CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS amazing. First there was a journey to Greece on a fishing boat with friends of Andreas. That was the part of the trip where Sebastian could have intervened, she was told, so she had to stay with men Andreas trusted. Then she and Deefer were whisked to the airport. What followed was first-class air travel, with personal attention all the way. Before she knew it, she landed in Perth where she bade a tearful farewell to Deef. Her pup had to face thirty days in quarantine before he could become an Australian. As she came out of the customs building she was met by a pilot upset that she’d got this far without him finding her. It seemed a private helicopter had already been chartered to take her on to Munwannay.
Her financial circumstances only a month ago might have seen her hitch-hiking. This was a turnaround indeed.
She should feel flattered and indulged. Instead she felt miserable.
And as soon as they arrived at Munwannay she saw more signs of change. From the air she could see people moving about, a couple of shiny new vehicles, two men on horseback.
It seemed that Andreas’s promised money had reached Munwannay before she had.
They landed and a lean, weathered man in his late fifties came striding across the dusty paddock to greet her. There was a rangy blue-heeler at his side. A dog, back on Munwannay.
‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ he said with a slow, lazy smile that told her more than anything else that he’d been bred in the bush. ‘I’m Bluey Crammond.’ He motioned to the dog. ‘This here’s Rocket. Your husband’s sent me here to help set the place up as it ought to be set up. If you and Rocket and I get on, your husband’s thinking I could stay on as your overseer, but that’s up to you. Rocket and I are here on three months’ probation-if you think we’re suitable and I think the place is a goer then we’ll stay. But I’m telling you now, this place is fantastic. Your husband says you have ideas and I’m just waiting to hear them.’
He smiled, a slow, farmer’s grin. Rocket extended a paw on command and Holly was smitten.
As she was with the housekeeper waiting for her in the homestead. Margaret Honeywell was a lovely, plump lady who reminded Holly forcibly of Sophia.
‘Your husband says I’m here for a trial period only, and if you find the idea of staff intrusive then I’ll go,’ she told her. ‘Bluey and I have been paid well to come here for the trial period, so you’re not to think we’ll mind if you let us go. But I’m hoping you won’t.’
Holly was already sure that she wouldn’t. Somehow Andreas had picked staff whose credentials-and personalities-were wonderful.
He must have started organizing almost before they were married, she thought, dazed, for Bluey and Mrs Honeywell-‘call me Honey, love, everyone else does’-had been employed through an agency in Perth and had been at Munwannay for a week before she’d arrived.
Their work was stunning. The homestead was gleaming under Honey’s industrious enthusiasm. Fencing contractors had been hired, repairing the ravages of years of neglect. Outbuildings were being repaired. Skilled mechanics were checking bores, repairing and replacing machinery that was well past its use-by date and making sure there was water for cattle that could be bought any time she said the word.
‘I’m happy to come to the market with you,’ Bluey told her deferentially. ‘But His Highness says you know cattle better’n anyone in the country and I’m not wanting to step on your toes. And he said you had the funds for a great herd.’
She did. When she checked her bank account she couldn’t believe the figures. She had enough and more to get this place back to what it should be.
She should be deliriously happy. To have enough money to restore Munwannay to its former glory was a dream come true. But…
But for a start she didn’t have Deefer. As a pup bred for possible international sale, Deefer had been given all the appropriate vaccinations from the breeder so he could travel anywhere, but still he had to endure his four weeks’ quarantine. Rocket was great but he wasn’t Deefer.
And of course the biggie.
She didn’t have Andreas.
And that was a stupid thing to be pining for, she thought savagely as the days wore on. If she hadn’t left then she’d be pining for Andreas back at Aristo, while she endured stupid lessons in decorum. At least here she could get her hands dirty. She could go wherever she wanted.
For out in the stables she found another example of her husband’s organization. Whippy, grandson of Merryweather. Merry had died two years back of old age, a note from Andreas had told her, but his investigators had found her Whippy-who looked and worked so like his grandmother it was love at first sight.
So now she could ride as she loved to ride. She could work side by side with Bluey, pushing herself so hard she fell into her bed at night physically spent. She could make plans for her cattle station. She could go back to teaching if she wanted.
She could start her life again.
So she shouldn’t lie awake night after night thinking of Andreas. Thinking if she’d stayed at the palace then maybe every couple of weeks he’d have come to her bed. Thinking maybe that could have been enough.
Thinking she was mad to come home.
When Deefer came it’d be better, she told herself desperately, but she knew it wouldn’t be. She’d ached for Andreas for years and these last weeks had turned that ache into a piercing physical pain.
A week after she arrived he telephoned. She’d just walked in after an afternoon riding Whippy round the northern reaches of the property, checking her magnificent new bores and talking fencing with Bluey. She was hot, dusty and exhausted. She walked up the steps of the veranda, and Honey was holding out the phone and beaming.
‘It’s your husband.’
Your husband. Honey was smiling as if this was completely normal. Her husband was phoning from where he lived to where she lived.
It felt…wrong.
It was a sham marriage, but if it was sham then surely she shouldn’t think of him as her husband. Surely no one should refer to him as her husband.
‘H…hi,’ she managed, and there was silence on the end of the phone for so long she thought the connection must have died.
‘Hi, yourself,’ he said at last. He sounded tired and strained. ‘How are things?’
‘Good. I mean…great.’ She fought for composure. ‘I can’t believe you found Whippy.’
‘I wished I could have found Merry,’ he said softly. ‘I loved her, too.’
By the sound of his voice she knew he spoke nothing but the truth. She swallowed, thinking of the young Andreas, riding side by side with her all those years ago, loving this place, loving this work. If he could only come…
No. He was royal. Husband in name only.
‘The people you employed are fantastic, too,’ she managed. ‘I don’t know how you found them.’
‘I’m good at finding fantastic people,’ he growled. ‘Or…a fantastic person. One wife, for instance.’
‘Don’t,’ she whispered. She shook herself, trying to get rid of the wash of unreality. He was half a world away. No. He was of another world.
‘Andreas, this money…There’s so much.’
