An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden

by Margaret Way

  How evil was the man he’d called Grandfather?

  Inside the mausoleum Brock, his eyes closed, began to offer up the prayers he’d withheld for half his lifetime. This was his father, who’d once been young and handsome and strong. He had to hold onto his memories. He was at once a boy again, with tears sliding from beneath his lids. His father hadn’t deserted them. He’d been here all along.

  Spine-chilling horror turned to tremendous anxiety. “What are we going to do about this?” Philip, ashen-faced, looked apprehensively towards the house. “It’s your father. It must be.”

  “It couldn’t be anyone else,” Brock responded, pressing both hands to his throbbing temples. “Even if he hadn’t been wearing that medal around his neck I’d have known. My mother made him wear that to protect him.” He gave a laugh so grim Philip shuddered. “Damn him to hell!”

  They both knew who “him” was.

  The cousins were sitting, in shock, on the stone steps that led up to the mausoleum, the great doors now firmly shut.

  “I can’t find the words to express how sorry I am, Brock.” Philip shook his head in despair. “So very sorry. There’s no way any of us can make it up to you. We simply have to live with it. As a family, we’re cursed.”

  “It seems like it,” Brock answered in a blighted voice.

  “What’s going to happen when we make this public?” Philip asked, his voice terribly disturbed. “I can’t bear to tell my mother. I don’t even trust her. I’d hate Maitland to know. This will do frightful things to our family. To our name.”

  “Some family.” Brock tried to focus his mind on all the consequences of their grim discovery. “Give me time to think this out. Kingsley is dead. The law can’t touch him. But one thing I’ll make clear. You’re not going to put him in the mausoleum. That really would be a desecration. You’ll tell your mother you’ve decided against it.”

  “Anything you say, Brock. I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t want him there with my poor father.”

  “You won’t share this with anyone?”

  “God, no.” Philip shuddered all over. “Why would I want to? This is evil. I don’t want Mulgaree either,” he cried emotionally. “You can have it. I’m not simply making noises. You can have it. I’ll sign it all over.”

  “I don’t want it,” Brock said in a flat, toneless voice. “I’d like to burn the bloody place down.”

  “And I’ll help you. We can sell up. The whole shebang. You can handle it. You’re much smarter than I am. Always were, always will be. As far as I’m concerned we can split the proceeds down the middle. This is the most sickening thing a man could expect to see in a lifetime outside of war. Grandfather must have thought he was God. Why did he do it? It’s unbelievable.”

  Brock saw it with perfect clarity. “Jealousy. A jealousy that ate him away. Kingsley only had room in his heart for one person and that was my mother. When she betrayed him by marrying my father against his wishes that sealed my father’s fate. It only took a few years for Kingsley to cross the line.”

  “How appalling!” said Philip, feeling as if he was on the brink of bawling his eyes out. “I don’t know if I’ve got legs after this, but I have to put a stop to tomorrow’s service. To what I intended to happen. Forgive me, Brock, I know this is sensitive but what will we do with your father’s remains?”

  “He must be properly buried.” Probably in secret. Brock wanted time to think.

  “My dad too. Why don’t we have this dreadful pile knocked down?” Philip rose shakily to his feet. “Everyone hates it.”

  “If I had my way I’d do it now. But first we have to make arrangements. As for Kingsley? I’ve just decided. He can be cremated. Send him away. Cancel the service. I don’t want him on this land.”

  “What are you saying, Philip? There’s not to be a service now?” Frances Kingsley, seated in an armchair, glared at her son in astonishment.

  “Brock and I have thought about it and we’ve decided Grandfather will be cremated. We’ll send him away.”

  Frances was clearly staggered. “Since when have you and Brock been in agreement about anything?”

  “Let it be, Frances,” Brock said in a voice that carried a lot of authority. “Arrangements have already been made. We don’t want him buried on Mulgaree.”

  “But it’s his home. Was his home,” Frances said, trying to mute her own terrible memories of her father-in-law. “I can’t make sense of this at all. I never approved of the mausoleum, as you well know. Dreadful place. In any case, it’s for Philip to decide, Brock. Philip is the heir.”

  “You have to prove the will first.” Brock directed a glittering glance at her. “I have far too many suspicions. Eula is quite clear on one point. She saw Kingsley’s signature. Wait, Frances.” He held up his hand as Frances made to rush into denials. “Eula’s not stupid. It’s your way to seriously underestimate people. She was brought in as a witness and witness his signature she did. She will swear it on oath.”

  “I don’t want it anyway,” Philip announced, still looking sick and ashen. “I’m not cut out for the top job. You know that, Mother. All I want is Shelley. If I have Shelley I don’t need anything else.”

  “Except she’s madly in love with your cousin, you fool,” Frances cried, her face ugly with frustration and accumulated disappointment in her son.

  Philip swung his head, an odd, defeated look on his face. “That’s not true—is it, Brock?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Brock answered crisply.

  “You see?” Anger coloured Frances’s face. “I warned you. He’s taken your girl.”

  “I think I want to hear that from Shelley herself,” Philip said, sounding very subdued.

  “You will,” Brock promised. “Meanwhile, Frances, you can tell your boyfriend to pack his bags. I suspect the two of you are going to need a damned good lawyer.”

  Shelley had barely arrived back on Wybourne, her decision to leave her family firmly in her mind, when Brock called ahead to notify her he was arriving.

  Patrick Logan looked threatened. “What’s he coming here for? You’d better explain. It should be Philip.”

  Shelley shook her head. “Dad, you have to stop pushing Philip on me. It’s all over. He may have been your choice, but never mine. I’m tired of trying to do things to make you happy. I’ve been trying all my life, but nothing works.”

  Her father towered above her. “All your mother and I want for you is your happiness, Shelley. I thought you went into town to think things over. Recover yourself.”

  “I did. That’s why I’m making it as plain as I can. I have no romantic interest in Philip. I’ve been sympathetic towards him because of the way his grandfather treated him. It’s Brock who means more to me.” She could have said “everything to me”, but that would have further inflamed her father.

  Patrick Logan wheeled away, laughing as though she’d made some ridiculous jest. “I’m sorry, but what can he do for you? I understand he didn’t get a penny.”

  “You insult me, Dad,” Shelley answered with dignity. “I’m not interested in the money.”

  “No, because you’re a silly little romantic fool,” he retorted sharply. “You’ve got the ball in your hands but you’re going to drop it. As far as I can recall, Brock Tyson had all the girls in love with him. Why do you suppose he’s serious about you? And even if he were he can’t help you. In all probability he’s like his father. Ever think of that? Tyson abandoned his wife and child.”

  “Or rather his father went missing,” Shelley said. “Rex Kingsley was a monstrous man. I’m sure he got to Brock’s father in some way we’ll never know.” She turned her head, listening with the greatest relief to the sound of an approaching helicopter. “That will be Brock.”

  “And what do you propose to do?” her father challenged, weighed down by all sorts of guilt about himself but unable to confront them.

  “Whatever he asks,” Shelley said simply, walking to the door.

  “You
stay here, miss,” her father roared. “I haven’t lost the right to tell you what to do. This is my house, and while you’re in it you’ll do what you’re told.”

  The tilt of her chin, the expression on her face, silenced him. “I’m terribly sorry, Dad, but I have been doing a lot of thinking. There’s nothing for me here and there never really was. I’ll pack my bags and make another life. I could tell you what happened that terrible day we lost Sean but it would only do more harm. I’ve remembered, you see. You’ll be a lot happier when I’m gone. You never quite brought yourself to look at me.”

  “Come back here, Shelley.” He gritted his teeth, trying to speak more kindly. “I’ll have a word with this young man.”

  “Don’t expect him to be a push-over, like Philip,” Shelley warned.

  The meeting didn’t go well. Brock was in no fit state to be sympathetic towards this man who had caused Shelley so much grief. Though he was courteous, just barely, hostility showed in his remarkable eyes.

  Patrick Logan for his part found it an unexpectedly chastening experience. Though this young man’s high-handed arrogance angered him, he found it oddly daunting. One thing was certain. Brock Tyson was no deserter. Probably the father hadn’t been either. A man like Rex Kingsley was capable of anything after all—even blood on his hands.

  Shelley’s shock was immense when Brock told her the real story behind his father’s disappearance. She watched him in alarm. Brock looked dangerous. “What are you going to do?” They had landed within Mulgaree’s borders, a few miles from the homestead. “You want revenge?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” he asked tautly.

  “I’m waiting for my heart to quiet,” she said simply. “There must be terrible pain inside you.”

  For a minute he couldn’t speak, traumatized, but trying to overcome it. “Pain and horror—yet in some way it’s lifted a burden from my shoulders. I now know that my father didn’t desert us. He must have faced up to Kingsley and suffered the terrible consequences. He may have said he was taking my mother and me away. That could have triggered a crime of passion. Sheer rage. My grandfather had a fearful temper. He’d hated my father from the start.”

  “Only you and Philip know?” She studied his grim profile.

  “And now you. You need to know everything about me. The good and the bad. There’s an awful voice inside my head that reminds me I have Kingsley’s blood.”

  “Don’t let that tear you apart, Brock. You’re two completely different people. I would trust you with my life. I don’t question your capacity to love or your compassion. Your grandfather sold his soul to the devil.”

  “Let’s hope the devil has got him now,” Brock burst out violently.

  Shelley sought to calm him, laying a hand on his arm. “Well, he’s out of the picture for ever. He won’t bother you any more. You can bring his crime to light or you can remain silent.”

  “In silence I’d be protecting my family now and the family I hope to have one day. Would anyone want to know their great-grandfather had committed such a crime? I’ll never forget it,” Brock said sombrely. “Neither will Philip. It will haunt us to our dying day. So Kingsley gets off scot-free. Is that it?”

  “Not when he meets his Maker,” Shelley said with a shudder. “There is a Judgement Day, I’m sure of it. And in a way your grandfather was so miserable he answered all his life.”

  Brock stared away to the purple ridges, a haze like gold dust hanging over their ragged peaks. “Philip tells me he wants to give up Mulgaree. It’s the shock talking, of course.”

  “I think I would too.” She felt unnerved by the terrible disclosure.

  Brock shook his head. “Mulgaree is the land. The land is eternal. We’re only custodians. It’s hard to think straight when you have to contend with so many dreadful things.”

  “Finding your father like that must have been unbearable. I wish I’d been with you.” They were sitting beneath a tree, she resting her head against his shoulder, desperate to offer comfort.

  “You’re here now.” Brock’s voice was deep and full of gratitude.

  It moved Shelley immensely. “Don’t I only complicate the picture?” she made herself ask.

  “Shelley, there are complications all around,” he groaned. “But you’re keeping me sane. In fact, I’m damned sure I don’t deserve you. I have problems to surmount before we can take up our lives. Right at this minute I’m not exactly sure what course to take. I have a strong case, but litigation costs a fortune—which is what Frances and Philip are banking on.”

  “I’ll stand by you if you want me,” she said, thinking of her promised reward for her part in finding the Claydon Treasure. She didn’t know then, but it was far more than she’d ever expected. “As a friend,” she said pointedly. “I would never want you to feel you had any obligation to me. That I couldn’t live without you. That I’d jump off a cliff if you found another girl.”

  “Would you?” For the first time he smiled, an illumination that lit the handsome, sombre cast of his face.

  “No.”

  “What would you do?” he asked very softly, lowering his head over hers, his lips at her temple.

  “I’d sink into a terrible decline, but I’d go away and you wouldn’t know a thing about it.”

  “Where would you go that I wouldn’t find you?” His brilliant gaze challenged.

  “Always supposing when things settle you’ll want to find me?”

  “You’re talking nonsense, you know,” he said, very crisply.

  “Am I?” She knew what they had was good, but could she hold onto him?

  “I’d hoped you’d know that by now,” he told her in a taut voice.

  Suddenly there were streaks of tears on her face.

  “Shelley, am I being cruel to you?” He pulled her swiftly into his arms. “I don’t mean to be. Nothing matters more than you.”

  “You want me to believe that?” She looked full into his beautiful eyes.

  “Let me show you how much you matter,” he said, and by way of answer laid her down on the sand.

  One minute Eula was sitting at the kitchen table quietly shedding a few tears—her ladyship had given her notice, call it the sack, as of course she’d known she would, reminding Eula she had received a generous legacy to keep her comfortable if she was careful—when the largest part of her brain suddenly fired, emitting a chink of miraculous light.

  She hadn’t hidden the will in the Chinese vase. It was in the red lacquer Chinese chest with all the gold whirlygigs on it. There was so much Chinese stuff around the house—screens, rugs, chairs, chests, bronzes, vases almost as tall as her—you’d think you were in Beijing. The red lacquer chest—of course. It seemed incredible to her now that she hadn’t been able to recall her hiding place despite all her efforts. What a great mysterious power the brain was. With any luck at all she’d be able to remember where she’d hidden her mother’s gold brooch next.

  Eula leapt up from her chair, feeling a great rush of hope. If anyone deserved to be compensated for all he and his lovely mother Catherine had suffered, it was Brock. That wicked old man owed him. Eula happened to know how much Brockway money had helped forge the Kingsley empire. A lot of people said money didn’t matter. Eula thought it did.

  The moment Brock and Shelley walked in the front door of the homestead, a great stillness about them, Eula hurried to give them the good news. Had she known it, triumph was emblazoned all over her face, her arms raised aloft in thanksgiving, her expression near ecstatic.

  How happy it would make them, Eula thought, ignorant, as she would remain, of Brock’s tragic discovery. She wasn’t sorry at all she had snatched up Maitland’s handwritten document and copied it on the fax machine. She would swear that God had told her to do it.

  Even so she had been amazed when she read it. Brock had been named the sole heir. There was no mention of anyone else. No bequests to the usual institutions—family, friends, servants. Including her. That blew her legacy, but she didn’t ca
re. Brock would never sack her. Of that she was certain.

  What an extraordinary, unpredictable old man. Or maybe by the end he’d had no strength left but to make his will short and sweet. Brock had been the victim of his cruelty. Knowing Brock as well as she did, Eula was certain Brock would do the right thing by his cousin, Philip, but she sincerely hoped her ladyship wouldn’t get a dime. She was an awful woman. Just awful.

  Brock gave the housekeeper a piercing stare. “What is it, Eula?” God, the worst thing to do was to jump to conclusions.

  Eula stumbled a little in her excitement to get to him. “I found it, Brock.”

  Brock reached down and grasped Shelley’s hand, feeling as if his nerves were rubbed raw. “And?”

  “I was just so happy that before I knew where I was I’d read it,” Eula confessed, tossing Shelley a happy smile. “You get the lot. The whole shebang!”

  Brock and Shelley stared at her as though they were trying hard to understand what she was saying. “What about Philip and his mother?” Brock questioned, his voice a little harsh, a pallor to his tanned polished skin.

  “There’s no mention of them!” Eula whispered from behind her hand.

  Brock waited no more. “I’ve got to see this,” he said, striding down the entrance hall, pulling Shelley with him, needing her, wanting her, releasing his feelings through the strong pressure of his hand. “Okay, so where is it?”

  “It’s just as I told you, Brock.” Eula hurried after them, slightly out of puff. “Don’t worry. It’s in the kitchen. I wasn’t going to let it out of my sight.”

  “So who do you love?” Brock suddenly demanded, halting to stare into Shelley’s surprised emerald eyes.

  She lifted her face to him, a dawning radiance chasing all the dark clouds away. She had a sudden mental image of herself as a bride, and knew happiness, a sense of belonging unrivalled in all the world.

  “Do you love me?” he urged, seeing she was too overcome by emotion to speak. “Go on—say it, Shelley. I love you, Brock Tyson, even if you are a very difficult man. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my days with you. Swear it, Shelley. Suddenly the thought of losing you terrifies me.”