She looked down at the gold ring on her left hand. It had never been accompanied by an engagement ring—she’d insisted she didn’t want one, that it would be a bit ridiculous, because they could hardly call themselves engaged when they were to get married within a bare week of Brett proposing the marriage of convenience quite out of the blue to her. And, finally, weren’t engagement rings a token of love?
She’d asked her husband-to-be this with a dangerous little glint in her blue eyes, which he’d observed placidly, then he’d shrugged and murmured that it was up to her. But he’d gone on to say that their wedding would not be a hole-and-corner affair if she had that in mind as well.
‘But surely you don’t want all the trimmings?’ she’d protested. ‘I certainly don’t.’
‘What would you like?’ he’d countered. ‘Don’t forget we need to make some kind of a statement, after what’s happened to you and what people are saying.’
‘Well…’ She’d coloured. ‘Something quiet and dignified.’
A look of amusement had flickered in his eyes, causing her to say rashly, ‘I’m quite capable of being dignified, Brett.’
‘Oh, I believe you, although I sometimes prefer you when you’re not, but…’ He’d shrugged.
Her eyes had widened—and, she recalled, sitting now on the veranda, watching the green waters of Trinity Inlet, which formed Cairns Harbour, that had given her another cause to hope.
So she’d made no further objections, and she’d married Brett Harcourt in a simple but beautiful, ballerina length dress of ivory stiffened silk, with a matching pillbox hat crowned with flowers, no veil and short gloves. The ceremony had taken place in the garden of his home, before a marriage celebrant, and the handful of guests had all been of his own family. His children had been present, but, at three and four, had had no real idea of the significance of the occasion.
They’d been wild with delight, however, when she’d moved in permanently from that day.
She finished her lunch with a sigh and remembered that, when making her marriage vows, she’d been uncomfortable and barely audible. Then she’d taken hold and told herself that at least she was in love with her tall, worldly husband, so it couldn’t all be a sham. But of course now, in hindsight, that was what it still was and always had been.
‘All quiet on the western front?’
‘Oh!’ Nicola started. It was that evening, and she was seated at a large and beautiful maple desk in the den, dealing with the household accounts. There was an open chequebook in front of her and a sheaf of bills. It was eight-thirty, the children were in bed asleep, Mendelssohn was playing on the state-of-the-art sound system—and she hadn’t heard Brett come home.
She pushed a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles up on top of her head and regarded him severely. He had a glass of whisky in one hand and was pulling off his tie with the other. ‘You were supposed to be home for dinner.’
‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I got held up.’
‘You don’t have to apologise to me. Your children are another matter, however. You promised to watch The Wiggles with them.’
‘Damn, I forgot.’ Brett Harcourt raked his hand through his dark brown hair. ‘Don’t they put out videos? I could watch a Wiggles video with them.’
‘This was a special concert—televised live.’
‘So I’m well and truly in the sin bin?’
‘I would say so. And you could find yourself in the sin bin with your liver if you make a habit of dining on Scotch.’
Brett Harcourt had hazel eyes that could be extremely enigmatic at times, much to Nicola’s chagrin. They could also be coolly insolent and worldly—another thorn in her flesh. But there were times—and she often wondered if she didn’t find this the most infuriating—when they laughed at her, although he maintained a perfectly straight face. Such as now.
He said gravely, ‘This is my first and last one for the day. It’s been a hell of a day and I got my secretary to order some dinner for me. Have you taken up good works, Nicola?’
She blinked at him. He sat down on the corner of the desk and let that hazel gaze drift over her. She’d changed into a large white T-shirt printed with gold and silver shells, and a pair of yellow leggings. Her hair was twisted up and secured by a big plastic grip. Her feet were bare. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘You sound as if you’re trying to reform me. You even sounded wifely, which is something you avoid at all costs, you must admit.’
The slightest tinge of pink ran beneath the smooth skin of her cheeks, but she said coolly, ‘With good reason, Brett. I’m a wife in name only, aren’t I?’
‘How often have you reminded me of that, I wonder?’ he murmured, this time smiling openly.
‘As often as I try to remind you that you’re a husband in name only, and that you needn’t think you can run my life,’ she responded evenly.
‘I didn’t think I did that.’
Nicola stared at him and tried to mask her impatience, which never worked with Brett.
‘Well, do I?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Tell me about any of your activities I’ve ever put a stop to. Tell me that you don’t come and go as you please, arrange your days as you please—’
‘But if I suddenly decided I wanted to go to…Tibet, that would be a different matter, wouldn’t it?’ she returned tautly.
‘Decidedly,’ he agreed lazily. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.’
She stared at him frustratedly. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know we agreed—after you got yourself virtually kidnapped by a man who was a notorious womaniser—that this would be a safer way to go, Nicola.’
‘I was only nineteen,’ she said through pale lips.
‘You’re only twenty now—all right—’ he shrugged as she opened her mouth to protest ‘—almost twenty-one. But I can’t help wondering whether you’ve acquired the wisdom you so noticeably lacked then.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘Wild talk of Tibet doesn’t seem to go hand in hand with maturity. And that brings me to something else—what were you doing at Lifeline today?’
Nicola gasped. ‘How…? He didn’t!’
‘I felt sure there would be a “he” involved,’ her husband said dryly.
She jumped up. ‘Having a man around is one thing you can’t accuse me of, Brett! Since…since it happened—and I had no idea he was going to lure me away under false pretences and all the rest—’ she shuddered with disgust ‘—I haven’t had anything to do with men! You make it sound as if I go around inviting their attention.’
Brett Harcourt raised a wry eyebrow. ‘You don’t have to, Nicola. They attach themselves. So. What’s with Lifeline? And why were you looking so very pensive?’
‘If you’ve been having me followed, Brett…’ she said through her teeth.
‘You’ll…?’ he queried before she could go on.
The desire to make another wild statement gripped her, but she fought it, causing his lips to twist as he watched her with interest.
‘Were you?’ she ground out at last.
‘No. I merely happened to be stopped at that particular traffic light as you came out. Now, if you have decided to add good works to your music—’ he indicated the beautiful harp that stood in the corner of the den ‘—your flying lessons, your desire to speak Indonesian and your pottery, I’m all for it—but…’ He paused. ‘Something tells me it’s not so.’
Nicola took a deep breath. ‘I do play that harp, I do speak Indonesian, I love pottery and I enjoy flying—are you trying to belittle me for any specific reason?’ she asked with a quizzically raised eyebrow.
He shrugged, smiled slightly and ignored the question. ‘I’m not disputing that. In fact, I’ll go further and say that you’re highly intelligent as well as artistic, and your flying instructor reckons you’re a natural. It still doesn’t explain Lifeline.’
Nicola paced around the room and darkly contemplated the fact that it was impossible to hide most things from Brett—it alwa
ys had been. Which made it rather surprising to think that she’d been able to hide the most important thing of all from him.
She paused beside the harp and ran her fingers gently across the strings in a glissando, to make a golden bell of sound, then stilled it with her palm and turned to look at him.
He was still sitting on the corner of the desk, idly running his tie through his fingers—quite a colourful tie, with red, navy and jade diamonds on it etched in a bone colour that matched his shirt.
But even sitting he was obviously a tall man, who happened to be twelve years her senior with a mind that was razor-sharp. He also had aquiline features, an impressive build and, although he wasn’t precisely handsome, once you got to know him you couldn’t help but be aware that he had a rare charm when he chose.
And when he didn’t choose there was the aura of a powerful intellect combined with a strong physique that gave notice of a man who got his own way frequently.
All in all an irresistible combination, and not only to me, she thought gloomily. To most women—and, even although they’ve been divorced for four years, still to Marietta, she suspected…
‘Nicola?’
She focused her gaze on her husband and shrugged. ‘I went to see a marriage counsellor, that’s all.’
It gave her a fieeting sense of satisfaction to see that she had momentarily stunned him. Then he said a shade grimly, ‘A man?’
‘Yes, he was a man—that threw me at first as well, but—’
‘Nicola.’
‘But he’s also a minister, and he was very nice, Brett, you don’t have to worry on that score.’
‘And what did he advise you to do?’
‘Well, you’re really going to enjoy this,’ she said with simple satire. ‘He advised me to stay put.’
For a moment she wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her, because she could have sworn she saw him relax slightly. Then he said, ‘Not what you wanted to hear, I’m sure.’
‘No,’ she agreed, and shrugged. ‘That doesn’t mean to say I’ll stick to the letter of his advice.’
‘Nicola, I—’
‘Don’t, Brett,’ she said with a sudden, weary little gesture. ‘I have no plans to go anywhere at the moment, but that doesn’t mean to say I’m reconciled to anything.’
He seemed about to say something, then apparently changed his mind and murmured with a humorous little glint, ‘So I can expect you to be here for your twenty-first birthday?’
‘Yes.’ She shrugged.
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
‘I’m not but I’ll probably come round.’ She studied him unenthusiastically, then a faintly malicious glimmer lit her blue eyes. ‘By the way, don’t imagine you’ve escaped The Wiggles.’
‘Why not? I mean to say,’ he amended hastily, ‘I never intended to. I did forget.’
‘And then breathed a sigh of relief, no doubt But we didn’t watch them.’
Brett Harcourt looked at his wife narrowly. ‘How come?’
‘Well, knowing how much you love them, I persuaded your children to let me tape the programme so that we could all watch it together some time tomorrow. Which is a Saturday, in case you’ve forgotten, and one of the two days of the week you keep inviolate from work or whatever.’
‘You—did that to me?’
‘Yes, Brett, I did,’ she responded gravely, then started to laugh. ‘They’re very good, you know.’
‘If you’re a kid. Four young men who’ve tapped into the kindergarten set and made a fortune, I imagine,’ he said meditatively. ‘Oh, well.’
‘You could thank me for averting a crisis. Sasha was distraught when you didn’t turn up.’
‘Sasha is every bit as histrionic as her mother,’ Brett Harcourt said a shade grimly.
‘And getting more and more like her by the day,’ Nicola agreed with a reminiscent little grin.
‘How about Chris?’
‘Oh, I think he’s going to be a chip off the old block.’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘In what way?’
Nicola considered. ‘He’s clever—and practical. He said to Sasha, when she was throwing herself on the floor in floods of tears, “Don’t be so silly, Sash. If we tape it we can fast-forward all the advertisements.”’
Brett chuckled softly. ‘Definitely a man after my own heart. What did she say to that?’
‘Well, she’s no fool either,’ Nicola mused with secret laughter lurking in her eyes. ‘She said she liked the advertisements, they gave you a chance to go and get drinks and things, and she couldn’t stand the way men imagined they were driving a speed car when they had a remote control in their hands—flicking from one channel to another, fast-forwarding things and so on.’
‘You’re kidding. She’s only six.’
‘All the same, in more juvenile terms, that’s what she said! Six is old enough to be struck by male failings, apparently. You, for example, are a nightmare to watch television with for just that reason. So is Chris.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘So, there you go.’ Nicola sat down and pulled the sheaf of bills towards her.
‘We’ve been invited out to lunch on Sunday, by the way,’ Brett said after a moment.
‘Anywhere interesting? Can we take the kids?’
‘Of course. The Masons—I believe you met them at the Goodes’ dinner party a few weeks ago.’
Nicola wrinkled her brow. ‘Oh, yes, I remember. He’s a big, bearded bear of a man and she’s small and cuddly and given to being embarrassingly frank.’ She looked amused. ‘Isn’t he the new District Court Judge?’
‘The same. They’ve invited us to their house at Buchans Point. They have a pool as well as the beach. The kids should enjoy it.’
‘Sounds nice.’ Nicola threw down her pen to yawn heartily. ‘I think I’ll finish these tomorrow.’
‘Tired?’ he asked casually as he watched her tuck her feet beneath her.
‘I don’t know why.’
‘The rigours of marriage counselling?’ he suggested.
‘I think the rigour was on the other foot, if anything.’ She grimaced. ‘He was quite bemused.’
‘Let’s hope he’s quite discreet,’ Brett said.
‘He assured me he was.’
Brett stood up and stretched. ‘Because I doubt whether you’d enjoy featuring in the gossip columns any more than I would, Nicola.’
They stared at each for a long moment, until he added, ‘Don’t forget, that was the other object of this exercise—to protect your fair name from being dragged through the mud.’
‘And on that properly grateful note—’ she got up and curtseyed ‘—I’ll take myself to bed, sir!’
He said nothing, but his eyes were suddenly cynical and cold.
Don’t say it, Nicola warned herself. But, as so often happened, she failed to take her own advice—although she did manage to sound fairly clinical instead of rashly impassioned. ‘There are times when I hate you, Brett.’
‘I know.’ He picked up his glass and drained it.
‘Doesn’t it ever bother you?’
He set the glass down on the desk, stared at it for a moment, then raised his eyes to hers. There was so much amusement in them now, she caught her breath at the same time as a little frisson ran down her spine. A frisson of awareness that she despised herself for but couldn’t help, because Brett Harcourt did that to her even when he laughed at her.
‘No, Nicola. You remind me of Sasha, actually. She often hates me when she doesn’t get her own way. Why don’t you go to bed? You not only sound tired and cross, you look it.’
She opened her mouth, then bit her lip and walked past him. But he put out a hand and closed it round her wrist. ‘Good thinking,’ he said with soft satire, then genuinely laughed at her expression. ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry! Of course you don’t remind me of Sasha, that was tit for tat, but there is nothing on earth for you to be in a s
tate about.’
They were very close-close enough for Nicola to see the little golden flecks in his eyes and feel that frisson of awareness grow into something stronger as his lean, strong fingers moved on the soft skin of her inner wrist.
‘If you say so, Brett,’ she murmured colourlessly, and removed her gaze from the line of his shoulders beneath the bone-coloured shirt, hoping and praying at the same time that he had no idea what the strong column of his throat and those broad shoulders sometimes did to her—evoking an erotic little desire to explore them with her fingertips and follow that trail with her lips.
He released her abruptly. ‘I do. Goodnight, Nicola.’
But something stopped her from moving immediately, something that made her look at him fleetingly, into his eyes, to discover that everything—the amusement and everything else—had been leached from his expression so that it was like looking at a blank wall.
‘Goodnight, Brett,’ she said then, quietly and evenly, and slipped away.
Brett Harcourt stood in the same spot for some moments and wondered, as he’d found himself wondering from time to time over the last two years, if his wife was essentially naive and genuinely had no idea how attractive and desirable most men found her. Because it was true that he couldn’t accuse her of appearing to have much interest in men at all, although he’d been right about her effect on them.
But was it something she still had to grow into? he mused. Or had this marriage of convenience been even more successful than he’d thought, from the point of view of keeping the daughter of a man he’d admired immensely safe? But safe in an ivory tower?
He stared at nothing for a moment, then shrugged.
CHAPTER TWO
SUNDAY dawned clear and hot, although not nearly so hot as Cairns could get. May was one of the nicest months in the far north of Queensland, Nicola often thought. By May the threat of cyclones had receded, the stingers and box jellyfish were removing their deadly tentacles from beaches and the weather was generally cooler and dryer—if not exactly autumnal by southern standards. Although she’d been brought up in Cairns, there was no doubt the hot steamy summers took their toll.
He's My Husband! Page 2
