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.
And he’d found this.
‘He’ll be well looked after from now on,’ he said angrily, his fury matching that emanating from the front passenger seat. From Tammy. ‘I promise.’
‘I know he will be,’ Tammy muttered, but she was speaking to herself. Not to him.
The hotel Henry and his nanny were staying in was one of Sydney’s finest, on the Rocks in Sydney Harbour. The limousine nosed into the driveway, a uniformed concierge bowed and opened the door to Marc, then looked askance as Tammy climbed out, too.
There was a plush red carpet leading to the magnificent glass entry. A waterfall fell on either side of the doorway over carefully landscaped rocks. Inside the wide glass doors Tammy could see chandeliers and a vast grand piano. The strains of Chopin were wafting out over the sound of the gently tinkling water.
This was where Marc had installed Henry and his nanny? Money clearly wasn’t an issue with His Highness, Prince Marc.
But she didn’t intend to be intimidated. Tammy dumped her pack on the red carpet, wiped a little dust from her overalls and looked about her with every appearance of nonchalance.
‘Will you be all right?’ Charles had emerged from the car and was looking at Marc with some anxiety. He seemed to think Tammy might somehow contaminate Marc. ‘You don’t wish to stay at the embassy tonight, Your Highness?’
‘I’ll be fine here.’ Marc glanced at his watch. ‘If you could collect me and the boy at eleven tomorrow…? The flight is at two.’
‘I’ll do that.’ With a last worried glance at Tammy, Charles disappeared back into the limo—which left Marc and Tammy standing on the red carpet together.
A prince with his princess? Tammy looked Marc up and down, then glanced down at her worn boots and almost smiled.
Almost. Smiling was actually a long way from what she felt like doing.
‘Take me to Henry.’
‘You don’t want to clean up first?’
She glared at him then. Really glared. ‘How old did you tell me Henry was?’
‘Ten months.’
‘You think he’s going to judge me because of a little dirt?’
‘I…no.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
The concierge was still hovering, holding the door for them to enter, but by his expression Tammy could tell that given half a hint he’d grab her and haul her away. She looked the type who’d be annoying the customers, not paying to be here.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I’m not about to mug His Royal Highness. I just want to see my nephew.’ She heaved her pack up over her shoulder and stomped through into the plush foyer, leaving Marc to follow.
Marc stared after her for a long moment—and then shrugged and followed.
