Annie West - Revelations Of A Secret Princess

Ariane took a step nearer. ‘That’s where I come from.’ She tilted her head. ‘Are you from there too?’

‘I am.’ Caro let her smile widen. She’d never allowed herself to imagine having this conversation, as if it might tempt fate into obliterating all her hopes.

This was a bittersweet moment. Sweet because after all the grief and years of emptiness, Caro had found the girl she hadn’t known about. Bitter because of those wasted years.

But there was no time for dwelling on past wrongs. Suddenly Caro had never felt more alive, more brimming with excitement.

‘What happened to Maxim? Was he in a battle with pirates too?’

Ariane smiled and Caro felt it like a dart of sunshine piercing her heart. ‘No, silly. There aren’t really pirates.’

‘Aren’t there?’ Caro stared at the bright face with the dimpling cheeks and felt her insides melt.

Ariane shook her head. ‘No. Uncle Jake said so.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘So don’t be scared if you dream about them. They’re not real.’

‘That’s good to know. Thank you.’

Did that mean Ariane often had nightmares? Again Caro resisted the impulse to gather her close.

Ariane tilted her head, clearly curious. ‘Who are you? You look...’ her forehead scrunched in concentration ‘...like someone I know.’

Caro’s heart thudded high in her throat. ‘Do I? Who do I look like?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

Caro drew in a slow breath, reminding herself Ariane was a little girl. She imagined Caro was familiar, possibly because they were from the same place. Maybe speaking Ancillan made her seem familiar. There was no more to it. Anything else was impossible, even if Caro felt the connection between them as a tangible bond.

‘What happened to Maxim if he wasn’t fighting pirates?’

Ariane pouted. ‘I don’t know. I woke up and he was like this.’

Caro eyed the bear, with its fur rubbed off on one side where he’d clearly been cuddled a lot. She’d guess Ariane usually held him by that arm and the stitching had given way after much use.

‘That’s easily fixed.’

‘It is?’

‘Of course. All we need is a needle and thread to sew him back together.’

Ariane stepped closer and held out the brown bear and his separated arm. ‘Can you fix him now? Please?’

Those huge eyes in that grave little face would make any heart melt. As for Caro, it took everything she had to keep things light.

‘I don’t have any thread with me but we can patch him up till we get some.’

‘Patch him?’

‘Yes. If you get my bag from near the desk I’ll see what I can do.’ Because even now her knees felt too wobbly to take her weight.

She watched the girl dart across the room. Obviously Maxim was a much-loved bear. Who’d given it to her? Her parents? Her Uncle Jake?

Caro thought of the self-contained man who’d interrogated her across the desk and tried to imagine him with this precious little girl. She couldn’t conjure the image, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care. He was protective of Ariane.

‘Here.’ She held out Caro’s capacious bag.

‘Thank you.’ Caro barely stopped herself calling the child by her name. ‘My name is Caro. Can you say that?’

‘Caro. That’s easy.’

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Ariane.’

‘What a pretty name.’

‘My daddy said he and Mummy picked it because I was so pretty.’ Those big eyes filled with tears and Ariane’s chin wobbled.

Caro’s excitement shattered, her insides curdling. Ariane had lost her parents. She was grieving.

‘I can see that,’ Caro said slowly as she reached for her bag and began to rummage in it. ‘I know some girls in St Ancilla who are called Ariane. They’re named for a famous lady. She was very pretty, but more importantly she was kind and brave too.’

‘She was?’ Ariane blinked up at her, diverted.

‘Oh, yes. She lived a long time ago before there were good hospitals and medicines. When all the people were very sick from a bad illness the lords and ladies shut themselves away because they were afraid they would get sick too. But Ariane came out of her castle and visited the poor people. She made sure they had food and clean water and helped them get better.’

‘I want to be like her. I want to help.’

‘Well,’ Caro said slowly, withdrawing a scarf from her bag, ‘you can get some practice now, helping Maxim. Here. Can you hold his arm like this?’

Ariane nodded and stood by Caro’s knee, head bent as she concentrated on holding the bear and his arm in just the right way. Caro felt the brush of her soft little hand. A flutter of sensation rippled up Caro’s arm, arrowing to her heart. She tugged in a tremulous breath and focused on fashioning the scarf into a sling.

There’d be time for emotion later, when she was alone. She couldn’t give in to it now. That would be self-indulgent, besides scaring a child who knew her only as a stranger.

But as Caro knotted the scarf, her attention wasn’t on the bear but on Ariane, whose world had been ripped apart. Who needed stability, kindness and above all love.

Caro vowed that, whatever it took, she would be the one to provide that.

Jake stood in the doorway, watching the pair with their heads bent over the teddy bear.

There was nothing especially arresting about the sight. Yet there was something about the woman and the girl together that hit him like a fist to the ribs.

Because it should have been his sister Connie here with Ariane?

Jake released a slow breath from searing lungs.

That went without saying. He’d give everything he had to see Connie here, alive and well. But this skitter of preternatural awareness didn’t spring from loss. Or not loss alone.

What was it about this pair that stopped him in his tracks?

They spoke Ancillan so he didn’t understand their conversation. Yet he’d understood Ariane’s sadness and the way Caro Rivage had directed the conversation, allaying the tears he’d seen brim in his niece’s eyes.

His confidence in this woman as a potential nanny soared. Anyone who could make Ariane smile these days was good in his book. He liked Ms Rivage’s sensitivity, the deft way she’d handled what looked like a fraught moment.

Not that he was ready to give her the job. Her qualifications were laughably light compared with some of the experts who’d worked in the field for decades.

Jake frowned, watching her wind something around the teddy’s arm, murmuring to Ariane.

There was something there he couldn’t put his finger on. Some...similarity between them. His nape prickled as instinct stirred.

It wasn’t their colouring. Ariane’s was vibrant whereas Caro Rivage had dull brown hair and dark brown eyes. Ariane’s face was heart-shaped and Caro Rivage’s was oval. Yet the slanting set of their eyes looked similar and maybe something around the shape of the nose.

He shook his head as his brain cleared. There was no link. It was merely the way they worked together, both intent, both speaking Ancillan. He imagined things.

For some reason his sixth sense had worked overtime ever since Caro Rivage arrived. So much that after the phone call he’d checked her application again at Neil’s desk, looking for anomalies. But there was nothing that didn’t fit. The references and qualifications of all the shortlisted applicants, including Ms Rivage, had already been checked.

His first assessment had been right. She was ordinary, not outstanding.

Jake always chose outstanding. He didn’t have time for ordinary. That was how he’d built his business and his personal fortune, through excellence. Yet he couldn’t stifle the idea that perhaps it wasn’t outstanding Ariane needed but someone ordinary. Someone to help her grope her way back to normalcy after her trauma.