Her Royal Baby
Marion Lennox
Tammy is surprised to learn she's become guardian of her orphaned nephew, Henry, who will one day be crown prince of a European country…. Marc, the darkly handsome prince regent, wants Henry brought up as royalty, and he's not used to hearing "no." But feisty Australian Tammy has no time for titles, and she's determined to give her nephew all the love a baby needs, even if she has to become Marc's stand-in princess….
The man on the other side of the door took her breath away.
For a moment she forgot all about her anger. Whew!
His Royal Highness, Prince Marc of Broitenburg, dressed in royal regalia, was really something. But just plain Marc, casually dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt, was something else entirely.
His hair was now ruffled and curled. His gray eyes were smiling, the laughter lines on his tanned face creasing into deep and delicious crinkles. His smile was questioning, and his eyes searched the room until he found the sleeping Henry.
Whew, indeed! He made her want to take a step back.
Or maybe he made her want to take a step forward….
Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories! Marion writes Medical Romance
novels as well as Harlequin Romance
books. Initially she used a different name for each category, so if you’re looking for past books, search also for author Trisha David. In her nonwriting life Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, teenagers, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive. As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories. Her stories allow her to travel, and if ever there was an advertisement for following your dream, she’d be it! You can contact Marion at www.marionlennox.com
Congratulations to Marion Lennox on her 50th book!
Her Royal Baby
Marion Lennox
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
TAMMY was up a tree when royalty arrived.
Royalty might be unusual, but being up a tree wasn’t. Tamsin Dexter spent half her life up trees. She was one of Australia’s youngest and brightest tree surgeons, and Tammy’s passion was propagating, treating or, as a last resort, felling trees and planting new ones to take their place.
Employed by the Australian National Parks Service, Tammy was as usual, working in the remote bushland that she loved so much. She was part of a team, but today she was working happily and successfully alone.
She had nothing to do with royalty.
But someone was under her tree right now and he certainly looked like royalty. Or maybe he was a duke. Or maybe he wasn’t royalty. Could he be an admiral or something?
Maybe she didn’t know, she conceded. Tammy’s working knowledge of royalty, dukes and admirals was strictly limited. Were admirals as young as this? Maybe not.
What the stranger was wearing probably wasn’t an admiral’s uniform, she decided as she checked him out more closely. He was dressed in a sleek, expensively cut suit, embellished with rows of braid, medals and tassels. He’d arrived in a gleaming limousine, which was now parked under the tree she was working on, and a uniformed chauffeur remained in the driving seat.
Someone else was climbing out of the car now. The second man was older, and wore no braid or medals, but he still looked like some sort of official.
Which of the pair looked more out of place? Tammy couldn’t decide. Royalty or official? It didn’t matter, but she knew who looked the most interesting.
Royalty. Definitely royalty.
The man she’d decided was royalty was tall. He was well over six feet, she thought, though it was tricky to judge from so far above him. He was immaculately groomed with jet black hair, thickly waved and raked back. His hair looked carefully arranged to suit the official status of his uniform, but perhaps ungroomed it would be the sort of tousled thatch that Tammy infinitely preferred in her men.
Her men?
She grinned at the direction her thoughts were taking. That was a laugh. Her men. Her men were a figment of her imagination.
Figment or not, this man looked great. Wonderful. He was strongly built and had a sort of chiselled look about him: like one of Rodin’s statues. His bone structure was superb—intensely, wonderfully masculine.
What else? Some things were obvious. He certainly wasn’t the sort who lived in the bush. Even without the royal regalia, he looked the type who’d be at home drinking café latte, or sipping wine in trendy city bars, with a sleek little Lamborghini parked nearby.
She knew the type, and it wasn’t her type at all. Cheap tea boiled on a campfire with a few eucalyptus leaves thrown in for flavour was more Tammy’s style.
So, what on earth were these two men and their chauffeur doing here? She swung lazily back in her harness and considered.
The bureaucrat was about fifty—twenty years or so older than the royalty-type—and he was podgy. He was wearing a dark suit and his shirt had a too-tight collar. In comparison the younger man looked smooth, intelligent and sophisticated.
What a pair! In combination they looked almost absurd. Here they were, in the middle of the Australian bush, and they were dressed as if they were expecting a royal reception. And to receive them there was only Tammy, swinging thirty feet above their heads.
What did they want?
‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called, and Tammy frowned. Miss Dexter? That was her. What were this lot doing looking for her?
‘This is ridiculous,’ the royalty guy was saying. ‘The sort of woman I’m looking for wouldn’t be working in a place like this.’
Tammy thought about that and agreed wholeheartedly. How many Miss Dexters were there in the world? Thousands, she decided. These guys had wandered off a movie set and needed directions to find their way home.
‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called again, this time more urgently.
But still Tammy didn’t respond. She stared down at the men below, and as she did she felt her insides give an unfamiliar lurch. Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe they weren’t in the wrong place at all.
Maybe they spelled trouble.
‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called again, in a tone that said that this was his last try, and she took a deep breath.
‘I’m up here. What can I do for you?’
The voice from above his head made Marc start.
The foreman down the road had told him Tamsin Dexter was working in this clearing and he’d reacted with disbelief. What on earth was one of Lara’s family doing working in a place like this? He’d been wondering that pretty much constantly for the last twenty-four hours, when the private investigator he’d hired had told him where he could find her.
‘I’ve found your Tamsin Dexter. She’s twenty-seven, she’s single, and she’s working as a tree surgeon with the Australian National Parks Service. She’s currently working in the National Park behind Bundanoon. Bundanoon’s on the Canberra-Sydney Highway, so if you take an hour or so after the Canberra reception you could find her.’
The private investigator had come with excellent credentials, but Marc had reacted with incredulity. How could a tree surgeon be sister to a woman such as Lara? It didn’t make sense. It must be the wrong Tamsin Dexter, he’d decided, and he’d sworn in vexation at the potential waste of time. He needed to work fast.
But the government reception in Canberra had been unavoidable. As Broitenburg’s Head of State, Marc would step on too many toes if he visited Australia and refused it. So…If he had to attend it wouldn’t hurt to detour through Bundanoon and see if he could find the woman.
Now he stared upward, and it was as much as he could do not to gasp out loud.
Tamsin was slim and wiry and…tough, he decided. Or maybe ‘serviceable’ was the best way to describe her. She was dressed in workmanlike khaki overalls and ancient leather boots. The boots were the closest thing to him, swinging back and forth above his head. They were battered and torn, and the laces had been repaired with knot after knot.
What else? She was young and obviously superbly fit. Her riot of jet-black curls was caught back with a piece of twine. Curls spread out to tangle glossily around her shoulders. They looked as if they hadn’t seen a brush for a week. Though that might be unfair. If he was hanging where she was maybe his hair would look tousled as well.
He forced his gaze to move on, assessing the whole package. Her skin was tanned and clear…weathered, almost. Wide, clear eyes gazed calmly down at him and he found himself wondering what colour they were. Brown, like her sister’s? He couldn’t tell from here.
But what he could see was a perfect likeness of Lara. Hell, even the similarity made his gut clench in anger.
The detective had been right. This was the Tamsin Dexter he’d been looking for. He’d found her.
‘Can I help you?’ She was looking down at them as if they were the odd ones out—which, considering their clothes, wasn’t surprising. She was still swinging from her harness, reluctant to come down unless it was really necessary.
It was necessary.
‘I need you,’ he told her.
‘Why?’
‘You’re Tamsin Dexter?’
‘Yep.’ Still she made no sign of descent. Her attitude said she had work to do and they were interfering with it.
‘Miss Dexter, this is His Royal Highness, Marc, Prince Regent of Broitenburg,’ Charles interrupted, tugging his collar in anxiety. He wasn’t comfortable in this situation and it showed. ‘Could you please come down?’
What would the ramifications of being rude to royalty be? The two men watched as she clearly thought about it and decided her best option was to swing a while longer.
‘Hi,’ she said at last to Marc—the good-looking one—and then she looked across to Charles. The podgy one with the sweaty collar. ‘If your friend’s a prince, who are you?’
‘I’m Charles Debourier. I’m ambassador to—’
‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Ambassador to Broitenburg?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Broitenburg is…um…somewhere in Europe?’ She grinned, a wide, white smile that was so totally different from Lara’s careful painted smile that Marc caught his breath at the sight of it.
What was he thinking? She was too much like Lara to interest him, he told himself savagely, and he didn’t have time to waste thinking about women. Especially this one.
‘You don’t know where Broitenburg is?’ Charles demanded, and the woman’s smile widened. She had a huge advantage over them—thirty feet, in fact.
‘I’ve never been much interested in geography,’ she told them. ‘And I left school at fifteen.’
Great. She was Lara’s sister and illiterate besides. Marc’s feelings of dismay intensified.
‘Broitenburg’s bordered by Austria on one side and Germany on the other,’ Charles was saying, but Tammy was clearly unimpressed.
‘Oh, right. Come to think of it, I have heard of it. It’s small, huh?’
‘It’s an important country in its own right,’ Charles snapped.
‘I guess it must be, to send an ambassador to Australia.’ She grinned again. ‘Well, it was nice to met you, Your Highness and Your Ambassadorship, and it was good of you to drop by, but I have a job to do before dusk.’
‘I told you,’ Marc said stiffly. ‘I need you.’
She’d been preparing to climb again, but she stopped at that. ‘Why? Do you have trees in Broitenburg?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m not interested in job offers.’
She sounded as if she was serious, Marc thought incredulously. She sounded as if she seriously thought he’d travelled all the way to Australia and come to find her in this outlandish place, dressed in this ridiculous rig, to ask her to look after some trees?
He hated it. He hated this ornate, over-the-top uniform. He hated Charles’s damned ostentatious car and his chauffeur. He hated royalty.
And the only way to get rid of it was via this chit of a girl.
‘I’m not offering you a job,’ he told her stiffly, and she stared.
‘Then why…?’
‘I’m here to ask you to sign some release papers,’ Marc told her. ‘So I can take your nephew back to Broitenburg where he belongs.’
Silence.
The silence went on for so long that it became clear there was lots going on behind it. This was no void, for want of anything to say. This was a respite, where all could get their heads around what had been said.
Tammy had hauled herself up onto a branch and now she sat stock still, staring down as Marc stared back up at her.
She was accustomed to people hunting for her with job offers—which was crazy, as she didn’t intend to leave Australia ever again—but this was crazier still.
Charles discovered there were ants crawling over one of his shoes, and started shifting from foot to foot. He glanced up at Tammy and then at Marc before returning his gaze to the ants. Annoyed, or maybe to block out the silence, he started stomping on them.
His action gave Tammy more breathing space. ‘Excuse me, but those ants are protected,’ Tammy said at last, almost conversationally, as though the previous words had not been said at all. ‘You’re in a National Park. The ants here have more rights than you do.’
Charles swore and shifted sideways. Onto more ants. He swore again, and cast an uncertain glance at Marc, and then, when Marc didn’t speak, he shrugged and headed for the car. He’d done his job. He hadn’t taken on an ambassadorship to stand under trees being bitten by ants.
‘I said, I want to take your nephew—’ Marc said at last, and Tammy interrupted.
‘I know what you said. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Marc nodded. He’d expected as much. There’d been no wish to come to her sister’s funeral. There’d been no contact made with the child. If it wasn’t for the immigration authorities he could pick the little boy up and take him back to his country right now. She probably didn’t even admit responsibility for him. At the thought of Henry’s neglect, he felt his face darken with anger.
‘If you’d been in contact they would have told you I’d requested he be returned, but they need your consent.’
‘Um…’ She was regarding him as if he was slightly off balance. ‘Who are they?’
‘The child’s nanny and the immigration authorities,’ he snapped, and now he could control himself no longer. ‘You can’t object. You’ve shown yourself to be the world’s worst custodian. If I hadn’t been paying the nanny’s salary he’d be in foster care right now. You and your sister and your mother…you should be locked up, the three of you. Of all the uncaring—’
He caught himself. Anger would achieve nothing, he told himself grimly. This woman didn’t want the child. It was enough that she signed the papers and he could be done with the entire mess. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said stiffly. ‘But your sister’s dead, your mother doesn’t give a damn, and apparently neither do you. All I want is the release papers. You sign them for me, I’ll take Henry back to Broitenburg, and you’ll never see him again.’
Her look of confusion was absolute. ‘Henry?’
Hadn’t she even bothered to remember the little boy’s name? Marc thought back to the bereft little boy he’d left in Sydney and felt his anger rising all over again.
‘Your nephew.’
‘I don’t have a nephew.’
That took him aback. He stared up at her. ‘Of course you do.’
‘There’s no of course about it. You must have mistaken me for someone else. I only have one sister—Lara—who I haven’t seen for years. That’s the way we like it. Last time I saw Lara she was attached to a millionaire up on the Gold Coast, and if you’re asking me if she has children I’d say you’d have to be joking. Lara would no sooner risk losing her gorgeous figure through childbearing than she would fly. Now, if you don’t mind…’
It was absurd, Marc thought. The whole scenario was absurd. She was lifting a drill and any minute now she’d turn it on, drowning out his words with her noise.
But she’d said her sister’s name. Lara. It confirmed what he had already been sure of. This woman was Lara’s sister.
But what had she said? She hadn’t seen her for years? The anger faded. Dear God, then she didn’t know.
‘Lara Dexter was your sister?’
‘Is,’ she snapped, and he heard the sudden surge of fear behind her irritation.
He took a deep breath. He hadn’t expected this. What the hell was the mother playing at? If she really hadn’t been told… He stared up at the girl in the tree and thought, where on earth did he go from here?
There was nowhere to go but forward. There was no easy way to say what had to be said.
‘Miss Dexter, I’m sorry, but your sister was married to my cousin. They were married three years ago. Jean-Paul and Lara were killed at a ski resort in Italy five weeks back. They have a child, Henry, who’s currently living in Sydney. He’s being cared for by a nanny whose wages I’ve been paying, but his care…his care is less than satisfactory. He’s ten months old. I’m here to ask your permission to take him back to Broitenburg.’
Tammy’s world stopped right there.
She froze. The drill in her hands seemed suddenly a stupid thing to be holding, and she stared at it as if she didn’t know what it was.
She had a makeshift bench set up on the branch she was sitting on. Carefully she laid the drill down and stared at it some more.
Lara was…dead?
‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered, still not looking at the man below. She was concentrating on the drill, as if working out its function was the most important thing in the world. There was a part of her that didn’t want to move forward from this moment.
Thirty seconds ago this stranger hadn’t said any of this. That was where she wanted to be. Back in time.
Lara…dead?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and something inside her snapped.
‘I’m sorry too,’ she flung at him. ‘I’m sorry about this whole damned mess. I don’t believe any of it. You come here, in your outlandish, stupid costume, like you’re a king or something—which I don’t believe—with your stupid chauffeured car and your tame politician, and you stomp my ants and interfere with my work and tell me Lara is dead…’
‘Lara is dead.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Will you come down?’
‘No.’ She made to pick the drill up again, but his voice cut through her confusion and her rage.
‘Miss Dexter, you need to face this. Your sister is dead. Will you come down from the tree, please?’
She flinched—and she thought about it.
For about three minutes she simply sat on her branch and stared down at him. He stared back, his face calm and compassionate.
It was a good face, she thought inconsequentially, and maybe that was another way of avoiding acceptance of what he’d just said. Kind. Strong. Determined. His eyes were calm and sure, promising that he spoke the truth.
She could accept or reject what he was telling her. His eyes said that the truth was here for the taking.
The minutes ticked on, and he had the sense to let her alone. To allow her time to believe. His face stayed impassive.
His eyes never wavered.
And finally she faced the inevitable. She believed him, she decided at last. Dreadfully, she believed him. Despite the incongruity of the situation—despite the craziness of what he was wearing and what he was saying—what he was telling her was the truth.
And with that knowledge came the first ghastly wash of pain. Her little sister…
Lara had wanted nothing to do with her for years. Lara and their mother lived in a world of their own that Tammy had nothing to do with, but for the first years of Lara’s life it had been Tammy who’d cared, who’d acted as a surrogate mother as far as a child could, because their own mother hadn’t known what was involved in the job of mothering. Before Lara was born Tammy had nothing. When Lara had become old enough to join forces with their mother she had nothing again. But for that short sweet while…
Lara was five years younger than Tammy. Twenty-two.
Lara was dead?
A vision of the little girl she’d loved and cuddled through her childhood lurched into her mind, and with it came a pain that was well nigh unbearable. The colour washed from her face and she put a hand on her branch to steady herself.
‘Come down,’ Marc said strongly, and Tammy took a deep breath and came to a decision. There was no going back. She had to face it.
She swung her legs over the branch, adjusted the harness and slid down.
She came down too fast.
Tammy had been abseiling up and down trees since she was a child. She could do it in her sleep. But now… She was almost past thinking and her hands slipped as she adjusted the rope. She came down faster than she should have—not fast enough to hurt herself, but fast enough for Marc to step in urgently to catch her, to steady her and to take her weight as she hit the ground.
Which left her standing right against him, his hands on her shoulders to balance her, her slight body being supported by his stronger one.
Strong…
Strong described him absolutely, she thought. His whole body was rock-solid. Tammy was five feet six and slightly built, diminutive in the presence of this much larger man. He’d caught her and held her without apparent effort, and now he was staring down at her with the first trace of concern in his face.
‘Are you okay?’
She thought about it. Okay? Okay was a long way from how she felt right now. His hands were gripping her shoulders and she had an almost overpowering compulsion to place her face on his chest and burst into tears.
No. She hadn’t cried for as long as she could remember and she wasn’t about to start now.
‘I’m fine.’ But her voice wobbled.
‘You truly didn’t know your sister was dead?’
She concentrated fiercely on the row of medals pinned to his chest. She even counted them. Six. The fabric of his suit was a fine worsted wool, she thought. Nice. She could bury her face in his chest—hide from the pain that was threatening to overwhelm her.
‘You didn’t know?’ he said gently as he put her away from him, still holding her but forcing her to look up at him. His fingers were under her chin, cupping her face to meet his eyes.
A girl could drown in those eyes. A girl might want to. Anything but face this scorching, ghastly pain.
‘I…my sister and I have been…apart for ever,’ she whispered. ‘We don’t…’
‘I see.’ He didn’t. His voice said he was totally confused, and Tammy made a Herculean effort to make her voice work.
‘My sister and I didn’t get on.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She let herself stay motionless for one more long moment, as if drawing strength from the warmth and size of him. Then she hauled herself bleakly together and pulled away. He released her, but the way he did it was curious. It was almost as if he was reluctant to let her go.
Questions. She had to ask questions. She needed to know—but she didn’t want to.
She must.
‘You said…she died in a skiing accident?’
‘Yes.’ His face was still calm. She was standing two feet back from him, gazing up into his eyes as if trying to read him. Trying to find some sort of comfort in his calmness.
‘H…how?’
‘They took out a bobsled.’ His face tightened for a minute, as if in anger. ‘They took it on a black run—a run for experienced skiers only. Bobsledding in those conditions is madness. I’m afraid…I’m afraid they’d been drinking.’
The knot of pain in Tammy’s stomach tightened. Oh, you fool, she thought bleakly. Lara, you fool. It took an almost overpowering effort of will to go on. ‘So…’ It was so hard to speak. It was as if her voice didn’t belong to her. ‘She…Lara was married to your cousin?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your cousin died, too?’
‘Jean-Paul died, yes.’
She couldn’t see what he was thinking. His face was still impassive. Was there pain there? She couldn’t tell.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I guess we’re both sorry.’
He had a nice voice, she thought dispassionately. Deep and rumbly. It was tinged with what sounded almost like a French accent, but it was very slight. He’d been well schooled in English.
She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this man’s voice. Or maybe she was still using thoughts to distract herself.
Lara was dead.
What else had he said? They had a baby?
‘I can’t believe that you don’t know about this.’ Marc’s voice was suddenly rough, tinged again with anger. ‘That your mother didn’t tell you.’
‘My mother knows?’
‘Of course your mother knows. I flew her to Broitenburg for the funeral. They were buried with a State funeral last month.’
Her mother would have enjoyed that, Tammy thought inconsequentially, going off on another tangent as her mind darted back and forth, trying to avoid pain. She thought of Isobelle Dexter de Bier as a grieving mother at a royal funeral. Isobelle would have done it brilliantly. She could almost guess what her mother would have worn. It would have been something lacy and black and extremely elegant. She’d have worn a veil, and there’d have been a wispy handkerchief dabbing at eyes that welled with tears that were never allowed to fall.
‘Was…was she alone?’
‘Your stepfather came with her.’
Oh, of course. Which stepfather was this? Tammy bit her lip, anger welling. Isobelle didn’t bother to marry her lovers any more, which was just as well. Tammy’s mother had been up to husband number four when Lara was born.
Lara was dead?
Lara was buried.
And there’d been a funeral. She should have been there, she thought bleakly. She should have been there as she’d been there for Lara since birth. Of all the things her mother had done to her, maybe this was the worst. To bury Lara with only her mother…
‘You were fond of your sister?’ Marc didn’t understand. He was staring at her with the same confusion she was feeling—maybe even more so.
‘Once,’ she said brusquely. ‘A long time ago.’
‘You’ve completely lost contact?’
‘Yes.’
‘And with your mother?’
‘Do you think my mother would admit she has a daughter who was a tree surgeon? That she has a daughter who looks like this?’
His calm gaze raked her from the toes up, but his face stayed impassive and his voice stayed gravely calm. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘I can’t say,’ he told her. ‘Maybe not.’
Maybe definitely. ‘Look, I think I need time to take this in.’ She was glaring at him now. Maybe her anger was misdirected, but she needed space to come to terms with what she’d learned. ‘Have you got a card or something to tell me where I can contact you? I need…’
She hesitated, but she knew what she needed. To be alone. She’d learned early that solitude was the only solution to pain. It didn’t stop anything, but alone she could haul her features back into control, adjust the mask and get herself ready to face the world again. ‘Can you just leave me be? Contact me tomorrow if you must. But for now…’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I need to be back in Sydney tonight, and then I’m leaving for Broitenburg immediately,’ Marc told her. ‘I’ve brought the release papers with me. You need to sign them. Then I’ll take Henry back to Broitenburg and let you have all the solitude you want.’
CHAPTER TWO
HE HADN’T expected this. Marc hadn’t known what to expect of Lara’s sister but it certainly wasn’t the woman standing before him.
She looked bereft, he thought, and he accepted that she really hadn’t known about her sister’s death. Which led him to Isobelle. Their mother.
What sort of mother would not tell one daughter about another’s death?
It wasn’t any of his business, he told himself savagely. His job was to get the papers signed and get out of here. Heaven knew a trip to Australia at this time was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Jean-Paul’s death had left a huge mess at home. He needed to collect the child and go.
He just needed the signature, but, judging by the look of devastation on the face of the girl before him, it was going to be tricky.
Maybe he could just push the papers in front of her and say sign. Maybe she would. She looked so shocked he could push her right over and she wouldn’t fight back.
He shouldn’t do it—he should give her time—but it was his country he was fighting for. Henry’s country. Henry’s inheritance.
And his own freedom.
‘I need you to sign,’ he repeated, this time more gently, and he motioned to the car. ‘I have the papers here.’
‘What papers?’
‘The release papers.’
‘I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ She was standing as if she’d been turned to stone. Her face was totally devoid of colour and he thought she looked as if she was about to topple over. She looked sick.
He made an involuntary gesture of comfort, holding out a hand—and then he pulled it away. What was he thinking of? He needed as little contact here as possible. He couldn’t possibly comfort this woman.
‘I need the release papers to allow me to take Henry back to Broitenburg.’
She thought about that. ‘Lara did have a child?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t know.’ She looked up at him, her eyes bleak with shock. ‘I didn’t know anything about a baby.’ It was a despairing wail. ‘Surely if she’d had a child she would have contacted me. If she was in trouble…’
‘Your sister wasn’t in trouble,’ Marc told her. ‘She married Jean-Paul and she had everything she’d ever wanted. A royal marriage. Servants. Luxury you can’t begin to imagine.’
‘She never would have wanted a child.’
Marc nodded. That fitted with what he knew of Lara, but there was an explanation. ‘Jean-Paul needed an heir,’ he told her. ‘He was Crown Prince of Broitenburg. He wouldn’t have married Lara if she hadn’t been prepared to give him a child.’
Tammy thought about that, too, and it almost made sense. Maybe with Lara’s warped sense of values marrying royalty would be worth the cost of having a child. She knew her mother and Lara so well. She knew the way they thought. Money and status were everything. For Lara to be a royal bride… Yes. It was a price Lara might well have been prepared to pay.
‘So she had a child? Henry?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you said Henry was here. In Australia. In Sydney.’
‘Lara sent him back to Australia about four months ago.’
‘Why?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, it does matter.’ Anger and sadness were surging back and forth, and now anger won. ‘You tell me my sister married and had a baby, and was royal, and is now dead. You tell me you want the baby. And when I ask questions you say “Does it matter?”’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you here? Obviously my mother didn’t think it was worth telling me of my sister’s death. And my sister didn’t bother to tell me of her marriage or the birth of her child. So why are you here now? What are you demanding that I sign? What does all this have to do with me?’
Marc took a deep breath. He didn’t want this. He just needed a signature and then he’d leave. He had enough complications without this, and, looking at her face, he knew a complication was looming right now.
‘Your sister named you as Henry’s legal guardian in the event of her death,’ he told her. ‘If Henry was still in Broitenburg it wouldn’t matter, but because he’s here your Department of Foreign Affairs say I can’t take him out of Australia without your permission.’
It was all too much. Tammy stared at Marc for a long, long moment and then silently slipped her harness from her shoulders. She lifted a radio handset from her belt.
She didn’t look at Marc.
‘Doug?’ she said into the radio, and Marc thought back to the foreman he’d met down the road, organising the rest of the team—two young women and an older man. That’d be Doug, then. ‘The people in the big car who were looking for me?’ she was saying. ‘They’ve told me that my sister and her husband have been killed and their baby—my nephew—is alone in Sydney. Can I leave my gear here and have you pick it up? I’m going to Sydney and I need to leave now.’
There was a crackle of static, and then a man’s voice raised in concern.
‘Yeah, I know it’s the pits,’ Tammy said bleakly. ‘But I’ve got to go, Doug. No, I don’t know how long I’ll be away. As long as it takes. Put Lucy onto the tree I’m working on now. She has the skills. But for now… I’ll be in touch.’
Then she laid the handset on the ground with her harness. She lifted a backpack that was lying nearby and heaved it over her shoulder. It was an action that spoke of decision.
‘You’re going back to Sydney now?’ she asked, still with that curious detachment.
‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothing,’ she told him. ‘Take me with you.’
‘Take you to Sydney?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ she snapped. ‘You tell me I have a nephew and I’m his guardian—’
‘He doesn’t need you.’
That was blunt. She paused and bit her lip. ‘So he has someone who loves him?’ she demanded, and it was his turn to pause.
‘He has people—a nanny who’s caring for him—and once I have him back to Broitenburg I’ll employ someone thoroughly competent.’
Competent. The word hung between both of them and Marc immediately knew that it wasn’t enough.
‘That’s not what I asked,’ she said.
He knew what she meant but was helpless to offer more. ‘I…’
‘Why on earth did Lara send him home?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted honestly. ‘It seemed odd to me. But Jean-Paul and Lara were in Paris four months ago. Then they were in Italy and Switzerland. I’ve seen neither of them since just after the child was born. It wasn’t until after their death that I knew the child had been sent to Australia.’
The child…
That was a mistake. The brief description was chilling, even to him, and it made everything suddenly worse. Bleaker. Marc thought about it and amended it. ‘Henry,’ he said gently, and Tammy flushed.
‘Yeah. Henry. The child. How old did you say he is?’
‘Ten months.’
‘And he’s heir to some royal thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘And so you want to take him back to Broitenburg so he can be looked after by nannies in the lap of luxury until he’s old enough to be king?’
‘Prince,’ Marc corrected her. ‘Broitenburg is a principality.’
‘Prince, then. Whatever,’ she said distractedly. ‘It makes no difference. Are you married?’
‘What?’
‘You heard. Are you married?’
‘No. I…’
‘So who gets to play mother to Henry?’
‘I told you. He’ll have nannies. The best.’
‘But as legal guardian I get to decide whether he goes or not.’
She’d cornered him. He hadn’t wanted to admit it. Get her signature and get the child. At home it had seemed easy.
‘If you refuse to let him return to Broitenburg I’ll apply for custody myself,’ he said stiffly.
‘You do that. You’re going home tomorrow, did you say? Good luck getting legal custody by then.’
He took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. There’d been no one near the child for months and now this! ‘Until five minutes ago you didn’t know of the child’s existence. You can’t want him.’
‘So why do you want him?’
‘He’s part of the Broitenburg royal family. A very important part. He has to come home.’
‘But maybe he’s my family, too,’ Tammy muttered. She swung open the front passenger door of the limousine and tossed her pack on the floor. Then she climbed in after it, sat down against the luxurious leather and stared straight ahead, refusing to look back at Marc. ‘Maybe he needs me. As I see it, it’s up to me to decide. So, are you going to take me to Sydney or are you planning on making me catch a bus? Either way, I’m signing nothing until I’ve seen him—and maybe not even then.’
It was an incredibly strained journey.
How could she just pick up her pack and leave? Marc wondered. Most women—all the women he’d ever met—would have taken hours to prepare. Hours to decide. But Tammy appeared to have everything she needed in the battered pack at her feet and wanted nothing else.
‘I have a tent, a sleeping bag, a toothbrush and enough food and water for twenty-four hours,’ she told him when he enquired how she could just leave her work and make the journey to Sydney without further fuss. ‘We were planning to camp out tonight.’
‘So now you’re planning on camping somewhere in Sydney’s parks?’ he asked, and she glowered, and went right on staring straight ahead.
‘I’ll get a hotel. You needn’t worry about me. Just show me where my nephew is and I’ll look after myself. I’m not asking any favours from you.’
He was right up there with all the people who’d failed to tell her of her sister’s death and the existence of her nephew, he thought grimly. Her loathing sounded clearly through the tight-clenched words. He was useful as a tool for getting her to see her nephew—nothing more.
So how the hell was he to get her to sign release papers?
It’d have to be money, he thought, as he sat back beside Charles and the big car nosed its way towards Sydney. She looked as if she didn’t have a penny to spare. Her sister had married for money. Money would no doubt buy Henry for him.
He had to play it right, though. He had to give her time to settle. If he offered money right at this minute she might throw it back at him just to spite him.
No. Let her see the baby—tell her how much it cost to pay for decent childcare—give her time to realise how impossible it was for her to keep the child in Australia…
Could he do that in one night?
He must, he thought. He must.
He had to get home! The problems Jean-Paul had left were massive. If he wasn’t careful the entire monarchy would crumble. That would be okay if there was a decent government to take its place, but Jean-Paul had been running the country like a miniature despot for years, milking it for every penny he could. He’d manipulated the parliament so that politicians were paid peanuts, and if you paid peanuts you got monkeys. There had to be major political reform, and the only way to do that was to ensure the continuity of the royal line.
Which meant getting Henry home.
But it was so complicated. He hadn’t realised Lara had registered Henry’s birth in Australia. He hadn’t thought Lara would have had so much gumption. The knowledge had shocked him. But Henry now held dual citizenship. The Australian authorities wouldn’t let him leave without Tammy’s say-so, so what was supposed to have been a flying visit to collect his small relative was turning into a nightmare.
‘Tell me who’s looking after him?’ Tammy asked from the front seat, and he had to force himself to think about his response.
‘A nanny.’
‘I know what she is. Tell me about her.’
‘I’m sorry, but…’
‘You don’t know?’
‘She’s an Australian girl,’ Marc said reluctantly, knowing that what he was saying wouldn’t reflect well on any of them. ‘I employed her through an agency after the woman who came here with your mother left.’
‘My mother!’
‘Lara sent Henry back here when your mother last visited her. I gather your mother saw them in Paris, when Henry was about six months old. When your mother came back to Australia Lara asked her to bring Henry with her.’
‘My mother…’ Tammy swung around to stare at him in incredulity. ‘My mother would never agree to look after a baby.’
‘No.’ They agreed about that. Marc thought about what he knew of Isobelle and his lip curled in contempt. ‘Henry came with a nanny from Broitenburg. Your mother installed them in an expensive hotel in Sydney—which Lara was supposed to pay for—and left them. Then it seems the nanny wasn’t paid. She’d been given a return flight to Broitenburg, so she left. The first I heard of it was last week. Your mother had assured me at the funeral that Henry was being cared for in Australia, and I assumed…I assumed he was with your family. The assumption was stupid. The next thing I heard was a message from your department of Social Services to say Henry had been abandoned. I managed to employ an Australian nanny through an agency here, set them back up in a hotel, and came as soon as I could.’
There was a sharp intake of angry breath, and then more silence.
What was she thinking? Marc thought, but he knew what he’d be thinking if it was him receiving this news. He knew what he had thought when he’d received the phone call from Australia saying Henry had been abandoned.
He’d been stunned.
He’d known Isobelle had taken the little boy back to Australia, and he’d assumed that she’d had his care in hand. But his phone call to Lara’s mother had elicited exactly nothing.
‘The child’s arrangements have nothing to do with me,’ Isobelle had told him when he’d finally tracked her down. She was somewhere in Texas with her latest man, recovering miraculously from her daughter’s death and obviously far too busy to be concerned with her grandson’s welfare. ‘Yes, the child and the nanny Lara employed came back with me four months ago, and I last saw them in Sydney. I assumed Jean-Paul and Lara had left the girl well provided for. It’s no fault of mine if the wretched girl’s done a bunk.’
Marc had stood by the phone and had willed—ached—for his cousin to still be alive so he could wring his selfish neck. Then he’d set about doing everything to shore up the country’s political stability before he’d come to find his cousin’s baby son. Heir to the throne.
And he’d found this.
‘He’ll be well looked after from now on,’ he said angrily, his fury matching that emanating from the front passenger seat. From Tammy. ‘I promise.’
‘I know he will be,’ Tammy muttered, but she was speaking to herself. Not to him.
The hotel Henry and his nanny were staying in was one of Sydney’s finest, on the Rocks in Sydney Harbour. The limousine nosed into the driveway, a uniformed concierge bowed and opened the door to Marc, then looked askance as Tammy climbed out, too.
There was a plush red carpet leading to the magnificent glass entry. A waterfall fell on either side of the doorway over carefully landscaped rocks. Inside the wide glass doors Tammy could see chandeliers and a vast grand piano. The strains of Chopin were wafting out over the sound of the gently tinkling water.
This was where Marc had installed Henry and his nanny? Money clearly wasn’t an issue with His Highness, Prince Marc.
But she didn’t intend to be intimidated. Tammy dumped her pack on the red carpet, wiped a little dust from her overalls and looked about her with every appearance of nonchalance.
‘Will you be all right?’ Charles had emerged from the car and was looking at Marc with some anxiety. He seemed to think Tammy might somehow contaminate Marc. ‘You don’t wish to stay at the embassy tonight, Your Highness?’
‘I’ll be fine here.’ Marc glanced at his watch. ‘If you could collect me and the boy at eleven tomorrow…? The flight is at two.’
‘I’ll do that.’ With a last worried glance at Tammy, Charles disappeared back into the limo—which left Marc and Tammy standing on the red carpet together.
A prince with his princess? Tammy looked Marc up and down, then glanced down at her worn boots and almost smiled.
Almost. Smiling was actually a long way from what she felt like doing.
‘Take me to Henry.’
‘You don’t want to clean up first?’
She glared at him then. Really glared. ‘How old did you tell me Henry was?’
‘Ten months.’
‘You think he’s going to judge me because of a little dirt?’
‘I…no.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
The concierge was still hovering, holding the door for them to enter, but by his expression Tammy could tell that given half a hint he’d grab her and haul her away. She looked the type who’d be annoying the customers, not paying to be here.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I’m not about to mug His Royal Highness. I just want to see my nephew.’ She heaved her pack up over her shoulder and stomped through into the plush foyer, leaving Marc to follow.
Marc stared after her for a long moment—and then shrugged and followed.
The suite Henry and his nanny were occupying was on the sixth floor. Marc knocked once, knocked again, and the door finally swung wide.
Most people’s first instinct would be to glance at the view—from this position it was spectacular—but Sydney’s Opera House and the Harbour Bridge beyond held no interest for Tammy. Her eyes were all on Henry. She brushed past Marc and was in the room before he was.
He was just like Lara!
Lara had been the loveliest baby. Tammy’s sister had been born with a fuzz of dark curls and huge brown eyes that had seemed to take over her entire face. She’d had a smile that could light up a room.
And here was Henry, and Henry was just the same. The only difference was that this little boy wasn’t smiling. He was seated in his cot beside the window, watching the harbour below. His eyes were wide and wary, but there was no trace of the smile his mother seemed to have been born with. As Tammy and Marc came through the door he turned to see who was entering his world, but there was no hint of expectation in his eyes.
He looked like a child who had no one.
The nanny had been reading, Tammy saw. A paperback had been hastily thrust aside and a daytime television programme was blaring. The little boy was wide awake but he was simply sitting in his cot. There wasn’t a toy in sight. His only distraction was the window.
And the nanny had been watching television and reading. Dear heaven…
Tammy dropped her pack and was across the room in seconds, gathering the little boy into her arms as if he was her own. As her face nestled into the familiar curls, as she smelled the familiar scent of baby powder and…well, just baby…it was all too much. Until this minute what Marc was telling her had been a fairy tale. But this was real. Henry was real.
For the first time in years she burst into tears.
The child didn’t respond. He held himself stiffly against her, his small body rigid. His expression didn’t change at all.
Slowly Tammy pulled herself together. She was aware that the other adults were watching her without comment—the nanny, who looked about sixteen, and Marc. Their expressions were wary, as if they didn’t know where they’d go from here.
Which was maybe just as well, as Tammy didn’t know where she was going either.
There was a vast armchair beside her. She sank into it, perching Henry on her lap so she could look at him properly.
The little boy gazed back up at her, and then his gaze returned to the window. Windows were more important than people, his expression said.
‘Henry?’ It was a faint whisper against his cheek, but the child didn’t respond.
‘He doesn’t answer to his name,’ the nanny said, as if it was something Tammy should know. ‘He’s only ten months old.’
That didn’t make sense. ‘He’s sitting up,’ Tammy said. He’d been sitting in his cot as they entered. ‘Is he crawling?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then surely he should know his name. If he’s crawling that means he’s developing fine.’
‘I guess,’ the nanny said indifferently. ‘He’s pretty advanced.’
‘But he still doesn’t respond. Does he say anything?’
‘No. Why should he?’
Why should he indeed? The little boy’s stare was lack-lustre, as if he was bored with what was before him. Maybe if Tammy had been staring at the same view for weeks on end…
‘Do you play with him?’ Tammy asked, and watched as the girl cast a furtive glance at her novel.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Of course nothing.’ Her fury was mounting, until she felt like hitting out. She was hugging the little boy to her, and that stopped her raising her voice, but her fury was barely disguised in her whisper. ‘This isn’t normal.’
‘I’ll get him a proper full-time nanny when we return to Broitenburg,’ Marc told her, and Tammy could hear the uneasiness in his own voice. He knew what the problem was. ‘Kylie was employed via an agency and the situation was urgent. I was lucky to get her at short notice.’
‘So he’s been with Kylie, or someone like her, since his parents died?’ Tammy was stroking the little boy’s curls, trying to find some sort of response from him. ‘Or longer. Has he been with nannies since birth?’
‘I’d imagine so,’ Marc told her. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Does anyone know?’ She rose then, standing to her full five feet six inches and glaring at the pair of them. She held the baby against her as if she was prepared to battle the world on his behalf. ‘Does anyone know anything about how my nephew has been cared for? He’s obviously been fed and clothed. Has anything else been done?’
‘I…’
‘Anything at all?’ Tammy’s rage was threatening to overwhelm her. ‘Have you ever seen anyone give this little boy a hug? Has anyone ever played peek-a-boo with him? Has anyone loved him?’
Marc bit his lip. He was on the back foot here, and he knew it. ‘He’ll be looked after when he gets home.’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Or at least not by you he won’t. Nor any of your nannies—even if you have nannies by the thousand. If Lara’s named me legal guardian then I can only be thankful. Henry’s at home right now. He’s staying in Australia and he’s staying with me. Thank you very much for bringing his situation to my attention, Prince Whatever-Your-Name-Is, but I don’t think we need trouble you further. If I can just collect his things, I’ll take him now.’
‘But—’
‘I’m his legal guardian. The rest of you can go to hell!’
CHAPTER THREE
SHE wasn’t budging.
Tammy didn’t release the child for a moment, almost as if she feared if she put him down Marc would snatch him from her. She held him tight and moved around the room, collecting anything that looked like his and tossing it into a heap on the armchair.
‘Can we talk about this?’ Marc demanded and Tammy shook her head.
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘You can’t take him.’
‘Watch me.’
‘You can’t afford to keep him.’
That stopped her. She whirled to face him, her face rigid with fury. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t afford to keep him—like this.’ She motioned around her at the five-star luxury and the glorious views. ‘But if you think this is what he needs then you’re mistaken. He doesn’t need money. He doesn’t need nannies and views and Room Service. He needs hugs and cuddles and someone who cares. Which you’ve shown very clearly that you don’t.’
‘I do.’
‘Yeah. Pull the other leg. It plays “Jingle Bells”.’
‘Will you slow down?’ She was tossing a packet of milk formula onto her pile with such ferocity that it bounced onto the floor.
‘No.’
‘Please?’
‘No!’
‘Have you thought it through? How can you look after a baby?’
‘I can look after a baby better than you.’
‘You obviously don’t have the money for decent childcare.’
‘Who says I don’t?’ Another formula packet hit the first and suffered a similar fate. Marc leaned over and retrieved both packets, setting them side by side on the chair. Behind them the nanny—Kylie—looked on with wide-eyed wonder.
‘You don’t have spare money. I just need to look at you to tell…’
Mistake. Bad tactical error. There was one packet of formula open. Tammy lifted it up, stared at it—and then threw it straight at Marc.
It sprayed out in all directions, covering him with a white misting powder. The parcel hit him mid-chest, and slowly slid to the floor.
The action shocked them all. Tammy stopped dead and stared at the white-dusted man before her—and then she winced.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘It’s my best uniform,’ he told her, but was that a slight quiver in his face? Surely not. Surely he couldn’t be close to laughter. And why did she suddenly feel she was fighting back the same emotion?
‘I guess you have hundreds more at home,’ she managed, and he nodded.
‘Yeah, but they’re at home.’
‘Gee, you’re going to have to travel home like that, then.’
‘I do have other clothes.’
‘Brocade and velvet and the odd crown and stuff?’ she agreed.
‘I’m not always dressed up in this rig.’
‘Bully for you.’ She purposefully turned her attention away from his powder-coated form—and the sudden and unexpected gleam of laughter in his dark eyes—and concentrated on her pile again. Fiercely. ‘Do you have anything I can put these things in?’
‘I have no idea.’ He was watching her, fascinated. ‘Kylie, do we have anything we can put these things in?’
‘I dunno,’ Kylie said resentfully. The nanny was looking more confused by the minute. ‘If she’s taking the kid, does that mean you don’t want me any more?’
‘His aunt has authority to care for him. I’ll pay you to the end of the month,’ Marc told her, and her face cleared.
‘All right, then. I’m fed up with this job anyway.’ She beamed at Tammy as if she was releasing her from a life sentence and began to be helpful. ‘There’s suitcases in his bedroom. You’re not his Aunty Tammy, are you?’
Tammy paused. ‘Yes.’ She focused on the girl—sort of. It was actually really hard not to stay focusing on Marc. The dangerous gleam was still in Marc’s eyes. He might look ridiculous—a prince with powder coating—but he still packed a lethal punch. Big and handsome and magnetically attractive…
But she needed to concentrate on what the nanny was saying. ‘You knew about me?’ she managed.
‘There’s this letter addressed to you. It’s in one of the suitcases.
‘A letter? From who?’
‘I dunno,’ Kylie said. ‘I saw it when I packed away the baby stuff he’d grown out of. It’s addressed to a Tamsin Dexter and underneath is written “Aunty Tammy”—in quotation marks, like the title’s a bit of a joke. There’s no address or I would have posted it.’
‘Fetch it,’ Marc told her, his eyes resting on Tammy. He was clutching at straws now. This might buy him some time. Somehow he needed a way of talking this woman into seeing reason, and it was growing less possible by the minute.
Tammy’s anger was still firing her actions, and the worst part of it was that her anger was reasonable. Henry’s treatment made him furious himself.
‘Sure.’ Kylie cast an uncertain glance at the pair of them and flounced out of the room.
‘Fetch the whole suitcase,’ Tammy called after her. ‘I need to pack this stuff.’
‘Okay.’ But the girl’s voice was muffled. She was already foraging in what must be enormous storage cupboards. This was some hotel.
Marc and Tammy were left glaring at each other, the only thing between them one little boy. Henry gazed back and forth between this unlikely pair of adults, his face showing no emotion at all.
‘You can’t just take him,’ Marc said conversationally and Tammy raised her eyebrows in polite disagreement.
‘Yes, I can. You said he’s an Australian citizen and I’m his aunt. And his guardian. You’re not even his uncle.’
‘No, but—’
‘But nothing. Blood counts.’
‘Your mother has given me permission,’ he told her, but even he knew he was clutching at straws. The more he saw of Tammy the more he realised that she was intelligent, and she discarded his statement before he could finish saying it.
‘My mother would promise anything if money was involved. If Lara made a will naming me Henry’s guardian, surely that’s what matters?’
Marc took a deep breath, fighting for words. ‘Look, Miss…’
‘Tammy,’ Tammy said pleasantly—and waited.
‘Tammy. Can we at least discuss this?’
‘That’s what I’m doing.’
‘You’ve already made up your mind.’
‘To care for my nephew? Yes, I have. I don’t have a choice because I don’t see that anyone else is doing it.’
‘I promise you—he’ll be looked after in Broitenburg.’
‘By nannies? No.’
‘Kylie isn’t a good example.’
‘She’s not, is she?’ Tammy agreed politely. She picked up the book Kylie had been reading and grimaced. ‘The Vampire’s Slave. A little bedtime reading for Henry—I don’t think. You can see as well as I can that there’s been minimal attention paid to Henry. He’s had his physical needs met and that’s all. And yet you employed her.’
‘I was desperate. I had to find someone fast and I was on the other side of the world.’
‘And it took you weeks to come and check on him. Great. Good worrying. Well, now he’s in his aunt’s care, so you don’t need to worry any more.’
‘You don’t understand. I need him.’
She raised her eyebrows at that. ‘You need a baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s the heir to the throne.’
She thought about that for a whole two seconds before rejecting it entirely as a reason for anyone needing a baby. ‘Then he can be heir to the throne right here,’ she told him. ‘I’m not giving him back. He can ascend to the throne, or whatever he has to do, when he’s old enough to choose for himself. But you—the lot of you—have shown yourselves to be incapable of caring for a baby.’
‘And you’re capable?’ he demanded, goaded.
‘Strangely enough, yes,’ she flung at him. ‘I’m even experienced.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Well, there you go, then. Distrust on either side. We make a perfect pair.’
This was getting out of hand. ‘Can we at least talk?’ he said urgently. ‘Stay here tonight. I’ll pay for a night for you in this hotel.’
Tammy took a deep breath. Anger was threatening to overwhelm her. ‘Gee,’ she said, as if awed. ‘In this hotel! A proper bed, with sheets and everything?’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’
‘There’s no need to be patronising.’
‘You need to stay somewhere.’
She did. His words made her hesitate. Her fury and her grief made her desperate to be alone, but Henry was cradled against her. His belongings were piled on the armchair, but she needed more than his possessions. She needed to find out everything about the child she intended to take care of. Things like immunizations, allergies… Maybe this man didn’t know, but somewhere there must be records. Maybe she couldn’t flounce out of his life quite yet.
He could see her weakening and pressed his point. ‘Stay tonight. Kylie can keep the child and we’ll talk.’
‘If you call Henry the child one more time,’ she said carefully, ‘then I’ll walk away and never look back. Henry is Henry.’ She hugged him closer. ‘He’s his own little person and it’s time everyone started treating him as such. So, no, Kylie isn’t going to look after Henry. I’ll look after Henry.’
‘But we need to talk.’
‘Then we talk with Henry.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t incorporate a baby into your busy schedule? Too bad.’ She looked around as Kylie appeared with the suitcase. ‘Thanks.’ She sat on the floor, perched Henry on her lap and started tossing belongings into the case. She handled Henry as if she coped with a baby all the time.
What on earth was her story? Marc wondered. What was her background? Did she have kids of her own? The investigator had said she was single, but…
He knew nothing about her. She was still in her filthy overalls, but already Henry was relaxing against her, leaning against her breast as if he’d found himself somewhere that might be home.
And, looking down, Marc felt a tug of something he didn’t recognise. This woman was as far from his world as any woman had ever been, he thought. All the values he’d been brought up to hold dear—all the values the women in his world set store by—they simply didn’t matter to Tammy.
He had to persuade her to release the baby. He must!
She wasn’t going to do it.
The impossibility of the situation crowded in on him, and for a moment he closed his eyes in sheer desperation. When he opened them he found Tammy looking up at him with curiosity.
‘You’re in real trouble, then?’ she asked, and for the first time there was a trace of sympathy in her voice.
He might as well be honest. He had nothing else to lose. ‘I’m in trouble.’
She regarded him for a long minute, and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Give me couple of hours alone with Henry now,’ she told him, ‘and then I’ll stay in this hotel tonight. I’ll take a room here, and after I get Henry to sleep we can have dinner together. Is that okay?’
It wasn’t okay—it wasn’t nearly enough—but it was all he was going to get.
‘Fine.’
‘Great.’ She threw the last of the things in the suitcase and jammed it shut, then took the letter Kylie was holding and looked at it with something approaching fear. She stared at it—and then shoved it into her backpack as if it might contain poison.
‘Okay. Let’s get me shifted into another room, and we’ll go from there.’
‘You can stay here,’ Marc said stiffly. ‘There’s no need to hire another suite. I’m paying for this place to the end of the month.’
‘I’m not staying in your suite,’ Tammy said firmly. ‘I have enough to pay for myself. There’s no way I’m being dependent on you, Your Highness. I’ll take my own room and I’ll see you at seven tonight. Not before.’
And that was that.
As seven approached Tammy was more confused than ever.
Confused? That was an understatement. Her head was spinning. Grief and anger and shock were tangling in her mind like some horrible grey web, not letting her go.
But underneath… Underneath there was Henry. Nothing else mattered, she thought. She’d booked herself a bedroom—not the suite Marc had tried to book for her but one she’d chosen herself. Even in her much more modest room the bed was king-sized. Tammy perched herself and the baby in the middle of the bedclothes and simply sat with him. She hugged him and crooned to him, and tried and tried to make him smile.
He watched her with enormous eyes, as if she was a part of his window—something to be regarded with vague interest but not interacted with.
She ordered baby food from Room Service and a grave waiter appeared with a tiny bowl of stewed apple. She sat Henry on her lap and his mouth opened like a little bird. He was obviously accustomed to being fed, but not like this. She played aeroplanes with him, as she’d once played aeroplanes with his mother.
He looked at the spoon she was waving in front of him as if it had betrayed him. He was obviously accustomed to being fed efficiently and fast—nothing more.
Undeterred, Tammy kept right on playing. She turned him around so he was facing her and the spoon was spinning.
‘Nope, Henry, you have to catch the aeroplane. Here it is. Whoooooo…’
The spoon spun in circles in front of his eyes, touched his tongue, darted away again, and then swooped in.
Tammy giggled and Henry’s eyes moved to her as if she was the most mysterious creature he’d ever seen.
‘Let’s do it again, shall we?’ she asked, still laughing, and the aeroplane started its tortuous circle again.
And on the fifth swoop…
Henry’s eyes lit with what Tammy hadn’t yet seen. A tiny gurgle came from deep within his throat and his rosebud mouth curved up into a smile.
And Tammy reached out to hug him in delight and darn near burst into tears again.
This would work. Her world had been turned upside down, and she wasn’t sure where she was, but one thing she was sure of—wherever she went, there went Henry.
She cradled him until he slept and then finally, reluctantly, set him down in the hotel cot. He needed toys, she thought. He needed—something. There hadn’t been a single toy in that cold, huge room.
She could hardly bear to take her eyes from him.
But it was six-thirty. Reluctantly she showered and changed into clean jeans and a T-shirt, which was all her backpack provided, then hauled a comb through her washed curls and settled down to wait for Marc.
And to read her letter.
It was from Lara. Written four months ago, it had been stuffed in the suitcase and left unread for all this time.
It was important.
She was re-reading the letter for the third time when a knock at the door announced Marc’s arrival.
For a moment she considered not answering, but then…he had brought her here, she thought. He had paid for a nanny for Henry. If it hadn’t been for Marc, then Tammy might never have learned of Henry’s existence. The letter might have stayed unread for ever.
Henry’s fate didn’t bear thinking of.
She set down the letter and crossed to open the door, fury still her overriding emotion.
But the man on the other side of the door took her breath away. For a moment she forgot all about her anger. Whew!
His Royal Highness, Prince Regent of Broitenburg, dressed in royal regalia, was really something. But just plain Marc, casually dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt, was something else entirely.
His hair was now ruffled and curled. His grey eyes were smiling, the laughter lines on his tanned face creasing into deep and delicious crinkles. His smile was questioning, and his eyes searched the room until he found the sleeping Henry.
Whew, indeed! He made her want to take a step back…
Or maybe he made her want to take a step forward—but she wasn’t going into that.
‘Henry’s asleep already?’ He was still smiling, and it was a smile that made a girl’s heart do crazy things in her breast. It was some smile.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was more brusque than she’d intended, and she fought for something polite to say. ‘Come in.’
‘Thank you. I brought something for Henry.’ He lifted his hands and there was a soft golden teddy bear. He smiled at the expression on Tammy’s face and her confusion tripled.
‘How…how did you know that’s what he needs?’
‘I’m not totally insensitive,’ he said gravely. ‘No matter what you think of me.’
Whatever she’d thought of him had suddenly changed. This was a sure-fire way to defuse anger.
‘It’s perfect.’ She took the stuffed toy from Marc’s hands and eyed the bear with wonder. There were teddies and teddies, but this one… He was small, and built so he was deliberately sort of scraggy. His stuffing was soft. His arms and legs were a bit loose and skinny—just perfect for a little one to hold on to. He had a lopsided grin and already he had a much loved look about him. For the first time since she’d met Marc, Tammy felt herself smiling.
‘Where did you find him?’ she asked.
‘On my twenty-second toy store,’ he told her. ‘Or maybe not that many but it sure felt like it. Did you know there are a whole heap of very unsatisfactory teddies in the world?’
‘There are indeed,’ she said unsteadily, trying to swallow her emotion. She carried the teddy across the room and placed it next to the sleeping Henry. ‘He’s just perfect. Oh, Marc…’
But Marc was distracted. The room he’d entered wasn’t to his liking.
‘Suites have separate bedrooms,’ he said, looking round in disapproval. This room had a bed and a cot, and a tiny table and chairs tucked into an alcove by the window. As a dining room it was hardly satisfactory. ‘The phone call I made…I thought I made it clear to the management that you needed a suite.’
‘I changed the booking,’ she said brusquely. ‘I want this one.’
‘But I’m paying.’
‘No.’ She bit her lip, her pleasure from the teddy fading as the conflict re-emerged. ‘I told you. I’m paying. I’m not being any more beholden to you than I need to be.’
He stared at her as if he’d never met her like in his life. She met his look head on, unflinching, and tilted her chin in an almost unconscious gesture of defiance.
And a glint of laughter flashed behind those deep grey eyes. Prince Marc of Broitenburg was amused. The peasants were clearly revolting, and royalty was pleased to indulge such idiosyncratic ways.
‘Um…maybe we could get a hotel babysitter and go down to the dining room?’
His laughter only had the effect of increasing her tension—making anger surge. ‘I’m not leaving Henry,’ she told him, and watched his smile die. It was all very well for the peasants to revolt, it seemed, as long as it didn’t interfere with this man’s plans.
‘The dining room would be more sensible,’ he told her.
‘No.’
‘Miss Dexter…’
‘You’re not taking him,’ she whispered, and they were no longer talking about where they intended eating dinner. ‘I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how many teddies you buy him. He’s staying with me.’
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