stirred to life again.
How could he do that to her even now? Anxiety rippled through her. Amelie couldn’t let that happen again.
She stopped within the circle of warmth, feeling cold to the bone. The faint scent of fine brandy reached her nostrils and she spied a rounded glass on the mantelpiece. But Lambis didn’t think to offer her a drink. Presumably that was too much to expect.
The thought drove thoughts of a conciliatory approach from Amelie’s head. If she read him right, she and Seb would be on their way as soon as the snow eased. That would be soon. It was far too early for winter.
Amelie chose a chair by the fire and sank down onto it. She’d fight every step of the way but she was so worn out she’d do it from a position of comfort.
The silence lengthened from seconds to minutes but for once Amelie didn’t move to fill it. All her life she’d been the one to charm and please, to smooth ruffled feathers, to be diplomatic and gracious.
She was here to fight for her nephew’s future. She wouldn’t make small talk, pretending everything was okay.
‘Are you going to explain?’ he asked finally.
Amelie refused to flinch at that adamantine tone. ‘Have you checked the messages I left?’
‘I have, but they didn’t help. All I know is that this is to do with your nephew.’
Sébastien, she wanted to scream at him. Or Seb. You’ve called him both in your time. Since when had Lambis thought of him only as someone else’s nephew?
What had happened to the man who, however reluctantly, had been kind to a little boy who’d shadowed his every move when he stayed at the St Gallan palace? A little boy whose own father was often too busy with affairs of state for a little one to tag along.
‘I didn’t want to say more until I saw you.’ She lifted her chin and met his eyes. In the shadow beyond the fireplace it was hard to read them but they looked shuttered. As if he was determined not to let anyone in. ‘It’s confidential.’
He lifted one arm in a gesture that encompassed the building. ‘There’s no one else here but us.’
It was the invitation Amelie needed and yet the words jammed in her throat. She’d hoped for some speck of interest or concern. Was that too much to ask? Instead it was like talking to a stranger.
Surely even a stranger would be more receptive?
Amelie crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap, refusing to show hurt. Surely they’d parted friends?
‘Seb is adjusting to the loss of his parents.’ Not by so much as a tremor did she betray how she too struggled with that tragedy.
Lambis said nothing.
‘You saw how he was at the memorial service.’ She’d known something was wrong then but it was only since that the enormity of Seb’s condition had unfolded.
‘He seemed very controlled.’
She shook her head. ‘It looked like that. The press loved the photos of the brave little Prince saluting his parents’ coffins.’ Amelie dragged in a hasty breath as pain jabbed her breastbone. The rampant voyeurism of the press had been expected but still it rankled. ‘That wasn’t control; it was grief.’
Amelie had strenuously opposed taking a four-year-old to the funeral, but though she was now the most senior member of the family she’d been overruled. She wasn’t Regent yet, and might never be, if the Prime Minister had his way. St Gallan law still favoured male over female and until Seb was officially proclaimed heir to the throne, and she his Regent, she had no right to make decisions for him.
In fact, she’d broken a slew of laws taking him out of the country. Right now, that was immaterial. The important thing was Seb.
‘It hasn’t been long since they died.’
Amelie looked into that stern face and saw not a flicker of emotion. Even for Queen Irini, the woman who’d been like a sister to Lambis.
But then, wasn’t Amelie too suppressing a riot of pain? It was comforting to think that maybe, somewhere deep behind that inhumanly blank face, Lambis mourned too.
‘I know, but...it’s more than that.’ She paused as a chill of remembrance feathered her spine. No one had expected the King and Queen of St Galla, both in their mid-twenties and full of life, to die in a freak accident. Everyone had been numbed by it. Even now Amelie still woke every morning to that awful reality slamming into her seconds, sometimes whole minutes after she woke.
Amelie held Lambis’s gaze. ‘Seb saw it happen. He was going to get in the boat too.’ She paused and swallowed, the movement scratching a throat suddenly lined with sandpaper. ‘But Irini didn’t want him too excited before his nap. She handed him to me.’ One more deep breath and she went on. ‘Michel promised he’d take him for a ride the next day.’
Except there’d been no next day for Michel and his wife.
‘I know.’ Lambis’s deep voice resonated around her, tugging at something sharp and raw inside.
Of course he knew. She’d told him when he’d flown across for the funeral. Why was she going over it again?
Amelie blinked and looked at the fire. It was easier staring at the golden flames than holding his sombre gaze.
‘The point is, Seb’s reaction to their deaths is...worrying.’ She slanted a look at that chiselled face. Still no hint of understanding. ‘He hasn’t cried. He hasn’t spoken. Not since the accident.’
That had Lambis’s attention. He stiffened, his brows furrowing down in a V of concentration, or could it be concern?
‘Hasn’t spoken at all?’
‘Not a word. Not to anyone.’
It had been uncanny, the way little Seb had stayed silent through those first days. It had worried her then but there’d been so much to attend to, so many legal matters and royal duties, meetings and consultations, she’d let herself hope she was wrong and it would resolve itself.
‘He doesn’t talk or smile or cry. He doesn’t react.’ Just saying it sent a quiver through her. She’d never felt so helpless.
‘You’ve sought advice?’
‘Of course. The consensus is that he needs time, though no one knows how much. Time and to feel safe and loved.’ Her voice caught on the last word but she refused to look away. She wasn’t ashamed of her feelings for Seb.
It was only what she’d once felt for Lambis that embarrassed her.
‘Then give him time. Give him love. Be patient.’
It was what the experts had said, each of them studiously ignoring the flaw in that simple approach.
‘I can’t.’
* * *
‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ Lambis had never thought to hear
