The Australian Heiress Read online

  He stopped and stared at her. “How long have you actually been in my house?”

  Camille glanced at her watch. “A little over half an hour.”

  He touched his head. “So many changes. I don’t think I can cope.”

  “He’s fooling, Camille,” Melissa called, her face now wreathed in smiles. “Daddy’s always fooling. You don’t need to worry.”

  “That makes me feel much better. Good night now, Melissa. I’ve really enjoyed meeting you.”

  “But I’ve seen you a thousand times,” Melissa said.

  “Have you?” Camille’s startled glance moved from daughter to father.

  “You’re the princess bride in the tapestry,” Melissa said. “Daddy thinks so, too. He said he was bringing the princess bride home to dinner. That’s why I found a place to hide. I was going to sneak in and surprise you. Only it was more you found me.”

  “Fate must have wanted us to meet,” Camille said gently.

  “Fate. I know what that means. It’s when strange things happen. Important things.” Melissa was already beginning to close her eyes. “Good night, Camille. Why don’t you talk to Daddy about changing my name? You don’t like Melissa, either. I could tell.”

  Nick Lombard looked stunned for a moment, but he only bade his daughter good-night and left the room with Camille. “What was all that about?” he asked as they were walking down the stairs.

  “Melissa doesn’t care for her name. She doesn’t think it suits her.”

  “Maybe she’s right,” he acknowledged rather curtly. “It was a name her mother chose.”

  “And she misses her mother dreadfully.”

  “So it seems.”

  Now it was Camille’s turn to stare. “What a very odd response.”

  The handsome face seemed to close against her. “Words can become distorted. Melissa was only four when her mother died.”

  “So you don’t think she remembers her?” Camille had the feeling there was a wealth of tension beneath his reserve.

  “On the contrary, she remembers her very well. As do I.”

  “I’m sorry.” Camille looked away.

  They’d reached the main floor, and as they moved toward the dining room, Camille said, “However intrusive it may seem, I have to tell you that Miss Larkins isn’t the right nanny for Melissa.”

  “You’ve formed that opinion already?”

  She flushed at his tone. “Did you know she locks Melissa in her room whenever she’s naughty?”

  He seemed to check a sudden anger. “I didn’t, and I certainly don’t approve of it.” He sighed. “I’m a busy man. I wish I could be with Melissa more, but I have so many demands on my time. In all fairness I have to point out that Miss Larkins has had more success controlling Melissa’s excesses than any other nanny. I realize she’s not Mrs. Doubtfire, but—”

  “Certainly not much fun.”

  “She’s a lot better than the rest. Though I deeply regret it, Melissa is a disturbed child. She’s had good professional people talking to her.” He glanced at Camille. “Though none has made quite the breakthrough you have.”

  “Perhaps it’s because I understand exactly what she’s going through.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” He stopped abruptly and loomed over her. “Believe me, I do everything in my power to be the stabilizing center of my daughter’s life. I give her plenty of love and attention. But it’s not enough. I can’t be there for her all the time. A woman’s influence is terribly important.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Camille said tartly. “And as I said, you’d better start with a change of nanny.”

  “My dear Camille, you can’t know,” he returned flatly.

  “I am not your dear Camille.”

  “Then you must be Camille Guilford, the eminent child psychologist?”

  “Now you’re angry.” She laughed shortly. “That’s fine. I haven’t the slightest wish to be friends. I would like to help Melissa, however. I’m generous enough for that.”

  THE DINING ROOM had an assemblage of things to admire. The long triple-pedestal dining table was antique mahogany, but the comfortable chairs around it were modern in design and beautifully upholstered in the same golden brocade as the tassled drapes. In the center of the table sat a bowl of golden roses, spreading their fragrance. Camille, a rose fancier, recognized them as Sutter’s Gold.

  The meal, with its three perfectly balanced courses, was predictably delicious. Camille ate sparingly. She’d come here for one thing only—to have proof Nick Lombard hadn’t lied. She had no intention of being seduced by so much richness and beauty. She’d had a privileged upbringing herself, after all.

  “You’ve not eaten much,” Nick Lombard observed at one point.

  “I think you’re forgetting why I’m here.”

  He nodded. “Of course—the album. We’ll have coffee in the drawing room.”

  Minutes later Camille sipped her dark roast coffee without even tasting it. Finally the album appeared. She sat on one of the impressive fringed sofas and fingered the dark green leather. It was an interesting-looking album. Very old with a gold-tooled crest on the cover—something vaguely imperial, a mythical creature with spread wings.

  “This is very difficult for me,” she said.

  “I’m sure you’ve guessed there are photographs of your mother here. You’ll have no difficulty recognizing her. You’re made in her image, though your personalities are different.”

  Camille couldn’t and didn’t respond.

  “Natalie was very gentle. A romantic.” The severity of his expression softened. “She expected to be dominated by a man and she was. At least for a time. The circumstances of your life and your nature, on the other hand, have made you spirited and independent. You would always fight against being controlled.”

  “I can guarantee that, Mr. Lombard,” Camille said, clutching the album tighter.

  “Can’t you make that Nick?”

  She shook her head. “No. Who we are will always be there.”

  “Perhaps,” he acknowledged. “Open the album. I’m hoping you’ll find comfort in it. We all have something to hide. Your father guarded his secrets jealously. But as they say, sooner or later the truth will, out.”

  Camille gave a convulsive little swallow and turned back the leather cover.

  “My family mostly,” he explained. “This is a family album. Our name was not Lombard. Originally it was something quite different. My grandfather turned his back on his family after the Second World War. He went to America first, then moved to Australia, which suited him so much he decided to settle here. It was he who changed our name to Lombard—after the region of Lombardy where he was born. It kept a grip on him all the days of his life, even though he returned home only once to another bitter battle with his grandfather. When the old count died, the situation eased dramatically. My own father returned to Italy many times. My grandfather’s family were wealthy Milanese bankers and merchants. The villa you see—” he pointed at one of the photos “—was built in the mid-seventeenth century. My grandmother lives there with my cousin Umberto and his family. Umberto is the present count.”

  His story was quite a revelation, yet it didn’t surprise her. “You’re all very handsome,” she said dryly. “I’ve never forgotten my time in Italy. It was a magical six months. My fist year out of university. My first pilgrimage. Ever since then I’ve had a burning desire to go back. Six months are not nearly enough. It would take a lifetime to see and really appreciate Italy.”

  “There’s the villa.” He nodded pridefully at the picture, and one elegant bronze hand moved across the page. The villa rose majestically above a lake. She could see high mountains, groves of chestnut and walnut, the ever-present cypress and olive.

  “What is your family name,” she asked, “or is that a secret?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t be any the wiser.”

  “And you gave up all this?” She gestured at the villa.

  ”I gave
up nothing,” he said. “My grandfather made the decision to leave Italy. He prospered abundantly here—countless Italians have. But Italy is not a foreign country to me. It’s my roots, my second home. I live here, but I travel back and forth.”

  Camille was feeling increasingly out of her depth. She turned a few pages, then gave a small involuntary cry.

  It might have been herself she was looking at. The same face, the same frame, the same slender limbs. Even the same smile. But it was Natalie. Her mother, dead for so long, had come to life in the pages of a photo album.

  “You see the uncanny resemblance.” Nick Lombard studied Camille for a long moment—her face, her throat, her delicate arms, the slopes of her breasts veiled by the soft violet material. “There are many photographs of Natalie from now on. You’ll even find a few of me, my sister, Elizabeth, and our parents. The young man who always stands beside your mother is my uncle Hugo. He took Natalie to the villa in the spring of 1967. Everyone fell in love with her. Including my grandmother, who’s not accustomed to falling in love with anyone.”

  Camille couldn’t answer, overcome by a whole range of emotions. Nick Lombard hadn’t lied to her. The photographs authenticated everything. Her father had revealed nothing of his life to her. In death as in life he was a stranger to her. She was terrified now she might have to reexamine all that she’d believed.

  Her eyes fixed on a picture of a handsome young man, his arm around a laughing Natalie. They were leaning against a marble balustrade with a classical statue just to their left. “And this is Hugo?”

  “Yes.” Nick’s voice had a brooding edge.

  “He has no look of you.” Hugo was fair with light eyes.

  “I’m all…Lombard,” he said.

  “One might ask what the Lombards were in the past besides merchants and bankers.”

  “Not murderers.” His voice was granite.

  She was quite unable to continue. She’d shown appalling judgment in coming here. She rose abruptly from the sofa clenching the album to her heart. “I’m taking this home,” she said as though expecting an argument.

  He stood up, too. “I had every intention of letting you do so.”

  “I’ll ring Tommy. He’ll come for me.”

  Nick blocked her fight. “There’s no need. I’ll drive you home.”

  One look at his face told her he was going to have his way.

  He was withdrawn in the car, his profile set in lines of deep reserve. It was so quiet Camille thought he would detect the shallowness of her breathing. What she’d learned tonight had put her wildly at war with her entrenched beliefs. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

  Suddenly he spoke. “I can’t pretend I’m any more at ease with you than you are with me, Camille. But I am grateful to you for taking an interest in my daughter.”

  “You might consider you may have failed her.” Camille pointed out cruelly.

  His expression changed to one of icy rigidity. “You go too far.”

  She was struggling for control. “Do I really? For you to say such a thing! I didn’t want to come tonight, but I’m only human. You dangled a lure in front of me and I couldn’t possibly have resisted. You’ve got some sort of complex plan and…and I’m just a pawn.”

  “Of course you are,” he acknowledged in a hard ironic voice. “My plan is to alter your understanding. Unlike you, I’ve no wish to hide from the truth. But you’re just a child. Twenty-five—what’s that? You know nothing of life. And you’re wrong about my daughter. Many people have tried to help her, but she rejects everyone. I know she’s highly intelligent, but she can’t or won’t focus on anything. She doesn’t do well at school and she won’t mix. Her teachers are very patient, but Melissa is disruptive in class. As well, she has a tendency to bite, scratch and hurl herself on the floor, then refuse to get up.”

  “And you’ve seen all this with your own eyes? Or is it hearsay? Do the kindhearted nannies and teachers tell you?”

  Abruptly he pulled off to the side of the road and killed the engine. Her heart thudded, and he turned to her with an expression of despair.

  “You must know from your experience of your father what my life is like. I have very little time.”

  “You mean you can’t make any.” Camille was shocked by her desire to hurt him. But everything about him cut so deeply into her. “My father never found a minute for me, either.”

  He gave a brief contemptuous laugh. “I’m a saint compared to Harry Guilford.”

  For long moments they faced each other in a terrible silence, then Camille wrenched open the door and jumped out. If she consented to what was happening, she’d never be the same again.

  She began to run swiftly along the path beside the road, knowing only that she had to get away from Nick Lombard. Every look, every word from him, stripped her to the bone. By exposing her father’s unsavory past, he was exposing her to herself.

  “Are you nuts?” He’d caught up to her easily and grabbed her arm, whirling her like a partner in a macabre dance. “Why’d you take off like that?”

  “You…” Her agitation was so extreme her voice broke. “You’re the cause of all this.”

  “Stop.” Strong hands grasped her shoulders, his fingers biting into the flesh. “I’m not your enemy. It was Harry Guilford I despised, not you.”

  “Harry Guilford, Harry Guilford,” she chanted. “So you despised him so much, you had to break him. Destroy—”

  He cut her off angrily. “Should I have let him go unchecked? Harry Guilford tore lives apart. Worse, he enjoyed it.”

  “He gave me life!”

  “Did he?” Nick snorted. “How the hell can we be sure of that?”

  Camille was so astounded she went limp. “Please! No more freakish mysteries.”

  He thrust her off and began to walk back to the car. “Oh, let’s just leave it.”

  “I can’t leave it.” Now it was she rushing after him. “What horrors are you hinting at now?”

  He rounded on her so sharply she had to step back. “OK, you’re Guilford’s daughter. We can’t deny it was a sordid story, though, can we? Natalie was dazzled by Harry Guilford but not for long. She needed my uncle. He was always there for her. Always. We all knew it, though it nearly drove my family insane. My grandparents came to hate Natalie. She brought such strife. We lived every day with the constant threat of tragedy. Guilford was a dangerous and violent man. Tragedy did happen. My uncle knew the consequences. He’d made his choice. As Natalie did. In the end.”

  Camille couldn’t answer. She was struck dumb.

  “The child Natalie was carrying at the time of her death was my uncle’s. Perhaps Guilford found out.” He spoke as though the words were torn from him.

  Camille flinched. “Damn you to hell!” Her lovely face was a study of grief and anger. “All these years of hating my father and grieving for your uncle has unhinged you.”

  “Very possibly.” He looked through and beyond her. “Come, I’ll take you back to the car.”

  Camille was adamant. “I’ll collect my handbag and the album. There’s a phone booth up ahead. I’ll call a cab.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” His voice was cold with disdain. “I’m responsible for seeing you home safely.”

  Camille fought for self-control. What did this man want of her? To incite her beyond reason? Well, he was succeeding. She felt terrible aching rage.

  “You’re not going to win, Nick Lombard. I absolutely loathe you.” She spoke with such passion she was left breathless.

  He gave her a bitter smile. “Then it must be a matter of great shame that I excite you, as well.”

  Guilty as charged, she thought with a faint sense of horror. And while she stood rigid, he pulled her into his arms as though she weighed nothing. He held her tightly, fiercely, crushing her breasts against him. For one split second, before his mouth bore down on hers, Camille was driven to concede their coming together was inevitable.

  He took her breath, her will, her ability to sta
nd on her own feet. The kiss when it came was the most passionate, the most brutally ecstatic of her life, and her equally passionate response would burden her forever with thoughts of dishonor.

  As galvanically as it had begun, it was over. She had to cling to him as a drowning swimmer clings to a life raft.

  “How dare you!” she panted.

  “You can’t bring yourself to admit you wanted it.”

  “You forced me.”

  “I hardly think so. But next time perhaps you might try to be a little less…provocative.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  The brilliant black eyes became hooded, yet they spoke a thousand words.

  Camille shivered in the warm air. And so it continues, she thought, into the next generation….

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY THE END OF DAY TWO all the paintings had been sold, many of them far above the reserve, others for a relative bargain. If the seriously rich had their day, the upwardly mobile had their chance when the crystal, silver, sculpture, objets d’art and Oriental rugs went under the hammer.

  “I’m in shock,” Linda confessed during the brief afternoon tea break. “But at least I got my beautiful basket.”

  “I’m glad.” Camille smiled.

  “Paid too much of course, but I love it.” Linda set down her cup. “This must be hard for you, Milly, the end of an era.”

  “Most people would say good riddance. In fact, they’ve been saying it fairly loudly.” Camille’s tone was wry. “It may be the end of an era, but it’s not the end of the world. Frankly, I’m more concerned about you than all the chattels going out the door. Your eyes have a bruised look.”

  “I am a bit weary,” Linda admitted, a glaze of tears in her huge eyes. “As my mother-in-law is fond of telling anyone within earshot, I’m a ‘frail little thing.’”

  “Don’t let her get to you,” Camille counseled. This wasn’t the first time Linda had expressed the feelings of inadequacy the daunting Madelaine Carghill seemed to engender.

  “Oh, Milly, I just don’t have your self-confidence. For all Harry tried to crush you, he didn’t succeed. You know your worth.”