Alex crossed into the room, holding up his hand as he walked. ‘No. She’s fine. I was looking for you. I should have known I’d find you in here.’
There was a warmth in his eyes as he said the words, a flicker of a memory, and she remembered he’d told her this had been his mother’s favourite room.
He pointed at the tablet. ‘Isn’t it sacrilege to read that in here?’
She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t work the ancient light switches. Every time I pressed one it seemed to light up the wrong part of the library. Plus, I like being in the dark.’
She pointed to the gardens outside, where some light from the fountain and its walls was spilling up to meet them.
‘There’s something nice about looking out over the world.’
She turned to face him.
‘What have you got?’
He was holding something wrapped in brown paper in his hand, along with two large cups. The smell of something wonderful was winding its way through the air towards her.
‘Midnight snacks.’ He grinned as he sat down next to her. ‘I was starving and went for a rummage around the kitchen to see what I could find.’
She lifted her eyebrows. ‘I’m surprised Rufus’s inbuilt internal alarm didn’t go off at you stepping into the palace kitchens unattended.’
He shrugged. ‘I was too. Here,’ he handed one of the cups to her and she lifted it to her nose, inhaling.
‘Soup?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘At one in the morning?’
He smiled. That goofy smile he sometimes gave when it was just the two of them. ‘I’m hungry. Leena’s soup is the best there is.’ He held up the brown paper package. ‘I even managed to find some freshly baked rolls.’
She opened it up and looked in. Fresh crusty bread in the middle of the night did have a certain appeal.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s no fun eating on your own.’
There was a twinkle in his eye. It was the most relaxed she’d seen him for a while. Spending time with his daughter was doing him the world of good. This wasn’t the uptight guy who’d visited her months ago in her hospital department. This wasn’t the guy who’d looked as if a permanent grey cloud was resting on his shoulders.
She moved over to the table and he joined her, breaking open his bread roll and dipping it into the soup.
‘I’ve got something else to show you.’
He pushed a file across the table towards her. It was pale beige and looked official.
She flipped it open and gasped. A picture of her and Alex from ten years ago in Paris.
He shrugged. ‘It always bothered me that you never got my message. I trust my Head of Security. If he said he sent it I know he did. I had to work out what went wrong.’
‘After all this time?’
It had always bothered her too. She’d assumed an absent-minded clerk just hadn’t bothered passing the message on.
She looked at the file again. Read the notes. All of them were about her. It was more than a little unnerving. Then she let out a gasp. ‘Oh, no!’
His hands closed over hers. ‘What is it?’
She smiled at him. ‘Hotel du Chat. That’s not where I was staying. It says in the notes that your Head of Security left a message at Reception there.’
Alex’s brow furrowed. ‘He did. But that’s what you told me.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Hotel du Champ, Alex. Not Hotel du Chat.’ She shook her head. ‘After all these years I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.’
Alex put his head in his hands. ‘I was so sure. So sure you said Hotel du Chat.’
‘It was noisy, Alex. It was New Year’s. You’d just had an urgent message about your father.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Mistakes happen.’
His finger reached up and touched her cheek. ‘I hate mistakes,’ he whispered.
‘So do I.’
They sat in silence for a few seconds. Both of them letting the revelation wash over them. For Ruby, it felt like a relief. It didn’t matter that Alex had assured her he’d tried to contact her. There had always been a tiny sliver of doubt.
But he had. And, strangely, it made her feel good. Maybe life would have been different. Who could possibly know? What she did know was that they couldn’t change the past.
‘What did the message say?’ She couldn’t help but ask. It had always played on her mind.
He gave a little nod and held her gaze. ‘It was simple.’ He shrugged. ‘We’d just met and barely had a chance to get to know each other. It said that I was sorry I couldn’t meet you, that I really wanted to see you again but had been called away to a family emergency—something I really wanted to explain to you. I left my number and asked you to call as soon as you got my note.’
She gave a sad kind of smile. ‘And that—as they say—was that.’
They sat in silence again for a few seconds, thinking of what-might-have-been.
There was no point second-guessing now. Time had passed. They’d found each other again. What happened next was up to them.
Alex pointed back to her soup. ‘Better eat that before it gets cold.’
She nodded and picked up her spoon. ‘This makes me feel as if I’m in one of those boarding schools that Enid Blyton wrote about and we’re having a midnight feast.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘She was a kids’ author, wasn’t she? I must have missed those books.’ He gave her a wink. ‘Boarding school wasn’t so bad.’
‘You went to
boarding school?’ She was fascinated.
‘Not until I was twelve. I went to primary school here in Euronia. The same one that I’m planning on sending Annabelle to.’
Her bread was poised over the cup. ‘Do you plan on sending her to boarding school when she’s older?’
It was almost as if a little breeze had chilled her skin. It was all right joking about these things, but the thought of Annabelle going to boarding school in a few years made her blood run cold.
‘I don’t know that much about girls’ boarding schools. Maybe... I’d need to see how she was doing first.’
It was a touch of relief, but not enough. She had no business saying anything. But she didn’t care.
‘I don’t think you should.’ The words were out before she’d thought about them.
‘You don’t?’
He seemed surprised. But the atmosphere between them was still relaxed. She felt able to continue.
‘I just wonder if that will be the right environment for Annabelle.’ She leaned across the table and touched his arm. ‘I’ve something to tell you about today.’
‘What is it?’
She gave him a smile. ‘Today, when I was at the nursery watching Annabelle, I’m almost sure she spoke to another child.’
‘What?’
She nodded. ‘She was with a little boy. They were playing together. I was at the other side of the nursery but I saw her look up and her lips moved. The little boy’s head snapped up, so she must have said something. But at that point she resorted to signing again. It was almost as if his reaction reminded her that she didn’t talk.’
Alex looked as if he could hardly believe her. His face was a mixture of surprise and relief. ‘But you didn’t actually hear her?’
‘No. I was too far away—and, believe me, it’s bedlam in the nursery. The noise levels are incredible.’
‘So, this is good. Isn’t it?’
‘I hope so. It’s one of the concepts of selective mutism that in some situations children will talk and in others they won’t.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think that I can see changes all the time, Alex. They’re slow, but steady. In my head, Annabelle is a little flower with all its petals tightly closed. It’s only now that she’s starting to bloom. We need to nurture her. We need to keep letting her develop at her own pace, her own speed.’