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‘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.
