‘Pippa, we’re giving a press conference this evening,’ he called from the safety of his roof, and she stared up at him.
‘How did you get up there?’
‘I climbed.’
‘No one held your ladder. Those slates are heavy.’
‘I’m fine. Jean has better things to do than hold my ladder. But about this shoot.’
‘Shoot?’
‘Photo shoot. Introduction to your new royal family.’
‘I’ll dress the kids up.’
‘Beatrice is sorting something for them,’ he called. ‘There’s actually traditional costume for royal children.’
‘It’s very splendid,’ Jean, the footman, told her gravely. ‘And colourful. The girls’ dresses have fourteen petticoats.’
‘And the boy’s costume is just as colourful,’ Blake added. ‘It had petticoats too, but the last prince put his foot down aged all of four so we converted it to trousers. It has what looks like a small apron over the front but it’s unexceptional and most children are envious when they see it. Beatrice measured the children the first night you were here and the costumes are ready.’
‘Well, that’s sorted,’ Pippa said, and went back to brick-cleaning. She looked perturbed, though, Max thought. Worrying that things were being taken from her control. As indeed they could be if she wasn’t included.
‘We’d like you to dress up too,’ he called, and Pippa paused mid-brick.
‘Me.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not royal.’ She made a recovery and waved a brick in his direction. ‘Do I look royal?’
‘Yes, miss,’ Blake said severely, answering before Max could get a word in. ‘We believe you look extremely royal. Don’t we, Jean? Don’t we, Pascal-Marie? Almost as royal as His Highness, Prince Maxsim.’
‘Yes,’ his companions agreed gravely.
‘Then I’ll come to the shoot wearing what I’ve got on,’ she said and grinned and started chipping again.
‘You can’t,’ Max called. ‘This is important, Pippa. These photographs will be in every major glossy worldwide.’
She paused, mid-chop. ‘Even in Tanbarook?’
‘I’m guessing even in Tanbarook. Aussie girl becomes a European princess…’
‘I’m guardian of a prince. That doesn’t make me a princess.’
No. It didn’t. That was the problem, he thought. There was only one way she could become a princess-and there was no way he was going down that route.
But she had to have a formal role. She was the children’s guardian. She had to be in the shoot if she was to retain any sort of authority when he left.
‘Miss, the castle can’t be left with just three royal children,’ Blake told her, echoing Max’s thoughts.
‘Levout will take charge again,’ Pascal-Marie-the butler-added. ‘Levout’s like a bear with a sore head now that Prince Maxsim is here. But Prince Maxsim intends to leave at the end of one month.’
‘We might too,’ Pippa said and the old men’s faces fell.
‘No.’
‘Possibly not,’ she whispered.
‘Then you need to have a role here,’ Max called. ‘My deputy or something similar. The people have to know you. You need to be part of the press conference.’
‘In my twin-set? I still haven’t found the button.’
‘Beatrice could organise you something,’ Blake said, but he sounded doubtful. ‘Maybe her ideas are a little old-fashioned…’
‘No,’ Max said, shoving a slate into place and concentrating on the next one. ‘There’s a reasonable shopping centre in the village. I’ll finish here in an hour and take you.’
‘I’ve no money for clothes.’
‘You’re the guardian of the heir to the throne of Alp d’Estella. You should have been getting a suitable allowance long since. You are now. Get used to it.’
She didn’t want to go to town with him.
Pippa chipped on, seemingly concentrating only on her bricks but in reality twisting the forthcoming journey into all sorts of threatening contortions.
It was only shopping, she thought, but she’d be alone with Max and she didn’t want to be alone with Max.
She could take the children.
Right, and they’d be so good while she chose a frock. Ha. Shopping with them was a nightmare at the best of times.
Who else could she take?
No one without saying straight out that she didn’t trust Max, and it wasn’t actually that she didn’t trust Max. She didn’t trust herself.
She worked steadily on, trying to get her head together, trying to stay calm.
An hour later Max came up behind her, took the brick from her fingers and she jumped about a foot.
‘Enough.’
‘I haven’t done enough,’ she said, suddenly breathless, and the men around her laughed.
‘You’ve put the rest of us to shame, miss,’ Blake said. ‘You deserve a rest. Have fun.’
‘Let’s go,’ Max said and lifted her chisel from her hand. ‘Work’s over for the day.’
‘I won’t be able to leave the kids. I’ve been away from them all day.’
‘Let’s check, shall we?’ he said. ‘Make no assumptions, scary or otherwise.’
‘Why would they be scary?’
‘We both know the answer to that,’ he said softly. ‘Though neither of us know what to do with it.’
Was he saying he was as attracted to her as she was to him? Pippa sat in the passenger seat of a neat little sports car and tried to concentrate on the scenery, but it was impossible to concentrate on something other than the man beside her.
Was he saying the avoidance of the last four days had been part of his plan as well as hers?
Good, she thought. Great. If they both thought this relationship was impossible then they could do something about it. Or do nothing, which would be a much more suitable plan.
She was sitting as far apart as she could, which was a start-though you couldn’t get very far apart in a tiny sports car.
‘Does this car belong to the palace?’
‘It’s mine. Do you like it?’
‘I do,’ she said politely. The little car practically purred as they negotiated the scenic curves around the mountains. ‘Actually it’s smashing,’ she admitted. ‘The kids would love it.’
‘Just lucky they were too busy to come, then.’
They had been too busy. When Pippa had gone to find them they had been in the vegetable garden, sorting worms from loamy compost. Dolores had been nearby, sleeping in the sun and keeping a benign eye on her charges.
‘We’re making a carrot bed,’ the twins told Pippa. ‘We need worms. M. Renagae says there can never be enough worms in a carrot bed.’
They were fitting into this life to the manor born, Pippa thought. It was only Pippa who felt…foreign. She’d asked-uselessly-whether they’d like to go into town to shop and they’d regarded her as if she were a sandwich short of a picnic.
So now she was alone with Max, and he was staring ahead as if he was as determined as she was not to cross the line.
‘What sort of dress do I need?’ she asked.
‘Several. A long gown for the formal photo and a couple more for dinners.’
‘I eat with the children.’
‘I hope after I leave that you’ll stand in my stead on State occasions.’
‘You’re assuming I’m staying.’
‘I’m assuming you’re thinking about it. This place has to be better than where I found you.’
‘It might be,’ she said, still cautious. ‘Max, what are you afraid of?’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘Then what? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she snapped. ‘I know there’s something. It’s just intuition but I know there’s…something.’ She hesitated, but it had to be said-what she’d been thinking these last four days. ‘It’s not just the castle. It’s royalt
y itself, so much so that you’re scared of even being with me.’
‘I’m shopping with you now, aren’t I?’
‘Only because you’re trying to persuade me to take the next step-whatever that is. For the last four days you’ve been avoiding me as much as I’ve been avoiding you. Why? Because you’re scared you might get attached to me and to the kids? Or is it that you’re scared you might be called into account for what you’ve done?’
‘Your imagination’s acting overtime,’ he said grimly.
‘I know it is. But all I have is my imagination as I don’t have facts.’
‘You don’t need-’
‘Don’t you dare tell me what I need or don’t need,’ she flashed, swivelling in the car to face him. ‘You’ve talked me into coming here with your promise of warmth and luxury and relief from responsibility, but the responsibility’s followed me and I’m damned if I’m letting your charm and good looks and…your princeliness deflect me from figuring out what I have to figure. Just because you wear a stupid dress sword-’
‘Princeliness?’
‘Don’t laugh at me.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘You would if you thought it would help. But I still get the feeling you’re afraid. If not of me-and that’s crazy-if not of emotion, then what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Stop the car.’
‘I can’t. There’s only two hours before the shops close.’
‘Then talk fast,’ she snapped, suddenly sure of herself. There was something. If not fear, then what? She was responsible for Marc. She had to find out. ‘Please stop the car,’ she repeated. ‘I’m taking not one minute’s more part in this charade before I know what I need to know.’
He stopped in a pullover catering for tourists who wanted to gaze down the valley at the winding river and the spectacular mountains beyond. The scenery was awesome, but Max gazed straight ahead and saw nothing. ‘What do you want to know?’ he said blankly.
‘About your family, for a start,’ she said. She wasn’t sure where she was going with this. She wasn’t even sure that she wasn’t a bit crazy. She stared down at her hands, which were suddenly the most interesting things she could find to look at-apart from Max and there was no way she was looking at him any more. ‘I want to know about Thiérry. Tell me about the car crash.’
‘Thiérry died in a car crash when he was seventeen.’ He said it as if goaded.
She flashed a look at him then, just for a moment, and then looked back at her hands. ‘With your father. Who was drunk?’
‘Of course with my father,’ he exploded. ‘Of course he was drunk. He’s a de Gautier. The blood’s cursed.’
‘Ooh, who’s being melodramatic?’ she whispered and he stared at her in astonishment.
‘You’re accusing me of melodrama?’
‘If you’re talking about cursed blood, then, yes, I am,’ she said with asperity. ‘Tell it like it is, Max. Don’t try and make my blood curdle. I’m a nurse, remember? It takes a whole lot more than curses to curdle my blood.’
‘I guess it would.’
She looked at him for a long moment, gave a tiny smile and a decisive nod.
‘That’s better. Now start again. Your…father was responsible for Thiérry’s death? How did it happen?’
He sighed. ‘Okay. The whole story. Not that it helps anything.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘My father…’ He sighed again. ‘Apparently there’s been contention and hatred in the royal family for generations. My father was raised thinking he was owed a birthright, that he had a claim on the throne, or at least part of its wealth, but the way the succession’s written he got nothing. He spent much of his time here, freeloading on the old prince. He married my mother which was the only sane thing he did in his life, but the marriage didn’t last. She was seventeen and besotted with royalty, and he met and married her on a whim. By the time she had Thiérry she knew it was a disaster.’
‘And she couldn’t…leave?’
‘Are you kidding? My father was seeing Thiérry as a potential heir to the throne. The old Crown Prince Paul was an invalid. There was only Bernard, and Bernard was…effete. There’s clauses written into most royal marriages, and ours is no exception. If the marriage ends then any children stay under the sole care of the sovereign.’
He paused, his eyes bleak and cold and distant. Pippa didn’t say anything. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘So my mother had an affair,’ he said at last. ‘Desperation? Who can blame her? She became pregnant with me, and the old prince kicked her out of the castle. He was so angry that he kicked them all out-my father and Thiérry included.’
‘So then…’
‘My father was furious, of course, and humiliated, but he was back to living on his wits, and he didn’t want a baby. So he turned his back on all of us. Mama was permitted to return to her parents’ farm, taking Thiérry with her. We saw no more of the royal family. Only then the old prince died. Bernard became Crown Prince but still hadn’t married, so Thiérry was his heir and my father appeared on the scene again. Thiérry was seventeen-a rebellious teenager hating the poverty we were living in-and my father was demanding to show him his heritage.’
‘But not you,’ she whispered. ‘Where do you fit in?’
‘I don’t. I was the product of an affair. I was worthless.’
She swallowed. But then she thought of the things that weren’t making sense. Blake’s insistence on Max’s royalty. The servants’ insistence. They’d all been in the castle then…
They’d have known. There was something in the way they deferred to Max, as if he were the Crown Prince.
‘You were really his son,’ she whispered, knowing suddenly that it had to be true, and he didn’t deny it.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘But I’ve only known myself for a few weeks. I was approached to take on the regency. I refused and finally my mother told me who I really was. She’d never spoken of it. I know it now, and, for some reason I can’t figure, Blake knows it. But as far as I know, no one else. She lied because she couldn’t bear to live here, and by lying about my parentage at least she’d still have me.’
‘Oh, Max…’
‘So there you have it,’ he said bleakly. ‘The makings of tragedy, from which I, as a supposed bastard, was excluded. My father, in his expensive car, in his amazing royal regalia, must have seemed like something out of a fairy story to seventeen-year-old Thiérry. But my mother was appalled. I still remember the shouting. The tears. Finally Mama agreed that Thiérry could visit the castle, but she insisted on accompanying him.’
‘Of course.’
‘You know, my mother would love you,’ he said dryly. ‘You sound just like her-a mother hen ready to take on all comers.’ He smiled but she didn’t smile back
‘So what happened?’
‘Boring really. Predictably horrible. He loaded them into his too-fast car, he drove erratically-probably shouting at my mother all the time-and they all came off one of the cliffs somewhere close to here. My father and Thiérry were killed instantly. My mother’s now a paraplegic.’
Pippa had stopped looking at her hands. Instead she was staring down at the river, looping lazily round the base of the cliffs below.
‘Oh, Max,’ she said at last. ‘Oh, poor lady.’
‘Mama knows as I do that someone has to accept the Crown if the people aren’t to face ruin. But she won’t go back on what she’s said. That I was the result of an affair. That I have no connection to the palace. The fact that I look like a damned de Gautier…’
‘There’s DNA testing.’
‘So there is. If I wanted to prove it.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I won’t do it to her. For why? To take a throne I don’t want? If I can organise things without it…if I can set up the regency…’ He sighed. ‘You do what you have to do.’
‘Of course.’ She linked her fingers again, but her gaze was
still on the river. The trap was closing in on her, she thought dully, as it had closed on Max. It might be a gilded cage, but it was a cage for all that. ‘You know what I’d really like?’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘To go back to nursing.’
‘Nursing!’
‘Don’t say it like it’s a bad smell,’ she snapped, and suddenly she was furious. Here she was again, in the middle of a mess, expected to pick up the pieces with no complaint. Well, she might, but, dammit, he was going to understand that she was giving up something too. ‘If you knew how hard I worked to get my nursing qualifications…Every summer I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to get enough money to keep me at school. That started from the time I was ten, working illegally peeling potatoes for our local fish and chip shop. But somehow I did it. I finally qualified as a nurse and I loved it. Independence! You can’t imagine. I kept right on studying. I wanted to be the best nurse in the world, but you know what? Life just got in the way.’
‘Life as in Marc and Claire and Sophie.’
‘And you,’ she said bitterly. She glared at him. ‘Oh, there’s no use complaining. But don’t you dare look at me now and say there’s a really luxurious castle and you’ll be waited on hand and foot so what else can you possibly want from life? I bet that’s what your father told your mother. So here I am. I don’t even have a definite role. I’m not royal. I can’t help in the running of this country. I’m going to have to put up with people like Levout patronising me until Marc is twenty-one and I can get on with my own life. Whatever that is. I don’t think I have one,’ she said. ‘You sure as hell don’t think I do.’
‘Pippa…’
‘Start the car,’ she said wearily. ‘Yes, you’re in a bind, but I am too. I need to think. Meanwhile there’s no need to be nice to me any more. I know what you want now and I need to decide on my own terms. Let’s find this dress.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re on track to get out of here. Start the car.’
‘If I could-’
‘Yeah, and if I could,’ she retorted. ‘But we can’t. We’re stuck in this royal groove and you have three and a half weeks of it left and I’m looking at thirteen years. Let’s go.’
The Prince’s Outback Bride Page 14
