‘Thanks,’ said Lisa dryly. ‘No offence. Sure. No, Tim, I am not afraid that you’re going to grope me, I just don’t want to do it. It’s…it’s too cold in here to take my clothes off.’
‘Well, just your top,’ pleaded Tim. ‘You can leave your underwear on. That won’t really affect the shoulder line too much. Oh, come on, Lisa.’
With a feeling of vague misgiving, Lisa took off her top and allowed Tim to arrange her precisely in the middle of the large double bed. She wished he hadn’t chosen the bedroom as his studio, but they had both agreed that it was the only room where the light was right.
‘Keep still,’ he warned.
They were so preoccupied that they paid no attention to the sound of a vehicle coming along the rough farm track. Probably just Ron Barwick on his way out to check the sheep. Then there was the sound of a peremptory knocking at the back door, and footsteps echoed in the kitchen.
‘Tim, are you there?’
‘Hell!’ groaned Tim. ‘It’s Matt! Don’t let him see what I’m doing, Lisa. I’ll go out and try to stall him.’
Lisa scrambled up as Tim vanished out the bedroom door. Lifting the easel gingerly, she lugged the wet painting behind the Chinese screen in one corner of the room. In a few frantic seconds the brushes and paints followed suit. Then she had just enough time to pull her top on before the door burst open and Matt came striding into the room. He looked her up and down with a grim expression.
‘I just came down to tell you both that Sonia has arrived,’ he announced, spitting out the words like bullets. ‘I dare say you will want to get tidied up and come and greet your future mother-in-law, Lisa. You and Tim can come along with me now in the four-wheel drive. Oh, by the way, did you know that you’re wearing your top inside out?’
In spite of the thirty-degree heat, the atmosphere was distinctly chilly in the four-wheel drive vehicle as they headed to the main farmhouse, and it didn’t grow any warmer when they entered the living room and found Tim’s mother sitting on the sofa sipping soda water and tapping her fingers restlessly. Her mouth tightened at the sight of Lisa and she didn’t seem much happier to be reunited with her son. A faint, exasperated sigh escaped her as her gaze tracked down over Tim’s long, uncombed hair and paint-spattered clothes. With the air of someone reluctantly conscripted from the crowd to kiss a sea lion at a marine park performance, she endured Tim’s embrace. Then she held him at arm’s length and examined him disparagingly. Her obvious disapproval made Lisa smother a grin, for there was actually a considerable resemblance between mother and son.
Sonia had the same butter-coloured hair as Tim, which framed her face in a silken bell. Their chiselled features and regular teeth were also remarkably similar, but the main difference was in their eyes. Where Tim’s were brown and alight with warmth, Sonia’s were grey and cold beneath the heavy mascara that clogged her lashes. Mutton dressed as lamb, thought Lisa sourly, glancing at Sonia’s youthfully styled, sleeveless white dress, which showed off her dazzling tan. All the same, she had to admit that Sonia was still extremely pretty, in spite of her petulant mouth and the fine web of tiny lines beginning to appear at the corners of her eyes. Her waist was only about half the size of Lisa’s and was cinched in tightly with a scarlet leather belt that matched her fingernails, shoes and the beads around her throat. Yet somehow the air of glossy perfection was marred by the spite that radiated from the older woman’s face as she returned Lisa’s gaze.
‘What a surprise to see you!’ she exclaimed, giving Lisa a look that made her feel like a bag of fish heads that had been left in the sun too long. ‘What are you doing here?’
Tim’s mouth hardened at his mother’s tone and he flung his arm deliberately around Lisa’s shoulders.
‘I invited her,’ he retorted. ‘After all, she’s practically one of the family.’
Sonia gave an unconvincing trill of laughter.
‘Really? But, Tim, darling, you mustn’t forget that this is Matt’s home, even though the place does belong to you. It’s hardly polite for you to invite guests without consulting him.’
To Lisa’s surprise Matt intervened in her defence. She had no illusions about the fact that he was coldly furious with her, but there was a warning flash in his blue eyes as he turned to Sonia.
‘Lisa is my guest, too,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘And it’s hardly polite for us to talk about her as if she’s not present. Now, Lisa and Tim, do sit down and have a drink while Sonia tells us about her plans.’
Over more soda water, chilled orange juice and nuts, Sonia outlined her programme for the rest of the day.
‘I must drive Tim up to town for a haircut and some new clothes. You’re an absolute disgrace, darling. It’s Christmas Day tomorrow and I want you to look nice with all the family coming for Christmas dinner. You know Patricia likes you to dress up, and Alison’s young people always look so smart. Even Helen does her best with her little boys, poor thing.’
Lisa felt a spurt of annoyance as Sonia went on talking about people she had never met, deliberately excluding her from the conversation. But once again Matt came to the rescue.
‘These are all family members who are coming for Christmas dinner tomorrow,’ he explained with a slight twist of his lips, which might have been a smile. ‘Patricia is my mother, Alison is my sister and Helen is my cousin Graham’s widow.’
‘Was Graham the one you told me about who was lost at sea from the tuna fleet?’ asked Lisa, seizing gratefully on a detail she recognized.
‘Yes.’
Sonia was momentarily disconcerted by this collusion between Matt and Lisa, but she soon continued gamely.
‘We’ll have quite a crowd, Matt. Goodness, eleven all together. You, me, Tim, Patricia, Helen and her two boys and Alison, Brendan and their two.’
‘Twelve,’ said Matt stonily. ‘You’re forgetting Lisa.’
‘Oh, how silly of me! Well, I do hope your housekeeper is up to the job. But I suppose Lisa will help her out, won’t you, my dear? I’m sure that after enjoying such a long holiday here you’ll want to make yourself useful.’
Lisa almost ground her teeth at Sonia’s patronizing tone, but kept her temper with difficulty.
‘Of course,’ she agreed sweetly. ‘But I’ll be surprised if Judy needs any help. She’s always so well organized.’
Yet that was just where she was wrong. Ten minutes later, while Sonia was cross-examining an evasive Tim about the strange lateness of his exam results, the telephone rang and shortly afterwards an excited Judy Barwick burst into the room.
‘Oh, Matt, you could have knocked me down with a feather! Do you know who that was on the telephone? My son Darrell! Can you imagine? He’s been travelling around Europe for the last three years and now he’s decided to come home for Christmas and surprise us.’
‘That’s wonderful news, Judy,’ said Matt warmly. ‘When’s he arriving?’
‘He’s in Melbourne right now, but all the flights to Tasmania are booked out until tomorrow morning. What I was wondering was whether I could drive to the airport to meet him first thing. It would mean I’d have to start work a bit late, but I’m sure I could still have your Christmas dinner ready in time.’
‘Oh, Judy, I don’t like to think of you coming here to cook for us when you should be home with your son,’ protested Matt. ‘Perhaps—’
‘I’ll cook the Christmas dinner,’ offered Lisa impulsively. She liked Judy. Besides, it would be a way of blotting out some of the unwelcome debt she owed Matt after being his guest for so long. What was more, it would take her out of Sonia’s firing line. Not that she feared Tim’s mother, but it seemed unfair to let their mutual hostility spoil Christmas for the rest of the family. ‘You just tell me what to do.’
They vanished into the kitchen together.
‘That was good of you, Lisa,’ said Matt when Lisa finally returned alone.
‘Absolutely sweet of you,’ agreed Sonia. ‘Of course, you’ve had a lot of experience at that sort of th
ing, haven’t you? Tim told me how you used to work as a waitress in that delightfully squalid little pizza parlour down in Lygon Street. Well, Tim, you and I must fly if we’re going to do our shopping in town. I’d invite you to come, Lisa, but I suppose you’re going to be too busy for the rest of the day, scrubbing floors and baking mince pies. What about you, Matt? Will you come with us?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Matt curtly.
When mother and son had finally vanished in Matt’s red Porsche surrounded by a cloud of dust, Lisa found herself in a situation she had dreaded. Alone with Matt. Hostility still radiated out from him in a toxic cloud, so she was surprised by his first words.
‘Don’t let Sonia upset you,’ he growled. ‘She’s an insensitive, shallow woman who is entirely too fond of the sound of her own voice, but I can assure you that the rest of my family will treat you with far more consideration.’
Lisa shrugged.
‘Thanks, but it doesn’t really matter. In any case, it’s all so farcical. If only Sonia knew, she has nothing to—’ She broke off, suddenly realizing that she was on the verge of betraying herself. ‘Well, I must go and start cooking.’
Matt’s brows met in a thoughtful scowl, but he didn’t attempt to follow her and she was half disappointed, half grateful. The rest of the day flew by as she thawed the turkey, made the stuffing, set the dining room table and baked two large batches of mince pies. She heard Matt leave the house and return some time later. He seemed to be pacing round in the living room, and there was the sound of hammering. Shortly after six o’clock, consumed by an unwilling curiosity, she went in with a plate of mince pies.
‘Would you like to try my—? Oh! Is that where you’ve been? Cutting down a Christmas tree?’
The room was full of the aromatic scent of pine resin and she felt a few springy needles underfoot as she walked across the carpet. Matt had just finished nailing an X-shaped base to the trunk of a huge tree and now he hauled it upright and set it in a corner. Then he accepted one of her mince pies, warm, crusty and oozing with sticky fruit. Lisa watched proudly as his eyebrows went up and he nodded.
‘Not bad,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I suppose I ought to offer you a sherry.’
He walked to the sideboard and came back with two glasses of Flor Fino sherry.
‘Happy Christmas,’ he muttered.
‘Happy Christmas,’ echoed Lisa, touching the rim of her crystal glass against his. She felt an obscure pain under her heart as their eyes met. He hates me, she thought despairingly. And I distrust him. And yet… Matt’s blue eyes were fixed stormily on hers. Suddenly with an abrupt movement he turned away from her and strode across the room. At first she thought that he was abandoning her, and disappointment pierced through her like the thrust of a knife. Then he set down his empty glass and rammed a cassette brutally into the recorder. There was a brief pause before the sweet, poignant sound of a boys’ choir singing Christmas carols swept into the room.
‘You could stay and decorate the tree with me, if you like,’ he muttered over his shoulder.
They worked together in silence, hanging fairy lights, red and green and blue, from the branches. After that they added striped candy canes and strings of tinsel and coloured balls. Lisa had no illusions about the hostility that still vibrated between them, but she was aware of something else. Perhaps the bittersweet longing for harmony that had prompted enemy soldiers in World War One to lay down their arms at Christmas and call a truce. When Matt climbed the stepladder and demanded the gold star for the top of the tree, she held it up to him with all her longing shimmering in her eyes. He fastened it to the topmost branch without even looking at her, then his gaze fixed angrily on her. Suddenly he caught a great fistful of her rippling auburn hair.
‘Lisa,’ he growled.
There was a sound in the doorway. Lisa turned her head and gave a cry as Matt’s grip pulled her up short. Standing there in the winking glow of the Christmas lights were a woman and a child. The woman stepped forward, and Lisa felt an ominous sense of impending disaster.
‘Andrea!’ said Matt sharply. ‘What are you doing here?’
Even in the half light from the Christmas tree, Lisa could see that the woman was deeply distressed. She put out her hands in a pleading gesture.
‘I forgot…to thaw out our turkey, Matt,’ she said in a rush. ‘And I so badly wanted Justin to have a proper Christmas. Couldn’t we come to your place tomorrow? Just this once? Please, please, please!’
A lump rose in Lisa’s throat and her eyes prickled, but to her incredulous horror Matt was grabbing Andrea by the arm and bundling her out the way she had come. Pausing only to snatch a few candy canes and thrust them into Justin’s hands, he pushed them both ruthlessly out through the French doors. His voice was low, but not too low for Lisa to catch his words.
‘No, Andrea, I’ve told you before. I’m sorry about your problems, but I won’t allow you to come here and ruin Christmas for the rest of my family! You chose to act as you did and you’ll have to bear the consequences.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR a moment Lisa stood frozen to the spot, unable to move with the shock and anger she felt. Then suddenly the power of movement came surging into her trembling legs and she raced outside just in time to see Andrea dragging Justin by the hand towards her car, wiping her eyes as she went. Lisa ran after her.
‘Wait,’ she called, but Andrea shook her off.
Still racked by sobs, the young mother thrust her son into the car like a parcel, did up his seat belt and slammed the door. Then she ran around to the driver’s side, climbed in and drove away.
‘How could you do that to her?’ burst out Lisa as she watched the car vanish down the dusty driveway.
Matt’s face was as hard as if it were carved out of solid granite. A brooding expression narrowed his eyes and lent a bitter twist to his mouth.
‘You know nothing about it!’ he said savagely. ‘Who are you to set yourself up as judge and jury about what I’ve done?’
Lisa stared at him, aghast, unable to believe in his brutality. Unable to believe that he could be so insensitive to the way she felt about him.
‘Oh, I’m nobody!’ she flared, completely forgetting her role as Tim’s fiancée in her outrage. ‘Nobody at all, I know that. I’m just a total outsider who’ll be leaving here forever in a couple of days! So I don’t have any right to care about what you do, to get upset when you—to…oh, what’s the use?’
With a choking sob she ran inside the house and slammed the door, then bolted for the stairs and the sanctuary of her bedroom. Once there she locked herself in and slumped on the bed. Cold shudders kept overtaking her as if she had malaria.
‘How could he?’ she breathed incredulously, hugging her arms around her body and rocking back and forth. ‘How could he be so cruel? Is that what he’d do to me if I was fool enough to sleep with him?’
Except that she wouldn’t be fool enough! She wouldn’t give in to his dangerous, mesmerising charm. And yet it wasn’t charm, exactly. Lisa had always thought of charm as something rather slippery and shallow and unreliable, whereas Matt’s brand of magnetism was something as powerful and stable as a rock. Which was what made his betrayal of Andrea so inexplicable. It seemed completely out of character for Matt to have abandoned his own child and its mother when he had always seemed to value family loyalty and tradition so highly. And yet there it was—that discordant, baffling evidence that Matt was glib and untrustworthy. It hurt her horribly to realize that he was so callous and manipulative and insincere. Why had she ever let him stir her so profoundly?
She half hoped and half feared that he might follow her to her room and confront her with a quarrel, which would clear the air and produce some magical explanation for his actions. But he didn’t. And after a long time, Lisa heard the sound of the Porsche bringing Sonia and Tim back from their shopping expedition. She didn’t feel like facing Sonia again, so she stayed upstairs and was relieved when nobody came up to ask her if s
he wanted dinner. Then shortly before midnight there was a tap on her door. It was too light and excitable to be Matt. Half asleep by this time, Lisa blinked and dragged herself off the bed.
‘Tim,’ she said listlessly, opening the door.
He burst inside, looking as radiant as a lighthouse. His hair was neatly cut and he wore expensive new sports clothes. ‘Guess what? It’s finished!’
‘What’s finished?’
‘The painting, of course. I’ve just spent the last two hours down there. I’ve changed into my good clothes so Mum wouldn’t nag or get suspicious, but she and Matt have both gone off to bed. Do you want to come and see it?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow there’ll be Christmas dinner and relatives everywhere and not a chance to move. And as soon as the paint is dry after that, I’m off! I’m flying to Melbourne to take it to the judges. So you’ve got to come now, Lisa.’
Lisa had dozed off in her clothes, so there was no need to get dressed. She simply combed her fingers through her hair and followed Tim downstairs with a troubled frown. As they lurched down the rough track in the dark, hitting every bump with the four-wheel drive vehicle, the wry thought occurred to her that she was very glad she wasn’t planning to marry Tim. He was phenomenally self-absorbed and totally different from his uncle. Not that Matt was easy to get along with, either! But she always felt that his occasional abrasive rudeness was due to powerful, deep-rooted feelings towards her. She never felt that he was simply oblivious to her existence. He was never just blithely selfish like Tim.
‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Tim a few minutes later.
Lisa was silent for a moment, scarcely able to believe what she was seeing.
‘It’s magnificent,’ she admitted. ‘It reminds me of Lucien Freud’s work. The brush strokes are really fresh and vigorous and you haven’t overworked your mixing before you put the paint on the canvas, so the colours don’t look muddy. And the quality of the light is wonderful.’
Mistress For Hire (Harlequin Presents) Page 13