The Bridesmaid's Wedding

by Margaret Way

  “That’s because I don’t give my money away.”

  “That’s news to me.” Ally pecked her affectionately on the cheek.

  “Darling, I know what you’re getting at, but that’s a family secret. De Lyle hated taking my money but I insisted. Francesca had to have the best of everything.”

  “She only wanted her mum.”

  “I know.” Fee nestled closer to her niece for comfort. “Don’t remind me of the egocentric woman I was. Tell me your little problem. Not Rafe, of course. He’s a big problem.”

  “I’m being.harassed, Fee,” Ally said bluntly.

  Fee looked around so nervously an armed intruder might have found their way through the open French door. “My darling girl. This is terrible.” Her voice rang with concern. “One can get a maximum of fifteen years for stalking. Have you spoken to the police? You absolutely must.”

  “If you promise to sit quietly, I’lll tell you,” Ally said. Fee had a tendency to turn everything into a play starring herself. Ally had seen it before. It didn’t take that long to tell her everything with Fee turned to face her full-on, obviously wanting the dialogue to be two-way but holding off valiantly until Ally had finished.

  “My darling, don’t think I don’t know what you’re going through!” Fee exclaimed, pushing a silk cushion out of the way. “There was a time, I’d rather not think of it now, it was pretty scary, that wretched person…” Fee broke off, managing to steer herself back on track. “But we can’t not let Brod know!”

  “Hang on, Fee. I have your promise,” Ally reminded her.

  Fee shuffled her pretty feet in her beautiful Italian evening sandals. “I never realised what you were about to tell me. This is a terrible thing for as young woman to have to endure. Any woman. No wonder you nipped around to my place. You must stay here. Never leave the house. I can arrange everything. Bodyguards, security people.”

  Ally placed her hand over her aunt’s. “Fee, dearest, I’m going back to the apartment after work tomorrow. I know you want to entertain Fran and David. I’ve heard about all the outings you’ve lined up. Fran only has a couple more days before she goes home. I don’t want you to worry her with this business.”

  Fee sat back and gave a deep sigh. “Darling, she loves you. She would want to know.”

  “She can’t do anything, Fee and I don’t want to spoil her stay with anything unpleasant. David, either. He is looking so much better than the last time I saw him.”

  “I married the wrong cousin.” Fee made a wry face.

  “That’s okay. David was married himself at the time.”

  Fee thought hard for a moment. “I suppose he was. He’s so fond of me. That’s the final irony. His mother, God rest her soul, always treated me like a stampeding rhino let loose in the castle. So you’re going to leave this all up to Rafe?”

  Ally nodded. “Janet Massie will be with me tomorrow night.”

  “What help would another woman be, darling?” Fee asked doubtfully.

  “You haven’t seen Janet.” Ally smiled. “She’s a great character, she’s built like a barrel. She ran a cattle station single handedly after her husband died. You’d have to stomp over Janet to get to me and by then you’d probably be bleeding to death.”

  Fee was impressed. “So this Janet is going to be your shadow until Rafe arrives?” “Something like that.” Ally nodded.

  “So if you ask me, the man is still madly in love with you.” Fee the expert in such matters sounded utterly convinced.

  “Even if that were true, I’ve convinced him totally I’m not marriage material. He needs someone he’s certain is always going to be there.”

  “Not the little Mary Poppins character, Lainie Rhodes?” Fee gasped. “Why, darling, she fades into insignificance. beside you. Though I have to say she’s very much more attractive than she used to be but she still puts me in mind of an exctitable…”

  “Puppy.” Ally uttered a low groan. “Rafe used to say exactly the same thing.”

  “Darling, I think l need a drink to soothe my nerves.” Fee went into a sort of foetal crouch.

  “Not if you don’t Want to wake up with a hangover?” Ally was unmoved “You know you’re off to the Blue Mountains in the morning.”

  “Forget the Blue Mountains!” Fee swung upright, her rich resonant voice booming with outrage. “I can’t possibly go away and leave you.”

  “Well, good for you,” Ally responded patting her aunt’s hand. “But, Fee, it isn’t as though this person has ever shown his face. He gets his kicks.out of sick letters and obscene phone calls. I’d be really worried if he decided to send around six dozen pizzas. No, you go, Fee. Rafe thought you should know.”

  “Of course I should know!” Fee flared. “With your father dead, I’m head of the family. Nothing wrong with a bit of tradition.”

  “Rafe also thought. we should keep. this strictly between us,” Ally added meaningfully.

  “All right.” Fee gave in with reluctance, “But I’ll have Berty,” she referred to the husband in her Dynamic Duo team, “drive you right tothe door of the studio. Icould never ever forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  It came out with such incredible drama, Ally leaned over to kiss her aunt resoundingly, “Nothing is going to happen to me, old girl.”

  Fee laughed. “My darling, you’ll be an old girl in time.”

  “I very much hope so.” Ally felt a little prickle of fear run down her spine. “Janet will be there to keep an eye on me and the apartment and Rafe wants to do a little investigation of his own. He’ll be here in a few days.”

  “Thank Gods for the Camerons” Fee breathed. “Crossing either of them would be like crossing Crocodile Dundee. You do know our ancestor, Cecilia Kinross, loved Charlie Cameron not Ewan Kinross the man she married.”

  “Perhaps they were all under the weather,” Ally suggested. “The Scots love a wee drop of Highland malt.”

  “That they do,” Fee agreed fervently. “You’re a really good actress, my darling. For what it’s worth, fractionally better than I was at your age, but I can t help thinking you missed a glorious opportunity when you let Rafe Cameron slip through your fingers. My best advice to you, based on wide experience, is, go to bed with him. Nothing like bed to cement a relationship. I have my darling daughter to prove it.”

  When she slept it was to dream. Fragmentary dreams tumbling one on the other born of the late-night conversation with Fee about the stalker. She was always in some dark place waiting for him to come for her, helpless, at the end of her resources, waking herself up moaning only to fall back into the same dream. She would have emerged wild-eyed, only towards dawn her dream turned to the remembered rapture of earlier years when she and Rafe were inseparable. When Rafe’s mother and father had been alive, welcoming her to Opal like her second home. Home really. She had never tasted happiness at Kimbara since her mother had left vowing to gain custody of her and Brod, in time but facing an enormous uphill battle against their father’s power and influence. They had never seen their mother again, heartbroken children with a father who was a commanding near stranger.

  For all of her childhood and adolescence Brod and Rafe had been her heroes. Every time she hugged one, kissed one, she hugged and kissed the other. She adored both of them from infancy. Her brother andher brother’s best friend, Rafe Cameron. Five years separated her from her heroes, consequently she had happily taken over the role of little sister. Until, as such things happen, she and Rafe had fallen in love. Then the whole landscape changed and the sweetness of affection, the unshakeable childhood bond became a love so overwhelming it became too much for a young girl’s heart to hold, Not that Rafe had ever made her miserable demanding more than she could give him. Even as a boy Rafe could have written the book on self-control. Rafe was very honourable indeed and she had the powerful security of knowing she mattered deeply to him. Rafe, ‘her perfect knight. But they were passionately in love.

  Behind her closed lids, half-waking dream
sequences stole into her mind…the summerhouse her grandfather had built on the banks of the creek that meandered through Kimbara’s home gardens. It was there Rafe had kissed her for the first time as a woman, not a little girl….

  There was a party on at the homestead. Past midnight it was in full spate. Her father was entertaining some visiting Asian prince who had taken a fancy to playing polo and bought several of Kimbara’s excellent polo ponies. She could see all the lights blazing through the house flowing out onto the gardens. She could hear the music and the laughter, drown in the heady sweetness of jasmine that smothered the white lattice walls of the summerhousei. The night was marvellous with a huge copper moon that spread its radiance all over the desert landscape.

  She was sixteen and the tiniest little bit tipsy. Rafe had gone off to get her cold drink but she had sneaked a glass of fine champagne from one of the waiters trays, quaffing it quickly, loving the taste and the bubbles, the way they filled her mouth, then the sensation. of stars exploding inside her.

  “Hey, Ally!” Rafe came back and saw her with the champagne flute, his expression very much big brother.

  “Don’t be a spoilsport!” she laughed, loving the sparkle that had settled on her. Loving him. She was moving onto the terrace intent on the night, running across the lawn, full of her first intoxication, with responsible Rafe in pursuit. She was breathless by the time she reached the summerhouse, feeling pure joy she had managed to beat him. Him with his long legs and superb male athleticism. Still laughing she held onto a white pillar for support, fragrance in her nose, jasmine flowers catching in the long cloud of her hair. She was wearing a green silk taffeta dress to match her eyes, at new dress, a beautiful grown-up dress, a present from Aunt Fee who lived halfway across the world but never forgot her.

  Rafe laughed, too. A lovely indulgent laugh that would be forever in her ears.

  “Just look at you,” he teased.

  “What do you see?” In an instant she was sober, taken over by some unstoppable emotion, an intensity of awareness, suddenly years older. Different.

  “I see a sixteen-year-old with the giggles,” he said in the same teasing ways but something didn’t fit. An edge.

  “I only had one gilassl” She made an effort to defend herself.

  “I know, but you’re not having another,” he clipped off, already twenty-one and a man. “Time to go back now, Ally. We can’t leave the party.”

  “Why not?” She was full of mischief, a sense of a woman’s power. “Who’s going to miss us?”

  “I’d hate to see you get into trouble,” Rafe, long used to Stewart Kinross’s severe ways, retorted. “You know what your father is like.”

  “Perfectly.” Suddenly tears pricked behind her eyes.

  “Loving me and showing me off are two different things. I’m just a possession in my father’s world, Rafe. You know that. God help me if I were plain or stupid.”

  Rafe sighed in tacit agreement, holding out his hand.

  “Let’s go back, Ally.” He sounded and tender but her blood was fired.

  “I absolutely refuse to. And you can’t make me.” She lifted her face to him with the old childhood dare.

  A curl of a smile touched his mouth. “Oh, yes, I can, Ally Kinross. I can pick you up and carry you anywhere. Anytime.”

  “Dear, darling, Rafe, why don’t you do it?” she challenged, seeing the sudden glitter in his eyes, overjoyed he was responding despite himself.

  “I’m joking, Ally,” he said stemly just to prove it. “Don’t make it hard for me. “

  “Come on Rafe, it’s Ally,” she said. “Nobody looks after me better than you do.” Something sweeter than the jasmine, more powerful than the moonlight surged through her veins. She moved towards him in total silence. Walked right into his arms.

  “I love you, Rafe,” she said with exquisite pleasure. Words of endearment she had used all her life but never with the unmistakable depths of a woman.

  “Ally!” He turned away his splendid head with its thatch of golden hair, but not before she saw torment hone his features.

  “I love you,” she repeated, never quite completing the word as he acted like lightning-sweeping her into his arms in the most wonderful way imaginable, masterful, romantic, she had ever dreamed of, his beautiful mouth swooping down, to cover hers, Warmly, deeply, searchingly, raging with desire. It was simply. .a revelation. Heaven.

  “Afterwards neither of them spoke as though each recognised nothing would be the same between them again. She wasn’t his “little chick” any longer. His responsibility. The chick had found wings….

  Ally came completely awake still savouring Rafe’s phantom kiss on her mouth. She fancied she even had the scent of him on her skin, the marvellous maleness. She was as needy of him now as she had been then, but in seeking to distance herself from him to gain some perspective on what was happening in their unique relationship she had only succeeded in distancing herself from him completely. If only she’d had an mother to advise her, to sort her out, to help her get a handle on her tumultuous emotions. “She realised now Rafe had kept a tight control on his own desire, but then Rafe was five years older, heir to a great historic station and well used to handling responsibility from boyhood. On that score alone they’d been helplessly mismatched.

  It was after Rafe’s parents had been killed so tragically they had consummated their love. Rafe trying to bury his grief in the rapture her body gave him. She had been awesomely good at offering him forgetfulness, aching for him, aching for lost relationships, the fine man and woman who had fostered her and shown her so much affection. Maybe if Sarah Cameron had lived Ally would have been Rafe’s wife today but she’d had no mother figure to call on then and she, too, was missing Rafe’s parents terribly.

  Is it any wonder she made so many youthful mistakes.

  Ally was up early to see the family off. She knew they planned to spend the day in the beautiful Blue Mountains less than an hour’s drive from Sydney. The whole area covering some five hundred square miles was famous for its tourist attractions, taking its name from the early settlers because of the marvellous bluish haze that hung over the mountains. Though it looked magical the haze was caused by fine drops of eucalyptus oils in the atmosphere, the heavily wooded slopes being covered with eucalypt trees. Fee had a great friend who lived in the beautiful township, of Leura with a very grand garden, so that was an additional attraction.

  Ally had just started breakfast prepared by Polly, the female half of the Dynamic Duo——Ally suspected quite correctly Berty and Polly weren’t their real names at all, but some invention of Fee’s—when Francesca entered the morning room, her lovely serene face lit up with a smile… .

  “You know. Mamma had this room decorated to look almost exactly like our trellised orangerie at Ormond.”

  “Sweetheart, I know that,” Ally said, tipping back her head to look at the fabric-tented ceiling. “What a pity you’re not going to inherit the stately pile.”

  “It’s a pile, all right.” Francesca bent down to kiss her cousin’s cheek, then took a wheelback chair opposite her. “I don’t know how it hasn’t sent poor Papa broke. It passes to my cousin, Edward, you know, unless I produce a male heir I don’t mind, really. I don’t need that kind of inheritance. The upkeep is killing and it’s dreadfully cold. I’ll settle for Mamma’s view of Sydney Harbour” She looked out the open French doors to the balustraded terrace and beyond that the dazzling blue waters of arguably the most beautiful harbour in the world. “Oh, I wish I could stay!”

  “So do I!” Ally looked back. “We’d make a wonderful team, we could go everywhere together. It would be such a pleasure to have you.”

  “I can see it, too, but I have my P.R. job waiting for me back in London.”

  “Surely you don’t have to go back to resign?” Ally poured her cousin a cup of coffee. “You could easily find something here. That patrician face. That patrician voice. Lady Francesca de Lyle ain’t bad, either,” Ally joked.
“Besides, I know you want to stay.”

  “That obvious, is it?”

  “It’s a woman thing, love. We always know. Actually, I’ve been working on a plan.”

  Francesca gave her cousin a speaking glance. “Trouble is, I don’t think Grant would ever buy it.”

  “Why do you say that?” Ally pretended to be shocked. “You don’t know the plan yet.”

  Francesca put out a hand to cover Ally’s. “I love it the way you’re always thinking of me, but Grant knows how his brother suffered after you left. He’s vowed never to make the same mistake.”

  Ally glanced away, nibbling at her lip. “I was the one who made the mistake, Fran.”

  “So why don’t you tell Rafe that?” Francesca urged.

  Ally shook her dark head. “I made a fool of him so he can’t and won’t forgive me. You don’t know those Carnerons. They’re far too proud.”

  “Maybe that’s just a front?” Francesca asked.hopefully. “I know I could get Grant to fall in love with me.”

  “Sweetheart, as it happens, any man could fall in love with you,” Ally said laconically. “I’m certain Grant recognises you for the lovely young woman you are but as a realist he sees you were born into a world infinitely different from an isolated Outback cattle station. Maybe he thinks you couldn’t survive in such an enviromnent. Come to think of it, it is a big ask.”

  “But, Ally, I’m an outdoors girl,” Francesca said firmly, but not loudly. Polly was due with her breakfast.

  Ally rolled her eyes. “Darling, roaming your father’s green fields and rolling hills is a far cry from losing yourself in a killer wilderness. And it is a killer, Fran. Make no mistake. There have been plenty of fatalities to prove it from the early, explorers to overseas adventurers who think they can conquer the Wild Heart.”

  “You love it,” Francesca maintained. “You grew up on Kimbara. I fell in love with it at age ten. I’m a Kinross, too. On my mother’s side.”

  “Sure you are!” Ally saluted herwith her coffee cup.