Stepping into the Prince's World by Marion Lennox

Author:Marion Lennox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

BUT IN THE end she did listen.

In the end it sounded almost reasonable.

‘A couple of years ago one of the Australian soldiers I was on an exercise with told me about his son,’ he told her. ‘The boy was faced with a lengthy jail term for being immature, gullible and in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems the legal assistance service you worked for helped him escape conviction and gave him another chance. To my shame I’d forgotten it until you mentioned it, but I know we don’t have such a service at home—legal help for those who can’t afford lawyers. Claire, if I’m to return as more than a figurehead I’d like to institute a few reforms—reforms long overdue. I’ve never had the authority to make those changes, but maybe it’s time for a line in the sand.’

‘A line...?’

‘You’d be the beginning of my line,’ he told her.

She dared a glance at him and discovered he was smiling. She went back to her coffee fast. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you would accompany me back to Marétal. You’d be greeted by my grandparents as the woman who saved the life of the heir to the throne. And I’ll say I’ve offered you a job—investigating the need for such a service in our country.’

He held up his hand to prevent her instinctive protest.

‘Claire, hear me out. My idea is that you’d spend a month talking to our public services, talking to the people high up in the judicial system, assessing whether our system is similar enough to the Australian system for something like legal assistance to work. Given you’ll have access via me to whoever you want to speak to, a month should be sufficient to give you an overview. And then you’d go home.’

She did raise her eyes then. She stared up at him in astonishment. ‘I’d go home?’ she managed.

‘Once you’ve spoken to my people I’d ask—through diplomatic channels—that you have the same access to yours. Then I’d ask that you put forward a proposal for Marétal. It might be six months’ work to put together such a proposal, but that six months...’ He hesitated. ‘Claire, we could use it. We could just...see.’

‘See what?’ She was having trouble speaking.

‘See where we are at the end of six months,’ he told her. ‘See if we feel the same as we do now. See whether this relationship has legs.’

‘Legs...’ she muttered, and managed a sort of smile. ‘Slang in how many languages?’

‘How many do you know?’ He shrugged. ‘Claire, you’re smart, you’re strong, you have solid legal training and you know enough about the needs of low-income earners to be empathic. You’re what our country needs.’

‘Others could do the job.’

‘I want you.’

And there it was, out in the open, staring at them like a two-headed monster.

I want you.

She could say the same.

She couldn’t.

‘The ball...’ she muttered, and he gave a slightly shame-faced grin.

‘That’s the pay-off,’ he told her. ‘A favour, if you like. Claire, I can’t pretend there’s nothing between us.

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