Marion Lennox - Princess Of Convenience

‘Her return plane ticket was booked for this morning,’ Henri ventured, trying-with some difficulty-to turn himself back into a dignified servant. ‘She was only supposed to be in this country for ten days. I did ask her if she’d cancelled her booking and she said it was taken care of. But…’ He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say the words, but they had to be said. ‘Maybe she intended to take the flight after all.’

Silence. Then,

‘Do you love her?’ Louise asked into the stillness.

‘I think…’

‘You think that you do.’

‘I told her I thought I was falling…’

‘But you haven’t fallen? You haven’t fallen yet?’

‘Mama…’

There was another long silence. Then, ‘Well, it was only a wedding of convenience, after all,’ Louise said, watching her son’s face. ‘If it ends this morning, is there any harm done? If you’re not really sure you love her.’

Not really sure. What kind of stupid statement was that?

‘What time is the flight?’ he snapped.

‘I don’t know,’ Henri told him. ‘But I’d imagine she’s probably taken the daily connection to London which leaves at ten. Has she taken her luggage?’

‘At ten?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten!’

‘But if you’re not really sure,’ Louise started but he was no longer listening.

He’d started to run.

It was a long journey down the mountain to Vesey Airport. Claire herself hadn’t made the trip. She’d sent a driver, an in-articulate man who listened to rap music so loud that Jess could hear it through his headphones. He wasn’t the least bit bothered as to whom he was carrying as a passenger.

For which Jess was inordinately grateful. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She sat, huddled in the back seat, feeling small and cowardly.

‘You didn’t even say goodbye,’ she told herself. ‘To anybody.

‘If I had, then Raoul would have talked me into staying.

‘So what’s wrong with that?

‘I can’t start again. I can’t. And here, in this place…with such a man…you must see it’s impossible.’

If anyone could have heard her they would have thought she was crazy, but her driver’s headphones were impervious to outside interference. She could talk at will.

But she didn’t talk any more. She’d run out of arguments.

She sat and stared at nothing. She was a coward and she knew it.

But there were no arguments left.

Airports were the loneliest places in the world.

Jess booked in. No luggage. No fuss. She now had three hours to kill.

A middle-aged lady came up to her, polite and deferential. ‘Excuse me, dear, but aren’t you the lady who…?’

Jess stared at her blankly.

The lady stared some more and then gave an embarrassed titter.

‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. It’s just for a minute the resemblance to our new princess seemed very marked. I thought you must be related.’

She motioned to the stacks of newspapers which were selling like hot cakes from every news vendor. On the front, a truly regal couple.

Prince Raoul and his bride.

‘No relation,’ Jess said. She managed a weak, embarrassed smile and the lady gave her a weak, embarrassed smile back. But thoughtful. As if she wasn’t quite sure.

No matter. Jess bought a coffee and a newspaper and settled to read.

FAIRY-TALE WEDDING, the headlines screamed.

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED.

PRINCE RAOUL, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

The last caught her attention. The article was based on previous knowledge of Raoul. There was a description of his medical qualifications and skills that made her feel insignificant in the face of such ability. Then there was the rest of the article, based on an interview they’d had with him yesterday.

In it Raoul outlined his hopes and his plans for this country. His intentions to transform the hospitals, the schools, the living conditions of the country’s impoverished elderly.

He finished with the words, ‘With Princess Jessica’s help, all of these things are possible.’

‘You’ve had my help,’ she whispered to his photograph. ‘Now you’re on your own.’

She read on. Inside was a photograph of Edouard. ‘We’re so grateful to Princess Jessica,’ Louise was quoted as saying. ‘Edouard will now have a grandmother. He needs a mother, but it’s not possible. We’re all he has.’

He needs a mother. Jess stared down into the small boy’s tentative smile, and she didn’t smile back.

She couldn’t.

Because of Dominic?

‘I can’t expose myself to that sort of pain,’ she said out loud.

‘How selfish is that?

‘Really selfish. But that’s just the way you are.’

An elderly couple at the next table were looking at her strangely and she gave them an embarrassed smile. Talking to yourself. The first sign of madness. She was going nuts.

Her cell-phone rang.

Who…?

The only person to have her number was Cordelia, and why would her cousin ring?

Maybe she’s found out about the wedding, Jess thought, and she didn’t answer.

But the ringing went on. It stopped and started again. The lady at the table opposite leaned over and said, ‘Excuse me, dear, your phone is ringing.’

She sighed-but finally she answered.

And of course she’d given the number to one person other than Cordelia. The rumbling voice was unmistakable.

‘Your Highness? Am I speaking to the lady who bought my twins? The wife of our prince?’

The farmer.

‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat and tried to focus. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘Angel’s in trouble. My Angel.’ There was a sound very like a sob from the other end of the line. ‘The mother of the twins.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she said cautiously, and her question started a flood.

‘Oh, Your Highness, I brought Angel home, but by the time she got here she was looking over her shoulder as if she’d forgotten something. And then she refused to drink…and we’d walked for so long…and she refuses to eat. And now she’ll hardly stand. And this morning my wife and I are to leave. My daughter is due to have a baby right now and my wife says we go or she’ll divorce me and how can I leave my Angel?’

There was no doubt about it. He was sobbing.

‘Maybe you should ring the palace,’ she told him. This was Raoul’s problem, she thought, feeling dizzy. This was not her problem. She was going home.

‘There’s no one at the palace who will speak to me,’ he told her. ‘There’s a receptionist who says no calls are being taken. And it’s in an hour that we need to catch the train, and my Angel’s dying and how can I leave her like this?’

The same way I did, Jess thought bitterly. You just walk away.

‘I’m sure they still need their mother,’ the farmer told her. ‘I should have tried harder. I jumped into selling them because it seemed the easy solution. I should have had courage.’

Ouch.

‘Please, Your Highness, can you help? You’re at the castle. You could organise a horse trailer and take Angel back to her babies. If you manage to save her then she’s yours. Your wedding gift. And if you don’t…how much better to have tried and failed than not to have tried? Please, Your Highness, will you try?’

There was a long, long silence.

‘Are you still there?’ he asked.

‘I’m thinking,’ she managed. ‘Hush.’

He hushed.

She thought some more.

Ouch!

Angel was dying because she’d lost her babies.

If she went back now… All it took was courage.

‘Can I do it, Dominic?’ she asked out loud; right out loud, so that people were turning to see who she was talking to. ‘Can I start over? Can I possibly let myself love again?’

There was a moment’s hush from those around her. Then,

‘Sure you can, sweetheart,’ someone told her from the other side of the table, and she realised that she had an audience.

‘Loving again is what life is all about,’ someone else said. ‘The more you love, the more you get loved.’

‘You sound like a fortune cookie,’ someone else said, and everybody laughed.

But they were with her. The people around her were smiling in sympathy. All these people-this odd assortment of random airport humanity, some of whom would have been lucky in love, but there must be others whom tragedy had hit. Somehow they’d picked themselves up and kept going, and maybe it was those who’d been hit worst who were giving her advice now.

‘I can try,’ she told the assemblage, almost defiant. ‘I can go back and think about it. Maybe it could work.’

‘Of course it’ll work.’ The farmer clearly had no idea what was happening, but he was prepared to stick in his oar in any way that sounded even vaguely optimistic.

‘I might need help,’ she said, and the middle-aged woman who’d thought she was Princess Jessica touched her arm. Clearly she was wondering if help meant leading her gently to a lunatic asylum.

‘What sort of help?’

‘I need a car,’ Jess told her. And then she took a deep breath. ‘I need to hire a car with an alpaca trailer attached. Right now.’

SHE should be driving on this side of the road. Surely?

She was back where this had all started. The road was spiralling around snow-capped mountains, with the sea crashing a hundred feet below.

As it had before.

There were mediaeval castles, ancient fishing villages, lush pastures dotted with long-haired goats and alpacas-every sight seemingly designed to take the breath away.

She was past losing breath over this scenery.

The twist she’d just taken had given her a fleeting glimpse of the home of the Alp’Azuri royal family. Built of glistening white stone, set high on the crags overlooking the sea, the castle’s high walls, its turrets and its towers looked straight out of a fairy tale.

Yeah, right. Not such a fairy tale. Raoul’s home.