‘N…no.’
‘Then what I suggest is this,’ he told her, and he released her and turned away, seeming to search for something. ‘I asked Henri to find this. I’ve been waiting for this for almost thirty years and…yes!’
‘Yes?’ she said, cautiously bemused. Her royal prince was down on his hands and knees now, delving under a huge mahogany desk by the window.
‘He found it,’ he said, triumphant. ‘He’s left it here for me. Good old Henri.’
‘What?’ There was an element of surrealism behind this, she thought. Bride in mediaeval gown, in truly splendid bridal chamber, watching husband in full regimentals-he was still wearing his sword!-crawling under a desk. Hauling out a huge wooden box with a hinged lid.
‘It’s my slot-car set,’ he said and the level of satisfaction in his voice made her stare.
‘Your slot-car set.’
‘I turned six the day before my father kicked us out of the palace,’ he told her. ‘But on my sixth birthday I was given the sort of slot-car set any small boy dreams of. It’s sat here untouched for nearly thirty years and you can’t imagine how many times I thought of it with regret. It’s dumb, I know, but one of the first things I thought of when I knew I had to come back here was this. Then tonight…I figured if we had to stay locked in here all night and you intended to be cold and distant, then I was going to get it out and use it. So I asked Henri to search the attics and see if he could find it.’
A slot-car set. It was so far away from everything she’d been thinking that she couldn’t believe it. She stood and her jaw felt as if it was hitting her ankles.
But something had to be cleared up first.
‘I don’t intend to be cold and distant.’
‘What else do you call making cushion walls in the bath?’
He was impossible. ‘You really do want to play with your slot-cars?’
‘What else are we going to do? Beside divide rooms with cushions.’ He raised his eyebrows and grinned-a grin of pure mischief. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind. It is a bridal suite, after all. We can always indulge in a spot of seduction. Seduction’s good.’ He wiggled his eyebrows some more. Seduction at its most alluring.
He didn’t know how alluring.
‘Play with your slot-cars,’ she told him-but she smiled. How could she not smile in the face of this man’s delight?
He sighed-but he moved on. ‘You can play, too, if you want,’ he told her and he grinned up at her again as he hauled his box open. ‘There’s a blue car and a red car and two controllers. And so much road… Bridges and tunnels and everything. It’s never been used. What a tragedy.’ He paused. ‘But maybe you’re not even up to playing with slot-cars. Do you want to go into the bedroom and lock the door?’
She hesitated.
She eyed him-cautiously.
She eyed the cars coming out of their box. They’d obviously been state-of-the-art thirty years ago. They looked amazing.
The decision was suddenly easy. ‘I want red,’ she declared and stooped to pick up her little red car. A Porsche. ‘It’s not a Lamborghini,’ she said, sighing, ‘but I guess the peasants have to make do with what they can get.’
He smirked. ‘The blue one’s a Lamborghini.’
‘I knew that.’
‘So why did you choose red?’
‘Red’s my colour.’ Thoroughly distracted, thoroughly disconcerted but thoroughly intrigued, she was now kneeling on the floor, pulling things out of his magic box. They had enough roadway to go all around the room. And the bridges were amazing. ‘Cool!’
‘I can so see that red’s your colour,’ he told her, eyeing her burnished curls with appreciation. ‘Blue’s royal. Red’s for temper. I can wear that.’
‘Raoul…’
‘Mm?’
She was way out of her depth and she knew it. What was she supposed to say?
She said the only thing she could think of.
‘Raoul, shut up and build.’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
So they built, and they raced, and it was the craziest, funniest night that Jess could remember.
Maybe there had been great nights in the past, back in her childhood, nights where all else was forgotten in the face of pure fun, but an appalling marriage followed by tragedy had driven any such memory from her mind.
She wouldn’t forget this night. This was a night to remember forever.
It took an hour to set up the track. In the face of such an intriguing challenge, Jess’s exhaustion fell away. People around her at the reception, making polite conversation, appraising her as a princess, had made her feel dizzy with fatigue. But here… Here she got her second wind.
Raoul was trying to set up his complicated loop before she built her bridge. He was pinching the pieces she wanted. She’d slept this afternoon. She wasn’t truly tired. Besides, how could a girl go tamely into her bedroom and close the door with such a construction happening on the other side?
She couldn’t.
Especially as Raoul was here.
He’d hauled off his sash, his suit coat, his shoes, his tie and his sword. He still looked like a prince but he looked like…her prince. Yes, he was still very much a prince, she thought, and then tried hard not to think about it.
On the other hand, she was no longer a princess. She’d kicked off her sandals and taken off the great overskirt with train. She was still wearing the bodice and the silken underskirt but-after some hesitation-she’d asked Raoul to loosen the stays that were flattening her breasts. With the ties at the back unfastened, her breasts bounced up again, free. That was a crucial moment in the night. Raoul eyed the swell beneath her loosened bodice. He eyed her-and decided wisely to say nothing.
With that decision safely past, she relaxed. The tension eased.
They were free; two kids with their slot-car set.
The cars were fantastic, and the road they made was amazing; tunnels, bridges, sweeping curves that looped round and round the room. It made the racing excellent. Once the road was finished they raced in earnest. They pushed their cars to the limit, the curves making them overturn, sweep off the sides, fly off into the carpet, crash against each other…
Jess was caught up in a bubble of laughter that wouldn’t go away and Raoul’s rich chuckle sounded out over and over again.
‘You know, those guys outside from the ministry are going to think there’s something really kinky going on in here,’ Jess declared as they stopped laughing for long enough to line up for their final race. They’d decided on the best of three races. Then the best of five. Then the best of seventeen. Now it was the best of forty-seven. They were twenty-three wins apiece, the tiny cars were starting to smell of burned rubber and their little engines were starting to fade.
They lined them up and counted down. Round and round flew the cars, squealing against the rails, clashing against each other, screaming into the next lap, hitting full gear, fast, faster, faster…
They hit the kerb by the bedpost. Raoul’s car clipped her rear tyre. Her tiny red Porsche did a double back somersault and flew into the air.
And hit Raoul beneath the eye.
‘Ouch!’ He fell back against the bed, laughing so hard he could hardly hold his hand to his face. But with his spare hand he was still gripping the controls. Pressing harder…
The crash had done its damage. His tiny blue Lamborghini slowed. It slowed still further.
It stopped six inches from the finish.
Raoul looked sideways at his opposition-and reached out a finger and pushed it over the finishing line.
‘Hey.’ Jess retrieved her little car, which was smoking ominously from the rear end. It was going to need major love to get it going again. ‘You’re not allowed to push.’