Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother

‘Just go,’ Kelly said, holding Matty tight. ‘Please.’ She wasn’t ready to face the media yet and the thought of cameras aimed at Matty was unbearable. ‘But you will come back?’

‘Of course I’ll come back.’

‘Thank you,’ she said simply and, as Pete moved up the hill to deflect the dozen or so men and women walking purposefully towards them, she crossed the little bridge over the creek and carried Matty away. Hoping the media had been too far away to guess that she and Rafael had been together.

The Chinese camp was just behind them. Yan, the camp guide, was a personal friend.

‘Can I take Matty through the Joss house?’ she demanded and Yan stepped aside. The inside of the Joss house was a sacred place, out of bounds for anyone but worshippers.

‘Go,’ he said without asking questions, his eyes flicking to the group of men and women clustering about Rafael. Shouting questions. Lifting cameras high and taking photographs over people’s heads.

She went. But before Yan closed the gate behind her she turned with Matty in her arms to take a last glimpse of Rafael.

Royalty.

She wanted no part of it.

She had a part of it. He was in her arms right now, tense and frightened and to be protected at all costs.

Her Matty. Her son.

The only person standing between Matty and the media—between Matty and the world—was Rafael.

A de Boutaine.

Her world was upside down.

‘Let’s go underground for a while,’ she whispered to Matty as she fled out through the back entrance.

‘I don’t think I want to go underground,’ Matty said and Kelly thought, neither do I.

She’d had five years of being underground.

Maybe it was time to emerge.

Maybe she had no choice.

CHAPTER THREE

THEY explored the goldfields until Matty’s legs gave out. He was cheerful, interested and polite. They ate their dinner early—a damper they’d made together and a thick Irish stew. Kelly settled him into her big bed and his eyelids drooped.