‘It isn’t helping what?’
‘Me explaining.’
‘You’re not explaining. You’re making me do the explaining.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve talked enough. It’s your turn. Go on. Explain.’
‘These children are Alp d’Estella’s new royal family.’
‘These children are eight and four. They’re Australian kids.’
‘They’re that as well, but they have an inheritance in Alp d’Estella.’
She stared. ‘What exactly have they inherited?’
‘The Crown.’
‘A crown’s not much use. A dairy farm’s a lot more help for paying the bills.’
‘I don’t see many bills getting paid here.’
‘There’s no need to get personal. What else do they inherit?’
He paused. This was the crunch, he thought, the factor that had had him thinking all the time that all he had to do was lay the facts before her and he’d have her in the palm of his hand.
But now, suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. He glanced at Marc and his words echoed again.
‘We’re not rich,’ Marc had said, but it hadn’t been spoken with regret. It was a simple fact.
‘The Crown means wealth,’ Max said, repeating the words he’d rehearsed when he’d thought he’d known how it would be received. ‘Huge wealth.’
‘Is Alp d’Estella a wealthy country?’
Max shook his head. He felt weird, he decided. He was bare-chested in Pippa’s kitchen, wearing Pippa’s gym pants.
Weird.
‘The coffers of the Crown have always been separate from the State,’ he said, forging on bravely. ‘The royal family of Alp d’Estella has always held onto its wealth.’
‘While the peasants starved,’ Pippa retorted. ‘Alice told us.’
‘If he’s raised well I believe Marc can go about correcting injustices.’
There was a moment’s silence. Pippa’s grip on Marc’s shoulder tightened. ‘So…you’d raise him?’ she asked at last.
‘No!’ It was said with such force that it startled them all. ‘No,’ he repeated, more mildly this time. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’
‘Why not?’ She frowned. ‘Come to think of it…I don’t understand. Marc and I read the family tree, or as much as we have of it. If it’s male succession, then you seem to be it.’
‘No.’
‘Or Thierry…your brother.’
‘Thierry died almost twenty years ago.’
She frowned. ‘I guessAlice wouldn’t have known that when she wrote the family tree. But…he was in line to inherit after Bernard.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why aren’t you next?’
‘Because the parental names on the birth certificate are different.’
‘The names on the birth certificate…’ She blinked. He stared right at her, giving her a silent message.
Finally he saw the penny drop.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Can we talk about this later?’ he asked.
But Pippa seemed too shocked to continue. She blinked a couple more times, then crossed to the back door.
‘I have to milk.’ She faltered. ‘I…If you’re here when I get back we’ll discuss this then. I’m sorry, but I need to think this through. Look after Max, kids. I just…need time.’
‘If there are any questions…’
‘Not yet.’
She left. Max was left with Marc and the twins. And Dolores. They were all gazing at him with reproach. Accusing.
‘You’ve made Pippa sad,’ Sophie said.
‘I haven’t,’ he said, flummoxed.
‘She always goes outside when she’s sad,’ said Claire.
‘She’s gone to milk the cows.’
‘Yes, but she’s sad,’ said Marc. ‘Maybe she thinks you’ll take us away from her.’
‘I won’t do that.’
‘We won’t go with you.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ he said, feeling more at sea than he’d ever felt in his life. ‘Kids, I promise I’m not here to do anything you don’t like. My family and yours were connected a long time ago and now I’m here I’m really upset to find that you’re cold and you’ve been hungry. I want to help, and I won’t do anything Pippa doesn’t like.’
‘Really?’ Marc demanded.
‘Really.’ He met Marc’s gaze head-on. Adult to adult.
‘I won’t be a prince if Pippa doesn’t want me to be one,’ Marc said.
‘I don’t blame you.’
He really was a good kid, he thought. Maybe…just maybe this could work. But Marc would have to be protected. And he couldn’t be separated from Pippa and the girls. The thought of taking Marc to a distant castle and leaving him with an unknown nanny died the death it deserved. All or nothing.
‘I think your Pippa is a really great aunty,’ he told them.
‘We’re lucky.’ Marc’s expression was still reproving. ‘Pippa’s ace.’ He thought for a minute, his head tilted to the side. ‘Is there a castle?’
‘In Alp d’Estella, yes.’
‘Does it have dragons?’ Claire asked.
‘No.’
‘I don’t like dragons,’ Sophie said.
‘We don’t like Pippa being sad,’ Marc said, moving the topic back to something he understood. ‘She’s gone to milk the cows by herself and she’s sad.’
‘She shouldn’t be sad.’
‘She gets sad when she thinks about money,’ Claire said in a wise voice. ‘Did you make her think about money?’
‘No. I-’
‘Yes, you did,’ Marc said. ‘So she’ll be sad and she’s cold and it’s raining.’ He stared at Max, challenging, and his message was crystal clear.
‘You think I should help?’ Max said weakly and received three firm nods.
‘Yes.’
‘I’d better go, then,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell her about dragons,’ Sophie said darkly. ‘We don’t want you to scare her.’
His clothes were still damp. He put them on straight from the tumble-dryer and within minutes they were cold and clammy. He hauled Donald’s waterproofs back on-more for the wind factor than anything else as he’d learned by now they made lousy waterproofs.
‘Which way’s the dairy?’ he asked and Marc accompanied him to the edge of the veranda and pointed.
‘If you run you won’t get too wet,’ he said, so Max ran, his oversized gumboots squelching wetly in thick mud.
The dairy was a dilapidated brick structure a couple of hundred yards from the house, with a long line of black and white cows stretching out beside it, sodden and miserable in the rain.
Max walked through a room containing milk vats. The milk wasn’t going into the vats, though. It was being rerouted to the drain.
Through the next door was the dairy proper. Pippa was working in a long, narrow pit, with cows lined up on
