‘Oh…’ she whispered. She was covered by the sheet but naked beneath it, and a look of frowning wariness came to her eyes that caused shim, against all expectations, to smile.
‘Why?’ he asked, with that smile still playing on his lips.
‘Why…what?’
‘Are you looking like that?’
‘I’m not sure how I’m looking.’
‘As if you’re about to be extremely exasperated with yourself.’
‘Oh, that—I…it happens from time to time that I wake up with the feeling that I’ve done something rather… unwise the day before—a presentiment of doom and gloom. And invariably I’m right—it just takes a moment or two to remember—’. She broke off and sat up urgently, clutching the sheet about her.
‘Chessie…’ He paused and cupped her cheek. ‘Whatever it was, wise or otherwise, you did it beautifully. But I wish you’d told me.’ His grey eyes were suddenly sombre.
‘I…’ Her voice got caught. in her throat. ‘I mean—could you tell? How—?’
‘Yes I could tell.’
‘But it didn’t make it any worse— What I mean is, it didn’t seem to flaw it in any way. Not for me, that is…’Her voice died away.
‘No, it didn’t do that. His fingers moved on her cheek then slid through her hair. ‘It was wonderful.’
‘So?’ she whispered, and swallowed as sudden understanding came to her. ‘Now you think‘ you have to—but you don’t. I only— That wasn’t why I did it.’
‘I believe you. And that,’s not why I’ll be marrying you either, Chessie, ’ he said steadily, and ignored the way her breath jolted. ‘I’d only rather have known in case I hurt you. But I’ll be marrying you because you’re beautiful, you’re brave-—you’re all the things I didn’t think you were. You see, you’ve routed me completely.’ He leant forward and brushed his lips against hers. ‘Besides which, I don’t think I can live without you.’
‘But…’
‘Chessie, there are people stranded in a farmhouse about a hundred miles west of here—I happened to intercept their call on the radio when I got up a bit earlier. They’ve got no power, other than a fading battery for the radio, and a baby who is sick. I need to go now, but I’ll be back as soon as I can and we can discuss it all then.
‘Go back to sleep. Sweet dreams,’ he added, kissing her properly this time and laying her back against the pillows. Then he got up, switched off the lamp and walked out, closing the door softly.
‘Jess,’ Francesca. said while they ate the breakfast that Milly had cooked for them. ‘Jess, my father rang me last night. ‘He—um—was really worried about the cyclone.’
‘I didn’t know you had a father,’ Jess said interestedly. ‘Is he like mine?’
‘No. That is, because I’m much older than you, he’s much older …’
She paused, thinking that she’d known this would be difficult but that it was going to exceed even her expectations. Then there was the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside, and within moments Sarah swept into the kitchen, followed by a man.
‘But I thought you were in Tahiti,’ Francesca said, rising dazedly.
‘Tahiti can wait—-can’t it, Mark?’ She pulled the man forward by his hand and put it into Chessie’s. ‘Say how do you do, you two. I’ve told Mark all about you—and as soon as I heard about the cyclone I knew you’d need help! I didn’t even bother to let Raefe know we were coming in case he tried to dissuade me.
‘Darling!’ She swept Jess up. ‘What exciting times you’ve been having! And have I got some lovely new clothes for you!’
‘Er—there wouldn’t be a cup of coffee around?’ Mark Ellery said plaintively as he shook Francesca’s hand, and his humorous, nice brown eyes rested on her. ‘We’ve been driving all night virtually, but you look as if you could do with one too!’
‘But why didn’t you tell me about the Forsters—why didn’t Raefe?’
They were seated at the breakfast table and Milly had tactfully removed herself and Jess.
‘We didn’t want to do anything to… You were so happy, and we were so happy for you,’ Francesca said.
Mark and Sarah looked at each other ruefully, but their love for each other was obvious.
Francesca sipped some coffee and took a breath. ‘Actually, you couldn’t have come at a better time—for me, that is. I was just trying to explain it all to Jess, but I wouldn’t have been happy about leaving her with Milly—although .I think they’re going to get on really well. The thing is, I’ve been ordered home. My father is getting married in a couple of days’ time.
Sarah blinked. ‘Where is Raefe? Does he know this?’
Francesca explained. ‘I’d almost made up my mind to stay until he got back, but with you here now… And,’ she said slowly, ‘it might be the best time to go—when Jess is excited, happy. and distracted.’
She waited anxiously as she saw Sarah digest this, and didn’t realise her eyes were unconsciously pleading.
‘But,’ Sarah said slowly, ‘you will keep in touch, won’t you, Chessie? You’re like part of the family now.’
‘Yes…’
On the difficult six-hour drive from Bramble that morning—supposedly six hours, but becoming much longer as she had to make several detours to avoid flooded roads—Francesca had plenty of time to reflect that she’d only told a couple of lies—in fact the same lie but to different people.
She’d promised both Jess and Sarah that she would never lose touch. Jess will forget, she consoled herself‘. But each time she thought this she bit her lip at the memory of Jess’s disappointed little face and the tears in her eyes.
As for Raefe—would he forget? Would he be relieved? She swallowed. She’d thought of leaving a note for him, but what could she say? Thanks for the memories? It was wonderful, but marrying me was not something you intended to do until you found out I was a virgin? Thanks all the same but I don’t think that’s the most important benchmark between us because, while it might indicate to you that I’m more worthy. than you’d imagined, it doesn’t lay to rest the ghost of Olivia…?
She got to Cairns just before dark and found the car dealership where she’d bought her four-wheel drive mercifully still open. She left it with them to sell for her, and by the skin of her teeth caught the last flight. out. This took her to Sydney, not Melbourne, her home town, but it was so late by then she booked into a hotel and went straight to bed.
The next day she didn’t leave the hotel, although she did leave a message for her father that morning to the effect that she was on her way home—the wedding was in five days’ time, slightly further ahead than she’d given Sarah to understand, so perhaps that was another lie, she thought miserably.
If he’s so adamant I should be there, why didn’t he tell me sooner, or why can’t he delay it? she wondered—and. sneezed.
Two hours later, her nose was running, her head throbbing, her throat aching and her limbs almost too painful to move, but she did make the effort to lift the phone and call for the house doctor.
A severe cold, he proclaimed, and when she protested that she’d just come from a part of the country where it was almost impossible to get a cold he advised her that you could get colds anywhere. Changes of climate, air-conditioning and so on could make you more vulnerable.
He prescribed bed-rest for at least two days and departed with the observation that she might have been a bit run-down to start with. She rang her father again late that afternoon.
‘Where the devil are you, Chessie?’
She explained, although she didn’t give exact details.
‘I’m coming to get you myself, right now,’ he barked down the phone. ‘Tell me exactly where you are.’
‘Dad—’ she blew her nose and mopped her streaming eyes ‘if you love me at all, just leave me in peace,’ she said thickly.
‘But I really wanted you to have a chance to get to know Mary before the wedding,’ he said frustratedly.
‘Then you left
it a bit late,’ she commented drily.
‘Chessie …’ He heaved an audible sigh down the line. ‘You have no idea how difficult this has been to tell you. .We’ve been at such loggerheads since you grew up, for which I take all the blame, my dear, and anyway, you haven’t been exactly easy to lay hands on lately. By the way, who is this Raefe Stevensen?’
‘Why?’ she asked warily. ‘Has he been in touch?’
‘Not since he rang me to tell me where you were—and to tell me a few other things. He was damned insolent, if you must know,’ said her father, sounding more like his old self.
Francesca relaxed a bit, but avoided the question. ‘Dad, I give you my word. .I’ll be home in time for the wedding.’
He hesitated. ‘Won’t you at least tell me where you are?’
It was her turn to hesitate, then she relented and they chatted for a few minutes more. Her parting words were, ‘I’ll be home.’
Three hours later there was a knock on her door which, when she opened it, revealed her father and a strange woman. And that was how she came to be transported home in her father’s private jet that same night.
And how, five days later, she dressed to attend his wedding ceremony in a more positive frame of mind about it than she’d dreamt possible.
She took the time to ponder it all in her own room in the lovely Toorak mansion she’d grown up in.
In a bid to hide the last effects of her cold, on top of a month in the tropics, she’d had a masseuse come to the house that morning—a woman who had soothed and anointed her body with a gentle massage and had given her a manicure and a facial.
It had been during this that she had thought of how her father had changed. And it was Mary Wilson, soon to be Valentine, who was not beautiful but elegant, poised, wealthy in her own right and possessed of a very sharp brain—she was a barrister—who had achieved it.
She was also, once you got to know her, warm, witty and wise. And it was very clear, despite faint glimpses of vulnerability about being pregnant for the first time at thirty-seven, that this woman had only one reason for marrying Frank Valentine-she loved him. And she’d contrived, somehow, or other, to win over his daughter too…
So, Francesca thought now as she put on a Thai silk suit the colour of wild rice with a short skirt and ivory accessories, it’s worked out well for several people—Dad and Mary, Sarah and Mark. And Raefe?
She stared at her reflection. Mary’s hairdresser had also called earlier, and had swept her hair back into an elegant pleat. She wore pearls in her ears and about her throat—a set that had belonged to her mother. But it was impossible to think about Raefe—who had made no move to get in touch with her—without having a sense of that dark moon she’d imagined once, clouding her day, her very being.
It’ll pass, she told herself. You were the one who thought you could make do with memories. You were the one who knew about Olivia.
It was a small, lovely old church where the morning ceremony was to be conducted, with the reception to be held at home. In order to keep the Press at bay, numbers had been strictly limited, and there was discreet but nevertheless thorough surveillance of the guests as they arrived at the church. No one unrecognised or without an invitation would be admitted…
Francesca was ushered to the front pew, and she sat down. There were to be no bridesmaids, groomsmen or attendants.
Then someone sat down beside her—a man in a dark suit, a tall man with fair hair and grey eyes, although she’d never seen him so formally dressed…
‘You!’ she gasped.
‘Yes, Chessie,’ Raefe agreed.
‘But how did you get in?’ she whispered. ‘No one—’
‘I was invited.’
‘Invited? But how? Why? I don’t understand.’ Although it was all said sotto voce, there was no mistaking her confusion and anger.
His grey eyes rested on her with all his old amusement mirrored in them—plus something else.
‘We thought you mightn’t make a scene here, Chessie. You look stunning. by the way.’
‘I “mightn’t make a scene”?’ she repeated, almost soundlessly. ‘Oh!’
But then the organ swelled, the congregation rose and her father walked down the aisle with his wife-to-be on his arm.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I SUPPOSE you’ve been invited to the reception too,’ Francesca said in a bitter undertone as Raefe walked with her down the aisle behind her father and Mary at the end of the short service.
It had been an unnerving experience—kneeling beside him, praying beside him with her perfumed body aquiver beneath the silk suit, with all her perfect grooming hiding—she hoped—the helpless seething of emotions, with the touch of his hand on her elbow evoking all sorts of memories.
‘Your father said that so long as you were there for the toasts we could do as we liked. l gather it’s only to be a short reception anyway.
This was true, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because as they stepped out of the church it was obvious the Press had been alerted by someone, and they were there in force.
Frank Valentine grimaced, but granted them five minutes. He also insisted his daughter Francesca was included in the photos, and it was inevitable, as Raefe got into the second limousine with Francesca, that he was photographed too. Several members of the press corps called out, asking his name.
‘Well, now you’ll be in the social pages,’ Francesca said tartly as they were driven away.
He took her hand. She resisted briefly but he wouldn’t let it go, so she let it lie in his and turned her head to look out of the window. ‘So l will,’ he said wryly. ‘”The mystery man”—but I’ll be the one you marry, did they but know it.’
‘Look, Raefe—’ her tone was taut ‘—you can’t expect me to fight this out with you today. It’s my father’s wedding day!’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, Chessie. I didn’t come to fight you.’
She made a frustrated little sound.
‘I’m also pleased to hear,’ he went on quietly, linking his fingers through hers, ‘that his marriage now has your approval.’
‘You…’ She turned her head to look at him, her eyes an incredulous deep blue. ‘How long have you and my father been in cahoots?’
‘A few days. Jess sends her love.’
Her lips parted and their eyes locked. .‘How could you?’ she whispered.
‘I’ll tell you that later—we’re here.’
She blinked away some foolish tears as the car swept into the forecourt of the house, and took a deep breath.
There were more photos as they alighted, this time official ones, and although Raefe discreetly stayed out of the limelight this time he was never far away in the main lounge, where the reception was set up and the guests mingled.
‘Dad,’ she managed to say, ‘why did you do this?’
‘Chessie, he came to see me and lay his case before me the day after I got you home. I thought he might just be the one for you, my dear, dear girl, but I insisted that you have a few days—not only to get over your cold but also to have things out with yourself.
‘Send him away if you wish, but I’d think twice about it if I were you. I may not have been much of a father but it’s my dearest wish to see you happy, and if nothing else he’s proved to me he has your best interests at heart— Senator Mitchell! Great to see you—have you met my daughter Francesca?’
She responded mechanically, thinking drily at the same time that some things about her father would never change. And that was how it continued throughout the toasts and the cutting of the cake. Then the bridal. couple departed in showers of confetti and rose petals—they were off to Fiji—and the guests started to trickle away. Until there were only the two of them left—and the staff.
‘A glass of champagne, Chessie?’
‘More setting of the scene, Raefe?’ she said with irony. ‘Did you really think doing this in the middle of a wedding would make me feel all soft and sentimental? Make m
e change my mind?’.
‘No, although that may have been your father’s motivation. But mine is quite different. This is the first opportunity I’ve been granted to tell you about all the things I’ve done wrong.’
She accepted the glass he was offering her and took a sip. Then her shoulders slumped and she said huskily, ‘It’s not your fault—none of it is. Once I knew, that’s when I should have left. Come to that, I should never have gone to Bramble in the first place. Sorry…’
‘If you’d never come, Chessie,’ he said slowly, his eyes holding her tear-filled ones, ‘my life would have been poorer and my perceptions duller, and, what’s worse, I might never have been able to pay Olivia the final compliment.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What…what do you mean?’
He took her hand. ‘Is there somewhere a bit more private we could go, Chessie?’
She looked around dazedly, and was surprised to see someone operating a vacuum cleaner not far from them.
‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat, then led the way through the house to a glass-fronted conservatory overlooking the garden at the rear. There were comfortable settees and chairs set amongst the potted plants, statues and hanging baskets, and it was always peaceful.
Francesca hesitated, then sat in a single armchair. Raefe sat down opposite, putting a silver bucket holding the champagne bottle down at his feet.
‘How…how is Jess?’ she blurted out—something she’d been willing herself not to ask.
‘Chessie …’ He paused, his fair head bent as he studied his glass, then he raised sombre grey eyes to hers. ‘This has got nothing to do with Jess. Nor has it anything to do with you being a virgin—although I admit that you took me by surprise there.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I also know you wouldn’t have asked me to marry you otherwise, although you denied it, but it had to have something to do with it. And, you see—’
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