It was startling when she chanced to look up at the clock and see it was nearly midnight, and as if Con had followed her eyes, he expressed the view that it was time to call it a night. At the door, he took her gently by the shoulders and brushed his lips across her own in a single, tender gesture.
‘Goodnight,’ he said softly. ‘It was a very nice dinner.’
‘You’re welcome; come any time,’ said Verna almost shyly.
‘I don’t think too often,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t do for me to start getting too domesticated; that’s something no bachelor should allow himself to get used to.’
The message was clear, and although Verna felt a tug at her heart-strings, she accepted it with a gracious calm that would have surprised the old Verna.
It wasn’t until after he’d left that she looked sadly into her mirror, seeing not herself, but the two of them at the kitchen sink doing dishes. And she realised that for her, too, domesticity with Con Bradley in it would have to be something not to think about.
‘Ah well, Sheba, I’ve always got you,’ she said, leaning down to scratch behind flopping ears that heard her words without understanding the pain and sweet sorrow behind them.
Young David took sick the next day, and the rush of handling both his work and her own kept Verna’s thoughts concentrated quite fully on the office for the rest of that week. The weekend wasn’t so easy to handle, but she coped by giving the house an unneeded cleaning and walking for miles along the beaches with Sheba.
But it was circumstance and not design that took her from the office at lunch-time on Monday, when she would have been waiting with considerable anticipation for Con’s arrival with his column.
Reg Williamson created the circumstances, calling her into his office almost as soon as she walked into work that morning.
‘I’ve just volunteered you,’ he said, and Verna immediately grew tense at the implications. The publisher grinned at her suspicious reaction and waved towards one of the large chairs near his desk. ‘Relax, Verna, what I’ve volunteered you for will be a piece of cake,’ he said. ‘Only one afternoon and one evening out of your young life, and it’ll be a good public relations exercise for the paper.’
‘One afternoon and one evening ... do I get overtime?’ she queried, trying to hide her smile at his shocked reaction to that question. Con had been right, Reg Williamson was the original Scrooge, she thought.
‘No, but you get a free lunch out of it today,’ he finally answered. ‘With my old friend Mrs Lancing-Thorpe, who is in charge of the annual Valentine’s Day Ball.’
Verna could tell by his voice that Mrs Lansing-Thorpe must have been in charge of the ball for at least the last thirty years, but she sat quietly and waited for him to go on.
‘You’re going to be one of the judges,’ he said — and stopped. After a lengthy pause in which he carefully examined his fingernails in considerable detail, he handed her a slip of paper with an address on it. ‘Mrs Lansing-Thorpe will explain it all to you,’ he said.
Verna shook her head emphatically. ‘Oh no! I want to know all about this before I go to lunch with Mrs Whatshername,’ she replied staunchly. ‘Don’t forget that I’ve seen the kind of little schemes you come up with.’
‘But this isn’t a scheme,’ Reg replied with a hurt look on his face. ‘It’s just as I’ve said; you’re to be one of the judges of the Miss Valentine competition. They have the judging the afternoon before the ball, and finalise it during an evening-wear competition at the ball itself. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Then why do you look so guilty?’ Verna asked calmly, marvelling at herself for daring to be quite so strict in standing up to her publisher. In actual fact, Reg Williamson’s cherubic countenance almost always looked guilty, but this time she felt there just might be a reason for it.
‘I’m not looking guilty; I’m busy,’ he said haughtily. ‘Now off you go, Verna. You’ve plenty of your own work to do if you’re going to be able to spare the time to lunch with Mrs Lansing-Thorpe.’ The dismissal was clear enough, and Verna left the room with the note in her hand and a feeling of great apprehension in her mind.
Jennifer provided the clue. ‘Oh, don’t tell me they’ve got you roped into that,’ she cried. ‘You’ll be sorry, Verna. Melba Lansing-Thorpe couldn’t organise her own dinner. The Valentine’s Day ball gets to be a worse fiasco every year it’s held.’
It took very little prompting for Verna to learn that Mrs Lansing-Thorpe, one of the city’s primary socialites, was a classic example of her breed. She was an impossible organiser, but each year somehow managed to co-opt enough genuinely organised people to arrange yet another Valentine’s Day beauty pageant and ball. If it was a smashing success, which was rare, she took all the credit; if it flopped, the poor volunteers got all the flak.
‘Actually, you might be able to cope with her, provided you’re prepared to take a chance or two,’ Jennifer mused. ‘I mean, she’s a real old blue-rinse dragon, but only because the locals allow her to get away with it. Somebody new, like you, might be able to shift her far enough out of the way to get the job done with no hassles at all.’
‘Oh, sure. I can just see her running to Mr Williamson after I’d done it, too. It would be more than my job’s worth,’ said Verna. ‘I don’t even have to ask you to know he’s scared silly of her. It was written all over his face.’
‘Well, you could always pull your Dragon Lady the Editor act; she’s just about dumb enough to fall for it,’ said Jennifer with a broad grin. If she starts to get out of line, threaten to turn her into a cane toad,’
‘That is not funny, Jennifer,’ Verna replied, trying to stifle a grin of her own, ‘But I just might try it anyway.’
Even her false bravado deserted Verna, however, when she knocked at the door of the sumptuous Lansing-Thorpe home and was greeted by a dour old man who could only be the butler. And a classic example, at that, she thought quite irreverently, stifling a giggle at the cadaverous appearance and stiff, over-correct manner. He looked as if a smile would crack his face and ruin him forever.
But at least he was some warning about what Verna might expect from the lady of the manor, and it was a good warning at that. Mrs Lansing-Thorpe was every inch the blue-rinse dragon Jennifer had described. Tall, thin to the point of outright scrawniness, and far from attractive, she looked like exactly what she was — a poor farmer’s daughter who’d clawed her way into a position of money and power and wanted to be sure nobody ever forgot it. Small-town aristocracy at its ultimate worst, Verna decided on first impressions, wondering vaguely if the man who had brought this harridan into his own society had been blind, deaf or just desperate. Or in love, came an unbidden thought, making Verna instantly ashamed of her first impression.
But only for an instant. Then Mrs Lansing-Thorpe began to speak, and within three minutes Verna knew Reg Williamson had conned her again; Jennifer had been all too right.
She was searching desperately for the right words to form her refusal to become involved in this entire scheme, and knowing she might as well save her breath, when the sound of the doorbell interrupted her thoughts. Then the butler, impassive and correct as always, entered the sitting room to announce the arrival of Mr Con Bradley, and Verna’s heart gave a leap of alarm. Behind the butler, a tall, well-dressed figure moved into the room, nodding correctly to Verna but aiming straight for the lanky figure of Mrs Lansing-Thorpe.
Con looked every inch the authoritative, dominant figure she expected, and Verna wasn’t overly surprised when he greeted their hostess with a continental kiss on the hand that quite obviously won the old lady’s approval. A moment later they received drinks from the butler, and Mrs Lansing-Thorpe began again to outline the plans she had been making for the Valentine’s Day Ball.
Verna only half paid attention, her eyes more on Con Bradley than on their hostess, and she wasn’t surprised to see his expression mirroring her own feelings about the assumptions being made concerning their involvement.
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When a ringing telephone somewhere else in the house brought the butler to request Mrs Lansing-Thorpe’s attention, both Verna and Con almost sighed with relief. Then Con turned to her with a curious light in his blue eyes.
‘I think you know more about this than I do,’ he said grimly. ‘Mind filling me in?’
With half an eye on the doorway, Verna quickly sketched in her own conversation with Reg Williamson, and then added Jennifer’s comments on the issue.
‘Right,’ said Con with a wry grin. Time our old mate the publisher got a taste of his own medicine, I reckon.’
His expression told Verna enough to make her dubious, but he laughed harshly at her objections and fears of her own position.
‘You just leave it to me,’ he chuckled, devils dancing in his eyes. ‘Leave it all to me, and if Reg gets stroppy about it, just say it’s all my fault. I’ve got broad shoulders, so I’ll cop the blame.’
Mrs Lansing-Thorpe returned before Verna could voice further argument, and from that moment on she was simply too astounded to argue.
They took their drinks and went in to lunch, a meal that Verna vowed she would never forget as long as she lived. Con Bradley changed before her very eyes into a man she didn’t know, but almost believed in. He literally oozed charm and suave urbanity, all of it directed at Mrs Lansing-Thorpe. And their hostess absorbed it like a sponge, altering from blue-rinse dragon to simpering schoolgirl like a flower opening to the sun. Verna had never seen charm like it; she wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see her hostess swoon from its effects.
It was like watching an old movie, and Verna barely touched her food as she watched, entranced and unnoticed while Con captivated their hostess, drew from her all the plans and expectations of the coming ball, and half her life story in the bargain.
By dessert he had the old lady eating out of his hand, and by coffee time she would have cheerfully, Verna thought, abandoned the ball entirely to make Con Bradley happy. But it wasn’t to be that simple.
‘My dear lady,’ he said then, reaching out to take Mrs Lansing-Thorpe’s scrawny paw in his own huge hand, ‘I really must apologise for dear old Reggie.’ Reggie! Verna had to smother a giggle in her napkin, hoping she’d been successful in disguising it as a cough.
‘Obviously he’s guilty of horribly misleading you,’ Con continued, ‘but I’m sure it wasn’t at all intentional. He’s simply forgotten that Miss Grant has quite tremendous responsibilities with her newspaper, and I, of course, have my publishers constantly breathing down my neck. Of course we’re more than happy to serve as judges for this most important function, and we shall. Indeed I can even promise you the third judge you’re so worried about, so there’s no need to worry on that score. But as for any long-term organisational involvement, you must take my word that Reggie intends to take that on himself. And of course you must allow him to help you. Indeed you must insist upon it.’
He went on and on and on, And with every word, dear old Mrs Lansing-Thorpe grew increasingly amenable to having ‘Reggie’ established as the mainstay of her organisational committee. But it was that third judge that seemed to Verna to be the trump card in the game.
Madeline Cunningham was one of the country’s top fashion models; even Verna, who cared little for high fashion except as it concerned her work, knew of the tall, dark-haired beauty whose name was continuously being linked with that of some Sydney or Melbourne social figure.
To have Madeline Cunningham on the judging panel for a beauty quest in Bundaberg would put the crowning touch on the affair, and Mrs Lansing-Thorpe knew it as well as anybody. To the charm of Con Bradley, it was a superb and useful tool, and one he intended to use for all it was worth,
‘Now you must ensure that Reggie doesn’t go all shy about this,’ he cautioned his hostess. ‘He’s inclined to, you know, and he’ll try and shift it all back on to you if you let him. So you must convince him that Miss Grant and I are simply too involved in other things, and that we wouldn’t be nearly as suitable as Reggie himself. You may have to become quite firm, and certainly don’t let on that I’ve told you just how interested Reggie is about your most worthy endeavours.’
He began to wind things up then, and almost before Verna realised what was happening they were outside together and walking towards their cars. To her great surprise, Con said nothing until he was gallantly handing her into the vehicle, stopping to kiss her palm as he did so.
‘Don’t break up now; she’ll be watching,’ he muttered. I’ll see you at your office in a few minutes.’
Verna waited nearly ten minutes before a curt knock at her office door announced his arrival, and Con strode into the room and swooped to lift her hand and kiss it before she could protest. Jennifer looked on in amazement, but Verna could only shake her head in wonderment as Con greeted her in that horribly exaggerated playboy voice. Then she felt her lip twitching and saw the gleam of humour in his eyes, and seconds later they were both engulfed in a tide of laughter,
‘Oh ... Con … you are ... you’re … unbelievable!’ she finally gasped. ‘Absolutely unbelievable! I’ve never seen a performance like that in my entire life. Poor old Mrs ... Whatshername never had a chance. And Mr Williamson ... oh. Con, he’s going to be so angry.’
‘And so he should be, trying to suck us into a deal like that,’ he retorted in his normal voice. ‘Rotten so-and-so! And don’t start feeling sorry for him, either, because he set us up deliberately, and he’s just getting what he deserves.’
Con reached into his pocket and brought out the envelope with that week’s column in it, depositing it on Verna’s desk with a flourish.
‘You can read it while I give Jennifer a kiss for being so helpful,’ he said with a grin. ‘If she hadn’t warned you about that old battleaxe, we’d have been in too deep to ever get free.’
And to the immense surprise of both girls, he did exactly that, leaving Jennifer with a look of surprised pleasure that quickly became a blush as Verna raised her eyebrow sarcastically.
‘Well, I was going to thank you as well,’ said Verna ‘but after that, I think you’ve been quite properly taken care of.’ Then she looked back at Con with a speculative gleam in her eye. ‘And don’t I get any thanks for passing along the warning?’
‘My very word!’ he replied, ‘but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow night. What I have in mind doesn’t involve an audience.’
It was Verna’s turn to blush as Jennifer’s laughter shrilled through the small office, but it was Con who turned to the young journalist with a mock-fierce scowl. ‘And don’t you be getting wrong ideas, young lady,’ he said. ‘We’re going to visit the turtles, for your information; my intentions towards your boss here are totally platonic.’
Jennifer, fortunately, waited until Con had left the room before she looked at Verna and shook her head wisely. ‘Platonic? Who does he think he’s kidding?’ she mocked. ‘A girl would have to be made out of stone to maintain a platonic relationship with that man!’
Verna privately agreed, but with her own heart stricken by Con’s words, she wasn’t much in the mood to discuss the matter further. It was becoming increasingly clear that Con Bradley was making sure that Verna got the message : ‘Don’t get involved; I won’t’ It was far too late, although he couldn’t know that, but even so, the implicit reminders were annoying.
As she drove home after work that evening, Verna had a momentary feeling that Con Bradley would have been much easier for her to handle if things had stayed as they were in the beginning, when her own anger and dislike for him had enabled her to keep her distance.
The following night, she fully expected, would be torture for her, walking the beach with a man she loved, a man who didn’t want to love her even if he could, who didn’t want involvement, and who should have been trying to ensure that it didn’t happen — not placing both of them in circumstances that aimed at everything but the non-involvement he seemed to want so badly.
She rose in the morning determi
ned to ring him and refuse his invitation, but in the flurry of a deadline Tuesday she forgot, and when he rang to confirm their meeting time, her heart did the talking.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘You stay here and be a good girl, Sheba,’ Con said to the excited, prancing dog, and Verna wondered how it could be that this tall man could exercise such tremendous influence on the fractious animal. The dog settled immediately, with only a small whine of discontent when Verna and Con closed the gate on her.
‘No way we can take her with us tonight,’ he said in explanation. ‘The boffins that supervise the turtle rookery would have our scalps if we showed up with a dog during nesting season. And anyway, we’ve got to have some tucker first, and I’m not keen on leaving the little horror in the car; she’d probably eat my seat covers or something.’
The restaurant he’d chosen was the Bargara Dine-Inn, a small ‘bring-your-own-grog’ establishment tucked away on a side-street in the little beach community.
‘The decor is no hell, but the food’s really good,’ he said after stopping at the local off-licence to pick up some wine for dinner. ‘And what’s more, they believe in loading the plates, which is what I’m in the mood for tonight.’
Loading the plates was a mild description, Verna found when the lady brought an enormous platter of veal scaloppini and laid it before her. Con’s serving of piquant steak was even larger, but it disappeared as if by magic.
‘Now that is what I call a man-sized meal,’ he groaned, heaving himself away from the table after a similarly huge helping of dessert. ‘Just what I needed in preparation for a long walk on the beach.’
They drove in silence the short distance to Mon Repos, and it wasn’t until they were out on the broad white sands of the beach that Con began explaining to Verna the true significance of the turtle rookery.
The Sugar Dragon Page 10
