© 2003

TAMMY was up a tree when royalty arrived.

Royalty might be unusual, but being up a tree wasn’t. Tamsin Dexter spent half her life up trees. She was one of Australia’s youngest and brightest tree surgeons, and Tammy’s passion was propagating, treating or, as a last resort, felling trees and planting new ones to take their place.

Employed by the Australian National Parks Service, Tammy was as usual, working in the remote bushland that she loved so much. She was part of a team, but today she was working happily and successfully alone.

She had nothing to do with royalty.

But someone was under her tree right now and he certainly looked like royalty. Or maybe he was a duke. Or maybe he wasn’t royalty. Could he be an admiral or something?

Maybe she didn’t know, she conceded. Tammy’s working knowledge of royalty, dukes and admirals was strictly limited. Were admirals as young as this? Maybe not.

What the stranger was wearing probably wasn’t an admiral’s uniform, she decided as she checked him out more closely. He was dressed in a sleek, expensively cut suit, embellished with rows of braid, medals and tassels. He’d arrived in a gleaming limousine, which was now parked under the tree she was working on, and a uniformed chauffeur remained in the driving seat.

Someone else was climbing out of the car now. The second man was older, and wore no braid or medals, but he still looked like some sort of official.

Which of the pair looked more out of place? Tammy couldn’t decide. Royalty or official? It didn’t matter, but she knew who looked the most interesting.

Royalty. Definitely royalty.

The man she’d decided was royalty was tall. He was well over six feet, she thought, though it was tricky to judge from so far above him. He was immaculately groomed with jet black hair, thickly waved and raked back. His hair looked carefully arranged to suit the official status of his uniform, but perhaps ungroomed it would be the sort of tousled thatch that Tammy infinitely preferred in her men.