She didn’t know. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think at all. Not when he was smiling at her. Not when he was loving her, holding her as the most precious thing in the world.
He was her husband. Raoul.
‘And now, my beautiful bride, my princess…my love,’ he whispered, ‘would you like your true wedding setting to be the troop bed beyond? Or would you like your wedding night to be spent between the bridge and the second tunnel of the world’s best racing track?’
There was no need to answer.
She was right between the bridge and the second tunnel of the world’s best racing track.
She took his beloved face in her hands, she drew him into her. Her doubts about her baby son disappeared-to be faced at some time in the future but not now. Please…not now.
For tonight there was only Raoul.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HAPPINESS lasted until the hour before dawn.
At some time during this truly extraordinary night they’d moved. The bed made for an army had some very real advantages-like sheets-against the alternative of odd pieces of slot-car set digging in their spines. Raoul had carried his bride there at last, and some time long after that they’d slept.
But in the hour before dawn she woke.
She lay, curved into the warmth of her husband’s body. She listened to his soft breathing, she felt his heartbeat, and she knew that here she could find a home.
But could she? Too much had happened too fast for this to seem like a happy ending. Too much had happened for her to take it in and with the first weak light of morning came the slivers of doubt. The fog edged back.
Could she stay here?
Last night she’d melted into him, yet how much of a considered choice had it been? What did she know of him and this whole surreal situation she’d landed herself in?
In this hour before dawn the doubts flooded back in force.
This was a strange and enigmatic man. He was a doctor, yet she’d seen nothing of his medicine. He was a prince, though she knew nothing of his country.
She’d known this man for two days. Could she spend the rest of her life beside him?
Yes, her heart was saying, but in the coldness before dawn there was room for her head to work as well.
Dominic’s ashes were back in Australia and the ink was barely dry on his death certificate.
And she had an appointment.
Yesterday she’d rung a business acquaintance-the woman who organised the export of her yarns. Claire lived in Vesey and it had been Claire who’d organised her initial itinerary. Jess scarcely knew her but Claire’s business depended on Jess’s custom and yesterday it had seemed time to call in favours.
Claire knew all about what had happened to her-by now all the country did. She’d sounded astounded and sympathetic, but above all she’d been businesslike. If Jess wanted to get back to Australia-as yesterday Jess had assured her she did-then certainly Claire would organise a car to meet her. At the back entrance to the castle? Surely. Why so early? To avoid the Press? Yes, she understood that, too.
Those arrangements had been made yesterday, with her head.
And forgotten last night, with her heart.
She checked her watch in the stillness. Raoul stirred a little and murmured as she moved away from him. For a moment she thought he’d wake-but he settled again.
It was too late to ring Claire to stop the car. She’d have already left from Vesey.
She needed to go out and find her. Apologise. Tell her she was staying.
Was she staying?
Yes, her heart screamed. Raoul… Maybe Raoul loved her?
But how could he be thinking that, when he’d known her for such a short time? She’d thought she’d loved Warren. How could she be sure that this was different?
It was different.
But to leave Dominic’s home country…
She turned in the bed, away from her husband. The fire was still glowing, sending a soft light over the room, but the first faint tinges of morning were turning the windows grey and bleak.
She slid out of bed and went to the window.
For a long time she stood there, staring outward over the grey, pre-dawn sea.
A princess in her tower?
This was a fairy tale, she thought. An impossibility. Real women didn’t marry princes and become princesses.
Real women didn’t get happy ever after.
This was a marriage of convenience. She knew that. The love and laughter of the night before had simply camouflaged it for a little. Now the greyness of the morning was hauling back the thick blanket of depression that had hung over her since Dominic’s death.
‘Who do you think you are?’ she demanded of herself. ‘A real-life princess? Be serious.’
Still…
She looked back at Raoul and he was waking, reaching for her and finding her gone. His eyes were open and he was smiling and her heart twisted within.
Any minute now he’d be irrevocably tied. Any minute now he’d fall in love.
She had already.
‘Come back to bed,’ he told her, holding out his hand in an imperious order. ‘My wife.’
His wife.
How could that be? She was no one’s wife. She was no one’s mother. She’d told herself that after Warren’s betrayal; after Dominic’s loss. She’d had enough pain to last a lifetime. How could she expose herself to more?
She couldn’t. That was why she’d made this offer to Raoul. He could safely use her as his wife in name only, because she intended to be no one’s wife and no one’s mother forever.
Could one night’s love and laughter change her mind?
Raoul was watching her, his eyes concerned. ‘What is it, my love?’
‘It’s all been so fast.’
‘It has,’ he said softly. ‘But I’m old enough to believe in magic. Aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Magic has happened for me,’ he murmured. ‘You asked me why I hadn’t married before? I thought I didn’t want to marry. But Jess, if I’d met you ten years ago…’
‘Don’t,’ she begged, and as he made to rise she backed a little. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘My head’s having trouble holding this in.’
‘And your heart?’
‘That’s the trouble,’ she told him, seriously, knowing that he wouldn’t push. ‘My heart is jumping round like a stupid jumping bean. There’s Dominic…’
‘Jess, I’m not asking you to be unfaithful to Dominic,’ he said gently. ‘Dominic is your son. He’s your love. Your baby. He’ll always have the place of honour in your heart, and in mine also. His presence will stay in our family with love. Jess, can we be family? Can you let us share?’
She was so close to tears. They were threatening to spill and if they did she knew he’d reach for her and take her and she’d let herself sink into him.
No. She needed time.
‘I’ll just… Raoul, I’ll just go down and check on the alpacas.’
‘To give yourself space?’
He understood. Of course he understood, but somehow that made it worse.
‘Please…’
‘Go, my Jess,’ he told her. ‘Go and ask Balthazar and Matilda what you should do. But I suspect they’ll tell you… Wrap yourself in love, my heart.’ And then he smiled, his eyes caressing her from the top of her head to the tip of her-bare-toes. ‘But maybe also wrap yourself in something a little more tangible? Like clothes?’
Why did he have to smile like this? It made her heart twist so much it hurt. It made the sane, sensible-grey?-Jessica want to leap right back into bed with him.
She grabbed a towel and she glowered, using her glower to keep him at bay. ‘I have a choice between a wedding dress and a towel,’ she managed, searching for lightness. ‘The men from the ministry will be shocked. But it might give me some peace. I’ll tell them I’m going back to my apartment to find some clothes. They can hardly argue.’
‘And you’ll come straight back to me after your…consultation? Your quiet time with your alpacas?’