Outback Bachelor

by Margaret Way

  The two of them seen together were stunning. Perfect foils for each other, Lady McGovern thought. Keefe so dark of hair and bronzed of complexion; Skye the blue-eyed, golden-honey blonde. Skye, being Skye, was giving no thought to the impact of her own beauty, unaware she was catching all the light. Of course they had all heard versions of that burning kiss. She, for one, heard everything that went on at the vast station. Some things she wouldn’t tell. Things that were secreted in her heart. Not that she had one hundred per cent proof. Just the awful nagging anxiety that had never left her. The bond between Skye and her beloved grandson forged in childhood had reached the dangerous stage.

  Such a shame, a shame, a terrible shame…Both would be badly wounded. That’s if it was the truth. Lady McGovern took turns at belief and disbelief. Too fearful of going further. Lives could be destroyed. But knowing her grandson as she did, she knew he wouldn’t rest until he had the truth by the throat. Her unwillingness to speak of the past—the secrets she had buried—she accepted now would have to be revealed with all their wider implications. Not only Keefe and Skye would be devastated. What about Jack? Sometimes nothing was as it appeared to be. Sometimes the truth destroyed.

  Dinner was over. Skye walked with Keefe through the home gardens, under palm fronds and low-arching branches freighted with summer blossom. Above them a glorious starred sky: Orion, the mighty hunter, Alpha, Centauri, Sirius, watchdog of the night sky, the sparkling river of diamonds, Lilah Lilya, the Milky Way, and burning bright over the sandhills the five points of Jirranjoonga, the Southern Cross. Around them a wonderfully scented desert landscape. They might have been inside a bush cathedral. Silently, as though locked in their own thoughts, they reached one of the pavilions that had been built at various points around the extensive grounds. This one, hexagonal in structure, featured white trelliswork that supported a prolifically flowering king jasmine. After the intense heat of the day, the desert quickly cooled off, so the air was sublimely fresh.

  Without a word, Keefe put his strong hands to her slender hips, trapping her against him. “Alone at last!” His striking face bore an expression that held both hunger and pain.

  She sighed deeply as an answering emotion engulfed her. Sensually she leaned into him. So thrilling! “Did you see their faces?”

  “Okay.” He drew back, a faint edge to his voice, knowing his family had heard about the kiss. “I saw their faces. But I thought dinner went well. The Templetons are very pleasant people.”

  “They are. Even so, it was easy to gauge everyone’s surprise. Correction—make that shock.”

  “Who would care?” he said impatiently. “There couldn’t be a woman on earth who makes me feel like you do. Come closer to me, Skye. I can’t seem to get you close enough.’

  Unable to help herself, she fitted herself against him. They were a perfect physical match. “This is what it comes to in the end, isn’t it?” she asked poignantly. “We need to make love.”

  “Evidently I want it more than you do,” he told her with a twisted smile.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” She turned her head this way and that so he could nuzzle her neck. Impossible to think when her whole body was transformed into a column of sensation.

  “What bothered me more was the way Scott kept directing looks your way.” He lifted his head abruptly to search her face.

  So Scott had. Looks that had made her feel she needed to protect herself. But she couldn’t tell Keefe that. Thwarted desire only too often turned to hate. “People don’t change,” she said very quietly.

  “He won’t bother you.” His vibrant voice held a distinct rasp.

  “He can scarcely do that as I’m going home.”

  “So you keep saying.” He pressed his mouth to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. Not content, he slipped off her earring and put it in his pocket. Then he returned to teasing and gently nipping the lobe. “I thought Djinjara was your home?” he muttered. “I detest these separations.”

  She gave a little discordant laugh. “Just think, if we were anywhere else—in the city instead of on Djinjara—I suppose I could be your mistress?” There was just a glimmer of goading in her voice. “Your sister finds it unthinkable you could fall in love with me. Your grandmother too looked very watchful. She’s fond of me but I definitely don’t figure in her plans.”

  He broke off his ministrations, stepping out of the role of lover. “Much as I love Gran, I make my own plans,” he said firmly. “You ought to know that.”

  “Then what are we doing, Keefe?” She sought an answer.

  “Could you forget me?” he countered with intensity.

  “Sometimes I wish I could,” she burst out emotionally. “Sometimes—

  “Sometimes, sometimes…do you how much I ache for you?” Keefe lowered his head, covered her mouth so effectively it cut off her breath.

  He kissed her until she was whimpering, desperate to fall into his bed.

  “This is torture,” he muttered. He was speaking for both of them. His tongue parted her lips again, making urgent contact with the slickness within. It was an intense encounter. No time for tenderness. Only raw passion, made more ravenous by the prospect of being parted. He was holding her so powerfully, her juddering back was arched against the vine covered trellis. It was insane—someone might come—but she was letting herself simply melt. His hand, imperceptibly trembling, had pushed down into her low-necked top, his fingers finding her already swollen nipple, working it and her into an erotic frenzy. She could feel his hard arousal. Her own core had long since gone liquid in response.

  One of his long legs drove hers apart. They strained ever closer with the primitive desire to be naked. However lightly she was dressed, Skye felt her clothing to be as restrictive as a spacesuit. There was only one end to this kind of love-making. Where they were and who they were was all but obliterated by a consuming passion. Such was the level of intensity she wanted to tear at his clothes, press her mouth against his naked chest. Her hand moved to the buttons of his shirt. She wanted skin, not fabric.

  “Someone is coming,” he muttered in her ear. Even then he had to say it twice.

  “Oh!” She strained to hear. Then the sound of a too-familiar voice, “They must be around here somewhere.”

  Skye forced herself to move. She was having difficulty trying to regulate her breathing. Only Keefe, in a gesture that wasn’t at all hurried, clasped her arm. “Sometimes I love my sister. Other times I loathe her. Let’s get out of here before she moves in on us.”

  A few minutes later Rachelle, hot on the trail, followed by a reluctant and embarrassed Jemma and a silent Scott, found them strolling companionably along the wooden bridge that spanned the lily pool. There was nothing in their demeanour to suggest this wasn’t simply a friendly after-dinner stroll yet when Keefe turned to answer a question from Jemma—something to do with the water-lilies—Scott seized the opportunity to move too close to Skye’s side.

  In the darkness his hand trailed insolently down over her back. He took the insult a step further, pressing his fingers into the sides of her breasts. “I bet you two have had it off,” he whispered in her ear, taking advantage of the cover afforded by Rachelle’s over-loud voice. “Didn’t want me, though, did you?” he muttered. “Only Keefe would do. But that’s all you are to him, sweetheart, a groundsheet.”

  It was an outpouring of jealousy and venom. On the verge of slapping his face with all her might, Skye brought herself under control. “I pity poor Jemma,” she muttered with the utmost contempt, spinning to face him. “You’re a pig!”

  It was an insult but from the smile on Scott’s face he appeared to enjoy it.

  Indeed, Scott was thinking there was no reason why he shouldn’t give Skye hell. His strong attraction to her had never wavered. It leapt to a consistent high every time he laid eyes on her. It seemed entirely reasonable to him that if a man wasn’t allowed to love a woman, he might as well do an about-face and hate her. After all love and hate were but two s
ides of the same coin. Her beauty alone charged his anger. How in hell was he supposed to marry poor old Jemma? She was as prim as a convent-trained schoolgirl. No excitement there. No extravagant desire. Just a dreary safe match. He wouldn’t even consider it only Jemma would bring with her a handsome dowry. What had he to lose really? Jemma would love him no matter what he did. And he fully intended to do as he pleased. She was a fool to trust him. But, then, she was the sort of woman who could blind herself to the foibles of the man she loved.

  At this point, Scott’s complex feelings towards his brother turned savage. He was shot through with envy. Why should Keefe get everything he wanted? Why should Keefe get Skye? There was something in the McCorys’ background that needed to be investigated. Some kind of crisis involving Skye’s mother. He had always assumed Jack McCory had got her pregnant, thereby forcing a marriage. Why else would she have married him? She had been a lady from all accounts. What the hell was Jack McCory? A stockman on the lowest rung of the ladder. How had Gran allowed it? He had never heard his grandmother mention let alone discuss Catherine McCory in his entire life. Yet Catherine McCory had been buried in the McGovern graveyard.

  There had to be a reason. All of a sudden Scott was determined on knowing what.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LADY MARGARET MCGOVERN was sitting in front of her triple-mirrored dressing table, staring sightlessly at her own reflection. It revealed a deeply troubled eighty-year-old woman whose features still bore the vestiges of great beauty. Lady Margaret was waiting for her beloved grandson Keefe to join her. She dreaded the thought of anyone overhearing their discussion. Rachelle wasn’t above eavesdropping. Neither, for that matter, was Scott, but they were downstairs with Jemma and her parents, playing cards. Rachelle adored card games and she was a very good chess player. Lady Margaret knew full well the Templetons and, of course, Jemma herself had their hearts set on a match with Scott. They had made that perfectly plain. Lady Margaret had wanted—had indeed tried—to speak to Jemma. To warn her? But she despaired of Jemma now. That young woman would be deaf to anything in the least negative she had to say about Scott. She was convinced Jemma knew in her heart that married life with Scott would be far from easy, but it was obvious Jemma preferred to be miserable with Scott than happy with anyone else.

  So there it was! A marriage that would somehow endure or inevitably crash. Only time would tell.

  This conversation with Keefe had to be kept entirely confidential. That was why it was being conducted in the privacy of her bedroom. Not that she planned to initiate anything. She would wait on Keefe’s questions, then try to steer a safe course through a sea littered with icebergs. Nothing much in Cathy’s background to be worried about. Her personal history was something else again. Stick with the background. The wonder of it was she hadn’t been called to account long before this. Such a heavy burden! She would be glad to lay it down. Keeping secrets was a curse.

  Keefe knocked on the door then entered on his grandmother’s summons.

  He had to smile. It was as much a command as a simple response to his knock. As long as he could remember, his grandmother had been very much in command. Keefe opened the door into the richly furnished bedroom, with its canopied bed, antique furnishings and fine paintings. The sitting room, equally opulent, was to one side, dressing room, bathroom to the other. His grandmother was seated in a splendid gilt armchair, one of a pair she and his grandfather had bought at a Christie’s auction many years before. The antiques had all but taken over, he thought. But his grandmother had always indulged her passion for collecting. Perhaps to a fault.

  She was still wearing the violet silk dress she had worn at dinner but she had taken off her double string of perfectly matched pearls. They were so big that on someone else—outside Royalty—they would have been mistaken for costume jewellery. Not so his grandmother.

  The expression on her face was mask-like as usual, but he knew the mask covered a seething cauldron of emotions. Either way it rent his heart. He loved his grandmother, even if he was aware of her manipulative qualities and secretive nature. She had such presence.

  “Sit down, dear,” she said, indicating the other chair with a graceful wave of her hand.

  Keefe laughed. “I think I’ll take the sofa, Gran. I’d hate to break one of those gilded legs.’

  “Don’t be silly, darling,” she chided. “Your grandfather used to sit in them. Your grandfather bought them, for that matter. For me, of course.”

  “A lot of years have gone by since then, I think.” Keefe chose to lower his six-foot-plus frame onto the sofa, which was covered in a beautiful, white patterned blue silk. “You look tense, Gran,” he began, knowing a moment of anxiety and regret that this conversation had to come about. Since his father’s death his grandmother, a permanent fixture in his life, was looking decidedly frail. “I don’t want to worry you or cause you upset, but there are some things I need to know.”

  “You love Skye?” Lady McGovern cut to the heart of it.

  He had no intention of denying it. That would be a betrayal of the woman he loved. “I’ve always loved her. You must know that. I loved her when we were kids. I’m madly in love with Skye, the woman. She’s everything I want.”

  “So what is it you wish to know?”

  The question was asked in such a way there couldn’t have been a thing in Skye’s background that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.

  Keefe’s striking features grew tight with controlled anger. Here it was again. The long-maintained silence; the stonewalling, what had to be a cover-up. “I want to know all about Skye’s mother’s background,” he said in a quiet voice that nevertheless demanded she listen. “I want, Skye wants—and her wants are more important than mine—some kind of resolution on this. The not knowing is impacting heavily on our relationship. You were obviously very attached to Skye’s mother. It was on your say-so she was buried in the family cemetery. No one outside the family ever has been accorded that privilege—call it what you like.”

  “Privilege is what I call it,” Lady McGovern said severely, attempting to hide her trepidation behind matriarchal power. She knew it wouldn’t work with Keefe. He was Master of Djinjara now. She was the McGovern dowager.

  “Tell me who Catherine McCory really was. The little you’ve revealed over the years just isn’t so. She’s never been spoken about within the family. Dad, to my knowledge, rarely mentioned her, yet he was very kind to Skye.’

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Lady McGovern raised her thinly arched brows.

  “She was related to you, wasn’t she? Come out with it, Gran. We’ve all taken that on board. Was her maiden name really Newman? So far we have been able to find a record of a Catherine Newman entering the country from the UK for two years before she first came to visit.”

  “We? You and Skye have been checking?” Lady McGovern’s expression turned steely.

  “I have someone on it, Gran.” He cut her short. “I can’t allow you to override the fact I love Skye. I want to marry her but I need to be able to think ahead.”

  “Dear God!” Lady McGovern threw up her hands in horror. “How could you betray family, Keefe? I don’t believe it!”

  “With all due respect, Gran, you might be the one who’s been doing that,” he retorted bluntly. “It hasn’t been easy to go behind your back but you, yourself, are the cause of that. Would you answer the question please? What is the mystery? Was Catherine sent out here because of a certain incident, her behaviour perhaps? Could she have been a little wild in her youth? She was dead at twenty-two. She appeared to have had no one. No family. It’s as if she didn’t belong anywhere. You took charge of her. I want to know why. I believe it’s your duty to tell me. Skye certainly has a right to know. Far from investigating, Skye actually fears delving into her mother’s background. You must know that. It’s an instinctive thing, call it intuition. For the past couple of years Skye has been full of unease. So have I. But why unease exactly? Both of us have it in our heads we’re somehow related.
It has stopped us from going forward. But it couldn’t be close surely, so what’s the problem? Now’s your time to tell me. Put certain issues to rest. I can’t lose Skye. I can’t allow her to move away from me. It’s not on. So tell me, what brought Catherine to Australia? What brought her to you? Djinjara is the McGovern spiritual and ancestral home, but it’s just about as remote as a young girl could get from a home in England. I should warn you to tell the truth. A lot rides on it.”

  “Warn me?” Lady McGovern stared back at her grandson in shock.

  “Yes, warn you, Gran,” he confirmed quietly, taking her thin trembling hand. “I fully intend to marry Skye, but not until this matter is cleared up. Can’t you see both of us need reassurance, Skye most of all? The mystery if there is one, needs to be solved. I need to set her mind at rest. I can’t imagine for the life of me why there has been all this mystery surrounding Catherine Newman. I need enlightenment right now.”

  “Neumann,” Lady McGovern corrected, looking away from her grandson’s dynamic face. “Katrina Neumann. Katrina was a wild child. She was the daughter of a dear childhood friend of mine, Leonora Werner. We went to school together. I often vacationed at Leonora’s beautiful family manor as a girl. We were playing in the garden when we overheard a conversation between Leonora’s mother, Iona, and her husband, Axel. Axel was accusing Iona of being unfaithful to him. Leonora wasn’t his child. Previously he had doted on her and Leonora on him. Lord knows, Axel Werner had many an affair himself, but there again the double standard. He was quite the playboy, very blond, blue eyed, very handsome, German born. Leonora’s mother swore that whoever had told him such a thing was out for some kind of sick revenge. Perhaps one of his lovers?”

  “That must have been terrible for your friend.” Keefe frowned, trying to process all this unexpected information.

  “Terrible for us both, but naturally Leonora felt the shock most violently. We ran away as fast as we could. We had to stop when she was became ill. I could only kneel and hold her head while she retched her heart out. That was the start of it all. Leonora’s parents separated soon after that, divorced. Leonora wasn’t mentioned in her father’s will, although she was an only child. She never contested it, believing herself to be illegitimate. Who knows, maybe she was? One wouldn’t like to count the number of cases where the husband isn’t the biological father. I promised Leonora when she was dying that Katrina would have safe haven with me if she was ever in need of it. Iona blamed Leonora, shockingly unfairly, for the breakup of her marriage. Leonora left home at age seventeen, she’d been at boarding school with me most of the time. She and her mother never spoke again.”