Rhiannon said nothing.
‘But he was kind and thoughtful, he was—’ Andrea stopped to dash at a couple of tears ‘—after all the drama that had gone before he was…wonderful. You can believe it or not,’ she said hoarsely and pulled a hanky from her pocket to blow her nose, ‘but it’s the truth.’
A sterling performance, Rhiannon found herself wondering, or the truth? But what about the gaps? Such as the convenient glossing over of who the man she’d been on the rebound from was…
And why was Lee refusing even to be in the same room as Andrea unless absolutely necessary—because he didn’t trust himself?
Andrea left not long afterwards, which was probably just as well because Lee arrived home looking tired and ill.
‘Oh, I wasn’t expecting you,’ Rhiannon greeted him, and frowned immediately.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know, I just feel whacked. You may not realise it, but it’s a great strain being away from you, Mrs Richardson.’
Rhiannon felt her heart melt as she looked into his blue eyes, and everything else, including his manipulative stepmother, fled from her mind.
She took his hand and said softly, ‘Come.’ And she led him to his wing.
He closed the door behind them with one hand and took off his tie with other, and pulled her into his arms without saying a word.
She didn’t speak either, just rested against him with her arms wound round him.
Then she took his hand again and led him to the bed.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ he queried.
She only smiled serenely and started to undress quite naturally and undramatically.
She was down to her underwear, a black bra and black lacy knickers, her pearls and with her shiny fair hair covering her face as she bent down to slide her knickers off when he moved convulsively and said hoarsely, ‘I don’t know if this is what you had in mind, but I don’t think I can help myself.’
And his hands were hard on her body as he ripped her bra off, shed his clothes and claimed her.
There was no teasing her nipples with champagne, no sensuous massage of her hips, nothing but naked, rampant need until he shuddered over her.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said harshly as he rolled off her and took her in his arms. ‘That was un—’
‘No,’ she said softly.
‘But I didn’t even give you time to respond!’
‘There’ll be other times,’ she murmured. ‘I just thought you might be in great need of some kind of—release.’
‘You thought right. I don’t know what’s the matter with me…’ He shrugged. ‘How’s your father?’
She told him. And she told him about the arrangements she’d been putting in place for the reception after the memorial service.
‘Well, I think I may have to leave you for the moment,’ she said then.
‘Why? This is very—pleasant.’ He cuddled her against him then chuckled softly.
‘What?’
‘I never saw myself as a cuddler but you bring a whole new meaning to the word.
You have just the right curves for it.’ He paid particular attention to some of those curves.
‘That is going beyond cuddling,’ she pointed out on an indrawn breath. ‘So I’m going to have to take a rain check.’
‘Are you sure?’ He reached for her but she slipped off the bed.
‘I’m—sure it’s in everyone’s interests in the long term. You look as if you could do with a breather and I have an appointment with the caterers in,’ she looked at the bedside clock and groaned, ‘twenty minutes!’
‘You know you wouldn’t get away with this if it weren’t for the caterers, Rhiannon?’
‘Yes, probably, although don’t always expect to get your own way!’ She waved to him and went into the shower.
When she came out, he was fast asleep. She looked her fill for a long moment then tiptoed around getting dressed.
Lee slept through it all and she tiptoed out, blowing him a kiss.
In fact he slept on and off through to quite late the next morning. She started to wonder whether she should call a doctor, but when she went to suggest it she found him awake and looking much better.
‘I think you may have had some kind of a bug; maybe the one Mary had is doing the rounds,’ she said, sitting down beside him.
‘I think you’re right. I started to feel crook almost as soon as I arrived in Melbourne. So.’ He sat up. ‘What orders have you got for me?’
‘None. Everything’s under control but your fax machine has been going ballistic—I borrowed your desk in the library and I did check my email on your computer…none for me but your inbox is overflowing.’
He grimaced. ‘George, no doubt. We’re considering an offer for a station in WA and he’s always meticulous about clearing the last detail with me. OK.’ He got up and pulled on a tracksuit. ‘There’s something I want to show you. A room.’
‘What room?’
‘You’ll see.’
It was his mother’s study he led her to.
Not large, it overlooked the rose garden and had a cosy air with a chintz-covered couch, pretty paintings on the walls, family photos in silver frames and a roll-top desk.
‘She used to say it was her “command module”,’ he explained. ‘She used to keep all the household records as well as extensive records of all her entertaining in this desk—you may find them useful, and there’s both an outside line and an internal phone and we’ll get you a computer. It’s all yours to command now, Mrs Richardson,’ he added gravely.
‘Thank you,’ Rhiannon responded, a little awes-truck for a moment.
Lee pulled open a desk drawer and revealed monogrammed stationery. He picked up a sheet. ‘Margaret Richardson,’ he said quietly. ‘Now, she was a lady.’
‘Lee,’ Rhiannon breathed, ‘I think men are worse at—coping with being on their own than women. And—maybe it’s time to bury the hatchet with Andrea?’
‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘You’ll need to order yourself your own stationery. OK.’ He closed the drawer. ‘Meet me at the pool at, say, five-thirty?’
Rhiannon agreed.
But after he’d gone, she sat down in the swivel chair at the desk and pondered things such as—could it be that Lee’s burying of the hatchet towards his stepmother would only ever be skin-deep?
Such as, did Andrea Richardson deserve a place in the family after the mayhem she’d caused? Come to that, was she hell-bent on causing more mayhem? But what kind of mayhem could she cause? She didn’t know it but the dirty linen wouldn’t come as a surprise to Lee’s new wife…
Rhiannon shook her head and contemplated another dilemma to do with how she’d almost instinctively buried all her concerns and would do so until after the memorial—what else could she do? she wondered.
And in the meantime she had plenty to concentrate on if she wanted Southall to look its best.
Margaret Richardson’s records proved a godsend.
From them she hired an army of cleaners to tackle the windows, walls, floors, carpets, upholstery and the silver. She found several tradesmen for the little things she’d noticed, like a couple of leaking taps, some cracked flagging in the entrance courtyard and some small painting jobs.
All of them were prepared to fit Southall into their busy schedules.
At Ross Richardson’s memorial service, Rhiannon felt as if the last days had been fast-forwarded.
Somehow she’d maintained her unaffected air—as if she had no idea her husband and his stepmother had had an affair before Andrea had married Ross on the rebound. As if she were unaware of the drama sure to unfold when Andrea staked her claim.
Talk about a sterling performance, she had thought once—she was the one who deserved an Oscar.
But the fact that both she and Lee had been so busy had helped. The fact that every guest bedroom at Southall, and there were eight, had gradually filled with long-term, interstate friends of
the family gave her more than enough to do on top of what she was already doing, and she often fell into bed exhausted.
‘We’ll take a break after this is over,’ Lee had said to her one night when he slid into bed beside her and slid his arms around her.
‘Mmmm…’ she murmured sleepily but not sure she would sleep.
‘How about a distant shore?’
‘Yes, nice.’
‘Only nice?’ he queried offendedly.
‘Make that too nice.’
‘That’s better. Rhiannon, I can’t thank you enough for all you’re doing.’
‘I can think of one way—just hold me until I fall asleep. I’m a bit over-the-top, I think.’
‘Done. Sweet dreams.’
She came back to the present, standing beside Lee in the flower-filled church.
The service was nearly ended and it had been moving but uplifting.
The music had been lovely and the speakers inspired, especially Lee’s eulogy, a blend of humour, admiration and respect, that had brought his father to life for the congregation. And the final musical piece was the mysterious notes of a didgeridoo to highlight Ross Richardson’s connection with the outback and its traditions.
Rhiannon broke out in goose pimples as those deep notes lingered on the air—Lee’s choice.
She glanced at Andrea, wearing navy and cream and a marvellous broad-brimmed hat, but could tell nothing from her expression.
Then they were moving down the aisle, Andrea first, she and Lee then Matt and Mary, and out into the sunshine, where the long line of introductions began, made somewhat complicated by the fact that few knew Lee had married.
‘Well, well,’ one prominent politician said as he shook Rhiannon’s hand and took in her charcoal silk suit worn with her pearls and a ruby straw pillbox hat perched on her shiny fair hair—not to mention the figure and legs beneath it, ‘I always knew you had great taste, Lee, me boy! I would say you’ve married yourself a peach.’
‘Thank you,’ Lee replied gravely. ‘I happen to be in agreement. What’s wrong?’ he added to Rhiannon almost beneath his breath as she moved restlessly. ‘He may not be a model of tact but he means well.’
‘Yes, I guess so. Nothing! I’m fine.’ She put out her hand to the next in the line-up.
But she suddenly knew she was not fine. She’d held herself together against the weight of deep uncertainties for too long.
She’d played several parts that were all a farce. She’d contrived to let Lee feel she was prepared to put his past with Andrea away as if it hadn’t happened.
She’d pretended not to know what Andrea had meant about the family dirty linen.
And she was, here and now, allowing virtually the rest of the world to know her as Lee’s wife when she was unsure she could remain so caught in the cross-fire between two people who’d once loved each other.
Not only that, she thought shakily, but also the pain of not knowing whether she’d always be a “suitable” wife rather than a beloved one.
Then the line ended and Lee put her in his car and drove her back to Southall, where he led her straight to the bar and poured her a small brandy.
‘Now,’ he said as she took a grateful sip, ‘what is it?’
She closed her eyes briefly but once again it wasn’t the time or place to tell him the truth. She took another sip and called on herself for one more supreme effort.
‘I think I may have just done too much lately and—’
He swore but she put her hand on his arm. ‘And I was thinking of my mother.’ It wasn’t a lie—she had thought of her mother during the service, it just wasn’t the whole truth.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said compassionately. ‘I guess I’ve tended to think only of myself lately but—’
‘That’s natural,’ Rhiannon interrupted.
He studied her and saw the lines of strain in her face where usually there were none, and cursed himself. ‘Why don’t you—we—?’He broke off frustratedly as people began to arrive.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him. ‘I know I can do this.’ She drained the glass and set it back on the bar and smiled at him. ‘Let’s go.’
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was a look.
Only a look but one of such intensity between two people, Rhiannon was almost destroyed by it.
As wakes tended to do, and probably were intended to do, a relaxation after the service set in as the delicious food and best wines flowed. And many people told her that Southall had never looked so beautiful.
All the same, she nearly missed that devastating look.
If she hadn’t decided to go and powder her nose she wouldn’t have observed Lee and Andrea pass each other in the passage that led to Lee’s wing.
She wouldn’t have seen them, unseen herself, stop with a couple of feet between them, and simply stare at each other with palpable tension stamped into every line of their bodies as if there was an almost unbearable longing and hunger flowing between them.
She saw the way Lee’s gaze roamed over Andrea—she’d taken off her hat and that wonderful hair was loose and shining like rough silk down her back—she saw the way Andrea accepted his wandering gaze with her head held high but her hands clenching in a way that told its own tale.
She thought, with such a stab of inward pain she nearly cried out, that Lee had looked at her in a lot of ways but never like that, never, almost, as if his life depended on drinking her image in.
She turned away silently, waited a few moments then looked again, but they’d gone into the main lounge.
She did go on to Lee’s wing then, where she packed her essentials, and where she left her pearls in their box with a note tucked under them, on her pillow.
She also changed and, using the veranda exit, made her way swiftly to the garage. Fortunately, the driveway had been left clear so she was able to drive the blue Mercedes away with no difficulty, except, that was, for the tears pouring down her cheeks.
Chapter 8
She was halfway down the windy Mount Tamborine-Nerang road when she noticed a police car parked in a lay-by ahead of her, then a policeman signalling her to pull in.
She all but pounded the steering wheel. The last thing she needed was to be breathalysed at the moment—not that she had anything to worry about on the alcohol front. One small brandy consumed several hours ago and nothing since wasn’t going to take her over the legal limit. She was in such a fever to get away that any delay was supremely frustrating.
She’d already had to stop to put petrol in the car when she’d noticed the warning light on the fuel gauge blinking.
She pulled in and wound down the window, and observed that the policeman didn’t have any breathalysing equipment in his hands. Had she been speeding? she wondered? And driven past a concealed radar trap?
She opened her mouth but the policeman said, ‘Mrs Richardson? Mrs Rhiannon Richardson?’
‘I—Yes, but how did you know?’
He was a tall man, about Lee’s age, with an open face, but he ignored her question and waved at the police car.
A policewoman got out and came slowly over to the Mercedes, talking into a mobile phone at the same time. She ended the call as she arrived at the window.
‘Ma’am, may I introduce my colleague, Senior Constable Laura Givens? And I’m Sergeant Jim Daley.’
‘I—How do you do?’ Rhiannon said feverishly.
‘Ma’am,’ the sergeant continued, ‘we’re just conducting some routine safety checks—brake lights, indicators and so on. Generally, the last person to know the brake lights aren’t working is the driver,’ he added with a touch of humour, ‘so would you please give us a demonstration?’
Rhiannon ground her teeth but complied and the two police officers conducted a leisurely observation of the car in braking and indicating mode.
‘Well, that all seems to be working,’ Sergeant Daley remarked back at the driver’s window. ‘Now, if we could just see your licence, please, ma’am?�
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Rhiannon closed her eyes then searched through one bag then another before she found her purse. ‘Here it is.’ She handed it through the window. ‘But I haven’t changed it over to my married name yet. I—I only got married a few weeks ago.’
‘That’s fine, ma’am, although you should do so as soon as you can.’ He straightened, keeping hold of her licence, and looked over the top of the Mercedes as another car pulled into the lay-by. ‘Um—your husband would like to have a word with you, Mrs Richardson, that’s all.’
Rhiannon gasped and her eyes flew to the rear-view mirror to see Lee getting out of the four-wheel-drive that had pulled in behind her.
‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘I—I…’ But she was speechless as Lee came up and opened the door.
‘Thanks, Jim and Laura,’ Lee said to the two in blue, and handed over his car keys. ‘This is really important so I’d appreciate it if you could get my car back to Southall and Rhiannon and I will take the wagon. Would you mind moving over, Rhiannon? I’ll drive.’
She opened her mouth to protest but what to say with a police audience already looking wildly speculative?
‘How dare you do that?’ she did say tautly as Lee drove the Mercedes off smoothly. ‘How dare you put the police on to me? I told you in my note I’d leave the car at the airport!’
‘I didn’t put the police on to you,’ he replied. He’d changed into casual clothes, khaki trousers, a green T-shirt and his leather jacket.
‘What would you call it then?’
‘I know Jim and Laura. They contribute their time extensively to the sports club and I knew they were helping out with traffic control at the church. I simply rang Jim and asked him to be on the lookout for you and to delay you but not to worry you until I got there because something had come up and I needed to find you. I had no concerns about the car at all—it’s yours, anyway.’
He changed gear as they came to a section of hairpin bends.
‘And you didn’t stop to wonder how that was going to look?’ she asked bitterly.
He flicked her a fleeting glance. ‘Walking out on me was going to “look” bad however you did it, Rhiannon. But apart from Jim and Laura being a bit curious, no other damage has been done. Matt believes you had to go and see your father and he’s taken over.’
The Australian's Housekeeper Bride Page 13