Return to Deepwater

by Lucy Gillen

  ‘Oh, Robert, it—it isn’t as easy as that!’

  His fierce determination for revenge was not altogether unexpected because it was Darrel Bruce who was involved. Even before he knew exactly what was troubling her he was ready to blame Darrel, simply because he was who he was. Her uncle, she realised, saw her as yet another injured innocent wronged by the Bruces—another Jeanie McCourt—and he probably even relished the situation. All he needed was an excuse to go up to Deepwater and settle with the current owner once and for all.

  ‘He’ll not get away with it!’ Robert insisted. ‘Whatever it is he’s done, he’ll not get away with it!’

  Tarin shook her head slowly, trying to impress him with how wrong he was. ‘Darrel’s not getting away with anything, Robert,’ she assured him. She dried her eyes again and tried to keep them from filling with tears again, but even thinking about leaving Deepwater and Darrel so soon made her cry and she bit her lip desperately, trying to stop the threatened storm. ‘It’s—it’s all my fault,’ she insisted shakily. ‘It really is, Robert.’

  She had never felt so utterly dejected in her life before, and there seemed to be nothing she could do to put things right. It was doubtful if Darrel was even prepared to listen to her, however abjectly she apologised, and certainly her uncle’s solution was unlikely to help. If only she had kept quiet about Gloria Stein she might still be Darrel’s secretary instead of crying her heart out because she would probably never see him again.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Robert argued stubbornly. ‘You’re not a hard girl to get along with, Tarin, and—’

  ‘Neither is Darrel—unless you happen to be a McCourt,’ she told him bitterly. ‘Oh, Robert, why do I have to say the wrong thing always?’

  Her uncle looked at her curiously and the temptation to tell him everything was irresistible. ‘Do you always say the wrong thing?’ he asked, and she nodded ruefully, biting back a great sigh that shuddered through her.

  ‘Always,’ she said huskily. ‘We’ve—we’ve tried so hard to—to put an end to this silly feud thing, Robert, but always there’s something that drives us on.’ She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘Perhaps Darrel’s right—our past, our upbringing is against us at every turn. We always quarrel, no matter what good intentions we have, it’s as if we couldn’t help ourselves.’

  ‘And it matters?’

  Robert’s brown eyes had a shrewd but kindly look and for a moment their brown colour reminded her of Darrel’s so that she was once more blinded with tears. ‘It matters,’ she admitted frankly. ‘To me at least, not so much to Darrel, I think.’

  ‘Oh, Tarin, Tarin, had you no more sense, lassie, than to fall in love with the Bruce?’

  Her uncle hugged her close for a second and she closed her eyes against the exquisite agony of realising how much Darrel meant to her, and how helpless it was to expect him to do anything other than despise her after what she had said to him yesterday.

  ‘I wish I had!’ She looked up at him and impatiently brushed the tears from her eyes with one hand. ‘I thought I could cope with things,’ she went on ruefully, ‘and while it was no more than the old schoolgirl crush, I could. But now—’ She shrugged and her uncle shook his head slowly, obviously unhappy about the unexpected turn things had taken.

  ‘It’s not been very long, Tarin,’ he reminded her. ‘Are you sure you’re not just attracted to a very virile and forceful man with whom you’ve been in close proximity for several weeks?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure.’

  The certainty in her own mind rather surprised her, but she really had no doubt at all that what she felt for Darrel was something far more deep than a mere passing fascination for a very attractive man. The thought of his despising her the way he undoubtedly did at the moment made her deeply unhappy, and she could do nothing to control the fresh tears that ran down her cheeks dismally.

  ‘Oh, my poor lassie!’ Robert hugged her close, shaking his head over her misery. ‘What are you going to do, my dear?’

  ‘I’ve already given him notice,’ Tarin confessed miserably. ‘Thursday, after we quarrelled.’

  ‘Ah!’ He nodded wisely. ‘So that was what was wrong!’

  ‘Then on Friday morning we almost—’ she bit her lip in the anguish of knowing it had been her own fault that the peace moves had not come to fruition. ‘I didn’t see him again all day, not even before I came home, and now it’s too late.’ She shook her head despairingly. ‘I leave later this week.’

  ‘Had that American anything to do with it?’ Robert asked, and she looked up at him for a moment before nodding her head.

  ‘I suppose so, in a way,’ she said. ‘Con—Conrad Stein told me that Darrel would inevitably marry Con’s sister Gloria sooner or later, because he needs a rich wife to keep solvent.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  Something in his tone made Tarin frown at him curiously. If he had simply nodded his head and said it was no more than he expected of the Bruce, she would not have been surprised-But his current reaction puzzled her.

  ‘I didn’t really believe him,’ she denied, and found herself slightly on the defensive, which was another puzzling thing in the circumstances. ‘I—I told Con Stein I didn’t believe it, but I—oh, I don’t know how it happened! I suppose I just couldn’t resist taking a dig at Darrel about it and he thought—he’s convinced, that I believe it of him!’

  ‘Oh, Tarin, you silly girl!’ Her uncle was shaking his head and, difficult as she found to believe it, she was sure that his reaction was much the same as Darrel’s had been. ‘Had you no more sense,’ he asked, ‘than to say such a thing to a man like Darrel Bruce?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t,’ she confessed miserably. ‘And you can guess the result!’

  ‘Did you not realise that he’d not do such a thing?’ Robert was firmly confident he was right, and Tarin stared at him for a moment in disbelief.

  ‘You don’t think he would?’

  ‘I know he wouldn’t,’ he affirmed, and there was a bright gleam of certainty in his eyes that was somehow reassuring.

  ‘But you always said—’

  ‘I’ve always said a lot about the Braces,’ he admitted with an air of getting something off his chest, ‘but I’ve never truthfully met any of them the way I have this man. Even so, I’d never see them as men who would sell themselves for an easy life.’ For a moment she detected a gleam of ironic amusement in his eyes as he looked down at her steadily. ‘Oh aye, they’d maybe steal a pretty girl and carry her off against the will of her family, but they’d not demean themselves by marrying for money, and if you suggested they might, then I’m not surprised he’s finished with you!’

  ‘Uncle Robert!’

  It was quite a speech in the circumstances and for several moments Tarin stared at him unbelievingly, then she shook her head, unable to find words to express her surprise. Robert McCourt allowed a brief and very wry smile to touch his mouth for a moment as he looked down at her. ‘You never thought to hear me say good about a Bruce, I’ll bet,’ he guessed, and she detected a definite hint of defiance in the way he said it that made her smile, despite the way she felt.

  ‘I never did,’ she admitted.

  ‘Well—maybe I’ve been a bit hasty at times in my judgment,’ Robert went on, and looked faintly embarrassed as he rubbed one hand over the back of his head while he made the confession. ‘Maybe I could have been wrong about them on some counts.’ He looked directly at her suddenly and there was a fierceness about his brown eyes that almost matched that of Darrel’s red-bearded ancestors. ‘That’s not to say they haven’t been a pack of savages,’ he declared forcefully, ‘but they’re men for all that, and—well, maybe this one’s better than they’ve produced for a long time.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tarin echoed softly, and he nodded his head, as if he had suddenly made up his mind about something.

  ‘If you want this young blood,’ he told her with embarra
ssing frankness, ‘then you shall have him, lassie! Even if I’ve to kidnap him the way his barbaric ancestor did our Jeanie!’

  Tarin suddenly felt less unhappy and miserable, more optimistic as she looked up at her uncle’s strong and determined expression. She could even make an effort at laughing as she mopped the last of the tears from her eyes with his handkerchief.

  ‘You’d never manage to capture Darrel Bruce,’ she told him. ‘Not even with an army!’

  Robert studied her for a moment, kindly but speculative, as if he sensed her change of mood. ‘Then you go and get him in your own way, my girl,’ he told her softly. ‘You can if you’ve a mind to!’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Tarin denied ruefully, and shook her head, horribly uncertain again for the moment. ‘You don’t know Darrel, Robert. You didn’t see the —the way he hated me for suggesting he might be ready to marry Gloria Stein to save Deepwater.’

  ‘If you’ve enough love for him, you’ll find a way,’ her uncle told her quietly. ‘I’d a lot of opposition from her family when I married Margaret, but I loved her and I meant to have her.’

  Tarin looked at him for a moment in surprise. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘I suppose it never occurred to me.’

  ‘We married very quietly,’ Robert said with a smile for the memory that was so dear to him. ‘But I had my Margaret and that was all that mattered to me. I didn’t want a big fuss and nor did Margaret, bless her heart.’ ,.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ Tarin said softly, and impulsively squeezed the hand that still rested on her shoulder. ‘I was too small to remember anything about it.’

  ‘No one came,’ he said quietly. ‘There was just Margaret and me and a couple of friends. Doctor Robertson was one, and the minister, of course.’

  ‘In the little village church?’ Tarin asked, and he nodded.

  ‘Where she is now,’ he said softly.

  For several moments Tarin sat thinking about the aunt whose memory she did not always recall very clearly, then she shook herself and looked at her uncle, wiping the last traces of tears from her eyes. ‘It sounds very romantic,’ she said at last, ‘but there’s a difference, Robert. You and Margaret loved one another—with me—’ She shrugged uneasily. ‘I don’t think I have much chance with Darrel. I can’t even see myself being given the opportunity to apologise or anything else.’ She looked at him for a second, remembering some of his first words on the subject of Darrel Bruce. ‘You said yourself he’s a hard man,’ she reminded him.

  ‘So I did,’ Robert allowed, ‘but not so hard he wasn’t concerned when you burnt your hands.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ She shrugged once more and half smiled. ‘I think he was more concerned then that he shouldn’t be without a secretary than for any other reason.’ Getting no response to that allegation, she hurried on. ‘I was debating whether or not to go in at all this morning,’ she told him.

  ‘But surely you will,’ Robert told her. ‘It would be silly not to, Tarin!’

  She made a wry face and nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m not looking forward to facing Darrel again this morning.’

  ‘Maybe he guesses you’ll feel like that and he won’t expect you,’ Robert suggested. ‘If he does then you should go in, just to show him you’re not so easily deterred.’

  ‘Show the McCourt banner?’ Tarin suggested with a faint smile, and he nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, Robert.’ She sighed deeply and got up from the table. I’ll go in, though heaven knows what kind of a day I can expect!’

  Tarin’s feelings were somewhat mixed when she discovered that she had the office to herself. It was a relief in one way and yet she would have welcomed an opportunity to try and apologise for yesterday. There was plenty for her to do, and she set about dealing with the morning’s mail before finishing some letters left from yesterday.

  There was another letter from his accountant in the now familiar cream-coloured envelope and another from New York with the title Fennelly and Lucas heavily emblazoned across the envelope as well as the contents. Curiosity almost got the better of her as she put the envelopes to one side and laid the letters neatly one on top of the other on the spotless blotter where Darrel could easily find them, but she determinedly averted her eyes and gave her attention to the rest of the mail.

  When the door opened behind her she became quite still for a moment, feeling her heart plunge into rapid activity and her cheeks colour warmly. She turned slowly, some letters still in her hand, a greeting ready on her lips, determinedly composed, at least outwardly. ‘Good morning, Mr.—’ She spoke as she turned, then stared in disbelief at the man who stood in the doorway.

  Conrad Stein’s thin, boyish figure was clad in riding gear and his grey eyes looked across at her curiously for a moment, as if he speculated on the kind of welcome he was to get. ‘Tarin?’ He hesitated a moment longer, then stepped into the room. ‘Hi!’

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Stein.’

  She turned back and tapped the pile of letters she held on the edge of Darrel’s desk to straighten them. Remembering how Darrel had so determinedly kept him out of the office before, she doubted if it would do her own case much good for Darrel to find Con there with her now, and she tried to impress him with how busy she was, hoping he would take the hint and go.

  But discouragement, she realised, did little to deter Conrad Stein and he closed the door behind him and came across the room towards her. ‘Can’t I beg forgiveness?’ he asked quietly, and Tarin felt bound to look at him at least.

  ‘You haven’t any need to, have you, Mr. Stein?’ she said as coolly as she could. ‘You saw yourself in the right, and your insults were mainly directed at Mr. Bruce, weren’t they?’

  ‘Ouch!’ His rueful grimace was so comical that she almost laughed, and there was an almost irresistibly boyish look about him this morning that made her wonder if she could possibly have imagined yesterday’s malice. He came and put a hand on her arm, his fingers firm but not hard, and smiled at her hopefully. ‘Have a heart, Tarin,’ he begged. ‘I’m truly sorry I upset you yesterday.’

  ‘About maligning Dar—Mr. Bruce?’ she asked quietly, and for a second she saw a hint of that malicious hardness in his eyes again.

  ‘It’s yet to be proved that I did malign him,’ he pointed out. ‘But I am sorry I involved you in it, especially when you’re—’ He possibly took warning from her straight look that forbade him to mention her vulnerability where Darrel was concerned. ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know how sorry I am,’ he went on.

  Tarin took the letters across to her own desk, leaving him to follow, if he chose to, although she would far rather he left before there was any danger of Darrel coming in and finding him there. ‘You know I’m leaving this week, Mr. Stein,’ she reminded him quietly. ‘It isn’t worth worrying about petty differences, is it?’

  Conrad’s rather cool grey eyes studied her for a few moments and he frowned. ‘You’re still going?’ he asked. ‘I thought you would have sorted that out with Darrel during the day.’

  ‘He wasn’t here,’ she said shortly, and wondered at the brief puzzled frown he gave.

  ‘Oh?’

  Obviously his absence had been unknown to at least one of his partners and she wondered if she had inadvertently given something away that Darrel would rather have had kept quiet. ‘I don’t think he liked the idea of being with me all day,’ she told him in an attempt to cover up, but it was obvious he didn’t believe it.

  ‘Tarin!’ A long thin hand reached across the top of the typewriter and prevented her from doing anything, his thin body bent forward so that his face was close to hers. ‘Don’t stay mad at me,’ he begged. ‘Be nice, honey, please!’

  ‘Mr. Stein—’

  ‘Con! For heaven’s sake, what do I have to do to get near you?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tarin realised at last that she was probably being unreasonably unfriendly and she leaned back in her chair and looked up at him with
a faint smile. ‘But I’m not very happy about you being here,’ she confessed. ‘If Mr. Bruce finds you—’

  ‘He’ll throw me out!’ he admitted with a grin. ‘So come with me for a couple of minutes where he can’t see us!’

  ‘I hardly think—’ she began, but he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Aw, come on!’ he encouraged. ‘Darrel won’t go searching for you if you’re missing from the office for a couple of minutes.’

  ‘But I have—’

  ‘It’ll keep!’ he asserted forcefully, and pulled her towards the door without giving her time to object further.

  She started in surprise when she saw Gloria Stein crossing the hall, and half expected her to object to the company her brother was keeping, but instead she merely gave them a brief, rather satisfied smile and seemed not at all surprised. Conrad lowered one eyelid briefly at his sister, then pulled Tarin along after him, across the hall and out through the rear door, past the kitchens.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, unwilling to go too far in case Darrel came back and found her missing. ‘Mr. Stein—’

  ‘Con,’ he insisted, and stopped just outside the door, leaning against the sunwarmed wall of the house, his hands holding both of hers, his grey eyes glistening down at her.

  ‘I really shouldn’t be here,’ she objected, casting uneasy glances round the stone-cobbled yard that spanned the distance between the back of the house and the stables. ‘If Mr. Bruce comes in and finds me missing—’

  ‘He won’t,’ Conrad assured her with a grin. ‘He rode over early to see some guy about a pony he’s buying, and when Darrel starts talking horseflesh he’s unstoppable.’

  Tarin looked across at the squat, stone-built stables where a groom went busily about his chores and completely ignored them. If Darrel was on horseback then he would inevitably come into this yard sooner or later, and once more she shifted uneasily. ‘Just the same,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I should have left the office with no one there.’