by Margaret Way
“And that’s not all! Everyone thinks I’m terribly plain.” Regina hung her head.
“Who’s everyone?” Carrie appeared to challenge.
“All the family, of course. My mother can’t bear the sight of me.”
“That’s really tough.” On the evidence, Carrie couldn’t argue. “As you’re being frank, I might tell you my stepmother couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
“Really?” Regina looked up at Carrie to make sure she was telling the truth. “She must be a real bitch.”
Carrie nodded, so much in agreement she didn’t attempt to modify the language. “I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence of course.”
“That’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.” Regina reassured quickly. “How could anyone not like you when you’re so beautiful?”
“How can anyone not like you when you’re so bright and clever?” Carrie returned.
“You’re lying to me,” Regina accused solemnly.
Carrie responded quickly. “I’ll never lie to you, Reggie. And you’ll never lie to me. Will we shake on that?”
Very intensely Regina put out a hand. “Let’s,” she said.
And that was how Royce McQuillan found them as he reached the upper verandah, Lyn and Mrs. Gainsford in tow. Just like a lynching party, he thought in extreme irritation.
They were solemnly shaking hands.
Brilliant! He studied them both with a shock of pleasure. Only minutes before he’d been informed by an outraged Lindsey in concert with Mrs. Gainsford who raced straight from the kitchen eager to join in, that the new governess was far from an immediate success. Not only had she deliberately withheld vital news Regina had been found, she had given the appearance of actively encouraging the child’s bad behaviour.
Now to his great relief it seemed the two culprits were quietly going about the business of making friends.
Thank God! He started counting ten in his mind to bring down his own intense annoyance. He hadn’t even left for the Four Mile, taking time off to speak to one of the groundsmen about clearing the overgrown sections of the home gardens when Lyn managed to locate him, which she did with depressing efficiency. She was full of her poor opinion of the new governess. Not that he wasn’t used to this lack of enthusiasm. She had given the other girls hell.
Evidently Catrina had hit an especially raw nerve. He’d expected it. Catrina Russell wasn’t your everyday Outback governess. Lyn would hate her for that alone. Now he was here to play the heavy. He was sick to death of it. Sick of the constant demands on his time. Sick of Lyn’s over-bearing pretentious manner with the household staff. Including the dreary but otherwise excellent Mrs. Gainsford.
Now he greeted Regina with an affectionate smile of relief and Carrie with a calming look. “Hi, poppet. So you decided to turn up?”
“I’d had enough,” Regina announced joyfully, puffing out her thin little chest. “I was in the armoire. I frightened Carrie. Now I’m sorry.” She ran to her father, clutching him around the knees, such a look of adoration on her small freckled face it gave the tender-hearted Carrie a hard time.
Lift her, she willed Royce McQuillan silently. Lift her. Go on, you’re a big strong man. She’d be a little feather in your arms. This is your daughter. Kiss her. Hug her. Do something. Don’t just stand there, tousling her already over-tousled hair. Disappointment and acute censure stabbed her when he failed to do so, although he continued to smile warmly into the plain little face.
There was not a trace of him in the child, Carrie thought. Not in colouring. Not in feature. Not in potential for height. No trace of her glamorous mother, either, for that matter. Reggie hadn’t been fortunate enough to inherit her father’s brilliant black eyes, or her mother’s ice-blue. They were grey. And I’m going to do something about her hair, Carrie vowed. It could be a big plus for Reggie if it was well cut and properly groomed.
Royce McQuillan catching her naked glance read her thoughts with great accuracy. Obviously she thought him a poor father. Undoubtedly he was. But hell, he wasn’t the father and he was doing his best. God only knew who Regina’s real father was. One of Sharon’s one-night stands when she was drunk. He’d tried to control his bitterness toward Sharon’s parents over the years. They had kept Sharon’s instability, which at times became manic, one huge secret, though he had to concede childbirth had exacerbated the predisposition.
McQuillan found he didn’t much like the look of censure in Catrina’s golden eyes. Who was she to judge him? He and Gran were the only ones including Regina’s maternal grandparents and her aunt Ina, who actually cared about the child. He hadn’t even confided in Gran that Regina wasn’t his, though he suspected she had her doubts. The blow had gone too deep. He had fallen out of love with Sharon very quickly but he had been prepared to honour his marriage.
Until she told him with vicious triumph Regina wasn’t his.
Now this young woman with an angel’s bright aura was judging him and finding him badly wanting. It hurt and he had to admit it made him angry. It was a blow to his self-esteem when he was long accustomed to respect.
Royce was returned to the present by Regina pulling strongly on his hand. “Carrie calls me Reggie. What do you think about that?”
“Reggie’s a boy’s name,” he teased.
“You want me to be a boy, don’t you?” Regina countered sadly.
“The heck I do!” Now he lifted her, swinging her around and around so she squealed. “Don’t ever feel I’m not happy with you just the way you are, Reggie. Between the three of us—” he glanced rather coolly in Carrie’s direction “—I think it suits you. A bit of fun. One thing, young lady, you have to put on weight.”
Reggie hugged him, whispering over his handsome face conspiratorially. “Carrie says I can make my own breakfast. Banana smoothies with ice cream.”
“And that’s all?” he queried, not thinking it enough.
“A glass of milk,” Carrie intervened at this point. “Reggie tells me she doesn’t like cereal. Or eggs.”
“I can’t have a child in my kitchen,” Mrs. Gainsford protested, looking quite miffed. “Regina might well have an accident. I don’t know what Miss Russell is thinking about.”
“Obviously trying to ingratiate herself,” Lindsey McQuillan supplied lazily. “I presume you’re talking about using a blender?” She shot Carrie a challenging glance. “Regina’s too young to be fooling around with appliances. I would have thought you’d know that.”
“Well, for a start, I’d be with her,” Carrie said, thinking Lindsey McQuillan, striking though she was in appearance, was an awful woman. “There’ll be no problem.”
“I’d rather they don’t do this, Mr. McQuillan,” Mrs. Gainsford said reedily, unable to keep her feelings of territorial invasion bottled up.
But Royce McQuillan turned on her smoothly. “As far as I’m concerned, Mrs. Gainsford, we’ll employ any method that works. Reggie can have a baked chocolate soufflé fresh out of the oven for breakfast if it will make her eat.”
“Can I really?” Reggie was delighted, grinning broadly and showing quite a gap between her two front teeth.
“Well, we won’t make it routine,” he told her. “Now and again.”
“You’re kiddin’ me.” She gave him her sunniest smile.
“Miss Russell is the boss,” he said suavely.
“No, listen.” Reggie shook his hand. “Her name is Carrie. Carrie for Catrina. Isn’t that beautiful?”
Royce McQuillan looked at Carrie over the child’s head. “I know this new idea won’t give Mrs. Gainsford any problems.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to manage nicely.” Carrie spoke confidently, aware of his edgy mood toward her. “I expect the kitchen is very large.”
Lindsey McQuillan’s electric-blue eyes were shooting darts. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” she told Carrie. “But good luck, anyway. I don’t plan to be around when Regina sends things crashing to the floor.”
&
nbsp; That set the complacent child off again. “You’re always nasty to me. Always.” Reggie suddenly screeched in a lightning mood swing, “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”
“Lovely!” Lindsey mocked while Carrie got her hands beneath the child’s armpits and hauled her away saying, “No one has shown me over the house. I’ll soon find myself lost if you don’t help me, Reggie.”
Wiggling, Reggie quickly broke Carrie’s restraining grasp but she was calmer now. “It’s a pretty good house,” she said, taking Carrie’s hand. “I won’t promise I’ll tell you all my hiding places, but I’ll tell you some.”
“That’s okay.” Carrie looked down at her, greatly relieved the little girl had settled down. “You won’t want to hide with all the good things I’ve got lined up.”
“Tell you what, why don’t we start with downstairs?” Reggie swung her head. “Is it okay, Royce, if I show Carrie your study?”
“As long as you promise you won’t touch anything,” he called, at that moment prepared to forgive Miss Catrina Russell anything for her easy ability to handle this child. He’d never seen Regina, now to be known as Reggie, show this much friendliness to anyone outside himself.
With his plans so disrupted he decided to call in on his grandmother again, walking down the long gallery to the west wing. His grandmother was into her eighties now, her once vibrant health a thing of the past. In fact it was starting to grieve him she just might slip from his life altogether, while he was somewhere out on the station or away on a business trip. Almost time to get in a nurse, though his grandmother would fight him on that one. Jada suited her. Softly spoken, sweet-natured, dignified Jada, she knew. But soon the role of minder would be too much even for Jada.
As it was he found the two of them together, talking quietly, companionably, their long thirty-year friendship golden. His grandmother fragile as porcelain but fully dressed in what she called her “uniform,” stylish loose shirts over comfortable trousers, lay on her daybed near the French doors, Jada close by in an armchair, a cooling breeze blowing in from the garden, filmy curtains swaying gently. Both looked toward him with smiling surprised faces, Jada, plump with delicate almost birdlike arms and legs, rising out of her chair immediately. “I thought you’d be long gone, Mr. Royce.”
“Hell no!” he joked. “Didn’t you hear the ruckus?”
“You know we don’t hear anything up here, darling.” His grandmother tilted her head, her hair beautifully arranged by Jada in a thick French pleat. Another common point between the two women, both had copious snow white hair though Jada wore hers standing up in all directions.
“I thought you two used telepathy?”
Jada chuckled. “Don’t need telepathy to guess it was young Regina. She’s just gotta be the centre of attention.”
“Right on.” He saluted her.
“Don’t run away too far, Jada,” Louise McQuillan called as the aboriginal woman moved to the door. There was something so immensely benign in Jada’s spirit just having her around helped ease Louise’s pain.
“I’ll be right outside the minute Mr. Royce comes down,” Jada promised.
“Thank you, dear.” Louise McQuillan sighed gratefully. “So tell me, what happened?” With Jada gone she turned her attention to her grandson, fixing him with attentive eyes.
Royce took Jada’s unoccupied chair, running the events of the morning before her, making a good story in the process.
His grandmother listened in silence until he’d finished, then she sighed deeply. “I hope Lindsey isn’t going to try to make it a trial for this young woman the way she did with the others?”
After what he’d just seen, that amused him. “I think she’ll find Catrina quite a different proposition. Catrina grew up holding her own against a stepmother who was no mother at all to her. As for Lindsey…” He shrugged, leaning back into the chair. “I think I’ll have to stop her altogether.” He’d been thinking that for some time, but Louise McQuillan looked anxious.
“In what way? What do you mean, darling?”
“I’d rather she was out of the house,” he answered bluntly, realising his grandmother wasn’t fully aware of Lyn’s pathetic attempts to fascinate him.
There was an answering sentiment in his grandmother’s eyes but an overriding love and pity for her son. “But what about Cameron?” she asked. “He needs us, Royce.”
Royce didn’t answer, looking down at his hands. No use worrying his grandmother with his scarcely mentionable concerns about his uncle’s wife.
“I don’t know what demon possessed my poor Cameron to marry her!” Louise McQuillan moaned. “She only married him for money, for so-called position… Even Cameron must be aware of it.”
“Of course he is.” Royce grimaced in embarrassment. “I think it took him roughly as long to wake up to Lyn as it did for me to wake up to Sharon. Nothing like marriage to help things turn nasty,” he added cynically. “I’ve been thinking very hard of letting Cam take over River Rock.” He named a distant station in the McQuillan chain.
Louise looked past him to the dancing sheer curtains. “God forgive me for saying this, my darling, but are you sure Cam could handle it? Both of us love him but both of us know Cameron switched off his engine a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t rev it up again,” Royce said a little too crisply, but he was being sorely provoked. “Cam gets through life just doing what I tell him. It’s not the way for a man to go.”
“He hasn’t got your toughness, my darling,” Louise pointed out, wryly knowing her grandson didn’t even realise just how strong he was. “Cam never even got a chance to step out of his father’s shadow. Trish was the woman who would have been the making of him, but losing Trish the way he did…!” Louise moved her hands in a desperate little gesture of utter helplessness. Twenty years ago, but she remembered the terrible day of her daughter-in-law’s riding accident as though it were yesterday.
“I wonder why it is the good ones are taken?” Royce asked without ever expecting any answers. “Unfortunately Cam is married to Lindsey now and she’s as good as useless to him. In bed, obviously as they’ve moved to separate rooms, and as a helpmate. She alienates all the staff. I’m the last person to recommend divorce but I think Cam should cut his losses. God knows I had to.”
Louise nodded sadly. “To think there was a time I was fond of Sharon,” she wondered aloud. “But then, those were the days Sharon and her family were very eager to impress us. It was all such a dreadful, dreadful pretence.”
“You mustn’t think about it, Gran,” he told her briskly. “Don’t add to the stress.”
Louise McQuillan turned her head a little fretfully. “I know I shouldn’t, but these days I have too much time to think. Too much time to go over our tragedies. But don’t worry, my darling.” She suddenly bucked up. “I’m not going to die until I see you happily remarried to the right woman. I’ve struck a bargain with the Almighty.”
“Great!” He gave her his beautiful heart-melting smile and stood up. “If anyone has the clout, it’s you. You could be my only salvation, Gran.” He bent to kiss her.
“No!” She patted the strong hand that was resting on the head of her daybed. “There will be the woman for you. I can feel her coming closer. The answer to my prayers.”
He had reached her bedroom door before she called after him rather coquettishly. “Your Catrina sounds a very interesting young woman.”
“My Catrina, Gran?” His brilliant black eyes mocked her.
“Odd the way our first McQuillan bride was Catriona,” Louise mused. “That rare amber colouring, as well.”
He gave a little hoot of laughter. “Don’t start seeing omens, Gran. Our new governess was a student up until a year ago. She’s very young and she has a trauma to overcome.”
“Does she know I was a fine pianist in my day?” Louise McQuillan asked.
“Haven’t said a thing. It didn’t seem the subject to get on to.”
“She won’t fail to notice
the concert grand. Even if Mrs. Gainsford keeps covering it up.”
“Gainsford means well, Gran,” he told her. “No one has played the piano for years. The cover keeps the dust out.”
His grandmother smiled and waved him off. “But pianos are meant to be played, my darling. Your Catrina might very well come to it in her own time.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE lights were on in this huge house. Carrie walked down the left side of the divided staircase that made such a striking approach to the principal rooms dazzled by the astonishing brilliance of Maramba homestead at night. Everything was light and glitter. Recessed spotlights flared over the wonderful collection of objects evoking the South East Asian heritage, the tall eight-panel Coromandel screens inlaid with jade and ivory and semiprecious stones, the rugs and sculptures, the tall Chinese vases, including the big matching fish bowls on carved stands that flanked the staircase at ground level.
Someone in the last hour or so had filled the bowls to overflowing with golden-yellow cymbidiums. She caught her breath at their beauty, pausing to admire them. The bright yellow was in wonderful contrast to the inky blue-and-white pattern of the large porcelain bowls.
She knew from her tour with Reggie, the magnificent living room was to her right. It housed not only the “haunted” portrait of a ravishingly pretty young girl in a sunlit garden setting who just happened to have Carrie’s own unusual colouring, but a nine-foot concert grand someone had swathed in a gorgeous bolt of brocade. Seeing the piano had given her an actual frisson of shock as though what she sought to escape had followed her to this remote place; wasn’t the world big enough or wide enough for there not to be a piano? No ordinary piano, either. Although she hadn’t approached it and it appeared to mean nothing out of the ordinary to Reggie, it was obvious someone in the family had played the piano at some time. Because of the size and value of the instrument, she concluded that someone had played it extremely well. Yet Royce McQuillan had never said a word.
