The Prince's Outback Bride

‘So it is,’ he said cordially. ‘Why didn’t I notice that?’

Her decision meant that she’d relaxed a little. The lines of strain around her eyes had eased. Now she even choked back a bubble of laughter. ‘We need to run to the house. We’ll all be soaked the minute we get out of the truck.’

‘I assume you have dry clothes back at the house?’

‘Yes but…’

‘I’m bored of sitting in the truck,’ Marc said.

‘Me too,’ said Sophie.

‘Me too,’ said Claire.

‘Right,’ Pippa said, coming to a decision. ‘On the count of three I want everybody out of the truck and we’ll run back to the house as fast as we can. Mr de Gautier, you’re welcome to follow.’

‘I’ll do backstroke,’ he told her. ‘What’s your stroke?’

‘Dog-paddle.’ She pushed open the driver’s side door and dived into the torrent. ‘Okay, kids,’ she said, hauling open the back door and starting to lift them out.

‘Let me,’ he told her.

‘I’ll take the kids. You take Dolores.’

‘Dolores?’

‘She hates getting her feet wet,’ Pippa explained. ‘She’s had pneumonia twice so she has an excuse. I’ll carry her if I must but I have a sore back and as you’re here I don’t see why you shouldn’t be useful. After all, you are family.’

‘Um…okay,’ he managed, but that was all he could say before a great brown dog of indiscriminate parentage was pushed out of the cab and into his arms.

‘Don’t drop her,’ Pippa ordered. ‘And run.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The house was two hundred yards from the gate, and, even though they ran fast, by the time they reached it they were all sodden. Max’s first impression was that it was a rambling weather board house, a bit down at heel, but it was unfair to judge when he saw everything through sleeting rain. And over one dog who smelled like…wet dog.

There was a veranda. Marc led the way. Pippa ran up the steps behind him, holding a twin by each hand. Max and Dolores brought up the rear. He’d paused to grab his holdall from his car, so he was balancing dog and holdall. Where were those servile minions? he thought again. Maybe accepting the crown could have its uses.

He wasn’t going there, minions or not. He reached the top step, set Dolores down, tossed his holdall into the comparative dry at the back of the veranda, mourned his minions for another fleeting moment, and then turned his attention to the little family before him.

At eight, Marc was just doing the transformation from cute into kid. Maybe he was tall for his age, Max thought, but what did he know about kids? He had the same jet black curls all the members of the Alp d’Estella royal family had, and big brown eyes and a snub nose with a smattering of freckles.

Sophie and Claire were different but similar. They were still not much more than tots, with glossy black curls tied into pigtails and adorned with bright ribbons that now hung limply down their back. They were cute and well rounded and they had a whole lot more freckles than their brother did.

They had to be Marc’s sisters, Max thought, cursing his PI firm for their lack of information. But then, what had his brief been? Find Marc and report on where he was living and who was taking care of him. Nothing about sisters.

But surely the powers that be back in Alp d’Estella must know of these two? They’d certainly known of Marc.

Marc was drying himself, towelling his face with vigour. The twins were being towelled by Pippa. All three children were regarding him cautiously from under their towels.

They were bright, inquisitive kids, he thought. Pippa said something to them and they giggled.

Nice kids.

He shouldn’t stare.

Pippa was stripping off the girls’ outer clothes. She tossed him a towel from a pile by the door. He started to dry his face but was brought up short.

‘That’s for Dolores.’

‘Sorry?’ He looked blank and she sighed.

‘Dolores. Pneumonia. Prevention of same. Please can you rub?’

‘Um…sure.’ He knelt as she was kneeling but instead of undressing kids he was towelling dog. Dolores approved. She rubbed herself ecstatically against the towel, and when he turned her to do the front half she showed her appreciation by giving him a huge lick, from his chin to his forehead. She was big and all bone—a cross between a Labrador and something even bigger. A bloodhound? In dog years she looked about a hundred.

‘She’s kissing you,’ four-year-old Sophie said, and giggled. ‘That means she likes you.’

‘I’ve had better kisses in my day,’ he said darkly.

‘Let’s not go there, Cousin Max,’ Pippa muttered. ‘Otherwise I’ll think axe again.’

‘No kissing,’ Max agreed with alacrity and towelled Dolores harder. ‘You hear that, Dolores? Keep yourself respectable or the lady with the axe knows what to do.’

Pippa chuckled. It was a great chuckle, he thought. He towelled Dolores for a while longer but he was watching Pippa. She was wearing ancient jeans and a windcheater with a rip up one arm. Her close-cropped, coppery curls were plastered wetly to her head, and droplets of rainwater were running down her forehead. She wore no make-up. She’d been wearing huge black wellingtons and she’d kicked them off at the top of the stairs. Underneath she was wearing what looked like football socks. The toe was missing from one yellow and black sock, and her toe poked pinkly through.

Very sexy, he thought, smiling inwardly, but then he glanced at her again and thought actually he was right. She was sexy but she was a very different sort of sexy from the women he normally associated with.

Where was he going with this? Nowhere, he told himself, startled. He was here to organise the succession; nothing more.

The kids were undressed to their knickers now. ‘The quickest way to warm is to shower and we’ll do it in relays,’ Pippa was saying. She motioned to a door at the end of the veranda. ‘That’s the bathroom. The kids can shower first. Then me. I’m sorry, Mr de Gautier, but in this instance it needs to be visitors last. Stay here until I call. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

‘What about Dolores?’

‘She can go through to the kitchen if she wants,’ Pippa said, holding the door open for the dog. ‘Though if you really want I guess she could shower with you.’ She smiled again, a lovely, laughing smile that made these bleak surroundings seem suddenly brighter. ‘Bathing Dolores usually takes a small army, but thanks for offering. Good luck.’

He didn’t shower with the dog. Dolores disappeared as soon as the kids did, leaving Max to wait alone on the veranda. Maybe Dolores had a warm kennel somewhere, Max thought enviously as the wind blasted its way through his wet clothes. Wasn’t Australia supposed to be warm?

Luckily the kids and Pippa were faster than he expected. Pippa reappeared within five minutes, dressed in a pink bathrobe with her hair tied up in a tattered green towel. She tossed him a towel that wasn’t quite as frayed as the one he’d used for Dolores.

‘I assume you have dry clothes in your bag,’ she said and he nodded.

‘Lucky you,’ she said. ‘Everything here is wet. It’s been raining for days. Shower’s through there. Enjoy.’

Everything here was wet? Didn’t she have a dryer? He thought about that while standing under the vast rose shower hanging over the claw-foot bath in the ancient bathroom. Everything he’d seen so far spoke of poverty. Surely Marc—and the girls?—were well provided for?

Alice, Gianetta’s mother, had cut off all ties to her family back in Europe. ‘She married well,’ he’d been told. ‘Into the Australian squattocracy.’ But then, that had been his father speaking, and his father treated the truth with disdain.

Up until now Max hadn’t been interested to find the truth for himself, but if these children’s maternal grandmother had married into money there was nothing to show for it now.