The Secret Heiress

Her uneasiness grew.

Andrew and Mick lingered, nursing their drinks until closing time. They had much to talk about, and in the back of Andrew’s mind, he worried about that small blond woman who might be too spunky for her own good.

Sure enough, just as he and Mick were back in Mick’s Jeep, about to pull away, he saw two women dash through the mist toward an older model car. One of them was the little blonde, her head down. The rangy busboy stepped from the shadows and blocked their way. He looked as if he might have helped himself to a drink or two at the bar. He grabbed the blonde’s arm, scowling, hectoring her.

The dark-haired woman looked frightened, the little blonde seemed incensed. Mick started to say something, but Andrew didn’t hear it. He was out of the Jeep, and in six strides he was between the busboy and the blonde. “Look,” Andrew said from between his teeth, “leave the lady alone. You want to pick on somebody, try somebody your own size. Will I do? Huh? Will I?”

The rangy kid swore, but after casting Andrew a filthy look, he turned and quickly sloshed off into the shadows, kicking angrily at puddles. The dark-haired woman was already in the car.

“Get in, Marie,” she called. “Before he comes back.”

“I’ll stay until you’re out of the lot—and watch that nobody follows you,” Andrew said, looking down at Marie. “You have a cell phone in case you need one?”

She stared up at him, her face pale in the parking lot lights. Her pale skin gleamed with moisture from the night’s haze. My God, he thought, she’s lovely.

“A mobile?” she asked. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’ll be fine. Really, I—I can take care of myself. I—I—”

She amazed him by beginning to shake. Not just a slight tremor, but a real shaking, like someone shivering from intolerable cold.

He seized her upper arms in concern. He could feel her muscles jerking beneath her raincoat’s thin fabric. Her lower lip worked helplessly, her chin trembled, and he couldn’t tell if her eyes were moist from tears or from the fine rain.

“Are you okay?” he demanded, leaning nearer.

“Y-y-you’ve been very kind, b-b-but—” She couldn’t seem to get any more words out. He slipped one arm around her, afraid her knees were about to buckle.

“Miss, I’m going to tell your manager about this incident. And if that fool harasses you again, call the police. I mean it.”

She tried to disengage herself, but when she took a step backward, she swayed, as if she couldn’t quite support herself. Instead, she sagged forward, clutching the lapels of his rain jacket. She buried her face against his chest. Her back heaved as if she were sobbing silently.

But only for the briefest of moments. Then, as if by sheer willpower, she righted herself again, drew back and looked him in the eye. “I’m terribly sorry. It’s not him.” She nodded in the direction the busboy had fled. “I’m absolutely okay. Just some—an illness in the family. I’m terribly embarrassed. I apologize. And thank you again. But I’m fine.”

Before he knew it, she’d slipped from his grasp, opened the passenger door, and was sliding into the car beside her friend. She smiled at him, and there was something in that smile that nearly broke his heart.

The car drove off, and he stood in the mist, looking after the disappearing taillights.

Chapter Two

The rain started to drizzle harder as Marie and Izzy left the parking lot. It was just after midnight. Izzy stopped at a light and said, “What was that all about?”

“Butch groped me again,” Marie said in a flat, no-nonsense voice. “I stomped on his foot. That’s why he came after me in the parking lot. Mick and that other man saw it happen. They must have realized Butch wanted to get even.”

“So that handsome guy comes to your rescue?” Izzy asked. “God, I wish Butch’d pinch me so I could stomp on him.”

Marie said nothing, just sat lower in the seat.

Izzy cast her a sideways glance. “That handsome guy? He was watching you tonight.”

“I didn’t notice,” Marie said. And she hadn’t.

“Not notice? How could you not notice? He’s been in the papers, on the telly.”

“I don’t have time for the papers or telly,” Marie murmured, gazing out at the darkness.

“He’s a high muckety-muck in horse racing. American. He’s going to run for some horse-thingy president. Against Jacko Bullock.”

“Uck.” Marie shuddered. Bullock turned up several times a year at the Scepter during the racing season. She thought he looked like and acted like a pig. “Bullock’s nasty. He’s worse than Butch any day. He propositioned me right at the table one night, in front of three other men. I almost poured his drink on his head. I’d have loved to.”

“Well, he’s powerful,” Izzy said. “He’ll gobble that poor Yank up and spit out his bones.”

“Sad but true. The Yank seemed like a nice fellow.” He had, she thought vaguely. An extremely nice fellow.

“I guess,” Izzy rejoined with heavy irony. “And that’s why you ended up in his arms? I thought he was going to plant a big smoochie on you.”

Marie shrugged irritably. “Look, I went wobbly. I had a bad day.”

“Oh, chook,” Izzy said. “I’m sorry. Is it your mom?”

“Yes,” Marie said, her throat tight. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

And Izzy, who had a kind and sensitive heart, asked no more.

But at home, Marie had to think about her mother. She could think of nothing else. She took Colette’s envelope, sat on the edge of the bed and forced her hands to stay steady as she opened the flap.

She unfolded a sheet of paper, a letter. It was dated just over two years ago and signed “Willadene Gates.” It began:

My Dear Miss Colette Lafayette,

Thank you for writing me, for I think I can answer your questions, as years ago when I was not yet 17 yrs. of age I become an attendant at a home for unwed mothers.

A high-priced place, it promised total discretion, if you get my meaning. I do remember your birth, for your birthday is the very same day as my own, March 9!

“Your mother’s name was Louisa Fairchild. She was 16 yrs. old, unwed & pregnant, & come from quite the posh family.

And I remember you, even after all these years. I said to myself, how could anyone give up such a darling infant? But that girl refused to even speak of you. Cold as ice, she was.

In a few days, her parents come and took her home. Louisa F. walked out of the ward with never a backward look. She never even spoke to her own parents!

Now she’s grown up and grown old. I see her name in the news. She’s rich as Midas and lives on a horse station near Hunter Valley—very hoity-toity! She never married and don’t get along with any relatives, I hear tell.

Should you find her, and she recognizes you as her own, I hope you will not forget your friend, Willadene, what give you this info, as I am now elderly and living in reduced circumstances (although as you see the memory is still sharp!)

Your friend, the first to ever hold & kiss you,

Willadene Gates

At the bottom, Colette had weakly scribbled a note.

I wrote Willadene Gates two months later. The letter came back marked “deceased.” I didn’t know what to do next. My feelings are still mixed about whether I should try to find out more or let the matter go.

Marie, I put some of my nail clippings in a little plastic bag. I pricked my finger and let some blood fall on a piece of cloth. I put them in an envelope in my jewelry box. If we’re related to Louisa Fairchild, your DNA and mine should match hers, if I understand what they say on the telly.

It would be good to know the truth, at long last, but I was never brave enough to search further. I should have done it for your sake and apologize that I did not. I leave it in your capable hands.

Your proud and loving mother.

Marie read the letter again, disbelief mingling with suspicion.

How had Colette found this Gates person? Could the woman be trusted? Her words had a slippery coyness that oozed with hunger for reward.

Marie rose and went to her mother’s bedroom and opened the shabby velvet jewelry box on the dresser. An envelope lay in the box’s bottom drawer.

Almost fearfully, she opened it. Inside was exactly what Colette had said, a little bag of nail parings and a square of white cotton with three drops of blood.

She also found a second, smaller paper envelope. Opening it, she saw a newspaper photograph with a short article. The article, eight months old, reported that charges had been dropped against Louisa Fairchild, 80. She’d been accused of shooting and wounding her neighbor Sam Whittleson, 61.

The short piece left Marie even more stunned. As a very young woman, Louisa Fairchild had apparently abandoned her daughter. As a very old woman, she’d shot her elderly neighbor. Such a relative didn’t seem promising.

But the picture of Louisa Fairchild shocked her more. She saw a lean, imperious woman staring straight and almost arrogantly at the camera. Her mouth was a rigid, unsmiling line. Yet her resemblance to Colette made Marie’s nerve ends prickle and chilled her stomach.

Louisa Fairchild still had wide eyes, shaped like Colette’s. She had Colette’s high cheekbones, slender nose and cleft chin. And Marie herself shared these features, too, except for the cleft chin.

She was suddenly overcome with an almost irrational curiosity. The Fairchild woman lived in Hunter Valley. Not long ago, Marie’s uncle had gone to work in that very region. Could he know anything about this woman?

She went back to her room, snatched up her phone and dialed her uncle’s latest number. It was after midnight, but Reynard was a night owl. He answered after only a few rings. “Marie!” he exclaimed. “How are you, love? And how’s my dear Colie?”

Marie heard background noise and supposed he was in a pub. “Rennie, Mama’s not well. She’s very weak—and she doesn’t look good—I’m afraid for her.”

Reynard’s voice went serious. “She’s taken a turn for the worse?”

“I sense it. She’s getting weaker. The doctors don’t seem able to help her.”

Reynard spat out several colorful oaths concerning doctors. Then his tone grew solemn again. “Should I come? Would it help if I was with you?”

“Rennie, you’ve got a job. You just can’t walk away.”

“I can if I need to be with her and you, pet. No man owns Rennie Lafayette.”

Marie feared she’d sounded too alarmist. “Wait until I know more. But Reynard?”

“What, love?”

“Mama gave me a letter that a woman wrote her. This woman said she’d worked in a home for unwed mothers and remembers when Mama was born. And she named Mama’s birth mother. Do you know anything about this?”

“Stone the crows!” he said in surprise. “I never—she never said a word to me. When did she find this out?”

“Over two years ago. And the woman died shortly after. I don’t know how to check this out. Or even if I should. Mama’s mother might be dead, too, by now. But she lives or lived in Hunter Valley. Have you ever heard of a Louisa Fairchild?”

“Heard of her?” Reynard demanded. “Crikey, I know her! She’s supposed to be Colie’s mom? Hold on. I’m going outside for a bit of privacy.”

Marie heard him tell someone to deal him out; he had a family emergency. The background noise faded. She pictured him stepping, alone, into the Southern night.

“There,” he said. “Now—Louisa Fairchild is supposed to be Colie’s mum?”

“So said the Gates woman.”

“That’s a jolt. Colie’s such a nice woman. So much for the bloody theory of heredity.”

“Louisa Fairchild’s not a nice woman?”

“The old girl’s a snorter, she is. But now that I think on it, she does bear a certain likeness to Colie. It’s truth.”

Marie remembered the photo and somehow she managed to feel both numbed and anxious at once. “You really know her?”

“I live at a neighboring horse station, not far from her. I’m the handyman there. I’ve actually been in the old girl’s house. Fixed the lock on her famous gun cabinet. She’s an old boiler, she is, a right old hen. But I get some smiles out of her—pruny smiles, but I get ’em.”

Marie didn’t doubt it. If Reynard put his mind to it, he could make a cat laugh. She said, “Gun cabinet? Mama had a clipping about Louisa Fairchild. Something about her shooting a man—do you know about it?”

“All New South Wales knows about it. She said the bloke stormed into her house, raving about water rights, and attacked her. Conveniently, she was cleaning a gun at the time. Said it went off accidental-like.”

“And people believe that?”

“Some do. And some say she got off the hook because she had more money than Whittleson. She could out-lawyer him.”

“What do you think?” Marie asked, frowning in uncertainty.

“I think it’s odd to be cleaning a loaded gun. It’s a point Whittleson’s lawyer never brought up. But lawyers? Pah—they’re about as useful as a third armpit.”

Reynard always resented authority and officials; unlike Colette, he was a born rebel, and it was part of his raffish charm. Marie tried to nudge him further into the subject.

“You’ve met her. Do you think she could shoot somebody?”

“She’s a scrapper. And she can shoot. Rumor says she can blast the head off a snake at thirty meters. Still,” Reynard said silkily, “she’s rich as a queen. No known direct descendants. If she’s your gran, she might open her scrawny arms to you in welcome.”

“I might not open mine,” Marie said. She liked nothing she’d learned about this woman.

“She’s a hard one to know,” he returned. “Not a happy person. Lonesome, I think.”

Reynard’s take on Louisa confused Marie. He sounded critical one moment, sympathetic the next. But he was often mercurial; that was his nature.

“I wonder why Mama waited so long to tell me.”

“I don’t know, pet. But from what you say, I think I’ll drive right up there. She may be franker with me than with you about Louisa Fairchild. I am her baby brother, eh?”

Marie protested, but Reynard insisted. “Today’s Monday. If I start early tomorrow, I can make it in two days. Don’t argue, dear heart. My womenfolk need me!”

My womenfolk need me! He sounded so swashbuckling, she almost smiled.

“You’re sure you won’t lose your job?” she asked.

“Who’d be fool enough to fire a jack-of-all-trades like me?” he said with the same bravado. “I’m indispensable, if I do say so.”

Marie smiled. Although Colette worried about her footloose brother, he always cheered her as no one else could. “Then come to us,” she said.

But shortly after 3:00 a.m., Marie’s phone rang. It was the hospital, calling to inform her that Colette had died in her sleep.

Chapter Three

Marie was stunned, but didn’t cry. What she’d feared most had happened, but it seemed unreal. It was as if she was trapped in a terrible, incomprehensible dream.

She phoned Reynard, who sounded stricken and said he’d be there as soon as he could.

The next morning, zombielike, Marie arranged for her mother’s remains to be cremated. She had it done as soon as possible, without ceremony, for that had been Colette’s wish.

Then, somehow, she went to her classes, still feeling trapped in the numb, unbelievable nightmare. That night she waited tables at the Scepter, functioning on autopilot. But under her business-as-usual facade, she was in a maelstrom of emotion.

All of Marie’s life, it had been the two of them, she and Colette. When the Lafayette family’s fortune failed, Colette went to work as soon as she could and had never stopped. Reynard had left Darwin. Some called him a drifter, but he called himself “a free spirit.”

He returned to visit two or three times a year, and then he’d be off again to wherever his whim took him. He was clever enough to always find a job, too restless ever to keep it long.

By her early thirties, Colette was working as a cook and housekeeper. Lonely and shy, she tried always to please. Finally, in the household of a professor whose wife had left him, she tried too hard. He easily seduced her.

Colette soon found herself pregnant—and unemployed. She didn’t tell Marie who her father was until Marie was ten, and the man had been dead five years.

He’d never acknowledged Marie’s existence, and Colette had never asked him for a thing. So from the beginning of Marie’s life, she and Colette had been a family of two, and Colette had been not only her mother but her closest companion.

That night, the first night that Colette was gone, the stupid busboy, Butch, made a move to grope Marie again.

“Where’s your fancy toff tonight?” he sneered. “Want a real man?” She looked at him in disgust, her expression cold as Antarctica.

“Why are you so uppity?” he demanded. “Think you got the crown jewels between your legs? You’re the same as any other woman.”

She turned and walked away. She was not the same as any other woman. All she knew for certain about Colette’s mother was that the woman had foolishly trusted a man. Result? She’d ended up unmarried and pregnant.

Colette made exactly the same mistake. Result? She’d ended up unmarried and pregnant—but she’d not been one to give up her child.

Two illegitimate generations were enough.

Long ago, Marie vowed she wouldn’t repeat the pattern. She intended never to “fall in love” or into any man’s bed. Ever. Marriage? Married women could be as lonely as single ones. Sometimes lonelier.

It had been completely unlike her, nearly collapsing into a stranger’s arms last night. She wondered if she’d done it because she’d known Colette was dying. Had she known that from the moment Colette put the letter in her hand?

She wanted this empty, unhappy day to be over.

This, too, will pass away, she thought. But it didn’t pass soon enough.

She glanced at her watch, wishing it were midnight. But it was only 7:00 p.m.

On the grounds of Mick’s stud farm, Makem’s Thoroughbreds, Andrew glanced at his watch and wished the night was older and the party over. But it was only 7:00 p.m.

A gorgeous brunette in a tight red sundress leaned against a palm tree watching him, sultry invitation in her gaze. Andrew ignored her. He intended to keep on ignoring her.

A man in the public eye, a man campaigning for an important office, should not fool with women. He knew he shouldn’t have impulsively embraced the waitress in the parking lot last night…yet, still, for some reason, the memory of her rain-misted face haunted him.

But he needed to watch his step. Especially when his opponent had large media holdings—including some of the country’s most ruthless scandal sheets. And Andrew’s family had just emerged from an alleged breeding crime that made headlines around the world.

Jacko Bullock loved to sling mud. Sexy mud sold best, even if it was lies. Jacko would be delighted to find dirt on Andrew, especially sensational dirt.

Andrew didn’t intend to supply him with any. Not a rustle of impropriety. Not a whisper, a wisp, a breath.

Mick Makem, who was hosting the barbecue, gave him a sly nudge. “That black-haired beauty over there’s giving you the eye.” His freckled face split in a grin.

“Not interested,” Andrew answered, taking a sip of beer. “People are taking pictures here. And she looks like trouble.”

Mick jabbed with a sharper nudge. “Lovely trouble. All work and no play make Jack a dull guy.”

“Better a dull guy than a fall guy,” Andrew muttered.

“Oh,” said Mick, understanding. “Bullock, you mean.”

“Right.”

Bullock still repeated the accusations about the American Prestons’ breeding fraud. Even though the Prestons had been cleared of any wrong doing in the DNA fraud that had ended the career of their star stallion, Leopold’s Legacy, Bullock kept resurrecting memories of the old rumors and implying new evidence might soon emerge.

Bullock’s point, Andrew knew, was to keep the Preston family firmly linked to the word scandal. And what could be more damaging to a candidate than a good old-fashioned sex scandal?

How many American politicians had lost their reputations, even their careers, by not keeping their pants zipped? Count ’em, Andrew thought.

So he had grimly vowed to stay celibate for the duration of the election. Here in Australia, he was the tall, dark, single American from a rich family with a famous stable. Beautiful women signaled him they were ready for kissing and a great deal more. He’d been approached by so many lookers, it made him suspicious.

He knew he was considered handsome. But he was also smart enough to know that he hadn’t become as sexy as a rock star as soon as he stepped on the Australian shore. And he knew looks weren’t particularly an advantage against the homely, hearty and proudly homegrown Bullock. Bullock looked and acted like somebody’s plain and stocky loudmouthed uncle, Australia’s answer to a Good Ol’ Boy.

Andrew didn’t come across as a Good Ol’ Boy. He was long and lean, with chiseled features, brown-black hair and deep blue eyes, and he had a slew of college degrees. Next to the rotund Bullock, he didn’t look homey and jovial; he looked aristocratic and privileged.

Unlike Bullock, he wasn’t a glad-hander or a baby-kisser. He didn’t slap backs or lavish smarmy compliments on everybody he met. When he talked about issues, he talked about them with passion, but his passion was measured and earnest. He didn’t pound the podium like Bullock. He didn’t shout or sputter or chortle or wave his arms or tell raunchy jokes.

The result was that, although some people thought Andrew the serious, committed and perfect candidate, others believed he didn’t have a chance in hell. And tonight, he was haunted by a sensation usually foreign to him: he felt isolated.

Mick’s barbecue wasn’t just for political reasons. This was Andrew’s birthday, his thirty-sixth. Turning thirty-six was sobering. He’d unwittingly crossed some psychological line he hadn’t known existed.

Most of his friends had settled jobs, wives and children. He had a campaign.

He was now closer to forty than to thirty…and in the hurly-burly of entering the election, he’d begun to feel disconnected from his real self. He had to watch every word, every action, even every facial expression and bit of body language, especially here in Jacko-Land.

Stop obsessing, man, he commanded. You’ve got principles, and you committed to run for the presidency. Forget the private stuff. Fight your heart out.

So he set his jaw and put on his public persona again. He smiled. He rejoined the party. He had indulged himself in something like a midlife crisis for almost two minutes, and that was two damned minutes more than enough.

He amiably cuffed Mick’s arm and complimented him on the feast spread before the crowd. Wine from a local vineyard flowed generously and cold beers seemed to number in the hundreds.

“Want to see something really delish?” Mick asked with a wink. “Look who’s coming your way.”

Andrew saw the beautiful brunette making her way toward him, her eyes now fastened on his. Her red sundress was cut low over a startling pair of breasts, and she sparkled with jewelry. She was almost too stunning to be real.

She looked like a model or a beauty queen or a starlet. She certainly didn’t look as though she belonged at a suburban political barbecue. Distrust edged into Andrew’s mind. “Mick,” he said, “do you even know who she is?”

“No,” Mick admitted. “She’s a guest of one of the breeders. But it’s you she’s got her eye on. She’s been trying to catch your attention all night.”

My God, thought Andrew, could she be a plant? Somebody the Bullock people had sent to entice him?

Photographers, press people, some with video cams, milled through the crowd.

The brunette smiled at him and nodded in more than friendly greeting. He smiled back mechanically.

“Hi, there,” she purred. “My name’s Sylvia. I just want to say I totally agree with everything you say. I heard you’re going to stay with your cousin down in Hunter Valley. I get to Hunter Valley now and then.”