Wed in the outback volum.., p.12
Wed In the Outback, Volume 1, page 12
While it hurt that Eve hadn’t called her, and while it must have been a tense phone call, Matilda was glad they’d at least spoken.
“My actions are not your fault. Or your concern.”
“I think,” said Rose, “it’s the thought of our little sister out there, trying to save us all. That’s what I was trying to say the other day. This is not your responsibility. We are not your responsibility. We will find another way.”
“And if we don’t?”
Rose looked at her then, not as a little sister, but as a sister in arms. “You do realise, even if by some miracle you end up with a marriage certificate in hand, Eve and I would have to magically find ourselves husbands as well.”
“And Ana,” said Matilda. “Don’t forget Ana.”
“How could I forget Ana!” Rose asked, hands flailing, before she regathered herself. “Sorry. That came out more harshly than I meant.”
Rose blew out an exasperated breath before she put down the mug, came to Matilda, and wrapped her in her dusty, dirty, wonderful arms. “Tell me about him, so I can be forewarned.”
“Henri?”
“Yes, Henri, unless you have a duke stashed here somewhere too.”
“Ha-ha. Well, he’s...he’s lovely. Smart, and generous. Stubborn, determined, works too hard. Shy, I think, a little. Or introverted, maybe. He’s well-read, loves Whitman. He’s better at the wheel than he is in the saddle. He’s open-minded, but strong in his convictions. And he’s working hard to make his country the best place it can be.”
“And he’s awake.” That from Lindy, who’d appeared at the kitchen door. “I heard the shower going in his room just now. Sorry, you asked if I could let you know.”
“Thanks, Lindy,” Matilda said, standing straight as her nerves switched on one by one at the thought of seeing him again.
“And you left out gorgeous,” Lindy stage-whispered. Then to Rose, she said, “Just you wait and see.”
Rose raised an eyebrow Matilda’s way.
“Fine, yes, Henri is gorgeous. If you’re into tall, dark, built, stupidly handsome royal types.”
“Meh...” said Rose. Then, “That’s a lot of nice things you had to say about the guy. Is it possible that you have feelings for him?”
“Rose,” she said, feeling heat sweep into her cheeks.
“Is it?”
“I did love him, once upon a time.”
Saying the words out loud, Matilda felt the rush of them. As if the feelings were freshly laundered. Clean, crisp, and bright.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t the point. Taking into consideration distance, duty, backgrounds, responsibilities, challenges they couldn’t hope to foresee—love was complicated under normal circumstances. Add the situation in which her family had found itself, and who he was, and it would be a disaster.
“I’m going to shower,” said Rose, checking her watch, “then head back out, so if I don’t get to meet your prince among men in the hall now, I will see you at dinner. Okay?”
“Done.”
* * *
Matilda found Henri in the hall.
He had showered, dark finger tracks ran through his hair, a Superman curl swishing across his brow. His cheeks had pinked in the cool air, contradicting the hard angles of his jaw. And rather than his usual smart suit, he wore jeans, a thick woollen jumper, and boots, his adorable attempt at farm chic.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said, belying the thumpity-thump of her heart that had begun when Rose had asked if she loved him and was yet to subside. “Hungry?”
“Ravenous.”
She handed him a piece of Vegemite toast and watched him muscle his way through it as if it wasn’t offending every single one of his taste buds.
“I was going to take a walk,” she said. “Want to join me?”
“So long as you never make me eat whatever that was ever again, I’ll follow you anywhere.”
It was a line, meaningless, and yet it lodged in her chest like an arrow.
Seriously, Tilly, get a grip.
“Warm enough?” she asked, when they stepped outside.
“This is balmy compared with winter back home. When we get snows, we get snows, the mountaintops covered, the aspens laden. You think Chaleur beautiful now, you should see it come Christmastime.”
She opened her mouth to ask if that was an invitation, then remembered herself.
* * *
They spent a lazy morning ambling around the Homestead grounds, meandering past the Old House, staying clear of the Settlers Cottage due to its ghosts and mega snakes and all the things that had made it out-of-bounds when they were kids.
And Matilda tried her best not to think about the feelings she was feeling for Henri. Not when he stopped, breathed in deeply, and marvelled over the clarity of the air. Or when he reached out to take her hand to help her jump over a fallen tree.
Not even when he begged to spend the afternoon in his room, which had its own small lounge and desk with a view, like every guest room in the Homestead, to “check in.” And didn’t demur when she set herself up on an upholstered chair in the corner of his suite to work on her book while he worked at running a country. For it had become their ritual, that’s all.
After one phone call that left him rubbing both hands over his face and into his hair, she said, “Tell me something you like about being prince.”
He looked to her and laughed. A real laugh, loose and trusting and free. The sound moved through her like liquid heat.
“I was asked the same question recently by a second grader and I struggled to find an answer.”
“It has to be the fervid adoration, though, right? Like that day on the street in Côte de Lapis? ‘Henri, je t’aime!’ ‘So handsome, Henri!’ ‘You were always my favourite, Henri.’”
He twisted in his chair so he was facing her. “So, I am your favourite. I did wonder.”
“Pfft,” she said, “you’re like third, maybe fourth, on my list. There’s Prince Charming. Prince Caspian. Flynn Rider becomes a prince when he marries Rapunzel, right? Straight to number one.”
Henri smiled the smile of a man who knew better.
How? How did he know? Was it obvious that some switch had been flipped since coming home? That while her defences had been down, her sister had asked her a simple question and she’d turned to jelly.
“Your turn,” he said. “What did you love most about growing up here?”
“Compared to what you’ve told me about your childhood, I might seem like I’m showing off.”
“Try me,” he said.
When Matilda realised what he was doing—asking the questions he knew he should have asked her back then—she capitulated.
“Fine,” said Matilda, putting her laptop aside. “It was bliss. Surrounded by animals and trees to climb and staff who felt like family. Our father...” Her heart bucked. “He was built for running this place. Physically tough, financially savvy, quietly charismatic. While our mother was elegant, fiercely loving. She couldn’t wait to see how we all turned out.”
“She’d be very proud. I’d bet a kingdom.”
Matilda lifted her eyes to his, to find a brimming intensity in his gaze. “If only you had a kingdom, not a mere principality.”
“Alas.” Henri smiled. His eyes midnight dark and so focused on her Matilda could barely breathe.
Why did you really make me bring you here? she wanted to ask.
If he said, Because I adore you now as I adored you then, and it broke my heart to see you go, and if I’d only known how to find you I would have come on wings of fire, while she sat in the house her father’s guilt had built, she wasn’t sure she could trust that it mattered.
And if he said anything other than those words, her poor reanimated heart might never recover.
Then the bell at the back door rang across the Downs.
“What on earth—” Henri said, flinching in his chair.
Matilda laughed, the tension releasing from her body a blessed relief.
“That’ll be Rose calling us in for dinner. Ready to meet my sister?”
Henri stood and ran both hands down the sides of his jeans, as if he was nervous to meet Rose. And if that wasn’t her favourite moment of the trip home so far, she couldn’t say what was.
“Come on, Your Highness. Let’s get this over with.” She slid her hand into the crook of Henri’s arm and led him unto the breach.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DINNER WAS...INTERESTING.
Lindy—having created a veritable feast in Henri’s honour—nearly tripped over her tongue when Henri stood to help her carry the Waverly roast beef to the table.
While Rose made sure Henri knew the entirety of Chaleur could fit into Garrison Downs ten times over. Though Matilda watched her slowly become #TeamHenri when he asked salient questions about their stud stock and her favourite brand of tractor.
When Rose finally excused herself, claiming the need for an early night, she shot Matilda a glance to say, Fine. He’s lovely. But I’m just down the hall, and I know where to hide bodies.
Matilda, too buzzed to go to bed, offered Henri a tour of the house proper. And Henri accepted.
“And this,” said Matilda, as she stepped through a large doorway, “was my father’s office.”
The banker’s lamp on the desk was on low, the lamp by her mother’s chair in the back corner glowing softly. Both on a timer that switched them on every day at four in the afternoon.
It had never occurred to Matilda why that was, it had simply been. But now, with both her parents gone, and her version of their romantic history all muddled in her head, she realised her father must have kept it going after her mother had died. A reminder of his wife every single day.
“You okay?” Henri asked.
She blinked away the sheen in her eyes. “This room, it holds a lot of memories.”
“Rooms can do that,” he said, squeezing her arm gently as he swept by.
And she realised as she watched him move about the room, the warm light playing over his features, that he did understand. In fact, he might understand her in a way no one else ever would. Her sisters included.
Those crisp fresh feelings that had come over her in the kitchen that morning rose up again. She tried swallowing them down, but they would not be stopped.
She’d loved this man once, fiercely, with her entire being. And while he had changed, at his core he was the same kind, patient, inquisitive, warm, secure man.
Despite the fact her belief in forever love had been shaken, so much so that the book she had been working on so furiously of late was a collation of letters from doomed love affairs, was it possible that she—with time, with care, with courage—could really feel that way again?
He looked up. Caught her gaze. Raised an eyebrow in question.
“Look at this,” she said, grabbing the remote from the coffee table in a panic. She moved to the centre of the room to show Henri how the artwork at the back of the room slid into a cavity in the ceiling to reveal a large screen her father had used for important video calls. “Pretty snazzy, huh?”
Henri’s smile was warm. As if he knew exactly why she was babbling. And Matilda’s heart twisted when it hit her how much she’d have loved to have introduced Henri to her dad. And her mother too. They’d have spoken fast French and debated politics. Her mother would have loved him.
Maybe, just maybe, that was the thing that hurt most of all. Not the secrets or the lies, but the fact her parents were gone. Gone before she’d had the chance to really know them. Before they had the chance to truly know her.
“This desk,” said Henri, dragging Matilda back to the present. “It’s Dutch?”
“A gift from the Royal House of the Netherlands in fact. Do you know them?”
“Rather well,” Henri said with a smile.
“They’re big fans of Dad’s grain-fed beef.”
“How old?” Henri asked, bending to take in the details.
“Two hundred years, give or take.”
“Two hundred, you say?” He ran his finger along the edge of the desk. Then he dropped to a crouch to look more closely. Before his gaze lifted to hers. “Come here.”
It took half a second for Matilda to realise what he’d found, and she was at his side in a heartbeat.
He took her hand, guiding it till she felt the catch. A hidden locked drawer. Right there, for anyone who knew where to look.
Matilda opened her mouth to call for Rose. Or for Lindy to go find Rose. Then stopped. She needed this. Needed answers. Needed some connection to her father that existed outside of the damn will.
Grabbing a letter opener, she jammed the thing in the hidden lock and jiggled till some part of the mechanism snapped.
Heart beating in her throat, she yanked the drawer open. And inside... It was the mother lode. In every way. For this drawer belonged to Rosamund.
Flicking through the pile of papers, she found her mother’s will, including reference to the generous trust funds she had bestowed on her three daughters. Cards the girls had written to her—birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day.
And all the letters Matilda had sent. From boarding school, from university, from the summer she’d gone away. The summer her mum had been unwell and not told a soul, knowing it would bring Matilda home.
Matilda’s hand shook as it lifted to her mouth, to stop the sob gathering there.
“Matilda?” Henri said, his hand gentle at her back, his voice raw as if seeing her upset was cutting him to pieces. “Can I get someone? Can I do anything?”
“Stay.” She reached back and held Henri’s hand where it was. A lifeline. Essential. As she realised, like the lamp in the corner, her father had kept her mother’s papers, near, right till the end. That was love. She was certain of it.
“Medical records,” Matilda said as she pulled a thick folder with tattered corners and yellowed papers from the bottom of the drawer.
“From that summer?” Henri asked, moving in beside her. Cocooning her in his warmth. His support.
Matilda shook her head. “Several months after I was born.”
Matilda’s heart beat heavily as she skimmed terms such as self-harm, ideation, postpartum psychosis. And a long hospital stay.
“Oh,” she said on an outshot of breath. Her mother had suffered terribly from postnatal depression after she had been born. For months, by the look of things, before a diagnosis came through. Around the time her father had had his affair.
Her fingers numb from shock, the pages spilled to the floor. She followed, dropping to her knees. Her hand landing on a notebook with a red leather cover, soft and aged. The edges of the pages were dusted in gold, her mother’s initials embossed in the lower right corner.
Not a notebook. A journal.
Matilda turned and leaned against her father’s desk. The solid wood keeping her upright.
She opened the book to find the first entry, written in her mother’s long looping hand. Black ink, never blue.
I write these words upon instruction from experts who seem to believe it will help. I write these words so that I might find my way back to my daughters, my life, myself. I write these words to commit to my circumstances, and to bend them to suit my needs, the needs of my girls, and the needs of my family. I write these words as I choose to flourish, and no longer to fade.
Tears running down her face before she got to the bottom of the page, Matilda read on. Immersed in her mother’s beautiful, painfully honest tales of her first few years at the Downs. How stunning she’d found it, and how isolating.
She wrote of how unexpectedly raw and deep she found her love for her daughters, and how bleak it had felt when those feelings did not come. How she had worn her husband to a nub as he had tried to “fix things.” Wanting nothing of him. Until he turned to another woman’s arms.
Until one day she saw past her homesickness to know this was deeper. The disconnection from her youngest, with her sweet nature and her husband’s bright eyes, was nonsensical. Once a diagnosis had been made, Holt had been there. At her side the entire time. Promising that if she was back, so was he. Promises that had saved their family. Their life.
Throat clogged, her face damp with tears, Matilda closed the book and held it to her heart.
In trying to understand how her parents’ love had been so fractured, she’d been looking in the wrong place. Blaming her father for making a wretched choice. This journal, this unfurling of pain, pressed onto the pages like flowers between the pages of a heavy book, showed a different truth. That circumstance had come at them, hard. And they’d beat it back. Together.
Matilda looked up to find Henri crouched by her, his hands over his mouth, his gaze on her. As if her pain was his pain.
She sobbed, choking on her breath, as the last vestiges of control she had over her feelings imploded. And she felt it all. Rage, sorrow, joy, love, hurt, disappointment, forgiveness.
Then Henri was beside her. Sitting on the floor of her father’s office, running a hand over her hair, making soft cooing noises, and speaking in deep sonorous French, while she curled herself into his chest and cried.
* * *
After leaving Matilda with Rose—the sisters needing to deal with the revelations in their mother’s journal together—Henri made his way to his room. And lay there, staring at the ceiling, his body aching with a kind of psychic pain, after seeing Matilda in such distress.
It was near three by the time his eyes finally drifted closed, only to jolt awake when he heard music.
He pushed back the covers, rubbed both hands over his face, then, still dressed in the jeans and woollen sweater he’d worn to dinner, followed the sound to find a room of plush white carpet, an elegant bar at one end, a piano in the centre.
