The Bridesmaid's Wedding

by Margaret Way

  He had tried to despise her. A futile exercise.

  “Don’t hate me, don’t hate me,” she implored, still effortlessly reading his mind. Still making it so easy for him to caress her beautiful body. Women like her knew how to tum the tables. She was the victim now. He was the man with a heart of stone.

  His body tensed, bringing hard muscles into play. Immediately she locked him with her long. slender legs. Threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t leave me, Rafe.”

  His heart thudding so loudly it might have been trying to break out from behind his ribs. “You’re a witch,” he accused her harshly. “A witch and worse.”

  “But you can’t do without me.” She stared into his eyes.

  He wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt him.

  “When it comes to sex, I guess we’re perfectly matched.” He bent his golden head, burying his face in the curve of her neck while she began to whisper strangely. Little incantations she once told him, Lala Guli, a powerful old aboriginal woman on Kimbara had taught her. The same incantations she had used years ago. Magic. Woman magic. In reality, potent.

  The blood roared in his veins like a great tumult of water over at canyon. He lifted her in his strong arms. Hoisted her over him, held her while her hair, that incredible hair, fell, covering them both like a curtain.

  Then slowly, tortuously he lowered her against his intemperate body.

  He was mad for her. Quite simply mad. One word said it.

  Now, witch that she was, was kissing him all over his face. Little fluttery kisses like a butterfly dancing. Kisses that got right under his skin. Tiny traitorous kisses that he had to put a stop to.

  He took hold of her head between his two hands, holding her, kissing her until he almost put a stop to her breath. In defiance of everything, his will and his pride. She was Ally. His one and only woman. His desire for her had grown ever more insatiable over time.

  So long. So long.

  The heat between them was sparking, running like a flame towards dynamite. Rafe drew a deep shuddering breath pushing her nightgown to her waist, lowering his head so he could kiss her swelling breasts, take the fragrant, tightly bunched berries right into his mouth. Too late now to curse himself for his human frailty. Yet he had never felt more powerful, more virile.

  “My love, my love!”

  Her frenzied little cry sent him totally off balance. She knew this had been inevitable. A kind of angry laugh broke from him even as he readied her body to receive him, realising as he entered her, her beautiful face was wet with tears.

  Ally woke with a start and leapt to her feet, reaching for her discarded nightgown to cover her nakedness. Her body still bore the imprint of Rafe’s, the male scent of him clung to her skin. She thought she remembered exactly how it was, the feeling that poured over them like a king tide, but nothing could match what happened between them last night. Her skin drenched with colour and her eyes blazed in her face. She would remember it all her life.”

  “Afterwards she thought she could never sleep, her body still throbbed and pulsed, but Rafe had laid beside her so quiet, so profoundly thoughtful, she had turned her head into the pillow and, exhausted, had fallen into a deep dreamless sleep. Now she tied her mass of hair into a rough ponytail and hurried down the hallway. The apartment was very still, like there was no one there.”

  “Rafe?” she cried in earnest. Her normally melodious voice high-pitched with a residue of powerful emotion.

  “I hear you.”

  He was out on the balcony, looking at the streams of traffic that moved over the Expressway spanning the river. Now as he walked back into the apartment looking not the least bit dishevelled but terribly dashing, his eyes moved over her, taking in the stained cheekbones, the brilliant eyes, the way the sunlight rayed through her nightgown, outlining her figure.

  “Good morning, darling,” he drawled, mockery in his eyes, his attitude, in the very twist of his mouth.

  “You shouldn’t have let me sleep in.” All of as sudden she felt profoundly unbalanced.

  “I was about to call you.” He glanced casually at his watch. “You have plenty of time.”

  “I wanted to make your breakfast.” Uncertainly she turned towards the galley.

  “How charming!” His iridescent eyes glinted. “Actually I attended to myself. A quick shower. Tea and toast.”

  She’d heard nothing so deeply had she slept. “About last night…” she said in a faraway voice.

  “Should be the title of a book, don’t you think? A screenplay. A film starring the glorious, sexy, Ally Kinross. No wonder men worship you.”

  By this point she knew exactly where she stood. “Can’t we talk about this, Rafe?” she begged.

  “Darling, no. I must dash off. But I had fun.”

  “Fun? Is that what we had?” She looked at him questioningly, pain in her eyes.

  “What do you want me to say, Ally? I’m about to shoot myself. . Unrequited love?”

  “I meant everything I said.”

  “How astonishing!” He lifted one goldenbrown eyebrow “We didn’t talk at all, though you had a particularly good time with all Lala’s jargon.”

  “It’s not jargon and you know it. It’s ritualistic love magic.”

  He laughed, a discordsant sound, but attractive.

  “Whatever the hell it is, it works. For a time.” He checked his watch again, stretched with a graceful movement that put her in mind of some lithe big cat. “Ally, I adore you. Thank you for having me over. Now I intend to stay until it’s time foryou to leave for the airport. I’ll ring the cab and put you in itmyself. Then I have to beat it back to my own hotel, pickup my things and settle my account. The Piper is at Archerfield. I’ll only be a little late for takeoff.”

  She turned her head away to hide her distress. “You don’t have to wait for me.” It was almost as though she had dreamed last night or had their lovemaking existed in another dimension?

  “But I intend to.” He had turned up sleeves in an attempt to appear more casually dressed when he returned to his hotel. The finely pleated white shirt was obviously a dress shirt but open-necked, long sleeves tucked up, with the beautifully cut slate blue trousers, his gold hair perfectly groomed, he looked more like a movie star than cattle baron. “You see, Ally,” he trod softly past her and pinched her cheek, “I briefly considered treachery but discarded it. I’m taking this harassment problem of yours very seriously. I’m going to get on to Janet this very day and ask her to help us out. Something tells me she’ll jump at the chance. I’ll arrange for her to fly to Sydney, give her your address r and ex-directory number. It might be an idea to write it all down and you can take it from there.”

  “You’ll do this-for me?” Her voice was grateful.

  “I certainly will. I can hardly forget I once loved you dearly. Anyway you’re a Kimoss. My best friend’s sister. Brod and Rebecca would be deeply disturbed if they knew what’s been going on.”

  “You won’t tell them?” she pressed him. “You won’t let them know. Not while they’re on their honeymoon.”

  He agreed with a faint niggle of worry. “You must let me act in Brod’s stead. But I insist you go to Fee while you have the locks to your apartment changed. I think you should tell her. I expect her to be terribly concerned, but please tell her to leave it to me. Make her understand we don’t want Brod and Rebecca caught up in it yet.”

  “I hate all this,” she said. “The terrible unease. I can’t get accustomed to it at all.”

  “It will soon be over,” he promised, his expression turning “I have some urgent business that will keep me on Opal for the best part of this week but I’d like to come to Sydney after that and or look around for myself. Have a chat to the particular police officer in charge of your investigation. Maybe your bosses, your producer. Why don’t you go off and have your shower while I make some coffee. I know you don’t like tea.”

  She nodded. “I hate to drag you into this thing, Rafe. I know better
than anybody how hard you work. All your responsibilities.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Ally,” he said. “I have the will and the energy and I’ll feel a lot better when the whole matter is cleared up. In the meantime I want you to be very, very careful.”

  “Tell me about it!” A shadow of her luminous smile. “Did you know Fee will have Francesca and David staying with her?”

  “Fee told me. So what? I haven’t seen it but Brod said your aunt bought herself a great house right on the harbour.”

  This time Ally gave a genuine laugh. “It’s really something. Much too big for one person but you know what Fee’s like. She’s s used to splendour. The ex-countess and all. She has live-in help, a husband and Wife, and she intends to entertain a lot. She’s been approached by important people in the Arts to give of her enormous experience.”

  Rafe nodded. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy it. A woman like Fee should never retire. I happen to know she adores you and she worships Brod, so take advantage of the situation. Your aunt will always be there for you. She’s returning home today, isn’t she?” he questioned with a slight frown. Maybe she wasn’t.

  “Afternoon flight,” Ally confirmed. “Fee never can get up in the morning. I expect Fran will want to spend every moment with Grant.”

  His shapely mouth tightened. “Fran is a beautiful girl and she has all the charm in the world but I hope you’re not promoting any romance. I know Fran’s your cousin and you’re very fond of one another, but an English rose won’t transplant easily to the desert. Francesca is a titled young woman. An aristocrat from the other side of the world. Lady Francesca de Lyle. It suits her beautifully.”

  “Of course it does,” Ally said with a return to her usual spirit, “but she has a Kinross for a mother, Her father doesn’t have as much money as you might think. It’s been Kinross money that’s been allowing Fran to move easily through her privileged world and incidentally helping out the earl.”

  Rafe’s brows shot up. ‘Well then, that’s a surprise.”

  “It would be asurprise to a lot of people, I guess,” Ally said simply, “including,Fran.”

  “You mean, she doesn’t know?” Rafe gave an incredulous laugh.

  “I’m certain she doesn’t,” Ally said “Fee didn’t intend her to know. Perhaps Fee, felt guilty about all the lost years and thought money wouldn’t serve. Who knows. All I’m saying is, it’s my family who have the money, Rafe. Not the earl. He has the stately pile but it has nearly sent him broke.”

  Rafe drew a whistling breath. “That’ s a pretty big secret. You think you can trust me with it?” He challenged her with his iridescent eyes.

  “I’d trust you with my life,” she said. It had the ring of perfect truth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FEE was in wonderful form, enjoying herself enormously. Her mother was one of those women who could go on for hours and hours without ever losing her audience Francesca thought, torn between love and a lifetime of regrets.

  Lady Francesca de Lyle, the poor little rich girl, sent to live with her father after her parents divorced. “A marriage that had started to disintegrate from day one,” her father always said. She had suffered and her father had suffered. Victims of Fee’s relentless pursuit towards fame. With her many long years in the public eye, the luxurious lifestyle she had led, her fame as an actress, her two prominent marriages, one to reserved English aristocrat, her father, the other to a handsome, flamboyant vagabond of an American film star who had cast his spell over millions of women around the world, it was only to be expected Fee had many a riveting story to tell. Not only that, she kept changing voices for all the various people she portrayed.

  “Such a marvellous raconteur,” David murmured, his elegant face full of admiration. “The most beguiling woman I’ve ever met.”

  Francesca gave a little wry smile. “Some piece of work,” was the way her father phrased it. She s tried to push to the back of her mind the sad lonely years when there had been far too many things going on in her mother’s brilliant career for her to pay attention to a small daughter. Still I love her dearly, Francesca thought, seeing, as a woman, how her mother and father had been almost totally incompatible.

  “Living with your father was like living without conversation,” Fee once told her. “The most exciting communication was how the home farms were doing or how much it was going to cost to fix as section of the blessed roof. Some part of it was always caving in. Decent man that he is, one could scarcely call your father profound.” But for a long while he had been kept captive.

  Dinner over, Fee got them all moving to the living room for coffee and liqueurs. Fee loved people. Obviously what she couldn’t suffer was silence. How very different we are! Francesca realised it more and more with every day. An only child, she had been thrown back on herself for entertainment, relying heavily on her love of reading and roaming her father’s beautiful estate.

  Like all the de Lyles she was a born country woman. And her love for the land didn’t stop at England’s green fields. She found her mother’s ancestral home, Kimbara, the most thrilling place on earth. The sheer immensity of it, the frightening isolation, the savage beauty and most of all the colourations of the extraordinary landscape, the hot pinks and yellows, the fiery brick reds and the white and black ochres that contrasted sharply with the blazing blue sky. She loved the burnt umber of the great plains, the mile after mile of parallel sand hills breaking to the horizon in a blue sea of mirage.

  She’d been ten years old when her mother had first brought her to Australia. “Home” to the great homestead where Fee had been born. A homestead which, far from appearing insignificant in comparison with her father’s magnificent Ormond Hall, had a quite extraordinary impact of its own. When she really thought aboutit, Kimbara stood alone as another fascinating planet might stand alone. All she knew was she loved it. She could even settle there.

  An English rose in the desert? She heard Grant Cameron’s deep drawljng tones.

  Hadn’t he forgotten this great country of theirs was opened up by settlers from the British Isles? There had been plenty of English roses, Scottish roses, Irish roses, you name them, all mentioned in their history books. Strong, fearless women who had imposed their own kind of civilisation on the Timeless Land. The Kinrosses and the Camerons had their origins in Scotland. There had been powerful women figures in the family. She must remind Grant of that, whenever she saw him again. God, she had really complicated her life allowing herself to fall in love with a man from the Outback.

  “Come on, my darlings!” Fee came up, arms outflung. She swept them from the entrance hall into the luxuriously appointed living room, dominated by a wonderful portrait of her at the height of her beauty and fame. It hung in splendour above the Italianate fireplace, a focus for all eyes.

  Absolutely dazzling, David thought. The artist had caught her very essence. Passionate, histrionic, wilful, possessed of aboundless inner energy that had driven her brilliant acting career. She was dressed in an exquisite haute couture ball gown of emerald silk, posing on a small gilt and embroidered silk settee that was part of a suite in his brother’s Gold Drawing Room. The pose was pure Singer Sargent, Fee leaning forward slightly to display the beautiful curves of her shoulders and bosom.

  Not a man to take a great deal of notice of women’s fashions, David remembered that gown well.

  Francesca had not inherited her features or Fee’ s flamboyant nature. She was a de Lyle. The one who most resembled Fiona Kinross, the star, was her niece, Alison. Both of them had that flamelike quality, a combination of strength and a strange, touching, vulnerability. Alison, too, was making her mark, Fee had told them at dimier, while her niece tried to stop her. Alison had been offered the female lead in an exciting new film. A thriller. David supposed if the film took off Alison would go to America andperhaps never come back. The Kinross women seemed to choose a career before marriage.

  “Suddenly he felt enormously grateful Fee had retired, although people we
re always offering her jobs. At the end of the year her biography written by Brod’s clever wife, Rebecca, would come out. How far would it go? Whatever her faults Fee wasn’t the woman to want to deliberately hurt anyone. He thought of de Lyle, now quietly but contentedly married. How had Fee and his cousin ever got together? They couldn’t have been more different. It wasn’t as though Fee had been looking for a step up the social ladder. She was a princess in her own country and, let’s face it, Fee had brought to her marriage a magnificent dowry. Fee the golden girl with the Midas touch. David suddenly realised he couldn’t bear to let her go out of his life. In his mind, she was like tat ray of glorious sunshine and he so loved the Australian sun.

  Ally waited until long after their guests had departed and Francesca and David had said their good-nights. Fee, the habitual night owl, was still as bright as a button, sitting on a sofa, talking over, the events of the evening.

  “I had mixed feelings about asking Miles and Sophie but it turned out rather well, don’t you think?” she asked rather slyly.

  “Yes,” Ally agreed with a degree of amazement. “Not everyone asks along a ménage a trois, present husband, ex-husband.”

  Fee laughed. “Honestly why Miles and Sophie broke up, I’ll never know. They were a team!”

  “Fee, I have something to tell you,” Ally interrupted before Fee had a chance to summon up an anecdote about her theatrical friends.

  “Darling,” Fee patted the sofa beside her, “come here. Of course you can tell me anything you like. There’s something on your mind. I’ve been trying to get it out of you since you arrived.”

  “It’s not about Rafe,” Ally answered wryly. She sat down beside her aunt taking Fee’s elegant beringed hand with its knockout brilliant cut seven carat solitaire diamond, a love token from her second husband. “Is this darn thing insured?” Ally rearranged the ring a bit.

  Fee shook her head. “I can’t keep up with the premium.”

  “Fee, you’re a very rich woman.” Ally looked her in the eyes.