Marion Lennox - Wanted - Royal Wife and Mother

‘You have a child down there?’ she whispered.

‘Two,’ he muttered. ‘Heidi. She’s eight. And Sophie, who’s six.’

‘Then we have no time for tears,’ Kelly managed and wiped her face again, this time with a savage determination she knew would stay with her to the end. ‘We only have time to dig.’

And in the end…

In the end it happened so fast she could scarcely believe it. One minute they were digging, the next they’d reached what seemed a vast, solid door. Six feet across, eight feet long. Mounded with debris.

They’d dug across and down, but not tunnelling. They were open cut mining, completely removing the mass of dirt above and shoring the sides. It made things slower but surely safer. To tunnel in these unstable conditions would be madness, Kelly had decreed, and the red-eyed men and women around her had agreed.

So now they had a trench thirty feet long, starting at the edge of the mass of debris and working in, dropping fast, so the sides were twelve, fourteen feet high. The trench was big enough for two men to work side by side, while those behind cleared and passed the rubble back.

And now…The last few spadefuls had exposed the slab. The men in front edged shovels sideways, exploring.

Hitting wood.

‘It’s holding the whole mess off us,’ a man’s voice called weakly from below, and Kelly’s heart seemed to almost stop. The voice was muffled but finally they could make out words. And the voice…the voice was surely Rafael’s.

‘Your Highness…’ someone called.

‘We’re okay. Take your time. Get it right,’ he called.

‘Madame Henry?’ The man beside Kelly-Heidi and Sophie’s dad-could barely speak through tears as he called down to the schoolteacher they hoped was still safe.

‘The children are all here.’ The teacher must be elderly, Kelly thought. She sounded little and acerbic and frightened-and also just a wee bit bossy. ‘Prince Rafael got down here just in time before the mess came down. When it started moving he blocked the door so it couldn’t crash through but then the stuff moved again and he was caught…’

‘Rafael was caught?’ Kelly demanded, tugging loose debris free with her hands. They were so close…

‘I’m fine,’ Rafael called from through the rubble but she knew from his muffled voice that he wasn’t.

‘We have to get this free.’

‘We take our time.’ It was Sophie and Heidi’s dad, pulling her back, putting both hands on her shoulders and setting her aside. ‘We don’t undo Prince Rafael’s work-your work-by moving that slab until we’re sure the land will hold.’

‘Y-yes.’

‘You’ve done enough,’ he said gently and then looked at the seemingly impenetrable slab and sighed. ‘And so have I. Everyone behind us is willing. We let those whose hearts aren’t behind the slab make the decisions from now on.’

He was right. It nearly killed her but he was right. She was ushered out of the trench. Matty was waiting, staring at the entrance to the trench as if by will alone he could bring them out alive. She hugged him close. She was soaked to the skin, coated in thick, oozing mud. Women came forward carrying blankets. They would have ushered her away but she’d have none of it.

Rafael…Rafael…

But finally her prayers were answered. Finally the slab was moved. They inched it from its resting place with almost ludicrous caution, moving with so much care that it took them three long hours-hours when Matty and Kelly seemed to turn to stone.

But finally it was done. There was a growl of satisfaction as the trench stayed intact, that the shoring timbers held. And then the first child-a tiny girl, coated with thick, oozing clay, was handed up through the gap. She was grabbed by willing hands. A faint scream sounded behind them as the child was handed back, hand over hand, until she reached the end of the trench.

The last hands to reach her were her parents.

‘Evaline,’ a woman’s voice said brokenly, and there was the sound of a man’s hoarse sobs.

But those in the trench weren’t hearing. Already more children were being handed out. Speed was of the essence here. This mass of mud and debris was unstable to say the least. It only needed one more earth tremor…

They had a chain operating. The children were being lifted out. There was no talking-just solid effort.

They seemed okay, Kelly thought, dazed. She’d left Matty with the women again and was at the neck of the trench where it narrowed down into the cavity under the slab. But she wasn’t strong enough to be part of the chain handing back the children, so she slipped back to lean against the shoring timber and simply watched. Every face appearing at the hole under the slab she watched with terror. She’d forgotten to breathe. She’d forgotten to do anything.

So few injuries…There were cuts and bruises, but most of the children could put their arms up to be lifted. Most could cling to their rescuers. Most could reach out to their parents and sob and hold and sink into their parents’ embrace as if they’d never let go.

One or two were hurt. There was one small boy with what looked like a broken arm. He whimpered as he was pulled out, but he still managed a smile when his mother whispered his name. There was an older boy with a nasty laceration to his cheek. ‘I had to help Prince Rafael move the door,’ he said with weak bravado, and it looked doubtful that he’d let such a wound be stitched. His parents were clasping him with pride and there was a shining pride in his own eyes. This was clearly a hero’s wound. He’d helped his prince save the children.

Rafael…

Her heart was whispering the word, over and over. She glanced back along the line and saw Matty. His face was as white as hers. He was seeing all these happy endings but, like Kelly, he wanted his own.

She should ask. She should say to the boy with the cut face, What of Rafael?

She couldn’t.

‘That’s twenty,’ someone said in a gruff voice that wasn’t quite concealing tears. ‘Just the schoolteacher and the Prince to go.’

‘You,’ said a fierce woman’s voice from under the slab, and the weary voice came in reply.

‘When you’re all out I’ll be out but not before. Stop wasting time.’

‘You’re hurt.’

‘Go!’

He was hurt. She’d known it. Dear God…

Hands were reaching up, small woman’s hands. The schoolteacher was grasped and tugged free and hugged fiercely by the man who’d pulled her up.

‘Romain, I have my dignity,’ the little lady managed in between hugs and the men laughed and ignored her dignity and handed her back along the line as if she was also a child. As if she were made of the most precious porcelain…

And then…And then…

One hand came through the gap under the slab. A man’s hand with a signet ring she recognized.

‘Both hands,’ the man at the front said, in a voice that was none too steady. ‘We need a grip.’

‘One hand.’ Rafael’s voice was muffled and pain-filled.

‘You want us to come under and help?’

‘No one comes under this slab. Get me out of here.’

‘Rafael,’ Kelly cried before she could help herself.

‘Kelly,’ Rafael muttered. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Come out and find out,’ she whispered.

‘Will we hurt you pulling you out?’ someone asked him.

‘A lot less than if this whole thing collapses.’ His one hand was the only thing in sight and he pushed it higher. ‘Pull.’

Each of the children and the schoolteacher too, had been lifted. But there was no one to lift Rafael. They were tugging him up by his one arm, holding his entire weight as they pulled.

He was hurt-badly hurt, Kelly thought, listening to his voice. But unless he’d let someone in to him…And he wouldn’t. Their torches showed little-his mud-slicked face and blackness.