Marion Lennox: Princess Of Convenience

Raoul Louis d’Apergenet was certainly one of them.

Her outfit was too simple for this setting, she thought fleetingly, with a tiny niggle of dismay, but Raoul was smiling at her as if she was indeed a princess and Louise was gazing at her skirt with admiration and saying,

‘Snap.’

‘Snap?’ Jess sat down-absurdly aware of Raoul’s hands adjusting her chair-and gazed at the array of silver and crystal before her. Snap? Card games was the last thing she was thinking about.

The table must be one of the palace’s smallest. It was only meant for eight or ten-but it was magnificent. The array of crystal and silverware made her blink in astonishment.

‘I think the word is wow,’ she said softly. ‘Snap has nothing to do with it.’

‘I meant your skirt.’ Louise was still smiling. ‘If I’m not mistaken that’s a Waves original. The same as mine.’

Jess focused-which was really hard when there was so much to take in. And when Raoul was smiling with that gentle, half-sad smile, the smile that said he knew…

She was being ridiculous.

Louise’s skirt. Concentrate.

Her hostess was indeed wearing a Waves skirt. It was one of Jess’s early designs, much more flamboyant than the one she was wearing, a calf-length circle of soft spun silk, aqua and white, the colours mingling in the shimmering waves that were Jess’s trademark-the colours of the sea.

‘I love the Waves work,’ Louise was saying. ‘And you must, too. But then you’re Australian. Waves is by an Australian designer, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Jess said and then because she couldn’t think of anything else to say she added, ‘Um, she’s me. Waves, that is. It’s what I do.’

‘You work for Waves?’

‘I am Waves,’ she said a trifle self-consciously. Actually, until a year ago she wouldn’t have said that. She would have said she was half of Waves. But then, that had never been true. She’d supported Warren, and when she’d needed him…

No. She closed her eyes and when she opened them Henri was setting a plate before her.

‘Lobster broth, miss,’ he said and it gave her a chance to catch her breath, to look gratefully up at him, to smile and to recover.

‘I own Waves,’ she told them, conscious of Louise’s eyes worrying about her and Raoul’s eyes…doing what? He seemed distant, assessing, but then maybe he had room for caution. ‘I started designing at school and it’s grown.’

‘You’re not serious? You own Waves?’ Louise’s expression was one of pure admiration. ‘Raoul, do you hear that? Waves is known throughout the world. We have a famous person in our midst.’

‘I’m hardly famous,’ she managed. She tried the broth. ‘This is lovely,’ she told Henri, though in truth she tasted nothing.

‘Are you here on a holiday?’ Raoul was gently probing, his eyes resting on her face. He seemed to be appraising, she thought, as if maybe he suspected his mother needed protecting from impostors and she might just be one.

She was being fanciful.

‘I… No. I’m here on a fabric-buying mission.’

‘There was no fabric in your car,’ Raoul said.

Once again, that impression of distrust.

‘Maybe because my plane landed the morning of the crash,’ she told him and there was an edge to her voice that she hadn’t intended. She tried to soften it. ‘I’m here to buy but I’ve hardly started. I’d heard that the Alp’Azuri weavers are wonderful and the yarns here are fabulous.’ She hesitated but couldn’t help herself. ‘I have already been to one supplier. If you’ve searched my luggage you’ll have found yarns.’

‘I didn’t search your luggage,’ Raoul said, swiftly, and Jess raised her brows and managed a slight, disbelieving smile. Good. It was good to have him defensive.

Why? She didn’t know. And maybe she was being dumb. To get a European prince of the blood offside…

Whoa, Jess. Back off.

‘My son didn’t mean to be offensive,’ Louise was saying and to Jess’s delight Raoul was getting a look of reproof from his mother. Hey, she’d won this round. ‘And the Alp’Azuri spinners certainly are amazing.’ Louise was animated now as if here at last was a safe subject, a subject they could indulge in where everything wasn’t raw. ‘I could take you out and introduce-’

‘No, Mama,’ Raoul told her. ‘You can’t go out. Not while there’s this drama. You forget.’

His mother flushed and bit her lip. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Are the Press hounding you?’ Jess looked from one to the other, her spurt of childish satisfaction fading. Their faces were tight with strain. She’d been so caught up in her own misery that she’d hardly noticed, but she was noticing now. There was more behind these expressions than their recent tragedy, awful as that was.

‘The Press are certainly hounding us,’ Raoul said heavily. ‘They’re waiting for us to leave.’

‘We need to leave the castle eventually,’ Louise whispered. ‘We can’t stay here indefinitely.’

‘Why would you want to leave?’ Jess said, astonished.

‘We’re a bit under siege,’ Louise said and then bit her lip and looked ruefully at her son. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t… Jess, you’re not interested in our troubles.’

‘Too many troubles,’ Raoul muttered. ‘None of our making. Drink your soup, Jess. Forget it.’

But it seemed that trouble couldn’t be forgotten. Henri reentered the room almost as he said the words, and he wasn’t bearing food. He looked distressed.

Definitely trouble.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he told Raoul, ‘but your cousin, the Comte Marcel, is here. He’s been here three times today already and this time he refuses to leave.’

‘Of course I refuse to leave.’

The voice was a ponderous, pompous baritone, and before Henri had time to withdraw, the dining-room door was shoved wide. Henri was shoved roughly aside. ‘This is my home from now on, man,’ the newcomer said. ‘You and my so dear relatives will just have to grow accustomed to it. Now.’

Was it possible to take a dislike to someone on sight? Whether it was the imperiousness of his tone, the audacity of his statement or the way he’d shoved Henri, Jess’s first reaction was revulsion. She wasn’t alone in her reaction. Raoul was rising to his feet and his face was dark with anger.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, shoving your way into my mother’s dining room?’ he snapped and the man’s eyes rose in supercilious reproof.

‘Surely you mean my dining room.’

He was in his late fifties, short and balding, with what was left of his hair oiled flatly down over a shiny scalp. He was dressed in expensive evening wear but his clothes weren’t flattering. His stomach protruded over his sash, and nothing could disguise the flab beneath the suit.

‘This is my husband’s nephew, the Comte Marcel d’Apergenet,’ Louise murmured to Jess, and there was real distress in her tone now as she attempted introductions. ‘Raoul, please sit down. Jess, this is the…the new regent as of next week. Marcel, this is Jessica Devlin.’

The man’s eyes were already sweeping the room. They flickered over Raoul with dislike, they moved past Louise with disdain and now they rested on Jess with something akin to approval.

‘Ha. The girl who killed Lady Sarah.’

‘She did not kill-’ Louise started hotly, but the man held up his hands as if to ward off attack. He even smiled.

‘Now, even if she did, who am I to criticise? Sarah might have been a distant relative but she wasn’t close. Are any of our family close? No. And her death destroyed your plans very neatly. But that means we need to move on. I’ve been trying for days to see the pair of you, but your damned butler refuses me admission. It’s time to face the future.’