‘Prince Regent.’

‘It seems I’m the ruling Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel until Matty reaches twenty-five,’ he said ruefully. ‘Unless I knock it back. Which I don’t intend to.’

So the Prince Regent of Alp de Ciel was sitting at her kitchen table. Unbelievable. She didn’t believe it. She was fighting a mad desire to laugh.

How close to hysterics was she?

‘So you’re Prince Regent of Ciel.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve come to Australia…why?’

‘Because Matty needs his mother.’

That was enough to take her breath away all over again.

‘Kass decreed he didn’t need his mother five years ago,’ she whispered. She shot Matty a quick glance to make sure he wasn’t a figment of imagination. She’d been delirious for twenty-four hours with influenza. She was still as weak as a kitten. This was surely an extension of her illness.

But no. Matty was here. He was evening up his slices, taking a surreptitious nibble of an equalizing sliver.

‘My cousin,’ Rafael was saying, softly so the words were for her alone, ‘had the morals of a sewer rat. I heard what he did to you. You were a kid; he married you and then you were in no man’s land. Mother of a future Crown Prince. Only of course you’d signed your rights away. As a commoner marrying into royalty, you had to sign an agreement saying if the marriage ever broke down full custody of any children would stay with the Crown. So when you had an affair…’

‘I had no affair,’ she said, dragging desperately on to truth as a lifeline.

‘It seems now that you didn’t,’ Rafael said grimly. ‘It was the only thing that made it palatable to the world. That there were men who claimed to be your lovers. That you were proven to be immoral. Everyone knew Kass never had any intention of being faithful to a wife-he only married you to make his father furious. But…’