The Secret Heiress. Bethany Campbell

skip and jump from there to Fairchild Acres. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

      His generosity stunned her. He couldn’t afford such a gesture. “Reynard, you can’t. That’s too much money. I can’t allow it.”

      “The ticket’s in the mail, duck. And like a duck, my duck, you will fly. Think of it not as a gift for you, but for Colie. It’d make her happy.”

      She bit her lip so that she wouldn’t cry. “Thank you, Rennie. I’ll pay you back some day.”

      “You’ll pay me back by coming here. And that’s your gift for Colie. To find out the truth about her and Louisa Fairchild.”

      PART TWO

      Hunter Valley, New South Wales

      March

      Chapter Four

      On a morning in early March, Marie found herself in a cramped economy seat on the cheapest airline out of Darwin. It was small and a bit shabby, but she was thrilled, for she’d never before been on a plane.

      The inside of it looked no more glamorous than an elderly bus, but it was a magical thing, for it quickly whisked her up into the clouds and in an unbelievably short time, she was hundreds of kilometers away, in the Newcastle, New South Wales, airport, hugging Reynard.

      He flinched at her tight embrace, and when she kissed his cheek, her lips touched a long cut just starting to heal. “Oof.” He drew back from her slightly, and she realized that under his work shirt she could feel something suspiciously like bandages.

      “Rennie, what’s wrong?” she demanded.

      “Oh, the bloody fire,” he said dismissively. “Cracked a few ribs, that’s all. Don’t worry, love. I’m a tough old bird, I am.”

      Instantly she suspected his injury—and the fire—had been more serious than he’d let on. “Reynard, tell me more about this whole thing. Were you in the hospital?”

      “Only overnight. Come on. Let’s go find your luggage. Ah, it’s lovely you look. Flying agrees with you?”

      “It was wonderful,” she answered. “But I want to know more about what happened to you. And about the fire.”

      As he steered her toward the baggage claim area, she saw that he carried himself gingerly and walked with a slight limp. “Rennie,” she prodded, “what happened?”

      “A horse panicked, rammed me against a wall,” he told her. “That’s all. The scratch? The wall had a nail in it. And for a few seconds, so did I. A bit of a bashing, nothing life-threatening, I assure you.”

      “And the fire? How bad was it?”

      Gruffly he explained that in terms of money, the fire was a disaster for Lochlain Racing, where he worked for Tyler Preston. Several horses had died, and many more had been permanently damaged by smoke inhalation. There was one human fatality, a body that had finally been identified as old Sam Whittleson.

      “Sam Whittleson?” Marie echoed in disbelief. “That man Louisa shot?”

      “The very one. Somebody killed him this time. They found a gun half-melted in a burned fertilizer barrel, and a lab’s trying to identify it. The cops say the fire was arson, and—”

      “Wait,” Marie interrupted. “Arson? Murder? You told me nobody was seriously hurt.”

      “When we talked, I didn’t think anybody was,” Reynard said defensively.

      “Who killed him? Why?”

      “Nobody knows,” Reynard said with an impatient shrug. “Anyway, the authorities said the fire was set, and some yobs whisper Tyler Preston himself set it. To hide that he was drugging his horses.

      “But,” Reynard said flatly, “he didn’t drug horses, and he set no fire. That’s the trouble living in the sticks. Too much gossip, too many rumors. Now, take Louisa Fairchild. Some even say she done Sam in—ridiculous. An eighty-year-old woman steals out in the wee hours. She lures a man who wouldn’t trust her for a second into a neighbor’s barn? And she guns him down? Not bloody likely.”

      The luggage carousel buzzed, and suitcases began to cascade onto the moving belt. Her bicycle appeared with a clatter. “God’s holy trousers,” Reynard exclaimed. “You brought that bloody old wreck of a bike?”

      “I have to get around. I don’t have a car.”

      “You’ll frighten horses,” he grumbled. “Nobody rides a bike up there. You ride something with four wheels or four legs, and that’s it.”

      “I’m not afraid to be different,” she countered, lifting her chin.

      He shook his head. “You never were. And I don’t know if that’s your blessing or your curse. Indeed I don’t.”

      Reynard refused her help in loading his old blue pickup, even though the job was clearly a strain on his taped ribs. Soon he and she were in the truck, and she gawked at the quaintness of Newcastle and then at the beauty of the Hunter Valley countryside.

      Woods and peaceful fields and hills and vineyards stretched on until they met the shadowy lavender of mountains in the distance. Rain poured daily in Darwin, but in the Hunter Valley, the sky was cloudless and blue.

      “It’s more beautiful than I imagined,” she murmured. “So tranquil.”

      “Appearances deceive,” Reynard said. “Too dry. There’s spot fires near the Koongarra range. There’s wildfire warnings all over the valley. It’s not tranquil, and neither are the people. The stable burning, the killing, it spooked everybody. And the locals were still squabbling about Louisa’s shooting Sam Whittleson last year.”

      “Tell me more about that,” Marie said. “They were feuding about water rights or something?”

      Reynard nodded. “And there were factions from the start. Some say it was Sam’s own fault. Some say it was Louisa’s. Now at Lochlain, where I work, Sam’s son’s the head trainer. So the Prestons sided with Sam. That irks the old girl. But then she never really took to the Prestons in the first place.”

      “Why not?” Marie asked, the familiar uneasiness stirring again.

      “The Fairchilds’ve been in Hunter Valley for a century and a half. The old girl sees the Prestons as upstarts and Yanks to boot. Still, they say she was usually civil to them—until they sided so strong with Sam. Now she’s offended about racing politics, too. Really offended. You see, my boss, Tyler Preston, he’s got this cousin. Well, the cousin—”

      They rounded a curve and the view was suddenly dominated by a huge set of gates, framed by stone pillars ornamented with bronze and red crests. “Ta-da!” said Reynard with a chuckle. “Behold—Fairchild Acres.”

      The security guard let them in, and Marie looked at the great lawn and the seeming endless pastures and paddocks beyond. Did Louisa own all this land?

      They bounced down a broad drive between jacaranda trees, plots of bright flowers and the flash of water from a myriad of sprinklers. The rest of Hunter Valley might be browning and dry, but not Louisa’s lawn.

      They rounded another curve. “And there is the humble abode of Louisa.”

      At the end of the drive stood an enormous house. Gray stone and stucco, it rose three stories, with a gabled roof and rows of mullioned windows. The jacarandas gave way to a wider sweep of manicured lawn, decorated with large formal gardens. There was even an ornamental marble pool with a three-tiered fountain at its center.

      She gaped at the house, the grounds. Reynard took a fork in the drive that led to the back of the house. “You’ll meet Mrs. Lipton first.”

      Marie’s heart beat hard. Too hard. But Reynard had kept reassuring her that she wouldn’t need to lie. Her identity was