Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince

by Marion Lennox

  She met his gaze with defiance.

  But he saw through it. She still looked tired. Worried. And afraid. He wished she could have rested instead of working this morning. If she was his wife he could insist...

  Insist? Who was he kidding? She was strong, feisty, determined, a country doctor from Australia. He had no right to demand she give that up.

  He couldn’t demand. He couldn’t even ask.

  ‘Leave it,’ she was saying, and she sounded infinitely tired. ‘Just leave it, Marc. Coming here was a mistake. It was hard for both of us but let’s not make things worse. I’ll stay as I promised, but as soon as the coronation’s over I’ll take Felix home.’ She hesitated, closing her eyes for a minute. When she spoke again it seemed she was struggling to find the right words.

  ‘Marc, you walked away from me nine years ago. I don’t blame you, because I walked away from you as well. But, no matter whose fault it was, no matter how stupid we were for marrying in the first place, after nine years I’ve pulled myself together. Felix has been a big part of that, the part I didn’t walk away from. I can’t walk away from him and I won’t, but neither will I let myself lose control again.’

  Then she took a deep breath and faced him head-on.

  ‘Enough. Forget the marrying bit. It’s forgotten. Over. But, Marc...you know what else I didn’t walk away from? My medicine. I’m a doctor. Even today, discombobulated as I am, medicine settles me and I know it does you too. It’s what we trained for; it’s what we are. But here you are, walking away again.’

  ‘I have no choice!’

  ‘Exactly. You know, if I was stupid enough to agree to marry you again, to be part of this goldfish bowl, who’s to say someone won’t come to me in the future and say it’s not safe, it’s not proper, the people don’t want me to be both Queen and doctor. What if they say I have responsibilities to the palace and I need to give up medicine? Like they’re saying to you.’

  ‘It won’t happen.’ But he felt ill. Her words were battering, and he couldn’t defend himself because everything she said was true.

  ‘Marc, all those years ago you suggested I might follow you out here, play the little wife, only you said don’t come until the war’s over because it’ll be dangerous. You had important work to do and you couldn’t be worrying about me while you did it. But you never once asked me to share your burden. And I had Mum and my responsibilities and I didn’t ask you to share my burden either. So I stayed independent. But you know what? I’ve loathed bringing my son up not knowing his father. And I loathe the fact that I still love you!’

  ‘You still...?’

  But she held up her hands, as if to fend him off. ‘Don’t go there,’ she said wearily. ‘Because my loving you now feels like some sort of internal blackmail and I won’t listen. I need to go home. Marc, if you need a consort, find someone sensible. Find someone who’ll enjoy this life, who’ll keep your bed warm when you have time to join her. Who won’t be hurt when you leave her. You need to be sensible.’

  ‘But if you love me...isn’t that cowardice?’

  And she lost it. ‘Back off!’ she yelled and then, as Marc’s bodyguard took a synchronised, instinctive step forward, she grimaced and lowered her voice. ‘Thinking we were in love wasn’t enough to save our marriage nine years ago and, with the stress you’re under, how can it be any different now? Forget this conversation, Your Highness. From now on our dealings need to be strictly official, starting now. This conversation is finished because, from this moment on, I’m being sensible for both of us.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ELLIE DIDN’T SEE Marc for the rest of the day. ‘His Highness is needed for state matters. He sends his apologies,’ Josef told her that night and she felt vindicated.

  She also felt sick. She was right but there was no joy down that road.

  Marc wanted her, but he wanted her on his terms, or terms decreed by this appalling job, and how could she reconcile the two?

  ‘When do you think we’ll see him again?’ Felix demanded as she tucked him in that night. She thought of all the years she’d tucked Felix in alone and she felt her chest clench in pain.

  She should never have agreed to come. It hurt so much. To see him. To work with him today. To see him hurt and to understand there was nothing she could do about it. To refuse to remarry and know it was the right decision.

  It made something inside her feel a little bit dead. But she’d asked for their dealings to be official from now on, and she had to stick to that.

  ‘Being the King is a very big job,’ she told Felix. ‘He’s trying to do the best he can, and that takes time.’

  ‘Louis says I’ll make a great king one day too. He says I can sit on a horse like a champion.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘It was ace. Pierre came too. He’s Hilda’s grandson and he likes all the stuff I like. Louis let him ride a big black horse. Today I had to ride a little fat pony called Grizelda but that’s only because I’m not very good yet. And because they’re worried I might fall off onto my leg. But I want to ride one of the big ones.’

  ‘You do what Louis tells you,’ she said, startled.

  ‘Yeah, but Pierre’s horse is awesome. Mum, when will we get to see Papa? I thought he might have time to read to me tonight.’

  ‘He’ll come when he has time.’

  He glowered. ‘Like he didn’t come to Australia for nine years?’

  ‘Felix, that was my fault. I knew he was busy so I told him we didn’t need him.’

  ‘So tell him we need him now.’

  ‘Do we need him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Felix said sleepily. ‘He’s my papa.’

  ‘He’s the King.’

  ‘He should be able to be both,’ Felix said fretfully.

  ‘He’s doing important stuff.’

  ‘What’s more important than us?’ Felix demanded, but then sleep began to get the better of him and a difficult conversation was closed.

  He slept.

  Ellie returned to her own apartment. There was a state dinner happening downstairs. Josef had asked her if she wished to attend but she’d looked at him incredulously.

  She settled down with a book but the pages blurred before her.

  What’s more important than us?

  It was a line she could have used years ago, she thought. Standing in the airport, waving goodbye to her husband.

  What’s more important than us?

  Everything.

  * * *

  The dinner was vital, ponderous, boring. Because he’d spent so much of today at the hospital, the royal boxes were waiting for him as soon as his guests left but, by the look of his guests, that wouldn’t happen any time soon.

  His ministers were here, a group appointed by his uncle. Marc was the youngest man in the room and the conversation after the third or fourth drink was stultifying.

  He’d sent Josef to invite Ellie—as mother of the future King, his ministers had wished to meet her—but he was pleased she hadn’t come. She would have been bored witless.

  Except he wanted her to be here. She would have met these pompous dignitaries and maybe she’d have dared a smile at him. Ponderous men in black suits, with portly abdomens and ruddy complexions. Overweight matrons, dripping jewels, full of their own importance. Heart attacks waiting to happen. Strokes. They could have bet on who did and didn’t have type two diabetes.

  Practically all of them?

  The gentleman beside him was indulging in a tirade about money being needed for a new race track. It seemed the track was no longer suitable for international events, and the members’ room was a disgrace!

  Ellie would have seen the ridiculous side of this night.

  But she didn’t want any part of it, and he didn’t blame her.

&nbs
p; He glanced at his watch. Eleven-thirty.

  Even if they left now it was too late to go to her, even if she hadn’t stipulated their contact from now on should be only official. Besides, he had today’s boxes and tomorrow’s boxes and tomorrow’s Very Important Meetings to think about, plus all the meetings he’d missed today.

  He looked again at the self-important dignitaries around his table and he knew the meetings were important. This country needed sweeping changes. Race courses were not a priority, but there were so many priorities they were doing his head in.

  Ellie had suggested he share the burden, but how could he do that? Who could he trust?

  No one, he thought grimly, looking at each of his ministers in turn. Each of these men had been lining their own pockets for years.

  His thoughts went back to Ellie and stayed there.

  He’d trust her with his life but that was a joke.

  She didn’t want his life, and why should she?

  ‘Gentlemen, a toast to our new King.’ One of the men was on his feet, wavering a little on legs that were distinctly unsteady. ‘May he continue to keep this country as comfortable as it’s always been.’

  In your dreams, Marc thought, eyeing the minister with dislike.

  There was, though, a tiny voice in the back of his mind saying, What if? What if he let things go on as they were? What if he let these people do what they pleased, as they’d done for years? Maybe then he could have time for medicine.

  And time for Ellie.

  He knew he couldn’t. There was no one he could trust but himself, and he had to face it.

  Upstairs, Ellie and Felix were sleeping. As soon as the coronation was done they’d return to Australia and he’d be alone.

  So what was new?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. He was getting maudlin, and he hadn’t even touched the port.

  To hell with this. He rose, ostensibly to answer the toast.

  ‘Thank you, and thank you for attending tonight,’ he told them. ‘Stay on as long as you wish but I’m afraid I have pressing matters needing my attention.’

  He turned and left. When he reached the foot of the grand staircase he hesitated.

  Upstairs was Ellie.

  Official contact only.

  The boxes were waiting.

  Duty won.

  * * *

  The days turned into weeks faster than Ellie could imagine.

  It was a holiday with a difference. Leisure didn’t suit her. Being busy did.

  She woke early each morning, pulled on her running shoes and headed off around the castle wall before Felix woke. It was a decent half hour hike, making her satisfactorily puffed, satisfactorily tired, and it helped her sleep at night. She and Felix then had breakfast together. Marc was well into his day’s meetings by the time they ate, but she wouldn’t think of that.

  After breakfast Felix headed off with Pierre to listen to whatever tutor had been allocated to the boys that day. Ellie went to the hospital. Under guard. She was deemed part of the royal family and therefore someone requiring protection.

  In the emergency ward, though, she could forget about being royal. The staff there seemed to forget too. They were simply too busy to notice. Every time she turned around there was another patient to see. That was the way she liked it, although the obvious need was troubling.

  ‘His Royal Highness promised more staff,’ the young doctor she’d worked with on the first day told her. ‘But it’ll take years. The university courses have been starved of funds. What doctors we do have soon leave because the pay and conditions are so bad. But now, with Prince Marc...he gives the country a sense of hope.’

  ‘It might be useful if he could spend a few hours a day hands-on,’ Ellie retorted, but the young doctor shook his head.

  ‘It wouldn’t be seemly. He did it once. We can’t ask him to do it again.’

  Felix saw him in the evenings—they both did. Often he had dinners, meetings, interminable work, but after that first night he’d made a new rule.

  ‘The hours between five and seven are mine to spend with my son,’ he’d told Josef, and he had ignored all of Josef’s protests.

  And Ellie was included, for those two precious hours. She should back off, she thought. This was the time for Marc to form a long-term relationship with his son and that relationship had to be separate from her.

  So she shouldn’t stick around as Marc listened with every sign of enjoyment to everything Felix had done that day.

  ‘I’m doing so well on the pony that I’m sure I could ride that ginormous black stallion you ride. But Louis says it’s a mount fit for a king, and I’ll be a king some day, but not yet...’

  Then there was, ‘I know all our borders now, and who’ll be at the coronation, and who I have to meet, and Pierre helps, and sometimes it’s interesting...’

  And all about his regime of exercise to get strength back in his leg. ‘I hate using crutches. I’m sure I could manage without...’

  To all this Marc listened with interest and sympathy and wry smiles. And then they’d head down to the palace lawns and maybe swim in the massive solar-heated pool—or watch Felix swim. And if Marc just happened to tug himself out of the pool and sit beside Ellie while Felix kept swimming it seemed entirely natural. It could even fit with her decree of official only. They were supervising while their kid messed around in the water.

  Marc asked about her day and she tried not to see the hunger in his eyes as he listened to her account of what had happened in the ER.

  Then he told her about his day, a clipped version that she knew was edited to make it seem manageable. And Ellie listened and tried not to care. She tried not to feel as if she was getting to know the man rather than the boy she’d married. She tried not to feel the sweet siren call of those moments where she could almost pretend they were family.

  She tried not to fall deeper and deeper in love...

  Finally Josef would come to find him and Felix and Ellie were left to entertain themselves for the evening.

  ‘Why can’t you stay longer with us?’ Felix demanded the week before the coronation was due to take place, and Marc sighed.

  ‘There’s too much to do, Felix.’

  ‘So what are you doing tonight?’

  ‘I’m entertaining three royal princes from over the border for dinner and then I’m helping Josef plan the seating for the state banquet before the coronation. Only the most important people are invited and, believe it or not, important people are fussy about who they get to sit beside.’

  ‘That’s silly. Make them come out and have hamburgers by the pool.’

  ‘I wish.’ His smile was rueful. ‘Believe it or not, important people often like fuss.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Felix said fretfully. ‘Just stick everyone’s names in a hat and pull them out.

  ‘Tempting, but it might cause problems.’

  ‘Will you sit beside Mum?’

  Marc glanced at her, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘I’ve asked your mother. She won’t come.’

  ‘Isn’t she important enough?’ Felix demanded.

  ‘She’s the most important of all, but I can’t make her.’

  ‘It’s not suitable,’ Ellie managed, trying—and failing—to drag her gaze from Marc’s. Please don’t look at me like this, she thought desperately. Please...

  ‘But you’re going to the coronation,’ Felix demanded, suddenly anxious. ‘I’m not going by myself.’

  ‘I’ll come to the coronation,’ Ellie muttered and then thought that sounded incredibly ungracious. ‘I mean, it’s a generous invitation and of course I accept.’ She plucked a blade of grass, though the way these gardens were manicured, each blade was probably numbered for security reasons.

  Years ago
that was a thought she might have shared with Marc and made him laugh. But not now.

  She wasn’t game to make him laugh now. She wasn’t game to get any closer.

  ‘The coronation can’t take place without you,’ Marc was telling Felix, with a last look at Ellie before focusing again on his son. ‘You both need to be there.’

  ‘And I have to ride the fat old horse.’ He looked mutinous. ‘Louis says.’

  ‘Felix, you’ll be in the royal procession. A fat old horse is better than no horse.’

  ‘But I want to ride a big black one like yours. And I want Mum to ride one too.’

  ‘I’ll be sitting in the cathedral, keeping your seat warm.’ Ellie told him. ‘Felix, we’ve gone through this. You’re royal but I’m not. I stay in the background.’

  ‘And we have to go home straight after the coronation?’ Felix still looked mutinous.

  ‘We must. We live in Australia.’

  ‘What if I want to live here? With Papa?’

  Ellie sighed, suddenly so tired she couldn’t find the energy to answer. She rose and tucked a towel around her bathing suit. This place was unreal, she thought, this garden, this swimming pool, this palace, this...man.

  This was Marc’s world. Her world was Borrawong. Never the twain shall meet, she thought, but right now Borrawong seemed very far away.

  And here came Josef again, to remind Marc that his life was waiting inside the palace. The life they couldn’t share.

  ‘There’s always a place for you here,’ Marc said. He was speaking to Felix but she knew the words were intended for her too. ‘Any time you want to come... We’ll pay for locums, as we’re paying now. Any time you need time out from Borrawong...’

  ‘Why would we need time out from Borrawong?’ she demanded. ‘That’s where our life is. Felix, when you’re an adult you can decide where you want to live but, for the time being, your home is with me. Felix, let’s just enjoy the next few days. We’ll watch your papa be crowned King and then we’ll go home.’

  * * *

  He came at midnight. The faint tap on her door was of someone unsure if she was asleep or not, so she still had the choice.