Stepping into the Prince's World (8 page)

‘Many people taught me to cook,' he told her. ‘I was never neglected.'

‘It sounds like you came from a wonderful community.'

‘I did,' he said, but his answer was curt. Maybe it hurt to go there. ‘And you?'

‘I taught myself to cook.'

‘Not your mother?'

‘Mum was on her own. I was an accident when she was eighteen and she had a hard time keeping me. She struggled with depression but she did her best. Early on I learned I could make her smile by having something yummy ready when she got home. She used to clean at the local hair salon and she brought home magazines that had got too tatty. I learned to cook from those magazines. It took me ages to accept that some ingredients were too expensive. I'd write a list, and get fed up when she'd come home with cheddar cheese rather than camembert—but she tried.'

‘You both sound...courageous.'

‘We weren't courageous. We just survived. Until...'

‘Until?'

She shrugged. ‘Until Mum couldn't survive any more. When I was fifteen she lost the fight.' She dredged up a smile. ‘But by then I could cook—and cook well. I could look out for myself, and I was pretty intent on a career where I could afford good cheese.'

‘So you became a lawyer?'

‘As you say. I pushed myself hard and libraries were my friend. Study was my friend.'

‘Hence the French?' She'd spoken French in the water. He'd hardly remembered, but he remembered now.

‘What else was there to do when the nights were lonely?' she asked. ‘Italian. French. Chinese. And cooking—which seemed the most important of the lot.'

‘You speak Italian, French and Chinese?'

‘Doesn't everyone?' She cocked her head to one side. ‘Soldier?'

He couldn't resist.
‘Was ist Deutch?'
he demanded.
What about German?

‘Ich spreche Deutsch. Aber ich kann nur verstehen wenn langsam gesprochen wird.'

I speak German but I can only understand if people speak slowly
.

‘Sie sind eine erstaunliche Frau,'
he said.

You are an amazing woman.

She grinned. ‘Well, I can understand that. You're not bad yourself. German, French, English... Any more?'

‘There might be,' he admitted. ‘I have smatterings of a lot. Marétal's official language is French, but it's pretty multilingual, plus years in the army means I've travelled. Want to go head to head with how many languages we can swear in?'

She chuckled. ‘No way. Rocky would be shocked. Besides, if we're competing I'd rather cook. Your
tarte tatin
against my muffins?'

‘Who gets to judge?'

‘Rocky, of course,' she told him. ‘And he's a very satisfactory judge. If it's edible he'll give it ten out of ten every time.'

* * *

The wind was getting up again. Whitecaps topped the ocean. It was becoming more and more unlikely that there'd be any joy flights over the island today, so therefore why not relax and have a cook-off?

It was an unlikely pastime. If anyone had told him three days ago that he'd be marooned on a rocky outcrop, cooking
tarte tatin
beside a woman he was trying not to go to bed with, he'd have thought they had rocks in their head.

But that was what was happening.

He cooked, but a good half of his attention was on the woman beside him. She was struggling a little, sparing her bad arm. He'd told her she should rest, that she could watch
him
cook, and she'd reacted as if he'd said she had two heads.

‘And let you lord it over me when your
tarte
comes out of the oven? In your dreams, soldier. This is battle!'

It was hardly a grim battlefield. They were watching what each other was doing. Learning. Pausing to watch the tricky bits. And finally they were relaxing.

They were talking about the island and her four months here. The things she'd seen. Her personal quest to rid the island of every bit of fishing line that had ever been washed up there—
‘Do you know what damage tangled line can do to wildlife?'
The books she'd read. The story of Rocky—how she'd chosen him from the rescue shelter the day before she'd left for the island and how she'd spent the first month trying to persuade him to come out from under her bed.

She talked of her childhood. She talked of her admiration for the legal assistance organisation she'd worked for and how she never should have left. She talked of its scope and its power. She talked of the disaster of her time in Sydney.

She tried to get him to talk to her.

‘Is it the army that's making you silent?' she asked at last. ‘They say returned soldiers are often too traumatised to speak. Is that you?'

‘That's a blunt question.'

‘Hey, I had a mother with depression. I learned early not to sugarcoat things. “Mum, how bad are you feeling? Scale of one to ten.” That's what I learned to ask. So there you go, Raoul. How traumatised are you—scale of one to ten?'

‘I don't think I'm traumatised.' Though that wasn't exactly true. There had been engagements that he didn't want to think about, and she must have seen it in his face.

‘You don't want to go there?' she asked, and he shook his head.

‘No.'

‘And when your boat turned upside down...?'

‘I was too busy surviving to be traumatised. And then along came a mermaid.'

‘How very fortuitous,' she said primly. She'd finished her muffins—they were baking nicely—and she'd started on a lasagne for dinner. She was feeding pasta dough into a machine, watching with satisfaction as the sheets stretched thinner. ‘So what about your childhood?'

‘I don't think I'm traumatised.'

‘Not even by your parents' death.'

‘I was very young. I can hardly remember them, and my grandparents took over.'

‘But you don't want to talk about it?'

‘No.'

‘Fair enough,' she said, and went back to her lasagne.

He thought she wouldn't press. She didn't sound in the least resentful that she'd just told him all about her and he wasn't returning the compliment.

He
should
tell her about himself.

It would change things, though. Of course it would. The decision not to go to bed with her had been the right one, he thought. Claire could be...his friend?

So if she was just his friend why not throw his background out there and see how it altered things?

He could say...
The reason I wasn't traumatised by my parents' death is that I hardly saw them. They were socialite royals. They had a good time while their child stayed home with the servants. Even after they died my grandparents were distant. The reason I cook is that I spent much of my childhood in the kitchens. The head cook called me
‘mon petit chou'
and hugged me as I licked cake mixture from a spoon. The kitchen was my security.

But he didn't say it. To admit to being royalty was huge, and what was between them seemed strange, tenuous, uncharted territory. Their friendship had happened so suddenly he didn't know how to take it. He only knew that this woman seemed like a miracle. She'd appeared in the water when he was about to drown. She'd given him life. But then, on land, she'd turned out to be...different. As different a woman as he'd ever met.

A woman who made him feel...vulnerable?

A woman he wanted to protect.

So he said nothing. He fell back into silence as they cooked and Claire was silent, too. She was restful, he thought. She was a woman he could come home to.

Or not leave?

A woman he could stay with for the rest of his life.

Whoa.
Where had
that
come from? How crazy a thought was that?

Far too crazy. He needed to get away from here and rebuild his armour—fast. He was a loner—wasn't he?

‘Done,' she said, popping her lasagne into the oven and closing the door with a satisfactory click. ‘That's timed for dinner.'

‘Time for a rest?'

‘Why would I want a rest?'

‘Your shoulder,' he said tentatively. ‘Doesn't it hurt?'

‘Only when it jerks, and I'm not jerking. And I don't feel like a rest.'

‘Then how about a walk?' More than anything else he wanted to take this woman into his arms and carry her to bed, but there was still a part of him that was rigidly holding back. If a plane arrived now and he was airlifted off the island—what then? What next?

He had to go home.

He could take her home with him.

The thought came again from left field, mind-blowing in its craziness. What was he
thinking
? He'd known this woman for
how
long?
Take it easy,
his sensible self was ordering, and he had to listen, even if it almost killed him.

‘A walk would be good.'

She was eyeing him speculatively and he wondered if she'd guessed what he was thinking. Probably she had, he thought. She seemed...almost fey.

No. In some weird way she seemed almost an extension of himself. She'd know what he was thinking.

And maybe she agreed. If she was indeed some deep-linked connection to himself then she'd be as wary as he was. And as off-balance. And she'd understand his need to rebuild his armour.

‘We could go and see the seals,' she suggested, and he tried to haul his thoughts back into order and believe a walk to the seals would be good. It was a poor second to what he'd prefer, but it had advantages.

They were full of muffins.
Tarte tatin
and lasagne were waiting in the wings for dinner. The wind had died a little and Rocky was looking hopeful. A man had to be practical instead of emotional.

But it nearly killed him to nod and agree.

‘Excellent idea. Let's go see some seals.'

* * *

The seals were on the far side of the island. By the time they reached them Raoul was counting his blessings that he'd found his boots and they were clean and dry enough to be useful.

Claire, on the other hand, was wearing light trainers and was leaping from rock to rock like a mountain goat. Okay, not quite like a mountain goat, he conceded as he watched her. With her arm firmly in its sling, as long as they were off the slippery gravel she was as lithe and agile as a fawn.

‘You've been practising,' he told her, and she looked back at him and grinned.

The wind was making her curls fly around her face. She looked young and free and...happy. Something had lifted, he thought, remembering her face two days ago. Yes, she'd been in pain, but there'd been other things going on behind the façade. Things he didn't know yet.

Things he might never know?

How had his presence lifted them?

‘I've had four months to practise,' she told him. ‘Rock-hopping has become my principal skill.'

‘Do you regret coming here?' If he was honest he was struggling to keep up with her. It wasn't strength that was needed here, it was agility—and she had it in spades.

‘Yes,' she said honestly. ‘I was battered and my pride was in tatters and I wanted to escape. But next time I want to escape, please tell me to choose a tropical island with cabana boys and drinks with little umbrellas.'

‘The weather's got you down?'

‘The isolation. Rocky's an appalling conversationalist.'

‘So will you leave now?'

‘How can I leave?' She surveyed a large rock ahead of her, checked it out for footholds and took a jump that had him catching his breath. But she was up on top without even using her hands. Maybe the mountain goat analogy was appropriate after all.

‘Because it's not safe,' he told her. ‘You're not safe here.'

‘I'm safer than walking through King's Cross at three in the morning. That's the red light district of Sydney.'

‘So there's another place you oughtn't to be.'

‘My chances of getting mugged here are practically zero.'

‘And your chances of slipping on a rock and falling and being stuck out here alone, with no one to find you...'

‘And being eaten by the seagulls,' she finished for him. ‘I thought of that. I'm very careful.'

He watched her tackle another rock. ‘Define “careful”.'

‘I'm safe.'

‘You're not safe.'

‘You think I should stay in the house and read and cook for the entire time?'

‘Don shouldn't have left you out here alone. You shouldn't have come.'

‘Okay, I shouldn't have come,' she told him. ‘It was a whim when I was feeling black, and, yes, Don told me there was another guy here. I talked to him via radio before I came. He seemed decent. He didn't tell me he intended leaving.'

‘And now you're alone with no radio.'

‘I can get it fixed. I have the authority.'

‘It's smashed. It'll take weeks. Claire, you need to come off the island with me.'

There was silence at that. She paused on the top of the rock she'd reached, looked at him for a long moment and then shook her head.

‘Not with you. I'll think about it. But I guess I agree about leaving. Without a radio it's not safe, but the supply boat can take me off. I can stay in Hobart until it's fixed.'

‘It's still not safe.'

She turned and started climbing again. ‘Define “safe”. I thought I was safe in a nice lawyerly job in Sydney and I almost ended up in jail. How safe's
that
? And how safe are
you
? Where's your next assignment? War zones in the Middle East? Do you want to pull out of
them
because they're not “safe”?'

‘I'm no longer in the army.'

She stopped then, and turned and stared at him. ‘No?'