Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother

CHAPTER SEVEN

AFTERWARDS-after a dinner where Kelly hadn’t appeared, pleading lack of appetite, when his mother had returned to the dower house, when Matty was well in bed, the servants had dispersed for the night and there seemed little risk of him being disturbed-Rafael wandered down to the stables. It was almost as if a magnet were pulling him. Matty’s conversation had stirred something within him that he’d thought he’d buried long since.

Riding was royal? He’d never thought of it as such. Riding was the thing he’d done with his father, an extension of his legs, a merging of himself and the wonderful animal beneath him.

Until that day…

He remembered it still in his dreams. Kass had been here with a group of his friends, and Rafael, at fifteen, had been home from boarding school. His parents had always been uneasy about him being here when Kass was home. As Rafael had been. He’d loathed his ego-driven cousin and he hadn’t needed his parents’ encouragement to steer clear of him.

On the last day of his holidays Rafael and his father had risen early, planning to ride up to the lower foothills where they could see the sun rise over the Alps. It was something they’d done every time Rafael left-a small personal ritual that both pretended meant little but in truth they’d both loved.

They’d set out in the pre-dawn dimness, walking their horses carefully through the woodland, speaking softly, half-awed by the early morning hush.

The shot had come from nowhere, zinging over the horses’ heads, terrifying in the stillness. Later, Rafael had found the track of the bullet in the hide of his father’s big gelding. The horse had been grazed across the neck. No wonder he’d reared, terrified, lunging backward, hurling his rider back with a savagery and ferocity no rider could cope with unprepared.

Rafael’s father had been thrown against the trunk of an oak, an unyielding, implacable barrier. A lower branch had ripped his face. The solid trunk had crushed his spine.

Rafael had him in his arms when Kass and his cronies had burst through the undergrowth. It seemed they’d been drinking all night and had decided bed was boring-they’d do a little pre-dawn hunting before sleeping off the drink. They had been mounted on the royal horses-horseflesh worth millions.

Each and every one of them had been carrying a loaded gun, but only Kass’s had been discharged. His friends had seemed appalled, but Kass had either been too drunk or too arrogant to care. He’d stared down at Rafael and his father and he’d sneered, ‘You ride in my woods, you expect what you get. Surely he should know how to hold his seat by now. That’s the commoner side of the family coming out.’

He’d turned his horse and cantered off, uncaring, leaving his companions, who had more conscience than he did, to cope with an almost fatally injured man and his distraught son.

It was the last time Rafael had been on a horse. The commoner side of him had decided right there that the non-royal part of him was the only side he cared about.

‘You hate them as much as I do,’ a soft voice said behind him and he whirled.

‘Kelly.’

‘Matty said he left his sweater here,’ she said. She hesitated and then walked forward to where a crimson sweater lay crumpled on the oat bin.

‘The servants would have fetched it.’

‘I don’t do servants.’ She lifted the sweater, holding it against her almost as a shield. She walked back towards the door, but then she turned.

‘Your mother told me you hate the horses,’ she murmured. She was standing in the doorway, a shadow against the moonlight outside. ‘She told me why.’

‘I don’t hate them. I just…don’t ride. And you?’

‘I don’t ride either.’

‘Crater said you do.’

‘Crater said I did. Past tense.’

‘You know why I don’t ride,’ he said, as a mare behind him nuzzled his hair, pressuring him to pay her attention. ‘That’s a bit lopsided.’

‘I used to love horses,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what got me into trouble.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t…’

‘Tell me, Kelly,’ he said urgently. There was a moment’s silence while she thought about it, and then she shrugged.

‘The morning after I met Kass…’ she ventured, not moving from her doorway. ‘That first day, he came out of the castle dressed like you were that day back at the gold-diggings. In his dress sword and medals. He looked gorgeous. He seemed angry-but then he seemed to change. He sat by me as I worked and he asked question after question, like he was fascinated. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me or my work. But he was and he took me out to dinner that night and I felt so special…you wouldn’t believe. He asked me to sleep with him-well, of course-but I had enough sense to hold back on that one. And then he asked me to ride at dawn.’

‘I…I see.’

‘Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,’ she said listlessly. ‘I was an only kid. My parents were academics-true academics-almost reclusive. My father had inherited enough to keep us financially secure, so they spent their lives studying. We lived in a house chock-full of books, as far from civilisation as it was possible to get while allowing for emergency dashes to get more books. Our cottage was on a hundred acres, near no one. I was an accident. The only reason I made it into the world was that my mother was so preoccupied with her studies she didn’t realize she was pregnant until it was too late to do anything about it. They barely tolerated me. Their only pleasure in me was the amount I could learn, and my only pleasure was horses.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘You can’t have a farm without animals,’ she said, talking flatly, as if it was a dreary little story that affected someone else-some stranger. ‘Or some method of keeping the grass down. My parents wanted the solitude but not the bother. So they rented the land to a local horse stud. There were horses everywhere. I loved them. The farmer’s name was Matt Fledgling and it’s no accident I agreed to call my son Matty for I’ll remember Matt with gratitude for ever. Anyway, when I was about eight and spending hour upon hour talking to horses that were three times as tall as me, Matt took pity on me and taught me to ride. From then on, Matt let me help exercise his stock. He said, rightly or wrongly, that I was doing him a favour. His horses were mostly gallopers, racehorses, thoroughbreds, and I loved them. So when Kass asked me to ride…Oh, I said yes, and he put me on a mare who was the most wonderful horse I’d ever ridden. We went high up into the Alps. I was showing off. I didn’t care. It was my skill, and I was with a prince who was taking notice of me, who was looking at me as if he thought I was beautiful. I can’t tell you what an aphrodisiac it was.

‘And then it all fell in a heap,’ she whispered. ‘My arrogance. My pride. My delight in showing off. Look where it got me. My parents said the only true friend anyone has is a book. Boring but dependable.’

‘Boring’s right,’ Rafael said and she cast an angry glance at him.

‘It’s my choice.’

‘It doesn’t have to keep being your choice.’

‘So what would you have me do?’ she demanded.

‘You might try being a human,’ he snapped. ‘Being a mother to your son.’

‘I am.’

‘You’re not. Bolting up to your garret whenever things get personal. Staying in the background like the good little girl your parents wanted you to become. They’ve succeeded, haven’t they, Kelly? You’re as afraid to come out of your books as they are.’

‘You won’t get on a horse.’

‘And you won’t even make a wooden school bus. Hell, Kelly, life’s not for fearing.’

‘I don’t fear…’

‘You’re terrified. Even your wardrobe full of fabulous gowns. You’re terrified of them.’

‘I do what I have to do to protect myself.’

‘You do what you have to do to make yourself miserable. Kelly, you could be so much.’

‘No.’

‘It’s true,’ he said and, before she could react, he’d crossed the gap between them. She looked like a waif, he thought. A lost soul, out of place, wondering where on earth her place was.

‘Maybe it’s time you tried life,’ he said as he reached forward to take her in his arms.

Third time lucky?

Third time true.

For Rafael, at least, this was a measured, certain step. He’d been watching her in the doorway, a fleeting shadow looking as if she might melt away into the night. And suddenly, as he’d watched her, the way he felt about her formed a tangible shape, a vision of what she could be if she could just set her fear aside.

Underneath the hurt and fear there was a woman, a lovely sprite of a woman, who could laugh with her son, who could dress to the nines, who could be a true royal princess and enjoy it. Who could live!

If only she could break through that armour plating she’d built so carefully around herself. A psychologist might have some hope of breaking it down-doing it the right way. Not Rafael. He had no weapons against it, other than the weapon his body was telling him he had-the fact that she was all woman and he was seeing her as she should be. The fact that she’d been Kass’s woman, that she was someone he’d sworn never to touch, dissipated in that one moment of insight, and all that was left was warmth and heat and desire.

Quite simply, he wanted her as he’d wanted no other woman. The first time he’d seen her, in her appalling moleskin dungarees, in her mud and grime, he’d felt this strange link that had done nothing but grow and grow.

He reached her now, but he reached for her slowly, giving her room to back off if she would. For even now, even wanting her as much as he did, he’d not coerce her. He’d not frighten her any more than she’d been frightened.

But she was braver than she thought she was. He knew that about her. She was a strong, determined woman and under that cold armour she was as needful as he. Maybe even needful of the same thing. To hold herself aloof for six long years-longer-all her life, if you didn’t think of that one appalling encounter with his cousin…

His hands caught her waist and he held. But, instead of kissing her straight away, he simply looked down at her, holding her at arm’s length in the moonlight, asking her a wordless question with his eyes.

She gazed up at him, seemingly troubled. But not pulling away. Asking her own questions-questions it seemed she couldn’t answer.

‘I very much want to kiss you,’ he whispered and she gazed up at him in bewilderment.

‘Rafael, why?’

‘You’re beautiful.’

‘Right,’ she said, self-mocking, and he looked down at her appalling sweater and smiled.

‘We could take that off.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘You are in my dreams,’ he whispered. ‘Hell, Kelly, even in that damned disgusting garment you’re in my dreams. Imagine where we’d be without it.’

‘In diabolical trouble. Rafael, I don’t want this.’

She didn’t mean it. He could hear it in her voice-the uncertainty, the doubt.

‘What is it about me you don’t want?’ he asked and waited for her to think about it. For his own doubts were dissolving.

He’d always thought of her as Kass’s woman. He’d sworn he could never have anything to do with Kass, but he knew now that Kass was a tiny part of her past, a nightmare that maybe he could help vanquish. The more he knew of her, the more he saw her just as Kelly. Kelly in her disgusting dungarees, Kelly in her hoops and crinoline, Kelly in her Audrey Hepburn gown, Kelly with her tongue out to the side as she adjusted the sides of her school bus…

‘I glued your bus together,’ he told her. ‘It works magnificently. Come and see it tomorrow.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘I just…don’t trust myself.’

‘Then trust me.’

‘How can I trust you?’ she said with sudden asperity. ‘I only came here because I thought you were a womanizing toad like all the de Boutaines are, and you’d deflect the media away from me and my son. Then you tell me you have a partner-how deceitful is that? And then she’s not even your partner. She’s as fed up with you as I am and deservedly so. Tell me how I can trust a man like that?’

‘You can.’

‘I know I can and it scares me stupid,’ she said and her voice was a wail.

He smiled. He pulled her against him and held-simply held her-asking nothing, expecting nothing, just resting his chin on her hair, breathing in the scent of her, waiting for her heart to settle, for her to decide that yes, she could trust, yes, maybe she could lift her face and be kissed.

‘It’s too soon,’ she whispered and he nodded gravely.

‘Of course it’s too soon.’

‘I don’t even know you.’

‘You married Kass within…’

‘See, even you,’ she spat and hauled herself away from his grip and glared. He had, it seemed, made a bad tactical error. ‘I married Kass fast. I was a fool. You think I’ll jump into bed with you…’

‘I haven’t even asked…’

‘You don’t have to ask. You want. Don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed gravely for he could do nothing else. He definitely wanted.

‘And just because you’re here you expect me to kiss you.’

‘I’m just sort of hoping.’

‘Well, stop hoping.’

‘I can’t,’ he said honestly. ‘Kelly, I can’t. Like you, I thought this was crazy. I never thought I’d feel like this about you, but I do.’

‘You’re just doing it to suck me in.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because you want someone to share the limelight. Share the throne.’

‘You told me I had to pick gorgeous young women. Models and such. Not someone-’ he hesitated, aware it behoved him to act cautiously ‘-in a really, really big sweater.’

She gave a gasp that ended on choked laughter, quickly suppressed. ‘I won’t share royalty. I won’t share the limelight.’

‘If you keep wearing that sweater you should be fine,’ he reassured her, but her glare intensified.

‘If I’m anywhere near you…’

‘They’ll take photographs of my sword. Not of you.’

‘Rafael, I don’t want it!’

‘You don’t want what, my love?’

‘You,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t trust myself. You stand there and you look so gorgeous and you smile at me, and I shouldn’t have come to the stables-I shouldn’t-but I saw you come and it was like I was just pulled. Matty’s sweater was just an excuse. See? How stupid is that? And I know I just have to move an inch and you’ll kiss me senseless.’

‘Less than an inch.’

‘And it’s taken me years to get away from it,’ she continued, refusing to be deflected. ‘How can I re-establish a relationship with Matty when the whole royal goldfish bowl is operating around us? How can I make sense of what’s happened?’

‘Maybe we could kiss in private?’ he said, without much hope and she glowered.

‘Right. Any minute you’ll ask me to get back on a horse.’

‘You want to.’

‘As you do,’ she snapped.

‘I don’t.’

‘Then it’s for very sensible reasons. Like mine. Rafael, we’re all wrong for each other.’

‘We feel right.’

‘I’m going to bed,’ she snapped. The mare behind them gave a sharp whinny. She glanced past him at the horse and her expression softened.

‘You still love them,’ he said gently.

‘Because I’m pathetic,’ she admitted. ‘I keep thinking of Tamsin.’

‘Not of Kass?’ he said, suddenly hopeful, and she shook her head.

‘Not of Kass. Never of Kass. I think all this trouble started with a horse. I need my head read to be here now, with you. With the horses.’

‘And yet you’re here.’

‘I…’

‘Kelly,’ he said and he placed his hands on either side of her face; he stooped and kissed her gently on the mouth. It was over before she could object, a feather kiss of reassurance, nothing more. Demanding nothing. Expecting nothing.

But the beginning of loving.

‘Kelly, work it out,’ he said softly. ‘Take your time. I’ll not rush you. For me…I think I’m falling in love. I didn’t intend to. In fact, it’s the last thing I intended. But hey, it’s happening. I know what’s before us is hard. But maybe…maybe we could do it together. Maybe we could even give this royalty thing a go. Given time. Given trust.’

‘Yeah? Like riding again,’ Kelly said and she knew she sounded bitter but she couldn’t help it. ‘How many years will it take before you get on a horse?’

‘We don’t have to ride before we trust each other.’

‘We don’t have to do anything,’ Kelly said and then, with a tiny sound between a laugh and a sob, she tugged away. ‘Please, Rafael, don’t do this. I’m not royal. I never, ever should have learned to ride. I never, ever should have met Kass. And I never, ever should give my heart to anyone but my son. That’s all I want. I’m not royal. I’m not part of this household. I’m just me.’

And, before he could say a word in response, she turned and fled.

He let her go. There was nothing else to do. For he even agreed with her.

He didn’t want to be royal. How could he persuade Kelly to be something he didn’t want himself?

He couldn’t.

But things had changed. Or maybe they hadn’t changed but he’d suddenly seen them for what they really were.

He’d suddenly seen inside his heart, and what he saw there…It was terrifying, but then again, he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Kelly…

Kelly. Princess Kellyn Marie de Boutaine.

Could he persuade her to take on the royal role a second time? He must.

But how?

The Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel stood in the doorway of the stables, looking across the empty palace forecourt for a very long time.