Why did his thoughts swing back to Tammy? Tammy, gazing at him from that huge tree she’d been working on. Tammy, asleep on his shoulder in the plane. Tammy, hugging her nephew, making him smile, swinging her bare feet while she sat on that huge, crazy bed.
Tammy in the tiny black dress, beating Ingrid at her own game.
Yeah, right. Get involved with Tammy and he’d be involved with this family for ever. He hated it. Hated it! And Tammy was just such a one as his mother. There was no way he’d subject her to-
Subject her? What was he thinking of? Marrying the girl?
Where had that thought come from? Ridiculous! He was so out of his comfort zone in all this that he didn’t know where he was.
‘Damn you, Jean-Paul,’ he told his dead cousin. ‘I’m not playing your games. I’m not playing
Tammy…
Don’t be a fool, he told himself as he rounded the last bend and trod up the steps back into the castle. I should never have kissed her. God knows why I did. One thing’s for certain: it’s never going to happen again. She doesn’t want me just as much as I don’t want her.
But…how much was that?
CHAPTER SEVEN
MARC woke to laughter. He groaned and opened one eye to discover it was eight a.m. That’d teach him to wander round the lake in the small hours. His head was still in a time zone a thousand miles away.
Maybe he’d imagined the laughter, he thought, still hazy from sleep. One thing this palace never encouraged was laughter.
But there it was again, drifting up from under his windows. Definitely laughter. Tammy’s?
A knock and Dominic was entering. The butler set his tray on the bedside table and started to pull the curtains. He smiled in sympathy as Marc grimaced.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but you did organise a meeting with M’sieur Lavac at nine.’
‘At nine?’ Marc groaned again. ‘M’sieur Lavac?’
‘The accountant, sir,’ Dominic told him in the reproving manner of a senior person to a child who has to be occasionally indulged.
‘Yes. Right.’ The palace accountant. M’sieur Lavac. Of course. Dominic was pulling aside vast brocade drapes and the light hurt his eyes ‘Who the hell is laughing? Surely it can’t be T… Miss Dexter?’
‘Did they wake you, sir? Shall I tell them to stop?’
‘Miss Tammy and Master Henry.’ Dominic paused by the windows and gazed down at the south lawn, a smile playing over his normally taciturn face. ‘I’ll admit I’d be reluctant to stop them. It does my heart good to see them here. We never thought we’d see a child back at the palace. And this aunt of the little Prince…’
‘She meets with your approval?’ The temptation was too great. Jet-lag or no jet-lag, Marc rose to see for himself.
They were right beneath his windows. A steep and grassy bank led down to the lake, and Tammy had climbed to the top, with Henry in her arms. While Marc watched she lay down on the grass, set the little boy down before her so they were almost nose to nose, held his hands tight-and they rolled down the grassy verge together.
Clearly they’d done it time and time again. They ended up on the bank of the lake, both bubbling with laughter, the baby holding his hands out for more. A cluster of ducklings and their mother watched from the water’s edge, seemingly almost as bemused as Marc.
And for Marc it was a strange feeling. Incredible! He watched Tammy’s laughing face and felt a surge of such desire it threatened to overwhelm him.
But this wasn’t a desire he knew. It was crazily mixed up, he thought. His feelings for Tammy were merging with what she represented. Because in there, too, was a desire to do what she was doing-to play with the baby he’d already started to love.
Love? He didn’t do love, he told himself, startled. He was there in the background to safeguard Henry’s inheritance. That was all.
He didn’t do love!
The butler was watching him with a strange expression on his face and Marc tried to catch himself. To appear nonchalant. He let the drapes drop back into place.
‘Have the staff taken to Miss Tamsin?’ he asked, as casually as he could. Which wasn’t as casual as he’d have liked.
Dominic didn’t notice, or at least he didn’t appear to notice. ‘Oh, yes, sir.’
With those three short words there was no doubting that Tammy had Dominic’s entire approval. And that of the staff. ‘Miss Tamsin was up at six this morning and she ate breakfast in the kitchen. We were shocked, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She brought the little one down with her and…well, by the end of breakfast Mrs Burchett says we couldn’t have found anyone more different than…’
He faltered at that, and came to an embarrassed halt, but Marc knew what he’d been about to say.
‘Than her sister?’
‘I…’ Dominic coughed and then met his eyes with honesty. ‘Well, yes. Princess Lara wasn’t universally liked. You know that. Prince Jean-Paul and Princess Lara never took it upon themselves to pay any attention to the staff. When they took the baby away Mrs Burchett and nearly every other woman on the staff practically broke their hearts. They’d been wanting a child in the palace for so long.’
‘Yes.’ Half of Marc was listening, but he was distracted. His hand had involuntarily pulled the drape aside again. It was as if he couldn’t drag his eyes away.
They looked wonderful. Their laughter was infectious and he found himself smiling just to see their pleasure. Tammy was lying on her back now, holding the little boy above her at arm’s length, crowing up at him as if they were both children. She was barefoot again-it seemed to be her normal state-and dressed once more in her standard shabby jeans and T-shirt.
In one sense she looked a pauper, but in another she looked a million dollars!
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but will you be taking them back to Renouys?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Back to your own property. Will you be taking Miss Tamsin and Master Henry back to Renouys to live?’
‘Oh.’ Marc was still distracted, but he made himself think that one through. ‘Why would you think I’d do that?’
‘The inheritance clause you’ve told me about says the child needs only to stay in the country. Not here in the palace.’
‘Mmm.’
‘So we thought…the staff have been saying that maybe you’d be taking them back to Renouys to live with you there.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
Dominic was still probing. That was the trouble with aged retainers, Marc thought grimly. Not enough respect. Dominic had known him when he was in short pants, and the demarcation between master and servant was growing more blurred by the minute. ‘But you’re not planning on staying here yourself?’ He was shamelessly inquisitive and Marc grimaced. ‘You know I’m only here until I get the mess that my cousin left sorted out. Miss Tamsin will stay here. There’s no need for me to stay as well.’
‘The place needs a master.’
‘I’ll be on call if you need me. I can’t stay here indefinitely. It’s not my home.’
‘You’re Prince Regent for twenty-five years,’ Dominic said softly. ‘For some that’s a lifetime. You could live here.’
