Escape to Koolonga

by Amanda Doyle

  ESCAPE TO KOOLONGA

  by

  AMANDA DOYLE

  A

  Harlequin

  Romance

  Emmie Montfort had always been the quiet, plain Jane among her beautiful and talented family - and it was partly to escape from it all that she had come here to Koolonga to take over her inheritance of a small general store. ...

  But when she had decided to get away from Sydney she hadn't known just what to expect in Koolonga...

  Original hard cover edition published in 1972 by Mills & Boon Limited, 17 -19 Foley Street London W1A 1DR, England

  © Amanda Doyle 1972

  Harlequin edition published October, 1972 SBN 373-01630-1

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  Printed in Canada

  CHAPTER ONE

  Plain Jane.

  She wasn’t Jane at all, really, she was Emmie. Or, more properly, Emily. Emily Montfort.

  But she thought of herself as a Jane, and a plain one at that.

  Emmie supposed it was bound to happen, when you turned out to be the only ordinary duckling in a clutch of quite brilliant offspring. Not only had the other members of the Montfort family been endowed with brains and drive and thrusting personalities and a business acumen which led them all quite painlessly along the paths of success in their chosen field, but they had also been favoured quite bountifully by Nature herself with the famous Montfort ‘good looks’—things like that wonderful Montfort hair, for example, either a deep and glowing auburn or an abundant raven black; the marvellous Montfort bone-structure, which made for long, interesting faces in the males, and moulded, sculptured, mysterious ones in the females of the line; the well-spaced Montfort eyes, that were nearly all a bold, snapping brown regardless of auburn or raven heads; and the Montfort smiles which were all perfect, charming and delightful because of the evenness and whiteness of the strong, sound Montfort teeth. As for the Montfort physique, it had all the qualities that spell perfection too—good proportions, adequate stature (the women, by and large, might almost be described as tall for their sex, but more often than not you’d have called them ‘willow/, because that was what they were), and the men were muscular and athletic, the girls enviably vital and vivacious.

  Only Emmie was the exception. The plain Jane.

  They used to call her that sometimes, when they were all little, in those moments of childish frustration when brothers and sisters want to inflict hurt intentionally. Emmie had resisted, had risen to the taunts in quick, uncontrollable bouts of rage.

  Now they didn’t say it any more. Being adults, they merely implied it, probably quite unintentionally, and Emmie, being also adult, accepted the implications philosophically, with an equanimity which in childhood she had not possessed.

  Her mirror told her the truth, that those implications were quite justifiable. That straight brown hair, even supposing it was fine and silky and always shining with cleanliness, had nothing of the fiery splendour of her sister Melissa’s, nor the blue-black sleekness of Sharon’s gleaming mane. Her face was small and inclined to pallor, an uninteresting oval, devoid of those prominent bones and intriguing hollows that made Lissa’s and Sharon’s almost classic Montfort. Her eyes were well-spaced, certainly, but with a width and innocence that could not compare with the challenge and assurance of the others’. And although they were appealing eyes, hers, fringed with a sweep of thickly dark, curling lashes—her best feature, perhaps—they were also of a common hazel-grey, neither one thing nor the other. When she wore greys and blues and greens they were grey, and when she wore reds and browns and yellows they were hazel. Chameleon eyes, as if Nature hadn’t quite been able to make up her mind what to do about them. Emmie’s chin was small and oval to match her face, and her mouth was wide, if anything too generous, and when she smiled her teeth were pearly- crooked, which meant that her smile wasn’t the enviably flashing, white, strong Montfort smile either. Not like Sharon’s or Lissa’s, or Mark’s or Robert’s. The boys—well, they were men now, actually—were a handsome pair, aristocratic, confident, quite marvellously good-looking in the typical Montfort manner. They were big men, too. Tall, athletic, just as Sharon and Lissa were willowy.

  Emmie herself wasn’t willowy.

  Not dumpy, actually, either. Just diminutive. You wouldn’t look at her twice in a crowd, because she’d be lost to view amongst all those other heads.

  Plain? Well—rather, unremarkable.

  That was it, quite unremarkable.

  And so far, her achievements in life had been singularly unremarkable, too, compared with those of the rest of the family. After all, there was Mark, the eldest, a flourishing barrister; Robert with his new consulting-rooms, already recognised as one of Sydney1 s up-and-coming young paediatricians; Melissa, who had made what might be described as a ‘good marriage’, and who had so cunningly managed to place her two beautiful children in the care of the most reliable and dependable of domestic staff while she travelled extensively with her diplomat husband; and the youngest, Sharon, not yet at the peak of her career as a promising model.

  Emmie came between the two other sisters, and people

  seeing them all together never failed to be amazed at that fact.

  Sometimes they voiced the amazement in guileless remarks, like ‘Goodness, are they really your sisters? Such glamorous girls, aren’t they!’, or, peering at her, ‘Yes, that’s right, there is a slight family resemblance, of course there is—I can see, now that I look!’

  Even worse, the few things Emmie had, or even hadn’t achieved, had been done, or not done, she suspected, because of her connection with the other members of the Montfort family, and not because of what she was herself.

  ‘Is Mark Montfort really your brother? Well, I suppose we could arrange an interview.’

  ‘I’m sorry, very sorry, that you’ve become redundant, Miss Montfort. We hate to disappoint a sister of Robert’s.’

  ‘Most regrettable, but I feel perhaps that your talents lie in other directions, my dear. We’re all individuals, I mean, aren’t we, and even sisters can differ.’

  It wasn’t just the people outside the family who thought like that, either.

  Inside it, too, she was apt simply to be overlooked in the rush. When those two handsome brothers had been younger, it was Lissa and Sharon who gained the lion’s share of their attention, and undoubtedly they merited that attention, too. Emmie was prepared to admit it with typical humility. She became accustomed to hearing them making plans together, and on the rare occasions when she found herself included, to suffer the inevitable surprised comments—‘What? Another sister of Mark’s and Robbie’s? We know Sharon and Lissa, of course, but you are a bit of a shock, I must say. Where on earth have they been hiding you?’

  Even when she got accustomed to all these observations, even when she had learned to accept them, yet Emmie still found that they depressed her.

  More and more she avoided the sort of situations in which they were likely to occur, more and more she found herself staying away from the sort of functions where they were likely to happen.

  It was natural, she supposed, that when her parents died, the others should look to her to stay at home and take care of them

  all—to be there when Mark came back, irritable after a trying session at the law-courts; when Robert returned,
weary and preoccupied after a harrowing day at the Children’s Hospital; when Sharon appeared, languid and cross and lovely, after too many late nights and a gruelling modelling assignment; or when Lissa’s ‘treasure’ was having her ‘days off, and the children had to be left in someone else’s care.

  Yes, Emmie was there, always there. And, at twenty-six, it looked as if she always would be. Her only talent was the simple art of being in the right place, at the right time, when the family happened to have need of her.

  They all took it for granted now, even Emmie herself.

  For a while, she had taken a part-time job as a librarian, and had thoroughly enjoyed it, but the hours hadn’t fitted in with the rest of the family’s requirements.

  Lissa complained that her children were being neglected while she was away. Surely it wasn’t asking too much----?

  Mark complained that his dinner wasn’t ready, and that she must know by now what a brief lunch interval he sometimes had—he’d been too busy today, interviewing a witness, to have more than a sandwich and a coffee.

  Robert’s laundry wasn’t done—and he had to have those starched white coats looking fresh and dazzling, didn’t he?

  And Sharon—well, Sharon’s criticisms of her elder sister’s inconvenient absence at the library for a few irregular hours each day were almost too numerous to begin to be catalogued!

  Emmie sometimes thought to herself that they had become so used to having her at their beck and call that they had ceased to think about her at all, or even to remember that she was there.

  Perhaps that was why they were all gathered in the living-room just now, looking mildly surprised that someone else had remembered her, and even more surprised that the someone happened to be the late Miss Millicent.

  Miss Millicent had been their governess for years, right down the family, from the oldest Montfort child to the youngest Montfort child, all the time they were growing up.

  Emmie could remember her very well indeed. Millie, they had called her, for short. She had been a comfortable and comforting figure, always there, just as Emmie herself was ‘always there’ right now. She had had a flat, uninteresting face enlivened by a pair of beady bright eyes that spotted every bit of mischief almost before it had been begun, and her pepper-and-salty brown hair had been done up in two coils on either side of her head.

  Miss Millicent did not seem to have any relatives of her own. She had always laughed and told them that they were her family, whenever Emmie had asked her. After she had left them—once Sharon had outgrown the need for a governess— the family had kept up a spasmodic correspondence with her, and then, as they became older, even that tenuous contact had gradually lapsed. Only Emmie had remembered Miss Millicent, and then it was a once-yearly occasion, at Christmas time, when they faithfully exchanged letters telling each other of the whole year’s doings in between these seasonal festivities. Emmie did not have a great deal to report about herself, but she was able to tell Miss Millicent all about Mark’s continuing success as a barrister, and Robert’s appointment at the hospital, and Lissa’s lovely children, and Sharon’s popularity with the fashion people. Like Emmie, Miss Millicent didn’t have a great deal to report, either. For a time she had taken care of an elderly father, and when her parent died she had got a job as a companion to an irritable old woman who apparently almost drove Millie to distraction with her demanding ways. Last Christmas there had been no word from Miss Millicent, although Emmie had faithfully reported in a six-page document upon the varying progress of each member of the Montfort family, and had sent the letter to the governess’s last address. When no reply was forthcoming, she had been forced to conclude that either Miss Millicent had indeed been driven to final distraction of the permanent, incurable variety, or that she had lost the urge to exchange gossip with a family which, after all these years, must undoubtedly have become too remote to be interesting any longer.

  As it turned out, Emmie could not have been more wrong in assuming that she had been forgotten. Instead, she had been remembered, and in a very concrete and practical manner.

  ‘A general store!’ Sharon was exclaiming at this very moment-draped over one end of the couch in a consciously lovely pose, with that curtain of raven’s-wing hair falling about her shoulders, and derision causing her expressive brown Montfort eyes to glint mockingly. ‘What a terribly odd thing to be left, for sure! And what was Millie thinking of, leaving it to you, anyway, Emm? I mean, I was her “baby”, wasn’t I? She always said so.’ Sharon sounded injured.

  ‘I suppose I’ve kept in touch with her more than the rest of you. I mean, you are all so busy, and I’ve had more time to write, haven’t I?’ Emmie hastened to point out. She was still quite overcome with surprise herself, actually. ‘And in a way I can just imagine Millie running a little shop, can’t you, especially in the country. She always wanted to go back to the country, you know, when she retired. What a shame that she appears to have had so little joy out of her move, poor old thing. Just eighteen months, and then to—to die, so very suddenly.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have suffered, Emmie.’ Robert was instantly aware of his sister’s genuine distress. ‘She would have had little or no foreknowledge at all, with a thing like that. Dear old Millie, she wasn’t a bad old stick.’

  ‘But—a shop! Sharon giggled. ‘What on earth would Emmie do with a shop? And, as I said, I can’t for the life of me see why it should be Emm, in particular. Why not have left it to all of us, and then we could sell the asset—if it is one, which is doubtful!—and divide the proceeds?’

  ‘I expect she recognised the fact that Emmie might—well — that Emmie might be glad enough of the proceeds herself, don’t you think?’ That was Melissa, reproving Sharon on Emmie’s behalf. Emmie knew quite well that what Melissa really meant was that Emmie had no marriage prospects, none at all, although she didn’t actually say that in so many words. ‘In any case,’ continued Lissa calmly, ‘Emmie can sell it, can’t she? It’s the obvious thing to do. You could travel a little, perhaps. Go on one of those friendship tours, or whatever they call them. I’m sure we could manage for a few weeks without you, Emmie, and it’s quite a good way for lonely people to have a little fun. Who knows, you might even meet someone who is in the same boat as you, and --- ’

  ‘I am not in need of a friendship tour,’ interrupted Emmie firmly, because she couldn’t bear the implication behind Lissa’s well-meant suggestion. ‘And what’s more, I am not going to sell it.’

  ‘Not sell it?’ Melissa blinked. ‘Then what in heaven’s name are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Run it.’

  ‘Run it! My dear, you can’t be serious?’

  ‘I am serious.’ Emmie met her elder sister’s eye unwaveringly. ‘I was never more serious in my life.’

  ‘Now look here, Emmie, it doesn’t do to be too hasty about these matters.’ Mark’s brows drew together in a scowl, and his voice took on that considering, lawyer-like weightiness which it often did when he was dispensing a piece of reasoned advice. ‘One has to consider all the angles before making a decision like that. One can’t just decide on the spur of the moment, before you can even say “snap-crackle-and-pop”.’

  ‘One can, and I have,’ Emmie corrected him gently. Her eyes were wide and round, shining with excitement. ‘Just think of it, a dear little shop in the country! I’ll love it! One of those ones with a bell on the door, that rings every time as people go in and out, with neat shelves of gleaming tins, and jars of sweets, and the regular customers coming in every day for their papers. I’ll get to know them all by name quite soon, I’m sure. I’ll get to have lots of friends. I was beginning to, down at the library, as a matter of fact—getting to know the regulars, I mean.’

  ‘Huh!’ Sharon gave a strangled grunt of disbelief. ‘Darling, Mark is right, you know, when he says it simply isn’t on. I mean, for a Montfort to be even thinking of running some wretched little shop in some dull, provincial little country town. And have you thought—those
regular customers aren’t going to be like the libraryones, you know. They’re bound to be a lot of country hicks. Hayseeds.

  ‘And what about us, and the house?’ put in Robert. ‘Who’d keep things going properly here? No, it’s out of the question, Emmie, and you know it. If you’d stop to think for a bit, instead of getting all wide-eyed with wonder, you’d see that you can’t even contemplate it.’

  ‘You don’t really need me, any of you,’ she replied calmly, striving not to allow her assurance to be shaken by their concerted opposition, which she should have known to expect by now. ‘Only for the things I do in the house, and a reliable daily could do those chores for you just as well as me. Better, probably. No, noneof you needs me, Robert—not in the way that those poor children do. You, being a doctor, and working with children all the time, can surely see that?’

  ‘My dear Emmie’—Mark sounded as though his patience was threatening to come to an abrupt end—‘there’s absolutely no obligation upon you to continue to harbour those children.’ The mere idea seemed to astound him. ‘Miss Millicent hadn’t even adopted them, she was only fostering them, just to do a favour to the Far-Out Homes. There’s a definite difference, you know—a clear-cut, legal difference, between the responsibilities of adoption and those of merely fostering. A foster-mother can opt out at any time.’

  ‘Millie didn’t mean to opt out, though, did she?’ argued Emmie—quite hotly, for her. ‘She was taken, and very suddenly indeed! Just think of the shock to those poor little things. One minute they had a happy home and a—a loving foster-mother—and the next they hadn’t. It’s unthinkable that I should let them down, and I have a feeling they must have been in Millie’s mind when she left me the business. She may or may not have had a premonition, but at least she could reasonably suppose that, if anything happened to her and I stepped into her shoes at the shop, I’d also step into her role as foster-parent to those poor children. Millie

  knew what we all know-----’ She looked them firmly in the

  eye as she said this. ‘Millie knew well enough that I haven’t anything really worthwhile to do with my life, that I’ve got no gifts or talents, that I’m never likely to get married or do anything particularly exciting in the way of a career. She knew just what she was doing, in fact, because now she has given me the very thing I was never likely to have—a role to play, something worthy to do.’