Marion Lennox - In the Royal's Bed

She remembered the grand dining room where she’d been served in the past with pomp and rigid silence. She followed Ellen downstairs with a sinking heart but, instead of being ushered into the grand salon she remembered, Ellen led the way through less formal corridors, down worn stone steps and into…a kitchen. A vast kitchen with a range that took half a wall, with a table big enough to feed a football team, ancient wood, worn with scrubbing.

Laura was sitting at the table buttering bread. Rafael was at the range cooking…toasted sandwiches?

‘I wanted to make you dinner myself tonight,’ Laura said, smiling at her obvious discomposure. ‘I have a much less grand kitchen. But we thought Matty would be asleep here and you might want to stick close.’

‘Close?’ she queried faintly, thinking of the corridors she’d just navigated, and Rafael flipped the sandwich he was toasting and grinned.

‘Close in castle terms. Less than half a day’s march. Can we interest you in a toasted cheese sandwich?’

‘What happened to silver service?’ she said faintly and Laura winced.

‘Don’t say you liked it.’

‘No, I…’

‘The minute Kass died we locked up the dining room. Matty hates it, you see,’ she explained. ‘It was the only time Matty ever saw his father. When Kass was in the palace, at the end of every meal he’d send for Matty and grill him on his lessons. Matty used to shake every time he passed the dining room. So we thought we wouldn’t use it.’

‘My mother’s pretty definite,’ Rafael said. ‘But, of course, it’s your call now. If you want to use the dining room…’

‘It’s not my call. It’s you who’s Prince Regent.’

‘If it’s up to me, I like it just fine where I am,’ he said. ‘Actually, no. I like it better in Manhattan but, since I’ve been blackmailed…’

‘You’ve been no such thing,’ Laura retorted. ‘Kelly, I refuse to let you feel guilty. Rafael’s known from the moment Kass died that his responsibility was here.’

‘You want him to stay?’

‘No,’ Laura said bluntly. ‘Well, no, in terms of no, I don’t want him to have to assume the mantle of royalty. But in terms of having someone round who can cook great toasted sandwiches…’ She smiled, a smile that matched her son’s to a T as he flipped a sandwich on to her plate. ‘I taught him his culinary skills,’ she said proudly. ‘It’s my greatest feat. He’ll make some woman very happy some day. He’ll keep her in toasted sandwiches for ever.’

‘Does Anna like toasted sandwiches?’ Kelly asked before she could stop herself and the two identical grins faded.

‘Probably not,’ Laura said cautiously.

‘You mean definitely not,’ Rafael retorted.

‘Have you broken the news to Anna that you’re relocating here permanently?’ his mother asked.

‘Nope.’

‘Coward.’

‘I am a coward,’ he admitted and he turned his attention back to his pan. ‘You know Anna. You’d be a coward too. Kelly, two sandwiches or more?’

It was a lovely, laughing informal meal, about as different from what she remembered of castle life as it was possible to be. She ate three rounds of toasted cheese sandwiches and a vast bowl of sun-ripened strawberries picked only hours ago from the palace gardens. Then Rafael made coffee using a mysterious Turkish coffee-maker that he swore made coffee that was a legend in its own time.

It was pretty good coffee. It was pretty good company. Kelly said little, content to listen to Laura and her son catch up on castle gossip, on trivial domestic stuff, on a life she was starting to feel maybe wouldn’t be as bad as she’d thought it would be.

‘I need to go,’ Laura said reluctantly after the coffee was finished and the plates were cleared into the sink. ‘Rafael has a deputation to meet at eight and I don’t want to be around when they come.’

‘A deputation?’

‘Just a welcome home committee,’ Rafael said and grimaced. ‘The mayor and the town’s dignitaries welcoming me home. Or, more probably, to make sure I know the deforestation issue is urgent. Plus about a thousand other grievances. They wanted to come in the morning but my gear’s coming so they’ve agreed to come tonight.’ He hesitated. ‘They won’t meet with Crater. They see him as part of the old establishment. Which leaves me. I wouldn’t mind some support.’

‘You’re a big boy,’ Laura said, but she suddenly sounded strained. ‘You can meet them yourself.’

‘Should we wash up?’ Kelly asked a bit too fast, not wanting to think about anyone needing support. A royal welcome… It was all very well eating toasted sandwiches but no one in this family would forget for long that they were royal. Including her?

And Rafael was shrugging. Moving on. He had no choice—he might as well move forward with good humour.

‘If you think I’m meeting dignitaries plus doing the washing-up you have rocks in your head,’ he retorted and managed a grin. ‘There has to be some advantage of being royal. We can leave the washing-up to the staff.’

‘I’m a failure as a mother,’ Laura mourned.

‘If you’re starting to count my shortcomings then we’ll walk you home,’ Rafael told her, smiling across at Kelly. ‘That is if you feel like a walk before bed. If you’re like me, you’ll still be thinking it’s morning. My entire body clock is upside down.’

Hers, too. She’d slept in the plane. She felt wide awake.

She felt…

‘I can walk myself home,’ Laura said briskly. ‘It’s just past the gatehouse.’

‘There are bogeymen out there,’ Rafael said. ‘The ghosts of a thousand royals.’

‘And your father’s one of them,’ Laura retorted. ‘You think any bogeyman would get me when your father’s around to protect me?’ She smiled fondly up at her son and caught his hand, letting him swing her to her feet. ‘Rafael’s father died here when Rafael was fifteen,’ she told Kelly. ‘It’s why I’ve never wanted to leave. It still feels as if he’s here.’

‘You’re just a romantic,’ her son said.

‘And you’re not?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Rafael retorted. ‘What about it, Kelly? Will you help escort my mother home, keeping her from bogeymen?’

‘Are you staying with your mother?’

‘No,’ he said brusquely and Kelly thought he and his mother must have talked about this already. It seemed to have touched a nerve. ‘My mother believes if I’m to do a decent job as Prince Regent then I live here. In the State Apartments.’

Kass’s rooms. She’d never been admitted to them in the time she’d been here, but she’d walked past open doors. She’d never seen so much opulence in her life.

‘You’ll enjoy that,’ she managed and he stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

‘Plenty of room for toys,’ she ventured and his mother choked.

‘There surely is. See, Rafael, there’s a new way of looking at things.’ She was walking towards the door. ‘I don’t need an escort, thank you, children, but…’

‘But you’re having an escort,’ Rafael growled.

CHAPTER FIVE

SO THEY walked Laura through the magnificent palace grounds, across the manicured lawns and past the extravagant fountains, down through the tiered rose gardens, brushing around the edge of the woodland area, following a path that was worn from years of royal tread. The moon was full. The woodland held night birds Kelly had never heard before, their calls eerie and wondrous in the moonlight. Nightingales? Maybe. She’d never heard a nightingale. She remembered feeling romantic all those years ago, wishing she’d hear one.

Romance was for the past. She was a sensible woman who’d learned her lesson.

She walked silently on the left of Laura. Rafael walked on her right, holding his mother’s arm lightly.