Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor

by Margaret Way

  Again he chopped her off with a gesture of his hand. “A gap year would give you time for personal development. Time to develop your other skills. You need to get a balance in life, Miranda. Believe me, it will all help in your chosen profession. You could travel. See something of the world. Do research if you like.”

  She couldn’t hold back her derision. “Travel? You must be joking.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” He lifted a black brow. “I’m very serious about this, Miranda. You’re not just another brilliant student we’re sponsoring. The two of us have a strong connection. Your mother is married to my father. Many people thought it would be all over within a year or two, but they were wrong. She knows exactly how to handle him.”

  “It has to be sex,” she said with a dark frown. “Razzle-dazzle.” Leila Rylance was famous for her beauty and glamour, her parties. From all accounts she had made herself knowledgeable about the political and big business scene. Even the art world, where she was fêted by gallery-owners. Leila was right at the top of the tree when it came to social-climbers.

  “Don’t knock it,” Corin was saying dryly. “It’s important. Dad is still a vigorous and virile man. Besides, Leila has numerous other wiles at her disposal. She runs his private life and the house—indeed the houses all over the world—with considerable competence. She’s no fool. She’s appears very loving, very loyal, very respectful. She hangs on my father’s every word.”

  “But is it for real?” Miranda demanded with a good deal of fire. “She obviously didn’t win you and Zara over.”

  There was a flash in his brilliant dark eyes. “He brought her frequently to the house before our mother died, like she was a colleague and not an employee well down the rung. Fooled no one. At one stage I thought our housekeeper Matty was planning on poisoning her over morning tea. Matty adored our mother. Leila spent a lot of time trying to charm us. We were only children, but thinking children. We could see she posed a real threat to our parents’ marriage. Dad lusted after Leila long before she got him to marry her.”

  She studied his handsome, brooding face, seeing how it must have been for him and his sister. “So hurting people didn’t concern her? Between the two of them they must have broken your mother’s heart.”

  His expression was grim. “It was pretty harrowing for all of us. My beautiful mother most of all. I can’t talk about it, Miranda. I’ll never forgive either of them.”

  “Why would you? I’d feel exactly the same. I do feel the same. The thing is, do they know? Does your father know? You’re his heir.”

  He gave a brief laugh. “My grandparents, the De Laceys, are major shareholders. My grandfather Hugo still sits on the board. It was he who staked my father in the beginning—a lot of money, I can tell you. I have my mother’s shares. And Zara and I will have our grandparents’ eventually. Dad couldn’t overthrow me even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. In his own peculiar way he’s proud of me. It’s Zara, my beautiful, gifted sister, he endeavours to avoid. I look like him, except his eyes are a piercing pale blue and mine are dark.”

  “They’re beautiful eyes,” she said without thinking.

  “Thank you.” He smiled, thus lightening the atmosphere. “But I still say yours are the most remarkable eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “Someone has them,” she said. “My biological father? Some member of his family? Even you with all your resources couldn’t find out who my father was.”

  “We couldn’t, and Lord knows my people tried. But we don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. Some people don’t want to become involved—not many years after, when the pattern of their lives is set. No one in the area where your grandparents and Leila lived fitted the bill or the time frame. It could have been someone she just happened to meet—”

  “Like a one-night stand?” Miranda said sharply. “Barely sixteen, and Leila was taking lovers? Or was she raped? I can’t bear to think about that.” She shuddered. “My grandmother was convinced from the way Leila acted and spoke that wasn’t the case.”

  Corin’s eyes never left her face. “There’s no way to tell, Miranda. I’m sorry. Only Leila knows. One day you might get the opportunity to ask her—” He broke off at a discreet tap on the door, calling for entry. A young woman Miranda had never seen before wheeled a trolley into the office.

  “Thank you, Fiona. We’ll take it from here.”

  “Yes, Mr Rylance.” Fiona flashed him her most dazzling smile, at the same time managing to give Miranda a comprehensive once-over.

  Fiona left. Miranda stood up. “I’ll pour. No milk? Teaspoon of sugar?” She remembered.

  “Fine.” His mind was clearly focused on something else.

  “Want one of these sandwiches and a Danish?”

  “Why not?” He went back to sit at his desk.

  They were both settled before he spoke again. “This coffee is good.”

  “Nothing less than the best.” It was very good. So were the neat little chicken sandwiches and the freshly baked mini-pastries. She was hungry. She’d only had fruit for breakfast. Papaya with a spritz of lime.

  “Money would be made available for you to travel,” Corin said, setting down his coffee cup.

  She looked at him in amazement. “You can’t be serious, Corin! Why would you do that? I’m taking enough. Can I say no?”

  His brilliant eyes burned into her. “Better to say yes, Miranda.”

  “Oh, Lord!” She took another hasty swallow of the excellent coffee. “You’re worried about burn-out. Is that it?”

  “There is such a thing. We both know that. The sheer drudgery of study. Your friend Peter almost died from an overdose.”

  Her head sank. “Poor Peter!” Peter—her friend, the brilliant class geek. She had looked out for him from the start. When other students had tended to mock his extreme shyness and his bone-thin appearance she had been his constant support. Peter’s appearance at that stage of his life hadn’t matched up with his formidable brain.

  “You were devastated,” Corin reminded her. Did she know poor Peter idolised her?

  “Of course I was devastated,” she said, lifting her head. “We were supposed to be friends, but he never told me how bad he felt. Why didn’t he? I could have helped.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, Miranda. You were a good friend to Peter, but his depression got the better of him. He was the classic square peg in a round hole.”

  “Wasn’t he just?” She sighed. “I’m so grateful you were there for me that night.” Not knowing what else to do, she had called Corin from the hospital and he had come. “I’ll always remember that. And what you did for Peter afterwards. You spoke to his family. They listened. They’d been blind to the fact Peter wasn’t meant to be a doctor. With the family medical background they more or less forced him into it. Peter desperately wanted to become a musician. His ambition wasn’t taken at all seriously until you spoke up.”

  “I wanted to help.”

  “Well, you did.” These days Peter was studying the cello at the very prestigeous Royal College of Music in London.

  “Still hearing from him?” Corin asked.

  “All the time.”

  She smiled. A sweet, uncomplicated smile. Peter was her friend. No more. He would never be her lover. He was glad about that. He didn’t stop to question why. But emotions had such intrusive, pressing qualities. Sometimes they had to be pushed away.

  “I love Zara’s rainforest painting,” she said, gesturing to it.

  “So do I. Zara keeps up her painting. I’ll find one of hers for you. I have quite a collection. But we’re not talking about Zara. Or Peter—though I’m very glad to hear he’s doing so well. We’re talking about you, Miranda. I firmly believe you’ll benefit from a gap year.”

  Her fingers laced themselves together.

  “Don’t argue. You wanted to fast-track science, remember?”

  She looked across at him with pleading eyes. “I could have done it in two years had I worked through t
he long vacations.”

  His tongue clicked with impatience. “Why won’t you admit you were glad when I made the decision for you? I’m on your side, Miranda. I’m simply not going to allow you to crash and burn. Two years was far too gruelling for a three-year science course and you know it. No time at all for a personal life.”

  “Who needs a personal life?” she asked discordantly, stretching her slender arms along the sides of the armchair. “You’re a workaholic, though rumour has it you’re going to marry Annette Atwood. She’s stunning.”

  He let the silence build. “So she is,” he agreed eventually. “But you appear to know more about it than I do.”

  “You’re not?” It came out far too intensely. Damn, damn, damn.

  “Let’s get back to you,” he said smoothly, aware she hadn’t meant to show such interest. “Professor Sutton shares my view you’d benefit from a gap year. And there’s a man who thinks the world of you.”

  Her expression softened. “The Prof would like me to stick to science. He’s told me many times. He thinks I have a future in medical research. When you think about it, nine of our ten Nobel Prize winners have been medical scientists, or doctors of medicine. And Patrick White, of course, for Literature. I know at some future stage the Prof would like me to be in a position to make his team. I’m sure he’s told you he’s enormously grateful for the funding he receives from the Foundation?”

  “He’s doing great work,” Corin acknowledged, as though that said it all. “Research doesn’t appeal to you?”

  She ran her fingers through her short glittering curls. “I’d be honoured. But I have to get my MB first, Corin.” Her brain was ticking over at a million miles a minute. Travel? See the world? She felt exhilarated. And shocked.

  “No reason to believe you won’t. I applaud your ambition. But taking a gap year will work out to be a distinct advantage. The more experienced and the more cultivated you are as a human being, you can only enhance your chosen career.”

  “So I’m to do what I’m told? Is that it?”

  He could see the mix of emotions in her eyes. “I’ve mapped out an agenda for your perusal.”

  “Not my approval?” she commented wryly.

  He ignored that. “Zara will be happy to keep an eye on you in London. I know the two of you will get on like a house on fire. Dad splashed out and bought a house in London when our mother was alive—an 1840s house in Holland Park. Rather run-down at the time, but in a superb location of beautiful tree-lined streets and gardens, and of course the park itself, which was once the grounds of a vast Jacobean Manor. Anyway, my mother and her English decorator transformed it. Zara is living in the house now. But there’s a basement apartment which I had turned into a very comfortable pied-à-terre for whenever I’m in London. You could live there. It will give you the feeling of independence. You can come and go as you please, but Zara would still be around for you. There’s a very elegant apartment in Paris too, typically Parisian, but Leila doesn’t go there often. She much prefers the villa she talked Dad into buying on the Côte d’Azur. It has a spectacular view of the Mediterranean.”

  “So in the years of her marriage Leila has lived like royalty, greedily soaking up all the luxury your father’s billions can buy?”

  “It’s not a new phenomenon. There have always been courtesans.”

  “You hate her, don’t you?”

  “I hate what she did to my mother,” he said tautly. “And how shamelessly. That’s when it all began. She worked to alienate Zara from Dad. These days I’m…indifferent to her.”

  Miranda had to wonder about that. Only eight years separated Corin and Leila. “She must have to work very hard to be indifferent to you!” She spoke without thinking.

  His handsome face tightened and his whole body tensed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She reined herself in quickly. “Leila likes to charm wherever she goes. Men, that is.”

  “Well, she doesn’t charm me!” His voice was heavily freighted with hostility.

  “Okay, don’t be angry.”

  “Maybe you should start thinking about psychiatry?”

  She met his dark eyes. “You’ve said that before. I’ve got good instincts, Corin. I let them work for me. Are you going to show me that agenda of yours?”

  “I’ve got it right here.” He picked up a sheet of paper, then passed it across the desk to her. He must have been checking it when she arrived. “A bank account will be opened for you. You’ll have all the money you need to travel. See the great art museums of the world, study a language if you like. Go to the opera, the theatre, the ballet. Zara loves the ballet. Buy clothes. I want you to make the best of this time, Miranda. You’ll have a long, hard slog ahead of you.”

  Her eyes ran dazedly down the page. “Look, I can’t do this, Corin,” she said eventually. “I’m not family. Yet you’re treating me like family.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, you are family—in a way. Your mother is married to my father. That’s family. Besides, I’m fond of you, Miranda. You must know that. We clicked from the very first moment you near landed in my lap. Your welfare has become important. It’s the least I can do for someone who has taken more than her share of blows. We’re both caught up in this, Miranda, so you must do as I say. This gap year will work wonders. Just see how quickly it goes.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. “So a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do? Is that it?”

  “I want your promise right now,” he said.

  Her eyes opened. Her head flew back. “What if Leila and your father decide to visit London, or the Paris apartment or whatever?” she queried with sharp concern. “I see there’s another apartment in Rome.”

  “You wouldn’t need to have contact should they visit. Leila likes the great hotels. Claridges in London, the Ritz in Paris are favourites. Dad does what she wants. She’s an expert manipulator. Anyway, I’ll always know their movements. Leave it to me.”

  “Leave it to you?” She drew in a stunned breath. “I’m shocked by all this, Corin. I knew you might spring the gap year on me again, but never an agenda like this! Zara still doesn’t know about me and Leila?”

  “I don’t think she could handle it,” he said sombrely. “Not without speaking out. She knows about my clever protégée Miranda Thornton. She knows nothing about the family connection. It’ll have to wait.”

  “Until you’re good and ready, Machiavelli. Do protégées usually get world trips and a hefty bank allowance?”

  “My sister knows I have a reason for everything I do,” he answered smoothly. “She won’t question it, or you. All she needs to know is that I consider, as does Professor Sutton, you’ll gain a great deal from a gap year.”

  Her beautiful eyes glittered like jewels. “I think I knew from the start it might end up like this. You changing my life.”

  His mouth twisted sardonically. “Cheer up! Didn’t you once call it destiny?”

  “You believe in it?”

  Their eyes locked. For the longest moment. “I do,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WAS more like a fairy tale than real life. She was living a glittering lifestyle, like the most impossible of dreams. She had to remind herself every day that she couldn’t allow such a life to seduce her. Not that there was any real chance of that. Zara was the heiress. She most assuredly wasn’t. The practice of medicine would be her role in life. But for now she was enjoying herself immensely—just as Corin had wanted her to. Days, weeks, months simply flew by in a whirl of pleasure and excitement. She was learning a new way of life, acquiring much knowledge along the way.

  She loved London—perhaps not the climate, not after the blue and gold of Queensland, but she worked around that like everyone else. London was one of the great cities of the world. It embraced her. It allowed her to trace its illustrious history, to see its magnificent historic buildings, the art galleries, the wonderful antiques shops, markets, to shop at the legendary Harrods, visit the beautifu
l parks. She was doubly blessed by being billeted in very swish Holland Park, just west of Notting Hill. More than anything she loved living in Corin’s elegant apartment, with its French Art Deco furniture and a basic colour scheme of brown, bronze and white enlivened by cinnamon and gold. It was definitely a male sanctum, but it welcomed her.

  Though fourteen thousand miles separated them, she somehow felt Corin very close. That could have had a lot to do with the fact that she was sleeping in his huge Art Deco bed!

  Zara was largely responsible for the lovely time she was having. She had quickly found Zara was the most beautiful, gracious creature on earth. And the kindest. A true lady. Miranda knew from the photographs of their mother—Corin had one lovely silver framed study he kept on his desk—Zara was fashioned in her mother’s image, but she did see a lot of Corin in her. The sharpness of intellect, the generosity of spirit, the sense of humour that happily they all shared. Just like Corin, there was something utterly irresistible about Zara. Yet Miranda sensed a deep sadness that lay in Zara’s heart. From time to time it was reflected in her huge dark eyes. Zara had some pretty serious stuff stacked away in the background.

  Over the months Zara had taken the place of the big sister Miranda had never had. She had been so lonely for siblings that had never arrived. How could they? Her real mother, Leila, had fled, desperate to get away from her parents and her child. She now claimed she couldn’t bear children. Maybe, just maybe, it was true. Leila would surely have wanted to cement her new position by producing a male child? It was possible it was Dalton Rylance who didn’t want or need any more children. He had Corin and his daughter, even if she so painfully brought to mind his first wife. Was his cold disregard a by-product of his guilt? Miranda found herself both fascinated and repelled by the whole story.

  Kathryn Rylance had died when she’d crashed her car. Had it been an accident? She would never dare ask. But surely such a loving mother would never have deliberately left her children? Not to such a father. Or the covetous young woman waiting in the wings. The potential stepmother. There could have been a single moment when Kathryn had become careless and lost control of the wheel. She could have been blinded by tears. Miranda realised she wouldn’t be the only one to ponder such things. There were the grieving grandparents, the De Laceys, and Kathryn’s clever, perceptive children, her close friends. Talk must have been rife!