Wanted: Royal Wife and Mother. Marion Lennox

terrified.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘The park’s closing. Can you come back tomorrow?’

      ‘This is a private matter.’

      ‘What’s a private matter?’

      ‘Mathieu is a private matter,’ he said softly, and he smiled ruefully down at the little boy by his side. ‘Mathieu, this is the lady we’ve come to meet. I believe this lady is your mother.’

      The world stopped. Just like that.

      Death was the cessation of the heart beating and that was what it felt like. Nothing moved. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

      She gazed at the man for a long moment, as if she were unable to break her gaze—as if she were unable to kick-start her heart. She felt frozen.

      There’d been noises before—the cheerful clamour of tourists heading home. Now there was nothing. Her ears weren’t hearing.

      She put a hand out, fighting for balance in a world that had suddenly jerked at a crazy angle. She might fall. She had to get her heart to work if she wasn’t to fall. She had to breathe.

      The man’s hands came out and caught her under the elbows, supporting her, holding her firm, forcing her to stay upright.

      ‘Kellyn?’

      She fought to get her next breath.

      Another. Another.

      Finally she found the strength to stand without support. She tugged away a little and he released her, watching her calmly as she took a couple of dazed steps back.

      They were both watching her, man and boy. Both with that same calm, unjudging patience.

      Could she see…could she see?

      Maybe she could.

      ‘Mathieu,’ she breathed, and the child looked a question at the man and nodded gravely.

       ‘Oui.’

      ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ she asked for want of anything more sensible to ask, for she’d already had a demonstration that he did, and both man and boy nodded.

      ‘Oui,’ the little boy said again. He reclaimed his uncle’s hand and held tight. ‘My Aunt Laura says it’s very important to know Anglais.’

      ‘Mathieu,’ she breathed again, and her knees started to buckle again. But this time she was more in control. She let them give, squatting so she was on the child’s level. ‘Tu est Mathieu. Mon…mon Mathieu.’

      The little boy hesitated. He looked again at his uncle. Rafael nodded—gravely, definite—and the little boy looked again at Kelly.

      He kept on looking. He was taking in every inch of her. He put a hand out to touch her dungarees, as if checking that they were real. He looked again at her face and his small chin wobbled.

      ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.

      ‘You do know,’ Rafael said gently. ‘We’ve explained it to you.’

      ‘But she doesn’t look…’

      Kelly had forgotten to breathe. It seemed the child was as terrified as she was. And as unbelieving. He blinked a couple of times and a tear rolled down his cheek, unchecked.

      She had an urgent need to wipe it away. To touch him.

      She mustn’t. She mustn’t even breathe. She had to wait.

      And finally he came to a decision. He gulped a couple of times and gripped his uncle’s hand as if it were a lifeline. But the look he gave her… There was desperate hope as well as terror.

      ‘Uncle Rafael says you are my mama,’ the child whispered.

      And that was the end of her self-control. She, who’d sworn five years ago that she was done crying, that she’d never cry again, felt tears slip helplessly down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them—she had no idea how to even try. She couldn’t think what to do, what to say. She simply squatted before her son and let the tears slip down her cheeks.

      ‘Oi! Kelly.’ It was Pete on the gate, concerned at her body language, concerned to get these stragglers out of the park. ‘It’s five past five,’ he yelled.

      Rafael glanced down at Kelly, who was past speaking, and then called to Pete, ‘We’re not tourists. We’re friends of Kellyn’s.’

      ‘Kelly?’ Pete called, doubtful, and Kelly somehow stopped gazing at Mathieu, gulped a couple of times and found the strength to answer.

      ‘Lock up, Pete,’ she called unsteadily. ‘I’ll let them out through the cottage.’

      ‘You sure?’ Pete sounded worried. The head of security was a burly sixty-year-old who lived and breathed this park. He also treated the park employees as family. Any minute now he’d demand to see Rafael’s credentials and give Kelly a lecture on admitting strange men into her home.

      ‘It’s okay,’ Kelly called, straightening and forcing her voice to sound a lot more sure than she felt. ‘I know…I know these people.’ Her voice fell away to a whisper. ‘I know this child.’

      The park—a restoration and re-enactment of life on the goldfields in the eighteen-fifties—had mineshafts, camps, shops, hotels and also tiny homes. As much as possible it was a viable, self-supporting community and the homes were lived in.

      Kelly’s cottage was halfway up the hill. There were ten of these cottages in the park, and Kelly felt herself lucky to have one. It might not have mod cons but it had everything she needed and she could stay steeped in history and hardly ever step out into the real world.

      Which was the way she liked it. She didn’t think much of the outside world. Once, a lifetime ago, she’d ventured a long way out and been so badly hurt she might never venture out again.

      Now she stepped through the front door of her cottage feeling as if her world were tipping. The warmth of her wood-stove reached out to greet her, and it was all she could do not to turn round and slam the door behind her before these strangers followed her in.

      For the more she thought about it, the more she thought this must be some cruel joke. Fate would never do this to her. Life had robbed her of Mathieu. To hand him back… It was an unbelievable dream that must have no foundation in reality.

      But here they were, following close on her heels, allowing her no time to slam the door before they entered.

      The child’s gaze was everywhere, his eyes enormous, clearly astonished that behind the façade of an ancient weatherboard hut was a snug little home. There was no requirement by the park administration that the interiors were kept authentic but Kelly loved her ancient wood-stove, her battered pine table, the set of kangaroo-backed chairs with bright cushions tied to each and the overstuffed settee stretched out beside the fire.

      She had soup on the stove—leek and potato—and the smell after a cold and bleak day was a welcome all by itself.

      Now they were inside, she didn’t know where to start. The man—Rafael—was watching her. She watched the child. Mathieu watched everything.

      ‘Is this where you live?’ the little boy asked at last. He was backing away from eye contact with her now. The mother-child thing…neither of them knew where to start.

      ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t get enough of him. She didn’t believe—yet—but she wanted to, oh, she wanted to, and for this tiny sliver of time she thought what if…what if?

      ‘Do you have a real stove?’

      ‘This is a real stove. Do you want to see the fire inside?’

      ‘Yes, please.’

      She flicked open the fire door. He stared at the pile of glowing cinders and frowned.

      ‘Can you cook on this?’