Marion Lennox - Her Royal Baby

‘What plans?’

But Otto was already rolling them up, as if ashamed. Undeterred, Tammy took them from him and unrolled them, refusing to listen to his protests. ‘Otto has so many things he wants to do in this garden,’ she told Marc. ‘I can’t understand why he hasn’t been permitted to do this before. Look at this hill we’re standing on. Most of the trees came down in some huge storm ten years ago-at least I think that’s what Otto’s telling me. But no one’s given him permission to replant, and erosion’s starting to be a problem. We need to get onto this straight away. It’d be a crime if we lost any more topsoil.’

‘A crime?’ There was a strange look on Marc’s face, but Tammy ignored it and kept right on going.

‘Yes. And it’s not as if money’s a problem. Otto’s has been propagating plants for years and has enough seedlings to plant a small forest. All you have to do is say the word and we can start.’

‘We?’

Tammy flushed, but she couldn’t deny her excitement. This estate was huge. There was so much to do.

‘I’ll help. Of course I’ll help.’

‘And you’ll love helping?’

‘Yes,’ she said tilting her chin in an unconsciously defiant reaction to the strangeness in Marc’s voice. ‘I can help all I want. Once my living quarters are sorted out.’

‘You’ll stay in the castle.’

She closed her eyes. Here it was again. ‘I won’t stay in the castle. You’ll stay in the castle.’

‘This,’ he said softly-dangerously-as Otto looked on in confusion, ‘has the makings of a children’s argument. I will. No, I will.’

‘So stop being childish,’ she snapped.

‘No one’s accused me of being childish.’

‘I can’t imagine why not,’ she declared, her chin still tilted in the way he was starting to recognise. ‘That’s just what you are. Offloading your responsibilities onto a mere girl…’

‘Now, that,’ he said carefully, ‘is nonsense. Has anyone ever called you a mere girl?’ He surveyed her thoughtfully. ‘I’d imagine you wouldn’t have been a mere girl even when you were three. What do you think, Otto?’ He turned to the old man and motioned to Tammy. ‘Fantastique?’

‘Oui,’ the gardener said definitely, grinning. ‘Et belle. Très belle.’

‘That too,’ Marc said thoughtfully, surveying Tammy with care. He reached out and removed a grass seed from her hair. ‘Very definitely.’

‘If you two don’t mind?’ Tammy said, flushing, and Marc smiled.

‘Mind? Why should we mind? Two men discussing a beautiful woman…’

‘Yeah, with grass seeds in her hair, a stained T-shirt and the knees out of her jeans. You’re out of your minds.’

‘I don’t think we are,’ Marc told her, his smile intensifying. But he needed to move on. ‘Plans aside…and don’t think I don’t approve-I do…but I’m here to inform you that Mrs Burchett’s planning soufflé as entrée, so we mustn’t be late for dinner.’ His smile turned quizzical. ‘She also tells me she was planning on serving quail, but the lady of the house changed the menu to chicken.’

‘I didn’t,’ Tammy said, horrified, and then thought about it. ‘I mean…I did, but I didn’t mean…’

‘It’s fine,’ Marc said grandly. ‘Planning gardens. Organising menus. You’ll be at home before you know it, and then I’ll be free to lead my own life.’

Oh, great.

INGRID wasn’t there.

Tammy walked into the dining room and stopped, stunned. There was only Marc, standing in his dinner suit before the enormous fireplace, a curious smile curving the corners of his mouth.

‘What?’ she said crossly before she caught herself and made a recovery. ‘I mean, good evening, Your Highness.’

‘Good evening, your ladyship.’ He gave her a formal bow which from someone else might be seen as a mockery, but from him was as natural as taking a lady’s hand and kissing it.

Which wasn’t exactly natural, Tammy thought, seriously ruffled. How many men had she ever met who kissed the back of a lady’s hand? Approximately none.

And how many men could smile at her and make her insides do these really strange things?

‘Where’s Ingrid?’ Her tone was more curt than she’d intended, and his smile faded.

‘Ingrid had urgent matters calling her home.’

‘To your home?’

‘To her home.’

She thought about that. Part of her-the silly part-was very, very pleased. The other part had to be sensible. She should accept this announcement for what it was worth. ‘So it’s as Mrs Burchett says? You’ve moved on?’

‘I’ve done nothing of the kind.’

‘Will she be coming back? Ingrid, I mean?’

‘I don’t see that Ingrid’s whereabouts need concern you.’

‘It’s only this dress,’ she said apologetically, looking down at the little black number she was wearing. ‘If it’s just you here from now on then I can go back to jeans.’

His lips twitched and laughter flashed into his dark eyes. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘Merci du compliment.’

‘Think nothing of it.’

‘I thought women dressed for men?’ he said curiously, and she raised her brows in a look of incredulity.

‘Only if they’re trying to attract them,’ she told him seriously, taking the champagne he offered and trying to keep her composure as their fingers touched. How he had the capacity to shake her just by touching, she didn’t know. ‘Which I’m not.’

Was that true? Was she trying to attract him? No, she told herself flatly. Or…not very much, anyway. Not any amount she was prepared to admit.

Somehow she made herself continue the conversation-which was really, really hard. ‘Women dressing when there are other women around is a very different ballgame,’ she managed. ‘My mother and sister could dissect a woman’s wardrobe from a hundred paces.’

‘And you hated it?’

‘I did,’ she agreed cordially. ‘Can we go find this soufflé? And this chicken?’

‘Why did you knock back quail?’ he asked curiously, and she flinched. But she made a recovery. Somehow.

‘I never liked quail.’

‘And if I do?’

‘If you put me in charge of menus then you eat what I like.’

‘You’re a hard woman.’

‘I am.’ She grinned, suddenly enormously cheered by Ingrid’s unexplained absence. It didn’t make any sense, but then she was just about past making any sense to herself at all over anything.

It was a fabulous dinner.

The kitchen staff could cook chicken any night they pleased while she was here, Tammy thought dreamily. The chicken casserole had been luscious, as had the salmon soufflé for entrée. So was the flaky quince tart for dessert, and the tiny meringues Dominic was serving with coffee were melt-in-the-mouth wonderful.

This was like no food she’d ever eaten. Wow! She ate another meringue and thought the belt on her little black dress would have to expand a notch or two if things stayed like this.

‘What?’ Marc asked, and she looked across the table to find him watching her. This was a crazy dining room for just the two of them. It was truly splendid. Twenty-foot ceilings, gilded walls, crimson brocade drapes, a vast open fireplace, candles, paintings of ancestors looking sternly down, silverware, crystal, a vast silver epergne on the heavily ornate sideboard…

A woman might well be intimidated by all this, Tammy thought, and then looked into Marc’s eyes and thought, No, this was what was more likely to intimidate her. Not the room. The man. Specifically, the way he smiled at her.

It made her catch her breath and more.

‘I was just wondering what happened to the poor quails we were supposed to have,’ she lied, and he smiled again-which made her catch her breath all over again.

‘Do we care?’

‘I like quails.’ She forced her face into a frown. ‘I don’t like them to eat, though. I like them flying about. I found one once, when I was a little girl. He’d been wounded and lost a wing and he became my pet. Querky Quail. I loved him.’

‘So you’re not intending to eat Querky’s relatives?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with chicken instead of quail,’ she told him severely. ‘If I’d had to decide before either had been killed then there’d have been no choice, but if the quail have already been killed then we shouldn’t waste them.’

‘So you’ll serve them up at breakfast?’

‘Um…maybe not.’

But he’d come to a decision. ‘Then you’ll have to eat them by yourself for dinner tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘Or let the servants eat them.’ He pushed his empty coffee cup away and rose to assist her to do likewise. As she stood, he pulled her chair back for her. Which unnerved her all over again. Good grief! A man assuming that she-a tree surgeon-needed help climbing from a chair? What next?

But she couldn’t exactly say she disliked the sensation. In truth, it was an amazing feeling. For a start it brought him so close to her that her dress brushed the fine cloth of his suit. His hand brushed her bare arm and she felt a rush of heat straight through her body-a rush of heat she’d never felt before.

What was it with her? she asked herself desperately. She was acting like a teenager.

‘I’ll have to eat them myself?’ Damn, why was her voice not working properly? Why was she finding it so hard to think past how close he was? ‘You won’t be here?’

‘I’m going home.’

Home. Back to his own independent life.

That changed things. A cold, hard knot of anger settled in the pit of her stomach and the heat faded to nothing. ‘Why?’

‘I told you. I can’t stay here.’

‘But you live here.’

‘No. You live here now,’ he told her. ‘You made that decision when you decided to come back with Henry. Your home is here. My home is ten miles away.’

‘Then you brought me here on false pretences,’ she said angrily. ‘Nothing was said about this when I decided to come. You made it sound as if your home was here.’