weight as they pulled.
He was hurt-badly hurt, Kelly thought, listening to his voice. But unless he’d let someone in to him…And he wouldn’t. Their torches showed little-his mud-slicked face and blackness.
‘Pull,’ he ordered again and there was nothing to do but obey. And he came. He emerged into daylight with a savage groan, sliding out on to the floor of the trench and lying there, gasping for breath.
Kelly was in there, scrambling through the mud, on her knees, touching his face, scarcely able to breathe.
‘Rafael.’
‘Kell…’ he gasped as she wiped mud from his eyes with her shirt, as she wept. ‘Our magnificent Princess Kellyn. Of course. A mine manager. I knew you’d make a magnificent princess.’
And then he passed out.
CHAPTER TEN
RAFAEL’S shoulder was dislocated. His leg was badly gashed. He’d be okay.
Officialdom took over. The little village had a very competent doctor and two efficient nurses. They carried him into the nearest intact house, put his shoulder back into place, stitched his leg, cleaned him up as much as they could and then ordered bedrest.
‘When I’m back at the castle,’ Rafael growled.
Kelly and Matty had been relegated to the background. They’d sat at the kitchen table while the women of the house plied them with soup and towels and as much comfort as they could. But Kelly’s hands didn’t stop shaking. She was holding Matty and she was aware that he was trembling as well.
He needed his nursery, she thought. He needed Marguerite and Ellen and Laura. He was clinging to her; she was his mama, but he needed the familiarity of home to ground him.
Home. The castle. The royal palace of Alp de Ciel.
They couldn’t get a car there. ‘But I’m thinking a horse and cart,’ the doctor said.
‘I’ll ride,’ Rafael countered, but the doctor looked at him as if he were crazy.
‘A horse and cart it is,’ Kelly said, and thus half an hour later the royal family made its way in somewhat less than royal state-a sturdy carthorse leading the way, tugging a small haycart. The haycart was filled with mattresses and pillows. Rafael complained every inch of the way but he had a nurse who looked like Brunhilda the Great by his side, there were two burly farmers leading the horse and clearing rocks from their path as they went, and he had no choice but to submit.
Kelly brought up the rear, riding her lovely mare. Matty, whose bravado had disappeared about the time Rafael had been declared safe, had crumpled into a little boy again. He was cradled before her, almost a part of her, clinging as close as he could get. His own horse and Rafael’s stallion were being led behind.
It was like a scene from hundreds of years ago, Kelly thought, dazed. A wounded prince returning from battle, his lady following behind.
Rafael’s lady…
For that was what she was, she thought wearily as she followed the steady hoof-beats before her. Rafael’s lady. Some time in the last few dreadful hours that was what she’d become.
Princess to Rafael’s Prince.
Princess to this country.
