Marion Lennox - Her Royal Baby

© 2003

TAMMY was up a tree when royalty arrived.

Royalty might be unusual, but being up a tree wasn’t. Tamsin Dexter spent half her life up trees. She was one of Australia’s youngest and brightest tree surgeons, and Tammy’s passion was propagating, treating or, as a last resort, felling trees and planting new ones to take their place.

Employed by the Australian National Parks Service, Tammy was as usual, working in the remote bushland that she loved so much. She was part of a team, but today she was working happily and successfully alone.

She had nothing to do with royalty.

But someone was under her tree right now and he certainly looked like royalty. Or maybe he was a duke. Or maybe he wasn’t royalty. Could he be an admiral or something?

Maybe she didn’t know, she conceded. Tammy’s working knowledge of royalty, dukes and admirals was strictly limited. Were admirals as young as this? Maybe not.

What the stranger was wearing probably wasn’t an admiral’s uniform, she decided as she checked him out more closely. He was dressed in a sleek, expensively cut suit, embellished with rows of braid, medals and tassels. He’d arrived in a gleaming limousine, which was now parked under the tree she was working on, and a uniformed chauffeur remained in the driving seat.

Someone else was climbing out of the car now. The second man was older, and wore no braid or medals, but he still looked like some sort of official.

Which of the pair looked more out of place? Tammy couldn’t decide. Royalty or official? It didn’t matter, but she knew who looked the most interesting.

Royalty. Definitely royalty.

The man she’d decided was royalty was tall. He was well over six feet, she thought, though it was tricky to judge from so far above him. He was immaculately groomed with jet black hair, thickly waved and raked back. His hair looked carefully arranged to suit the official status of his uniform, but perhaps ungroomed it would be the sort of tousled thatch that Tammy infinitely preferred in her men.

Her men?

She grinned at the direction her thoughts were taking. That was a laugh. Her men. Her men were a figment of her imagination.

Figment or not, this man looked great. Wonderful. He was strongly built and had a sort of chiselled look about him: like one of Rodin’s statues. His bone structure was superb-intensely, wonderfully masculine.

What else? Some things were obvious. He certainly wasn’t the sort who lived in the bush. Even without the royal regalia, he looked the type who’d be at home drinking café latte, or sipping wine in trendy city bars, with a sleek little Lamborghini parked nearby.

She knew the type, and it wasn’t her type at all. Cheap tea boiled on a campfire with a few eucalyptus leaves thrown in for flavour was more Tammy’s style.

So, what on earth were these two men and their chauffeur doing here? She swung lazily back in her harness and considered.

The bureaucrat was about fifty-twenty years or so older than the royalty-type-and he was podgy. He was wearing a dark suit and his shirt had a too-tight collar. In comparison the younger man looked smooth, intelligent and sophisticated.

What a pair! In combination they looked almost absurd. Here they were, in the middle of the Australian bush, and they were dressed as if they were expecting a royal reception. And to receive them there was only Tammy, swinging thirty feet above their heads.

What did they want?

‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called, and Tammy frowned. Miss Dexter? That was her. What were this lot doing looking for her?

‘This is ridiculous,’ the royalty guy was saying. ‘The sort of woman I’m looking for wouldn’t be working in a place like this.’

Tammy thought about that and agreed wholeheartedly. How many Miss Dexters were there in the world? Thousands, she decided. These guys had wandered off a movie set and needed directions to find their way home.

‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called again, this time more urgently.

But still Tammy didn’t respond. She stared down at the men below, and as she did she felt her insides give an unfamiliar lurch. Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe they weren’t in the wrong place at all.

Maybe they spelled trouble.

‘Miss Dexter?’ the bureaucrat called again, in a tone that said that this was his last try, and she took a deep breath.

‘I’m up here. What can I do for you?’

The voice from above his head made Marc start.

The foreman down the road had told him Tamsin Dexter was working in this clearing and he’d reacted with disbelief. What on earth was one of Lara’s family doing working in a place like this? He’d been wondering that pretty much constantly for the last twenty-four hours, when the private investigator he’d hired had told him where he could find her.

‘I’ve found your Tamsin Dexter. She’s twenty-seven, she’s single, and she’s working as a tree surgeon with the Australian National Parks Service. She’s currently working in the National Park behind Bundanoon. Bundanoon’s on the Canberra-Sydney Highway, so if you take an hour or so after the Canberra reception you could find her.’

The private investigator had come with excellent credentials, but Marc had reacted with incredulity. How could a tree surgeon be sister to a woman such as Lara? It didn’t make sense. It must be the wrong Tamsin Dexter, he’d decided, and he’d sworn in vexation at the potential waste of time. He needed to work fast.

But the government reception in Canberra had been unavoidable. As Broitenburg’s Head of State, Marc would step on too many toes if he visited Australia and refused it. So…If he had to attend it wouldn’t hurt to detour through Bundanoon and see if he could find the woman.

Now he stared upward, and it was as much as he could do not to gasp out loud.

Tamsin was slim and wiry and…tough, he decided. Or maybe ‘serviceable’ was the best way to describe her. She was dressed in workmanlike khaki overalls and ancient leather boots. The boots were the closest thing to him, swinging back and forth above his head. They were battered and torn, and the laces had been repaired with knot after knot.

What else? She was young and obviously superbly fit. Her riot of jet-black curls was caught back with a piece of twine. Curls spread out to tangle glossily around her shoulders. They looked as if they hadn’t seen a brush for a week. Though that might be unfair. If he was hanging where she was maybe his hair would look tousled as well.

He forced his gaze to move on, assessing the whole package. Her skin was tanned and clear…weathered, almost. Wide, clear eyes gazed calmly down at him and he found himself wondering what colour they were. Brown, like her sister’s? He couldn’t tell from here.

But what he could see was a perfect likeness of Lara. Hell, even the similarity made his gut clench in anger.

The detective had been right. This was the Tamsin Dexter he’d been looking for. He’d found her.

‘Can I help you?’ She was looking down at them as if they were the odd ones out-which, considering their clothes, wasn’t surprising. She was still swinging from her harness, reluctant to come down unless it was really necessary.

It was necessary.

‘I need you,’ he told her.

‘Why?’

‘You’re Tamsin Dexter?’

‘Yep.’ Still she made no sign of descent. Her attitude said she had work to do and they were interfering with it.

‘Miss Dexter, this is His Royal Highness, Marc, Prince Regent of Broitenburg,’ Charles interrupted, tugging his collar in anxiety. He wasn’t comfortable in this situation and it showed. ‘Could you please come down?’