The Prince’s Outback Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘As you say-tough.’

  ‘No,’ she said evenly. ‘These kids are my family, as much as if I’d borne them myself. If Tom didn’t want them, then it was his problem.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘And maybe I don’t blame him. Three kids and dogs is a huge ask.’

  ‘It’s a huge ask of you.’

  Her smile faded. ‘Not so much. I love them to bits. And you…If you threaten their happiness-their security-you’ll answer to me, Max de Gautier.’

  ‘I’d never do that.’

  They fell silent then, but it was a better silence. She felt strangely more at peace than she’d been in a long time. Which was dumb, she told herself. She was heading somewhere she’d never heard of and she had to stay on her guard.

  But she wasn’t totally responsible. She glanced across at the sleeping children and she thought in a few minutes the stewardess would bring them something to eat and she didn’t need to work out how to pay for it.

  And she was sitting beside Maxsim de Gautier. Any woman would feel okay sitting beside this man, she thought. There wasn’t any chance he might be interested in her-what man would look twice at a woman loaded with three kids, a king-sized debt and a dog?-but she was woman enough to enjoy it while she had it.

  ‘Why does saving Alp d’Estella matter so much to you?’ she asked, suddenly curious.

  ‘It just does.’

  ‘No, but why?’ she prodded. ‘You’ve been brought up in France. Why do you still care about a little country your father or your grandfather walked away from?’

  ‘I just…do.’

  He wasn’t telling the truth, she thought. Why? She stared at him, baffled.

  ‘Tell me how you learned to milk cows?’ she demanded, moving sideways, and the tension eased a little.

  ‘That’s easy. My mother was born on a dairy farm south of Paris. My maternal grandparents still live there. It’s run by my uncle now, but it’s great. I spent the greater part of my childhood there.’

  ‘Your father’s dead.’

  The pleasure faded from his voice. ‘I didn’t have any contact with…either of the men my mother was involved with.’

  ‘And your mother? Where’s she?’

  ‘In Paris.’

  ‘When did-Thiérry’s father-die?’

  ‘When I was fifteen. I’ve always referred to him as my father too.’

  ‘When did your brother die?’

  ‘At the same time.’

  ‘They were killed together?’

  ‘In a car crash. Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Max.’

  She paused. There were things here she wanted to find out, but she didn’t know the right questions. ‘Do you build in Paris?’ she said at last and he nodded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of buildings?’

  ‘Big ones.’

  ‘Skyscrapers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She blinked. She’d never met anyone who built skyscrapers.

  ‘Do you work for someone?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Do you have a boss?’

  ‘I…no. I had a fantastic boss. I became his off-sider but he died three years ago. I took over the firm.’

  ‘So you’re the head of a building firm that builds skyscrapers.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘You’re very rich?’

  ‘You disapprove?’

  ‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, maybe I do, but I guess it’s handy.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ he said, and he smiled.

  He needed to cut that out, she thought crossly. She’d just started to focus and, wham, he smiled, and her thoughts scattered to the four winds.

  She bit her lip and bulldozed on. ‘So this boss…You said you went to a builder and asked him to teach you how to build.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you had money from the royal family?’

  ‘No. My father gambled using the royal name as collateral,’ he said. ‘It’s taken years to get my mother free of debt. Yes, there was an offer to help from the old prince, but my mother would have died rather than accept it.’

  ‘Tell me about the car crash?’ she asked, tentatively now, unsure whether she was intruding, but needing to know.

  He didn’t take offence. It seemed he’d decided to answer as honestly as he could. ‘My father was drunk,’ he said bluntly. ‘The royal curse. But unlike Alice, he didn’t fight his addiction. The Alp d’Estella royal family is not a pedigree to be proud of.’

  She thought about that for a moment and didn’t like what she thought.

  ‘Yet you’re propelling Marc into the middle of it?’

  ‘I suspect you’ll be strong enough to keep him level-headed.’

  ‘You didn’t think that before you knew me,’ she reasoned. ‘Yet still you wanted Marc to come.’

  ‘I did.’ He was silent for a moment, deep in his own thoughts. ‘Maybe I hadn’t thought things through then, either,’ he admitted. ‘I knew Marc stood to inherit. I thought he was a child. It couldn’t change his life so much, and there’s so much at stake. But, yes, I’ve had qualms since and I’ve seen that you have the strength to ignore…what the palace can offer.’

  She hesitated. ‘You can’t possibly know that’s true.’

  ‘And yet I do.’

  ‘But you?’ she said, pushing it further. ‘How do I know you don’t just want to be Prince Regent for money and power?’

  ‘For the same reason I know you won’t be seduced by money and power,’ he said evenly, and lifted her fingers in the dark and held them against the side of his face. ‘You know me and I know you.’

  She felt…breathless. ‘That’s just plain dumb.’

  ‘But it’s true.’

  ‘It’s smooth talking,’ she said crossly. She was out of her league and she knew it. ‘I’m a nobody and you’re Prince Regent.’

  ‘Nobody’s a nobody. Don’t insult yourself.’ And he didn’t let go of her hand.

  He was a restful man, she thought. He didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. He let the silence do the talking for him.

  But his hold on her hand was growing more…personal, and she wasn’t quite sure the silent bit was all that wise. He was too close.

  He was too male.

  ‘So how did you get to own a construction company?’ She finally managed to pull her hand away. He let his eyes fall to her fingers, then raised his eyes and smiled with a gentle mockery. He understood what she was doing.

  ‘I told you. I went to-’

  ‘A builder and got a job. How old were you?’

  ‘Fifteen. The farm couldn’t support us.’

  ‘Your mother wasn’t working?’

  ‘My mother was in the same car crash that killed my father and Thiérry. She’s paralysed from the waist down. The farm’s not big enough to pay off my father’s debts or my mother’s medical bills.’ He shrugged. ‘The builder who employed me was an old friend of my grandparents, so, yes, I did have family connections, but I believe I’ve more than earned the position I’m in now.’

  ‘So who’s paying for these plane tickets?’ she asked, frowning. ‘You or the Alp d’Estella government?’

  ‘I’ll be reimbursed.’

  ‘If this works out.’

  ‘As you say.’ His gaze met hers, steady and forthright. But there were things he wasn’t telling her, she decided. There were things she had to figure out for herself.

  ‘You need to wash,’ he told her, cutting in on her thoughts. ‘They’ll be bringing breakfast.’

  ‘At four in the afternoon?’

  ‘You’re in a whole new world. Welcome to breakfast.’

  ‘I feel dizzy.’

  ‘Just take one step at a time,’ he said and touched her face in a gesture of reassurance that shouldn’t be enough to send warmth right through her entire body. It shouldn’t be enough but it definitely was. Her hand came up instinctively and met his. Once more he grasped her fingers in his and held.
/>   This was a gesture of reassurance, she told herself frantically. No more.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he said.

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can fit in. But I won’t leave the children.’

  ‘Of course you won’t.’

  ‘But to stay in this place…’

  The hold on her hand was suddenly compelling. ‘Pippa, I won’t increase your burden. I promise you that. Let’s just take every day as it comes and we’ll see what happens.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘It’s okay, Pippa.’ He stared down at her in the half light, and his grip firmed, strong and sure.

  The silence stretched out.

  She gazed up at him, waiting…

  ‘Would you mind if I kiss you?’ he asked.

  Her heart missed a beat. Would she mind?

  ‘No,’ she whispered, for some dumb, crazy reason that for ever after she couldn’t fathom. But say it she did. For some things were inevitable.

  Like the touch of Max’s mouth on her lips.

  She shouldn’t have been expecting it-but she was. She’d been expecting it since that night by the fireside. She’d been…wanting it. And here it was.

  The feel of him…The taste of him…The glorious sensation of melting into him in the dim light.

  It was a culmination of circumstance, she told herself hazily. It was the warmth of these wonderful seats, after being cold for every waking moment. It was the hazy feeling of having just woken from sleep to find him beside her. It was the softness and luxury of alpaca blankets and goose-down pillows.

  More. It was the strength of the man beside her, and the way his smile lit his eyes. It was the strength of his voice as it reassured her. It was the sense of being protected as she’d never been protected.

  It was just…Max.

  The moment was so seductive that she’d have had to be inhuman not to respond, and of course she responded. Her need was overwhelming. Her face lifted as if compelled, and her lips met his. Her hands rose to hold his face, getting the angle right, deepening the kiss, taking as well as giving…

  Losing herself in the wonderment of him.

  The kiss went on and on. Endless. It was a drifting, sensuous pleasure that lifted her out of her cloud of indecision and uncertainty and worry, and left nothing but pleasure.

  He’d said it was okay. For now she’d believe him. Unwise or not, it was all she could do.

  She surrendered herself to the kiss absolutely and in those few magic moments, before reality reasserted itself…well, those few moments were a gift to treasure.

  They might be part of an unwise fantasy, but they were magic, all the same.

  She was heading for a fairy tale, she thought mistily.

  Anything could happen.

  Breakfast happened.

  ‘We didn’t mean it,’ she said breathlessly as the lights went up.

  ‘I meant it,’ he said and he smiled.

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ she muttered as she took herself off to the bathroom. ‘This is just…ridiculous.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY got busy after that, which was just as well, and then the plane landed. From the moment the wheels touched the runway, the sensation of being in a fairy tale intensified until Pippa was pinching herself to believe she was awake. Had Max just kissed her? Had she just been transformed, from frog to princess?

  Weird.

  Normal passengers got to descend the steps from the plane and immerse themselves in the muddle of luggage location and ongoing transport. Not so Pippa and her little family.

  For a start as the plane came to a halt there was an announcement. ‘Could passengers remain in their seats to allow the Alp d’Estella royal family to leave the plane.’

  It took a few disoriented seconds before Pippa realised the royal family was them. That the airline staff were standing in what seemed a guard of honour to welcome them.

  The children had been fast asleep as they’d landed and they were still half asleep when they left the plane. Max carried Claire and Sophie, and Pippa led a dazed Marc.

  ‘I don’t want Pippa carrying anything,’ Max growled to the nearest steward as Pippa went to lift her holdall. ‘She’s hurt her back. And our very elderly dog is in the hold. Could you locate her as soon as possible, please?’

  They were two tiny instances of Max caring, Pippa thought. Her back was better. She’d forgotten it, but Max hadn’t.

  Pippa, who’d hardly been cared for in her life, felt a sting of tears as she reached the red carpet to find Dolores already being invited to leave her doggy crate. She stooped and hugged her dog, then turned and watched Max juggle a sleepy twin in each arm, and tease Marc a little as they gave her time to reacquaint herself with Dolores.

  Tears were dumb. She should be soaking up every single thing. The ladies of Tanbarook would never believe her, she thought, and that made her tears change to a smile. Photographers were everywhere. What would be the reaction if Pippa’s face was plastered over the news-stand back in Tanbarook?

  ‘What’s funny?’ Max asked.

  A limousine was waiting at the edge of red carpet, its uniformed chauffeur saluting. Even Dolores looked stunned. Her nose was sniffing the warm air. Sun!

  ‘It’s warm,’ Marc breathed and stooped to inform Dolores. ‘It’s warm, Dolores. We’re going to a castle and it’s warm.’

  ‘I want Tanbarook to see us now,’ Pippa whispered and Max chuckled.

  ‘You want a family shot for the tabloids? Marc, hold Pippa’s hand and lean against me. Leave Dolores there-we’ll arrange ourselves around her.’ Max edged close to Pippa, and before she knew it he’d organised them into a tight shot.

  ‘Smile,’ he told Pippa.

  ‘Why?’ She was astounded.

  ‘We’re the closest thing this country has to a royal family. Tanbarook is going to see you. Smile.’

  She managed a weakish sort of smile but she was so confused her head was threatening to spin off. ‘I’m not family,’ she muttered, staring down at Dolores, who was licking Max’s boots. ‘Isn’t Dolores supposed to go into quarantine until she’s vet-checked?’

  ‘We had a vet check her before she left. She’s a royal dog now. And you’re as royal as I am. We’re royal by association. The royal family.’

  He was smiling at her as photographers snapped around her and she felt her color rising by the minute. ‘I should be like the governess, standing ten steps back.’

  ‘Same with me. But you won’t let me leave, and if you leave the kids and Dolores will howl.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Marc said, affronted. ‘But Dolores might,’ he conceded.

  ‘There you go. Smile,’ he ordered again. ‘Pippa, there’s only one thing worse than publicity, and that’s publicity when you’re glowering. It makes you look like you’re constipated.’

  She choked. ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘I just thought I’d mention it. So smile.’

  ‘I’m smiling,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And neither the kids or Dolores are scared of you. They think you’re the next best thing to Father Christmas.’

  ‘Little they know.’

  ‘There’s the ogre side of you as well?’

  ‘I’m not exactly a family man.’

  ‘Why not?’ It was out before she thought about it-a direct response to something she needed to know. To something that had to be sorted before she took one step further.

  And Max’s smile faded.

  Why not? he wondered, as the cameras clicked around them and he tried to resurrect his smile. Why had he never taken that last step? From lover to husband…

  Marriages were fraught. His mother’s marriage had led to irretrievable disaster. ‘Don’t ever marry,’ she’d said to him over and over. ‘You can’t ever know how someone will turn out. Oh, Max, take lovers, do what you need to be happy, but be so careful…’

  He’d hardly decided not to marry because of his mother’s experienc
es, but then, it had made him so careful that such a decision had almost been made for him.

  ‘You’re not gay, are you?’ Pippa asked thoughtfully and his thoughts hit a brick wall. He turned and stared at her. Stunned.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Smile,’ she reminded him. The photographers were clicking from every angle. ‘I was asking whether you’re gay.’

  ‘Didn’t I just kiss you?’

  ‘That’s proof you’re not gay?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, revolted. ‘It wasn’t a platonic kiss.’

  ‘No,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘but then I didn’t really inspect it for platonic. Maybe I wouldn’t recognise it if I saw it. I lead a very sheltered life.’

  She was teasing him, he thought. She was trying to get him to react, here and now, in front of the country’s press.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said, carefully pasting on his smile and carefully no longer looking at her. ‘One more word, Phillippa Donohue, and I’ll set the twins down and teach you what a platonic kiss isn’t.’

  ‘In front of everyone? You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘No,’ he said, sounding regretful. ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t. But only because it’d make our lives even more complicated than they already are. Which is very complicated indeed.’

  Okay, so that little interlude made her flustered. The stilted welcome speech made by an official made her more flustered still. And the ride from airport to castle, in the back of the limousine with Max in the seat opposite, the children snoozing beside them and Dolores draped over their feet, made her even more flustered.

  ‘That was a dumb thing to do,’ she managed about ten minutes after they’d left the airport, which was the time it had taken to figure anything at all to say.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘You kissing me.’

  ‘I didn’t kiss you in front of the photographers,’ he said virtuously. ‘I wanted to but I had my arms full of twins.’

  ‘You kissed me on the plane.’

  ‘That was necessary. Because I suspected that you suspected I was gay. And I was right. Not that my kiss seemed to reassure you.’

  ‘It reassured me,’ she said hastily and went back to staring out the car window.