‘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.