His Australian Heiress (12 page)

She shut the file quietly, wondering what in heaven's name she had learned. “Thank you, Uncle Conrad,” she said, her level tone masking her shock. Was it possible her uncle had only one great book in him? Even so, he couldn't have written this, surely?

“Not bad, eh?” her uncle asked, looking immensely relieved.

“Difficult to tell without reading further,” Brendon said, wondering why Charlotte hadn't seized her opportunity to at least riffle through the pages.

“You'll just have to wait for that.” Conrad smirked behind his heavy moustache. Every trace of panic had gone out of his face.

* * *

They were in the car on their way back to Sydney before Charlotte found she could speak about what she had read. Her uncle had seen them off, back to his urbane self. “I'm sure you understand your aunt is upset about Simon,” he said, patting Charlotte's shoulder like they were coconspirators. “I really should have been more of a hands-on parent, just as Patricia said. But then, I did have my book to get out.”

“In a remarkably short time,” Brendon slid in.

“It came easily, I admit. For far too long I've feared it was a stand-alone.”

Charlotte couldn't find it within herself to make a comment. “We'll be in touch, Uncle Conrad,” she said, giving little impression she was full of anger, regret, even pity.

“Drive safely now,” he said, to all appearances the concerned loving uncle. He waited as Brendon shut the passenger door on Charlotte before walking around to the driver's side.

Conrad remained in place, waving them off. Charlotte couldn't bring herself to wave back. Instead she swallowed down an icy drip of alarm. She might not be able to remember, but intuitively she knew what her uncle was capable of. What both her uncle and aunt were capable of, for that matter, outwardly smiling, yet inwardly full of jealousy and years of banked-up resentments. One could conclude that would have happened early with her mother and father confirmed as Sir Reginald's “chosen ones.” A barrier would always have been there. It didn't surprise her that her uncle had cast around frantically for some way to impress his father. That could have led him into willful and deliberate plagiarism.

“Well, what did you think?” Brendon broke the silence. They were clear of the estate and underway down the mountain. “Obviously even the opening page is going to need a lot of work?” he said, with a lick of black humour.

“Let's say it was a massive anticlimax.” Charlotte sighed. “I feel sick even thinking about it.”

“Not as bad as that, surely?” Brendon shot her a swift glance.

“A high school kid could do better,” Charlotte told him, bleakly. “It's a thriller of some sort. Maybe even a detective story. It seems like it's going to be a total departure from
Cries of the Heart
, and it's certainly not going to turn the crime genre on its ear. God knows what the rest is all about, when the first page was so amateurish. I'd say Uncle Conrad is floundering badly.”

“Even so, there appeared to be an entire manuscript there,” Brendon pointed out. “You really should have demanded to read the lot, Charlie.”

“Of course I should have,” she said, her expression full of self-chastisement, “but believe it or not, I didn't want to embarrass him. If Aunt Patricia has read the manuscript, she must know whether it's good or not. She's no fool. The opening page needs to go into the trash. No true writer wrote it.”

Brendon frowned. “So it's a puzzlement, unless your uncle didn't write
Cries of the Heart
at all.” He was gradually coming to believe he had hit on the truth. “Your uncle found a manuscript tucked away in the study, read it, realized it was very good, and then decided to publish it as his own. Your father was dead. Your mother was dead. Your grandparents obviously knew nothing about a book that their son Christopher had written. Conrad thought he could get away with it.”

“If you're right, he
has
,” Charlotte confirmed, badly shaken. “What am I supposed to do,” she asked, in near-despair, “have my uncle sued?”

“I don't suggest house detention.” Brendon's answer was dry. “I can only repeat, you need to get them out of Clouds short of an eviction order. Hard to believe it, but they don't appreciate anything you've done for them, Charlie. Your uncle believes he has a perfect right to stay on
.
He is most likely hiding behind a massive lie.”

“Only, proof isn't a single page. He could have been struggling with a genre that's new to him?”

“Charlie, babe, I don't accept that,” Brendon groaned. “You don't love your uncle, and why would you? The thought that he could publish your father's book as his own leaves you stricken but loathe to expose him? I say he doesn't deserve your compassion. Obviously one can't
learn
to become a fine writer. One needs the gift. Conrad doesn't have it. Christopher did.”

“I agree,” Charlotte said quietly. “Only think of what he might do if I uncover him? His triumph exposed as a sham? He would want to punish me. He'd most likely want to kill me. Get someone else to do it, of course. I don't know what happened in the past, but something about Uncle Conrad makes me nervy, when I can't think of a single thing he ever did that would make me feel that way. We both know he pretty well ignored me.”

Brendon extended a hand, giving her own hand a brief comforting pat. “You've always been very brave, Charlotte. It seems highly likely your uncle is a perfect fraud. He published a book that wasn't his own. Okay, we don't have
proof.
We're going on a gut instinct, our knowledge of the man, and your poor opinion of the opening page of the new opus, or so he says. Why don't you give them until into January to move out? That's a generous amount of time. Your uncle would have no difficulty finding another sanctuary in the Blue Mountains, as I've said before.”

Charlotte looked through the darkened window up into the star-spangled, purplish-black night. They were almost at the site of her parents' fatal crash. It gave her the shudders. “It's all so bizarre, isn't it? But I suppose it's about time.” Agitation was taking hold of her. “I won't expose him. I can't. I can't expose the family. I'll just have to wait until my uncle dies. We both believe my father wrote
Cries of the Heart.
It was
his
personal triumph. It's my duty as his daughter to see that he is acknowledged the author—it's just not the right time.”

“I should think you would want to vindicate your father,” Brendon rasped. “Though I do see it would be difficult to take any other course of action right now. The scandal would rock both our families, members of Chambers who had been close friends with your father and know your uncle, the general public, the publishing house, and the critics. Of course, we're assuming your uncle's guilt, but his behaviour has tipped the balance—” Brendon broke off the conversation to take stock of what the car a short distance behind them was doing. The vehicle was moving too fast to safely negotiate the bends, he thought.

“What is it?” Charlotte was instantly alerted.

“Probably nothing.” Brendon's eyes were blazing with concentration.

“For God's sake, what are they doing?” Charlotte cried, turning her head to look through the rear window. The car's headlights were dazzlingly bright. “They must be mad!” she said in alarm. “Even a total idiot wouldn't drive so recklessly, and on high beam. That's a danger to us.”

“Seems more like they want a bloody race,” Brendon gritted, moving his car farther to the right in case the lunatic behind them wanted to pass.

That seemed to be it. With considerable relief, they watched as the car that had been near tailgating them shot past at speed, compounding the driver's dangerous behaviour. A car could well have been coming up the mountain around the next bend. Once ahead of them, the vehicle braked dramatically, causing Brendon to sharply apply his own brakes.

“That can't be—That isn't that bloody fool Simon, is it?” he muttered, concerned that it could be.

Charlotte thought the same thing, but she was only too grateful the crisis had passed. “I don't recognize the number plate, but Simon does drive a BMW,” she said. “There's a passenger in the car.” They were close enough to see the outline of a woman's head. “I have the number plate now.”

“Do you want to write it down? There's paper and pen in the glove box.”

“No. I'll remember it,” Charlotte said, confident she would. “It isn't a random bit of risky gamesmanship, is it? Some macho idiot who has had a drink too many and wanted to take on the Aston Martin?”

Brendon's eyes narrowed. “Whatever, I'm resolved to follow up the incident.”

“Could it have been something symbolic?” Charlotte asked as the BMW moved farther and farther into the distance, with the driver continuing to disregard the speed limit.

“In what way?” Brendon asked, wondering if they were going to come across a bad accident ahead.

“My parents—?” Charlotte could go no further. She was trying to pull out of her vision of her father's car plunging off the road and into vast open space.

“Ah, Charlie!” Brendon sighed, getting that picture himself.

“Let me finish,” Charlotte said. “Simon is a callous person. He's very quick to anger. It could well give him a sick pleasure to try to frighten us, to remind me in particular of the place of my parents' fatal crash.”

“How could he have planned it?” Brendon asked, trying to crush the anger that rolled over him.

“He was in touch with his mother,” Charlotte said. “He must have been in touch with Carol. We know Royce offered to give her a lift back to the city, but she appears so much under Simon's thumb she could have joined him at the motel. I'm sure she wasn't party to
that
stunt.”

“I just don't know what to think about Carol,” Brendon said. “At this point she appears brainwashed. If she has any sense at all, she'll get out of your cousin's life.”

“Before it's too late,” said Charlotte, thinking of the women who had done just that.

A fraught silence held between them. In making Charlotte his heiress, Sir Reginald had brought danger to her door, Brendon thought. Not from any madman who had a pathological hatred of the rich. The danger could well lie within her own family. Protecting Charlotte was going to be a full-time job. There was a real need to increase the watch on her. He would speak to both his grandfather and his father. He himself would have precious little free time. Pressure was on him to collect all the information his father and the QC needed for his cold case, an unsolved murder that had happened over twenty-five years before. New evidence had come to hand and all-important DNA testing had entered the game.

* * *

The atmosphere inside the speeding BMW was extraordinarily tense. “Are you trying to kill us, Simon?” Carol asked in a nerve-ridden voice. “Is that what you want?”

“Oh, do shut up,” Simon snapped, suddenly banging the dash and further frightening Carol.

“We'll be picked up by the police, you know that.” Carol had always been a law-abiding citizen, so she was aghast at Simon's reckless behaviour.

Simon only laughed. “It's Sunday evening. I know when to slow.”

“They'll have your number plate,” she warned him, hoping that would have some curbing effect.

Simon gave one of his overconfident laughs. “Our word against theirs,” he said.

“You're expecting me to lie for you?” she asked in dismay.

He caught her hand, squeezed it
hard
. “Of course I do. You're my girl, aren't you?”

Carol shut her eyes, doing her best not to cry. How had things gone so bad so fast? “I don't like lying, Simon.” He was pushing her. She had an unfamiliar urge to push back. “You could have caused a serious accident back there.”

He threw her crushed hand back into her lap, the skin of his good-looking face pulled tight. “Nothing happened, did it? I know what I'm doing. I'm a great driver. It's another one of my talents. Macmillan will want to do something about it. First thing they'll do is check the registration. But you'll stand by me. Understand that?” He shot the slumped Carol a hard glance. “There's a lot you don't know about, Carol. A few things you do. What my grandfather did only brought harm to the family.”

Carol dug deep to find some courage, though she knew it was likely to escalate matters. “Well, you can't claim you were given a rough ride, Simon. To most people, you were left a massive sum of money.”

It wasn't the answer Simon required. “The money is in a trust fund my grandfather set up,” he snarled, shocked by her show of spirit. “He didn't think I'd be able to handle the money myself.”

“Your grandfather would have wanted you to establish yourself,” Carol suggested. “He would have wanted you to become an achiever.”

“And I'm
not
? Is that what you're saying?” There was a deep frown on his face as he turned to her.

Carol very wisely backed off. Up until Charlotte's birthday party, it had not occurred to her that Simon Mansfield could be a danger. To his own cousin. To her. She had understood he had been angry and distressed that his father had been bypassed as Sir Reginald Mansfield's heir. She supposed any loving son would be. Now she understood the terrible anger that fired Simon up was all on his
own
account. Beth and other friends had confided their concerns about her involvement with Simon Mansfield. They had been highly critical of a young man who thought himself a “prince” and who lived way too high. Planted deep in Simon's psyche was the belief that he was better than everyone else. Now she saw she had foolishly involved herself with a narcissist—and a dangerous one at that. She felt shame. She knew her parents would be ashamed of her.