His Australian Heiress (19 page)

Charlotte brushed a gleaming lock of hair from her face. There were so many things wrong with her uncle. “Save the emotional blackmail,” she said. “I don't believe you could end your own life, anyway. You don't have the guts. Destroying people is not my thing, and consequently I could never publicly humiliate you for one reason only. You're
family
, such as it is. It would impact severely on Simon's career, if he's ever going to take one up. It would ruin Aunt Patricia's social life. I'm sure a forensics team would find my father's fingerprints on your masterpiece. I require the original manuscript. It's mine.”

Conrad Mansfield's chest appeared to cave in. “And even if you're true to your word, what about Macmillan here? He'd point the finger at me at a moment's notice.”

“So I would,” Brendon freely admitted, “if you weren't Charlotte's uncle. It's her decision. I back her. Bad publicity has its impact even on the innocent. You might spare a thought for what your
wife
may do, sir? She looks stunned by what she's hearing.”

Conrad shrugged, not even bothering to look at his wife. “No need to worry about Patricia. She puts Simon first in everything. You'd think he was a wonderful, idealistic young man likely to make prime minister, instead of a would-be waster and a woman beater who's not coming up to her high hopes. If my dear wife attempts to destroy me, she'll be destroying our son as well. That will never happen.”

“What do you say to that, Mrs. Mansfield?” Brendon asked, trying to remain courteous. It was obvious Patricia had never doubted her husband had produced
Cries of the Heart.
He felt pity. Patricia Mansfield, always so self-righteous, looked perilously close to collapse.

She did sit dumbly for a moment, and then she delivered her intentions. “I will not put my son in danger. Simon is the love of my life. I don't understand why, but I don't wish to push my husband beyond his limits. He could well end his own life. I'm being serious here, Charlotte?” Patricia shot Charlotte a desperate glance. “Conrad has a very poor view of himself. He grew up that way. He will never change. I loved him when I married him. I can't say I love him now, but he is still my husband, the father of my son. The Mansfields as a family have to stick together.”

Charlotte couldn't allow that to pass. “What a difference it would have made had you acted on that ideal nine years ago, Aunt Patricia. You kept me out in the cold.”

“I had to,” Patricia confessed, looking ashamed. “It was Conrad who didn't want you around. Now I know why. I expect he was terrified you'd remember.”

“The deaths of my mother and father left me traumatized. I needed to forget that day in the study to survive. Only recently little lights have been going on and off in my brain. I've always wondered why I felt fear of you, Uncle. Now we know.”

“I would never have hurt you, Charlotte. I would die first.” Conrad threw her a look that was more arrogant than pleading. “You must believe that.”

“Sorry, Uncle, I don't,” Charlotte said. “You would have had me stopped one way or another. I'm sure of it.”

“No, Charlotte,
no
!” Patricia protested, but not in her usual emphatic fashion.

“I hope you realize the mercy Charlotte is showing?” Brendon's tone was condemning.

“Conrad doesn't deserve it, but Simon does,” Patricia cried, a loyal mother if nothing else. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Charlotte. God knows what Sir Reginald would have done. Conrad would be swinging from a tree somewhere, I suspect.”

“I don't know about that, but my uncle would have known soon enough. So we're all agreed?” Charlotte asked.

“We are.” Husband and wife spoke as one. Obviously they had concluded that was the only way to go.

“First things first,” Brendon broke in. “Charlotte wants her father's manuscript back ASAP. It will be safely locked away.”

“I'll hand it to her myself,” Conrad Mansfield promised, his green eyes gone lifeless.

“Finally, Charlotte wants you to vacate Clouds by the end of January. That should be sufficient time. Please do not attempt to take anything that doesn't belong to you.”

Charlotte relented. “If you want a special piece, Aunt Patricia, you have only to ask me,” she said. Bitterness and resentment only served to corrode the soul. She didn't want that. “I'll be installing caretakers, but I'll be using the house frequently for various purposes. I mean to reopen the rose gardens to the public, to make them accessible just as Grandma did. You might consider a stint in the south of France, Uncle Conrad, to regain your composure. You could even decide to settle there. It's entirely up to you.”

* * *

“Time for those two to face up to reality,” Charlotte said as she closed the door on her uncle and aunt after watching them move off heavily to the lift.

Brendon found his heart was thrashing about in his chest. He had no time for the Mansfields. He was thinking more about his own family. It had been his hope that Charlotte would never find out about his mother and the part she had played in the disastrous rift between Alyssa and Christopher. His mother had set aside all conscience to bring Alyssa down like some beautiful bird on the wing. Only Charlotte would drive through to the truth. She wouldn't stop until she did. He had to break it to her first, but there was no way of breaking it to her gently.

Charlotte was staring at him as though she knew what was going through his mind. “I've never heard your mother described as the ‘Ice Queen' before, have you?”

“First time I've heard it,” he said. At least that was true. Conrad Mansfield, despicable man that he was, had managed to hit the nail on the head.

“Two mysteries were solved here tonight,” Charlotte said. “My father wrote
Cries of the Heart.
Isn't that wonderful? It will come out one day. I'm determined on that. Second, Aunt Patricia wasn't the one to spread the rumours. I believed her, did you?”

“I did,” Brendon said grimly.

“I never considered your mother, who has always lived such an exemplary life.” Suddenly Charlotte felt such intense fear she had difficulty speaking another word.

All that stood between them was the electric air. Brendon had to defend his mother no matter what she had done. “Why fix on my mother?” he asked. “There are other interpretations.”

Charlotte moved to where Brendon was standing, staring up into his face. Her emerald eyes were blazing. “Because everything has come to a head, Bren,” she said. “Your parents and mine, my uncle and aunt, they are all of a generation. They knew one another well. I don't like the label ‘Ice Queen' any more than you do, but I'm worried by the way you look. I feel the pain in you. I see the haunted expression. Something you learned this evening has greatly upset you. It's not just your mother wanting me out of your life. That's always been her attitude, but you've never taken any notice before. You've always been far more loyal to me than her.”

“I don't want to lose you, Charlotte,” Brendon said, beginning to turn away. “I should be going.”

In an instant she was in front of him, quick as a gazelle. She blocked the door, launching the accusation at him like a missile. “It
was
your mother, wasn't it? Wasn't it, Bren?”

There was no right answer. None.

When he didn't speak, she hit him hard in the chest. It might have been a stab from a sword.

“Did that holier-than-thou, gold-plated woman explain to you she was out of her mind with jealousy? Was that it?”

He didn't evade the truth. He stood stoically, accepting what was to come. “Yes, it was.”

“Bren!” White to the lips, not really knowing what she was doing, Charlotte lifted an aching, trembling arm, her fingers outspread. Her whole body was struggling to control the primitive urges that were taking her over. Her whole existence had been clouded by lies. Brendon, her hero, had shattered her feelings.

He caught her hand by the wrist, holding it aloft. “Do all you Mansfields lash out?” he asked in a cutting voice. He caught her to him, lifting her off her feet. She weighed nothing, but he wanted every bit of her. “I love you, Charlotte,” he said. “Of all the women in the world, I love you, but I want to be on my way.”

“Coward!” Her green eyes were fierce upon him.

He let her drop to her feet, like a kitten. “
What
did you say?”

A powerful energy was coming off of him, a male domination her body recognized. “I called you a coward,” she repeated.

Passion was coming down on Brendon in hammering waves. It was like being caught in a tide that didn't know how or where to stop. There were rules in life. A son always defended his mother. On the other hand, the links to Charlotte were so strong he might have been fused to her through all time. He pulled her into him, his fingers spearing through her thick, springy waves and curls as he held up her face to him. His love for her was unrivalled, as was the pleasure she gave him. She appeared to be having her struggles, too. Her full, tender mouth was parted on a cry of wry melancholy. “Aaah, Bren! It's all too terrible.”

“I know.” Instinctively he gathered her closer, one hand caressing her body. “I acknowledge the terrible wrong.”

“
Wrong?
She isn't just the Ice Queen, she's the Enemy Queen.”

“Please stop, Charlotte,” he begged.

“Then stop me. Make your move.”

He didn't hesitate. His mouth came down over hers, covering it with the mastery that shut off all further words, and flushed Charlotte's entire body in heat. It was a kiss that grew deeper and deeper, a kiss charged with hunger. Brendon told himself it was always going to end this way. They were fated to be lovers. Neither of them was content with the relationship that had lasted through childhood into the present with all its temptations. “I love you, Charlotte,” he said, shoving aside their problems as though they didn't exist.

She was silent within the circle of his arms. One of the straps of her yellow camisole had fallen off her slender shoulder. He pushed the other one off. Too late to stop him. It only took another movement of his hand for the silk top to fall to her waist. She was wearing a pretty little scrap of a bra. He released that too, his hands closing with a kind of ecstasy over her warm, naked breasts. The rose-pink of her nipples were peaking against his palms. She was aroused, for all her terrible upset.

All that existed was desire. It overrode every other consideration. Still she didn't speak. She didn't try to wriggle out of his grasp. What was driving him was driving her, a leaping flame intent on bringing about their surrender.

Charlotte lifted her arms, locked them tightly around his neck. “You love me?
Show
me,” she whispered fiercely. “Show me how much you love me. That's the first and last time I'll ask you.”

“Is it really?” A fire blazed in him. “A woman born to give orders.”

“Are you up to that?” she challenged.

He locked her seamlessly to him. “This is no
game
we're playing, Charlotte.”

“I'm not into games, Bren.”

“What if you fall pregnant? I'm not so far gone I can't consider that.”

“You wouldn't want our child?” she taunted him.

Their child!
At the thought, a high rapture rose in him. He knew he could be a good father. Charlotte loved children. “Don't be ridiculous, Charlie,” he said. “You're my everything and you know it, but you have to be entirely
free.
Free to choose the who, the where, and the when.”

“Then I
have
chosen. I choose
you
, Brendon Macmillan. I choose you, despite your family. It might be sooner than expected, but maybe we're simply wasting time not being together. Have you thought of that? I love you, Bren. I trust you. I need you by my side. I need your brains, your advice, your high principles, your strength, and your loyalty, not to mention your love. You're perfect to me.”

An enormous load lifted clear off his shoulders. Despite everything, Charlotte chose him. There was a future. “As you are to me.”

“Naturally I've taken precautions,” she confided. “I'm nobody's wild child.”

He broke off what he was doing, which was trailing kisses down her arched throat. “You conniving little minx.”

“Thank you.” Charlotte took it as a compliment. “There's a lot of work to be done before we can think of a family.” She stared up at him as though the whole world was waiting with bated breath for his response.

“Meanwhile we have tonight to celebrate.” There was tragedy. There were tears, sadness, and recriminations. Perhaps even a touch of evil. But the future belonged to him and Charlotte. He swept her off her feet, holding her high in his arms. “I mean to show you, Charlotte, what a man's love for his woman is like.”

“As soon as possible,” Charlotte said.

A dazzle of light was coming from her bedroom, spilling out onto the carpeted corridor. A moment later Brendon laid Charlotte down on the bed, where she remained motionless, staring up at him with glistening emerald eyes. Without taking his gaze off her, Brendon began stripping off his clothes, pausing for a moment to say, “I believe I should propose to you first.”

Charlotte broke into a beautiful, joyful peal of laughter. “Please, please do,” she begged. “We're going to change everything, aren't we, Bren?”

“Everything except our love for each other.” Naked, the light playing off his fine tanned skin, Brendon went down on one knee, reaching for her hand. What he saw made him ask worriedly, “Charlie, why are you crying?”