In the Royal's Bed. Marion Lennox

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?’

      ‘You can see the pot of soup.’ She lifted a log from the hearth and put it in. ‘My fire made my soup. It’s been simmering all day. Every now and then I’ve had to pop home to put another log on.’

      ‘But you must have a stove with knobs. Like we have in the palace kitchens.’

      The palace kitchens. Alp de Ciel. Maybe… maybe…

      ‘I do have an electric stove,’ she said cautiously, feeling as if she were buying time. She opened a cupboard and tugged out a little electric appliance—two hotplates complete with knobs. ‘In summer when it’s really hot I cook with this.’

      ‘But in winter you cook with fire.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘It’s very interesting,’ Mathieu said, while Rafael still watched and said nothing. His gaze disconcerted her. She wanted to focus exclusively on Mathieu but Rafael had unnerved her.

      ‘Does it cook cakes?’ Mathieu asked.

      ‘There’s a cake in the pantry,’ she said. She’d been miserable last night and had baked, just for the comfort of it. There’d been a staff meeting planned for this morning and she’d intended to take it along, but then one of the guides had called in sick and she’d had to take his place. So the cake was intact.

      She produced it now while the child watched with wide-eyed solemnity and the man kept watching her.

      ‘It’s chocolate,’ Mathieu breathed.

      ‘Chocolate’s my favourite,’ Kelly admitted.

      ‘Uncle Rafael says you’re my mother,’ Mathieu said, still not looking at her but eyeing the cake as if it might give a clue to the veracity of his uncle’s statement.

      ‘So he does.’

      ‘I don’t really understand,’ Mathieu complained. ‘I thought my mother would wear a pretty dress.’

      It was too much. Kelly stared at the child and she thought she was crazy, this was crazy, there was no way this was real.

       I thought my mother would wear a pretty dress.

      This little one had a vision of his mother. As she’d had a vision of her child.

      ‘I feel like crying,’ she said to the room in general, thinking maybe that saying it might ward it off. But shock itself was stopping her from weeping. Every nerve in her body was focused exclusively on this little boy.

      ‘I don’t understand either,’ she said at last as both males looked apprehensive. They were also looking a little confused.