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
W HERE 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 hear the murmur of women’s voices as she approached, and she relaxed. Matty’s coronation outfit had been a source of interest and enthusiasm for the last week. Needlewomen had come in from Zunderfied and the castle had been humming.
‘You should have something royal to wear,’ Crater had said, reproving, but there was no way she was going down that road. She’d married in simple clothes in Paris. She’d never been a royal bride.
She wasn’t royal now.
Matty was tugging her forward, hurrying her on. He reached the big oak doors of the workrooms and threw them open.
Rafael was there.
She stopped breathing.
He was gorgeous. Stunning. Breathtakingly amazing.
A real prince.
His clothes fitted like a second skin. Deep black leggings-skintight. Glossy Hessian boots, jet-black with tassels. What looked to be a morning jacket, but inset with red, black and gold panels, intricately embroidered. The royal crest was emblazoned on the jacket breast. A deep gold sash lay across his breast. There were rows of medallions, epaulettes, gold tassels…
A sword lay at his side, longer than the one she’d seen in Australia, its grip a cunningly wrought gold three-dimensional symbol of the royal house of de Boutaine.
His black curls were flicked back as they always were, raked back by fingers that worried. He’d been gazing in the mirror, his cool grey eyes smiling, half mocking. As the door opened and he turned to see who entered, his smile still lingered.
He was laughing at himself, she thought, but there was no way she was laughing.
Rafael…
It was as much as she could do not to sink into a curtsey. As it was, she gripped the door handle and held.
‘It’s a bit much,’ he said, smiling across at her, and she thought wildly, Don’t do that-don’t smile, don’t!
‘Mine’s just like it,’ Matty said with deep satisfaction. ‘Aren’t we gorgeous?’
‘Gorgeous,’ she agreed faintly.
‘What will you be wearing, Mama?’ Matty asked. He crossed to where Ellen was waiting to help him into his costume. ‘It’ll have to be something very beautiful to match my Uncle Rafael and me.’
‘I couldn’t come near matching you,’ she whispered.
‘But you will wear a pretty dress.’
‘Maybe,’ she said. Thinking of those gowns. Thinking of what had happened the one night she’d worn one.
‘One of the pretty
ones you wore on the goldfields?’ Matty said hopefully. He was in leggings now, turning to the mirror and sticking his small chest out with manly pride. ‘Are they pretty enough for the coronation, Uncle Rafael?’
‘No,’ Rafael said.
‘Then it’s just as well I didn’t bring them,’ she retorted.
‘If you please, ma’am…’
There were four women in the room. One had been adjusting the base of Rafael’s coat. Two were sitting at the table sewing, and Ellen was helping Matty on with his vest. But now she interjected. She rose stiffly to her feet and stood, unsure. ‘I…we have a suggestion.’
‘A suggestion?’ Kelly frowned and glanced suspiciously at Rafael, but he was looking as in the dark as she was.
‘The clothes Prince Rafael and Prince Mathieu will wear are traditional. We wondered…seeing you’re a historian…’ Ellen gave a nervous gasp, looked to her friends for support and crossed to the corner of the room. There was a mannequin there, shrouded with dust-sheets.
Ellen cast Kelly another nervous glance and then she tugged off the dust-sheet.
The dress was breathtaking. It looked almost Elizabethan, a creation of the most exquisitely cut gold and ivory silk, skilfully set over a rich crimson underskirt. The neckline was almost square, cut low to reveal the swell of breasts. Filigree sleeves were gathered into elegant lace wristbands in the finest of gold. The waist cinched into a deep V, designed to make any woman’s waist look tiny.
And the embroidery. Such embroidery-all fire, swirls and curves. The gown shimmered and glistened as Ellen pulled the dust-sheet free, almost assuming a life of its own. There were hoops underneath, spreading the dress almost as wide at the hem as the gown was high. There was a train-Ellen was setting it out now. It was embroidered to represent a golden dragon, running from waist to maybe ten metres behind.
Kelly gasped with shock. She couldn’t help herself. She stepped forward, almost reverently, hardly brave enough to touch it.
‘It’s…’
‘Over two hundred years old,’ Ellen breathed. ‘When the old Prince was pressuring Kass to be married, he ordered it to be restored. But then…then Kass married you.’
‘Not a princess,’ she whispered.
‘But you are a princess,’ Ellen said stubbornly. ‘You should have had the right to wear it. You have the right to wear it now. We’ve measured it against your gowns here. It’ll take very little alteration.’
‘Wow,’ Rafael breathed. ‘Kelly, you have to wear it.’
‘I don’t,’ she said, feeling so out of her depth she was close to tears. ‘I’m not royal.’
‘No, but you are,’ Matty repeated. ‘You were married to my father. You’re a real princess.’
‘I’m a commoner.’
‘You’re Australian,’ Ellen said with satisfaction.
‘So what?’ She was bewildered. Maybe she even sounded angry, but she couldn’t help it. The sight of the dress was so awesome it took her breath away. And the way Rafael was looking at her didn’t help. Plus the way Rafael looked…She had a sudden vision of the two of them. Rafael in his dress uniform and she in this dress.
No and no and no.
But Ellen was speaking. She had to listen. What did being an Australian have to do with anything?
‘The palace gossip was that was why Kass chose you,’ Ellen said, answering her question before she’d framed it. ‘When Kass’s father heard of Prince Raoul’s marriage to Jessica in Alp d’Azuri to a commoner-to an Australian-he laughed about it. He said Raoul was a fool and the country would never accept such a marriage. And then you and your team were working so close to here…’
‘So he just picked me,’ Kelly whispered.
‘And we were so excited,’ Ellen said stoutly. ‘The people of Alp d’Azuri have had nothing but prosperity since their prince’s marriage. We had such hopes…’
‘Of me?’
‘You were our princess from the time Prince Kass married you,’ Ellen retorted. ‘We hated that you went away. We’ve always wanted you to come home. And we hated that the old Prince made us put this gown away.’ She faltered and bent her head over the train, pretending to straighten a crease. ‘We…we need a royal family.’
‘You have Rafael and Matty,’ Kelly whispered.
‘It’s not a family.’
‘Leave her,’ Rafael said, sounding suddenly angry. ‘Ellen, this isn’t fair.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You don’t need to defend me,’ Kelly told him.
‘Don’t I?’
‘No,’ she flashed, and he grinned that heart-stopping grin and lifted his sword from its scabbard.
‘I guess it’s not me alone. You have two men to do it now,’ he said, seemingly determined to turn what had been too serious a moment into a joke. ‘The decision about the dress can be made later. Matty, we need you to have some fencing lessons. En garde, petit…’
‘Not here,’ Ellen shrieked as Matty picked up his sword and giggled. ‘Not near the dress.’
But Rafael was changing the subject away from the dress, away from her, distracting them all from a topic she found too hard. She could merge into the background, she thought thankfully.
He was protecting her.
But…but…
We had such hopes.
She’d never thought of it from the people’s point of view. She’d always believed they’d thought her a tramp. Someone they were lucky to be rid of.
She swallowed. Ellen had caught Matty’s sword which, mercifully, had a blunt end. She’d put it firmly aside. Now she was manoeuvring him into a jacket that matched Rafael’s.
Her two royal princes.
A family?
No. No, they weren’t. Matty was her family, but he also belonged to another.
She was on the outside of that other, not even wanting to look in.
The dress was there. A dare. A challenge.
A role that was already hers.
‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ Rafael said softly and she blinked at him in astonishment.
‘I don’t…’
‘I know.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
‘Rafael…’
And then the earth moved.
It was a mere tremor-a shift that made the light above Ellen’s head sway slightly on its long lead from the high ceiling. A vase sitting on the edge of the mantelpiece slipped sideways and crashed on to the hearth. It left Kelly feeling just slightly off balance, as if she’d stood up too fast and felt a little dizzy, but then balance was restored and things were okay.
But the light was still swinging, casting weird shadows over the half dressed Matty. Ellen was staring upward, mesmerized by the swinging light, but Kelly was over the far side of the room in an instant, grabbing Matty to her, holding him close.
The light was still swaying. The vase was still smashed on the hearth.
‘Outside,’ Rafael said harshly into the stunned silence. ‘Get outside, everyone-into the forecourt and away from the building.’
He didn’t have to say it twice. Kelly was already moving, carrying Matty as she ran. Rafael moved to intercept her but she shook her head and kept running.
‘We’re fine. Get everyone out.’
She’d experienced this before-an earth tremor. It had been a small quake, measuring three on the Richter scale, and it had shaken some of her parents’ beloved books from the shelves. That had been all the damage.
That was all this would be, she told herself as she ran.
‘Mama…’ Matty quavered.
‘It’s just an earth tremor,’ she said, not pausing. She could put him down but he was in bare feet and she had him in her arms and that was where it felt like he belonged. She was running down the vast stone steps that led out to the forecourt. Behind her, she could hear Rafael shouting orders.
‘Assemble outside, everyone, and I mean everyone. Ellen, take a roll call. Crater, go over to the dower house and see if my
mother’s okay. Get her outside too. Marsha, the dogs are already outside, you go back inside and I’ll come after you with a whip…’
It was just an earth tremor. A minor one. Kelly sank to the ground on the lawns beside the forecourt and looked up at the towering castle walls. This castle had stood intact for centuries. It was clearly intending to stay intact for longer. There was no movement.
‘We wait outside,’ Rafael commanded into the morning stillness. ‘We wait.’
So they waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Luckily, the constant rain of the past few days had given way to warm sunshine so waiting wasn’t a hardship. Rafael had them all gathered together. He was still dressed in his royal finery.
Laura ducked back into the dower house-against her son’s orders-and fetched shoes for Matty. He accepted them with gratitude, left the safety of his mother’s arms-he’d clung really close while the tremors had been happening-and started to be a little prince again.
‘We’ve had an earthquake,’ he said importantly. ‘An earthquake’s very dangerous.’
‘An earth tremor,’ Kelly corrected. ‘Not so bad.’
‘What’s the difference between an earthquake and an earth tremor?’
‘A tremor happens a lot,’ Kelly said. ‘When a little bit of the earth moves way, way down deep and everything on the top settles a bit. In an earthquake a whole lot of the earth settles. Your Uncle Rafael says we should stay outside until we’re sure it won’t get any worse but I think it’s okay.’
Everyone else obviously did too. After half an hour standing in the sun Rafael decided it seemed safe to return to normal.
‘The phone lines are down.’ Crater was fretting. ‘There must be damage somewhere.’
‘I’ll have someone check in the village,’ Rafael said, but as he did there was a shout from outside the castle gates.
There was a boy running. Shouting. Rafael stepped forward to meet him.
Rafael looked like a man in charge, Kelly thought, in his full royal regalia, his dress sword still in its scabbard, his whole bearing royal. The boy ran naturally to him. He was a teenager, sixteen maybe, wide-eyed with shock and breathless with worry.
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