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.