Marion Lennox - Stepping Into The Prince's World

* * *

He should tell someone where he was going.

If he did his bodyguards would join him. That was the deal. When he was working within his army unit his bodyguards backed off. As soon as he wasn’t surrounded by soldiers, his competent security section took over.

Only they didn’t treat him as a colleague. They treated him as a royal prince who needed to be protected—not only from outside harm but from doing anything that might in any way jeopardise the heir to the throne of Marétal.

Like going sailing on his own.

But he hadn’t let them know he was on leave yet. As far as they were concerned he was still on military exercises, so for now he was free of their watch. He’d walked straight from Franz’s office down to the docks. He was still wearing his military uniform. In a city full of army personnel, based here for multinational exercises, his uniform gave him some degree of anonymity. That anonymity wouldn’t last, he knew. As soon as he shed his uniform, as soon as he went home, he’d be Crown Prince forever.

But not married to a woman of his grandmother’s choosing, he thought grimly. He knew the women she thought suitable and he shuddered.

And then he reached Rosebud, the neat little yacht he’d been heading for, and forgot about choosing a bride.

This was Tom Radley’s yacht. Tom was a local army officer and Raoul had met him on the first part of their combined international operation. They’d shared an excellent army exercise, abseiling across ‘enemy territory’ in some of Tasmania’s wildest country. Friendships were forged during such ordeals, and the men had clicked.

‘Come sailing with me when we’re back in Hobart,’ Tom had said, and they’d spent a great afternoon on the water.

But Tom had been due to take leave before the exercises had ended, and a mountain in Nepal had beckoned. Before he’d gone he’d tossed the keys of the yacht to Raoul.

‘Use her, if you like, while you’re still in Tasmania,’ he’d said diffidently. ‘I’ve seen your skill and I know you well enough now to trust you. I also know how surrounded you are. Just slip away and have a sail whenever you can.’

The little yacht wasn’t state-of-the-art. She was a solid tub of a wooden yacht, built maybe forty years ago, sensible and sturdy. Three weeks ago he and Tom had put up a bit too much sail for the brisk conditions, and they’d had fun trying to keep her under control.

And now... Conditions on the harbour were bright, with enough sun to warm the early spring air and a breeze springing up from the south. Clouds were scudding on the horizon. It was excellent sailing weather.

He didn’t want to go back to base yet. He didn’t want to change out of his uniform, pack his kit and head for home.

He should tell someone where he was going.

‘It’s only an afternoon’s sail,’ he said out loud. ‘And after today I’ll have a lifetime of telling people where I’m going.’

He should still tell someone. Common sense dictated it.

But he didn’t want his bodyguards.

‘I’ll tell them tomorrow,’ he said. ‘For today I owe no duty to the army. I owe no duty to my country. For today I’m on my own.’

Prince Raoul’s movements were supposed to be tracked every step of his life. But it drove Raoul nuts.

Even his afternoon’s sail with Tom had been tracked. Because he’d been off duty that weekend, his bodyguards had moved into surveillance mode. He and Tom had had a great time, but even Tom had been unsettled by the motorboat cruising casually within helping distance.

‘I couldn’t bear it,’ Tom had said frankly, and Raoul had said nothing because it was just the way things were.

But this afternoon was different. No one knew he was on leave. No one knew he was looking at Tom’s boat and thinking, Duty starts tomorrow.

No one saw him slip the moorings and sail quietly out of the harbour.

And no one was yet predicting the gathering storm.

* * *

‘I’m sure it’s a storm,’ she told Rocky. ‘I don’t care what the weather men are saying. I trust my nose.’

Clare was working methodically around the outside of the house, closing the great wooden shutters that protected every window. This house was a mansion—a fantastical whim built by a Melbourne-based billionaire financier who’d fancied his own island with its own helicopter pad so he could fly in whenever he wished.

He’d never wish to be here now, Claire thought as she battened down the house. In the worst of the Bass Strait storms, stones that almost qualified as rocks were hurled against the house.

In the early days, Mrs Billionaire had planted a rose garden to the north of the house. It had looked stunning for half of one summer, but then a storm had hit and her rose bushes had last been seen flying towards the Antarctic. It had then been decided that an Italian marble terrace would look just as good, although even that was now pitted from flying debris.

‘I hope I’m imagining things,’ she told Rocky. Rocky was sniffing for lizards under the carefully arranged rock formations that during summer visits formed a beautiful ‘natural’ waterfall. ‘The forecast’s still for calm.’

But then she looked again at those clouds. She’d been caught before.

‘If we lose sun for a couple of days we might even lose power. I might do some cooking in case,’ she told Rocky.

Rocky looked up at her and his whole body gave a wriggle of delight. He hadn’t been with her for two weeks before he’d realised the significance of the word ‘cooking’.

She grinned and picked him up. ‘Yes, we will,’ she told him. ‘Rocky, I’m very glad I have you.’

He was all she had.

She’d been totally isolated when she’d left Sydney. There’d been people in the firm she’d thought were her friends, but she’d been contacted by no one. The whispers had been vicious, and who wanted to be stained by association?

Enough.

She closed her eyes and hugged her little dog. ‘Choc chip cookies for me and doggy treats for you,’ she told him. ‘Friends stick together, and that’s you and me. That’s what this six months is all about. Learning that we need nobody else.’

* * *

The wind swept in from the south—a wind so fierce that it took the meteorologists by surprise. It took Tasmania’s fishing fleet by surprise, and it stretched the emergency services to the limit. To say it took Raoul’s unprepared little yacht by surprise was an understatement.

Raoul was an excellent yachtsman. What his skills needed, though, was a thoroughly seaworthy boat to match them.

He didn’t have one.

For a while he used the storm jib, trying to use the wind to keep some semblance of control. Then a massive wave crested and broke right over him, rolling the boat as if it was tumbleweed. The little boat self-righted. Raoul had clipped on lifelines. He was safe—for now—but the sail was shredded.

And that was the end of his illusion of control.

He was tossed wherever the wind and the sea dictated. All he could do was hold on and wait for the weather to abate. And hope it did so before Rosebud disintegrated and left him to the mercy of the sea.

CHAPTER TWO

TWO DAYS INTO the worst storm to have hit the island since the start of her stay Claire was going stir-crazy. She hadn’t been able to step outside once. The wind was so strong that a couple of times she’d seriously worried that the whole house might be picked up.

‘You and me, Rocky,’ she’d told him, when he’d whimpered at the sound of the wind roaring across the island. ‘Like Dorothy and Toto. When we fly, we’ll fly together.’

Thankfully they hadn’t flown, and finally the wind was starting to settle. The sun was starting to peep through the clouds and she thought she might just venture out and see the damage.