His Australian Heiress

by Margaret Way

  “Be sure of it,” Charlotte replied. She longed to tell Patricia to her face that her mother, Alyssa, had never liked her. Her mother had believed her sister-in-law was both a liar and a troublemaker. One reason why her mother had avoided her, even though Charlotte remembered clearly Aunt Patricia’s shock and grief at her parents’ deaths. She had been as devastated by the disaster as the rest of them.

  Brendon was still quietly laughing as they left Aunt Patricia and climbed the stairs to the upstairs gallery. “No wonder you don’t call your aunt a friend.”

  “It’s a sad fact that my mother kept her distance from her,” Charlotte said.

  “A lot was going on in those days, Charlie,” he reminded her.

  “You’re right, of course. The thing is, Bren, I remember my mother and father as being a loving couple. All right, so they weren’t living on top of one another. My mother made frequent escapes, but I never saw or heard any terrible fights until nearing the end. I’d never heard my mother being bitchy to my father, nor did I hear him offering her any kind of insult. Not long before they were killed, I surprised them kissing passionately. Yet my mother was supposed to be having a white-hot affair with your father?”

  “Which he has always denied,” Brendon said, his expression tightening.

  “It would have been no easy thing to be accused of,” Charlotte said. “Who was it who blew the whistle on them?”

  Brendon followed Charlotte down the west wing. “We have no idea who started the rumours. I fancy someone who well knew how to remain anonymous. My dad put a stop to it all. He didn’t call anyone out. He endured. He did not want out of his marriage. That was very clear. He had always given every appearance of loving my mother.”

  “Yet he broke her heart? It’s a question that needs to be answered, Bren. One that’s been hanging over our heads.”

  “It would take a miracle, Charlie, to find out the truth,” he replied soberly.

  “In the meantime we’ve lived a life full of secrets, seductions, and endless lies,” Charlotte said. “It’s a wonder we’re not mortal enemies.”

  “We will be in a good minute if I can’t put this suitcase down,” he said briskly.

  “Okay. Okay.” Charlotte picked up her step. “I don’t want to get too angry at this stage, Bren. I’ve allowed Uncle Conrad to stay, but it could have been a mistake.”

  “I’d say so from the way Patricia talks. Why didn’t she give you the bad news over the phone?”

  “That Simon is home?”

  “Wherever ‘home’ might be. These past years your uncle has been acting like he’s dependent on your grace and favour. It’s ridiculous. He’s sitting on twenty-five million.”

  “I know. But it was hard for him, with Poppa’s sweeping him aside,” Charlotte said, trying to be fair. “One would have thought he had my father killed the way Poppa reacted. We all know Poppa made doubly sure the wrecked Mercedes was thoroughly checked. Nothing suspicious was found. Poppa’s attitude could be seen as terribly unfair to Uncle Conrad.”

  “No need for you to make amends,” Brendon said. “The good news is, your uncle received enough of your grandfather’s fortune to keep him in clover for the rest of his life. Now, where are these bedrooms? I haven’t been here for years and years.”

  Charlotte gave him a quick smile. “I’m going to change all that. You can come here whenever you want to. You can bring some beautiful girl you really like. You can bring your super-bright male friends. In the springtime, when all the varieties of camellias, azaleas, and rhododendrons are out, I’m going to open the gardens back up to the public. Grandma Julia did that. I want to bring the custom back.”

  “Now, there was someone who really loved you,” Brendon said.

  “The loveliest woman you could ever meet,” Charlotte said quietly, starting to slow as she passed the series of closed doors. “Why she ever married Poppa I’ll never know.”

  Brendon nearly told her she wasn’t on her own in that, but let it slide. Lady Julia Mansfield, the wife of Sir Reginald, never in robust health, had literally pined away after the violent death of her elder son. “Ironically, according to my grandfather, Sir Reginald as a young man was the answer to a maiden’s prayer. Even as an old man he remained very upright, very handsome.”

  Charlotte appeared unimpressed. “Be that as it may, my grandmother would have been better off with just about any other admirer she knew.”

  An impressive truth. It was obvious from her remark that Charlotte still didn’t know Sir Reginald had stolen away the love of his grandfather Hugo’s life, right from under his nose. A huge betrayal of trust if ever there was one. The pain all these many years later was still there, although the subject was never mentioned. Indeed, he had never heard his grandfather utter Lady Julia’s name.

  * * *

  The Green Room, so called because the colour scheme was a fresh lime green and white, had space enough for a chaise longue, a pretty little desk and chair, and a chest at the end of the bed. Two large matching framed photographs of the legendary Three Sisters hung on the wall behind the bed. All the bedrooms had their own en suite. The big picture windows that brought so much light into the large room afforded a superb panoramic view of the mountains and the valley. In the crystal-clear morning light, the blue haze lent an intriguing veil.

  “I guess this will do,” Charlotte said, turning back from the view to speak to Brendon. “Now, for you. I’m not happy about Aunt Patricia fixing up Simon and his girlfriend next door.”

  “It’s not as though the walls are paper-thin,” Brendon said dryly.

  “You’re not going to toss them out, are you?” He searched her small, determined face. Although Charlotte had the Mansfield colouring, blond hair and green eyes, as she’d matured the looks of her beautiful mother, Alyssa, were coming through. It was all in the bone structure and the shallow cleft in her chin. One had to marvel at genetic encoding that reproduced physical features down the generations. Charlotte, like her mother, didn’t have the Mansfield height. She was small-boned and petite. “Well?” He saw the brilliant look in her eyes.

  “Once I would have jumped at the chance. I would do it if he hadn’t brought his girlfriend.” She shrugged. “He’s a real—”

  “Charlotte!” Charlie had a goodly selection of salty words learned at the shelters she visited on a regular basis.

  “I nearly said it, but I didn’t,” she admitted. “Let’s move on.”

  They walked down the corridor, Charlotte opening doors and peering in. Four doors down, she was satisfied. It was a spacious room like all the others, but the colour scheme held to off-white, with the large Outback painting on the wall lending vibrant colour. The ochres, the pinks, and the rusts were picked up by the cushions on the armchair and the pile on the bed. “This will suit me fine,” Brendon said. “It’s only one night anyway.”

  “So it’s not fine?” She spun on him.

  “Charlie, settle down. Everything is okay. Simon may have changed. Grown up.”

  “That would take a tectonic shift.”

  He felt so, too. “His girlfriend could be very nice.”

  Charlotte went quiet for a bit. “Wonderful luck for him if she is. Aunt Patricia seems to think they’ll all be invited to my birthday party as a matter of course.”

  “You don’t want them?” Inviting one’s family was the usual thing.

  “No. They were never there for me, Bren. You know that. The three of them put on a terrible song and dance when the will was read. You weren’t there.”

  “Charlie, I heard all about it,” he groaned. The anger and bitter resentment displayed by Charlotte’s family had shocked a hitherto unshockable team of lawyers.

  “Does a leopard ever change its spots? No, never,” she said vehemently. “There are plenty of places around here to push me over a cliff and down into the valley. God knows the stakes are high enough.”

  In an instant all of Brendon’s senses were on point. “Charlie!” For Charlie to be
at peril! He went to her, pulled her to him, his chin resting on the top of her glimmering golden head. Her hair smelled wonderfully clean and fresh. “That’s not going to happen,” he said, with the rock-solid sense of commitment that defined him.

  “I have dreams,” she confessed. “They take me to the very edge of panic. In every one of them, I’m the prey.”

  “For God’s sake!” He gathered her even closer. She was leaning into him so their bodies were touching. For a split second Brendon’s heart gave a queer jerk. He was acutely aware of the feel of Charlotte—the exact shape of her—in his arms. He could feel a heat rising in him. Charlotte, for all her petite-ness, or perhaps because of it, seemed to fit him like no one else. He had to put a reason to it. He had known Charlie from childhood. Their bond had been forged over a very long time. Charlotte was “Charlie.” All of a sudden, he felt compelled to remember it.

  “It’s a bit like having a price on your head,” she was saying in a muffled voice.

  He had never heard Charlotte sound so alone, so undefended. “No one is going to mess with you while I’m around, Charlie.”

  “You can’t be on duty all the time.”

  “Yes, I can. Have faith in me.”

  “I do. I do.” She wanted to stay there, safe, within Bren’s strong arms, but she pulled back with a brief self-conscious laugh that wasn’t usual. When had she ever felt self-conscious with Bren? “I can’t explain my sudden vulnerability, even to myself. You’ll get some practice protecting me, Bren. Mark my words.”

  He took a deep breath. “I said I’m ready for it. So you don’t want your family, such as it is, at the party?”

  “I do not.” Her green eyes flashed.

  “Of course they’re expecting it to be held at a hotel. Two or three hundred guests.”

  “When I’ve wound the numbers down,” she said.

  “Do you intend asking my mother and father?” Brendon asked. “For that matter my grandfather, your guardian these past years?”

  She met his silver-grey eyes. “I very much doubt you would come if I didn’t.”

  “So, that’s a yes?”

  She turned to him, her body framed by the great sweeping, magnificent mountain views, lit by the light that streamed into the room. “Of course it’s a yes. I’m not an ungrateful person. I suppose they have to be good people if you love them.”

  “I love you too, Charlie,” he said, keeping to the same familial tone he always used with her.

  A sad little smile played around her cushiony mouth. “The thing is, Bren, I don’t think I know what love is.”

  Once her parents had gone, she had known precious little of it. “Coming here opens up old wounds,” he said with concern.

  “I feel it’s necessary, Bren. Poppa thought it a good place to die. My parents died not all that far from here, down the mountain. I own this house free and clear. There are answers here. I intend to find them. The chinks in the armour that open up and as quickly close might become clear to me.”

  “Maybe you’re frightened to remember what you believe you know? You were only twelve, Charlotte, but you weren’t any ordinary twelve-year-old,” Brendon said.

  “It’s called sublimation, isn’t it? I know my mother didn’t trust Aunt Patricia. I mean, she really didn’t trust her. Why not? Things can never go back to the way they were when trust is lost. The relationship becomes different. What did Aunt Patricia do or say about my mother? She was always making little jokes that weren’t in the least funny. I do remember Poppa once telling her very loudly to ‘shut the hell up!’ ”

  “I can imagine!” Bren exclaimed, visualizing the lion roaring. Sir Reginald cranky and displeased would have been something to see. “Jealousy, that might be the answer, Charlie. Your aunt didn’t have your mother’s beauty or charisma.”

  “And she could have had a hand in trying to destroy my mother’s reputation,” Charlotte said, with a kind of resigned sorrow. “If it’s true, I will never accept it. We’re close to what I want to know. They hate me. The affability is sheer window dressing. I can never trust them.”

  Her attitude was inherently dramatic, part and parcel of her passionate nature. “You don’t trust my family, either, Charlie,” Brendon reminded her. “But we’re the ones who are going to keep you safe.” It was a solemn vow.

  Chapter 3

  The family was assembled in the huge open-plan living room with the mountainous panorama a breathtaking backdrop. Conrad Mansfield; his wife, Patricia; their son, Simon, a good-looking young man with a thick thatch of gold hair streaked with flaxen, were in attendance. Simon was wearing his familiar supercilious expression. His girlfriend was a surprise. She was a complete departure from the glamorous, on-the-vapid-side socialites Simon had always favoured. She was seated in front of his standing figure in a pose reminiscent of a Victorian portrait with one of Simon’s hands held firmly on her shoulder.

  “My dear girl!” Uncle Conrad rose from his armchair, the genial host. Since Charlotte had last seen him, he had allowed his copious mane, a premature white, to grow long enough to form a ponytail. His beautifully trimmed darker beard and moustache only heightened the image of the literary lion, an image reinforced by his slightly eccentric but expensive clothing. Like his late father, Sir Reginald, the premature white was very flattering to his handsome, well-preserved face and his bright green eyes. He looked good. “How wonderful to see you, Charlotte,” he enthused. A man determined to play it right. “You, too, Brendon.”

  It was an Academy Award performance, yet Charlotte felt as nervous as a high-strung cat. The earlier bout of panic was threatening to re-erupt. She couldn’t allow that. It made her feel fragile. Her uncle might not have shown the slightest interest in her these past years, indeed her entire life, but he was her uncle, not a potential assassin. The thought calmed her. Her uncle hadn’t been responsible for her parents’ death. Her grandfather had simply made a ruthless decision in bypassing his remaining son as his heir. Obviously she had soaked up some of her grandfather’s harsh attitude. Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to play this monstrous game of happy families. It was sheer farce.

  Brendon, at her side, had no difficulty reading Charlotte’s body language. He stepped into the breach, taking Conrad Mansfield’s outstretched hand. “It’s a wonder you recognise me, sir,” he said.

  “You haven’t changed since you were a boy,” Conrad remarked in a resonant, cultured voice that filled Charlotte with poignant memories of her beloved father. The two brothers had shared a close physical resemblance. “I regret we haven’t seen each other more often, Brendon. How’s the family?”

  “Always together,” said Brendon suavely. He had no time for Charlotte’s uncle, famous author or not.

  Aunt Patricia broke in, winding her heavy necklace around her hand. “You haven’t met Carol. Carol Sutton.”

  Both Charlotte and Brendon turned to smile in a friendly way at Simon’s girlfriend. Carol Sutton looked charming. Certainly not one of Simon’s glamour girls. She was well-dressed, if conservatively, for her age. Not a “looker,” but interesting. She wore her dark hair in a standard pageboy. Her fine dark eyes were her best feature.

  What was she doing with Simon? Charlotte very nearly shook her head.

  “Gosh, ain’t that grand!” Simon gave a sneer. “They actually like you, Caro, when I expected something quite different.” He turned back to his mother. “You really should have left the introductions to me, Mother.”

  Patricia changed colour. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

  “I’m quite capable of introducing Carol, don’t you think?”

  “Good heavens, darling!” Patricia’s smile shrivelled up.

  “I’ll tell you another thing,” Simon continued on his merry way, his eyes locking on Charlotte.

  Charlotte knew from long experience that Simon was preparing to go into one of his rants. He had been given to them as a child, when his bad behaviour went unaddressed. She put up a hand that nevertheless carr
ied a clear message. “I can see where you’re going, so I’ll stop you there, Simon. That’s if you ever wish to visit again. Do please sit down. I want to tell you all something.”

  “Of course you do!” Simon threw back his blond head. Any sort of reprimand, big or small, only encouraged him. “You are, after all, our little heiress.”

  “Indeed I am, and you’re a guest in my house.” Charlotte’s tone was startlingly reminiscent of their late grandfather.

  Everyone heard it, except Simon, who was both clever and thick. “Now, isn’t she priceless!” he asked of no one in particular.

  His father abruptly broke out of his role of genial host. “Sit down, Simon. Or leave.” His eyes shifted to Carol Sutton, who seemed about to announce she had a splitting headache. “I’m so sorry, my dear. My son doesn’t hide his feelings well.”

  “We were hoping, Simon, you’d come back reborn,” Brendon said, a satirical twist to his mouth.

  “I’ll never be resigned to what happened to us!” Simon, who had a real gift for upsetting people, cried. “The unfairness of it all! It can never be forgotten or forgiven. How can we build a family on such foundations?”

  “I agree it’s hard when we’re such a dysfunctional family,” Charlotte said. “Only I can’t feel sorry for you, Simon. Between ourselves you didn’t go short.”

  “Peanuts compared to you!” Simon’s dull flush reflected his anger. “Grandfather made a mistake. I was the senior grandchild. I mean, who are you? What are you?”

  A dead silence greeted the absurdity of his questions. It was quickly broken by Brendon’s searing comment. “Charlotte is your blood cousin. She is someone everyone admires. Your grandfather, as always, knew exactly what he was doing. Your father is a renowned author. He had no wish to remain in Chambers, did you, sir?”

  “No, no,” Conrad replied with the dignity of a born actor. “If we’re talking frankly, I was never greatly interested in the Law.”