The world seemed to hold its breath.
‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked at last, but he knew. Of course he knew, and it was too late to back out now.
And she didn’t want to back out. She glanced through to the bedroom. This wasn’t a big thing, she thought. She could do this. She had her life and she could get on with it regardless. A mere marriage would make no difference to her.
And it was a positive thing to do. A definite action. It was like making toast and marmalade, but the slivers of lightness of this action wouldn’t just be for her. By her actions Edouard could be made safe.
‘I’m saying that your answer could be right here,’ she said softly. ‘I’m saying I’ll marry you.’
‘You…’
‘On terms,’ she said hurriedly. ‘On very definite terms.’
On terms.
Raoul stared at the girl beside him. She was staring into the flames, as if the thing she’d just said was an aside; of no importance.
It was as if she’d said, If you’d like, I’ll make you a cup of tea, instead of, If you’d like, I’ll marry you.
‘What are you saying?’ he asked at last and she even smiled.
‘Hey, it’s no big deal. You’re obviously desperate for a wife. I’ve ditched my spineless husband, who I married when I was too young to know better, and I’m available.’ Something occurred to her then, and her brow wrinkled into a furrow. She looked absurdly young, he thought. She was dressed for dinner, her clothes were lovely, but her freckles and her snub nose and her close-cropped curls still made her seem about seventeen. Only she wasn’t seventeen. There was a depth of world knowledge behind her eyes that more than matched his own. While he’d been fighting for his sister’s life, and for unknown lives in Somalia, she’d been fighting for the life of her tiny son, and who was to say which had taken the worst toll?
‘Um… But I’ve suddenly thought,’ she said and she did turn and look at him then, ‘there’s no rule that you marry another princess or someone royal, is there?’
‘No, but…’
Her brow wrinkled further. ‘Or a virgin? That’d be a worry.’
‘Not a virgin,’ he told her and the relief on her face made him smile. ‘I had planned to marry Sarah. She’d been married before.’
‘There you go, then,’ she said as if all problems were solved. ‘Job’s done.’
‘But you don’t want to marry me,’ he managed and she raised her brows in mock-surprise.
‘You don’t think so? I don’t see why not. You’re very handsome.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
She giggled. It was an amazing sound, he thought. When had he last heard a woman giggle?
‘Close your mouth,’ she said kindly. ‘Stop looking hornswoggled.’
‘Hornswoggled?’
‘I’m not sure of the translation,’ she told him. ‘Maybe it’s “you could have knocked me over with a porrywiggle”.’
‘I don’t think I even want to go there,’ he said faintly. ‘Jess, have you any idea what you’re offering?’
‘Yes-and it’s a really serious offer,’ she told him, and coloured. ‘I know it’s unusual-Australian dress designer proposes to Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri-but then the situation is unusual.’
‘But…’
‘But nothing. You know I don’t want anything of you,’ she told him, talking hurriedly before he could speak. As though she was fearful he was reaching all the wrong conclusions. ‘I accept that you can’t advertise for a bride because you might get crazy people and there’s no time to vet them, and of course there’s no time to vet me. You’d have to take me at my word. I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want money-my business is going very nicely, thank you-and I don’t want fame. My proposition is that I’ll marry you, I’ll see Edouard safe and then I’ll disappear back to Australia. I’ll be a one-day wonder for the media. Back home my staff can protect me from intrusion, and you can get on with ruling this country as it ought to be ruled.’
She hesitated again and then said, more than a little self-consciously, ‘You know, I do understand your qualms. But you needn’t have them. As I don’t have qualms about you. I haven’t known you for long, but I’ve known you for long enough to accept that you’d make a fairer ruler of this country than Marcel ever would. And…’ she glanced through into the bedroom ‘…you’d make a far nicer guardian for Edouard.’
‘Jess…’ He could hardly think of how to respond, but once again she stopped him.
‘It could work,’ she said, urgently now. ‘Don’t knock me back without thinking about it. I know the last thing you want is an unroyal bride-what would they call me, a commoner?-but it could work.’
It could.
His mind shifted into overdrive. Marry Jess.
He could marry Jess, quietly, swiftly. He could retain rights over this realm.
He’d never wanted this. From the time his mother had taken him and Lisle away from this palace when he was aged six, he hadn’t looked back. There’d been so much hurt. Even as he grew older he’d refused to think of himself as royal. He’d thrown himself into his medical career and he loved it.
But now…the last few weeks had shown what desperate straits this little country was in. Until Jean-Paul’s death he’d blocked it out-he hadn’t wanted to know what he could do nothing about. But the mess the country was in was now obvious even to outsiders and the moment he’d arrived here it threatened to overwhelm him. On the surface the country was a wonderful little tourist mecca, but scratch the surface and there was grinding poverty on every level.
He could install a decent government, he thought. This was what he’d planned when he’d talked Sarah into marriage. He could set up a decent infrastructure, install a government that would work, and then he could return again to the medicine and the obscurity that he…
‘You see, there’s my condition,’ she said, apologetically, as though she was reading his thoughts, and to his amazement it seemed she had been. ‘I’m not prepared to let you do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Dump it on your mother.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s what you planned,’ she said, and as well as apologetic she sounded defensive. ‘I know you’ll organise a better government here and things will be better for the country. But your mother’s not strong enough to cope with a little boy and you know it.’
‘She’ll have servants,’ he said, stunned, and Jess winced.
‘Edouard doesn’t need servants. He needs you.’
‘I don’t do family.’
‘Of course you do,’ she told him, as though he was being thick. ‘Oh, I know, you had to walk away from your father and your brother when you were six and that must have been appalling. And then you lost Lisle, which broke your heart. But right over there…’ She motioned to her bed. ‘Over there you have Edouard. He’s your family, whether you want it or not. He doesn’t want servants. He doesn’t want designer nurseries or money or anything you can organise from a distance while you’re off saving the world in Somalia. There’s a world here to save. I hate to say this, Your Highness. It’s absolutely none of my business, but your country needs you, your mother needs you, your nephew needs you, and your place while Edouard is growing up is right here.’
There was a long silence. A stunned silence. He stared at this chit of a girl and she stared right back. Not flinching. She’d said what she’d wanted to say, she’d made her offer and now it was up to him.
‘But what would I do?’ he asked blankly and that smile broke out again, impudent and teasing. Her toast and marmalade smile.
‘You could sit on a throne and look regal.’
‘I’d look pretty silly,’ he told her and suddenly that tension zoomed back again. That link. She’d smiled, he’d smiled back and suddenly…
Wham. It was enough to knock the air right out of him. He didn’t have the faintest idea of why he felt like this, or even how he actually felt-all he knew
was that he had to get to the other side of it fast. His world was being tilted and he’d spent his life desperately trying to keep his world right way up. After Lisle’s death he’d sworn never to get that emotionally involved again-he’d never give anything or anyone the power to hurt him so much-but now…
Hell, what was he thinking? This was a marriage proposal she was making. Not a…
This was a marriage proposal!
He was just slightly out of his depth here. By about a mile.
‘What would I do?’ he asked again and if he sounded dumb that was because dumb was how he was feeling. Really, really dumb. What had she said? Knocked right over by a porrywiggle.
‘For a start you’d fix your hospitals,’ she told him, and lightness had suddenly faded. Her face was shadowed again. ‘You know, we were here when Dominic got sick.’
‘Here?’
‘Warren and I were having a rocky patch,’ she told him, and then gave a rueful smile. ‘Actually our marriage was one long rocky patch. But my designs were getting known and I’d heard about the Alp’Azuri weavers and the yarns available here. I’d also heard the place was lovely. So Warren and I brought Dominic here for a holiday. But on the flight over I noticed Dom was bruising in a way we couldn’t explain. By the time we’d been here for two days he was ill. And your hospitals… Have you spent any time at all in your hospitals?’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘I’ve been back in the country for two weeks.’
‘You’ve truly never been back since you left as a child?’
‘My father wanted my sister dead,’ he said, and after all this time it was still raw and painful to say it. ‘And Jean-Paul never forgave my mother for taking Lisle and me to Paris. She tried desperately to explain. After my father died she tried to see him but he refused. And his hostility extended to me. So I figured it was a closed book. I haven’t been back.’
‘So it’s your country-your responsibility-yet you don’t know it.’
‘That’s right.’
She took a deep breath. ‘OK. Then know this. Your hospitals are little better than third-world medical centres. They’re a disgrace. You need to get in there and sort them out.’
He stared. ‘You’re very direct.’
‘The word is bossy,’ she said. ‘But if I’m to make a supreme sacrifice…’
‘A supreme sacrifice?’
Once again that cheeky grin. The grin that set him back. That made him feel…that made him feel like he didn’t know how he felt.
‘Marrying you,’ she told him. ‘Throwing myself away on a mere prince regent.’
Lightness. Maybe he should follow her lead. Maybe humour was the only way to cope with this. ‘You figure you should hang out for the crown prince? For Edouard? For the real thing?’
‘Maybe I should, but he might not want to marry me when he reaches maturity,’ she conceded, smiling. ‘My bloom of fabulous beauty may have faded a little by then. They tell me it happens. Bloom fading. It’s caused by cabbage wilt or something.’
‘Cabbage wilt?’ He was so out of his depth that he thought he was drowning.
‘It happens to all the best commoners. And sooner than you think,’ she added darkly. ‘So you’ll be doing me a favour. You’ll marry me and save me from the consequences of cabbage wilt.’
Deep breath. Levity wasn’t going to work, he decided. She might be joking but he couldn’t. She had to see how serious this was. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?’ he demanded.
‘Sure I do. I’m suggesting marriage.’
Marriage. This was what his Uncle Lionel had suggested the day of Sarah’s funeral, he thought, still stunned. ‘Find someone else to marry-fast,’ Lionel had said. But even Lionel had conceded the idea was fraught with peril. And now an unknown girl was calmly proposing.
Not an unknown girl. Jess.
‘Only if you stay here,’ she said and he met her gaze head-on. Their eyes locked and held. ‘I’m only agreeing to marriage if you agree to stay.’
‘You’re really serious,’ he said at last, and she nodded.
‘I’m serious. I’m not the least bit interested in marrying anyone else-I’ve been there, done that, so I’m happy to stay married to you for as long as you need me to be. But your mother’s not fit to be Edouard’s guardian. Anyone can see that life’s knocked her round. She’ll make a lovely grandma but Edouard needs a parent. He needs you.’
He tried to make himself think. He tried to focus on Edouard. ‘He loved you tonight…’
‘And he’ll love you. Don’t stick him in a room with boa constrictors.’
‘I’m expected back in Somalia.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ she told him bluntly. ‘I know enough about organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières to know they’d say your first responsibility is to the people of your country.’
‘This is not my country.’
‘Oh, yes, it is,’ she told him. ‘You were born here. Your father was ruler. You’re rich-’
‘How do you know I’m rich?’
‘I’m guessing that not even a creepy crown prince would keep his kids starving. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re rich.’
‘Yes, but-’
‘Look, stop running from it, Raoul. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, so you might as well wriggle down and make yourself comfortable.’
‘By marrying you.’
‘It’s a perfectly good offer.’
‘So what would you get out of it?’ he asked, and then watched as her face stilled and a wave of anger followed.
‘I’d get a fairy-tale wedding, a prince, a tiara and I’d get to eat caviare and cream cakes for the rest of my life. Every girl’s fantasy. What do you think?’
‘I didn’t mean-’
‘Well, don’t say it if you don’t mean it,’ she told him. ‘You needn’t worry. I don’t want a thing except the reassurance that Edouard will be safe.’
‘So why do you care?’
‘For no reason,’ she snapped, still angry. ‘Except that no one else seems to have cared. Sure, you were doing your best in offering to marry Sarah, but if Edouard had been my nephew and he looked at me like he did tonight, I would have stuck my notice on the palace gate, married the first woman who offered and worried about the consequences later. I wouldn’t have left him in the ghastly Cosette’s care for one minute longer. If you knew how important a little boy’s life is-’
‘I do know.’
‘Then do something,’ she snapped. ‘Marry me and take over your rightful role. You needn’t worry that I’ll take liberties. I’ll do whatever you need to make Edouard safe and then you won’t see me again. It’s a very good offer, Raoul. Take it or leave it. But take it or leave it now.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Because, to be honest, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m saying it. But I am. Marry me, Raoul. Yes or no.’
He gazed into her face and she gazed back, her expression calm and determined. She was totally serious, he thought, and the realisation was astounding. She’d do this thing.
And in return… He’d have to stay here.
He could marry her and then leave after she’d gone back to Australia.
No. What was being offered was a gift, and the gift wasn’t personal. It was a gift to Edouard and it was a gift to the people of Alp’Azuri. If he betrayed her trust, if he betrayed her promise…
He couldn’t and she could tell that he couldn’t. She was watching him, waiting for him to make a decision and there wasn’t the least suspicion of mistrust on her face. She’d take his promise and she’d ask no questions.
He’d still be on his own-which was the way he’d planned his life. He simply needed to reorient his career. Incorporating Edouard.
Incorporating his country.
But not Jess. Jess only in name.
She was waiting on his decision and that decision had to be made now. He glanced through to the bedroom-and there was Edouard.
Edouard.
He’d been prepared to marry Sarah because of Edouard.
There was only one answer to be given.
‘Thank you, Jess,’ he told her. ‘I would very much like to marry you.’
Raoul left soon after, walking away as a man stunned.
He might well be stunned, Jess thought as she prepared for bed. This marriage would affect her not at all. For Raoul, however, it would be life-changing. She’d thrown him a challenge he hadn’t been able to refuse but she knew very well what it meant to him.
He’d decided to marry his cousin, Sarah, and then do what she intended-leave and return to his old life. But the marriage she offered came with strings-taking up his responsibilities-and she knew that he’d be feeling as if the floor had been swept from under him.
So she made no demur as he bade her a stunned goodnight and left her.
With Edouard.
Which had its own problems. She approached the bed and stared down at the child curled up in sleep. And her gut clenched in pain. To sleep with him…to feel the warmth of his little body…
No.
She’d sleep on the settee in the sitting room, she decided.
But when she was ready for bed she checked on Edouard again and found he was awake. His eyes were wide and scared, as if he’d woken mid-nightmare. ‘Cosette,’ he whispered, but it was a hopeless little whisper, as if he didn’t really want Cosette, but she was all he knew-and who was this?-and no one would comfort him anyway.
Jess couldn’t bear it. What was she about, thinking of her own pain when this little one was so needful? She sat down on the bed beside him and she took his hand.
‘No, Edouard,’ she said softly. ‘Cosette’s left me with you for a bit. You remember me. I’m Jessie. I’m the lady who gave you Sebastian.’
The terror receded from his eyes. Just a little. He’d remembered a small comfort. ‘Sebastian,’ he said and his spare hand searched the bedclothes and found the bear in question. But his fingers still clutched hers. ‘Jessie,’ he whispered and his eyes closed again.
She was held.
She should pull away.
But she didn’t. She sat looking down at him. She moved slightly and his hand clutched her tighter. Finally she conceded defeat.
Princess Of Convenience Page 8
