CHAPTER TWO

O N THE FOLLOWING Saturday morning Leona decided to let the parade of Blanchards get away from the city before she started out on her drive to the Blanchards’ splendid country estate. In one way she was thrilled to be going back—she adored the house and its magnificent gardens and parkland, spreading over several square kilometres—in another, meeting up with Boyd again left her unsettled in mind and body. It seemed an age since she had seen him, in reality, just over a month, but he had been overseas on family business. Since Rupert had reached his sixties with such a splendid heir, the older man was happy to spend a lot more time at Brooklands. The result was that the mantle of power and responsibility had fallen more heavily on Boyd’s shoulders.

Then again, Boyd knew all about power and taking over the reins. He had been groomed for the role. There had never been the possibility, or even the fear, that he might not possess his father’s brilliant business brain; or when the time came, that he might opt out of a lifetime of hard work and enormous responsibility. Such a life might not have appealed to him. With a lavish trust fund set up by his grandfather, Boyd could simply have walked away and enjoyed a life of leisure, doing anything he wanted—Lord knew he was clever enough—but Boyd had shown even in his early teens that he was more than capable of bearing the burdens of a great business empire. His ambition, to the family’s immense relief, was to continue his forebears’ achievements.

Everything Boyd tackled he did with brilliance and determination, she thought, fixing her eyes on the road ahead. He was far more than a chip off the old block. Boyd, if the truth be told, was Rupert’s superior in every way. Certainly he had that wonderful polish he had inherited from Alexa, along with her stunning sapphire eyes. At just turned thirty, he was right on top of his game, on course to outperform Rupert and the original family fortune builders and their achievements. Boyd commanded genuine liking, love and respect, whereas Rupert was rather more famous for commanding fear.

Extraordinary, then, that Rupert had taken such a fancy to her. The one time Rupert had ever been seen to break down was at her mother’s funeral, when a stiff upper lip at his own wife’s funeral had prevailed. Extremely odd, that. She remembered Alexa, a close friend of her mother, always so poised, had been in floods of tears that day too. Even as a stunned and grief-stricken little girl she’d remembered.

A wonderful rider, her mother, Serena, had broken her neck in a freak fall, taking an old stone wall at the upper reaches of the Brooklands lake. It was a wall she had jumped dozens of times before. Only that last time she and her horse had taken a catastrophic tumble. It was later discovered the horse’s hoof had snagged in a strong loop of ivy clinging to the wall.

Sixteen years ago, Leona thought with familiar sadness. Sixteen years I’ve been without my mother. She still remembered how her mother had bent to kiss her before she had gone out on her ride.

“Won’t be long, my darling. When I come back, we’ll all go for a nice long swim. ”

Serena didn’t know—couldn’t know—she wouldn’t be coming back. Not alive, anyway.

The entire family had taken her mother’s death badly. Serena had been so deeply mourned that it seemed there had been no love left over for Delia, her successor, her father’s second wife. The family had considered no one good enough to replace Serena. Certainly not Delia, who had “ambushed” her grieving father, bringing with her a difficult small son to boot. Perhaps that was why she, Leona, was held close to the Blanchard core. She wasn’t a member of the main family. But she was the image of her mother. That seemed to accord her a special grace.

The great wrought iron gates to the estate were standing open. A mile long private road led to the house. Magnificent trees of an immense height lined the way, their outermost branches interlocking so that the road beneath formed a wonderful golden-green tunnel.

Minutes later, she was out of the tunnel and driving over an arched stone bridge that spanned the shimmering green lake. Fed by an underground river, the lake, very deep in some places, spread out over three acres, dotted here and there with picturesque little islands, which had become the breeding grounds for wild duck and other waterfowl. Today a flotilla of black swans sailed under the bridge. The lake’s calm waters, glassy green with a multitude of flashing silvers, were spectacularly fringed by deep banks of pure white arum lilies, Japanese purple iris and a wealth of other aquatic plants.

Up ahead was the house. Built in the style of an English manor house, with various extensions added over the years in the same style, it had evolved into a very grand property indeed. A vast sweep of lawn and formal gardens lay before it, the whole estate surrounded by undulating hills and valleys, brooks and streams. When she was a child she had counted the rooms—thirty-two, including a beautiful big ballroom where many large family and charity functions had been held over the years. Alexa had made the annual Brooklands Garden Party one of the most memorable events on the social calendar, a feat Jinty had never attempted to emulate. The glorious grounds were ideal for the purpose.

No one could match Alexa, Leona thought. It was a tragedy she had died so young. She had often pondered her private belief that Alexa had not been at all happy in her marriage but the subject had never been broached. In public Rupert and Alexa had played the role of the perfect couple. It was only as Leona had grown to womanhood that she’d begun to sense the very real distance between the two. They’d practically lived their lives apart, although Alexa had obviously decided to make the best of her marriage, always looking out for her beloved son, and applying her considerable skills and energies to running a large estate and numerous charities close to her heart.

If a woman like that couldn’t have her happy ever after, forget the romantics, she thought. Marriage was a huge risk.

The presence of water was everywhere at Brooklands. The many brooks on the estate had, in fact, given it its name. Water was magic.

Way off to Leona’s right were the three polo fields, covering a huge area given that one polo field had an area equivalent to ten football fields. The boundaries of the fields were deeply shaded by massive plantings of trees, both natives and exotics weaving in and out of one another. A world-famous landscaper had been brought in by Boyd’s great-grandparents, who had determined on and succeeded in creating a world class garden. Many years on, another celebrity landscaper had worked with Rupert when he’d decided he wanted polo fields on the estate. A splendid polo player in his day, Rupert now left it to Boyd to carry on the tradition. Boyd freely admitted he found the dangerous, fast paced sport great relaxation.

A match had been organised for Sunday afternoon with a visiting team. Though he was a marvellously dashing player, she always found herself praying that Boyd would not be harmed. It was such a fast, rough game, though very thrilling for the spectator, especially those who adored horses.

All of them desperately needed Boyd to succeed Rupert. None of the other male cousins, even the really clever ones, and there were quite a few, could possibly take his place.

Even as she thought of him, she was conscious of a kind of panic moving through her. Her heart was beating faster. She could feel its mad flutter. The big thing was not to allow her schoolgirl panic to ruin the weekend. Think positive.

Boyd.

Damn, damn, damn. Just his name did her in. Head and heart. She didn’t want it. It wasn’t right. The very strength of her feelings made her afraid. Did anyone realise how hard it was for her to act normal around him? Robbie, maybe. But then Robbie saw too much.

At twenty-four, wasn’t it high time she started to move past her feelings for Boyd? Give other guys a chance? There were plenty of them standing in line—no doubt the Blanchard name was an added attraction. But she was no heiress. She was one of the worker bees. It was a terrifying feeling to be held in thrall, for that was how she had come to think of it. It was every bit as bad an addiction as Robbie’s gambling.

She wondered if Boyd was still seeing Ally McNair. Ally was lovely and great fun. There had been Zoe Renshaw before Ally. Jemma Stirling. Not to forget Holly Campbell. She hadn’t liked Holly. Such a snob. And, of course, there was Chloe Compton, heiress to another great retailing fortune, therefore judged by Rupert as very suitable.

Everyone in the family liked Chloe, including her. Rupert had gone out of his way to give her his nod of approval. There had barely been a time when Boyd didn’t have the most beautiful girls chasing after him. Some, like Ally and Chloe, turned out to be regulars, but Boyd didn’t seem in any hurry to commit himself. In any case he was, as Robbie said, a workaholic. Come to that, she worked pretty darn hard herself.

Even her boss had been known to comment on the fact. And Bea hadn’t signed her up because she was one of the Blanchard clan. She had been given the job on merit alone. Although many in the country’s fashion world would have given their eye teeth to land the job, most of Leona’s colleagues found Bea immensely difficult—some days she was chillier than a travelling iceberg—but all in all Leona liked and greatly admired her boss. Bea was a huge driving force in fashion, and her own personal guru, and Leona knew in her bones that one day—all right, it was years off—she would be able to take over from Bea.

Jinty made a theatrical business of greeting her—hugging and kissing her with practised insincerity. “Lovely to have you with us again, Leo, ” she gushed. “Your outfit is perfect. ” Jinty’s large, rather hard china-blue eyes comprehensively studied Leona from head to toe. “You know precisely what fashion is all about. But of course you have that extraordinary figure. What I wouldn’t do to be as skinny as you! ”

“Give up the champagne, Jinty? ” Leona suggested with a teasing smile, knowing Jinty’s big show of affection was sadly all an act. Everything was an act with sexy, bosomy Jinty, including her marriage. In the very next instant, as expected, Leona was waved away as of no consequence as Jinty’s eyes flashed towards the door, brilliant with expectation. Instantly Leona had the gut feeling that it was Boyd arriving. Boyd was of infinitely more interest than she could ever hope to be. Boyd, the family superstar. She realised he must have left Sydney not long after her.

As though someone was physically shoving her in the back, Leona hurried up the grand sweep of the staircase. She wasn’t ready to meet up with Boyd yet. Maybe she never would be.

She was in the same room she usually occupied. It had its own bathroom and a small sitting room—more a suite than just a bedroom. She had loved this room in the old days but Jinty, once installed in a position of power, had decided that new brides had a pressing obligation to sweep clean. At least Rupert had stopped her from doing anything much on the ground floor, with its beautiful welcoming reception rooms and library, but she had been given carte blanche on the upper floor. As a consequence Jinty had suffered a wild reaction. She had gone about her task like a woman possessed.

To the collective family mind, a kind of chaos had broken out—a chaos nurtured by unlimited money. It had also laid waste to the true elegance and country comfort of what had gone before. Now everything was sumptuous! Her spacious, high ceilinged bedroom was a prime example of Jinty’s love of the baroque. There were lashings of gilt, lashings of Louis, lashings of ornamentation, damasks and silks. She fully expected to one day see a reflection of Marie Antoinette in the ornately gilded circular mirror. What the revamp lacked in style it more than made up for in a superfluity of riches. Money was no object and Jinty didn’t need a good reason to spend.

There was a tap on the door and Leona turned to see Hadley, a permanent member of the household staff, smiling at her. Hadley—Eddie to her—was a big, pleasant-faced man with hands the size of dinner plates and a shock of thick tawny hair only now turning silver. He was holding her suitcase and another small piece of luggage. “Where would you like them, Miss Leo? ”

“Please…just beside the bed, thanks, Eddie. All’s well with you? ”

“No complaints, apart from my sciatica that comes and goes. I’m pushing sixty, you know. ” He deposited her luggage, then stood upright, looking around him with the kind of baffled awe that most people viewed Jinty’s efforts.

“And you don’t look anything like it, ” Leona said, which was perfectly true. “Was that Boyd I heard arriving? ”

“Indeed it was, ” Hadley remarked dryly, trusting to Leona’s discretion. “A great favourite with his stepmother is Mr Boyd. ” A conclusion the entire family and staff had long since arrived at. “Mrs Blanchard’s sister, Tonya, is here as well. ”

For a moment Leona looked at him in complete dismay. “Not Tonya? ” She felt a silent scream of protest start up inside her head.

“Someone must have thought it was a lovely idea, ” Hadley murmured, tongue in cheek. Tonya was a very demanding and unpopular guest at Brooklands.

It couldn’t have been Boyd, Leona thought. She had once overheard Boyd telling his father after one particularly strained dinner party, for which he blamed Tonya’s abrasive tongue, that he didn’t want her in the house any more. Tonya was a born troublemaker, a malicious one at that, churning out gossip and a whole lot of misinformation at every possible opportunity. As Jinty’s sister, she swanned about the estate, treating the staff as though they were invisible. Added to that, she made no bones about the fact that she found Boyd enormously attractive. What was more, she had deluded herself into thinking she had as good a chance as anyone of landing him. Not that she was getting much encouragement from her sister. Jinty disapproved of her as much as everyone else.

So who was it who had invited Tonya? With a thrill of horror Leona thought it just might have been Rupert. He had such an alarmingly perverse streak. He had to keep proving to his son that he was still Boss and could invite whom he pleased. Though Rupert adored his heir, in a strange way their relationship was fraught with hidden conflicts and dangers. Leona often thought it was the ghost of Alexa that stood between them—that and Boyd’s superior capabilities. On the one hand Boyd’s brilliance was a cause of great pride to Rupert, on the other it caused a somewhat irrational level of jealousy and resentment.

Rupert had a monumental ego. Boyd did not.

A buffet lunch was laid out in the informal dining room for those of the family who had arrived. When Leona walked in, golden sunlight was streaming through the huge Palladian windows which allowed marvellous views of the rear gardens. Although there was a terrace outside for extra dining, the informal dining room with so much glass gave Leona the feeling of being outdoors. As the ancestral home of the Blanchard clan, frequently visited by its members, the large room, decorated with a valuable collection of botanical prints, had been set with a number of glass-topped circular tables on carved timber bases, specially carved in the Philippines. Each table easily seated eight on handsome upholstered rattan armchairs, rather than having one very long extension table as in the formal dining room. It had all been Alexa’s idea.

Leona, who’d had a light breakfast of yoghurt and fruit at around seven a. m., found herself hungry. She was at the fortunate stage of her life when she could eat as much as she liked without putting on an ounce of weight. Good to know, but she stuck pretty religiously to the right foods anyway. Fine dark chocolate was her one vice, but she was well on the way to achieving a New Year resolution of only eating a single wickedly delicious piece a day.

At least ten members of the family were there before her, helping themselves to a buffet so lavish that Leona started to think of the world’s starving millions. The best restaurant in Sydney couldn’t have topped this spread, delivered by a stream of staff from the kitchen. At least the staff got to eat what was left over; it was one of the perks of the job.

“Oh, there you are, Leo! ” she was greeted on all sides. Lovely to know that people were happy to see her and she, for the most part, was happy to see them.

Geraldine, who was a fashion icon herself—albeit more than a touch eccentric—was wearing a striking high-rise red hat. She jumped up from the table to come towards Leona with outstretched arms.

“Don’t you look beautiful, Leo dear! ” They exchanged kisses, blessedly sincere. Shrewd grey eyes searched Leona’s face. “Such a pleasure to see you. You grow more and more like your dear mother every day. Come sit beside me. I want to hear all you’ve been up to. ”

Leona smiled back. “Just give me a moment to grab some food, Aunty Gerri. ”

From behind them came a feline little comment, something Tonya was never short of, “Yes, do. You’re dangerously thin, Leona. Sure you’re eating right? ”

“Oh, do shut up, Tonya, ” Geraldine said, as brusque when she chose to be as her brother Rupert.

“Shut up? For heaven’s sake. ” Tonya pretended to gasp, then she fell silent as the atmosphere suddenly heightened.

The reason? Boyd had entered the room.

Here was a man dazzling enough to break any girl’s heart, Leona thought.

This love of mine.

The words sprang from the well of truth deep inside her. She couldn’t suppress her true feelings. She couldn’t choose the time or the place when they surfaced. The one thing she could ensure was that they were never exposed. Not to Boyd, whose position alone allowed no access. And especially not to Rupert, who had his own plans for the Crown prince. It was she who had chosen to lay down her heart. That Boyd could love her back in the same way was just an impossible dream.

Nevertheless she couldn’t stop herself staring at him. After all, everyone else was. Some inches over six feet, superb physique, a constant tan from the time he spent yachting on the Harbour, an enviable head of thick black hair swept back from a fine brow, elegantly sculpted bones—he would look good at ninety—and those beautiful magnetic eyes, as deep a blue as the finest sapphires in the Crown jewels. Those eyes, inherited from his mother, set him apart.

The big hush seemed endless. It had to be enormously flattering, Leona thought, but Boyd took it in his stride. Probably accepted it as his due. No, that wasn’t true. Boyd was no attention seeker. He simply didn’t notice it. It was like witnessing a medieval prince coming in from the hunt, the public adoration merely his due. Leona couldn’t help a tightening of her facial muscles—a little flare of rebellion? Public capitulation to Boyd’s splendid persona was not her thing at all. She enjoyed being the one not to swoon. Besides, she needed a shield to separate her from him. It was the paradox she’d had to live with for years. Behind the mask, the strategies and the countless diversionary tactics she had developed for self-protection, she felt constantly starved for the sight of him.

Where you are, I want to be.

Lyrics of a beautiful song. They were so true.

A smile flared white against the dark tan of his skin. He lifted a nonchalant hand in greeting. “Hi, everyone! ”

“Great you’re here, Boyd! ” came the chorus from the tables.

“We’re expecting a cracker game tomorrow! ” This from one of the great-uncles. Playing polo was a release for Boyd and they all loved watching him.

Tonya seized the moment by going up to him and laying a proprietorial hand on his arm. A petite, sharp-featured but attractive blonde, she looked like a doll beside him, even in her spike-heeled shoes.

“Cheek of her! ” Geraldine muttered, herself grabbing Leona’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “Doesn’t she know she drives him mad? ”

“So who invited her? ” Leona asked, gently easing her arm out of Geraldine’s fierce hold. She had her own suspicions.

“My brother, of course. ” Geraldine had confirmed them. Geraldine, who often referred to her powerful brother as “the tyrannosaurus” humphed, “Rupert likes to throw a spanner in the works when we all know who the right gel is for Boyd. ”

The right gel for Boyd?

“Chloe Compton? ” Leona hazarded with a profoundly sinking heart.

“Gracious, no! ” Geraldine turned on her, almost indignant. “Go fill your plate, child, then come back to me. Is that stepbrother of yours coming? ”

“He was invited, Gerri. And he is on Boyd’s polo team. ”

“All right, all right, so loyal. Not that I don’t admire it. ” Geraldine shook her elegant silver head so that the little quiff of feathers on the hat which matched her chic suit danced in the breeze. “Matter of fact I quite like him, even if he does have the makings of a bit of a rogue. His father had charm too, but what a dreadful man, running off like that and leaving the boy. Being abandoned doesn’t make for little angels. ”

Words to live by.

And then he was beside her. “How’s it going, Flower Face? ”

Again the familiar contraction in her breast. The invading warmth in her blood. Even her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. For all her strategies, nothing worked. As always, his voice fell with dangerous charm on her too sensitive ears. Sometimes, not often these days, he came out with that moniker, Flower Face. Each time it made a flutter of excitement pass over her, as if he’d actually stroked her naked body with a feather. Flower Face was the pet name he had for her when she was growing up. When she was his fluffy stray duckling.

She made herself steady, astonished she could do so. She glanced up, seemingly casual, allowing herself to meet his gaze for mere seconds only. She couldn’t for the life of her manage a smile. Within her all was excitement and confusion. Her eyes, had she known it, were a pure crystalline green, set as they were against porcelain skin and the scintillating reds and golds of her long, naturally curly hair.

Deliberately she focused those eyes on his fine cotton shirt, white with a blue stripe, the long sleeves carelessly pushed to the elbow. She could see the tanned skin of his chest, the beginnings of the mat of hair, black as black. Boyd’s height and handsomeness was only the half of his extraordinary sexual radiance. She knew other handsome young men but, though they did their best to engage her interest, they were mere schoolboys beside Boyd.

“If you don’t like this shirt, I can always change it, ” he said.

She wanted to slap herself alert. “Actually I was admiring it. Helmut Lang, isn’t it? ”

“If you say so, Leona, that’s good enough for me. You’re the fashion expert in the family. ”

“Don’t put yourself down, ” she scoffed. “Didn’t Icon magazine name you one of the most stylish men in the country? ”

He stared at her in mock astonishment. “You saw that, did you? ”

With an effort she ignored the mockery. “Anyway, how was the trip—a big success? ” She was pleased she was able to speak so collectedly.

His expression of indulgence abruptly sobered. “In many ways. Deals were done, a few swung. Blanchards has a lot of clout, but nothing is as it seems these days, Leo. It’s a dangerous world out there. And becoming increasingly so. ”

“I know. ” She bent her head. “Terror and suffering everywhere. ” She didn’t tell him how she worried every time he flew off on one of his many overseas trips. For that matter, she suffered a degree of apprehension on her own overseas buying trips with Bea.

He nodded, looking down at her hair as it caught fire in the sunlight before focusing on the buffet table.

“What are you having? ” he asked.

“The same as you, ” she answered tartly, another defence mechanism. One of the things she did to put distance between them because, oddly enough, they had many things in common. They loved horses, country life. They liked the same food, music, books, films, even people. They both shared a great love for Brooklands and they both derived enormous pleasure out of being successful at what they did, finding relaxation there.

He laughed, looking much amused. “Right then. Leave it to me. I know what you like. Go back and join Gerri. Save a place for me on your other side. ”

Her shimmering eyes ranged across the large room, at the groups of laughing, chattering people, then back to him. “What, with Tonya waving a hand? ” Tonya was indeed waving an unrestrained hand, trying to capture Boyd’s attention. It was a wonder she wasn’t banging a spoon on the table.

“Doesn’t give up, does she? ” he murmured dryly, blatantly ignoring the summons. “I love it, playing happy families. Do as I say, Leo. ” He spoke with a natural authority that had nothing to do with arrogance. “I don’t get to see enough of you. ”

On track again, she spoke with a spurt of challenge. “That’s an order then, is it? ”

He laughed—so annoying, so devastating—before turning to glance at the lavish buffet. “You know what, Flower Face? You’ve made an art form of challenging me. ”

“Maybe I’m a rebel at heart, ” she suggested.

“How could you not be with that glorious red hair? ” He picked up two plates. “By the way, do you want to go riding with me this afternoon? ”

The offer was so unexpected that she just stood there, overtaken by excitement and shock.

“Well? ” Boyd asked, his blue eyes moving lightly over her. What he saw was a lyrically beautiful young woman in an extremely pretty silk dress—pure, virginal and incredibly sexy, which he knew she was unaware of. And for once lost for words.

Silently she willed herself to answer. “I should check that Robbie is okay, ” she said, not enjoying the nervousness she heard in her voice. Exactly how was Boyd looking at her? Whatever was in his mind, it was very unnerving. “He hasn’t arrived yet. ”

“How old is Robbie now? ” He shifted his brilliant gaze to the buffet, as though aware of her inner confusion.

“He’s still my little brother. ”

“High time he stood on his own two feet, ” he said crisply. “This little brother bit has gone on too long. ”

“And you don’t like it? ” She leaned towards him, aware that others might be watching—most certainly Tonya—deliberately keeping her tone low.

Boyd too spoke quietly, but forcefully nonetheless. “He uses you, Leo. That’s the bit I don’t like. He loves you. I’m well aware of that. But you’re too vulnerable where Robbie is concerned. I intend to have a little chat with him this weekend. ”

Oh, God! She visibly swallowed. What had Robbie done now? “Please take it easy with him, Boyd. ” The minute she said it, she realised she had betrayed her own anxieties.

“Surely I never come down too hard on him? ” Boyd asked, hardening his heart against the meltingly lovely pleading image she presented. It was high time to pull Robbie up, before he totally ran off the rails. He had received information that Robbie had been getting in over his head, gambling. He was even doing business with a very unsavoury character, suspected of money laundering. That had to cease.

“I thought we’d ride out towards Mount Garnet, ” he said, briskly changing the subject. “You’ve brought some riding gear, haven’t you? ” If not, he knew she kept clothes at the house.

She had hardly been listening, wondering exactly what he had learned about Robbie. The gambling, of course. The drugs? What else? Robbie could be wonderfully sweet—at least with her—but he wasn’t as yet a really strong character. Nothing got past Boyd.

“You’re trembling, ” he said, suddenly putting a strong hand on her bare arm, his thumb moving almost caressingly over the silky skin.

Instantly heat raged around her body. Her skin was melting as the hot blood fizzed through her arteries, ensuring she shook even further. “Yes, I will come riding with you. I was just trying to remember the last time we went riding alone, ” she managed, hoping she hadn’t turned scarlet. Both of them had been riding since they could walk. Both of them were very accomplished. Heavens, Boyd was a top class polo player. But she couldn’t remember the last time they had been on their own.

He laughed, sounding particularly at ease, even happy.

It came to her how much she loved his voice and his laugh! It was a sound she adored, yet somehow it disturbed her. It made her bones turn liquid. Even the way he said her name was enough to turn her knees to jelly.

“I’m surprised you don’t remember, ” he said, suddenly pinning her with his blue eyes. “You told me you hated me and I couldn’t placate you. ”

Didn’t he realise it had just been another outburst against the pull she felt towards him? She willed herself to speak calmly. “I don’t hate you, Boyd. It’s just sometimes I’m not at ease with you. Or you with me. I’m not a fool. ”

How could she possibly say: You’re the moon and stars to me. When you touch me I dissolve?

Why did she become so erotically charged with Boyd and no one else?

He was looking at her intently. “I realise I make you sparkle with temper, revolt, whatever. I have a mental image of you at the age it all started. You were around sixteen. You’d been really sweet up until then. ”

You mean I was your little slave.

“It’s called growing up, ” she said coolly. “Finding one’s own identity. Sometimes you do make me very angry, ” she admitted. “You’re so terribly…”

“What? ” He pressed for an answer.

“Dominant, ” she flashed back with spirit. “The family idol, born to be worshipped. You mock me like I’m a—”

“Nonsense! ” he cut in. “Why are you so unwilling to really answer my question? It’s all evasion with you these days. That makes me sad. It’s not any authority I might have that angers you. It’s something else. So far as the mockery goes, it’s the other way around. I see it in your face and in your voice. I can see it now. ” His eyes swept over her, marking the tension in her body, which looked so entrancingly fragile but he knew was in fact quite athletic.

“Boyd, everyone is watching us, ” she whispered a warning, her nerves exquisitely frayed.

“That’s okay, ” he answered without concern. “They’re well used to the friction between us by now. ”

“How can you call me evasive, Boyd? Did I not just agree to go riding with you? ” she asked, pleased to have tripped him up. Then it struck her. “We are going on our own, aren’t we, or are you getting up a party? ”

“A party of two, Leona, ” he told her dryly. “I’m after your company alone. No need to bring in the rest of the family. ”

“Right! ” She tilted her chin as she prepared to move off.

“You used to love me, ” he said, very, very gently to her averted profile.

It stopped her in her tracks. It was still so deliriously true.

She moved back to him in that moment, wanting to throw herself at him, clamp her arms around him. Never let go. Have his arms move to embrace her. If he kissed her she feared she might lose consciousness. Or maybe her soul would float out of her body into his. Instead, she raised herself on tiptoe to be nearer to that so dear yet so dangerous face. “I don’t any more, ” she said.

There was safety in deception. Much better to be safe than horribly sorry.

For well over an hour they rode through a countryside that had never seemed so luminous to her. Along the eastern seaboard and even deep into the Outback the land had received wonderful life-giving rain and overnight the land had renewed itself. The light beneath the caverns of trees was jewelled, the display of blossom sumptuous, the air sweet with a hundred different haunting perfumes. Riding together so companionably was too precious to be described. Leona wanted to retain the memory for ever. The sight of him, the familiarity and the exciting strangeness, the profile she loved, that clean cut chiselled jaw. With his head half turned away one would have assumed his eyes would be very dark to match the black of his hair and his strongly marked brows. They were anything but—sometimes his eyes were so blue they looked violet. He really was a dream come true.

Out of the golden glare of the sunlight and down into the dappled green sanctuary of one of the many creeks that wound their way across the estate, he turned his head to smile lazily at her. His eyes, even in the shade, blazed. His wide-brimmed hat, a soft grey, was tilted at a rakish angle. Riding gear suited him wonderfully well. “Enjoying yourself? ” he asked.

“I love it! ” Leona responded with uncomplicated joy. “I especially love water. All the time we’ve been riding we’ve been in sight and sound of it. ”

“That’s what’s so powerfully attractive about the estate. ” He studied her smiling open face with pleasure. “You don’t feel threatened by me when you’re on horseback? ”

“I’m secure in the knowledge I could gallop away from you. ” She laughed, one hand lightly holding the reins of her pure Arabian mare, as nimble and sure-footed as ever a mare could be. “Anyway, you’ve never really done anything to threaten me, ” she added.

“I think I have, ” he answered slowly.

The way he said it shook her to the marrow. She had to look away. Curly tendrils of her hair had escaped from her ponytail, glowing brightly against the cream of her skin. “You sound as though you care. ” She couldn’t help the revealing tinge of sadness in her voice.

“Of course I do, ” he answered, almost roughly.

“Good! ” she retorted, suddenly very tense. In fact she was starting to feel light-headed. “At least you know with me you can’t have it all your own way. ”

“You think I do? ” He leaned forward to caress the bay’s neck.

“You’re quite daunting in a way, you know. ”

“Leo, that’s absolute nonsense, ” he said crisply.

Her breath fluttered. “No. ” She could feel the heat in her cheeks. She even felt like bursting into tears, he moved her so unbearably. That alone gave him a power she could never match.

“Then tell me, ” he demanded. “In what way? ”

“In every way! ” she said a little wildly. “Don’t let it bother you. You can’t help being like that. ” Despite the lovely cool of the creek, she could feel trickles of sweat run between her breasts. She had to stop this conversation before her emotions got right out of hand. That would be a very serious mistake.

“Maybe it’s proved a pretty effective defence, ” he suggested, as though he had discovered the answer. His handsome, dynamic face was caught in a shaft of sunlight. She realised he looked unexpectedly serious, faintly troubled.

“Against what? ” Horribly, her voice wobbled.

He turned a concentrated gaze to her. “Do you remember when you were a little kid you used to pester me with questions? ”

“The miracle is you used to answer me. ” Despite herself, she gave him her lovely smile, her green eyes changing from stormy to dancing.

“You had such an insatiable curiosity about everything. You read so widely, even as a child. ”

“That may have been because I was so lonely after my mother died. You know, sometimes when I’m walking about the lake, I hear her calling to me, ” she confided with a poignant little air.

That didn’t surprise him. Many times he had fancied he had seen his own mother near the little stone temple that stood beside a secluded part of the lake. “We never lose the images of those we love, ” he murmured gently, wanting only to comfort her.

“She was a beautiful woman, Aunt Alexa. She was so kind to me. ” She sighed deeply, in many ways still the child denied her beloved mother. “After my mother died—the way she was killed—I thought I’d never get on my pony again. You were the one who helped me through that. Not my father. He was too dazed. He went off to some distant planet. It was you who convinced me it was what my mother would have wanted. She loved horses. She adored riding. You made me understand that although peril can be anywhere, we have to go on with our lives; we have to hold our simple pleasures close. ”

“Then I was good for something, ” he said, a faint twist to his sculpted mouth.

“You were. You are, ” she said, unbearably conscious of his closeness and the fact that they were alone together. But did it really have to put her in such a frenzy? Why, for the love of God, couldn’t she relax? Was it because she knew Boyd, heir to the Blanchard fortune, would always be denied her? Maybe she had to accept, once and for all, that he was much too much for her.

The silence between them had taken on a deeply intimate turn whether she wanted it or not. She had the strongest notion that the nerve fibres in their bodies were reaching out to draw them together. When all was said and done, he knew her better than anyone. Her eyes smarted with tears. To be together like this always. To have their relationship develop and flourish as she wanted.

She knew in her heart that it wasn’t possible. It wouldn’t be allowed. That was the reason she kept that side of her hidden. Now alarm bells were going off in her head. How easy it was to slip into a dream. But it wouldn’t do at all. Boyd was so far above her she couldn’t begin to calculate the distance. Resolutely she squared her shoulders. “D’you want a race? Let’s say to the old ruin? ” she challenged him. The old ruin was what they called an extraordinary rocky outcrop on a wilder part of the estate.

“Flower Face, you couldn’t beat me, ” he answered, slowly coming out of his elegant slouch.

“Then I’m going to have a darn good try. ” Abruptly she turned the mare, spurring her into action. They were tearing up the fairly sharp incline, vanishing down the other side while startled magpies croaked their high displeasure and wild doves shot up into the blue, blue air.

He was giving her a start. She knew that, not sure if in plunging away she wasn’t revealing what an emotional coward she was. What made her so emotionally insecure? Was it because she had lost her mother at such a tender age? In many ways she had lost her father to his grief. Lord knew Delia hadn’t turned out to be a mother substitute. She couldn’t even mother her own son. Galloping wasn’t half as dangerous as getting into an intimate conversation with Boyd.

She travelled so fast towards the ruins that an old time Western movie posse might have been giving chase. She wondered excitedly when he was going to close in on her.

To her left was a thick copse of cottonwoods, the golden poplars whose foliage put on such a wonderful brilliant yellow display in the autumn; to her right Chinese elms covered in spring’s delicate whiteish-green samaras. Beyond that an indigenous forest of eucalypts in a country where the gum tree was king.

Did anyone who didn’t ride realise the wonderful exhilaration of being in the saddle? Her breasts beneath her cream silk shirt rose and fell with her exertions. The balls of her feet, encased in expensive riding boots felt weightless in the stirrups. Compared to the order of the rest of the estate, she was heading into near virgin country as she veered off to take the short cut to the ruins.

She sucked in her breath as the remaining section of an ancient weathered wall threw up a challenge. The wall was covered in an apple-green vine with a beautiful mauve trumpet flower. It would be a very small risk taking the wall. The mare was a good jumper; she rarely stumbled, never baulked. Leona felt completely safe. She had taken far higher obstacles than this. Taking obstacles had claimed her mother’s life, but everyone had agreed it was a freak accident, not a miscalculation on her mother’s part. Leona trusted to her own judgement.

They literally sailed over the wall. She gave a great shout of triumph, even though her breath had shortened and her breasts were heaving. The old ruins were dead ahead. They looked for all the world like tumbled stone masonry and pillars. She knew she could beat him. What a thrill! She absolutely revelled in the thought.

When Boyd realised she was about to jump the old weathered wall his heart gave a great leap like a salmon making upstream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he shouted, “No! ” In an instant he was back in time, caught up in a terrible moment of dé jà vu. Reining the bay in sharply, he sat stock still in the saddle, back erect, but driven into shutting his eyes. Nothing ever really healed. For a moment he was a boy of fourteen again, waiting for Serena to return so they could all go swimming. He didn’t think he could bear to suffer a worse loss. He had a vision of Serena’s body, brought back to the house on a stretcher. The sorrow he had seen. His mother, Alexa, her beautiful face distorted by grief; the pulverising shock and grief of the others. Leona’s father had been unable to speak, totally gutted. Rupert had taken charge of everything, as was his way, his strong autocratic features set in stone.

He opened his eyes again as he heard Leona’s shout of victory. She was galloping hell for leather towards the ruins. Like her mother, she brimmed over with life. He was over his fear now, but for several moments he sat on his quivering horse, trying to quell the sudden upsurge of anger that swept in to take the place of his enormous relief.

“Sorry, Boyd, dear, I beat you! ” She waved an arm high above her head and, not content with that, pulled off her wide brimmed hat and threw it rapturously in the air, bringing home her victory. “Goodness, you’re not mad, are you? ” she asked in the very next second, catching sight of the bright sharp anger in his face. He had dismounted, too, and was stalking towards her.

“Why do you take risks? ” he gritted with what she took to be hostility.

“I don’t. I never do. ” Hurriedly she tried to defend herself. “Risks? Don’t be absurd. ” This was Boyd. How could she be afraid of him? Boyd would never hurt her. “You’re upset, ” she said as she quickly comprehended. “There’s no need to be. I wouldn’t do anything stupid. ”

His eyes burned with the blue intensity of sapphires. “Your mother didn’t do anything stupid. ”

Now both of them were confronting the past. She remembered the horror everyone had felt on that tragic day. The utter disbelief that life, as they had known it, was for ever changed. Her father had been near catatonic. The tears had poured out of Aunt Alexa’s eyes. Geraldine had had her arms around her, trying to comfort a loved child. A Blanchard uncle was there with a second wife. That marriage hadn’t lasted either. She remembered the way she had afterwards clung to Boyd like some little monkey too scared to let go.

Now she tried desperately to offer conciliation. “We’ve had a lovely ride. Please don’t spoil it. ”

“Spoil it? ” He knew he was losing control, something that never happened. “What you had to do was not tackle that damned wall. It could have cost you your neck. ”

Would anything go as she hoped? Temper flashed. “What I did, ” she told him defiantly, “was jump a fairly low obstacle. I’ve jumped a lot higher than that. ”

“Not on that little mare you haven’t, ” he said with a vigorous jerk of his head towards the pure bred Arabian.

She stared back at him in disbelief, forgetting all caution, missing the fear behind his grimness. “So she isn’t the tallest horse in the stable, but I love her. In any case she’s sure-footed. Who the devil do you think you are, telling me what I can and cannot do? ” she demanded. “Who are you to rule my life? No wonder I resent you. No wonder I’ve fought you for years. No wonder—”

She was on such a roll she was completely unprepared for his explosive reaction. Sparks seemed to be flowing from him like tiny glittering stars. While the blood rushed in her ears, he pulled her to him in a kind of fury, locking one steely arm around her, his left hand thrusting up her chin. “Oh, shut up bleating about your resentments and irritations, ” he bit off with unfamiliar violence. “You irritate the hell out of me. ”

He had confirmed it at long last. She let out a cry of pain. “I was wondering when you’d get around to admitting it, ” she said, small white teeth clenched. They were standing so close together all her senses were reeling. Her blood ran blisteringly hot in her veins. To her distress she knew she couldn’t handle this. She was shaking with the effort to hold herself together. Dazzling sunlight spun around them like an impenetrable golden web.

“Let me go, you savage! ” Even as the words left her lips she was shocked that she had said it. Boyd, a savage! Why couldn’t she shout, I love you? Why did she for ever have to hold it in? It was agony. There was no hope of getting free unless he released her.

“Count yourself lucky I’m not! ” He laughed, but that didn’t lessen the bright anger on his face. “I’m not going to let you go, Leona, until I’ve taught you a necessary lesson. No point in struggling. I’ve been far too indulgent with you, taking all the little taunts you throw at me on a regular basis. Just how long do I have to wait before you call a ceasefire? ”

How could she possibly demolish the defensive structure she had so painstakingly built up in a matter of moments? “For ever! ” she shouted fiercely, not fully realising how wildly provocative she had become.

And that sealed her fate.

With a face like thunder Boyd lowered his head. He hauled her right up against him, her delicate body near breakable in his grip, intent on finding her beautiful, softly textured mouth. He felt capable of something monstrous, like picking her up and carrying her off into the forest like some primitive caveman. Sometimes she literally drove him crazy.

The impact on Leona was equally tremendous. Yet hadn’t she always known that something like this would happen? This was the man she loved. And, from time to time, hated. Because he made her feel so…so what? Off her brain? She couldn’t move. Her riding clothes seemed to have turned to gossamer. She had to tense her body so it wouldn’t dissolve into his. She had never experienced such tumultuous emotions in her whole life. It was seismic.

His long fingers plunged into her hair, catching up handfuls of red-gold curls. “I get so tired of your fighting me, ” he groaned.

Her legs had given way to the extent that she thought if he hadn’t been holding her so powerfully she would have slid down his body to crumple at his feet. “Open your mouth, ” he said. “I want to taste you. ”

The sensuality of the moment was ferocious. It stole her breath. Desperately she clamped her lips together. The utter senselessness of it. His tongue prised them apart. “This is something else you can resent, ” he told her harshly.

To save herself from going totally under, like a swimmer in wild surf, she closed her eyes and let the giant waves of emotion engulf her.

He was kissing her, devouring her, eating her, as if her mouth were a peach. To make it worse, she was so driven by sensation she began to eat him. It certainly felt like it. All she knew was desire. It was terrifying. So sensuous, so natural, so voluptuous, so God-given. To ease the strength of his hold on her, she thrust one of her legs between his, making her acutely aware that he was powerfully aroused. And she was the cause of it.

When he let go of her—all but pushed her away—she felt so disorientated, so weak-limbed, she actually fell down into the thick, honey-coloured grasses that grew in a wide circle around the ruins. “I don’t believe you just did that, ” she said eventually, her hands pressed to her temples as if they were pounding.

“It happened all right. ” Forcefully, Boyd drew air into his lungs.

“I hated it, ” she said. An outrageous piece of lying. And it wouldn’t help her.

“Don’t lie to me, Leo, ” he chided her curtly. “It won’t work. ” He gave them both a necessary minute of respite, then he reached down to pull her to her feet, keeping a hold on her swaying figure.

Her green eyes met his, huge with shock. “But I need to lie to you. ” The truth would involve love and love was a fatal word. “Don’t you understand? We’re cousins. Family. ”

He gave a jagged laugh. “Second cousins, more or less. Less, actually, when you consider your grandfather and my great-uncle were half-brothers. ”

“Does that make a difference? ” How could she possibly steal Boyd away from the family? She knew Rupert fervently wished for an alliance between him and Chloe Compton, who was an heiress in her own right. How could she challenge powerful, menacing Rupert? She would never be allowed to walk away from that one.

“A difference to what? ” Boyd rasped, uncaring of his father’s plans, his own man.

“You mean you were doing me a great honour kissing me? ” She felt unendurably pressured, not even sure what she was saying. Whether indeed she was making any sense.

“I didn’t think for one moment you’d admit to a passionate response, ” he said bitterly.

How was she managing to hide all her yearning? She was a woman, flesh and blood, not a pillar of ice. But she was managing. She saw it in his eyes.

He was waiting for something from her—something important—only she was in such a state of high arousal she didn’t know how best to answer. She didn’t know how best to handle a situation she herself had created. Instead, she concentrated fiercely on a distant copse of trees. “Let’s set the record straight. That was an angry response, more or less. ” Anger was safe. It was what he was used to from her, after all.

His expression became hard and mocking. “That’s it! Do another runner. ” His brilliant blue eyes darkened to cobalt.

“And just who am I supposed to be running away from? ” Unable to help herself, she took the bait.

“Hell, Leo, we both know that. ”

How she felt the power of those blazing eyes. She was shaking all over, engulfed by raging passions.

“Oh, for God’s sake! ” Boyd, contemplating her extreme agitation, suddenly relented. He reached out and drew her against his chest as if she were still a child, allowing her to stand until she was quiet within the half circle of his arms.

“Here, let’s get you home, ” he murmured, somehow preventing his hands from sliding all over her perfect body. A body he wanted to cover like a man sought to cover the body of the woman he desired.

To Leona’s ears, he sounded near defeated. That was so unlike Boyd—but he kept a supportive arm around her. It was a measure of his very real affection for her, she thought gratefully. Affection was allowed. The family would allow affection.

Boyd must have been on the same wavelength because he asked in a very dry voice, “Anyone for a cup of tea? ”

She fell into line. “I don’t drink tea. ”

“Neither do I. ”

“I know. ” She dared to look up at him, seeking some measure of reassurance. “Was kissing me a game? ” If he said yes, she thought she might die.

“If it was a game, it’s one I’m not sure I know the rules to, ” he said grimly.

“Sometimes I’m afraid, Boyd. ” She tried to explain herself. Without her mother, with a largely “absent” father, she had become used to keeping things in. It was all right to worship Boyd. He was the supernova in the family. She was part of the clan certainly, but still fairly low in the pecking order. For her and Boyd to become romantically involved would cause huge problems. She could even lose her job. Would Bea allow it? She badly needed time to consider the magnitude of what had just happened. Both of them had responded so passionately they might have been trying to make up for lost time. Would the force grow, the desperation?

“Poor baby! ” Boyd murmured, as though all too aware of her fears. He was suppressing urges so intense he didn’t know how he was able to withstand them. “Come on. ” He used his normal persuasive voice. “Home. ” He bent to give her a leg up onto the Arabian mare, who was standing so quietly she might have been listening in on their conversation. Then, when Leona was in the saddle, he turned away to whistle up his bay, who was lightly grazing several feet away.

The secrets of the heart, he thought. It was time to bring a few of them out into the open. His feelings for Leona, the strong bond they had always shared, was stored in his blood.

⇐ Предыдущая 1 2 3 456 7 8 9 10 Следующая ⇒