Princess Of Convenience

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HELL.’

Raoul stood, staring after her as if he’d been struck.

‘Um…is this a problem?’ Jess asked reluctantly. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be sucked into this-no, she was sure she didn’t want to be sucked into this-but the expression on Raoul’s face made it impossible for her to walk away.

‘Hell,’ he murmured again. ‘Edouard.’

She had to ask it, although she already knew who they were talking about. The child she’d so carefully avoided thinking of. ‘Edouard being your nephew. He’s here in the palace?’

‘He’s here. Cosette has been looking after him.’

She hesitated. ‘I thought you said your mother wanted to care for him.’

‘My mother…can’t. He won’t let her. He…’ He paused and raked his fingers through his thatch of thick black curls. Despairing. ‘You don’t understand.’

No, and I don’t want to, Jess thought. Go to bed now, she told herself, feeling more desperate by the minute. Leave this mess before it sucks you in.

But-three years old? Alone?

‘What do you mean, he won’t let her?’ It was as if someone else was speaking, she thought. It was another Jess asking the questions. Not the Jess who’d walked away from Dom’s grave…

‘Edouard’s been badly neglected,’ he was saying. ‘And now, for Cosette to walk out just like this…’ He started toward the door. ‘Come with me. I need to check on him straight away.’

But I don’t want to, she thought wildly. I can’t go near any needful child.

But Raoul was holding the door for her and waiting and there was suddenly nothing for it but to pass him and then walk by his side as he strode swiftly down the corridors to…

To where?

‘My brother had no concept of parenting,’ he said, speaking almost under his breath and striding so swiftly she almost had to break into a run to keep up with him. He was explaining to her-but almost speaking to himself. ‘It was no wonder. My father had no interest and my mother wasn’t permitted to interfere. My brother was raised with little affection and far too much money. He had everything he wanted-materially-and the end result was that he’d developed a drug habit by sixteen.’

Jess did a double skip to keep up and glanced across at his set, angry face.

‘Was that how he died?’ she asked gently and his face darkened even further.

‘Of course it was,’ he said savagely. ‘By the time Jean-Paul was married he was almost off his head. My father simply didn’t care, and it suited the politicians of this country to have a puppet monarch. While my brother was spaced he didn’t interfere with them and that’s the way it suited them. The parliament here is made up of men just like Marcel. They vote themselves huge salaries and do nothing. It’s been like that for years. Until now.’

‘But Edouard…’ A little boy. A three-year-old in the middle of this tragedy. Where did he fit in?

‘Jean-Paul married a B-grade movie actress whose sole attribute seemed to be the size of her breasts,’ he continued, still as if he was speaking to himself. ‘She joined right in with the lifestyle Jean-Paul lived. They had Edouard and they handed him over to child-minders. Serial child-minders. Cosette’s been with Edouard for six months and that’s the longest anyone’s been with him. By the time we saw him… He’s hardly responding to anyone.’

‘Not to your mother?’

‘He simply holds himself rigid,’ he told her. ‘I’ve watched him. With Cosette he relaxes enough to eat, to sleep, to watch the television he seems to have been put in front of at birth. With anyone else he simply blanks out. Or sobs. My mother spends all the time she can with him but he doesn’t respond. And now…’ He grimaced. ‘Marcel knows the child needs Cosette and he knows my mother will break her heart over a distressed child. She’ll do anything to have Cosette stay. Edouard’s lost so much already.’

‘So he’s trying to push you out faster.’

‘He’s trying to punish us for his treatment tonight.’ Raoul’s hands were clenching so hard by his sides that Jess could see the whites of his knuckles beneath his skin. ‘Damn him. This will work. My mother will be so distressed that she’ll agree to leaving. Cosette will be reinstalled and Edouard will go back to being placed in front of a television every waking minute.’

‘And you?’ she asked softly. They were climbing stairs now, the grand staircase, and Raoul was taking them three steps at a time. ‘You’ll go back to Somalia, to your medicine.’ She hesitated. ‘Raoul, if you’d succeeded in marrying Sarah…what then?’

‘I’d have allowed Cosette to stay until Edouard got some sort of link established with my mother,’ Raoul snapped. ‘Then I’d have asked her to leave. More. I’d have sacked the parliament…’

‘Can you do that?’

‘I’d have had the constitutional power call a general election,’ he told her. ‘And I’d have had the power to oversee that it was fair, as no election has been in the history of this country. Marcel’s appalling friends would be out on their ear and they know it. But it’s not possible.’ He reached the top of the stairs and headed left. ‘Sarah was our last chance. Now it’s over. If Edouard’s distraught then there’s nothing for it. We’ll have to hand over straight away. Give him back his precious Cosette.’

‘But how can you do that? Cosette mustn’t care too much for him if she’s prepared to abandon him as she did tonight.’

‘But she’ll have him permanently from Monday,’ Raoul said savagely. ‘Making him suffer for the next few days achieves nothing. Nobody cares about Edouard and the damnable thing is that there’s not one thing I can do about it. You know…’ He hesitated, waiting for her to catch up and she had to puff a bit to do so. ‘People have pitied me because I’ve been the second son and didn’t stand to inherit the throne. If they only knew.’

He strode on and all she could do was follow.

Finally he paused. At the end of a long corridor there was a pair of baize doors. He hesitated-once more waiting for her to catch up-and then he threw them wide.

‘Welcome to hell,’ he said enigmatically and stood aside for her to enter.

This, then, was the nursery. It must be a quarter of a mile from the main rooms, Jess thought. It was as far away from the main apartments as it was possible to be. If the little boy’s parents had lived in this castle it must have been a ten-minute trek for them to reach him.

Maybe they’d rarely made the trek.

The suite was opulent. That was hardly surprising-everything in this castle was opulent. But this was more than opulent. Some designer somewhere had obviously been given a brief to turn this into a child’s fantasy and they’d done just that.

There seemed to be a number of rooms. There was a huge one, the one they’d just entered, with smaller rooms leading off at the side.

The main room was set up as a jungle.

Nothing had been spared. No cost. No flight of imagination. No impingement to copying reality. The setting seemed straight out of Kipling’s Jungle Book, Jess thought, staring round in incredulity.

There were vast tree trunks-real-and artificial hanging vines. There were stuffed monkeys in the branches. There were snakes slithering down from the trees, stars were painted on the high ceiling, the stars were twinkling through the trees-though dark clouds hovered to the side of the crescent moon as if a giant storm was about to sweep through. Underneath lay a lush green grass-carpet, higher than her ankles.

It was so real that she felt like lifting her feet gingerly in case of snakes.

There was a clearing mid-jungle, where two huge beanbags lay, and here was the only discordant note. In front of the beanbags was a television. A huge television. And on the screen…

‘It’s Extreme Makeover.’ Jess stared at the screen in disbelief as some unfortunate larger-than-life woman was having a knife applied to her fatty abdomen. Liposuction? She closed her eyes and turned away.

‘Your nurse and your nephew have been watching Extreme Makeover?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t believe it.’

Raoul strode forward and flicked it off. Fast. The fatty abdomen faded to nothing. ‘I’d imagine it’s just Cosette who’s been watching,’ he said but his tone was defensive. Maybe justifiably. Maybe she had sounded accusatory.

‘So where’s Edouard?’ she asked. ‘If he’s not learning how to liposuck.’

He glowered at her.

‘Just asking.’ She gazed around her in growing anger and decided accusations were well-justified. ‘You’re a doctor. Maybe you got to watch liposuction at three as well. Maybe that’s why you’re a doctor now.’

His glower deepened. ‘There’s no need to get on your high horse. Cosette says he’s always sound asleep after six. She says we just disturb him if we come after that. And he gets upset if we come early in the mornings. He sleeps until late.’

‘I’ll bet he does,’ Jess muttered. ‘What sort of three-year-old sleeps more than twelve hours at a stretch? None that I know of. So that’s why Louise sat with me in the evenings and mornings. She wasn’t permitted here. But to be locked out by a servant? You know, if I was a nurse who liked my television, that’s what I might tell the family as well. Don’t come bothering me in the evenings. Or the mornings. Leave me to do what I want with my charge. Or leave me to watch television while I ignore my charge.’

Raoul’s face darkened, as well it might. This was none of her business, Jess told herself. She had no right to vent her anger.

There was no way she could stop herself.

‘You must understand that we’ve come into this as strangers,’ Raoul said heavily, defensively. ‘Until a month ago we had no contact with Edouard at all. Cosette is his only stability and we’ve had to respect that.’

‘Yeah.’ Jess was feeling more and more confused. She gazed up at the snake above her head. ‘I accept that you’ve been trying-but you have a way to go. Whoever designed this place was sick.’

‘It’s a nursery.’

‘No. It’s an adventure playground, great for a brave ten-year-old with playmates and loving parents. But for a three-year-old here on his own… Every time he comes out here he’s got a ruddy great boa constrictor hanging over his head, waiting to pounce.’

‘Look, maybe I don’t like it myself,’ Raoul conceded, his tone almost as angry as hers. ‘But it’s all he knows. When my mother and I came here two weeks ago we talked to a child psychologist. She says it’s important he stays with the familiar for as long as possible.’

‘That’s right,’ Jess snapped, and she couldn’t keep sarcasm out of her voice. ‘Keep to the familiar. Cosette, who watches Extreme Makeover while she’s child-minding, and boa constrictors waiting to attack at any minute. I don’t know who your psychologist was but I beg to disagree.’

‘Look, who are you to-?’

She wasn’t going there. ‘I’m no one,’ she snapped. ‘No one at all. If you knew how much I didn’t want to do this…’ She took a deep breath. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’ll be asleep.’ He motioned to the door on the left and Jess turned.

But she hesitated.

There was a part of her-a really big part-that was screaming not to go any further.

But there was a child through this door who was three years old. Three. Orphaned. Alone. With boa constrictors for company and Extreme Makeover on television and a child psychologist with rocks in her head.

Maybe Raoul was right, she told herself desperately. Maybe the psychologist was right. She’d walk in there and he’d be asleep. Peacefully. Everything would be fine. He’d be stronger than she had imagined.

OK, so go in there, she told herself. Don’t hesitate. She could see for herself that he was fine, she could ease her stupid qualms, and tomorrow she could leave. The worst thing that could happen here was that Raoul and his mother would have to cope with a distraught child for a few days. Cosette would take over next Monday and things would settle for this child as they’d been settled since he was born.

The child had nothing to do with her.

She glanced again at Raoul. His face was a mix of anger and doubt.

Doubt?

He was as unsure as she was, she thought.

It was enough. Before she could go any further down the introspection path-which was getting her exactly nowhere-she walked across to open the bedroom door.

There was a nightlight in the corner, lighting the room enough to see.

Edouard wasn’t asleep at all.

The little boy was curled tightly in the far corner of his too-big bed. His eyes were wide and wakeful. He was all eyes, she thought. All scared eyes.

He was as fair as his big uncle was dark, with wispy white-blond curls, skin that was almost translucent and huge brown eyes that all but enveloped his tiny face. He lay staring at the open door, his face tight with anxiety.

Why wouldn’t you be anxious in this bed? Jess thought, stunned at what she saw. The boa constrictor had triggered her anger and this scene was doing nothing to calm it.

The little boy’s bed was a bed built for a crown prince, not for a baby, and he took up about two per cent of it. There was not a toy in sight. The starched white top sheet was stretched tightly over his chin-there was miles of sheeting, stretched so tight it almost seemed to cut into his chin. The royal insignia was embroidered on the side of the sheet, making the little boy seem even more insignificant. The bed was made with hospital corners, not a crease in sight.

He lay rigid and expressionless. As Jess took a tentative step toward him, he flinched.

Three-year-olds didn’t flinch, Jess thought in incredulity. Unless…maybe someone had yelled. She glanced out through the jungle to the television and a likely scenario presented itself: You be quiet or else.

She was being fanciful.

But she watched the terror grow in these huge brown eyes and she knew she wasn’t being fanciful at all. This child was nowhere near sleep. He was wide awake but the lack of creases in the bedclothes said that he hadn’t moved a muscle in the crazy, too-big bed since he’d been put there.

Since when? Six o’clock was his bedtime, Raoul had said. Three hours ago?

Raoul had walked in behind her. The child’s eyes moved past Jess to his uncle, and to her relief there was a faint lessening of the terror. It was as if he already knew that when this man was around he wouldn’t be yelled at.

‘You’re not asleep,’ Raoul said softly. ‘Hi, Edouard. This is Jessie.’

No response.

‘Pick him up,’ Jess urged. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, he looks terrified.’

‘If I pick him up he cries,’ Raoul told her. ‘The same with my mother.’

‘So what does he do when you don’t pick him up?’ she snapped. ‘Does Cosette pick him up?’

‘Sure she does.’

‘Does she cuddle him? Have you seen her?’

‘No, but-’

‘Have you seen her take him outside?’ she demanded. ‘Have you seen her play with him?’

‘He has his schedule. We don’t interfere.’

Jess took a deep breath. Another. She should get out of here. She should run.

Edouard’s eyes were on her face again. Watchful. Filled with apprehension.

He was thinking that she was yet another babysitter, she thought. Another servant paid to look after him.

She stared down at him in dismay. His hair was just like…

No.

But right then, right as she made the comparison, she knew it was too late. There’d been a connection and she couldn’t break it now.

She walked forward and scooped the little boy out of his bed, mussing his bedclothes in the process. Ignoring the way his body turned rigid. Ignoring the tension that said he was about to open his mouth and wail.

He was thin, she thought. Far too thin. He was dressed in rich-red pyjamas, with that crazy insignia on the jacket. Ridiculous.

She hauled him against her breast. He jerked back, ramrod stiff, and his eyes moved frantically. He opened his mouth, prepared to wail.

‘Hey, it’s OK, Edouard,’ she whispered and she plonked herself down on the crazy, too-big bed. She placed her finger on his lips. ‘You’re not to cry. There’s no need.’ She looked up at Raoul. ‘You know Raoul. You know your uncle. I’m his friend, Jess.’

‘Cosette,’ he whispered, his bottom lip quivering in fear. ‘I want Cosette.’

‘Cosette had to leave in a hurry,’ she told him and her arms held him close. Stiff or not, she held him hard against her body, imparting warmth. ‘But that’s all right because your uncle Raoul’s here and he’s your family. Your grandma’s here, too. Shall I call her?’

The eyes didn’t register a thing.

‘Do you have a teddy?’ she demanded and once more there was no expression at all. The child’s eyes said he was expecting nothing. Any minute he might cry but even that required emotion he wasn’t sure he was prepared to commit.

‘He’s got so many stuffed toys I can’t count,’ Raoul said ruefully. He motioned out to the jungle, where monkeys, elephants, giraffes, snakes, every imaginable stuffed toy was set up in among the carefully orchestrated décor.

‘I don’t mean decorations,’ Jess said scornfully. ‘I mean a teddy. A friend. I know exactly who you need.’ She looked up at Raoul. ‘Uncle Raoul, we need an adventure leader,’ she told him. ‘Edouard’s not the least bit ready to go to sleep, are you, Edouard?’

There was just the faintest, almost imperceptible shake of a blond head. His lips were still quivering, but clearly anything might prove better than lying in this bed.

‘OK. I have a sore shoulder and your uncle Raoul is very strong,’ Jess told him. ‘Raoul, your nephew needs a piggyback.’

‘A piggyback,’ Raoul said, as if she might be losing her mind.

‘Turn around,’ she ordered. She stood up, still holding Edouard close. ‘Edouard, do you know what a piggyback is?’

Another shake of the head, more definite this time.

‘Just think of your uncle Raoul as a two-legged horse,’ she told him. ‘I put you on his back-like this.’ She swung him against Raoul’s broad back. ‘You hang on round his neck as hard as you can. Uncle Raoul will hold you underneath. Raoul,’ she ordered, ‘hang on to Edouard underneath.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Raoul told her and hung on to Edouard underneath.

But Edouard didn’t hang on. He pulled back, fearful.

‘I don’t want to,’ he whispered.

‘You know, your uncle Raoul makes a very good horse,’ Jess told him, deliberately misunderstanding his fear. ‘And you don’t want to go to sleep yet, do you?’

‘N…no.’ An almost inaudible whisper.

‘Well, then.’ She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She simply wound his tiny arms around his uncle’s neck and then she stepped back.

He hung on.

‘Excellent,’ she told them both. ‘Follow me.’

‘Where to?’ Raoul asked.

‘It’s an adventure,’ she told him. ‘We’re off to meet a bear. A little bear. A friend bear for Edouard.’ She took a deep breath and tried to swallow pain. ‘Someone who…someone who needs Edouard as much as Edouard needs him. Ready?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Then gee-up,’ she told him. ‘Pronto.’ She led the way, glancing at the jungle with repugnance as she passed through. ‘We’ll get those snakes out of these trees before you come back here,’ she told Edouard as Raoul had to duck to avoid a couple of particularly long and vicious fangs. ‘Things are going to change. You wait and see. Just follow.’

And she took off down the corridor, leaving two very confused princes to follow.

She took them to her apartment.

Edouard didn’t say a word the whole way and neither did Raoul. It was as if they were both stunned.

In truth, so was Jess. What she was doing seemed crazy, but she no longer had a choice. If she walked away she’d regret it and she already had enough regrets to last a lifetime.

Her apartments were better than Edouard’s, she decided when they reached her rooms. Sure, her rooms were still opulent but they were much more cheerful. The nursery must have been warmed by some form of central heating. Here there was a fire in the grate. Jess had lain on the bed this afternoon and the covers were rumpled and cushions were scattered. There were magazines on the floor and Louise had put a vase of random, cottage-type flowers in a vase by her bed.

After Edouard’s decorator nursery, this looked almost homey.

She led them into her bedroom. ‘Take a seat,’ she told Raoul and he sat on the bed, gingerly, with Edouard still clutched firmly to his neck.

‘You’re stopped,’ she told them kindly. ‘You can readjust. It gets pretty uncomfortable to keep piggybacking in the sitting position. Edouard’s allowed to sit on your lap now.’

‘My lap?’ Raoul said, sounding French, and Jess grinned.

‘Your knee. I guess princes of the blood don’t have laps. Edouard, would you like some lemonade?’

Edouard looked astounded.

‘We’ll all have lemonade,’ she decreed. There was a small refrigerator in her sitting room. She went out and poured three glasses of lemonade and returned to find Edouard sitting on Raoul’s…knee.

They both looked so apprehensive that she giggled.

‘Hey, I don’t bite,’ she said and handed over the glasses.

Edouard stared into his glass in absolute suspicion.

‘There are bubbles?’ he whispered and there was another shock. A royal prince reaching three years old without meeting lemonade?

‘Sure there are bubbles,’ she said, trying not to get choked up. ‘They tickle your nose. Try it.’

Edouard glanced at his uncle. Raoul smiled and drank some of his.

Edouard stared at Jess, who drank some of hers.

He hesitated-and then he took a sip.

His eyes widened. He took another sip. And another.

It had been a test, Jess thought, letting breath out that she didn’t know she’d been holding. And they’d just passed.

‘I like it,’ he said, on a long note of discovery, and Jess grinned.

‘Me, too. What about you, Uncle Raoul?’

‘Me, too,’ he said definitely and he smiled-and suddenly they were grinning at each other like fools again, and that crazy twist inside her that she’d been trying to put aside all evening slammed back so hard that her breathing got tricky.

She wasn’t sure how to manage this breathing business. What was going on?

‘Um…teddy,’ she managed, but Raoul was still smiling at her and it took all the strength she possessed to break contact.

‘Teddy?’ he said, softly, almost wonderingly, and she knew that whatever was twisting her insides was having a similar effect on him.

She ignored it. Or she tried to ignore it. She walked over to the wardrobe where her suitcase lay stored in its cavernous depths. She knew exactly where Teddy was. In a moment she had him out, and was walking back to the bed.

Dammit, she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.

She reached the bed, and she held out one small bear.

‘Edouard, this is Sebastian,’ she told him. She crouched down so her eyes were on a level with Edouard’s. Raoul had him on his knee so she was almost touching his legs. It was a crazily intimate setting. But then, it was a crazily intimate gesture.

It might not work. It might be stupid. What made her think so strongly that it was the right thing to do? That Dom would have wanted this…?

‘Edouard, Sebastian is a very old bear,’ she told him. ‘He was my bear when I was a little girl, and then he belonged to a little boy called Dominic. Dominic can’t look after him any more, and for the past few weeks he’s been sitting in the bottom of my suitcase. But that’s a very sad place for a special bear to be. He’s been lonely and he badly wants a friend. Would you like Sebastian, Edouard?’

Edouard considered. His small face was intent, as if knowing instinctively that this was a very serious charge.

Sebastian lay in Jess’s hands. He’d been patched and re-patched. His eyes didn’t quite match. His nose was fraying, and one leg was very much shorter than the other. He gazed out at the world with world-weary, crooked eyes and a crooked little smile that had been stitched and re-stitched but had never stopped smiling in all the years of his life.

He was one special bear.

Jess held him out, and she felt her gut wrench as she did so. But it felt right. It felt…fine.

She looked up into Edouard’s face and she saw the intent look he was giving Sebastian and she thought, yep, here was his home.

‘He looks sad,’ Edouard said even though the little bear was smiling.

‘He’s been in the bottom of a suitcase in my cupboard,’ Jess told him. ‘He’s been very lonely. He needs a friend.’

‘Sebastian needs me?’ His voice was too old for his years, Jess thought, and more and more she knew this was the right thing to do.

‘I guess he does,’ she told him and waited while Edouard considered some more. Finally, he reached out a finger and touched the ragged nose.

Then very carefully, as if Sebastian might break at any minute, he accepted him into his hold. He held him at arm’s length for a long minute-and then hauled him in closer. Protectively.

‘He doesn’t have any clothes,’ he whispered. ‘He’s sad because he doesn’t have anything to wear.’

‘Do you think so?’ Raoul was smiling. She noticed his smile, and even more she thought, this felt good. Very good. And not just for Edouard. The wash of grey fog she’d been living in for the last few months had lifted. Just a bit. Just a fraction, like the sun glimmering out from the clouds, but the sun was on her face and she felt, for this magic moment, a shard of glorious freedom. And she intended to pursue it for all it was worth.

‘We could make him some trousers,’ she said, and her two princes looked puzzled.

‘Now?’ Edouard whispered and she nodded.

‘Now.’

‘How?’ Raoul demanded, surprised out of his sideline role.

She smiled. ‘Magic. Watch.’ She disappeared back to her wardrobe, to her suitcase, then returned carrying a frame-a tiny loom already threaded with black warp thread. She also carried a handful of brightly coloured balls.

‘We’ll start from the ground up,’ she told the boys. ‘I have this set up so I can try out various yarns for effect. Raoul, set Edouard down. There’s work to be done.’

She dropped her balls at her feet and skeins of brightly coloured yarn rolled over the imperial carpet. These were amazing skeins, carefully collected from one producer, each one sourced and labelled. At this one place Jess had visited before her accident she’d known she’d been right to come. Alp’Azuri was a weaver’s paradise.

The balls were unique, vibrant colours and amazing textures. Magic. She’d produced only the coarser of her selection-there was no time for fine weaving now-but the coarser ones were magic enough.

She knelt on the carpet, setting her frame on the floor.

‘I need you to choose four skeins for the cross thread-the weft,’ she told the boys. ‘If we’re to do trousers tonight we can’t work with any more. Edouard, can you count to four?’

Edouard was clutching Sebastian tightly. He climbed down from Raoul’s lap and he held up four fingers.

‘Un, deux, trois, quatre.’

Jess beamed. This tiny man-child was turning more and more into a child as she watched. ‘I usually say one, two, three, four because I’m Australian,’ she told him. ‘Sebastian is Australian, too. But he’s a fast learner. I bet you he understands you right now. OK, choose…what do you say? Un, deux, trois, quatre balls so we can make cloth for Sebastian’s trousers.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier if we cut up a sheet or something?’ Raoul ventured and he was given a pitying look for his pains.

‘Trousers? From a sheet? Would you wear trousers made from a sheet?’

‘Maybe not,’ he said faintly and she grinned.

‘There you go, then. Sebastian deserves splendid trousers and that’s what we’ll make him. All hands on deck.’

‘I don’t understand all hands on deck,’ Edouard complained and she grinned still more.

‘It means I’m the captain and I’m saying we have work to do. I’ve never had two princes to boss around before but I’m bossing now. Work. Now.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Raoul told her and she smiled up at him.

Damn, there was that gut-twisting sensation that was threatening to spiral out of control.

She had work to do.

She couldn’t keep smiling at Raoul forever.

No matter how much she wanted to.