One of the horses-the one nearest the bikes-was shifting sideways in its traces, clearly panicked. It reared once and then grounded, backing. Its eyes were rolling, nostrils flaring.
There was a child in the cart behind it.
But Rose had seen. Closer than Nick, she could get there faster. She dumped Hoppy unceremoniously on the ground and strode swiftly forward to grab the horses bridle. She steadied it, then tugged it sideways, hauling its head around so it was forced to yield the force in its hindquarters.
Even Nick, who scarcely knew one end of a horse from another, could see this was an expert. In one swift movement she’d defused a potentially deadly situation.
‘Hush,’ she told the horse into the sudden stillness, speaking in the local dialect. ‘Quiet, now. Hush.’ Then, as the horse settled, she spoke to the people around them. ‘I’m sorry. I should have known there’d be horses here. I forgot the bikes would follow.’
As the child’s mother darted forward to retrieve her daughter from the cart, Rose took her time, soothing the big horse, scratching behind his ears, whispering reassurance, waiting until the flare of panic faded from his eyes. Nick could only watch, entranced. Every moment he spent with this woman meant he saw another facet of her. She was amazing. She took all the time she needed to settle the big animal, then handed the bridle over to his owner.
Hoppy pawed at her leg in some indignation. She picked him up and stroked him behind his ears as well.
She had the absolute attention of every person there.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she told the people around them. ‘Nick and I have just come from the airport. I’m not sure if you know, but I’m Rose-Anitra. I left here when I was fifteen, but I was never able to leave the palace grounds very much before then, so I don’t know you. This is my fiance, Nikolai de Montez. Son of the old Prince’s daughter, Zia. We’ve been told that we stand to inherit the throne. We’re here to talk it through, and we want to meet some of the locals. Don’t we, Nick?’ She turned and smiled at him, and he walked forward until he was by her side. It was what she seemed to want.
Which suited him. This was a woman to be proud of.
A wife to be proud of?
Equal partners? The thought was suddenly seductive for all sorts of reasons.
‘I’m a veterinary surgeon,’ she told the assemblage, tucking her hand confidingly in Nick’s-a gesture of intimacy which jolted him still further. ‘So we should know better than to scare your animals. This was just a whim, to stop here.’
‘You have no business being here,’ Dupeaux shouted. ‘These people don’t want you.’
That might have been a foolish thing to say, Nick decided, watching the faces of the crowd around them. Rose looked a chit of a thing in her too-big jacket and holding her lame dog. She’d just quieted a massive horse. She had the advantage of looking a bit of a stray herself.
Dupeaux was big and uniformed and brusque. Authority personified. ‘Get back in the car, woman,’ he snapped, and there was a visible ripple of dissent. ‘Leave these people be. They don’t want you here.’
With one harsh order, this man had made Rose an underdog, and from all he’d seen so far Rose wasn’t anyone’s underdog.
‘Erhard Fritz told us that we were wanted here,’ Rose said gently but firmly, stating something that was out of her control. ‘Erhard said this country needed us.’
‘We don’t need royalty,’ someone shouted from the back of the crowd, and Rose faltered.
Time to lend a hand, Nick thought. He couldn’t stay being a complete wimp.
‘Rose and I never thought there was any need for us to be in this country,’ Nick said, loudly, urgently, speaking as Rose had spoken in the native tongue. ‘You know, we never thought we’d inherit the throne. We don’t understand what your problems are. But Erhard came to find us. He’s shown us what’s being done in your neighbouring countries-Alp d’Azur and Alp d’Estella. He says a sympathetic royalty could make that happen here. We could organise things so the country could self-rule as a democracy. Erhard’s convinced us to try. Of course, if we’re wrong, if we’re truly not wanted, then we’ll go.’
Silence. Not a man, woman or child moved.
Behind them, the troops shifted uneasily. These riders were the same men who’d greeted them at the airport. Rose had charmed them.
Here she’d done it again. Maybe.
Rose’s grip on his fingers tightened. It felt good, he thought. It felt…right.
‘What’s your dog’s name?’ a little boy called out from the front of the crowd, and Rose smiled.
‘He’s Hoppy. Because of his leg. He can hop better than any dog I know.’
‘He doesn’t look like a royal dog.’
‘I tried to get him to wear a tiara,’ Rose said, and grinned. ‘But Hoppy thought he looked like a sissy.’
Amazingly there was a ripple of laughter.
‘Can he play with my dog?’ the little boy asked. He motioned to a half-grown collie, thin and straggly but wagging its disreputable tail with the air of a dog expecting a good time.
‘Of course,’ Rose said, and put Hoppy down.
The two dogs eyed each other warily, and then proceeded to sniff the most important part of their anatomy.
The shock and sullen resentment of the crowd was turning to smiles.
‘Are you really a prince and princess?’ someone called.
‘We’re the son and daughter of the old Prince’s children,’ Nick replied. ‘We haven’t been in direct line to the throne, so until we come into succession we’ve no title. Rose-Anitra is first in line to the throne before her sister, Julianna, and I come after her. If our claim to the throne succeeds, then Rose would be Crown Princess and I’d be…’He hesitated. ‘You know, I’m not sure what I’d be.’
‘Mr Crown Prince?’ someone called, and there was more laughter.
‘Crown Consort,’ someone else called. ‘You’d be Crown Consort, and Earl de Montez as well. I think you already are. There’s no one else to inherit the title.’
‘What about Julianna’s husband?’ someone else called.
‘He’s not royal,’ someone else snapped. ‘No matter what airs he might give himself.’
‘Will you get back in the car?’ Dupeaux snapped, and he sounded furious. He took a step towards Rose which might or might not have been menacing, but suddenly Nick was standing in front of Rose. He wasn’t alone with his protective instincts. In a flash there were half a dozen burly men between Nick and the officer.
‘It’s you and your bullies who aren’t wanted here, Dupeaux,’ someone called to the officer in charge, and the man’s face darkened in fury.
‘Look, this is a private party,’ Nick said, speaking quickly, knowing he had to deflect confrontation. ‘Rose and I don’t have a right to be here unasked. We’ve ordered a couple of kegs of beer and a few other things, to make the evening a bit more fun for you. They’ll be here any minute, whether or not we stay. No matter. We just wanted to say hello. Now maybe we should leave.’
‘But we’d like you to stay. And you can share our picnic,’ someone called.
‘And ours.’
‘And mine.’
‘These men are our escort,’ Rose said, taking courage again, holding Nick’s hand tighter and smiling towards the men on bikes. ‘Can they stay too?’
‘No,’ Dupeaux snapped. ‘They’re on duty.’
‘Then isn’t it lucky we’re not?’ Rose said, and tugged Nick forward to where an elderly lady had unpacked her basket on a rug on the grass. ‘Are they chocolate eclairs? My favourite.’ She turned back to the officer and smiled her sweetest smile. ‘If you leave us the limousine, we’ll make our own way home. Thank you for escorting us so far.’
Dupeaux had no choice. There were a couple of hundred people gathered here, and more arriving every minute. To use force would escalate the situation in a way he might not be able to control. So he and his men disappeared in a roar of diesel engine that had the horses rearing again. Almost as soon as they’d gone, a battered truck turned into the clearing.
‘Two kegs of beer, crates of lemonade, and wine for the ladies,’ the man driving the truck said. ‘Pierre said you were ordering for a party so I took the liberty…’
