by Margaret Way
Why wouldn’t she have been, given her history? She had been raised not knowing who her biological parents were. That alone put a girl at a severe psychological disadvantage. But at least she had been adopted as a baby by a beautiful young Englishwoman who to her great sadness couldn’t carry a baby beyond a couple of months without suffering a miscarriage. She had come by all accounts as a gift from God, albeit a giveaway baby to the right couple. Stella and Arnold certainly were. She knew they loved her. She loved them. They were good people, kindness itself, encouraging her in every way. But she had never truly felt she belonged. Forever a step away. Despite all their efforts—and she had been a difficult child she had to admit—she was and remained, in her own mind at least, an outsider.
Stella had had no idea when Cate left Australia that her adopted daughter fully intended tracking down the Cotswold manor house where Stella and her sister, Annabel, had grown up. “Lady” Annabel, her ravishing adoptive aunt, had only visited her sister in Australia a mere handful of times in the last two decades. A true and loving sister. Annabel had remained in England where she married one Nigel Warren, knighted by the Queen for something or other and a seriously rich man many years her senior. Stella, on the other hand, had married someone her own age. The great mystery was Stella and her new husband had abandoned their gracious lives in England to migrate to the opposite end of the earth: Australia. An extraordinary move, one would have thought. They hadn’t arrived penniless, however. Quite the reverse, which surely had some significance? With private funds they had settled into a new life on the oldest continent on earth.
Surely though they had to be missing all this? Cate thought. Even the softly falling rain had its own enchantment. Home was Home, wasn’t it? This part of the world somewhat to her surprise—used as she was to a brilliant, eternally shining sun and vast open spaces—she found truly beautiful. Comforting. Oddly familiar. It was as though she had stepped into a wonderful English landscape painting by Constable. One with which she identified. That mystified her. Such a landscape couldn’t be further removed from where she had grown up. There the sun dominated. The rain when it came didn’t require one to keep a raincoat forever handy—often it required a boat.
For now she was intent on catching a glimpse of the manor house that had been in Stella’s family for many years. Yet Stella had chosen to abandon the country of her birth and what had to be a gracious heritage for the comparative wilderness. Cate had to think it was love. Arnold was as English as Stella. Both, even after twenty years, retained their upper-class English accents. A few of her schoolmates in the early days had dared to call her a “Pom”. They hadn’t done it twice. At least not to her face. But even she knew her accent was more English than English-Australian. Why wouldn’t it be the way she had grown up?
She had arrived in the village now, with no idea her life was poised for dramatic change. She pulled to the side of the street, then switched off the ignition of her little hire car, looking keenly around her. The village was so small but very pretty, dominated by what had to be original Tudor buildings with a handful of speciality shops. Glorious hanging baskets featured a spilling profusion of brightly coloured and scented flowers. She spotted a tea room, a picturesque old pub, The Four Swans, and a post office. There was a central park that had a lovely large pond. Over the green glassy surface glided the said four snow-white graceful swans. Her heart lifted. She stepped out of the car, rounding the bonnet, to enter the post office. Graceful in body and movement, she walked fast with a long confident stride.
A pleasant-faced woman carrying too much weight was behind the counter deep into a romance novel. A bodice ripper by the look of it. The woman glanced up with a welcoming smile as Cate entered. “Lost yourself, love?” She inserted a bookmark to mind her place.
Cate had to laugh. She had an excellent sense of direction. “Not really. I was enjoying this very beautiful part of the world.”
“So it is. So it is. I’m the postmistress among other things. Aussie, love?”
Cate’s smile widened. “At home more often than not I’m mistaken for a Pom.”
The woman nodded sagely. “Not the accent, love.” Upper-class English, but not quite, Joyce Bailey thought. “Something about your easy manner, the confident stride, the attitude.”
“Now that is flattery at its finest.” Cate gave a little mock bow.
The postmistress leant heavily on the counter. “I have family in Australia. Been out there a couple of times. Ah, life in the sun! The family, especially the kids, won’t come back now. They’re fair dinkum Aussies. So how can I help you?’
“Radclyffe Hall,” Cate said, moving closer. “Which way is it? I’m keen to take a glimpse.”
The postmistress abruptly sobered. “Great white elephant of a house. Lots of tragedy in that family. Sons that served in the army. Lost in all sorts of battles. Crimean, Balkan, First and Second World Wars, the Falklands. Enormous devastation, wars! The present Lord Wyndham who inherited when his older brother was killed doesn’t entertain much. Not like the old days. But the whole village has learned the historic gardens and the parklands are being restored. Be quite a challenge, I reckon. A famous landscape gardener has been working there for months. His aim is to bring the estate back to its former glory. Best of luck, we all say. We’ll have the tourists back in no time. The hall’s rose gardens used to be ever so famous. You won’t be able to get in, love. But you can enjoy the view. The manor house—it’s built out of our lovely honey-coloured Cotswold stone—stands on the top of the hill. Keep driving north out of town, no more than three miles on. Can’t miss it. All of them rolling acres belong to Lord Wyndham. Only had daughters. No surviving son. The estate is entailed so it will pass to another male member of the Radclyffe family once Lord Wyndham is gone.”
Cate absorbed all this information in utter silence. In truth she was poleaxed. Stella had rarely spoken of her former life. Stella had made secrecy an art form. Cate hadn’t even known the house where Stella and her younger sister, Annabel, had grown up was called Radclyffe Hall until fairly recently when she had overheard a conversation between Stella and Arnold. So this all came as a revelation. Lord Wyndham was Stella’s father. My God! Wasn’t Stella a woman for burying the past? Cate felt incensed but shook it off.
“What’s lunch like at the pub?” she asked, swiftly changing the subject. It would take time to absorb it all. Lots of time. Quietness to reflect.
“Second to none!” the postmistress declared stoutly.
“Think they can put me up for a few days?”
“I’d say so, love. Me and my hubby, Jack, run it. Shall I book you in?”
“If you would. My name is Cate Hamilton, by the way. I have ID in the car.” She half turned to go out and get it.
“Won’t be necessary, love,” the woman stayed her. “We’ll get the particulars when you return from your sightseeing jaunt. I’ll have your room prepared.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind, Mrs—”
“Bailey. Joyce Bailey.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Bailey.” Cate put out her hand. It was heart-lifting to be so warmly received.
Joyce Bailey took it. She just loved that radiant smile. Funny thing was the girl—she couldn’t have been more than eighteen—reminded her of someone. She tried to think who. No one who lived in the village. She was absolutely sure of that. She knew every last soul. But the smile, the girl’s beauty, struck some sort of chord. Maybe it would come to her some time. Never an oil painting, she suddenly remembered the beautiful Radclyffe girls, Stella and Annabel. Dark-haired both, with lovely melting dark eyes; Annabel had been considered the more beautiful of the two. The whole district had been stunned when Stella and her husband had taken off for Australia. Annabel had gone with them at the time. But Annabel had returned almost a year later to marry a baronet who carried her off to London.
It had taken little time for Lord and Lady Wyndham to adapt to losing their beautiful daughters. The loss of their so
n, the heir, in infancy was the big tragedy. Everything else rated far below the line. The death of the son had come as the great blow of their lives. Other losses could be sustained. It was well known in the village the Radclyffes were a dysfunctional family.
After Lady Wyndham died, her husband retreated from the world, seeing few visitors. The Australian girl had no chance of getting a glimpse inside the hall. She could get as far as the garden. Beautiful girls had a way of getting in where the ants couldn’t.
* * *
So her objective Radclyffe Hall was only a few miles away. Cate couldn’t help feeling a quickening excitement. She slipped back behind the wheel with a parting wave to Mrs Bailey who, intrigued, had come to the post office door to see her off. Cate was really looking forward to this excursion. Lunch too for that matter. She was hungry. Back on the road there was a continuation of the chequered green landscape, a tapestry with all its different textures. It had the most potent charm. She had the window wound down so she could feel the breeze against her cheek. This was a muted world of soft pastel shades, and a totally different quality of light. Even the underlying colour schemes were different. She was used to such a flamboyant palette.
Just when she thought it was all plain sailing, the engine of the little hire car gave a cough, then a splutter. She urged it onto the verge where it quietly died.
“Blast!” Cate hit the wheel with both hands. Clever she might be at maths, but a car mechanic she was not. She looked ahead, then back. Nothing coming. She could lock the car, then proceed on foot. She couldn’t be that far off her objective. But what about getting back again? She got out of the car, setting about lifting the bonnet to have a peer inside. Perhaps the car had overheated and she could restart it after a while. She heard a vehicle coming along the country road behind her. She didn’t turn around, trusting whoever it was would stop. Help out a young lady in distress. The English were mannerly helpful people. Or so she’d been told.
The resonant male voice when it came wasn’t in the least solicitous. It was unmistakably a young man’s voice, but it proclaimed the legendary public-school accent—Eton? Harrow? Maybe modernised a bit.
“Think you can handle it?”
She found herself bridling at the tone. It was shocking in its languidness. “Clear off,” she muttered, risking she would be overheard.
He pounced. “I did ask a question.”
“Really!” She spun around, shocked by the level of aggression that tone had provoked. “And I’m asking you one. What’s so funny? Do you want to help or are you just being bloody-minded?” Of course he was. She could spot it.
He gave her an extraordinarily beautiful if condescending smile. Humour the girl. Beautiful white teeth, perfectly even and straight. She felt all her nerve ends clench. “Exaggerating, aren’t you?” he asked ever so slowly, at the same time taking her in. “I only enquired if you can handle the problem.”
She couldn’t mask the irritation his persona engendered. Such feelings had never attacked her before. He was as handsome as the devil. Those eyes! She had never seen eyes so intensely blue. Sapphires set in coal-black lashes. A wave of jet-black hair flopped down onto his high forehead. His skin faintly dewed with perspiration was very fine, lightly tanned. He had a nose disagreeable to her. An aquiline beak, the bone as straight as a blade. You could get impaled on it. He was using it to good effect looking down it at her. Some girls would really fancy him. Most would actually. “I’ve never met with a problem up until today,” she told him shortly. “A less than efficient hire car, in fact a bit of a rattle trap. Steering a bit wobbly. But it’s been okay up to date, which doesn’t explain why the engine suddenly died on me.”
“Would you allow me to take a look?” he asked, mock super suave. He wafted an elegant hand in the air. The Scarlet Pimpernel dressed like a gardener, square shoulders, narrow hips, tight jeans, navy jersey, a red kerchief tied loosely around his neck for a bit of dash, high muddy boots.
Cate didn’t rush to answer. “Know about cars, do you? I didn’t catch your name?”
“Nosey Parker,” he said, moving to stand beside her. Suddenly she was dwarfed when she wasn’t all that short: five-four.
She knew she was being terribly ungracious, but her feelings of hostility were expanding by the minute. “Suits you,” she commented.
From peering into the car, he stood to attention running his vivid blue eyes over her flushed face. Eyes that sparkled and snaffled her up. She preferred soft eyes. Gentle, humorous eyes. Brown maybe. “Have you been drinking?” he asked.
She couldn’t ignore that. “Right! You can smell the fumes, can you?”
“You could have stopped off at The Four Swans,” he answered, continuing to study her keenly.
She might have stepped out of a wrecked space shuttle instead of a beat-up piece of British engineering. Cate’s blonde head snapped up. “Ha, ha and ha! Apart from being nosey, you’re downright rude.”
“No different from you,” he returned with the arrogance that had to be bred into him. “Looks like we’ve rubbed each other up the wrong way.”
“You don’t stand a chance of rubbing up against me,” she said tartly. “So what’s wrong with the car, or don’t you know? I’d say you were used to leaving all that to the chauffeur. No doubt you’re the centre of someone’s solar system?”
“Perfectly true. How did you know?” He got into the car, making a business of squirming before cranking back the seat as though the car had previously been driven by a midget. He then switched on the engine, which kicked over briefly, then gave up the ghost. “The reason for your breakdown—tempestuous little Aussie that you are—is you’re out of petrol,” he announced as he got out.
For a moment Cate was seriously embarrassed. “Nonsense! It was reading a quarter full. Or near enough. And stop staring at me as though I’m from another planet.”
He laughed. “To be perfectly honest I didn’t know extraterrestrials came ravishingly pretty.”
Had she blushed? Damn it, she had. “Don’t feel the need to flatter me.”
“I thought it was a plain statement of fact. As for my opinion of your manner? Prickly as a rose bush. Now, the petrol gauge is obviously not reading true. Where are you going anyway?”
She backtracked. “How did you know I’m an Australian?” she asked as though that created a definite barrier.
“I’d rather not say.” He shut his mouth firmly. It was a very good mouth, a clean sensual line above his chiselled jaw. The edges were faintly upturned. She found herself noting all the little details. She really had to concentrate on something other than his mouth. She felt in her bones he would be a great kisser. It would be interesting to see what happened if he suddenly grabbed her.
“Why would that be?”
“Maybe I’m frightened you’ll attack me.” His sapphire eyes were alive with mockery.
Did her heart turn over? Something in her chest did. Even her legs were feeling a bit flimsy. Nevertheless she took a step forward. “You find Australians threatening?”
Instantly he took a step back, holding up his elegant hands in a gesture of appeasement. “On the contrary, I like Australians. Within reason.”
Cate gave up. He had a very engaging laugh. It made her want to laugh back. “I was on my way to Radclyffe Hall. You would know it.”
“Why exactly?” he asked, with an unexpected frown. “Why Radclyffe Hall?”
Cate’s turn to frown. “Look, can’t we drop the interrogation? I just want to look at it.”
“Then you’ll have to do it from afar,” he said.
“I never said I wanted to drop in for tea and scones.” She tilted her chin. God, he was tall! “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Ashe.”
“Ash?” She raised a supercilious brow. “Your parents called you Ash?” she asked, feigning incredulity. “I’ve never met anyone called Ash. I take it that’s Ashe with an e?”
“Julian Ashton,” he informed her, looking impos
sibly, unbearably superior. “And you are?”
She considered not telling him. Only she could use his help. “Catrina Hamilton. My family and friends call me Cate.”
“Then I shall call you Catrina.”
“That’s okay. Please do, Ashe. So are you going to help me out?”
He shrugged a shoulder. His body was perfectly proportioned, giving the strong impression of superb physical fitness. “How can I? I’m heading in the opposite direction,” he retorted carelessly.
Cate didn’t know what to make of that. “I understood Englishmen were gentlemen,” she said with sudden dismay. “You must be a rare species.”
He shook his head, loosening the satiny black wave that had stuck to his forehead. “Our womenfolk are much sweeter and more persuasive than you.” He sounded deeply grateful for the fact.
“You must know only quiet, controllable creatures. Does this mean you’re going to leave me stranded on a lonely country road?”
He considered a while, looking this way and that. “An apology might be in order,” he suggested.
“We take it in turns, do we?” she asked. Goodness, he could only be a handful of years older than she, maybe twenty-three or four, but with an imperiousness well beyond his years.
“Okay then. I’m off.” From nonchalance he was energised, turning purposefully towards his parked four-wheel drive.
“So much for being a gentleman, then,” she called after him severely. “Go on. Drive away.” He looked very much as if he was going to. “All right, sorry.” She only said it because that was what he wanted.