None of it got said, and then he took her further by surprise.
‘Your mother and Doug Partridge are flying in today, to spend a few days with us, Tattie.’
‘I… You’ve met him? The man she’s planning to marry?’ Tattie said, again incredulously.
‘I have,’ he agreed. ‘I liked him. And I thought you’d enjoy having your mother help you with plans for the new project.’
‘I would. That is to say…’ She trailed off and gazed at him helplessly. Then, ‘My mother hasn’t, been well—’ she swallowed ‘—meddling?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not as far as I know. Why?’
‘Uh…it doesn’t matter. What was I saying?’
‘I got the impression you might have been trying to tell me you’ve changed your mind after last night?’ He looked at her alertly.
Tattie closed her eyes, then looked down at the puppy in her arms. What did you do with a man who kissed you witless, left you almost crazy with desire then got you a puppy?
‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I guess not.’
‘Wise thinking, Tattie. Shall we have breakfast?’
The next few days were quite hectic.
Natalie arrived with Doug Partridge and Tattie took an immediate liking to him. A gentle giant of a man, with a shock of grey hair, he loved painting the outback and therefore was very happy to be at Beaufort. But what really caused Tattie to widen her eyes was the way her mother was suddenly seeing the countryside.
In fact, her mother was like a new person, and thrilled with Alex’s idea.
‘You don’t think Dad would have minded?’ Tattie asked her with a frown during their first discussion of it all.
Natalie sat back. ‘As I see it, darling, this is your best option if you really want to do things on your own. I mean, since you’ve explained the position with Carnarvon, I could, in fact, help you out. Your father left me the cash and you the properties, so—’
‘No,’ Tattie said definitely. ‘I do want to do it on my own and I certainly don’t want to risk your assets in the process.’
‘I take it you don’t want Alex to come to the party either?’ her mother enquired delicately.
‘Well, he is, in a way. We’ve reached an agreement. We’ll stay married for the time being,’ Tattie said without a tremor in her voice, which was not a true indication of her feelings on the subject, ‘but this will be a purely business partnership between us.’
‘I see.’ Natalie gazed at her daughter and decided to hold her peace. ‘All right. Then let me tell you, Tatiana, that I think this is a far better way for you to express your love and the affinity you have with this place than tearing yourself to pieces trying to be a cattleman. And your father would have done anything he had to do to hold on to Beaufort and Carnarvon. So rest easy, my sweet. And go for it.’
One day I’ll understand all this, Tattie thought the next day.
They were all seated around the oak dining-room table and ideas for enticing tourists to Beaufort were flying thick and fast. Her mother was using her artistic skills in sketches as she incorporated her and Tattie’s ideas for guest bedrooms. Alex and Doug were discussing ideas for a bunkhouse where hardier tourists intent on getting the ultimate cattle-station experience could be housed.
They’d all discussed the vehicles that would be required to show people the wonders of Beaufort, and the horses needed for the hardier. And Alex had briefly run through the more mundane matters, as he put it, pertaining to running a tourist operation—the public-liability policy they’d have to take out, the standards they’d have to aspire to get a five-star rating and the hiring of personnel, since Tattie wouldn’t be able to do it all on her own.
But the mystery that Tattie was contemplating through it all was the easy camaraderie that now existed between her mother and her husband. At least, that was one mystery. Her present feelings for her husband were the most mysterious of all. And just as she was about to shake her head in a certain amount of disgust, because she truly did not know where she stood with him and it was killing her, he turned to her.
‘This is all very well,’ he said with a lurking smile, ‘the nuts and bolts. But it’s going to be you who gets it off the ground, Tattie. Your touch with people, your feel for the place.’
The puppy, now named Oscar, since Tattie had discovered its mother’s name was Lucinda, stirred in her lap and yawned prodigiously.
‘Hear, hear!’ Natalie said, and clapped her hands, and Doug smiled warmly at her.
Oscar sat up and barked his first bark, then looked surprised, as if he couldn’t believe the sound had come from him.
They all dissolved into laughter. ‘Thanks,’ Tattie said, mysteriously feeling a lot better suddenly.
That night she got up around midnight, as she heard Oscar whimpering, and rushed into the lounge before he woke the whole house.
She’d fixed up a basket for him beside the fireplace, she’d put an old clock in with him, and even a hot-water bottle wrapped in a blanket, but he was sitting up looking piteously unhappy. Then he saw her and placed his paws on the rim of the basket. He experimented with his bark again in joyful recognition of her.
‘Shush… Now, look here,’ she whispered, kneeling down beside him, ‘you’ve got to learn to sleep on your own. I know it’s hard, after having a mum and six brothers and sisters with you, but don’t forget you’re going to grow up into the best, the bravest dog of them all!’
Oscar wagged his whole body, barked again, and took a flying leap into her lap.
‘Oh, dear.’ She stroked him. ‘What am I going to do with you? I know what you’re aiming for, young man! You want to come into my bed, but—’
‘Once you start that, Tattie, you’ll never get him out.’
They both turned to see Alex standing behind them. Oscar eyed him alertly, then experimented with another sound, a growl this time.
‘Oh, the cheek of you!’ Tattie marvelled, and hugged him.
‘I can see that this might not have been such a great idea,’ Alex said wryly.
It flew through Tattie’s mind to say that, since no one else shared her bed, most notably not him, why shouldn’t she allow her puppy the freedom of it while he was only such a baby?
But she put Oscar on the floor, then picked him up immediately and raced outside with him.
‘Whoa! That was a close call!’ She came back moments later, shivering from the cold night air with her nose pink and her hair flying.
‘OK…’ She put Oscar into Alex’s arms and said to the puppy, ‘Since this bloke gave you to me, I think you need to treat him with a bit more respect. In fact it’s all right to make friends with him.’
‘Thank you, Tattie,’ Alex said ruefully, then addressed himself to the dog. ‘Got that, mutt?’
Oscar hesitated, then licked Alex profusely.
‘For heaven’s sake, have him back.’ He handed the dog over. ‘I’m not keen on all that much friendship.’
‘Don’t worry, I know how to train a dog,’ Tattie said.
‘You see, he’ll be a model—when he’s a little older. Won’t you, sweetness?’
Alex eyed his wife and her puppy and looked sceptical. But he said only, ‘I hope you have a lot of fun with him.’
It was then that Tattie realised Alex was still dressed. ‘Haven’t you been to bed yet? It’s past midnight!’
He looked down at his jeans and navy sweater. ‘I was just about to go to bed when I heard the dog. There were a few loose ends I wanted to tie up before I go tomorrow.’
‘You’re going tomorrow? I…I mean, I didn’t know that,’ she stammered, trying to cover up the surprise, and something else she might have exhibited.
‘I was hoping to have a few more days, but something’s come up. Your mother and Doug will be here for a while, though.’ He looked down at her with a faint frown.
‘Of course! I’ll be fine, even when they’re gone.’ But would she? she wondered.
‘And I’ll be back
as soon as I can. You’re quite safe here now, Tattie. There are at least five men on Beaufort to protect you in the unlikely event of anyone coming somewhere this remote anyway.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said a little blankly. ‘Do they know about someone trying to kidnap me?’
He paused, as if assessing her unpreparedness for the subject. ‘Jim does. All that the others will know is that while you’re here they should keep an eye out for you.’
Tattie grimaced.
‘That makes good sense in any circumstances,’ he said quietly.
‘What’s happened to Amy Goodall’s friend?’
‘He’s been remanded without bail and will face at least two charges—carrying an unlicenced weapon and attempted kidnapping. You don’t have to worry about him. But I have another suggestion to make, purely from a company point of view—company for you, I mean.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Jim and Marie’s eighteen-year-old daughter has finished school and may be forced to go to Perth or Darwin to get a job. They think she’s too young, but the problem is how to keep her here. I suggested she move into the housekeeper’s quarters here in the homestead in the role of trainee housekeeper…’
‘Polly?’ Tattie stared at him, then started to laugh.
‘You know her?’
‘Of course I know her! I grew up with her—and if ever there was a tomboy who could run a cattle station, she is it!’
‘She seemed quite keen on the idea,’ Alex said slowly.
‘So’s her mother.’
‘I’m not surprised. Marie’s been trying to tame Polly ever since I can remember.’ Tattie was still chuckling.
‘Perhaps Marie thinks you might succeed where she failed?’
Tattie sobered.
‘She reckons that in her heart of hearts Polly would love to be everything you are,’ Alex continued.
Tattie blinked. ‘I didn’t know that!’
He smiled enigmatically. ‘Will you give it a try? If you succeed we could put her on the staff.’
‘Well, yes. I think Polly loves Beaufort as much as I do, and Jim and Marie have always been wonderful to me. Of course! Just don’t blame me if I don’t succeed in turning her into a housekeeper.’ Tattie hesitated and frowned. ‘Alex, you take very good care of me, for a wife you…don’t really want.’
There, it was out, she thought, although she closed her eyes and shivered inwardly at her temerity. But she just couldn’t allow this unspoken war between them not to have some mention in dispatches before he flew away.
‘Tattie?’
Her lashes flew up but he said no more for a long moment while he took in everything about her. Her white flannel pyjamas with their delicate pin-tucking and lace-trimmed collar, her bare feet, her hair, disarrayed but still gorgeous, her shadowed and confused cornflower-blue eyes.
And it occurred to Alex Constantin that his plan was working. She might tell him she didn’t want to stay married to him for some mysterious ‘very good reason’, but one day she would go to bed with him because she couldn’t help herself. A day of his choosing, however. And then this arranged marriage would become real whether she liked it or not…
So why, he wondered, did he not feel too good about himself?
‘Tattie,’ he said again, ‘whatever is between us, you are my wife. You’re also a nice person and my business partner. And your little dog is fast asleep, so now might be a good time to return him to his basket and get some sleep yourself.’
But what he got in return surprised him somewhat. A most rebellious spark entered those cornflower eyes and she drew herself up almost as if she’d love to fling his words right back at him, but at the last moment she turned the rebellion off and smiled sweetly at him.
‘If you want to play games with me, Alex,’ she said, also sweetly, ‘be my guest. Just don’t count on getting the opportunity to kiss me and walk away from me again, because I’ll make damn sure it doesn’t come up. Furthermore, until this dog learns to sleep through the night, he will sleep with me.’ She turned on her heel and walked away.
His lips twitched as he watched her go, but for a moment he was almost unbearably tempted to replace Oscar in her arms and her bed—with himself. Well, well, he mused with a mixture of amusement and self-directed irony, that round goes to you, Tatiana Beaufort.
Two months later, Polly dropped a plate, swore, then clapped a hand to her mouth and looked guiltily at Tattie.
‘Thought I’d cured myself of that,’ she said apologetically, ‘dropping things and swearing, but I’m scared stiff, Tattie. There’s eight people out there all waiting for me to make a fool of myself!’
‘Polly.’ Tattie put her hands on her shoulders. ‘No one is waiting for you to make a fool of yourself. You can do this. You look terrific, and just think how proud your mum and dad are of you, not to mention me. And Alex, of course!’ An afterthought that would surely do the trick, Tattie thought a little darkly.
Polly looked down at herself in her neat tunic top and long skirt, both professionally made. Then she touched her hair, which Tattie had rescued from blonde straw, bleached and dried by the sun, and persuaded her to get cut into a short bob. And she touched her face, which Tattie had shown her how to make up discreetly—and she took a deep breath.
‘I guess I can, thanks to you, Tattie.’
‘OK. Now I’m going to join the guests, but if you need me just tell me quietly.’
Polly nodded, and after a last look around Tattie took a deep breath and went through to the dining room, where dinner was almost due to be served.
It was their maiden voyage, in a manner of speaking. Their first group of guests and a most discerning group at that—at least Tattie assumed so, because they’d just come from a Constantin cruise, which would have set them back a small fortune. They were a group of Americans travelling together and they’d arrived two hours ago.
In that time, and earlier, things had not gone smoothly. Marie, who was supposed to be in charge in the kitchen, had developed a bout of hay fever that had to be seen to be believed and had been sent to bed, the only thing she was good for. Natalie was supposed to have flown in earlier in the day but had sprained her ankle. Alex had been asked to stay away and had—when she could really do with him, Tattie thought irrationally—and Oscar had pulled a sheet off the washing line and chewed it up on the front lawn so that it resembled confetti.
Thus it was that only she and Polly were on hand. All the same, the dining table looked wonderful beneath a full complement of the Beaufort silver, crystal and fine porcelain, the guests were happy with their rooms, and it was now up to her to provide them with a wonderful experience.
Three hours later, she and Polly sat in the kitchen drinking champagne with their shoes kicked off, the door firmly closed and Oscar asleep in his basket.
‘What a night!’ Polly said enthusiastically. ‘But we did it! You know the oldest guy, the one who looks to be in his eighties? He actually pinched me on the bottom and nearly got his dessert poured all over him!’
Tattie giggled like a girl. ‘I saw your face and held my breath. Oh, wow! You’re right, what a night, but they loved it and you were wonderful.’
‘They loved you. OK.’ Polly looked around at the colourful chaos of the kitchen and groaned.
‘I’ll help.’ Tattie drained her glass. ‘At least tomorrow night’s a barbecue and your mum might be better.’
‘We’ve got to get through tomorrow’s day before we get to tomorrow night,’ Polly said ruefully, then looked at Tattie curiously. ‘I just wish Alex had been here to see you tonight, Tattie. You looked so…regal.’
Tattie grimaced. ‘I asked him to stay away. Sometimes he makes me feel self-conscious.’
Polly smacked her palm on her forehead. ‘Know exactly what you mean. Dad has the same effect on me.’
It was midnight before Tattie got to bed, but at least she was secure in the knowledge that everything was as it should be and ready for the day’s activiti
es. But Polly’s remark about Alex had stayed with her, although her reply had been true to an extent. It was the way things were between her and Alex that would have made her self-conscious did Polly but know it.
Of course, Polly was as crazy about Alex as every other woman he came in contact with, so she had no reason to suspect he could be quite…really quite diabolical at times, Tattie thought as she lay down with a sigh and switched her bedside light off.
Such as implementing a truce between them that was a terrible farce. But what option did she have but to go along with her husband, when he came and went from Beaufort, at his charming best in front of her mother, her staff and the whole world whilst keeping an absolutely scrupulous distance from her in private? None, she answered herself. And she’d done it for a whole year so why couldn’t she do it now?
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘It just tears me apart these days to have nothing resolved, to suspect that he’ll wear me down so I’ll agree to stay married to him, really married. On top of all that I was the one who threw down the gauntlet,’ she reminded herself gloomily. ‘Come to that, I was the one who started this whole cat and mouse game in the first place.’
She sniffed, and Oscar, who had been transported fast asleep in his basket to her bedroom, woke up and leapt onto the bed.
‘Oh, no,’ she murmured. ‘We’ve got an agreement, now, remember? You can sleep in here on the condition you stay in your basket, young man! As a matter of fact, I’m not game to let you sleep anywhere else in case you chew things—which reminds me, I’m still very cross with you! It took us hours to clear up that sheet.’
But Oscar ignored her, possibly because the tone of her voice was not consistent with her words, and he snuggled down beside her.
Tattie sighed. And put her arm round him. ‘Just this once, then.’
But at least she fell asleep shortly afterwards.
Two days later she and Polly farewelled their first guests and were on the receiving end of the most ravishing compliments.
The Constantin Marriage Page 10