Princess of Convenience. Marion Lennox

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      Dear Reader,

      I do like a good dose of royalty. Not day-to-day, opening fetes and greeting-dignitaries-type royalty, but castles and footmen and glass coaches—the full fantastic fairy tale. Wouldn’t it be fun to be a part of it for a while?

      Oh, I hear you say, but it surely never happens in real life. Normal people don’t find themselves in the middle of such a soap bubble. But what if…what if…?

      That’s where I come in. I can’t resist a good romance and here we have two lovely people—normalish people even if Raoul’s a wee bit gorgeous—catapulted into wonder.

      It’s fun, it’s fantastic and I believed every word of it as I wrote. I did enjoy donning a tiara, and I trust you’ll enjoy wearing one, too.

      Marion Lennox

      Sit back and enjoy this wonderfully emotional new story from award-winning author Marion Lennox.

      PRINCESS OF CONVENIENCE

      Marion Lennox

      Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories! Marion writes for the Medical Romance^™ and Harlequin Romance^® lines. In her non-writing life Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, kids, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive. As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories; her stories allow her to travel, and if ever there was one advertisement for following your dream, she’d be it!

      In Princess of Convenience Marion takes us into a wonderful mix of reality and fairy tale; where Jessica finds there’s more to this royal business than meets the eye, and her royal prince finds his thoroughly modern princess is more likely to wear Wellingtons than glass slippers.

      You can contact Marion at www.marionlennox.com

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      SHE should be driving on this side of the road. Surely?

      This was the most fabulous autoroute in Alp’Azuri. The road spiralled around snow-capped mountains, with the sea crashing hundreds of feet below. Every twist in the road seemed to reveal postcard magic. Medieval castles, ancient fishing villages, lush pastures dotted with long-haired goats and alpacas—every sight was seemingly designed to take the breath away.

      The twist she’d just taken had given her a fleeting glimpse of the home of the Alp’Azuri royal family. Made of glistening white stone, with turrets, towers and battlements and set high on the crags overlooking the sea, the castle looked as if it had been taken straight out of a fairy tale.

      Two years ago Jessica Devlin would have been entranced. But now she was concentrating on reaching the next of her suppliers—concentrating on not thinking about the empty passenger seat—concentrating simply on staying on the right side of the road.

      She was sure she was on the right side of the road.

      The autoroute consisted of blind bends winding around the mountain. As she drove, Jess caught sight of the road looping above and below.

      The road above was the worry. Was she imagining it?

      She drove cautiously around the next bend and caught a glimpse of a blue, open-topped sports car. The car was two curves above. Coming fast.

      Driving against the cliff edge.

      Her side.

      Surely it should be on the other side?

      She braked hard, turning her car onto a slight verge between cliff and road. The bend ahead was blind. If the car ahead came round on the wrong side…

      It had to be her imagination. She was basing this fear on a flash of blue, now out of sight.

      Maybe the driver ahead had better vision of the road than she did. She was being too cautious.

      But she still felt the first claws of fear. Too much had happened in her life to trust that the worst wouldn’t happen now. Thus Jess was almost stopped when the blue car swept around the bend. Travelling far, far too fast.

      On her side of the road.

      She was as far onto the verge as she could be without melting into the cliff. There was nowhere she could go.

      ‘No.’ She put her hands out, blindly. ‘No.’

      No one heard.

      Today was meant to have been his wedding day. Instead…it made a great day for a funeral.

      ‘Do you suppose she meant to do it?’ Lionel, Archduke of Alp’Azuri, looked at the flag-draped coffin with distaste. He was supposed to be supporting his great-nephew in his grief, but neither man could summon much energy for strong emotion.

      There’d been too much grief in the past few weeks for another death to destroy them.

      ‘What, kill herself?’ Raoul, Lionel’s great-nephew, didn’t even try to sound devastated. He sounded furious, which was exactly how he felt. ‘Sarah? You have to be kidding.’

      This was crazy, he decided. What on earth was he doing here, playing the wounded lover at the funeral of his fiancée?

      But he knew his duty. Raoul, Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri for at least another six days, stood at rigid attention while his fiancée was committed for burial, but all he felt was distaste.

      ‘She had what she wanted,’ he told his uncle, and there was no way he could disguise his anger. ‘She was drunk, Lionel, and it was only because the woman she hit was an incredibly careful driver that she didn’t manage to take someone else with her.’

      ‘But why?’ Lionel was clearly at a loss.

      ‘She had her girlfriends here for a pre-bridal lunch. Then she decided to drive down to Vesey to meet her lover. Her lover! Six days before the wedding, with every camera in the country trained on her. Do you know what her blood alcohol content was?’

      ‘Raoul, look distraught,’ his uncle hissed. ‘The cameras are on you.’

      ‘I’m suffering in stoic agony,’