Marion Lennox - Wanted - Royal Wife and Mother

But the school…It was on the outskirts, which meant it had been one of the first buildings to be hit. To have the children run to higher ground would have been impossible.

‘There’s a basement underneath,’ Kelly was told by the grim-faced mayor. ‘We’re thinking the teacher panicked and had everyone head for the basement. Then the mud hit the front, blocking the exit. When we got here, we could hear screaming. Prince Rafael…he took a torch in. He could just make it in through a gap in the debris and we thought we could get everyone out that way. Only then the whole lot shifted and the roof came down. And now…’

‘You can’t hear?’

‘Muffled stuff when everything’s still,’ the mayor told her. ‘We’re hoping against hope they’re all down there. Twenty kids and their teacher and our Prince. And all we can do is dig.’

‘Is help coming?’ she asked, trying not to sound terrified.

‘The roads are all blocked,’ the mayor told her. ‘The tremors have been felt all the way to the border so outside help isn’t going to happen. We can’t get equipment in.’

So they dug. It sounded simple. Moving a small mountain of mud from over a basement. Trying not to do any more damage. Working from the outside in, so no more weight would go on to the basement roof-if indeed it had held.

There were people alive in there. When the mayor held up his hand for silence they could hear faint cries but the mass of mud stifled everything.

‘If Rafael’s down there…he has a radio,’ Kelly said as she dug and the men around her looked at each other and didn’t respond.

If he had a radio then he’d be able to communicate. He wasn’t communicating. He wasn’t…he couldn’t be…

She dug.

It was mind-numbing work, with nothing to alleviate the fact that tons of mud had to be shifted by hand. No one thought of bringing in machinery-to cause vibrations on top of the basement would be crazy. Care was taken to distribute diggers so no further pressure was on the mass, making the risk of further falls as small as possible.

Fatalities elsewhere had been accounted for-the injured were being cared for. This was the only area where people had yet to be found.

There were twenty children missing, one schoolteacher-and Rafael.

The workers who’d been here when Rafael had gone in were grim-faced. They’d cleared an area around the stairway into the basement. What they thought had happened was that the front of the building had collapsed. The rear of the building was set hard against the cliff face, leaving no form of exit. So the children must have fled for safety downstairs.

They’d heard them calling clearly when they’d first arrived. They were safe, they were okay. So they’d hauled the mass of timber blocking the path away. As it had cleared, the teacher below had wanted to send children up, but Rafael had stopped them.

‘Let me try it first,’ he’d growled. ‘I don’t want a child halfway up if that mass above decides it’s unstable.’

Which was pretty much what had happened. Armed with a torch, Rafael had disappeared into the gloom. And then another tremor had struck and the entire building and some of the cliff face behind had subsided, leaving a mountain of debris with no one knew what underneath.

Had Rafael reached the safety of the basement? Was the basement still safe? They could hear muffled cries through the rubble but it was too thick to decipher words.

Please…

Please.

Kelly dug as she’d never dug in her life before. But all around…

People were deferring to her.

‘What should we do?’

‘Should we send for bulldozers?’

‘It doesn’t seem safe but if you think we should…’

It didn’t seem safe and no, she didn’t think they should but that they deferred to her was astonishing. She was a historian.

A historian who knew about mine management, she conceded, but they didn’t know that. She found herself snapping orders-sending people to find shoring timbers, assessing load strengths, standing back from digging every few moments to see the whole picture…

She did know what to do. The history of gold-mining was littered with tragedy and she knew enough now to prevent mindless tunnelling from parents desperate to reach their children at any cost.

But it wasn’t her role as historian that these people were reaching out to, though, she thought as she dug. It was her role as royal.

Like Matty, standing white-faced and grim just out of reach of the diggings. Every other small child had been hauled away, well out of danger. Matty had a right to be here.

Matty’s duty was to be here. He knew it. It’d been instilled from birth by those around him. Today he’d acted with a gut instinct that seemed almost inbred.

‘My people need me.’

Royalty might be anachronistic, totally outdated, unfair. But right now it was what these people needed.

She dug on, and the picture came to her again of the young King during the Second World War, touring the diggings. Winston Churchill with his cigar, standing on a heap of bomb site rubble with King George beside him. The King and the Prime Minister, with the people they represented.

If she left now…if she took Matty, as was her right, and left this place, left the digging to others…

It could be done. She could give orders as to how to shore up the tunnel they were working on. She could take Matty home, cuddle him until the colour came back into his face, maybe play with Rafael’s toys until he forgot…

She could never do such a thing. Because Rafael was under there? Because Rafael had kissed her?

Yes, but more than that.

Because there were twenty children and their teacher trapped?

Yes, but more than that too.

Matty was right. What he had was an age-old heritage-the leadership of his people. And, by marrying Kass, she’d inherited it as well.

Sure, she could walk away. Royals had done that since time immemorial-had walked away from their royal duties, had elected to live a normal life.

But…But…

But the good ones stayed.

‘The sounds are getting clearer,’ someone yelled. ‘There’s more’n one alive.’

‘That’s great. So slow down,’ she yelled. ‘And let’s increase the rate of supports. No unnecessary risks.’

‘No, ma’am.’

The good ones stayed. Queen Elizabeth, taking on the throne as a young mother, a young bride. Overseeing change in the monarchy so the people had a say in the government, so monarchy wasn’t an absolute.

Doing what she saw as her duty, no matter what. And in times of crisis…

Giving a focus. A sense of leadership. A sense of continuity, regardless of personal grief.

Kelly’s hands had blisters on blisters. She could stop. Men were taking turns. But the fact that she was beside them was driving them forward with renewed energy. She didn’t understand it, but the fact was that monarchies had endured for century after century and here she was, a princess…fighting for her two princes. One behind her, staring at his mother as if he’d like to be part of her. He’d be digging in a heartbeat, she knew, if she let him. Matty. Mathieu. Her own little prince.

And below ground…

Rafael.

They weren’t digging indiscriminately. As every layer was worked through they probed cautiously before they dug, just in case…just in case…

In case Rafael hadn’t made it. In case he was trapped before the entrance to the basement. In case his body was caught up in this mass of mud and sludge and mess.

The thought had her choking and fiercely hauling her arm across eyes that welled with tears before she could stop them. She paused, fighting for breath.

‘Are you okay, Your Highness?’ a man asked beside her and she turned and saw his eyes were red and swollen.