“How dare you,”
Evonne panted
Her desperate struggle to free herself was useless. “How dare you climb into my room!”
“I didn’t do it from choice, believe me,” Rick said ironically. “It was the only way to get to you—to break into your ivory tower.”
When he released her abruptly, she sat down awkwardly on the bed. She glared at him resentfully, full of so many conflicting emotions she couldn’t speak.
“What happened back there?” He gestured toward the main complex.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie, Evonne,” he said curtly. “One moment you were having the time of your life, the next you were running for cover. Did you suddenly realize how much you’ve broken your vows lately, that you were living and laughing—and loving it?”
CHAPTER ONE
AMOS DOUBLEDAY leant back in his chair with his hands forming a steeple on his rather rotund stomach and contemplated the ceiling.
Evonne Patterson, who was sitting opposite him across the wide polished expanse of his beautiful teak desk, waited patiently. In the two years that she had worked for Amos as his personal assistant and advertising liaison officer she had come to respect his contemplative silences. Not only that, she found herself musing as she waited. His extremely shrewd brain and marketing instinct, which had helped him to form a chain of exclusive department stores down the eastern seaboard of Australia, had inspired her admiration, and to have helped achieve another of his pet dreams gave her cause for great satisfaction. For Amos had not been content to let matters rest with his successful chain of stores. He had had a dream—or perhaps a mania— about catalogues. ‘Not just any catalogue,’ he’d said vehemently to Evonne when he’d interviewed her. ‘Not just a piece of junk mail people throw away without looking at and get mad at because they clutter up their mail boxes. I want ours to be the state of the art catalogue, a quarterly catalogue so beautifully presented, so exquisitely contrived, so full of marvellous merchandise that people drool over it, treasure it even…can you visualise what I have in mind?’ Evonne had blinked, then said slowly that she thought she could. Whereupon Amos had subjected her person, her long dark hair, her dark eyes and pale skin, her figure beneath the ca-mellia-pink linen suit she wore, her glossy lips and nails that matched exactly, her pale patterned stockings and beautiful calf shoes, to an unblinking stare for a full minute, then he had said thoughtfully that he thought she might just be the epitome of the kind of taste he had in mind—and had offered her the job.
Over the succeeding two years, they had not only realised his dream but formed a rapport. ‘We’re a lot alike, you know, Evonne,’ Amos was fond of saying frequently, and occasionally adding with a wink, ‘I just wish I were twenty-five years younger!’ He was in fact happily married to an equally rotund, homely little lady whose great cross in life was that she had been unable to bear Amos any children. Evonne knew this, and she accepted these occasional remarks as a tribute from an older and basically kindly man. She also had to agree with him when he said, having gleaned some knowledge of her background, ‘We’re tough and we’re bright and tenacious, you and I. We’ve made it from almost nothing—look at you! Barely twenty-eight and a highly successful business executive.’
Yes, Evonne thought, on a cold, grey Melbourne summer morning when the sun should have been shining but, in true fickle Melbourne manner, was not, and Amos was composing his thoughts, I’ve come a long way from the back streets of Woolloomooloo, a Sydney slum then. Such a long way… I just wish I felt more of a sense of achievement.
‘Yes,’ said Amos, sitting up and lowering his gaze from the ceiling, ‘I’ve thought it through and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re the only person I can entrust this mission with.’ He stared at Evonne earnestly.
‘Mission?’ She raised an eyebrow.
Amos coughed delicately. ‘You know Hattie and I have never had any kids—which we accept as the will of God, but,’ he shrugged, ‘well, my sister was more blessed. She had a boy—she married a galloping Pommie and they had this boy.’ He paused.
Evonne waited, speculating idly on what a galloping Pommie could possibly be but knowing that in his own time Amos would enlighten her.
‘That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you, Evonne,’ her boss continued. ‘You can be a very quiet, still, restful woman. You don’t immediately bombard me with questions, you wait and you think. His father was a diplomat and they’ve lived all over the world, which is not necessarily a good way to bring up children.’
‘I see,’ Evonne murmured.
‘Yes, because the boy now has a restless soul, I’m afraid, and can’t settle to anything. He’s spent the last year living in Papua New Guinea, studying the natives—I’m not sure if he sees himself as a budding anthropologist or archaeologist or what, but that’s what he’s been doing, and, heaven forbid, he’s written this book.’ Evonne’s lips quirked. ‘Heaven forbid?’ ‘Well,’ said Amos with a large gesture, ‘I personally am not all that interested in head-hunters and the strange rituals of primitive persons, nor, I suspect,’ his brown eyes gleamed shrewdly, ‘am I the only one.’
‘So you don’t see it being a best-seller, exactly?’
‘It has to be a limited market even if it’s a good book, don’t you agree?’
Evonne considered and answered obliquely, ‘We seem to have been inundated with that kind of thing lately, not only in the form of books but television…’
‘Exactly!’ Amos broke in triumphantly.
‘All the same, it’s quite an achievement for a boy…’
‘Not precisely a boy, he’s a young man now, I suppose you would say,’ Amos interrupted again, a little hastily, and added worriedly, ‘and of course, you know what young men are like— hot-headed, idealistic, rash…’
‘Amos,’ said Evonne with a faint grin, ‘I’m sorry to have to desert my quiet, restful image, but I’m about to ask a question. Are you leading up to…’
‘Wait just a minute!’ he commanded. ‘Let me explain fully. Because Hattie and I have no children—we have no one to leave all this to!’ he finished like a conjuror pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
‘I… think I begin to see,’ Evonne said slowly.
‘I knew you would. When I say no one…’
‘You do have your… er… sister’s boy.’
‘Exactly, but if he has no interest, no training, no background, I might as well not waste my time.’
‘Amos, from what you’ve told me about him, if you’re thinking of trying to mould him into taking all this over you could be wasting your time anyway.’
‘He’s young,’ he said intensely. ‘How often do we know what we want when we’re young? I myself had some curious ambitions when I was young, although to be honest, enquiring into the sexual practices of the Kukukukus was not one of them, but to each his own… At least I can try, though. Hattie is with me on this,’ he added steadfastly.
‘Well,’ Evonne smiled at him affectionately, ‘why not, then? But when are you going to tell me where I fit in? I must warn you, nothing would induce me to go among the Kukukukus, and I really don’t see…’
‘Brampton Island,’ Amos said succinctly.
She frowned.
‘You know the Whitsundays? Sea, sand, coral…’
‘I know where Brampton Island is,’ Evonne said coolly.
‘He’s there, my sister’s boy—recuperating. He broke his ankle a few weeks back.’
‘Amos…’
‘Evonne, it would be like a holiday for you. All I’m asking is that you help him get his notes——’
‘I thought it was a full-blown book.’
‘It will be—with your help. It’s all there, he tells me, j
ust in a bit of… disarray,’ Amos said smoothly. ‘You know how good you are at organising things—why, it’s that talent, and of course your marvellous taste, that makes you invaluable to me!’
‘Amos, I’m allergic to blackmail, and this is not what you employed me for—a good secretary could do it.’
‘A good secretary couldn’t do what I have in mind,’ countered Amos. ‘Getting his book into shape is not my aim, my main aim. Let me explain. Here we have a young man who’s flouted convention to an extent; he’s roamed far, done something rather different, come close to quite an achievement—I don’t want to take that away from him! But if there’s the possibility that he’s not set in that mould, and I do honestly see it more as a sowing of his wild oats, then he could now be ripe for something different—and if he’s inherited a tenth of his mother’s genes, which were very similar to mine, this,’ he dabbed a forefinger at the desk quite forcefully, ‘is his milieu. As it is yours,’ he added sternly. ‘So who better than you to woo him into seeing it this way?’
Exasperation and amusement warred for expression in Evonne. ‘You make me sound like some sort of seductress!’ she protested.
‘You are. You are,’ Amos said vigorously. ‘Just to look at you is to be seduced—not that I expect you for one minute to actually seduce him, I doubt if he’s your type at all, besides the generation gap, but the magic of this business flows in you like a quiet river, raises it from mere commerce to an art! Just to know you, to hear you talk about your work, can’t fail to make an impression on him.’
‘Amos…’
‘And you know what young people are like,’ Amos continued indulgently. ‘They’d far rather believe a perfect stranger than their own flesh and blood.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Evonne, ‘I have to confess that when you flatter me as you just have, I tend to get suspicious.’
‘Suspicious? I’m deeply hurt,’ Amos replied, but his brown eyes twinkled all the same. Then he sighed and sobered. ‘Hattie has rather set her heart on this. You know how I can never deny her anything, even though I told her it might not work out. Would…say some weeks of your time, on full pay, naturally, be such an imposition, my friend?’ He stared at her steadily.
She hesitated.
‘We’re in for a rotten summer, so they tell us, and it would be warm up there. Look,’ he gestured to the window upon which spears of rain were now falling. ‘Also, we’ve finalised the next catalogue and in my opinion it’s a masterpiece, but you’re looking a bit tired, if I may say so. And there’s nothing else of importance coming up—apart from the Anniversary Dinner, but you’ve been to a couple of those. Incidentally, I’ve also finalised the guest list. Care to comment?’ He slid a piece of paper across the desk to her.
Evonne picked it up and glanced through it desultorily, her mind still occupied with Amos’s fantastic proposition. Then she stiffened barely perceptibly and raised her eyes to his.
‘You’re inviting the Randalls?’
‘Should I not?’ He spread his hands. ‘I knew Robert Randall’s grandfather quite well, and Narelle Kingston, his mother-in-law—well, she’s remarried now but she’s been a valued client for a long time. Didn’t you like him? I must say he gave you an excellent reference when you left him.’
‘I…it’s not…no, I didn’t dislike him,’ Evonne said, unusually disjointedly, and winced inwardly. ‘I…’
‘Did you ever meet his wife? They say she’s charming.’
‘She is. She…is.’
‘Well then?’ Amos looked perplexed.
‘Nothing,’ Evonne said hurriedly. ‘How long did you have in mind my babysitting your sister’s boy for?’
He sat back. ‘I wouldn’t quite call it babysitting—as long as it takes to get his notes into reasonable manuscript form. Naturally I’d also pay all your expenses.’
‘Will we be on Brampton all the time?’
He lifted his shoulders carelessly. ‘Wherever the whim takes you—I give you carte blanche. I believe he has some sort of an arrangement to meet an editor of some sort in Sydney in the near future.’
Evonne studied her boss thoughtfully, even though she knew she would take on this impossible-sounding assignment. She said, ‘I’ll give it three weeks.’ That would take her safely past the Anniversary Dinner.
‘Evonne…’
‘Three weeks, Amos. You’ll have to trust me to know whether it’s a lost cause in that time. And that’s my last offer,’ she added with a wry smile.
‘Done!’ he said immediately, and opened a drawer from which he extracted an airline ticket folder that he pushed across the desk to her. ‘Now don’t be annoyed with me,’ he said as her smile faded. ‘It’s just that I knew I could count on you to help me out in something that means so much to me and Hattie.’
Evonne opened her mouth, but closed it as she thought that without Amos Doubleday and his passion for a perfect catalogue the past two years would have been sheer, unadulterated hell.
They eyed each other in silence until she said huskily, ‘What’s his name? You haven’t told me that.’
Amos smiled radiantly at her. ‘Emerson. Richard Carlisle Emerson—but we call him Ricky. Now why don’t you take the afternoon off, pop downstairs to the Gone Troppo boutique and kit yourself out for the Whitsundays? Then you could leave tomorrow morning! I’ll wire Ricky that you’re coming.’
‘I must be mad,’ Evonne murmured to herself late that night as she sat at her elegant diningroom table in her elegant flat, composing a note for her cleaning lady to explain her forthcoming absence. This was not an unusual practice—she frequently made business trips at short notice and her gem of a cleaning lady could be relied upon to take care of such things as getting her paper and milk delivery stopped, her clothes to the dry-cleaners, her fridge relieved of anything likely to go off, etc.
Her bags were packed and waiting in the hall for an early getaway, her portable typewriter was there too… and all that remains, she reflected as she got up to stick the note on the fridge door with a magnet, is to formulate some sort of plan of action for coping with a budding David Attenborough whose very last intention probably is of following in his uncle’s footsteps. I wonder how old he is? I haven’t had anything to do with very young men for ages except my brother Sam, and he’s nearly twenty-one now, and car-and girl-mad in that order. But Richard Carlisle Emerson doesn’t sound quite like the run-of-the-mill young man, and he must be bright if he’s written this book at such a tender age. He’s probably earnest and eager—I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wears glasses and has damp palms and definite opinions…
She broke off her reflections to smile ruefully and decide that, for some strange reason, she already felt rather protective of young Ricky Emerson.
‘Must be my maternal instincts coming to the fore,’ she mused, and wandered into her bedroom and across to the window.
The skies had cleared and it was a starry night she looked out upon. And then, like a dam breaking, she found she could no longer hold back her thoughts and memories of Robert Randall, and she stood silent and shaking and foolishly clutching the curtain for support.
The next morning there were dark smudges beneath her eyes, testimony to a sleepless night, as she flew from Melbourne to Brisbane and on to Mackay in North Queensland. By the time she discovered she had only been put on the waiting list for the ten-minute Twin Otter flight to Brampton Island, that no cancellation had come up and she had over an hour to wait for the next flight, she had a headache to accompany her tiredness.
It was also hot, extremely hot, and the small terminal emptied of people almost magically, to slumber in the sunshine and humidity until the next crop of arrivals and departures. For a time Evonne wandered about inspecting the posters and pamphlets which almost all proclaimed Mackay as the gateway to the wonderland of the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands; and from force of long habit she gathered a few to familiarise herself with this world of resort islands, this playground of coral ree
fs, aquamarine waters, palm-fringed beaches—only to discover herself in the grip of a spiritual torpor that caused her to be wholly uninterested.
So she bought herself an orange juice, sat herself down to wait, and took herself severely to task. Think of young Ricky Emerson, she commanded herself, think of Amos and dear, sweet Hattie who’s obviously pining to get her hands on someone she can mother, think of all your successes, the job offers, the enticements other firms offer you to lure you away from Amos, the career you’ve carved out so that you’ll be fulfilled and active and sought after for a good long time…
Don’t, whatever you do, look backwards, because you have survived when you thought you mightn’t; you can cope, it’s only when something actually reminds you nowadays…
Think of all you’ve been able to do for Mum and the others, think of your lovely flat, your car, your clothes…
A smile twisted her lips at last and she wondered if she wasn’t really incurably shallow-minded, because where others might find solace in religion or music or art or whatever, clothes riveted her and always had. Also the kind of marvellous merchandise Amos filled his catalogues with—silverware and turquoise, china and porcelain, miniatures, leather especially embossed and tooled, crystal, pearls, lace, imported tartans, Oriental carpets so fine and silky you couldn’t bear to walk on them, but clothes still came first—and now, thanks to Amos considering her a walking advertisement for his clothing departments, she didn’t even have to buy them. And she remembered, with another slight smile, her first couturier suit and how she had scrimped and saved to buy it and then had to put it away for a few months until she could afford the shoes to do it justice—and lost weight in the process so that it had no longer been a perfect fit. She remembered how she had gradually built up a wardrobe of good clothes, not extensive but skilfully integrated not only for financial reasons but also because while one part of her soul was seduced by pure wool, linen, silk, crisp cotton, cuts, styles, lines and subtle colours, another part of her soul was frugal and cautious, and strangely, those two elements rarely warred. Even today, when she had a world of fashion at her fingertips, her wardrobe was still not large, but it suited every occasion.
One More Night Page 1