she couldn’t think it for long for Laura gave her no chance. With a cry of delight, Laura abandoned Rafael and took swift steps to where she was standing. Kelly could hardly be self-conscious of her clothes in the face of layers of paint. There was even a daub of purple on Laura’s left eyebrow.
And there was no disguising the sincerity of her welcome. Smiling warmly, Laura took her by both hands and held her at arm’s length, surveying her from head to toe. But Kelly thought she wasn’t seeing the clothes. She was looking deeper.
‘So you’ve come home,’ Laura whispered. ‘Oh, my dear, we are so sorry. This country’s done you such a wrong. I don’t know how you can ever forgive us, but from now on…we’re overjoyed to have you here. Welcome home, Kelly, dear.’
She turned and held Kelly’s hand high in hers.
‘Our Matty has his mother home,’ she said to the assemblage. ‘And we have our princess. Thank you, Rafael, for bringing our Kellyn home.’
But of course she wasn’t ‘our Kellyn’. She’d never been part of this royal family and she had no intention of being slotted neatly into an allocated space now.
The next few hours passed in a haze of shock and confusion and jet lag. Somehow, however, she managed to keep her wits about her enough to insist on her independence from the first.
With the first greetings over, with Matty scampering off to greet his friends, to make sure nothing had changed in his absence and to distribute the myriad of souvenir gifts he’d stocked up on, Laura and Rafael showed her to her rooms. To her horror, she found she was expected to sleep in the same ghastly, opulent suite she’d been confined to while she’d waited for Matty to be born. It had been closed when she left and hadn’t been used since. She glanced through to the bathroom and the dressing gown she’d worn when she was pregnant was folded neatly on a side table. Cleaned and pressed. Waiting for her to return?
She backed out in horror. No and no and no.
Rafael raised his eyebrows in bemusement. ‘These are the best we have,’ he said. ‘Rooms fit for a royal bride. Kass never felt any desire to put anyone else in them.’
‘Then get yourself a royal bride to put in them,’ she said crisply, staring round at the gilt and chandeliers and rich crimson velvet with loathing. ‘I think I get to be described as the royal relic from now on. I don’t want anything to do with this stuff.’
‘You don’t look like a relic.’
‘If she doesn’t want gilt she doesn’t have gilt,’ Laura said stoutly. ‘There’s not a scrap of gilt in the dower house. Not that I’m offering to share. It’s a wee bit cosy.’
‘My mother paints,’ Rafael said unnecessarily, smiling at his mother in affection. ‘The dower house has five bedrooms. Or it did have five bedrooms. Now it has five studios, one of which has my mother’s bed crammed in the corner.’ He hesitated, looking at Kelly’s face and registering her real distress. ‘Meanwhile this lady wants an attic,’ Rafael said softly. ‘Mama, which are our most respectable attics?’
The staff seemed flummoxed but she was then given a guided tour of the place.
Matty had almost a wing to himself—the palace nurseries. Right above was an attic wing—two rooms with turret windows, facing south, with sunlight streaming in through the ancient, hand-blown glass.
The furnishings were faded. ‘I think someone’s maiden aunt might have used these rooms a long time ago,’ Laura said, looking about her at the doilies and antimacassars and overstuffed armchairs. And the tiny narrow bed.
‘It’s fine,’ Kelly said.
‘Only if we can get you a new bed,’ Rafael growled, so she graciously accepted, asked for a desk and a decent reading light and prepared to start being a recluse.
It didn’t quite work straight off. For a start she needed to read Matty his bedtime story. ‘For surely that’s your role now,’ Laura said gently.
It was, and she loved that Laura and Rafael—and Marguerite and Ellen and every one of the palace staff—seemed determined to let her be Matty’s mother in every sense of the word.
So she read to Matty in a big armchair in front of the nursery fire. Halfway through the story he sidled on to her knee and promptly fell asleep in her arms. The sensation was indescribable. It almost made her forget her vow to be a recluse.
So she’d be a recluse who did the odd cuddle on the side.
Then supper was ready. ‘We waited for you,’ Ellen told her and Kelly thought tomorrow she’d figure how she could use the kitchen and make herself toasted sandwiches because that was all she felt like, but tonight she was stuck.
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