The English Bride

by Way, Margaret

  He wanted his homestead radically different. He wanted a completely contemporary structure using a mix of materials: stone, glass—lots of glass, floor to ceiling—steel to support the long spans of verandah, the polished timbers he loved, local stone with all its wonderful ochres, especially for the fireplaces. The really hard thing would be to come up with a design worthy of the great wilderness bounded as it was by the great rolling parallel waves of the desert, unobstructed views over the plains to the horizon with the legendary Myora for a background. How many people had an awe-inspiring prehistoric monolithic rock in their backyard. A backyard that ran on forever.

  He had visited the island of Bali many times, loved it, and found Balinese influences creeping into his thinking, though the lush jungle settings could scarcely be more different from Opal. But the harmonious feeling of timbers, open spaces, high tentlike ceilings, open pavilions was the same. Like Bali, too, nights in the Dry could be surprisingly cold as the desert sands lost their heat. He would need those couple of huge, inviting fireplaces. In every room he saw Francesca, however much he tried to picture some other woman.

  Lord knows he knew enough attractive girls. They swarmed to the polo meets. There was a time he felt quite happy with Jennie Irvine. Her father, Tom Irvine, the well-known pastoralist, had been a good friend to his own father. Jennie was good-looking, well educated, easygoing, fun to be with. He knew he could get Jennie to marry him. He knew her parents would be really happy about it but someone called Francesca de Lyle had put paid to that. By Brod’s wedding he had really known Francesca had stolen his heart.

  She was like some irresistible fragrance. All those silly ads he had seen about perfume and the way they enticed a man weren’t so silly after all. Francesca was a rose, to him the most beautiful, the most fragrant of all flowers.

  Even his dreams were set at this homestead that had yet to be built. Vividly he saw Francesca at the breakfast table, having a cup of coffee with him. Francesca in the glowing panelled dining room playing hostess to family and friends. Francesca in the study reading over his shoulder as he drafted an important letter, welcoming her input because he valued her opinion and good business sense. Most of all he saw her in the bedroom, lying on top of their huge bed, a modern four-poster hung with curtains of white netting against any little insects that might fly through all the open doorways. For some reason he never saw his Francesca naked. She was always wearing the prettiest, beribboned, most feminine nightgown, a swirl of peach silk, he would lovingly peel off.

  What a fool! At this point he always woke himself up. Falling in love with Francesca was bliss and despair. Her destiny like his was already written. Dreams had little to do with real life. That was the unpalatable fact. The reality of the situation was, he was acting out a fantasy and heading for disaster. Love had to be matched by other factors that would make a marriage survive.

  Francesca was a beautiful, bright superior creature, carefully guarded by her father and clearly destined for a privileged life similar to the one she had led. How could he hold such a woman in isolation? The polar caps could melt before he tired of her but what if she found his way of life far too lonely and distant from all she had known? Despite his conversation with Brod he still was deeply affected by practical constraints as a man who was making a decision that would affect his whole life had to be.

  He didn’t need to be a mind-reader, either, to guess Francesca’s father would be utterly and completely against such a marriage and why not? It would take his only beloved child away from him. Halfway across the world. As far away as she could go. Shatter his plans. Fee had all but admitted that. So problems continued to beset his euphoria. Women seemed conditioned by nature to take great leaps into the unknown. For a man it was different. A man’s duty was to keep his feet on the ground.

  The film people arrived at the weekend, staying over at Kimbara, which with its many guest rooms at the ready was far better suited to accommodating guests than Opal; Ngaire Bell, the New Zealand born director, who was making quite a name for herself internationally, accompanied by long-time associate and script writer, Glenn Richards. Grant was kept busy all day Saturday working out schedules for incoming jobs, double-checking maintenance, arranging freight pickups, a workload that kept him on Opal but sunset found him landing on Kimbara preparatory to meeting Brod and Rebecca’s guests at dinner.

  Francesca was there to greet him, dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt, her hair burning like flame in the incandescent light.

  “Hi, this is nice!” He bent to kiss her cheek, thinking “nice” was a ridiculous word. He was just plain thrilled to see her. She made his heart run hot.

  “It’s lovely to see you, too,” she responded. “It’s been a very long week.”

  “Lots to do.” He spoke casually, throwing his hold-all in the back seat of the Jeep, not mentioning he had found the time away from her a near eternity. “So what are the guests like?” he asked as they got under way, Francesca at the wheel, small hands but capable and confident.

  “I know you’re going to like them.” Francesca turned her head half-laughing now with pleasure. “Ngaire is a very interesting woman. She and Fee are getting along famously. Glenn is good company, too. Rebecca and he have a lot in common.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’m happy. I’m really happy,” she said, eyes alight. “We’re all getting along well but of course the others have special interests in common.”

  “How old, I wonder?” He spoke lightly, companionably when all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms.

  “Ngaire, late thirties, early forties. Naturally I didn’t ask. Glenn would be around thirty-five.”

  “Married?” He wanted this guy married. He refused to confront why.

  “Neither of them are married,” Francesca said. “They’re great friends and colleagues but I wouldn’t think they were romantically involved. Of course I could be wrong. You didn’t want to kiss me?”

  Because if I did I wouldn’t stop. “Kissed your cheek, didn’t I?” he said.

  “So you did. It was nice, too. How glorious the sunsets are out here,” she said, examining the sky.

  “Like your hair.” He successfully resisted touching it. “If you want to see a sight, cut off the track now and head north-west for about a mile. The black swans should be heading in for their roosting sites at dusk.”

  “So where are we going?” Where the heck is north-east, she thought. She’d have to ask him to show her.

  “Here, let me.”

  They stopped to swop positions, Grant driving, Francesca in the passenger seat of the open Jeep. “Kingurra. You must know it,” Grant said a few moments later, the Jeep exploding into action.

  “Lake Kingurra?” She cast a glance at his golden profile. Like Rafe he had a cleft chin, the cleft not so deep but vertical.

  “The very one,” he teased. “Kingurra means black swan. Didn’t you know that?”

  She shook her head. “The straight answer is no. There’s so much to know. It would take a lifetime. Even learning all the aboriginal names.”

  “They’re the ones I like best. Our aboriginal brothers have been custodians of this country for over sixty thousand years. Kingurra is a very old lake, a real oasis of wildlife.”

  “Of course I’ve seen it,” Francesca said. “It’s astonishingly beautiful especially with the area all around it so arid.”

  “Listen now.” Grant leant towards her, his expression full of the pleasure of sharing.

  They heard the birds before they saw them, the sound carried on the sweet evening breeze. The dark shadows became hundreds of black swans skeining across the darkening mauve sky still banded with the brilliant rose, gold and scarlet of the desert sunset.

  “What a sight!” Francesca lifted her head, staring, fascinated by the pure white underwings of the ebony birds, the little band of turquoise, the red beaks. The S bends of their beautiful necks were fully outstretched, straight as arrows.

  �
��We’ve got time to take a walk down to the water,” Grant said, picking up speed and heading away from the mulga scrub to the lake.

  A little bit of excitement went a long way. “It might sound extraordinary but I’m rarely away from the homestead at this hour,” Francesca explained, her cheeks pink. “If I go riding or driving around the property Brod likes me home before dusk.”

  Grant shot her a shimmering glance. “So would I if you were on your own. Night falls as dramatically as a black curtain. But this is worth seeing and I’m with you.”

  He held her hand all the while they descended the sandy track crisscrossed with the prints of kangaroos and smaller creatures. Quietly, quietly, they kept to the cover of the trees so as not disturb the birds.

  There were hundreds of them! Squadrons splashing down on the silver lake, while others circled just like aircraft waiting for landing. Two hundred or more stately pelicans had congregated at the far end of the lake, keeping their distance from the common ducks, the cormorants, egrets, banded stilts and so many species Francesca couldn’t possibly identify them. As the swans landed, they sealed off their white underwings, bending their long necks into the beautiful curves of legends. They remained, united by their great pleasure in the scene, familiar to Grant all his life, though he never tired of it, a rare enchantment for Francesca.

  The outback was birds. She adored watching the great flights of budgerigar, the parrots and galahs, the flocks of white corellas that literally covered the trees, but she had never seen so many water birds congregated in the one place. It was like some wonderful harbour, the waters that swirled with birds gradually blanketed in feathers.

  “This is wonderful!” she whispered.

  “I agree.” His head was bent over hers, his breath warm against her ear.

  “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “I’m amazed you’ve missed it on your visits.”

  Not so many, she thought with regret. She’d first come to Kimbara at the age of ten. Her father didn’t want her to come. He told her Australia was a far country. Strange. He told her her mother’s people lived in the desert. Were barely civilised. Yet her mother was the most beautiful most glamorous creature she had ever seen.

  When she arrived on Kimbara it was like coming home. She wasn’t drawn to it. It didn’t take time. She loved it at once. It was almost like her spirit had been unleashed. She was a very lonely little girl. Although her father tried to do everything he could, when she wasn’t away at boarding school, she was left to her own devices a great deal.

  “Coming to Australia was the greatest adventure of my life,” she murmured aloud. “Still is for that matter.”

  “What about the heat, little Titian head?” he gently mocked.

  “The heat could never exhaust my excitement. Not now. Not then. It’s dry heat, isn’t it? Not steamy, enervating heat.”

  It was true she always looked as cool as a lily. “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed your visit,” he said lightly, “but we’d better go.” Before I give in to the desire to kiss you until you’re panting and incoherent.

  They crouched low beneath some overhanging branches, finding their way back up the slope, Francesca forging ahead with a buoyant step. They almost arrived at the top when suddenly Grant grasped her firmly from behind, locking an arm around her waist, stopping her short.

  “What is it?” Now he lifted her clean off the ground, holding her with one arm as though she were still a ten-year-old.

  He didn’t answer for a moment, then he set her down again with a nonchalant, “Nothing!”

  She had to lean back against him momentarily unsteady. “You gave me such a fright.”

  “Better that than let you tread on a snake,” he drawled. “There it goes. Off by the rocks.”

  “Lord!” Her expression sharpened with dread, as she strained back against him.

  “Harmless, that one,” Grant told her. “It was only trying to get across the track. Snakes flee man in general. It doesn’t do to step on one all the same.”

  She gave a little shudder, turning within the circle of his arm, banging him on his chest in an instinctive response to fright. “I suppose you think I’m silly?”

  He slipped his hand around her wrist and felt the delicate bones. “No, I think you’re enormously brave.” He gazed down into her eyes, eyes that seemed to see further into him than anyone else. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “I’m not scared,” she breathed. And now she wasn’t. “I’m here with you.”

  Inside he fought a violent struggle but he lost it. He lowered his head blindly, ravenously, taking her sweet gorgeous mouth, devouring it deeply, hungrily, luscious as a peach.

  My God, I love her! he thought, abandoning himself to the ecstasy. Why the hell didn’t he just hang on to that instead of making a terror out of all their difference.

  “At least we’ve got one thing in common,” he muttered, when he found the strength to lift his head.

  “Lots!” She could only manage one word, her heart hammering, her breath drowned in her throat.

  After a minute she was able to open her eyes. “We’ve got lots of things in common,” she protested with soft vehemence. “Don’t push me away, Grant,” she warned, and he had never seen her more serious. “I’ve been pushed away all my life.”

  The next moment she turned, straightened the T-shirt his caressing hands had somehow pulled askew, and ran from him leaving him utterly sobered, staring after her.

  Pushed away all her life! How was that possible? From all accounts her father adored her. He had big plans for her. Fee was Fee. Not the most maternal of women but it couldn’t be plainer she loved her beautiful daughter. It struck him like an actual blow Francesca could ever feel rejected. Francesca was a miracle. She touched his mind, his body, his heart with her exquisite grace.

  They all came together in the very grand drawing room for a predinner drink, Brod introducing Grant to his guests.

  “My God!” Ngaire Bell thought as they shook hands. These cattle kings are something else! A distinct breed. To begin with they had such an aura of masculinity they really made a woman feel like a woman. Moreover they made direct eye contact with far-seeing, delightfully sun-crinkled eyes. Broderick Kinross was an extraordinarily handsome man. She truly hadn’t expected anyone else to match him yet here was this fabulous-looking man with the rarest of colourings.

  On their looks alone she could make stars of them, she thought wryly, only it couldn’t have been more obvious they exactly matched their setting. They were outback men yet they lived in great style.

  Kimbara homestead was splendid, meticulously maintained, but too grandly furnished for the homestead of her new movie. It had been suggested to her by Fee Kinross’s beautiful daughter, Francesca, the homestead at Opal Downs would fit readily the description of the sprawling, elegant old homestead of the novel, its Victorian furnishings still largely in place, the atmosphere retained. She was dying to see it. Couldn’t wait. This wasn’t the first historic mansion she had been invited to but this was the furthest into the continent’s Wild Heart. It fired her already fertile imagination.

  Glenn Richards, drink in hand, was thinking much the same thing as his friend and colleague. These Kinross-Camerons were an extraordinarily good-looking bunch. He had to put it down to the desert air. Even Fiona Kinross, who had to be in her sixties, looked marvellous. In the flattering light no more than forty-five. Of course she could have had cosmetic surgery, but he didn’t think so. Nevertheless her skin was unlined, her jawline firm, her figure in a neat jade knee-length dress, excellent. She cut a glamorous figure as did they all, including Fiona’s brand-new fiancé, David Westbury, tall, distinguished, pewter haired, very upper class English. As far as Glenn could make out, Westbury was a relative of sorts, and he was a touch overawed, trying to click in all his various impressions.

  But the one who really took his eye and had from the very first moment, was the Lady Francesca. As far as he was concerned she was quite
lovely. He adored her soft, dreamy looks, the uncontrived sensuality that made a man drool. And that colouring. He couldn’t think of a more heavenly combination than red-gold hair and sky-blue eyes. Not a freckle in sight. Not even a gold dusting across her nose.

  It struck him she would be perfect in the movie as the hero’s tragic first wife. What made it even better was she had the authentic English accent. Maybe a bit too cut glass but that could be modified slightly. It was only a small part. They had more or less settled on Paige Macauly but he was certain if the girl could act at all she would be perfect in the role. And why wouldn’t she be able to act with Fiona Kinross for a mother, let alone her cousin, Ally, who proved she didn’t have what it took to make the big time by going off and getting married. What a waste!

  Still, their leading lady Caro Halliday, wife number two in the film, who didn’t feature in the early outback scenes, was beautiful, talented and almost as charismatic. As they went into dinner, Glenn began to turn over ideas in his mind. He’d put a lot of hard work into the screenplay. A lot of his own money went into the backing. It was crucial the film do well not only as an “art” film but as entertainment for the masses. The English rose, Francesca was enormously appealing, beautiful but nonthreatening. She had as much appeal as her far more exotic mother.

  Grant, as sensitive to Francesca as it was possible to be, honed in immediately on Richards’s interest in her. It was all managed with charm and a certain suavity but Richards couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Not that Grant could blame him no matter how it made him inwardly bristle. Francesca looked ethereal in a delicate lace dress, the soft apricot of his dreams. She had left her hair out, too, in the way he loved it, long and flowing.