by Coleen Kwan
She returned to the table with their plates. The slices of steak were done to perfection, the crisply caramelised crust giving way to succulent red meat just the way he liked it, and the blue-cheese sauce was unbelievable. He almost didn’t want to waste space eating the accompanying vegetables, but when he tried the potato rosti, aubergines and carrots they were just as incredible.
“Save some space for dessert.”
Feeling a bit of a pig, he set down his knife and fork. Harriet had a faint smile on her lips.
“How am I doing so far?”
Way beyond his expectations, but he wasn’t ready to give her any praise. “I’ll tell you after dessert.”
“Fair enough.” She lined up her cutlery on her plate, and cleared her throat. “I want to ask you a question about the ball.”
He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. “What is it?”
“I’m curious to know why you chose my dad to do the catering. I love him, of course, but even I have to admit The Tuckerbox is a bit…old-fashioned, shall we say? When he told me what he’d been planning to serve at the ball, I was a bit puzzled. For a moment I thought you were having a nostalgia theme, but apparently not. So why did you go with my father?”
There wasn’t much point in hiding the truth from her. “Your father offered. He was very keen to help, assured me everything would be done at cost, so I accepted.” He drummed his forefinger on the table. “Ever since I returned to Wilmot your father has been keen to help me.”
He liked Ken a great deal. There was something open and engaging about him. With Ken, what you saw was what you got. No facade, no secrets, no nasty surprises.
“I’m sure not all the committee members were happy about him doing the catering.”
He pushed away the memory of Portia’s carping. “There’s no pleasing everybody, so I make the final decisions.”
“Okay.” She gathered up the plates and rose to her feet. “Let’s see if my dessert will impress you.”
He expected it would, but when she laid the bowl of apple-and-rhubarb crumble in front of him, he found himself bracing against the edge of the table. The warm scent of fruit and spice drifted up his nostrils and into his brain, unlocking buried memories he didn’t even know existed.
In an instant he was fourteen years old again and sitting at the kitchen table wolfing down the leftovers of his mother’s apple-and-rhubarb crumble. His mother was chatting to him while she moved around the warm kitchen. She wanted to know about his school day, but he was too busy cramming in the last spoonfuls so he could dash outside with his football before it got too dark. If only he’d known. A few months later his mother was dead. Ovarian cancer. After that, there were no more leftover desserts or warm kitchens.
“Adam?” Harriet’s voice dragged him back to the present. “Is anything the matter?”
He pushed the bowl away reflexively. “I’m not a big fan of rhubarb.”
Her spoon froze in midair. Dismay flickered across her face. “Fine.” She set down her spoon carefully, her brow crinkling. “Is there anything else I can make you? Pancakes, perhaps?”
He clamped his lips tight. He was such a rude pig. With an effort he pulled the bowl toward him. “Actually, I will try a bit of this.”
He bent his head over the bowl, and they ate in thorny silence. The crumble was just as delicious as his mother’s, but he had trouble swallowing more than a few mouthfuls. Eventually he gave up and declared that he would do the washing up. She didn’t argue, instead busying herself repacking the boxes and taking them back out to her car. When he’d finished the dishes, he found her standing on the small wooden veranda, gazing at the mansion on the hill. As soon as he joined her, she straightened up and folded her arms across her chest.
“I’d better be on my way,” she said.
He stopped in surprise. “You don’t have to rush off so quickly.”
Her eyes grew round with confusion. “Really? I just thought…” She drew in a quick gulp of air. “You don’t have to spell out what you thought of my dessert, and I know very well it’s the last course that impresses people the most.”
“Your rhubarb was fine.” He sighed. He didn’t want to talk about her dessert. “Why don’t we take a walk over to the main house?”
“Now?”
“If you’re not busy.”
“Uh, sure. I’ve always wanted to see Blackstone Hall.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not what it used to be.”
He slipped a pair of runners on to his bare feet, and they strolled down the driveway. The afternoon was quiet and pleasant, the poplar trees a rustling mass of gold against a deep blue sky, the surrounding hills slowly turning flaxen under the autumn sun. Their feet crunched on the gravel as they skirted the main house and approached it from the front.
The peeling paint, broken windows and missing tiles stung him afresh, but Harriet still seemed impressed. They went inside, and she stared around her in awe, taking in the soaring ceilings and grand proportions.
“This room is amazing.” She wandered around the drawing room and ran her fingers over the carved mantelpiece. Two sagging armchairs crouched in front of the fireplace, with springs and stuffing leaking from their torn upholstery. Their shoes echoed on the bare floorboards as they moved to the adjoining dining room. Here everything had been removed, only the marks on the dingy walls indicating where paintings had once hung. “But why are these rooms so bare?” she asked. “What happened to all the furniture and the paintings?”
The muscles between his shoulder blades tensed. Did she really not know what had happened? “My father sold off all the valuable pieces. If you recall, he had debts to pay.”
She nodded, looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t realise. I thought he…”
His gut clenched as her voice trailed off. “You thought he’d try to hide behind bankruptcy to salvage his assets?” His voice rumbled with suppressed anger. “My father might have run up some huge debts, but when the truth came out he didn’t try to dodge behind the law. He tried to do the right thing. He sold everything of value—the farmlands, the horse stud, the vineyards, all the furniture and paintings we had here, even the books. Unfortunately it didn’t come anywhere close to what he owed.”
Motionless, she stood in the centre of the room, her hands twisted together. She drew in a slow breath. “Your father never struck me as an extravagant person. I’ve always wondered how he managed to run up such huge debts.”
Her question scraped across his nerves, as she must have anticipated. His first instinct was to turn away, give her the cold shoulder, but something made him pause. He grazed his fingers through his hair and leaned his taut shoulder against a window frame.
“A combination of lousy business decisions and gambling,” he said roughly.
“Gambling?”
He’d been shocked when he’d found out the size of his father’s debts. When confronted, his father had broken down and confessed that, after Adam’s mother had died, he’d been unable to concentrate on his various business concerns. He’d let things slide and had started betting on the horses. The gambling had become an addiction, easing the pain of his loneliness, if only temporarily. Adam could understand that. His mother had been the heart of their family; without her, he and his dad had fallen apart, each nursing their own private grief.
“Yeah.” He jutted out his chin. “Gambling. And girlfriends. A sure-fire combination to empty a man’s wallet.”
Harriet went pale, bit her lip and stared down at the floor.
The business losses and the gambling Adam had been able to understand, but the multiple girlfriends? After four years of being a widower, his father was still a handsome man, and Adam could accept that his dad wanted female companionship, but two secret girlfriends at the same time? It had all felt so grubby, and his father hadn’t been able to look him in the eye when he’d admitted it was true. Adam hadn’t been able to look his father in the face either.
He gl
anced at Harriet, and his anger returned in a white-hot surge. “Why the stunned look? You’re the one who took all those photos of him with his lovers and with that sleazy developer.”
For ages he’d burned with questions, things he wanted—needed—to say to Harriet. This confrontation had been a long time coming, and finally it was here.
He strode up to her, hands on hips, belligerent. “Tell me how it all happened, Harriet. Tell me why you decided to tail my father, why you took those pictures, and why you ran to the newspaper. Tell me how you—” he jabbed an accusing finger at her, “—of all people got involved.”
He towered over her, animosity radiating off him in waves, aware of how intimidating he must seem. She didn’t falter backward, though he could see she was agitated. She swallowed hard and rubbed a hand across her face.
“Why do you want to rake up the past? It won’t solve anything, and you’ll only get angrier.”
It wasn’t possible to be any angrier than he already was. He glowered at her. “Dammit, Harriet. After everything you’ve done, I have a right to know.”
“Fine.” She rubbed her upper arms. “But you’re not going to like what I say.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
“You—” she began hotly before she stopped and gulped down her words. She started again. “You know Patterson Park down by the river. It’s a dump, but I used to hang out there on my own. I started seeing your dad’s car there a lot, and—and one day I had my camera with me. I saw him with that developer, acting suspiciously, accepting an envelope and actually counting the money. I couldn’t believe it.”
“So you just had to take a few photos.”
She reddened. “After the developer left, one of your father’s, um, lady friends showed up.”
“And you took some more shots and ran off to the Tribune.”
“No I did not run to the paper!” Her chest rose and fell. “It was the editor…”
The muscles in Adam’s arms bunched. “What about him?”
Harriet sighed. “I was at The Tuckerbox looking at the pictures when the editor saw them and insisted they be published. It was all in the public interest, he said.”
“And of course you believed him. You never stopped to think that maybe he was just interested in selling a lot of newspapers with the grubbiest headlines he could think of.”
The story had run for weeks, and had been picked up by national newspapers and TV stations. He and his father had had a media scrum camped outside Blackstone Hall for days.
“I didn’t think it would explode the way it did.” Harriet chewed the edge of her thumb, downcast.
“So you’re telling me that, as far as you’re concerned, it was all just a string of random events?” He shook his head. He wasn’t sure if she could be believed or not. “It was just pure coincidence that you happened to be there at that park?”
She frowned at her gnawed thumb. “Yes.”
Something cold slithered through his gut. Instinct warned him that she wasn’t telling him the entire truth. But why would she lie after all these years? The squalid truth had come out, and his father was long dead.
“You didn’t do it out of revenge? Because of something stupid I said? Like—like calling you chunky?”
Her head jerked up as if she’d been stung. “Of course not! Do you think I’m that sort of person?” She gulped. “Adam—” his name came out almost as a sob, “—I wish I’d never done it. If I’d known what would happen…”
His anger toward her fizzled, then curdled and soured in his gut. “Even without you, it would still have happened.” He exhaled and moved away from her. “You were just the catalyst. My father still had those massive debts he couldn’t repay. The bank would still have repossessed this place. We would still have been left with nothing.”
But was that the truth? The public scandal had broken his father’s spirit. After that, Warwick Blackstone had holed up in this house, too ashamed to face the world or fight for his rights. He hadn’t bothered trying to renegotiate his loans, had simply let the rapacious banks dictate terms. If Harriet hadn’t taken those pictures, maybe his father might have come to his senses and made amends. Maybe his father might have survived the crisis. He’d be poor today, but at least he’d still be alive.
“What happened to you after you lost Blackstone Hall?” she asked, her voice husky. “Where did you go?”
Her eyes glinted with moisture. Oh crap. Was she going to cry? He hoped not. He could see she was genuinely upset, and the remaining anger in him faltered.
“I wanted to go somewhere far away. I went to Tasmania.”
She blinked, nodded and hugged herself as though she were cold. “Is that where you became a builder?”
“Eventually.” Before becoming a fully licensed builder, he’d first trained as a carpenter, employed on restoration projects of Tasmania’s numerous colonial buildings. There was something about working with wood—its scent, history and organic texture—which he found deeply satisfying.
“And now you’re back here in Wilmot.” She looked up at the lofty ceiling. “And you’ve reclaimed your family home.”
He glanced up too and caught sight of the large damp stain marring the plaster mouldings.
“Not quite. The bank holds the title deeds to this house. I just have a hefty mortgage to pay off over the next twenty years and a place that’s falling about my ears.”
“Oh.” His sardonic tone brought a look of uncertainty to her face. “Has the house been empty all these years then?”
“Yes. The bank tried to sell it several times, but somehow never succeeded. This house is heritage listed, so that puts off the buyers out for a quick buck. And the more it rotted away, the harder it was to sell. I got it at a bargain price, but I’m still just buying a money-pit.”
He’d sunk all his savings into buying Blackstone Hall, and he spent all his spare time working on it. The decision to buy his old family home had been a completely irrational one in terms of economic sense, but he hadn’t hesitated to sign the papers. This house was part of his history, part of who he was, and coming back here had restored something in him he’d thought he’d lost. It sounded flaky, but Harriet was nodding, as though she understood.
“At any rate it’s a very beautiful money-pit.” She moved over to the French doors. Her shoulders stiffened. “Are you expecting company?”
Harriet’s heart sank when she spotted the silver BMW convertible gliding up the gravel driveway with the top down. The woman behind the wheel was instantly recognisable.
“My cousins,” Adam said from another set of French doors. “I wasn’t expecting them, no.”
She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not. The two people in the BMW spotted him and waved. Portia brought the sleek car to a halt just inches from the front veranda. The man who slung himself out of the car was tall and fair just like Portia.
“You remember Tristan, Portia’s brother?” said Adam as they walked back through the hallway and out the front door. “He was in my year at school.”
Tristan had been popular at school, but not as popular as the edgier Adam. Tristan had always seemed easygoing, and he didn’t appear to have changed much as he leaped up on the veranda and strode toward Adam with a big grin on his face. His blond, sun-streaked hair flopped across his forehead, and he was dressed straight out of the country-casual pages of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. Harriet hung back as the two cousins greeted each other.
“Just here for the weekend, so I dragged Portia along with me to say hello.” Tristan clapped his cousin on the back. Next to Adam’s work-hardened physique Tristan seemed rather soft and pampered. His eyes slid toward Harriet and lit up with interest. “Hel-lo?” He wiggled his eyebrows in ridiculous exaggeration. “Hope we’re not disturbing anything!”
The innuendo in his voice made Harriet’s toes curl.
“It’s Harriet Brown. You remember. A year below us at school.” Adam’s voice was as terse as his expres
sion.
“Harriet Brown?” The blankness on Tristan’s face slowly altered as his memory kicked in. A flush crept up his neck. “Ah…Harriet…yes.” He eyed her uncertainly as he tugged at the collar of his expensive polo shirt. “Hi there.”
“Hello.” She gave him a nod.
“Harriet and I have just been discussing the catering for the Harvest Ball,” Adam continued without a sideways glance at her.
“Have you?” Portia’s voice was sharp as a whiplash, belying her languid posture. She’d been lounging against a veranda post, but now she sauntered forward in her impeccable linen pantsuit. Ignoring Harriet, she planted herself in front of Adam. “Why are you talking to Harriet about the ball? I thought you were going to call Grape in Scone today.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, but Harriet will be doing the catering.”
Portia’s jaw sagged. “She is?”
I am? Harriet thought. She stared at Adam who continued to ignore her.
“Harriet runs her own catering business back in Sydney,” he said. “She’s just given me a sample of her cooking, and I’m satisfied she can handle the job.” He turned to Harriet. “Can’t you?”
The challenge in his eyes was unmistakeable. She sucked in a quick breath. “Of course I can.”
She had no idea what she had just agreed to. After her disastrous apple-and-rhubarb crumble, she’d assumed she’d lost all hope of winning Adam over, so she hadn’t even bothered to ask for more details like how many people he expected, or what facilities there were at the church hall. But now that she’d given him her word in front of Portia and Tristan, she would rather pull out her fingernails than back-pedal.
“You never mentioned Harriet to the committee.” Portia’s face was tight with accusation. “I’m sure some of us would have had something to say if we’d been consulted.”
