Marion Lennox: Royal Marriage Of Convenience

The knock sounded again, gently insistent. The world wanted to come in. Whoever it was wasn’t going away.

Nick reached for his trousers. ‘Just roll away while I open the door,’ he told her.

‘Roll where?’

‘Somewhere.’ He smiled down at her. ‘You want to be found naked on the sitting-room floor?’

‘Hmm.’ She smiled back up at him. Last night someone had tried to kill her, yet right now she felt light and free and deliriously happy.

‘Roll,’ he told her, and he leaned over, bundled the duvet round her and pushed.

She chuckled, and rolled behind the settee, and then wiggled a bit so she was obediently out of sight. Nick walked to the door, bare-chested. Rose peeked out from behind the settee-and there were her panties right where she’d stepped out of them the night before. ‘Nick, wait…’

Too late. ‘Yes?’ Nick said, and opened the door.

It was a maid, one of the normally somber, uniformed staff who kept the wheels of domesticity turning. At the sight of Nick, naked from the waist up, she gasped.

‘Can we help you?’ Nick said politely.

‘If you please, sir,’ she said, but she ran out of words. She was gazing at his chest, then looking past him. Her mouth sagged open.

‘Yes?’ he said encouragingly, and she gasped again.

‘I…Monsieur Erhard has asked me to tell you…’

‘Mmm?’

She swallowed and made an Herculean effort to get things straight. ‘He wants to see you. He says…He says he’s sorry, but it’s urgent. We told him you hadn’t had breakfast, so he’s asked us to serve croissants and juice in the conservatory.’

‘I think we might have breakfast in our room,’ Nick said.

The girl had spotted the panties now. Her lips were pressed together. Hard. In disapproval?

‘I…No,’ she said, and pressed her lips closed again.

‘No?’

‘Monsieur Erhard says you have company,’ she said. Desperately. Clamping her lips tight together again.

‘Company?’

‘Monsieur Erhard himself. And the Princess Julianna, the Princess Rose-Anitra’s sister. And a lady I don’t know. She says she knows you and her name is Ruby.’

‘Ruby,’ Nick said blankly.

‘If you please, sir, they’re all in the conservatory, and Monsieur Erhard says maybe you could be down in half an hour, but if there was anything you needed before then…um…anything at all…’

‘I believe we have everything we need,’ Nick said, attempting to sound severe, and the girl’s tight-lipped expression finally cracked.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and she smiled. And then she giggled. ‘Yes, sir, I see that you do.’

‘You realise discipline in this castle is shot to pieces?’

‘Yes,’ said Rose, chuckling more than the girl had chuckled, and hugging Hoppy as she rolled back out from behind the settee. ‘I believe they’re my knickers you’re standing on, sir.’

He bent and picked them up. They were pink and white and lacy, with butterflies embroidered on them.

‘My God,’ he said with reverence. ‘And I stood on them. Why didn’t I notice these last night? Were these special for your wedding?’

‘Of course,’ she said, and then she giggled again. ‘Nope. I tell a lie. I wear knickers like this all the time.’

‘You’re kidding me.’ He held them to the light as one might hold up a piece of priceless art. ‘You wear these? As a country vet?’

‘I wear brown, grungy overalls and mud, and I smell like cattle,’ she said. ‘I have to be a girl some time.’

‘It’s a tragedy,’ he said, awed. ‘All that time they’ve been under brown overalls?’

‘Um…’ She choked back another giggle, then thought about what the girl had said and suddenly it was easy to stop laughing. ‘She said Julianna was here.’

‘And Ruby,’ Nick said, in a tone of deep foreboding.

‘Ruby?’

‘If it’s the Ruby I think it is, it’s my foster mother.’

‘Your foster mother.’ She gathered her duvet round her and rose awkwardly to her feet. ‘I didn’t…’ She frowned. ‘You didn’t ask her to the wedding?’

‘I sort of did. I told her she was welcome but it was a political move, business only, and there was no reason for her to come. Did you ask your in-laws?’ he retaliated.

‘As a matter of fact I did,’ she said. ‘Not only did they know why I was coming here, I told them the date of the wedding, and I told them they’d be welcome. Gladys slammed the phone down on me. So why does Ruby’s arrival make you sound scared?’

‘Because.’

She grinned. ‘You sound about ten years old. Because why ?’

‘Because she’ll care.’

‘I see,’ she said cautiously. ‘And this would be a disaster?’

‘She’ll hate that it’s not a real marriage,’ he said. ‘She’ll hate that it’s a fraud.’

It was like a slap. Rose stilled.

‘A fraud,’ she whispered. ‘I…Oh, yes. Sorry.’

‘She’s always wanted her boys to marry,’ he said, not seeing her dismay as he concentrated on the possible consequences of Ruby’s arrival. ‘She married for love, and it’s her ambition to see us fall in love just like her. She’d never understand why we did this. But Ruby knows I go my own road. Why she’s here now…’

‘And Julianna,’ Rose whispered, pushing aside Nick’s troubles in the face of her own. ‘Why would she be here? She was invited to the wedding, but she didn’t come either. I haven’t seen her since that awful night.’

‘And they’re all waiting for us in the conservatory,’ Nick said morosely. ‘You think we ought to knot sheets and escape through the window?’

‘It’s hardly dangerous,’ she said.

‘If Ruby’s mad at me it might be.’

‘If Ruby’s mad at you then you deserve something dire.’

‘Hey, you’re on my side.’

‘Says who? Can I have my panties, please?’

‘Are you going to put them on?’

‘I think bluebirds today,’ she said with dignity. ‘Can I remind you-sir-that this is my bedroom, and all my clothes are here, and everything you own is in your bedroom down the hall? Therefore you should leave.’

‘Right,’ he said. Dazed. ‘Bluebirds.’ He almost visibly swallowed. ‘But Rose?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll wait for you at the head of the stairs,’ he told her. ‘I think we should go down together.’

‘There’s safety in numbers?’

‘I hope there is,’ he said.

Nick returned to his bedroom. The domestic staff had been before him. All evidence of the night’s intrusion had disappeared. He showered and dressed as fast as he could, then returned to the head of the stairs.

Rose was already waiting for him. ‘How the…?’

‘You obviously take longer putting on your make-up than I do,’ she told him, and smirked and started down the stairs.

She was wearing ancient jeans, an oversized sweatshirt and shabby sneakers. She’d tugged her hair back into a simple ponytail. Her face was scrubbed clean of all make-up. Anyone further from the elegant bride of yesterday he couldn’t imagine.

But somewhere under those jeans were bluebirds. He stood at the top of the stairs and forgot to move, so she had to stop at the first landing and turn to him, exasperated.

‘Coming?’

‘Sure,’ he said uncertainly, and she grinned.

‘I couldn’t find the bluebirds. It’s bumblebees.’

He nearly tripped and fell all the way to the bottom. Somehow he kept his feet and managed to follow her through the maze of corridors to the conservatory. Bumblebees. They passed three of the domestic staff on their way, and each had a smile as wide as a house plastered on their faces.

This wasn’t a house shocked to the core by news of an assassination attempt, he thought. Their movements since the intrusion had obviously been noted and were giving pleasure. Maybe news of the butterflies was winging its way round the castle right now.