But the government reception in Canberra had been unavoidable. As Broitenburg’s Head of State, Marc would step on too many toes if he visited Australia and refused it. So…If he had to attend it wouldn’t hurt to detour through Bundanoon and see if he could find the woman.
Now he stared upward, and it was as much as he could do not to gasp out loud.
Tamsin was slim and wiry and…tough, he decided. Or maybe ‘serviceable’ was the best way to describe her. She was dressed in workmanlike khaki overalls and ancient leather boots. The boots were the closest thing to him, swinging back and forth above his head. They were battered and torn, and the laces had been repaired with knot after knot.
What else? She was young and obviously superbly fit. Her riot of jet-black curls was caught back with a piece of twine. Curls spread out to tangle glossily around her shoulders. They looked as if they hadn’t seen a brush for a week. Though that might be unfair. If he was hanging where she was maybe his hair would look tousled as well.
He forced his gaze to move on, assessing the whole package. Her skin was tanned and clear…weathered, almost. Wide, clear eyes gazed calmly down at him and he found himself wondering what colour they were. Brown, like her sister’s? He couldn’t tell from here.
But what he could see was a perfect likeness of Lara. Hell, even the similarity made his gut clench in anger.
The detective had been right. This was the Tamsin Dexter he’d been looking for. He’d found her.
‘Can I help you?’ She was looking down at them as if they were the odd ones out—which, considering their clothes, wasn’t surprising. She was still swinging from her harness, reluctant to come down unless it was really necessary.
It was necessary.
‘I need you,’ he told her.
‘Why?’
‘You’re Tamsin Dexter?’
‘Yep.’ Still she made no sign of descent. Her attitude said she had work to do and they were interfering with it.
‘Miss Dexter, this is His Royal Highness, Marc, Prince Regent of Broitenburg,’ Charles interrupted, tugging his collar in anxiety. He wasn’t comfortable in this situation and it showed. ‘Could you please come down?’
What would the ramifications of being rude to royalty be? The two men watched as she clearly thought about it and decided her best option was to swing a while longer.
‘Hi,’ she said at last to Marc—the good-looking one—and then she looked across to Charles. The podgy one with the sweaty collar. ‘If your friend’s a prince, who are you?’
‘I’m Charles Debourier. I’m ambassador to—’
‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Ambassador to Broitenburg?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Broitenburg is…um…somewhere in Europe?’ She grinned, a wide, white smile that was so totally different from Lara’s careful painted smile that Marc caught his breath at the sight of it.
What was he thinking? She was too much like Lara to interest him, he told himself savagely, and he didn’t have time to waste thinking about women. Especially this one.
‘You don’t know where Broitenburg is?’ Charles demanded, and the woman’s smile widened. She had a huge advantage over them—thirty feet, in fact.
‘I’ve never been much interested in geography,’ she told them. ‘And I left school at fifteen.’
Great. She was Lara’s sister and illiterate besides. Marc’s feelings of dismay intensified.
‘Broitenburg’s bordered by Austria on one side and Germany on the other,’ Charles was saying, but Tammy was clearly unimpressed.
‘Oh, right. Come to think of it, I have heard of it. It’s small, huh?’
‘It’s an important country in its own right,’ Charles snapped.
‘I guess it must be, to send an ambassador to Australia.’ She grinned again. ‘Well, it was nice to met you, Your Highness and Your Ambassadorship, and it was good of you to drop by, but I have a job to do before dusk.’
‘I told you,’ Marc said stiffly. ‘I need you.’
She’d been preparing to climb again, but she stopped at that. ‘Why? Do you have trees in Broitenburg?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m not interested in job offers.’
She sounded as if she was serious, Marc thought incredulously. She sounded as if she seriously thought he’d travelled all the way to Australia and come to find her in this outlandish place, dressed in this ridiculous rig, to ask her to look after some trees?
He hated it. He hated this ornate, over-the-top uniform. He hated Charles’s damned ostentatious car and his chauffeur. He hated royalty.
And the only way to get rid of it was via this chit of a girl.
‘I’m not offering you a job,’ he told her stiffly, and she stared.
‘Then why…?’
‘I’m here to ask you to sign some release papers,’ Marc told her. ‘So I can take your nephew back to Broitenburg where he belongs.’
Silence.
The silence went on for so long that it became clear there was lots going on behind it. This was no void, for want of anything to say. This was a respite, where all could get their heads around what had been said.
Tammy had hauled herself up onto a branch and now she sat stock still, staring down as Marc stared back up at her.
She was accustomed to people hunting for her with job offers—which was crazy, as she didn’t intend to leave Australia ever again—but this was crazier still.
Charles discovered there were ants crawling over one of his shoes, and started shifting from foot to foot. He glanced up at Tammy and then at Marc before returning his gaze to the ants. Annoyed, or maybe to block out the silence, he started stomping on them.
His action gave Tammy more breathing space. ‘Excuse me, but those ants are protected,’ Tammy said at last, almost conversationally, as though the previous words had not been said at all. ‘You’re in a National Park. The ants here have more rights than you do.’
Charles swore and shifted sideways. Onto more ants. He swore again, and cast an uncertain glance at Marc, and then, when Marc didn’t speak, he shrugged and headed for the car. He’d done his job. He hadn’t taken on an ambassadorship to stand under trees being bitten by ants.
‘I said, I want to take your nephew—’ Marc said at last, and Tammy interrupted.
‘I know what you said. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Marc nodded. He’d expected as much. There’d been no wish to come to her sister’s funeral. There’d been no contact made with the child. If it wasn’t for the immigration authorities he could pick the little boy up and take him back to his country right now. She probably didn’t even admit responsibility for him. At the thought of Henry’s neglect, he felt his face darken with anger.
‘If you’d been in contact they would have told you I’d requested he be returned, but they need your consent.’
‘Um…’ She was regarding him as if he was slightly off balance. ‘Who are they?’
‘The child’s nanny and the immigration authorities,’ he snapped, and now he could control himself no longer. ‘You can’t object. You’ve shown yourself to be the world’s worst custodian. If I hadn’t been paying the