A bulk of a man filled the doorway, and Lisa's startled glance was captured by dark, penetrating eyes that had a shattering effect on her nervous system. There was a wild fluttering in her throat like a caged bird seeking frantically for escape, and her breathing felt oddly restricted as she stared back helplessly for what seemed like interminable seconds before his eyes released her and allowed her to breathe easier. Massive-shouldered and slim-hipped, Adam Vandeleur was well over two metres tall, but, despite his enormous physique, his movements were lithe, she noticed as he walked round to the other side of his desk.
'I apologise for keeping you waiting, Miss Moreau,' he said in a voice that was deep, like the rumble of distant thunder. 'Please sit down.'
Lisa obeyed, hooking her walking-stick unobtrusively over the arm of her chair, and realising for the. first time that her leg was shaking. She waited in diffident silence while he seated himself in the padded swivel chair behind his desk and picked up a cigarette case.
'Do you mind if I smoke?' he asked, and Lisa shook her head, taking the opportunity to observe him more closely while he took a cigarette and lit it.
His short, crisp black hair was greying at the temples, and the sun had tanned his skin to a deep ochre. Unlike his brother Jacques, Adam was rugged and not at all handsome, Lisa decided as her nervous glance slid over the broad forehead, the high-bridged nose that showed signs of having been broken at some stage, and the square, resolute jaw with the slight cleft in the chin. There was strength of character in the harsh lines of his face, but her pulses behaved erratically when her glance lingered briefly on the hard mouth with the hint of sensuality in the wide lower lip.
Adam Vandeleur, ruthless and tough, was a man of the veld, she concluded her observations, lowering her glance guiltily when she realised that she had been caught staring.
'You're a teacher, I believe,' he remarked, his dark eyes narrowed as he observed her through a screen of smoke.
'I am a teacher, yes.'
'What made you resign your post to take on a job of this nature?' he questioned, his eyes intent upon her face and unnerving her so completely that she stammered foolishly.
'I d-didn't actually resign. I—I obtained leave of absence for a few months.'
'Why?' he rapped out the word like a command.
'I—I was involved in an accident.'
Lisa felt, more than saw, his eyes sliding over the prominent scar along the side of her jaw, and she stiffened automatically, but after that brief, cursory glance his expressionless eyes met hers again.
'Was it a car accident?'
'Yes.'
'You've obviously recovered sufficiently from this… accident,' he continued, the slight pause in his voice placing her instantly on her guard. 'I fail to see why you couldn't return to the work you were trained for.'
'There—there were other reasons,' Lisa stammered, raising her chin in a faint gesture of defiance, but when he continued to stare at her as if expecting a detailed explanation, she added abruptly: 'Personal reasons.'
Adam Vandeleur's black eyebrows rose fractionally as if her reluctance to explain annoyed him, then he stubbed out his cigarette and rose to his feet, thrusting his thumbs into the broad leather belt that hugged his slim hips as he walked round the desk towards her.
'I gather my mother gave you some idea of what's expected of you, but there are a few things I would like to add,' he said harshly as he walked across to the window and stared out into the garden, giving Lisa an excellent view of his broad, formidable back and the long muscular legs clad in tight-fitting khaki pants. 'Keep the children out of the grazing camps, and don't allow them to mess around with the farm machinery. The shearing shed and the stables are forbidden to them, and most of all…' He paused, turning to face her, and his dark brown eyes pinned her ruthlessly to her chair. 'Keep them out from under my feet. Is that understood?'
'Yes, Mr Vandeleur,' Lisa managed nervously.
'Now, about your salary.' He mentioned a sum that almost doubled the figure his mother had quoted and, misinterpreting her gasp of surprise, he asked stonily, 'Is the amount not sufficient?'
'No, no! It's far more than I'd expected,' she hastened to correct him, shrinking inwardly beneath those rapier sharp eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
'I'm quite prepared to pay that amount, and more, to restore some of the original order to my home, Miss Moreau,' that deep voice rumbled on harshly, and a mocking expression flashed across his rugged face as he observed her raised eyebrows. 'Does that shock you?'
'They're your late brother's children.'
'Exactly,' he snapped, coming towards her and forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. 'Fate has thrust them into my care, and I shall just have to make the best of the situation.'
'You care about their happiness, don't you?' she questioned him daringly, but her hands clenched the arms of her chair so tightly that her fingers ached.
'Naturally,' he smiled briefly, but the smile never reached those hard eyes. 'They'll get whatever they might need, just as long as they don't interfere in the orderly existence I've created for myself.'
'I see,' Lisa said weakly, and a deep-seated fury uncurled itself within her at the selfishness and callousness of this man. There was not an ounce of sympathy and compassion in Adam Vandeleur's powerful body for the two young children who had been placed in his care, and she understood suddenly the wistful expression on Josh and Kate's faces when they spoke of their uncle and guardian.
'I don't think we have anything further to discuss,' Adam Vandeleur dismissed her curtly, and Lisa rose from her chair, in a hurry now to escape from this disturbing man.
'Just a moment!' His voice, like a clap of thunder, stopped her as her hand touched the brass doorhandle, and her nerves seemed to jar uncomfortably as she turned to face him, realising at once the. reason for her detention when she saw his eyes on the walking-stick she leaned on. 'Have you injured your ankle?'
Lisa went cold beneath his scrutiny. 'No, it's—it's a hip injury I got in the accident.'
Those dark eyes raked her mercilessly now from head to foot. 'This alters the position entirely.',
'You—you mean as far as the job is concerned?'
'I do mean that, yes.'
Lisa could not remember ever being stirred to such anger, and her eyes glittered coldly as they met his. 'Because I have a slight physical disability it doesn't mean that I'm mentally deficient, Mr Vandeleur.'
His mouth tightened perceptibly. 'I'm not questioning your mental capabilities, Miss Moreau, but I doubt whether you're physically capable of handling the twins. They are very lively for their age.'
'I'll manage,' she said abruptly.
'I very much doubt it.'
'You could at least give me the opportunity to prove myself,' Lisa said accusingly, and the bitterness and disillusionment of the past months was clearly visible in the deep blue eyes that met his so steadily, and in the tightness about her normally soft mouth.
'I intend to give you that opportunity,' Adam Vandeleur said at length, his biceps bulging and straining against the short sleeves of his shirt as he moved the chair she had vacated out of his way and walked towards her. 'You have a month. Miss Moreau,' he warned, towering above her smallness so menacingly that she shrank against the door. 'If, at the end of that month, you find the physical strain too much, or if I'm not satisfied with the way you've managed, the twins, I shall have no compunction in replacing you.'
'Thank you,' Lisa murmured, a tremor of fear rippling through her slight body.
'Don't thank me, Miss Moreau,' he mocked her. 'After a month you may wish you hadn't been so eager to prove yourself.' He nodded abruptly. 'You may go.'
Tears of bitterness and anger filled her eyes and, groping blindly for the brass door handle, she turned it and walked as quickly as she could from the study. Adam Vandeleur was the most objectionable man she had ever met! He had shattered her sadly floundering confidence with a callousness that had bordered on
cruelty, but, as she paused for breath on the landing between the two floors, a new and almost frightening anger came to her rescue.
She would show Adam Vandeleur! She would show him, even if it killed her, that she was capable of looking after the twins as well as anyone else could.
She managed to regain her composure before entering the children's' room, and two pairs of brown eyes were raised at once to stare at her with intense curiosity. A dog barked excitedly in the garden below their window, and Lisa looked out just in time to see Adam Vandeleur disappearing round the corner of the house with a magnificent-looking Alsatian at his side, and she shivered involuntarily at the thought of having to confront this man every day for the next four months.
Josh could no longer contain his curiosity and, as Lisa turned away from the window, he asked: 'Did you see Uncle Adam?'
'Yes, I did,' Lisa replied evenly, seating herself on a small wooden chair to ease the weight off her leg.
Forgetting entirely about the mechanical crane he had been so absorbed in, Josh demanded: 'What did Uncle Adam say?'
'He said plenty,' Lisa thought bitterly, but as she stared into the two anxious faces staring up at her,, she smiled. 'He said I must see to it that the two of you don't get up to mischief.'
'What's mischief?' Kate wanted to know.
'Well, it means that you shouldn't do anything you're not supposed to do,' Lisa explained patiently.
Josh frowned and looked vaguely suspicious. 'What aren't we supposed to do?'
'You're not to go anywhere near the grazing camps, the stables, or the shearing shed,' she ticked their uncle's instructions off on her fingers. 'And you're to stay away from the farm machinery.'
'We know that,' Josh scowled, picking up his temporarily forgotten crane.
'But I didn't,' Lisa explained, 'and as this is the first time I've ever been on a farm, I suppose your uncle thought it best that he should make me aware of these things.'
Kate stared at Lisa over the droopy head of the rag doll she clutched against her. 'Have you never been on a farm before?'
Lisa shook her head. 'No, never.'
'Where do you stay?'
'I've lived in Cape Town all my life.'
Josh looked up from his manipulations of the toy crane and stared at Lisa thoughtfully. 'We went to Cape Town once with our mummy and daddy, and we went up the mountain in a—in a—'
'Cable car,' Lisa supplemented helpfully.
'Yes,' he nodded, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he recalled the memory. 'Gosh, it was exciting, but Kate cried 'cause she was scared.'
'I didn't cry, and I wasn't scared,' Kate protested, a mutinous expression on her small, rounded face.
'You were scared,' Josh insisted.
'I wasn't!'
'Stop it, both of you!' Lisa ordered sharply as Kate hurled herself at her brother, but neither of them heard her and, gripping their flailing arms in mid-air, she was forced to drag them apart. They stood breathing heavily and glaring at each other for a few moments, but then their anger subsided as quickly, as it had flared, and they lowered their eyes guiltily beneath Lisa's reproving glance.
'There's nothing wrong with being a little scared of the things you don't know,' Lisa said quietly, placing an arm about each of them. 'I was scared too the first time I went up the mountain in the cable car.'
'Were you really?' Josh questioned disbelievingly.
'Yes, I was,' Lisa confessed. 'Not everyone is as brave as you are, Josh.'
His chest seemed to swell with pride. 'Is it good to be brave?'
'Very good,' Lisa replied, but as she felt Kate wriggling uncomfortably in the circle of her arm, she added hastily, 'But it's also good to be a little scared at times. If you're scared, then you'll be careful, and in that way you won't do anything that is harmful, or dangerous.'
Kate's wriggling stilled instantly, and out of the corner of her eye Lisa glimpsed a satisfied expression on the little girl's face.
'Do you think our mummy and daddy crashed their plane because they weren't careful?'
'Oh, no,' Lisa hastened to assure Josh. 'I think they must, have been very careful, but accidents do happen, and…' she paused, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass invading her mind as she heard herself add unsteadily, 'We don't always understand why things happen, but we must learn to accept them as the will of God.'
A lengthy silence prevailed; a silence filled with the haunting memory of a girl's happy, carefree laughter moments before death swooped down to claim her, and then, as the agony of what had followed seared through her, Lisa became aware of Josh and Kate observing her strangely.
'You look sad, and you're crying,' Kate observed curiously, and Lisa's hands flew to her cheeks to find them hot and damp.
'I'm being silly,' she laughed a little shakily, brushing away the evidence of her tears with her fingertips and pulling herself together.
'We don't cry any more 'cause Gran told us our mummy and daddy are in heaven with the angels, and one day we'll see them again.'
'That's very true,' Lisa replied to Josh's remark with a matching sincerity and, thrusting aside her unhappy thoughts, she smiled at them and took their hands in hers. 'Come on, let's go outside so you can show me the garden.'
The twins were delighted at the prospect of acting as her guide, but, for children so young, they were surprisingly thoughtful about dampening their enthusiasm and exuberance, and keeping in mind the fact that Lisa might have difficulty in keeping pace with them as they introduced her to all their secret places in the garden with its smooth lawns and vast assortment of shrubs.
It seemed impossible to Lisa that such a lush green paradise could exist in the heart of this dry, acrid semi-desert, but, as she gently fingered the heavily veined petals of a pink camellia, she silently mocked her own ignorance.
This was a world she had not known before; a world far removed from the city with its hustle and bustle, its petrol fumes, and lifeless concrete buildings. Her ears, acquainted only with the ceaseless roar of traffic, delighted now in the sounds of nature all about her, and she relaxed, a smile of tranquillity softening the rigid contours of her face and bringing a half-forgotten sparkle to eyes where shadows had lurked moments before.
The twins laughed excitedly as they went in pursuit of a butterfly, and the smile lingered on Lisa's lips as she walked slowly across the lawn to join them. They were lively for their age, as Adam Vandeleur had pointed out, and they involved Lisa in their games until that familiar sharp pain in her hip forced her to cease her participation. Josh and Kate's disappointment was evident, but they overcame it quickly and continued with their boisterous game while Lisa sat on a wooden bench beneath a shady tree to keep a watchful eye on them.
Erica Vandeleur served tea on the verandah that morning, and the children helped themselves to several freshly-baked scones before they wandered off again to play in the garden. Lisa stood up hastily to follow them, but Erica Vandeleur gestured her back into her chair.
'They won't go too far—not while there are still scones left on the plate,' she smiled reassuringly, and Lisa relaxed only to find those grey-green eyes observing her questioningly. 'Did Adam see you earlier this morning?'
Lisa shifted uncomfortably in her chair as she recalled her interview with this woman's son. 'Mr Vandeleur did speak to me this morning, yes.'
'He's been so busy since my son Jacques died that he seldom has time to relax. It's nothing unusual these days to see him for the first time at dinner in the evenings.' Erica Vandeleur sighed and shook her grey head sadly. 'Heaven knows, this farm is big enough for two men, but with the added responsibility of Jacques' farm it's become a near impossible task.'
'Wouldn't the best solution be to employ a manager for the other farm?' Lisa questioned a little hesitantly.
'Suitable managers aren't that easy to find these days,' the older woman explained, 'but Adam has mentioned the possibility of employing someone at the end of this month, and I can't tell you
what a relief it would be to me.'
'Do the two farms join each other?'
'Unfortunately not,' Erica Vandeleur shook her head. 'The Jacksons' farm lies between Fairview and Waverley. Mr Jackson and his daughter, Willa, have helped Adam a great deal, but things can't continue like this indefinitely. Adam is a strong healthy man, but there's a limit to everyone's endurance and, with Willa assisting him so admirably, I'm afraid…' She paused, a frown settling between her brows, then, as Lisa stared at her curiously, she uttered a disparaging sound. 'It doesn't matter. I'm just being foolish, I suppose.'
A peculiar little silence settled between them; a silence during which Lisa wondered what exactly Erica Vandeleur was afraid of. Was she perhaps afraid that, with Willa Jackson assisting him with the work on Waverley, he might eventually consider marrying the girl? Surely a girl with the experience and knowledge of farming would make an admirable wife for a man like Adam Vandeleur? Or was it something else that Erica Vandeleur feared; something which Lisa was not aware of perhaps?
The silence was broken when Josh and Kate bounded up the steps on to the verandah to help themselves to the remainder of the scones and, dismissing her thoughts with a careless shrug, Lisa excused herself and accepted the children's offer to show her more of the farm.
The sun was warm against her pale skin as she followed Josh and Kate through the garden and, not for the first time since her arrival on Fairview, she drew the air deep into her lungs and marvelled at the clean freshness of it. It must be marvellous, she thought, to live in this environment every day of one's life, to breathe in the tangy air of the veld, and to live so close to nature that you eventually become an inseparable part of it. She recalled her disparaging remarks concerning the Karoo when her aunt had first suggested her coming here, and, although her opinion had not altered entirely, there was something about this desolate land that appealed to her, making her feel ashamed of the things she had said.
Summer of the Weeping Rain Page 4
