The Prince’s Outback Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I guess that would be ridiculous,’ she conceded. ‘But you’re not their cousin.’

  Their cousin. There it was again. Plural. He didn’t understand, so he ploughed on regardless. ‘I am a relation. Gianetta and I shared a grandfather-not that we knew him. I’ve come from half a world away to see Marc.’

  ‘You’re from the royal part of the family?’ she said, sounding as if she’d suddenly remembered something she’d been told long since.

  He winced. ‘Um…maybe. I need to talk to you. I need to see Marc.’

  ‘You’re seeing him,’ she said unhelpfully.

  He looked at Marc. Marc looked back, wary now because he wasn’t understanding the conversation. He’d edged slightly in front of Pippa in a gesture of protection.

  He was so like the de Gautiers it unnerved Max.

  ‘Hi,’ he told Marc. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘We’re not in a situation where visits are possible,’ she said, and her arm came around Marc’s skinny chest. They were protecting each other. But she sounded intrigued now, and there was even a tinge of regret in her voice. ‘Do you need a bed for the night?’

  This was hopeful. ‘I do.’

  ‘There’s a guesthouse in Tanbarook. Come back in the morning after milking. We’ll give you a cup of coffee and find the time to talk.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  Her smile broadened. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do. We’re a bit…stuck at the moment. Now, you need to find Tanbarook. Head back to the end of this road and turn right. That’s a sealed road which will get you into town.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said but he didn’t go. They were gazing at him, Marc with curiosity and slight defensiveness, Pippa with calm friendliness and the dog with the benign observance of a very old and very placid mutt. Pippa was reaching over to wind up the window. ‘Don’t,’ he told her.

  ‘Don’t?’

  ‘Why are you sitting in a truck in the middle of a cattle pit?’

  ‘We’re stuck.’

  ‘I can see that. How long do you intend to sit here?’

  ‘Until the rain stops.’

  ‘This rain,’ he said cautiously, ‘may never stop.’ He grimaced as a sudden squall sent a rush of cold water down the back of his neck. More and more he felt like a drowned rat. Heaven knew what Pippa would be thinking of him. Not much, he thought.

  That alone wasn’t what he was used to. Women normally reacted strongly to Maxsim de Gautier. He was tall and strongly built, with the Mediterranean skin, deep black hair and dark features of his mother’s family. The tabloids described him as drop-dead gorgeous and seriously rich.

  But Pippa could see little of this and guess less. She obviously didn’t have a clue who he was. Maybe she could approximate his age-thirty-five-but it’d be a wild guess. Mostly she’d be seeing water.

  ‘Forty days and forty nights is the rain record,’ he told her. ‘I think we’re heading for that now.’

  She smiled. ‘So if I were you I’d get back in your car and head for dry land.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go back to the house instead of waiting here in the truck?’

  Until now Marc had stayed silent, watching him with wariness. But now the little boy decided to join in.

  ‘We’re going to get fish and chips,’ he informed him. ‘But the cattle-grid broke so we’re stuck. We have to wait ’til it stops raining. Then we have to find Mr Henges and ask him to pull us out with his tractor. Pippa says we might as well sit here and whinge ’cos it’s warmer here than in the house. We’ve run out of wood.’

  ‘The gentleman doesn’t need to know why we’re sitting here,’ Pippa told him.

  ‘But we’ve been sitting here for ages and we’re hungry.’

  ‘Shh.’

  Marc, however, was preparing to be sociable. ‘I’m Marc and this is our Pippa and this is our dog, Dolores. And over the back is Sophie and Claire. Sophie has red hair ribbons and Claire’s are blue.’

  Sophie and Claire. Over the back. He peered through the tiny slot of wound-down window. Yes, there were two more children. He could make out two little faces, with similar colouring to Marc. Cute and pigtailed. Red and blue ribbons. Twins?

  Sophie and Claire. He hadn’t heard of any Sophie and Claire.

  Were they Pippa’s? But they looked like Marc. And Pippa had red hair.

  No matter. It was only Marc he needed to focus on. ‘I’m pleased to meet you all,’ he said. This was a crazy place to have a conversation, but he had to start introductions some time. ‘I’m Max.’

  ‘Hi,’ Pippa said and put her hand on the window winder again. Dismissing him. ‘Good luck. We may see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Can’t I help you?’

  ‘We’re fine.’

  ‘I could tow you.’

  ‘Do you have a tow-bar on your car?’

  ‘Um…no.’ It was a hire-car-a luxury saloon. Of course he didn’t. ‘Can I find Mr Henges and his tractor for you?’

  ‘Bert won’t come ’til the rain stops.’

  ‘You’re planning on sitting in the truck until then?’

  ‘Or until it’s time for milking.’

  The thought of milking cows in this weather didn’t bear considering. ‘You don’t think maybe you could run back to the house, peel off your wet things, have a hot shower and…oh, I don’t know, play Happy Families until milking?’

  ‘It’s warmer here,’ Marc said.

  ‘But we want fish and chips,’ one of the little girls piped up from the back seat.

  ‘There’s bread,’ Marc said, in severe, big-brother tones. ‘We’ll make toast before milking.’

  ‘We want fish and chips,’ the other little girl whimpered. ‘We’re hungry.’

  ‘Shh.’ Pippa turned back to Max. ‘Can you move away so I can wind up the window? We’re getting wet.’

  ‘Sure.’ But Max didn’t move. He thought of all he’d come to say to this woman and he winced. Back home it had seemed simple-to say what needed to be said and walk away. But now, suddenly, it seemed harder. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do for you first?’

  What was he saying? The easiest thing to do right now would be to walk away from the whole mess, he thought. Someone else could tell these people what they had to know. But then, he’d have to remember that he’d walked away for a long time.

  ‘We don’t need anything,’ Pippa told him, oblivious to his train of thought, and he dragged his attention back to the matter at hand. Truck stuck. Fish and chips.

  ‘I’m thinking I should talk to Marc about this,’ he said, focusing on food. ‘This is, after all, men’s business. Hunting and gathering. You were heading to the shops when your truck got stuck. Looking for fish and chips.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marc, pleased at his acuity, and Sophie and Claire beamed agreement, anticipating assistance. ‘We’ve run out of food,’ Marc told him. ‘All we have left is toast. We don’t even have any jam.’

  Right. He could do this. Jam and fish and chips. But not drowned like this.

  ‘I have a car that’s not stuck in a cattle-grid,’ he told them. ‘But I’m soaking wet. You have a house where I can dry off, and I’ve come a long way to visit you. Let’s combine. You let me use your house to change and I’ll go into town and buy fish and chips.’

  ‘We can’t impose on you,’ Pippa said. But she looked desperate, and he wondered why.

  First things first. He had to persuade her to let him help. ‘I’m not an axe murderer,’ he told her. ‘I promise. I really am a relation.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I’m Maxsim de Gautier. Max.’ He watched to see if there was recognition of the name, but she was too preoccupied to think of anything but immediate need-and maybe she’d never heard the name anyway. ‘I’d really like to help.’

  Desperation faded-just a little. ‘I shouldn’t let you.’

  ‘Yes, you should. You don’t have to like me, but I’m definitely family, so you need to sigh and open the door, the way mos
t families ask rum-soaked Uncle Bertie or similar to Christmas lunch.’

  She smiled in return at that, a wobbly sort of smile but it was a welcome change from the desperate. ‘Uncle Bertie or similar?’

  ‘I’m not even a soak,’ he said encouragingly and her smile wobbled a bit more.

  ‘You have a great accent,’ she said inconsequentially. ‘It sounds…familiar. Is it Italian or French?’

  ‘Mostly French.’

  ‘You’re very wet.’

  ‘The puddle around my ankles is starting to creep to my knees. If you leave this decision much longer I’ll need a snorkel.’

  She stared out at him and chewed her lip. Then she seemed to make a decision. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine what?’

  ‘Fine I’ll trust you,’ she managed. ‘The kids and I will trust you, but I’m not sure about Dolores.’ She hugged the dog tighter. ‘She bites relations who turn out to be axe murderers.’

  ‘She’s welcome to try. How will we organise this?’

  ‘My truck’s blocking your way to the house.’

  ‘So it is,’ he said cordially. ‘Why didn’t I notice that?’

  Her decision meant that she’d relaxed a little. The lines of strain around her eyes had eased. Now she even choked back a bubble of laughter. ‘We need to run to the house. We’ll all be soaked the minute we get out of the truck.’

  ‘I assume you have dry clothes back at the house?’

  ‘Yes but…’

  ‘I’m bored of sitting in the truck,’ Marc said.

  ‘Me too,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Me too,’ said Claire.

  ‘Right,’ Pippa said, coming to a decision. ‘On the count of three I want everybody out of the truck and we’ll run back to the house as fast as we can. Mr de Gautier, you’re welcome to follow.’

  ‘I’ll do backstroke,’ he told her. ‘What’s your stroke?’

  ‘Dog-paddle.’ She pushed open the driver’s side door and dived into the torrent. ‘Okay, kids,’ she said, hauling open the back door and starting to lift them out.

  ‘Let me,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ll take the kids. You take Dolores.’

  ‘Dolores?’

  ‘She hates getting her feet wet,’ Pippa explained. ‘She’s had pneumonia twice so she has an excuse. I’ll carry her if I must but I have a sore back and as you’re here I don’t see why you shouldn’t be useful. After all, you are family.’

  ‘Um…okay,’ he managed, but that was all he could say before a great brown dog of indiscriminate parentage was pushed out of the cab and into his arms.

  ‘Don’t drop her,’ Pippa ordered. ‘And run.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  The house was two hundred yards from the gate, and, even though they ran fast, by the time they reached it they were all sodden. Max’s first impression was that it was a rambling weather board house, a bit down at heel, but it was unfair to judge when he saw everything through sleeting rain. And over one dog who smelled like…wet dog.

  There was a veranda. Marc led the way. Pippa ran up the steps behind him, holding a twin by each hand. Max and Dolores brought up the rear. He’d paused to grab his holdall from his car, so he was balancing dog and holdall. Where were those servile minions? he thought again. Maybe accepting the crown could have its uses.

  He wasn’t going there, minions or not. He reached the top step, set Dolores down, tossed his holdall into the comparative dry at the back of the veranda, mourned his minions for another fleeting moment, and then turned his attention to the little family before him.

  At eight, Marc was just doing the transformation from cute into kid. Maybe he was tall for his age, Max thought, but what did he know about kids? He had the same jet black curls all the members of the Alp d’Estella royal family had, and big brown eyes and a snub nose with a smattering of freckles.

  Sophie and Claire were different but similar. They were still not much more than tots, with glossy black curls tied into pigtails and adorned with bright ribbons that now hung limply down their back. They were cute and well rounded and they had a whole lot more freckles than their brother did.

  They had to be Marc’s sisters, Max thought, cursing his PI firm for their lack of information. But then, what had his brief been? Find Marc and report on where he was living and who was taking care of him. Nothing about sisters.

  But surely the powers that be back in Alp d’Estella must know of these two? They’d certainly known of Marc.

  Marc was drying himself, towelling his face with vigour. The twins were being towelled by Pippa. All three children were regarding him cautiously from under their towels.

  They were bright, inquisitive kids, he thought. Pippa said something to them and they giggled.

  Nice kids.

  He shouldn’t stare.

  Pippa was stripping off the girls’ outer clothes. She tossed him a towel from a pile by the door. He started to dry his face but was brought up short.

  ‘That’s for Dolores.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He looked blank and she sighed.

  ‘Dolores. Pneumonia. Prevention of same. Please can you rub?’

  ‘Um…sure.’ He knelt as she was kneeling but instead of undressing kids he was towelling dog. Dolores approved. She rubbed herself ecstatically against the towel, and when he turned her to do the front half she showed her appreciation by giving him a huge lick, from his chin to his forehead. She was big and all bone-a cross between a Labrador and something even bigger. A bloodhound? In dog years she looked about a hundred.

  ‘She’s kissing you,’ four-year-old Sophie said, and giggled. ‘That means she likes you.’

  ‘I’ve had better kisses in my day,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Let’s not go there, Cousin Max,’ Pippa muttered. ‘Otherwise I’ll think axe again.’

  ‘No kissing,’ Max agreed with alacrity and towelled Dolores harder. ‘You hear that, Dolores? Keep yourself respectable or the lady with the axe knows what to do.’

  Pippa chuckled. It was a great chuckle, he thought. He towelled Dolores for a while longer but he was watching Pippa. She was wearing ancient jeans and a windcheater with a rip up one arm. Her close-cropped, coppery curls were plastered wetly to her head, and droplets of rainwater were running down her forehead. She wore no make-up. She’d been wearing huge black wellingtons and she’d kicked them off at the top of the stairs. Underneath she was wearing what looked like football socks. The toe was missing from one yellow and black sock, and her toe poked pinkly through.

  Very sexy, he thought, smiling inwardly, but then he glanced at her again and thought actually he was right. She was sexy but she was a very different sort of sexy from the women he normally associated with.

  Where was he going with this? Nowhere, he told himself, startled. He was here to organise the succession; nothing more.

  The kids were undressed to their knickers now. ‘The quickest way to warm is to shower and we’ll do it in relays,’ Pippa was saying. She motioned to a door at the end of the veranda. ‘That’s the bathroom. The kids can shower first. Then me. I’m sorry, Mr de Gautier, but in this instance it needs to be visitors last. Stay here until I call. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  ‘What about Dolores?’

  ‘She can go through to the kitchen if she wants,’ Pippa said, holding the door open for the dog. ‘Though if you really want I guess she could shower with you.’ She smiled again, a lovely, laughing smile that made these bleak surroundings seem suddenly brighter. ‘Bathing Dolores usually takes a small army, but thanks for offering. Good luck.’

  He didn’t shower with the dog. Dolores disappeared as soon as the kids did, leaving Max to wait alone on the veranda. Maybe Dolores had a warm kennel somewhere, Max thought enviously as the wind blasted its way through his wet clothes. Wasn’t Australia supposed to be warm?

  Luckily the kids and Pippa were faster than he expected. Pippa reappeared within five minutes, dressed in a pink bathrobe with her hair tied up in a tattered green
towel. She tossed him a towel that wasn’t quite as frayed as the one he’d used for Dolores.

  ‘I assume you have dry clothes in your bag,’ she said and he nodded.

  ‘Lucky you,’ she said. ‘Everything here is wet. It’s been raining for days. Shower’s through there. Enjoy.’

  Everything here was wet? Didn’t she have a dryer? He thought about that while standing under the vast rose shower hanging over the claw-foot bath in the ancient bathroom. Everything he’d seen so far spoke of poverty. Surely Marc-and the girls?-were well provided for?

  Alice, Gianetta’s mother, had cut off all ties to her family back in Europe. ‘She married well,’ he’d been told. ‘Into the Australian squattocracy.’ But then, that had been his father speaking, and his father treated the truth with disdain.

  Up until now Max hadn’t been interested to find the truth for himself, but if these children’s maternal grandmother had married into money there was nothing to show for it now.

  There were questions everywhere. He showered long enough to warm up; he dried; he foraged in his holdall and dressed in chinos and an oversized sweater that he’d almost not packed because Australia was supposed to be warm. Then he set out to find them.

  The bathroom led to what looked like a utility room. A door on the far side of the utility room led somewhere else, and he could hear children’s voices close by. He pushed it with caution and found himself in the farmhouse kitchen. Here they were, the children in dressing gowns and slippers and Pippa in jeans and another windcheater. The cuffs of her windcheater looked damp, he thought. What had she said? Everything was wet? Where the hell was a dryer? Or a fire of some sort?

  The kitchen was freezing.

  Pippa and the kids were seated at the table, with steaming mugs before them. Dolores was under the table, lying on a towel.

  ‘Get yourself warm on the inside as well as the outside before we send you off as hunter gatherer,’ Pippa said, and she smiled. It was a great smile, he thought, astonishing himself with the intensity of his reaction. In her ancient windcheater and jeans she looked barely older than the kids. The oversized windcheater made her look flat-chested and insignificant. But still it was a killer of a smile. Something inside him reacted when she smiled.