‘Louise.’ Dignity or not, royalty or not, Jess was crouching beside her, hugging. Louise responded with a shattered sob as she subsided into Jessica’s shoulder. She only sobbed out loud the once but Jess could feel as the shuddering sobs continued to rack her frail body.

Louise was far too thin, she thought. She was gaunt, as if this suffering was nothing new. She’d lost a son and a daughter-in-law less than a month ago. Then she’d lost Sarah. And now…

Somewhere there was a little boy who was being threatened.

She’d never seen a child here.

Still, until tonight she’d never been out of her suite of rooms.

‘Will you tell me what’s happening?’ she asked, but Louise couldn’t answer.

Henri was fluttering uselessly behind them and Jess could see that he was just as distressed as Louise. ‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered, and a tear rolled unchecked down the elderly man’s wrinkled cheek.

‘It’s the little prince,’ Henri murmured, looking down in concern at Louise. ‘Ma’am…’

‘Mama.’ Raoul was back with them, kneeling beside Jess and his mother. He took his mother’s shoulders in his big hands, transferring her weight to him.

There was such gentleness here, Jess thought as she moved aside. He was a big man; he’d handled Marcel with barely suppressed violence, yet he held his mother with absolute love.

‘Mama, we’ll think of something,’ he was saying, whispering softly into her hair. ‘We’ll take it to the courts. They can’t enforce this.’

‘They will,’ his mother said brokenly. ‘You know there’s no access at all to the crown prince by anyone other than his legal guardian. When your father and I split up I wasn’t allowed near Jean-Paul. God knows I tried.’

‘This is crazy,’ Jess said, not wanting to interrupt such distress but overcome by her urge to know. ‘Can someone tell me what’s happening?’

‘It’s easy, miss.’ It was Henri, speaking up behind her as Raoul hugged his mother. The elderly servant had stared down at the pair of them and then he’d turned away. Maybe talking to Jess helped. Or maybe it was that he couldn’t think of what else to do. ‘Or…maybe it’s hard.’