‘I thought you couldn’t ride,’ Matty whispered. Some time this dreadful day his allegiance had shifted as well. She was suddenly his mother. Yes, she’d always been that, but in his eyes she’d also been one of many people who’d flitted through his five years. Laura and Crater had been caught up at the hospital. Without his aunt, he’d needed someone to hold him, and that someone was his mother.
‘I can ride,’ she whispered into his hair. ‘I chose not to because I was fearful of taking risks. But today…I think risks are something to be faced with courage. Not stupid risks, but those risks that need to be faced. Like being a part of this royal family.’
‘You want to be royal?’ He twisted a little, trying to see her face. ‘But you can’t be royal if you live in an attic.’
‘Maybe it’s time I came out of my attic,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe it’s time I started to live. Maybe…maybe I need to think about putting on that dress.’
The nurse and the housekeeper whisked Rafael away as soon as they arrived at the castle. Ellen and Marguerite clucked over Kelly and Matty in concern. They were washed. Their bruises and scratches were anointed with care. Kelly tucked a cleaned and fed Matty into bed and watched him close his eyes before he even reached the pillows.
She was exhausted but there was no way she was heading for her bed. She made her way though the vast passages to the north tower-the tower where the ruling prince had his suite of private apartments.
When Rafael had arrived here after Kass’s death he’d been horrified to find he was expected to use them. Crater had told her that, but he’d also told her, ‘Prince Rafael has accepted he’ll do what needs to be done. He can’t be a part-time prince.’
So he was ensconced in state. She, however, was dressed in her jeans again, clean but faded. She needed to do something about her clothes, she thought.
Tomorrow. It was hardly the time for royal gowns tonight.
But for now…
Rafael.
She stood at the vast oak doors leading into his suite and felt almost shy. She’d never been in these rooms. By the time Kass had brought her to the castle he’d long since stopped wanting her.
Such memories…They were of a different person, she thought. A child bride. A girl who’d fallen in love with royalty before she knew what it was.
She knew what it was now. She also knew that as soon as she opened this door there’d be no going back.
She’d turned her back on royalty once before. Yes, it had been Kass who’d shunned her, but if there’d been a choice…Yes, she would have fled. She would have taken her small son with her but still she would have fled.
Rafael was right through this door. Rafael, who had almost as much call as she to hate royalty but who’d accepted his responsibilities; his duty.
Anna would go on with the merchandising of his toys, Kelly thought. Rafael would still be able to develop them, but his life had changed. The wealthy Manhattan bachelor had accepted his heritage.
This wasn’t her heritage, but she loved Matty and because she loved Matty she’d come back to the castle.
And because she loved Rafael, she’d stay.
All she had to do was tell him.
Such a little thing.
It was so hard to open the door.
‘Open the door or go back to your attics,’ she told herself sternly. ‘Go on, Kelly. You can do it.’
‘Princess Kelly,’ she whispered back to herself. ‘Princess Kellyn Marie de Boutaine. Open the door, stupid.’
His bed was enormous-the size of a small room! The four-poster bed was hung with acres of rich velvet curtains tied back with vast gold ropes and tassels. The eiderdowns were in matching crimson and purple and gold, as were the mountains of pillows at the end of the bed.
For a moment she couldn’t see that anyone was in the bed.
‘Kelly?’ a loved voice said and she stilled.
‘H-Hi. If you want to sleep I can come back later.’
‘You’re here,’ he said in sleepy satisfaction. ‘They’ve given me painkillers. They’re making me woozy. Tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me we got all those kids out and you’re here.’
She crossed to the bed in a little run, and then stopped short-absurdly self-conscious.
‘We got every single kid out,’ she said unsteadily. ‘And the schoolteacher. And you. Rafael, you might have been killed.’
‘We got ’em out,’ he said in sleepy satisfaction and his hand came out and caught her wrist and held. Hard. ‘What’s the final toll?’
‘Six,’ she whispered. ‘All elderly people who couldn’t get out of the way fast enough-the slip made a huge noise on the way down and most people were outside anyway.’
‘Injuries?’
‘None life-threatening. We’ve been lucky.’
‘And elsewhere?’ His voice was hoarse with worry. Kelly sank into the chair beside the bed, put her hand up to his face and traced his cheekbone with her finger.
‘It was a minor earth tremor,’ she whispered. ‘There’s little damage apart from in the village. There’s been some road damage near the border but nothing major. It was only the recent deforestation of the hillside that caused the slip.’
‘Kass should never have allowed…’
‘You will never allow,’ she said strongly. ‘It’s your call now, Rafael.’
‘We will never allow,’ he said, his voice strengthening.
‘You’ll turn the country into a democracy?’ she asked, wondering. It was what the other three Alp countries had done-altered the constitution so the monarchy was a titular head only.
‘Of course, but that’s not what I meant when I said
Her heart stilled.
‘Rafael…’
‘Kelly,’ he said and he smiled.
She gazed down at him. Her battered hero. His face was a mass of scratches and bruises. A long, thin scratch ran from ear to chin. The doctor had put a couple of stitches in the lower reaches. They’d cleaned him as much as they could but he wasn’t fit yet for a full shower so his hair was still spiked with mud.
She loved him with all her heart.
‘I love you,’ he said and her heart restarted. If it was possible for a heart to sing, it sang now. She could hear it. A heart full of nightingales.
‘I guess I love you too,’ she said unsteadily. ‘All the time you were under that slab…’
‘You love me?’
‘Maybe it’s fear. Maybe.’
‘Maybe nothing,’ he growled. ‘The guys tell me it was your skill that had them tunnelling in so professionally. We were lucky the whole thing didn’t come down on us.’
It had. She didn’t tell him that but he’d learn it anyway. Just after they’d pulled Rafael out, a final tremor had come through. The mass of mud had settled again, and their basement refuge had turned into what would have been a mass grave.
She shivered.
‘Damn,’ he said and struggled to sit up.
‘Rafael, no.’
‘Then lie down beside me,’ he said, his voice gaining strength. ‘A man’s got to say what a man’s got to say. Dammit, I should go down on bended knee.’
On bended knee…
‘I don’t think any of us are capable of bending for quite a while,’ she whispered, and amazingly she heard herself chuckle. His tug was insistent. Well, what the heck. She hauled back the covers, wiggled in and lay down beside him.
He pulled her as close as he could, he turned his face to hers and he kissed her.
