LITMIR.BIZ

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businessman shared Kelly’s. She was courteously given the window seat, which meant that she was buffered from the pair across the aisle.

      She hardly talked to them.

      Rafael and Matty slept. She stared straight ahead, feeling sick.

      Finally they landed. There were photographers, reporters, politicians, all waiting. They were stunned to see Matty.

      Kelly hung back, trying to blend in as part of the luggage. She was afraid that Rafael would haul her forward and introduce her but he did no such thing. At the last minute, as the limousine was about to leave, he motioned for her to join them and she slid into the car before the photographers could register who she might be.

      Now she was doing the defensive bit again, huddled in the far corner of the car, staring out at the countryside.

      Remembering how she’d fallen in love with this country the first time she’d seen it.

      She’d forgotten how breathtaking it was.

      She’d forgotten how she’d fallen in love.

      The four Alp countries had been severed from their larger neighbours centuries ago to form principalities for warring brothers, and each one of them was a magical place in its own right.

      Alp de Ciel…Alps towering to the skies.

      Even though it was late spring there was still snow on the highest peaks. The lowlands stretching from the coast to the mountains consisted of magnificent undulating pastures, rich and fertile. There were quaint villages, houses hewn from the local rock hugging the coastline, some of the houses seemingly carved from the cliffs themselves. There were harbours with fishing fleets that looked straight off picture postcards. Too small to involve itself in the world wars, too insignificant to be fought over, Alp de Ciel had remained almost unchanged for centuries.

      The first time Kelly had seen it she’d been speechless with delight and it affected her just as deeply now. She stared out of the car window as they left the port city, then followed the river road to the foothills of the mountains, through Zunderfied, the small village which had served the castle for generations and then further to where the palace of Alp de Ciel lay in all its glory.

      It was no wonder she’d fallen for Kass, an older and wiser Kelly thought sadly. This place breathed romance. She’d been lonely and awed and in love with this country—Kass must have found her more than ripe for the picking.

      She couldn’t let herself be swayed by beauty this time. Nor by words.

      Nor by a de Boutaine…

      ‘It’s not all as beautiful as it looks,’ Rafael told her as she sat with her nose squashed against the window, and she cast him a look that was almost scared.

      ‘It is beautiful.’

      ‘Surface gorgeous. You know how Kass financed his latest bout of gambling debts? He allowed logging almost to the edge of Zunderfied. The land here gets saturated with the snow melts. We’ve had two minor landslips there with spring already. That’s just one problem among hundreds.’

      She turned and gazed upward and saw the scarred hillside, the jarring ugliness of the leavings from clear felling. But…to allow herself to worry about the countryside…the people…

      She wasn’t royal. She wasn’t!

      She mustn’t care.

      ‘You love it,’ Rafael said softly as the car slowed and turned into the palace grounds.

      ‘Not…not any more.’

      ‘There’s no need to be defensive,’ he said. ‘There’s no one who wants you to do anything you don’t want. I dare say the villagers can worry about their landslips very well themselves without you worrying on their behalf.’ He grimaced. ‘If you want to cloister yourself in your attic in your remarkable sweater then your wish will be respected.’

      ‘Does that mean Mama is allowed to wear that sweater?’ Matty demanded, astounded.

      ‘It’s her business.’

      ‘Ellen will say it’s not royal.’

      ‘Ellen will say no such thing,’ Rafael said firmly. ‘Your mother is here as her own person. She can do exactly as she pleases.’

      Damn, why was she blinking again? She glanced out of the back window of the car and saw the tiny township of Zunderfied perched below a swathe of freshly cleared mountainside. She’d boarded there when she’d first come here and thought it was delightful—a tiny alpine village that was steeped in history.

      But the logging… How could Kass have agreed to such a thing? Even from here it seemed the little town was in peril. She wanted to get out of the car and start replanting now.

      No! NMP, she told herself fiercely.

      Not My Problem.

      There was no hiding in the background when they arrived at the palace. She was expected.

      The first time she’d arrived here it had been with the archaeological dig team. They’d worked out of sight of the main castle, sifting through the remains of ancient castle sites. So the only time she’d been in this forecourt had been the time she’d arrived with Kass.

      She’d been eight months pregnant. Her pregnancy had been dreadful. She’d been sick all the time, and Kass had hardly been near.

      But then his father was dead and he was triumphant. He’d hauled her home, almost as a trophy.

      ‘This is my wife,’ he’d said, tugging her out of the limousine and not caring that she almost fell. ‘She’s carrying my heir. A son. This is now my country. My country.’

      The domestic staff had all been there to greet him—they’d lined up on either side of the castle entrance. She remembered the silence. The silent, cold disapproval.

      Kass had swept inside, leaving her to follow.

      ‘Take care of her,’ he’d snapped to a couple of the domestic staff. ‘She’s to have everything she needs to deliver a perfect child.’

      It had stayed with her. The dismay in the eyes of everyone around her. The contempt. Even…pity?

      But now…

      This was very, very different.

      Yes, the staff were assembled. Not as many. It was a pared down staff, maybe only a quarter as big.

      Every one of the staff was smiling.

      ‘Ellen,’ Matty yelled, launching himself out of the car and heading straight for a buxom woman at the end of the line. Then, as she scooped him into her arms and hugged, he turned from her shoulder and whooped as he saw more friends, ‘Marguerite. Aunt Laura.’

      They were all beaming at her little son. Rafael was smiling too. A man she remembered…Crater—the palace Secretary of State, more stooped than she remembered and his hair more silver—was stepping forward to grasp Rafael’s hand.

      ‘It’s good to have you back, sir.’

      ‘It’s good to be back,’ Rafael said. He turned to hug a woman near him—a lady around the same age as Crater. She was wearing a flowing skirt, a cardigan that reached almost to her knees and a paint-spattered pinafore over everything. Her abundance of silver hair was tied up in a knot and there was paint there too. She was smiling with everyone else but sniffing into a paint-smudged handkerchief.

      ‘Mama, don’t you dare cry.’ He picked her up and whirled her round as he might have whirled a child. ‘I’ve been away only a week. Kelly will think you’re soppy.’

      ‘Kelly,’ the lady whispered and Rafael set her down and turned her to face Kelly.

      ‘Mama, this is Kelly. Everyone, this is our own Princess Kellyn Marie de Boutaine. She’s been sorely wronged but she’s finally consented to take her place where she ought to be.

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