Princess Of Convenience Read online

  Whoa, Jess. Back off.

  ‘My son didn’t mean to be offensive,’ Louise was saying and to Jess’s delight Raoul was getting a look of reproof from his mother. Hey, she’d won this round. ‘And the Alp’Azuri spinners certainly are amazing.’ Louise was animated now as if here at last was a safe subject, a subject they could indulge in where everything wasn’t raw. ‘I could take you out and introduce-’

  ‘No, Mama,’ Raoul told her. ‘You can’t go out. Not while there’s this drama. You forget.’

  His mother flushed and bit her lip. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are the Press hounding you?’ Jess looked from one to the other, her spurt of childish satisfaction fading. Their faces were tight with strain. She’d been so caught up in her own misery that she’d hardly noticed, but she was noticing now. There was more behind these expressions than their recent tragedy, awful as that was.

  ‘The Press are certainly hounding us,’ Raoul said heavily. ‘They’re waiting for us to leave.’

  ‘We need to leave the castle eventually,’ Louise whispered. ‘We can’t stay here indefinitely.’

  ‘Why would you want to leave?’ Jess said, astonished.

  ‘We’re a bit under siege,’ Louise said and then bit her lip and looked ruefully at her son. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t… Jess, you’re not interested in our troubles.’

  ‘Too many troubles,’ Raoul muttered. ‘None of our making. Drink your soup, Jess. Forget it.’

  But it seemed that trouble couldn’t be forgotten. Henri reentered the room almost as he said the words, and he wasn’t bearing food. He looked distressed.

  Definitely trouble.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he told Raoul, ‘but your cousin, the Comte Marcel, is here. He’s been here three times today already and this time he refuses to leave.’

  ‘Of course I refuse to leave.’

  The voice was a ponderous, pompous baritone, and before Henri had time to withdraw, the dining-room door was shoved wide. Henri was shoved roughly aside. ‘This is my home from now on, man,’ the newcomer said. ‘You and my so dear relatives will just have to grow accustomed to it. Now.’

  Was it possible to take a dislike to someone on sight? Whether it was the imperiousness of his tone, the audacity of his statement or the way he’d shoved Henri, Jess’s first reaction was revulsion. She wasn’t alone in her reaction. Raoul was rising to his feet and his face was dark with anger.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, shoving your way into my mother’s dining room?’ he snapped and the man’s eyes rose in supercilious reproof.

  ‘Surely you mean my dining room.’

  He was in his late fifties, short and balding, with what was left of his hair oiled flatly down over a shiny scalp. He was dressed in expensive evening wear but his clothes weren’t flattering. His stomach protruded over his sash, and nothing could disguise the flab beneath the suit.

  ‘This is my husband’s nephew, the Comte Marcel d’Apergenet,’ Louise murmured to Jess, and there was real distress in her tone now as she attempted introductions. ‘Raoul, please sit down. Jess, this is the…the new regent as of next week. Marcel, this is Jessica Devlin.’

  The man’s eyes were already sweeping the room. They flickered over Raoul with dislike, they moved past Louise with disdain and now they rested on Jess with something akin to approval.

  ‘Ha. The girl who killed Lady Sarah.’

  ‘She did not kill-’ Louise started hotly, but the man held up his hands as if to ward off attack. He even smiled.

  ‘Now, even if she did, who am I to criticise? Sarah might have been a distant relative but she wasn’t close. Are any of our family close? No. And her death destroyed your plans very neatly. But that means we need to move on. I’ve been trying for days to see the pair of you, but your damned butler refuses me admission. It’s time to face the future.’

  ‘No.’ Louise’s voice broke on a faint sob. ‘Sarah’s only been dead for six days. And Edouard’s so traumatised. Marcel, surely you mean to give us time.’

  ‘Monday’s changeover,’ the man snapped. ‘No matter who’s dead. You know the terms of the regency. I take over the castle and I take over responsibility for the child until he’s of an age to accept the crown. You left this country twenty-five years ago and you have no place here. Our politicians agree with me. They want you out of here, and the regency is mine.’

  There was a deathly silence, and then Louise seemed to brace herself. ‘My grandson stays with me,’ she said but her voice faltered as if she knew already what the response would be.

  ‘Like hell he does.’ The man smiled again, and Jessica shivered. She didn’t have a clue what was going on but the more she saw of this man the more she wanted to cringe. ‘The constitution says that the role of regent can only be held by a married man,’ he said. His tone had slowed now, as if he was speaking to a group of imbeciles. ‘The incumbent to the regency has to take over within a month of the death of the monarch, and if he can’t do it by then, then the next in line to the throne-the next married man-takes over. I therefore have complete constitutional control, including custody of the crown prince and residency of the castle. I want you out.’

  ‘Not until Monday.’ Raoul looked as if he wanted to hit someone. Badly. His hands were clenched into fists and his voice was laced with the strain of keeping himself under rigid control. ‘You get nothing until Monday. Not until the month is legally up. Meanwhile this place is our home and you have no place in it.’

  ‘The child would be better handed over immediately,’ the man snapped. ‘I have staff waiting to care for him.’

  ‘He’ll stay with me,’ Louise said with distress, but Marcel smiled still more.

  ‘Not unless there’s a constitutional change and there’s no way a constitutional change can take place without the approval of the prince regent. Which would be me. You know the rules. You tried to avoid them by a hasty marriage, but Lady Sarah’s death has ended that. The child will be raised as I decree.’ Once again his hands were raised, as if to ward off objections that might occur to them. His smile became almost a smirk. ‘You need have no fear. Every care will be taken of him.’

  ‘You mean you’ll let the government do as they want with him just as long as they keep your coffers filled.’ Raoul’s voice was barely a whisper, but there was no disguising the fury behind it. ‘You’ll destroy him, just as you and my father destroyed my brother.’

  ‘He’s such a little boy,’ Louise stammered. ‘He’s three. Marcel, you can’t take him away from his family.’

  ‘I’ll take him anywhere I want. I have that right.’

  ‘Not until Monday, you can’t.’ Raoul’s rigid control had snapped. ‘You bottom-feeding low-life, you have no right to be here and I’ll not accept your presence here a moment longer.’

  ‘You can’t-’

  ‘Watch me.’ With no more hesitation, Raoul walked steadily forward and gripped his relative’s collar in both his hands, lifting him right off the floor. He swung him around and shoved-hard.

  ‘Get your hands off me.’ Marcel’s voice was an indignant splutter.

  ‘This is our home. Until Monday you don’t have any say in who enters here.’

  ‘That’s in less than a week. This is preposterous.’ But he was out the door and still being propelled. ‘I’ll have you arrested.’

  ‘Try it.’

  Jess could no longer see what was happening. Raoul had kept propelling, out into the hall and further toward the grand entrance.

  She didn’t understand.

  She turned to Louise-but Louise was crumpling back into her chair. Her hands were up to her face and she was weeping.

  ‘Louise.’ Dignity or not, royalty or not, Jess was crouching beside her, hugging. Louise responded with a shattered sob as she subsided into Jessica’s shoulder. She only sobbed out loud the once but Jess could feel as the shuddering sobs continued to rack her frail body.

  Louise was far to
o thin, she thought. She was gaunt, as if this suffering was nothing new. She’d lost a son and a daughter-in-law less than a month ago. Then she’d lost Sarah. And now…

  Somewhere there was a little boy who was being threatened.

  She’d never seen a child here.

  Still, until tonight she’d never been out of her suite of rooms.

  ‘Will you tell me what’s happening?’ she asked, but Louise couldn’t answer.

  Henri was fluttering uselessly behind them and Jess could see that he was just as distressed as Louise. ‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered, and a tear rolled unchecked down the elderly man’s wrinkled cheek.

  ‘It’s the little prince,’ Henri murmured, looking down in concern at Louise. ‘Ma’am…’

  ‘Mama.’ Raoul was back with them, kneeling beside Jess and his mother. He took his mother’s shoulders in his big hands, transferring her weight to him.

  There was such gentleness here, Jess thought as she moved aside. He was a big man; he’d handled Marcel with barely suppressed violence, yet he held his mother with absolute love.

  ‘Mama, we’ll think of something,’ he was saying, whispering softly into her hair. ‘We’ll take it to the courts. They can’t enforce this.’

  ‘They will,’ his mother said brokenly. ‘You know there’s no access at all to the crown prince by anyone other than his legal guardian. When your father and I split up I wasn’t allowed near Jean-Paul. God knows I tried.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ Jess said, not wanting to interrupt such distress but overcome by her urge to know. ‘Can someone tell me what’s happening?’

  ‘It’s easy, miss.’ It was Henri, speaking up behind her as Raoul hugged his mother. The elderly servant had stared down at the pair of them and then he’d turned away. Maybe talking to Jess helped. Or maybe it was that he couldn’t think of what else to do. ‘Or…maybe it’s hard.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Do you know that if a ruling monarch dies and the heir is still a child, then the appointed prince regent is responsible for raising him? And making decisions in his stead?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Jess said, thinking it through. ‘I’ve read that. It’s to stop a child king-or a crown prince in a principality-having responsibility too young.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Henri gave a wintry smile. ‘But the rules in this country are hard. Prince Raoul is second in line to the throne after Edouard, so Prince Raoul would normally be prince regent, but, as he’s not married, he’s not eligible. The rules are rigid. Cruelly rigid.’ He hesitated and glanced again at Louise and Raoul-but Raoul was deeply enmeshed in his mother’s distress and had no room to listen to what his butler was saying.

  ‘In truth, the Prince Raoul hardly wants the role,’ the butler told her. ‘Since the Princess Louise separated from the old prince, she and Prince Raoul have not been permitted to come here. They’ve made their home in Paris, and lately Prince Raoul has been working overseas. But for the child’s sake, and for the country’s sake, Raoul decided to return. Lady Sarah agreed to marry him so he could take on guardianship of the child, the idea being that Her Highness would take care of her grandchild. But then Lady Sarah was killed.’

  He hesitated again but then he shrugged, as if he’d decided that having gone this far, he might as well go all the way. ‘You must realise that Lady Sarah was no better than she ought to be,’ he said softly. ‘She was the prince’s cousin, and she agreed to the marriage merely for the money and prestige it would bring. Unfortunately she didn’t have the sense to stay alive to enjoy the consequences.’

  There were places she didn’t want to go, Jess decided as she thought this through, and Sarah’s death was one of them. There was too much to think of here already. But the child… The little prince…

  ‘I haven’t seen a child here,’ Jess whispered. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Edouard’s a quiet one,’ Henri told her. ‘He’s little more than three years old and he’s not very strong. He’ll be well asleep by now. And he doesn’t know his grandmother enough yet for her to spend much time with him. He’s very, very nervy.’

  ‘But the Princess Louise wants to keep him?’ She shook her head, bewildered. ‘Why doesn’t she know him very well? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Henri said grimly, with a sideways glance at the two bowed heads. Raoul was still intent on his mother’s grief and was taking no notice-and Louise seemed to be taking nothing in. ‘But maybe it’s not so uncommon. Marriages splitting; children being raised apart. Raoul was just six years old when his parents’ marriage failed. The old prince was only interested in his heir, so Princess Louise was permitted to take her younger children away with her. But Raoul’s older brother was kept here, and Her Highness was granted no access. It’s been breaking her heart for over thirty years over the son she left behind, and, for the last three years, for the grandson she wasn’t allowed to know. And now the tragedy continues. Prince Jean-Paul grew up wild and unfettered and he died because of it. Now it seems that that Princess Louise’s grandson will grow up in the same sterile environment. The Comte Marcel is just as…devoid of morality as his cousin; his wife’s no better, and they care for nothing but themselves. The whole country knows it. Everyone here wanted Raoul to return. But now he can’t. And our little prince is lost.’

  There was surging anger in the elderly man’s voice and he’d forgotten to speak in an undervoice. Unnoticed, the sobs had stopped. Louise had heard.

  ‘So now you know,’ she told Jess, her voice breaking in despair. ‘Sarah’s death is only a tiny fragment of our tragedy.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jess whispered and Louise’s face crumpled again.

  ‘I wish I’d never married into this family,’ she whispered. ‘Despite my children. My wonderful children and now my grandson.’ She broke away from Raoul and rose on feet that were decidedly unsteady. ‘I’ve let them all down and I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Mama…’ Raoul started but she shook her head.

  ‘Enough. I need my bed. Jess, I’m so sorry your first dinner up was so badly interrupted. But you’ll have to excuse me.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ Raoul told her but once again she shook her head.

  ‘No. You stay and take care of Jess. Henri, can you escort me upstairs? I think…I may need your arm.’

  ‘Certainly, Ma’am,’ Henri said.

  This was a long-standing friendship, Jess realised. It was not just a mistress-servant relationship. Henri moved forward and took the support of Louise from Raoul. The two silver heads moved together in mutual distress and together they left the room.

  Jess was left staring after them.

  With Raoul.

  There was a long silence. An awful silence. Jess could think of nothing to say.

  Finally she caught herself. She had no place here in these people’s troubles. They were in distress. She needed to leave.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll leave first thing in the morning. I’m only adding to your troubles by staying.’

  ‘You’re not adding to our troubles.’ She saw Raoul almost visibly stiffen, moving on. ‘It’s me who’s sorry,’ he told her. ‘We invite you to dinner, and here our soup’s cold and Henri’s gone. I’ll try and find someone to bring something more.’

  She looked at him, appraising. He’d missed out on his dinner, too, she thought. Food. When she was in deep trouble she remembered kindly people forcing her to eat and she knew that sometimes it helped.

  ‘Could we give the servants a miss?’ she told him. ‘You show me a kitchen and I’ll feed myself.’

  ‘What?’ He almost sounded astonished.

  ‘You do have kitchens in palaces?’ she said in an attempt to keep it light. ‘You have toasters and bread and butter? And marmalade? I’m particularly partial to marmalade.’

  He stared some more-and then the corners of his mouth twisted in a crooked smile as he realised what she was doing. She was doing her best to convert
tragedy to the domestic.

  ‘I’d imagine so,’ he managed. ‘I’ve never investigated.’

  ‘You live here and you’ve never investigated the kitchen? You don’t even know if there’s marmalade?’

  ‘I’ve only been here for two weeks,’ he said, his smile fading. ‘I came to prepare for the wedding. After that I was going straight back to…to work.’

  ‘With your bride?’

  ‘Sarah was a bride of convenience,’ he said stiffly, his smile disappearing altogether. ‘It was a business proposition. I had no intention of staying here.’

  A business proposition. She stared at his face and there was nothing there to show what he was thinking. Just the cold words: a business proposition. And then he was leaving. Leaving his mother with the child? Leaving his bride?

  Running?

  ‘Were you afraid to stay?’

  Why had she said that? It had just slipped out and it was unfair. She knew it as soon as she had said it and she bit her lip in distress. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

  ‘If you meant was I leaving the care of my nephew to my mother, maybe I was,’ he told her. ‘But my mother wants to be here. I don’t.’

  She was puzzled. ‘Even if you’d become regent? Wouldn’t that be a cool thing to be? A real royal?’

  ‘I intended to take care of the business side of the job from a distance. I’m certainly not interested in the ceremonial duties.’ He shrugged. ‘So no, it wouldn’t be cool. Not that it matters. I’m no longer in line for the job.’

  Trouble slammed back with a capital T-and Jess took a deep breath and decided the only option here was to return to what she knew.

  Food. Marmalade.

  She actually was hungry, and she bet this man was, too.

  ‘So let’s find the kitchen,’ she suggested. ‘Do you really not know if there’s marmalade?’

  ‘No, I…’

  ‘You’ve been in a castle for two weeks and not explored?’

  ‘Why would I want to explore?’

  ‘Why would you not?’ she asked in astonishment. ‘A real live palace. A royal residence. I’ll bet you run to six types of marmalade, Your Highness.’ She smiled at him, teasing, trying to elicit his smile again. There was so much going on in this man’s life that light-hearted banter seemed the only way to go. ‘You know, I’ll bet you have a whole team of cooks lined up in the galley, ready with the next eleven courses of our twelve-course feast.’