Wed in the outback volum.., p.11
Wed In the Outback, Volume 1, page 11
“Always,” she said with a laugh. He felt like a beast for having kept her cooped up as much as he had. “Is this a Celeste suit-type trek, or are we winging it?”
“No Celeste suit.” Never again. “I’m thinking something a little different.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve not taken a break in the two years since my coronation. Not once.”
“Really?” she said, looking him up and down. “But you seem so chill.”
The glint in her eye had him moving in, watching as her chin lifted and her throat worked as the air between them disappeared. “I was thinking...we go south.”
“We are about as south as we can go before landing in the Mediterranean.”
“Not if we go to Garrison Downs.”
Matilda’s whole face changed. Shock, then joy, then a flicker of uncertainty, then back to joy. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“But how? Why?”
He lifted a hand to sweep her hair from her cheek, and her bright blue eyes deepened. Darkened. The wish to kiss her again, to sweep her off her feet and into his bed, was potent.
“You’ve seen mine,” he said, his voice rough as his gaze followed the sweep of pink warming her cheeks. “Only fair you show me yours.”
Matilda blinked her way out of a haze, and shook her head. “Are you okay? Is there a chance you’ve come down with a sudden fever?”
He lifted his gaze back to hers. To that face. Open, trusting. Captivating. “You’ve come all this way in the hopes of protecting your home. And you’re asking for my help to do so. I think it’s only fair I see it in person.”
Her smile was quick, but quickly chased by concern. For him, or on her own account he could not be sure. All he knew was that he had to do this. He had to know what he’d missed.
“Who will be in charge with you gone?” she asked.
“I will. It’s called working remotely.”
She looked to the door. “Is Andre okay with this?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Do you want to show me Garrison Downs, or not? Because if I have to invite myself again—”
She shook her head, laughed, then threw herself into his arms. “I want you to come. Please.”
As he held her, he thought how every step of his life, including what he’d thought had been that single summer of freedom, had been shaped, reduced, by some document or other.
A birth certificate, a royal decree, a political poll, a torn note, and now a looming marriage license, all of which decided the path his life would take.
He needed to do this. He needed to know what life might have been like if the choice had been his.
For whether he gave himself up to history, did what others deemed the right thing to do, or went his own way, in the end the choice had always been his.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Garrison Downs,
August
DESPITE THE COMFORT of a private plane, and diplomatic fast-tracking, after twenty-four hours in the air—including a light plane from Adelaide to a local airstrip—then a wild drive through miles of Mars-like Outback terrain that Matilda had insisted was part of the experience, Henri was relieved when Matilda slowed at a grand wooden archway, bull horns carved into the arch, heralding the entrance to Garrison Downs.
It was late afternoon, with patchy gum trees sending long shadows over the bumpy driveway, only to finally reveal a sprawling mansion, with wide front verandas, a high gabled roof, and stunning landscaping.
“So, what do you think?” Matilda asked.
“I admit I had pictured a few cattle grazing lazily in a paddock. A wraparound porch. Flies buzzing around a small dam.”
Matilda grinned as she pulled the rented four-wheel drive up to the front of the house with a scrape of tyres. “We have all that. Just a million times better.”
Henri alighted from the car and stretched his legs, red dust kicking up from the slide of his boot and coating the bottom of his chinos. For all the blinding sunshine, the cold was real. As if everything was bigger here, harder, tougher.
He liked it very much.
A collie jogged around the corner of the house, tongue lolling happily.
Matilda cried, “River! Here, boy!”
The dog bounded to her on old legs, stopping only as she dropped to her knees and pulled him into a tight embrace, her face nuzzling into his neck as she murmured sweet nothings.
When she scrambled back to her feet, the dog came to Henri. He held out a hand for a sniff. “River?”
“River. Was a working dog, now retired. Blossom, Rose’s dog, and Lavender will be around somewhere. Come on, let’s get your bag inside before the red dust makes havoc of the pretty leather.”
“One moment,” he said, pulling out his phone to tap out a message to Boris and Lars, who they had dropped at a motel in the nearest town, Marni, much to their protestations. He assured them he’d arrived safe and sound, as if they hadn’t already secreted some kind of GPS tracker on his person.
Then, hooking his soft leather bag over his shoulder, he followed Matilda toward the house. Gum trees swished and sang overhead. The caw of a crow broke the heavy silence.
When his gaze dropped to Matilda, who had fallen into step beside him, it was to find her expression hopeful, vulnerable, as if it mattered to her what he thought.
There was also a glimmer of wariness. Which she soon explained, turning to walk backward toward the house, River jogging gently at her side.
“One small thing. My sister Rose, still doesn’t know about you.”
“In what capacity?”
“In any capacity. I rang to let her know we were coming, but Lindy—our housekeeper—answered saying Rose, Aaron—the head stockman—and a handful of the skeleton winter staff are at the Outstation for a few nights. Mobile coverage at the house is top-notch, but there’s not much in the way of reception without a satellite phone out there.”
She tilted her chin toward the beyond.
“So, she’s in for a nice surprise upon her return?”
“Something like that,” Matilda said, then turned and jogged up ahead to open the front door.
Once inside, she motioned for him to dump his bag in a mudroom hidden behind an elegant door, the space filled with gum boots, rain slickers, wide brimmed hats in lieu of woollen winter coats and scarves that would be found in such a room back home.
“Are you too tired for the grand tour?” she asked.
“No,” he said, curious gaze taking in wide halls, cream walls, high ceilings, the polished wood floors, and antique furnishings.
But, eyes twinkling, she took his hand again and pulled him back outside. “Not there,” she said. “There.”
Then tipped her chin toward the acres of dry red landscape beyond.
* * *
It was midwinter in this part of the world and yet Henri could feel sweat dripping down his back.
Riding, to him, consisted of weekly lessons in a dressage ring. Polo tournaments in his teens. This was a completely different beast. The saddles were harder, the reins worn in for other hands. The terrain untended, all rocky pastures and tufty hillocks and boulder-filled streams.
Matilda, on the other hand, looked utterly at ease. Her hands loose, her shoulders relaxed, her body moving gracefully as the horse beneath her trotted briskly up unexpected rises and slowed to a lolloping walk any time they hit flat earth.
As if she could feel his eyes on her, she glanced back. Then with a quick smile, the kind that set off sunbursts behind his eyes, she made a clicking sound and set off at a canter toward a nearby hill.
Henri wished he had a moment to collect himself, lest his chances of ever producing a Raphael-Rossetti heir became moot, but soon his horse, a docile mount named Beryl, followed Matilda’s mount with no help from him.
Atop the hill, low sunlight speared shards of pale gold wintry light through a canopy of trees, dappling the leaf-covered floor and creating a kind of dreamscape as Matilda slowly eased her way through, picking out a path.
Cocooned by the shuffle of hooves and soft nasal breaths of the horses, Henri could not have felt further away from the challenges of court. And soon his mind wandered.
An heir. It was a concept he’d refused to entertain, having been one himself and borne the scars of it his whole life. But wasn’t that part of why he was here, in this wild, remote, upside-down place? To stretch the possibilities. To think new thoughts. To question everything that had brought him to this moment.
“All okay back there?” Matilda called. “You’re terribly quiet.”
That’s because I’m having an epiphany.
“Just trying to stay upright.”
She snorted. “I checked your seat. You’re doing just fine.”
He readjusted his grip and trotted so that he took a tree to the left while she took it to the right, and soon they were walking side by side.
“You’ve checked my seat?” he reiterated.
Her mouth twitched but she kept facing forward. “It’s one of my favourite things about you.”
With that, she was off again, a snicker and a trot and they burst from the copse to find themselves atop a ridge. Matilda pulled to a halt, and Henri—with Beryl’s tacit help—pulled up beside her.
Henri wondered if she had any clue that she was humming; some song or other, or a tune that only she knew. It was something she did when she was feeling contented.
“We run the land as far as the eye can see. Saltbush and mallee scrub, rocky hills, sudden ravines, and shady canyons. Hectares of flat grazing lands marked by well-kept fences and neat cattle grids and dams filled with bore water or river water. We’ve all got the kind of water rights our neighbours would give up a kidney to get their hands on.”
She resettled her hat with its wonky rim a little further back on her head. The glow of the setting sun painted a vibrant pink and orange haze on the horizon, making her blue eyes appear even brighter than usual.
“Pretty great, don’t you think?” she asked, a smile tugging at the corners of her uptilted lips.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen anything more beautiful,” he said.
A grin lit her face as she turned. It faltered when she saw his eyes were only on her.
“Henri,” she chastised. But her eyes softened. Her gaze tracing the edges of his face.
With no need to be subtle here, or feel concern that some servant or citizen might notice his lingering gaze, Henri drank her in. Boldly. Blatantly. As if this place demanded it.
If the Matilda he’d known all those years ago had been a burst of joy, and the Matilda who’d popped up on the street in Côte de Lapis had been an extraordinary disruptor, Matilda Waverly on home soil was nothing short of transcendental.
“Rose can’t give up this place, Henri,” she said, her expression no longer sunshine and light. “It’s her lifeblood.”
“Could you?” he wondered, and then when her eyes widened he realised he’d said it out loud.
At least he hadn’t said what he was really wondering, which was, Could you give it up for me?
Another reason why he’d had to come. So that he would be under no illusion as to all that he’d be asking her to leave behind if things worked out the way he was beginning to expect they might.
“Come on,” she said, her voice soft as she turned her horse on the spot and nudged him back toward the Homestead.
* * *
Early the next morning, Matilda sat on the back porch of her childhood home, laptop open to the book she’d been working on, cupping a mug of cooling coffee, legs curled up on her favourite chair, a mohair blanket tucked around her legs, River snoring gently at her feet.
Ready for when Henri might stumble bleary-eyed from his room, the way she had after collapsing in a heap her first night in the château.
Till then, she soaked in the crisp wintry air. The earthy scents. The sky that went on forever.
If the front of the Homestead was a showpiece often featured in articles about the great homes of Australia, the veranda by the back door, with its older furniture, the view through gaps in the watery grey of the ghost gums to stockyards, sheds the size of airplane hangars, was the working heart of the Downs, where they truly lived.
And yet, despite how familiar it all was, how ruggedly beautiful, whether it was Rose’s “vision board” text, or the amount of time she’d spent away, Matilda felt a kind of disconnect.
“You all right, Tilly?”
Matilda turned to find Lindy, their housekeeper, standing at the top of the back steps by the big, dented metal bell. It harked back to generations gone when it had been used to call in hungry workers with a holler of, “Grub’s up!” The girls had known the sound as their signal to cease whatever mischief they were up to and come inside.
“Sorry, Lindy,” Matilda said, “did I wake you?”
“Not at all. Plenty to do in a house this size, even if the rooms are mostly empty these days. And now you’re back, there’s more cooking and cleaning for sure.”
Matilda went to laugh, to make some joke, falling into her happy-happy joy-joy role as easily as sliding into old slippers. But instead stopped herself and said, “Can I help?”
“I’m all good. Now, can I get you anything?”
Matilda held up her coffee. “I’m covered.”
“And your...friend?” Lindy asked. “Does he need anything?”
Matilda had introduced Lindy and Henri when they’d come in from their ride.
Once Lindy had herded him into the green guest room, to “wash off the day,” Lindy had asked Matilda if she was absolutely sure there wasn’t enough space in her own large bedroom for such a dashing friend.
“As far as I know Henri is still gone to the world,” said Matilda. “If he rouses himself anytime soon, can you tell him where I am?”
Lindy nodded. Then, with a glorious sigh, went back inside.
Leaving Matilda to watch the winter sun melting the frost from the grass and the station stirring, and think about this place. What it meant. And what they might all be willing to do to protect it.
The way Eve had been acting since the reading of the will, as if she’d somehow known about the affair... Would she actually care if Garrison Downs was lost? Matilda was certain that deep down she would.
Then there was Ana, who had no connection to the place at all. Yet she could. If they managed to pull this off, what an amazing opportunity it would be for them to cement their sisterhood.
And then there was wonderful, hardworking, caring Rose, for whom Garrison Downs was her life’s dream.
Matilda looked toward the back door, thinking her way to where Henri slept. And she knew, even if this place wasn’t what she wanted anymore, she’d still go a long way to protect it for those she loved.
* * *
“Tilly?”
Matilda coughed on her Vegemite toast, as she turned to find Rose moseying into the kitchen an hour later, covered in dirt from head to toe. She threw down her toast and ran to her sister, enveloping her in a hug.
“Hey!” said Rose, laughing, her arms out to the sides. “Are you sure you want to be doing that. I reek.”
“You smell perfect.”
Rose gave her a quick squeeze before peeling herself free, then heading to the fridge for a half bottle of orange juice, which she downed in one go.
“What are you doing back?” Rose asked.
It gave Matilda the perfect opening to say, “If Lindy hasn’t spilled the beans as yet, I brought a visitor.”
Rose stopped drinking.
“He’s in the green guest room. Twenty bucks says he’s still face down on the bed, snoring.”
“He?”
“Yes, he.”
“And he’s a snorer?”
“Well, no, that was just a figure of—” Matilda snapped her mouth shut at Rose’s quick smile.
Though it was quickly followed by a frown, brimming with big sisterly concern. “And there I was thinking you’ve been spending your days staring down musty paintings and gorging on Nutella crepes.”
“Sorry,” said Matilda. “I wanted to wait for the right time to tell you. So as not to worry you.”
Rose cocked a hip against the bench. “Ought I be worried now?”
“About Henri? On the contrary.” Then, “But there’s more.”
Matilda told her. How they’d met, how they’d adventured, how they’d said “I do.” Rose’s face remained impassive until Matilda mentioned their mother, and a finger lifted to press against her lips.
“After Dad’s will, I had to find out. In case our situation satisfies the condition.”
“Oh, Tilly—”
“There’s more still,” Matilda said, holding out a staying hand. “You might want to sit down for this next bit.”
Rose levelled her with a look. Before turning to click on the kettle.
“Fine. But I warned you. His name is Henri Gaultier Raphael-Rossetti. And he is a prince. But not just any prince, the Sovereign Prince of Chaleur.”
After a few beats, Rose said, “Well, I’m glad he’s not just any prince. If so, I’d have said to put him in the lilac guest room.”
Matilda blinked. “You are being very blasé about this.”
Rose popped a tea bag into a mug with the Marni Cup logo on the side. “That’s because I know.”
“What do you know?”
Rose pulled the band from her ponytail, then retied it, a sign she wasn’t as cool about all this as she was making out to be. “Eve told me.”
“Eve?”
“After you called her and left a cryptic message about—let me see if I have this straight—kissing a prince who might be your husband, she called me to give me a right bollocking. How could I have let this happen?”
