Page 68 of The Heir Apparent
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes. “Tell Paula I’m sorry.”
I could hear Ragu’s nails on the hardwood floors as he followed Jack through the halls of our cottage. My heart felt like a tight fist inside me. In all the years I had known Jack, I’d kept this kind of scrutiny and intrusion out of his home.
“Don’t be sorry, I just thought you should know,” he said.
“Have you seen him since then?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’d throw him against the wall if I did.”
“It’s probably a reporter. I’ll tell my security detail, and we’ll figure it out.”
“Really, it’s all good,” he said. “It’s not like we have anything to hide, do we?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
2020
I cruised down the Tasman Highway in my old Corolla, the windows rolled down so I could feel the dry February heat. It was a rare forty-degree day in Hobart, the kind of weather that enveloped the city for a maximum of twelve hours, leaving its cold-blooded residents wilted and cranky. But inevitably, gloriously, winds from the Southern Ocean would blow in, and everyone would open their doors to let a cross-draught through the house. By bedtime, you could sleep comfortably with the blankets pulled up to your nose.
“Are you sure you want to pick me up?” Louis had asked when we were planning his visit.
“Of course,” I said. “Hobartians pick everyone up from the airport. It’s how we show our love.”
It was an easy fifteen-minute drive from town, over the bridge and through the bushy surrounds of Mount Rumney. When I had first moved to Hobart, I was surprised by how eager everyone was to shuttle you to and from the airport, even if they didn’t know you particularly well. It was partly because there were no good public transport options, but it was mostly a point of honour for the city.
When I pulled into the pick-up lane, I immediately spotted Louis among the other travellers waiting for their loved ones. His cap was pulled low over his eyes, and he had sloughed off all his layers in the heat. He could pass for any other guy in his twenties, though the four-wheel drive loitering at the kerb just ahead was clearly his security detail. They would keep a respectful distance as we pretended to be any other brother and sister spending a few days together.
“Hey,” he said, jumping into the passenger seat, “I thought you said it’s chilly here.”
“The cool change is coming.”
I pulled back into the lane and watched the four-wheel drive follow us out of the airport car park. We hadn’t seen each other for more than a year, but we were silent as I drove up the highway towards the vineyard. I realised I should have brought Finn with me so he could fill the car with his charm.
“How was the flight?”
“Yeah, fine. Long. He made me fly commercial.”
“Right,” I said. I’d skipped family Christmas the year before because my car had needed new brakes a few months earlier, and I couldn’t afford the flights home. I texted Papa to apologise. He never responded, but a week later thePostreported that I had tried to shake him down for money.
“How is he?”
Louis sighed and looked out the window, his cap slung so low I couldn’t see his eyes. “He’s the same old bastard.”
“I told James we’d try to see him, but you might run out of time.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I don’t think I should. I’m trying to keep Papa on side before the wedding.”
The lead-up to the wedding was always going to be a treacherous time for Louis. Papa’s greatest fear was that his subjects saw him as the caretaker king, a throne warmer in between the illustrious rule of Queen Eleanor and the accession of his shining boy. I had been surprised that Louis wanted torisk Papa’s ire by coming to visit me so close to the ceremony, but he’d done it anyway. If Louis met up with the man who had facilitated my escape as well, it would likely cost him too much.
At the vineyard, Louis and I put on our brightest smiles for Paula, Jack and Finn. Our posture was straighter, our voices clear and eager. We were the royal twins, after all. Louis put his hands on his hips and surveyed the hills adorned with pinot grapes. The vineyard was putting on a show of its own that day. The vines were fat with fruit, the grass was luscious from a wet start to summer, and the estuary sparkled in the distance.
“It’s truly magical, Paula,” Louis said. “Tell me about the house. That stone wall is extraordinary.”
Paula, who was suspicious of celebrities and openly hostile to anyone with inherited power, was beaming at my irresistible brother. She took him over to show off the high stone wall that surrounded the house, built by convicts in the nineteenth century.
“He’s so gorgeous,” Finn whispered to me. “I’ve seen his photo, but it’s totally different up close, isn’t it? He looks like the prince inThe Little Mermaid.”
“Then who do I look like?” I asked.
