In the Royal's Bed: Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother

She suddenly felt really, really exposed. The kitchen was too warm. It was almost claustrophobic.

She pushed her pancakes away.

‘Is something wrong?’ Laura asked, watching her with concern.

‘I didn’t want to blackmail anyone to come here.’

‘If you did, we’re very grateful to you,’ Crater said, smiling on her with approval. ‘We need Rafael to run this principality. Someone has to take on the Crown.’

‘But that’s me,’ Matty piped up. ‘You said I’m the Crown Prince. This country is my res…responsibility.’

‘Which Rafael will take care of for you until you’re of age,’ Crater told him gravely.

‘You said I have to look after my people. I am the Prince.’

It silenced them all—this wisp of a child calmly accepting a burden that Rafael and Kelly would do anything to avoid.

Kelly stared down at her half-eaten pancakes, gulped and hauled the plate back in front of her. Maybe she couldn’t bolt to her garret quite yet. But the pancakes didn’t taste as good.

‘You’ve taught Matty his royal duties?’ Rafael asked Crater.

Crater nodded unhappily. ‘He’s had lessons.’

‘Not from his father.’

‘No. But Kass has hardly been here. I’ve taken it upon myself…’

‘To load Matty with the burden of the Crown.’

‘There was hardly a choice,’ Crater said. ‘I could never have predicted what’s happened. This country’s desperate for leadership. Thankfully, now it’s up to you.’

Oh, help, Kelly thought.

Until now she’d hardly seen Rafael, she thought bleakly. Or she had seen him but she’d seen a de Boutaine.

Now, he stood alone, a big man, loose-limbed, dressed in casual trousers, an open-necked shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a streak of grease on his forehead.

He looked vulnerable, she thought suddenly. He looked as if he were backed into a corner he hated.

She could retire to her garret when she wished. He couldn’t.

‘You don’t have to worry.’ Matty was clearly trying hard to understand what was going on. He came to his big cousin’s side and slipped his hand into Rafael’s before Rafael could guess what he intended. ‘You can make your toys and I’ll be the Prince. My mama will help me be the Prince.’

‘Your mama intends to stay in her attic and read her books.’

‘You might persuade her to come out a bit,’ Anna said, enthusiastic again. ‘For long enough to let Rafael come back to Manhattan and make his kids happy from time to time.’

‘My life’s here,’ Rafael said, sounding as if it were a life sentence.

‘But you will help,’ Matty said to Kelly and she swallowed.

‘I…of course. When I can.’

But she was suddenly much more unsure than she had been last night. Dressing up last night had seemed…well, even a little bit of fun. But to go any further, and to do it by Rafael’s side when…when Anna wasn’t his partner…

‘I want you to ride with me,’ Matty said and her heart closed—snap—like a clam closing on expected pain.

‘Matty, I can’t.’

‘You can’t ride?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘There’s lots of that about,’ Laura said sadly, standing and starting to clear plates. ‘Let’s just take each day as it comes. Starting now. We’ll get these trucks unpacked and that’ll make Rafael happy. He’ll have his dungeons to play in.’

‘And Mama will stay in her attic,’ Matty said. ‘Aunt Laura, it’s you and me who’ll have to be Prince and Princess.’

‘Aren’t you the lucky ones?’ Anna said and smiled, but Laura looked at her son’s partner as if she were a sandwich short of a picnic.

‘Anna, I’m afraid you don’t have a clue what these two are fighting,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my dears, I wish I could help. But Matty…yes, until Rafael and your mama work themselves out then I guess we’re it.’

In the end, keeping herself to herself was easy. She just had to be ruthless. She just had to say no firmly to Matty and walk away.

The castle libraries were amazing. Distressed and confused on that first morning, while Laura took Matty down to the stables to chat to the horses and to listen to his adventures in Australia, Kelly roamed the shelves and found tomes and documents and charts that could keep a historian happy for a century or more.

She blocked out the sound of Matty’s voice drifting up from the courtyard. She blocked out the sound of the men’s voices unloading the trucks, Rafael giving orders, Anna arguing…

The gong sounded for lunch but she’d already warned Cook and Matty that she seldom stopped for lunch. She didn’t want to be part of that big familiar kitchen again. She worked on, trying to figure where to start. Maybe cataloguing to begin with. Mindless work while she got her bearings.

At about three in the afternoon she decided the castle was silent and she might conceivably have the kitchen to herself. She went down to make herself a sandwich.

She didn’t have the kitchen to herself. Rafael was seated alone at the vast table. He had a bottle of beer before him, and the remnants of a sandwich.

She blinked. Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel with a beer and a sandwich?

He looked up as she entered, like a kid who’d been caught in a crime.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, suppressing an involuntary smile, and tried to back out.

‘I know. I should be eating caviare patties and drinking champagne,’ he said mournfully. ‘But I kinda like beer. I’m happy to share, though. I’m not sure where the caviare is, but the makings of sandwiches are in the first refrigerator.’

‘I don’t need…’

‘If you’re like me, you do need. It’s just the whole company bit that worries you.’

She hesitated. Okay, it would be surly to back away now. She might as well eat. ‘So why does it worry you?’ she asked.

‘It’s not as bad as it used to be,’ he admitted. ‘Castle meals used to be a nightmare. A dining table twenty feet long with a damned great epergne set in the middle of it, so you couldn’t see who was at the far end. The minute Kass died my mother decreed that everyone—servants and all—would eat in here. Actually, until Kass died Matty would mostly eat at the dower house, but now Kass is dead my mother thinks Matty’s place is here.’