Princess Of Convenience

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEY drove away, stunned. Or Raoul was probably stunned, Jess thought. She definitely was.

Princess Jessica.

The name drifted in her head as they turned toward the town boundaries, and then started up the mountainside to where the fairy-tale castle nestled on an eyrie that looked out over all the land to the sea beyond. Over all this principality.

She was a princess. Going home to her castle.

She choked back laughter.

‘What?’ Raoul asked. He seemed to be deep in thought-or maybe he was just concentrating on the winding road.

‘Do you think people will find out?’

‘That we’re married? Of a surety they’ll find out. They must. Hopefully the fuss will wait until you’re safely out of the country, but our marriage will have major consequences for everyone here.’

‘I meant…back in Australia,’ she said in a small voice. The enormity of what she’d done was just hitting home. She’d proposed to a prince and she’d married him. She thought back to her workrooms, where her staff were hopefully beavering away producing her latest designs. She might have a loyal staff but they weren’t exactly deferential.

Princess Jessica. They’d think it was fantastic. Fantastic and very, very funny.

‘My staff will give me heaps,’ she said ruefully.

‘Give you heaps?’

‘They’ll tease me into the middle of next week.’

‘You can always sack them.’

‘Oh, yeah, right. That’s me. Princess Jessica sacking her staff because they’re teasing her.’ The feeling of unreality faded a little and she chuckled out loud. ‘I’d like to see it. Besides, I’ve been transformed into a princess, not a wicked witch. You have your fairy tales mixed.’

‘It seems so unreal?’

‘It certainly does,’ she told him. ‘Bring on your magic wands. I can’t believe this is happening. And tomorrow or the next day I have to get on the plane and go home, transforming back into being just me. A nine-to-five existence is going to seem crazy after this.’

He looked across at her curiously.

‘You know, there’s no need for you to continue with a nine-to-five existence,’ he said gently. ‘You’ll never have to work again.’

That silenced her. She worked at it for a minute, considering his statement from all angles, but any way she looked at it it didn’t make sense.

‘Pardon?’

‘As my wife, you’ll receive a more than generous income from the royal exchequer.’ He rounded a particularly tight bend and concentrated on straightening the car. ‘You needn’t worry about the morality of accepting it,’ he told her. ‘The people aren’t taxed to pay your income. This royal family has wealth which goes back hundreds of years. You’re very well provided for.’

Whoa. ‘I’m not,’ she said flatly. ‘The idea’s ridiculous.’

‘You’ve done the country a service,’ he said, just as flatly. ‘You deserve to be compensated.’

‘I told you,’ she said, and she couldn’t keep the surge of anger from her voice, ‘I’m the owner of Waves. I’m very nicely off, thank you very much, and I have no intention of taking any of your money. Or any of your exchequer’s money, whatever an exchequer is. People would say I married you for your wealth and there’s no way I want part of that. And you can forget the princess thing. A princess can’t be an Australian fashion designer. Princess Jessica sounds like some type of Kewpie doll, or a little girl’s fashion label. How much respect would I get with a name like that?’

He smiled. ‘A great deal of respect.’

‘Not in the circles I move in.’ She folded her arms and looked grumpily ahead. ‘No way.’

‘Jess,’ he said, gently into the silence, ‘you’ve pushed me to be Prince Raoul. Your conditions stipulate that I stay here-stay in the royal goldfish bowl. I can’t escape royalty. You’re either royal or you’re not. We’re both royal, from this day forth.’

‘You didn’t make any such stipulation,’ she told him. ‘And don’t go doing the injustice thing to me. You were born a prince. I was born a nice little commoner and that’s the way I intend to stay.’

‘So you’ll return to Australia with nothing.’

‘With a certificate saying I have a very good-looking husband. With the satisfaction of having a really cute step-nephew who’s being raised by people who love him. And,’ she told him-giving him the most virtuous smirk she could manage, ‘I have the truly noble gift of having saved a man by marriage. Saved a prince by marriage. How many girls can add that to their curriculum vitae?’

He chuckled. To her amazement he chuckled. It was the nicest sound, she decided. The best.

‘OK,’ he conceded, when laughter faded. ‘It’s a job well done. And it is a job well done, Jess.’

‘Yep. So we’ll get this consummation business over tonight and tomorrow I can leave,’ she said promptly, and the smile which still lingered at the corners of his mouth disappeared. His brow furrowed. Royalty was displeased?

‘Why so soon?’

‘I need to be back.’

‘You were here on a buying trip. You’ve done virtually no buying.’

She hesitated. Say it like it is, a little voice told her-so she did.

‘It’s not just wanting to avoid fuss,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t want to get any more fond of Edouard.’

Or of his uncle, she added, but she didn’t say that.

A thousand women? There was no way she intended becoming number one thousand and one.

‘I’m not sure you can leave tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘There’ll be formalities. I need to consult the lawyers.’

‘Raoul, you can stay in my room tonight,’ she said generously. ‘Have as many people outside as you like so we prove the marriage is consummated. We’ll stuff a tissue in the keyhole and you sleep on the settee. You can even stick an X-rated video on the telly if you like so our audience can have some sound effects. I’ll close the bedroom door and won’t listen.’

‘Um…’ he said faintly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Think nothing of it. That’ll be the formalities over, but that’s it. We’re free to spend the rest of our wedded bliss safely on separate sides of the world.’

‘Seriously, Jess…’

‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘Seriously it’s best this way. I leave here fast before there are any complications.’

‘And you want nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Jess, I can’t let you…’

But she was no longer listening. She was staring ahead. There was a farmer walking steadily along on the verge. He was leading…

‘Alpacas,’ she breathed, suddenly totally distracted. ‘Oh, Raoul, look at that.’

Three alpacas.

One large alpaca being led by a harness.

Two tiny alpacas, stumbling along behind.

‘What the…?’ He pulled the car to a halt, but she was out of the car before it had stopped.

Alpacas?

Raoul parked the van safely far off the road and emerged to find his bride crouched on the roadside. She was examining alpaca babies. Crias. One white. One brown.

Alpacas were the weirdest animals, he thought as he walked back along the verge. Crias-baby alpacas-were even more weird than their adult counterparts. They seemed a cross between a camel and a goat, and their faces looked as if they’d come straight off the pages of a comic book. They were quizzical, comical and very, very cute.

The sight of them brought back a rush of memories-of the time before his family had been ripped apart. Lisle had loved alpacas, he remembered. She’d had a pet one…

This day was turning into an emotional roller coaster. He took a grip-sort of-and attempted to move on.

‘Jess, we can’t stay here. It’s not a safe place to park.’

‘These are suri,’ she told him, without looking up from admiring the babies. ‘Do you know how rare these are?’ She beamed up at the man leading the adult alpaca. ‘You have twins. A boy and a girl. They are twins?’ she asked him in his own language.

‘Yes.’ The man, an elderly farmer, dressed rough, seemed less than enchanted with his babies. ‘Twins.’

She didn’t notice his disenchantment. ‘Twins are about a one in fifty thousand chance in alpacas,’ she told Raoul. ‘What a blessing. And different colours…’ She sat back on the grassy verge, smiling in delight. Their tiny faces peered back at her and she fondled each face in turn. ‘What are you calling them?’ she asked.

‘A nuisance.’ Like Raoul, the farmer didn’t seem to want to stop. ‘Miss…’ He glanced up at Raoul, as if asking for help.

But then he froze. His face stilled in recognition.

‘Your Highness.’ His voice was a gasp and there was something else besides shock there. Fear? ‘Prince Raoul?’ he stammered.

It was definitely fear. This wasn’t the first time he’d met fear when the locals recognised him, Raoul thought bitterly, momentarily diverted from Jess and her alpacas. His brother and his father had done some real damage. For this man to be afraid…

This had repercussions for the whole country. The population had been betrayed by their royal family and by their government. He closed his eyes as the realisation sank in one stage deeper. Jess was right in imposing her conditions. She might be able to walk away from this country, but he couldn’t.

He was trapped.

He was also stuck at this roadside while his bride patted alpacas-and with the local farmer looking as if he was expecting to be shot for blocking the road.

He wasn’t even blocking the road.

‘Yes, I’m Prince Raoul,’ he managed. ‘Relax. I’m not about to bite.’ He smiled down at the crias-even though the last thing he wanted to do was smile at alpaca babies. On top of everything else, there was a bit of domesticity happening here that he wasn’t too sure about. Watching Jess cuddle babies of any sort… There was gut clenching going on inside him that he didn’t want to think about.

‘Where are you taking them?’ he asked, trying to sound formal. Even prince-like. Royalty taking a benign interest in the peasantry.

He didn’t get it right. The man looked astonished. Jess flashed him a glance that was almost amused and he thought: OK, maybe I don’t have the royal thing down pat yet. There had to be a level between fear and bemusement. It needed work.

He could work on it better if Jess wasn’t looking at him like…like…

‘I’m taking them to the market,’ the man said, but there was still caution behind his eyes as if he was afraid Raoul might turn on him at any moment.

‘You’re selling them?’ Jess asked, diverted from Raoul. She looked up at the adult alpaca-who looked indifferently over her head out to sea-and then she looked at the babies again. ‘You breed them?’

‘Yes. I sell the fibre.’

‘I know the suri fibre,’ Jess said warmly. ‘It’s one of the reasons I came here. It’s fabulous.’ She frowned, fingering the babies’ coats. ‘These babies have the most beautiful fleece I’ve ever seen.’ She twisted up to look at Raoul, explaining. ‘Suri fleece is known throughout the world for its softness and its lustre. It just shines. And this is the best.’ She went back to examining the babies, her frown deepening as she took in exactly what she was looking at. ‘Surely these babies have the very best fleece,’ she told the man. ‘Why aren’t you keeping them?’

‘Ask Angel,’ he said bitterly, and turned and spat over the cliff.

‘Angel?’

‘The mother.’ The farmer poked the adult alpaca with a gentle nudge that spoke of exasperated affection. ‘Angel had one baby and was only a little interested. Maybe I could have encouraged her to take it. But then she had the second and she turned away as if it was all too much trouble. I’ve tried and tried to get her to suckle but to no effect. And I’ve promised my wife that we can go down to Cieste to stay with our daughter, who’s due to have a baby herself. Now we have these two to care for. Angel won’t feed them. I won’t be here to hand-raise them and I can’t afford anyone to do it for me. So I’ll sell them.’

‘And what about Angel?’ Jess sounded confused.

‘I’ve brought her with me so the babies will walk behind,’ the man said. ‘I can’t carry them down to the market and I can no longer afford to keep a truck. They follow Angel. But I won’t sell Angel. She’ll come home with me and we’ll try again.’ He brightened a little. ‘She’s young. Maybe another year’s maturity will see her become a mother. And her fleece is wonderful.’

‘So the babies will be sold alone.’

‘Yes.’

‘If you sell them…they’ll be separated?’

‘Probably,’ the man told her.

‘And to walk to market…’ She stared down at the small animals in dismay. ‘It’s another two miles. They’re too little to walk that far.’

Uh-oh.

Raoul could see where this conversation was going. Raoul saw Jess look from the tiny, wobbly crias to the van and thought: Yep, definitely uh-oh.

And then he cheered up. It was a very good thing he was driving the gardener’s van rather than his really nice Lamborghini, he decided. He couldn’t see alpacas in a Lamborghini-but he just bet that Jess could.

Sure enough, she was turning from the van to him, looking up at him with eyes that were damn near as cute as the alpaca babies’. Maybe even cuter?

‘We can take them with us, can’t we, Raoul?’

‘They won’t all fit,’ Raoul told her. No way. Angel was taller than he was, and how did you get a dopey alpaca to duck its head? ‘We won’t get monsieur and his three alpacas in the van at once.’

‘But we need only take the twins.’

‘And come back for monsieur?’ If he sounded confused it was because he was confused.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘There’s no need.’ She turned back to the farmer. ‘Monsieur, if I buy your babies you won’t need to go to market.’

Silence.

‘You’re going to buy the alpaca babies?’ Raoul said cautiously.

‘Yes.’

‘Um…Jess, you’re going back to Australia.’

‘Yes, but these are the perfect gift for Edouard,’ she told him, obviously exasperated at his lack of instant comprehension. ‘Edouard doesn’t need a nursery full of stuffed boa constrictors. He needs friends. Alpacas are the nicest friends a little boy could have. If he bottle-feeds these two and you help him care for them, they’ll be his friends for life. And I’ll buy the fleece from him every year. It’s just the most wonderful solution for everyone.’

Yeah. Right.

There was only one problem. What had she said?

If you help him care for them…

‘We don’t want alpacas,’ Raoul said bluntly, and she eyed him in astonishment.

‘Why ever not?’

Why not? Hell, think of something. There were emotional chasms yawning all over the place.

‘Where would we keep them?’ OK, so it wasn’t a great try but it was the best he could do.

It didn’t cut the ice with Jess. She grinned. ‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous. You’re living in that grand palace. You have stables, and pastures and servants…’

‘We don’t have servants.’

‘For now because of that horrid man’s threats. But you will as soon as it’s known we’re married,’ she told him in English, beginning to sound exasperated. ‘Raoul, what are you saying? That Edouard can’t have these babies? You know how much he needs them.’

No, but I don’t, Raoul thought as he stared down at the roadside and watched this woman who was now his wife stroking the baby alpacas. Or I don’t want…

He didn’t know what he didn’t want.

Somalia was much less complicated than this, he decided. His head was starting to spin. Give him medicine and life-and-death drama any day.

The farmer had been watching the pair of them in increasing bemusement. The fear he’d shown as he’d first discovered Raoul’s identity had faded. He was obviously confused-but there was one important fact starting to emerge that he didn’t intend to lose sight of.

‘The lady wants to buy my twins?’ he asked, and Jess moved into action.

‘The lady definitely wants to buy your twins,’ she told him ‘How much?’

‘These are very rare. Very rare twins.’

‘Yes. How much?’

The man paused. He looked at Raoul to Jess and back again.

And he named a sum that made Raoul blink.

It didn’t make Jess blink. ‘I’ll pay it,’ Jess said, and she beamed and opened her handbag. ‘Oh, and I’ll give you my cell-phone number in case Angel changes her mind. I’ve heard of alpacas who finally decide they’re mothers after they’ve been separated. If that happens I don’t mind bringing them back and seeing if we can reunite them.’

‘Hey, wait a minute.’ Raoul thought about it and frowned. First there was the cost. Then there were other considerations. Lots of considerations.

He’d focus on the cost first. ‘Surely a couple of straggly little alpacas on bandy legs can’t be worth this much?’ he asked and got a derisive look from his new wife for his pains.

‘I’m not asking you to pay for them,’ she told him. ‘Though ten minutes ago you were telling me I could have an income for life. Just as well I didn’t take you up on it, eh? I might have discovered your ideas of income and mine are miles apart.’ She flicked through the contents of her bag and produced a cheque-book and pen. ‘And don’t cast aspersions on my babies,’ she told him as she wrote. ‘Bandy legs? Hmmph.’ She smiled back at the farmer. ‘Who do I make this out to?’

The farmer told her. His impatience was gone and he was beaming as happily as Jess was.

The only one not deeply satisfied with this arrangement was Raoul.

‘Australian cheques won’t work here,’ he said weakly-for want of anything else to say-and Jess gave him a look of pure pity.

‘I’m here on a buying expedition. If you think I’d come on a buying trip without local currency you’re not thinking straight.’ She smiled up at the farmer. ‘I’m sorry about my husband,’ she told him. ‘He’s being obtuse.’

‘Your…husband?’ the man said. He took the cheque Jess was proffering and he gazed at it in astonishment. But his face cleared as he read her name. ‘No. This is not the royal name,’ he said. He glanced across to Raoul, man to man, dealing with the vagaries of womenfolk. ‘She’s made a mistake, no?’

‘About the alpacas?’ Raoul told him. ‘Yes. She definitely has made a mistake.’

‘I have not made a mistake about the alpacas,’ Jess said, indignant, but the man wasn’t listening.

‘About you being her husband?’

‘I…no.’ Hell, what else was he to say?

‘You’re married?’ The farmer’s face was a montage of emotion, changing minute by minute. ‘This woman is your wife?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But your fiancée died.’ The farmer’s thoughts were obviously racing as he tried to work things out. ‘All was lost. This is the Australian woman who was in the accident, no?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this woman says you are her husband?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re married to this woman?’ he said, insisting on getting this point clear.

Jess was no longer listening. She’d moved on. She was lifting the littlest alpaca across into the van. Put it in the back, Raoul thought, but no, of course she wouldn’t do anything so logical. She was opening the passenger door and popping it onto her seat.

‘Yes,’ said Raoul, distracted. ‘For my sins, I’ve married her. Jess, for God’s sake, don’t put them on the upholstery.’

‘I’ll cuddle them,’ she said. ‘They’re too little to stay in the back. They’ll slide everywhere and they’ll fall over. Look at their wobbly legs.’

‘I bet they’re not housetrained.’

She grinned. ‘Just lucky the van isn’t a house, then.’ She returned and stooped to lift up the next cria. ‘What am I going to call you?’ she demanded of the second baby-a tiny chocolate alpaca with a face like Mickey Rooney’s.

‘Balthazar,’ Raoul said weakly-and he knew he was lost right then.

‘Balthazar.’ She paused and gazed up at him in astonishment. ‘Why Balthazar?’

‘After…after an alpaca I once knew.’ An alpaca who looked like Mickey Rooney.

‘You’ve known an alpaca?’

‘Lisle…’

Her face changed, just like that. Crumpled. Her eyes creased into distress. ‘Lisle. Oh, Raoul, of course. What have I done? If you really don’t want them…’

She understood. He stared down at her as she knelt, gathering the second cria into her arms and looking up at him in distress, and he thought, She understands.

He didn’t do emotion. He didn’t need this empathy bit. And he didn’t want her to look at him like this.

The last thing he wanted from this woman was sympathy. It did something to him, something he wasn’t sure he could handle.

Or maybe he was sure he couldn’t handle it.

‘I’ll buy them now, but I’ll find someone else who can keep them,’ she was saying, immeasurably distressed. ‘If they’re going to cause you sadness then of course you won’t want them up at the castle. There are weavers down in the valley who’d love to take these on. I can pay for their keep. I won’t-’

‘Just put them in the van, Jess,’ he said, trying for dryness, but her look of distress intensified.

‘Look, if you don’t want to do even that much I’ll understand. I can call a taxi.’

‘A taxi? Here? And for non-housetrained alpacas?’

‘I’ll pay more for cleaning.’ She jutted her chin. ‘Raoul, I don’t want to hurt you.’

And there it was. A declaration, just like that. Raoul, I don’t want to hurt you.

What was she doing right now, by looking at him like this?

Get a grip.

‘Look, this is dumb,’ he told her. ‘Of course we can keep them. And you’re right. Edouard will love them.’

‘But if they remind you of Lisle…’

‘Maybe I need to be reminded of Lisle.’ He caught himself, tried to rethink-but he knew that he was right. ‘Maybe Lisle would tell me to get over it.’

She looked up at him, uncertain. ‘Lisle would want you to take these home?’

‘I guess she would.’ He managed a smile, albeit a lopsided one. ‘OK, I know she would. Even if I was driving the Lamborghini.’

That diverted her. ‘You drive a Lamborghini?’

‘Not when I’m transporting alpacas.’

She stared, seemingly dumbfounded. ‘My husband drives a Lamborghini,’ she said at last, and her look of sympathy was replaced by awe. And, amazingly, laughter. It was always there, Raoul thought, dazed. Ready to flash out at any opportunity. Life had kicked her round but still she laughed. ‘Ooh, I so want Cordelia to know this.’ She chuckled, including them all in her laughter. ‘Cordelia is my cousin,’ she told the farmer. ‘She thinks she’s the ant’s pants because her husband drives a Porsche.’

‘Ant’s pants?’ said the farmer. He sounded as dazed as Raoul was.

‘Jess,’ Raoul managed, trying desperately to get back on track. The world seemed to be spinning and he felt dangerously close to falling off. ‘Leave the explanations. Just get the babies into the van.’

‘She is your wife,’ the farmer said, abandoning distractions and getting back to basics as well. To what was important.

They should have swapped to speaking English, Raoul thought ruefully. But Jess was fluent; they’d been speaking to the farmer in his own language and it would have seemed rude to swap. But now…he’d heard every word. Including ant’s pants. And including the rest.

‘I remember the Princess Lisle,’ the farmer said, softly as if he was remembering something that gave him pleasure. ‘You know…’ he looked at Raoul, obviously trying to see in him the child that he’d once been ‘…you and your sister were born two days after my own daughter was born. My wife was so upset when they said the little girl-your sister-had problems. And then the old prince sent you away.’

‘We need to get on,’ Raoul said, more roughly than he intended, and the man beamed.

‘Of course you do. You’re taking the crias to the little prince?’

‘He needs them,’ Jess told the farmer and he nodded.

‘We were so afraid… We have all been so devastated that the Comte Marcel would get his hands on the little prince.’ He turned to Raoul, and his face revealed a mix of emotions that were clearly threatening to overwhelm him.

‘You married this woman so that Comte Marcel wouldn’t control the prince. So his grandmother could love him.’

There was only one answer to that. When the man looked at him like that…when he was feeling as he was feeling…

‘Yes,’ he said and the man blinked. He stood and stared at them for a long moment, and then he stared down at Jess.

Then he lifted the cheque and ripped it in two.

‘I’m not a wealthy man,’ he told them. ‘But you give me hope. How does that compare to the value of a cheque?’

‘Hey.’ Jess rose, still hugging her baby. ‘Monsieur, I wanted you to have that money,’ she told him. ‘Prince Raoul has enough. He even drives a Lamborghini.’

‘This money was yours.’

‘Now I feel like a rat,’ Raoul told them.

‘Good,’ Jess said. ‘Monsieur-’

‘I will not accept payment from you,’ the man said. ‘Not in a million years. Take these babies to the little prince, and God bless.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Jess said, clearly disconcerted. ‘You’re very good.’

‘It’s you who is good.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll take Angel home and maybe she will miss her babies and repent and maybe she won’t but even if she won’t I know they’ve gone to a noble cause.’

‘They’ll piddle on the van seats,’ Raoul said darkly but they were all smiling.

There was nothing left to do.

Jess loaded the second baby. She sat, overwhelmed by alpacas, smiling supremely, and once more Raoul steered the van toward the castle.

And on the road behind them the farmer smiled and smiled.

‘I have been very generous, no?’ he demanded of Angel, who was yet to notice that her babies had disappeared. ‘I have been wonderful. As this marriage is wonderful. But then, if this marriage is wonderful, why doesn’t the entire world know? And who is to tell them but me?’ He grinned. ‘I have been very wonderful but the fees for news stories are very, very excellent. I have, my Angel, what the world calls a scoop. Let’s see how fast we can walk to the nearest farmhouse. I need to make a very important phone call.’