Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

They had to keep going.

‘Well, we haven’t got the fort any more, but we have got trains. So let’s start building this track,’ she said, with forced resolution.

She started digging into the sand, carving out the railway tracks that Ben liked to make so that he could drive his engines along. The sand was cold beneath the surface, and wet. The sand at the villa had been warm, dry.

And Rico had helped Ben make the tracks.

‘Come on, Ben, give me a hand,’ she said.

Morosely he started to help, his expression unhappy. Lizzy ignored it. She had to. She had to jolly him along, get him cheerful again, enthusiastic again. What alternative was there? She knelt down on the sand, facing out to sea, letting the wind whip her hair into unflattering frizzled wisps.

Her looks were going already, she knew. Without all the expensive attentions of stylists and beauticians she was beginning to revert. She didn’t care.

What did Ben care what she looked like?

And there was no one else to care.

Never again.

‘Where shall we make the train station?’ she asked, kneeling back a moment, feeling the wind-blown sand stinging on her cheeks.

‘Don’t care,’ said Ben. He sat back as well, beside her. ‘It’s a stupid, stupid track, and I don’t care where the stupid, stupid station is. Stupid, stupid, stupid.’ He bashed the sand with his spade, spattering it in all directions.

‘Well, I’d put it just before the branch line goes off, Ben. That’s the place for a station.’

The voice that spoke was deep and accented, and it came from behind them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE world seemed to stop. Stop completely. Except that it didn’t stop. It whirled around her. Whirled with a dizzying sp

eed that made her feel faint.

It wasn’t possible. It was an illusion—an auditory illusion. They happened sometimes—you could hear people speaking who weren’t there.

Who were somewhere quite different. Who were at some aristocratic house party somewhere, or on a multimillion-pound yacht, or flying in a private jet to a tropical island with a beautiful film star for company.

Who weren’t on a Cornish beach, with the wind blowing off the North Atlantic. Making the wind feel as if it was being wafted there from paradise…

Her vision dimmed. She felt clouds rushing in from all around. The blood was thick in her head, bowing her down with its weight.

‘Tio Rico!’

Ben’s voice was alight. She could hear it, piercing through the clouds and the thickening blood.

‘Tio Rico. Tio Rico!’

She bowed her head. It was impossible. Impossible.

‘Hello, Ben? Have you been good without me?’

‘No,’ shouted Ben. Excitement overwhelmed him. ‘You weren’t here. Why weren’t you here, Tio Rico?’

‘I got delayed. I’m sorry. But I’m here now.’ She felt him lower himself down on to the rug. And still she could not move. Not a muscle.

‘Are you going to stay?’ Ben demanded. But there was fear in his voice.

‘As long as you want me to stay.’ He paused. ‘If your mother agrees, that is. Do you?’