closer to the end of the world she might fall off.
Claire Tremaine sat on the very highest cliff on the highest headland of Orcas Island and thumbed her nose in the direction of Sydney. It was Monday morning. In the high-rise offices of Craybourne, Ledger and Smythe, scores of dark-suited legal eagles would be poring over dull documents, checking the ASIC indexes, discussing the Dow Jones, making themselves their fifth or sixth coffee of the morning.
She was so much better off here.
Or not.
She sort of...missed it.
Okay, not most of it—but, oh, she missed the coffee.
And she was just ever so frightened of storms. And just a bit isolated.
Would there be a storm? The forecast was saying a weather front was moving well east of Tasmania. There was no mention of it turning towards Orcas Island, but Claire had been on the island for four months now, and was starting to recognise the wisps of cloud formation low on the horizon that spelled trouble.
A storm back in Sydney had meant an umbrella and delays on the way home to her bedsit. A storm on Orcas Island could mean she was shut in the house for days. There was a reason the owners of this island abandoned it for six months of the year. This was a barren, rocky outcrop, halfway between Victoria and Tasmania, and the sea here was the wildest in the world. In the worst of the storms Claire couldn’t even stand up in the wind.
‘But that’s what we put our names down for,’ she told Rocky, the stubby little fox terrier she’d picked up on impulse from the animal shelter the day she’d left to come here. ‘Six months of isolation to get to know each other and to forget about the rest of the world.’
But the rest of the world had decent coffee.
The supply boat wasn’t due for another week, and even then on its last visit they’d substituted her desired brand with a no-name caterers’ blend.
Sigh.
‘Two more months to go,’ she told Rocky, and rose and stared out at the gathering clouds.
To come here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and she’d had plenty of time to regret it. She was looking at the rolling clouds and regretting it now.
‘I’m sure the weather forecast’s wrong,’ she told her dog. ‘But let’s go batten down the hatches, just in case.’
* * *
He should tell someone where he was going.
If he did his bodyguards would join him. That was the deal. When he was working within his army unit his bodyguards backed off. As soon as he wasn’t surrounded by soldiers, his competent security section took over.
Only they didn’t treat him as a colleague. They treated him as a royal prince who needed to be protected—not only from outside harm but from doing anything that might in any way jeopardise the heir to the throne of Marétal.
Like going sailing on his own.
But he hadn’t let them know he was on leave yet. As far as they were concerned he was still on military exercises, so for now he was free of their watch. He’d walked straight from Franz’s office down to the docks. He was still wearing his military uniform. In a city full of army personnel, based here for multinational exercises, his uniform gave him some degree of anonymity. That anonymity wouldn’t last, he knew. As soon as he shed his uniform, as soon as he went home, he’d be Crown Prince forever.
But not married to a woman of his grandmother’s choosing, he thought grimly. He knew the women she thought suitable and he shuddered.
And then he reached Rosebud, the neat little yacht he’d been heading for, and forgot about choosing a bride.
This was Tom Radley’s yacht. Tom was a local army officer and Raoul had met him on the first part of their combined international operation. They’d shared an excellent army exercise, abseiling across ‘enemy territory’ in some of Tasmania’s wildest country. Friendships were forged during such ordeals, and the men had clicked.
‘Come sailing with me when we’re back in Hobart,’ Tom had said, and they’d spent a great afternoon on the water.
But Tom had been due to take leave before the exercises had ended, and a mountain in Nepal had beckoned. Before he’d gone he’d tossed the keys of the yacht to Raoul.
‘Use her, if you like, while you’re still in Tasmania,’ he’d said diffidently. ‘I’ve seen your skill and I know you well enough now to trust you. I also know how surrounded you are. Just slip away and have a sail whenever you can.’
The little yacht wasn’t state-of-the-art. She was a solid tub of a wooden yacht, built maybe forty years ago, sensible and sturdy. Three weeks ago he and Tom had put up a bit too much sail for the brisk conditions, and they’d had fun trying to keep her under control.
And now... Conditions on the harbour were bright, with enough sun to warm the early spring air and a breeze springing up from the south. Clouds were scudding on the horizon. It was excellent sailing weather.
He didn’t want to go back to base yet. He didn’t want to change out of his uniform, pack his kit and head for home.
He should tell someone where he was going.
‘It’s only an afternoon’s sail,’ he said out loud. ‘And after today I’ll have a lifetime of telling people where I’m going.’
He should still tell someone. Common sense dictated it.
But he didn’t want his bodyguards.
‘I’ll tell them tomorrow,’ he said. ‘For today I owe no duty to the army. I owe no duty to my country. For today I’m on my own.’
Prince Raoul’s movements were supposed to be tracked every step of his life. But it drove Raoul nuts.
Even his afternoon’s sail with Tom had been tracked. Because he’d been off duty that weekend, his bodyguards had moved into surveillance mode. He and Tom had had a great time, but even Tom had been unsettled by the motorboat cruising casually within helping distance.
‘I couldn’t bear it,’ Tom had said frankly, and Raoul had said nothing because it was just the way things were.
But this afternoon was different. No one knew he was on leave. No one knew he was looking at Tom’s boat and thinking, Duty starts tomorrow.
No one saw him slip the moorings and sail quietly out of the harbour.
And no one was yet predicting the gathering storm.
* * *
‘I’m sure it’s a storm,’ she told Rocky. ‘I don’t care what the weather men are saying. I trust my nose.’
Clare was working methodically around the outside of the house, closing the great wooden shutters that protected every window. This house was a mansion—a fantastical whim built by a Melbourne-based billionaire financier who’d fancied his own island with its own helicopter pad so he could fly in whenever he wished.
He’d
