Marion Lennox: Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

A book in the In Her Shoes series, 2010

‘RAMÓNspends his life in jeans and ancient T-shirts. He has money and he has freedom. Why would he want the Crown?’

Señor Rodriguez, legal advisor to the Crown of Cepheus, regarded the woman before him with some sympathy. The Princess Sofía had been evicted from the palace of Cepheus sixty years ago, and she didn’t wish to be back here now. Her face was tear-stained and her plump hands were wringing.

‘I had two brothers, Señor Rodriguez,’ she told him, as if explaining her story could somehow alter the inevitable. ‘But I was only permitted to know one. My younger brother and I were exiled with my mother when I was ten years old, and my father’s cruelty didn’t end there. And now… I haven’t seen a tiara in sixty years and, as far as I know, Ramón’s never seen one. The only time he’s been in the palace is the night his father died. I’ve returned to the palace because my mother raised me with a sense of duty, but how can we demand that from Ramón? To return to the place that killed his father…’

‘The Prince Ramón has no choice,’ the lawyer said flatly. ‘And of course he’ll want the Crown.’

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ Sofía snapped. ‘Ramón spends half of every year building houses for some charity in Bangladesh, and the rest of his life on his beautiful yacht. Why should he give that up?’

‘He’ll be Crown Prince.’

‘You think royalty’s everything?’ Sofía gave up hand wringing and stabbed at her knitting as if she’d like it to be the late, unlamented Crown Prince. ‘My nephew’s a lovely young man and he wants nothing to do with the throne. The palace gives him nightmares, as it gives us all.’

‘He must come,’ Señor Rodriguez said stiffly.

‘So how will you find him?’ Sofía muttered. ‘When he’s working in Bangladesh Ramón checks his mail, but for the rest of his life he’s around the world in that yacht of his, who knows where? Since his mother and sister died he lets the wind take him where it will. And, even if you do find him, how do you think he’ll react to being told he has to fix this mess?’

‘There won’t be a mess if he comes home. He’ll come, as you have come. He must see there’s no choice.’

‘And what of the little boy?’

‘Philippe will go into foster care. There’s no choice there, either. The child is nothing to do with Prince Ramón.’

‘Another child of no use to the Crown,’ Sofía whispered, and she dropped two stiches without noticing. ‘But Ramón has a heart. Oh, Ramón, if I were you I’d keep on sailing.’

‘JENNY, lose your muffins. Get a life!’

Gianetta Bertin, known to the Seaport locals as Jenny, gave her best friend a withering look and kept right on spooning double choc chip muffin mixture into pans. Seaport Coffee ’n’ Cakes had been crowded all morning, and her muffin tray was almost bare.

‘I don’t have time for lectures,’ she told her friend severely. ‘I’m busy.’

‘You need to have time for lectures. Honest, Jen.’ Cathy hitched herself up onto Jenny’s prep bench and grew earnest. ‘You can’t stay stuck in this hole for ever.’

‘There’s worse holes to be stuck in, and get off my bench. If Charlie comes in he’ll sack me, and I won’t have a hole at all.’

‘He won’t,’ Cathy declared. ‘You’re the best cook in Seaport. You hold this place up. Charlie’s treating you like dirt, Jen, just because you don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I know you owe him, but you could get a job and repay him some other way.’

‘Like how?’ Jenny shoved the tray into the oven, straightened and tucked an unruly curl behind her ear. Her cap was supposed to hold back her mass of dark curls, but they kept escaping. She knew she’d now have a streak of flour across her ear but did it matter what she looked like?

And, as if in echo, Cathy continued. ‘Look at you,’ she declared. ‘You’re gorgeous. Twenty-nine, figure to die for, cute as a button, a woman ripe and ready for the world, and here you are, hidden in a shapeless white pinafore with flour on your nose-yes, flour on your nose, Jen-no don’t wipe it, you’ve made it worse.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jenny said. ‘Who’s looking? Can I get on? There’s customers out there.’

‘There are,’ Cathy said warmly, peering out through the hatch but refusing to let go of her theme. ‘You have twenty people out there, all coming here for one of your yummy muffins and then heading off again for life. You should be out there with them. Look at that guy out there, for instance. Gorgeous or what? That’s what you’re missing out on, Jen, stuck in here every day.’

Jenny peered out the hatch as well, and it didn’t take more than a glance to see who Cathy was referring to.

The guy looked to be in his mid-thirties. He was a yachtie-she could tell that by his gear-and he was seriously good-looking. It had been raining this morning. He was wearing battered jeans, salt-stained boating shoes and a faded black T-shirt, stretched tight over a chest that looked truly impressive. He’d shrugged a battered sou’wester onto the back of his chair.

Professional, she thought.

After years of working in Coffee ’n’ Cakes she could pick the classes of boaty. Holding the place up were the hard-core fishermen. Then there were the battered old salts who ran small boats on the smell of an oily rag, often living on them. Next there was the cool set, arriving at weekends, wearing gear that came out of the designer section of the Nautical Monthly catalogue, and leaving when they realized Coffee ’n’ Cakes didn’t sell Chardonnay.

And finally there were the serious yachties. Seaport was a deep water harbour just south of Sydney, and it attracted yachts doing amazing journeys. Seaport had a great dry dock where repairs could be carried out expertly and fast, so there were often one or two of these classy yachts in port.

This guy looked as if he was from one of these. His coat looked battered but she knew the brand, even from this distance. It was the best. Like the man. The guy himself also looked a bit battered, but in a good way. Worn by the sea. His tan was deep and real, his eyes were crinkled as if he spent his life in the sun, and his black hair was only really black at the roots. The tips were sun-bleached to almost fair.

He was definitely a professional sailor, she thought, giving herself a full minute to assess him. And why not? He was well worth assessing.

She knew the yachting hierarchy. The owners of the big sea-going yachts tended to be middle-aged or older. They spent short bursts of time on their boats but left serious seafaring to paid staff. This guy looked younger, tougher, leaner than a boat-owner. He looked seriously competent. He’d be being paid to take a yacht to where its owner wanted it to be.

And for a moment-just for a moment-Jenny let herself be consumed by a wave of envy. Just to go where the wind took you… To walk away from Seaport…

No. That’d take effort and planning and hope-all the things she no longer cared about. And there was also debt, an obligation like a huge anchor chained around her waist, hauling her down.

But her friend was thinking none of these things. Cathy was prodding her, grinning, rolling her eyes at the sheer good looks of this guy, and Jenny smiled and gazed a little bit more. Cathy was right-this guy was definite eye-candy. What was more, he was munching on one of her muffins-lemon and pistachio. Her favourite, she thought in approval.