Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor

by Margaret Way

  There was the inner voice again, like a non-stop voice-over.

  Corin’s tall figure had disappeared into the entrance hall. Out of sight. They began to mount the steps, with no option but to do otherwise. Miranda had already arrived at the most unwelcome conclusion. For some reason Dalton Rylance and Leila were in the house. It belonged to them anyway.

  They paused to the left of the top step, just out of sight of anyone inside the marble-tiled entrance hall. “Good chance to see who it is!” Miranda muttered under her breath.

  “It’s Father and Leila, of course.” Zara sounded shattered. Something that wasn’t lost on Miranda.

  The two of them stood mesmerised as they were made witness to the grand entrance of the beautiful, statuesque woman descending the staircase, calling out Corin’s name as she came.

  He might as well have been deaf, Miranda thought, because he didn’t respond.

  Undeterred, the woman threw out pale, slender arms in welcome, much as a famous diva might, supremely confident of herself and her adoring audience. She was dressed in a slinky ankle-length dress, a lovely shade between peach and bronze. It suited her perfectly. Her long, thick superbly styled bronze-coloured hair swirled around her shoulders. Her golden-brown eyes, offset by arching black brows, shimmered in the light from the great chandelier. She looked no more than late twenties.

  A good ten years younger than she was.

  “So that’s Leila!” Miranda had to work hard to suppress a sick combination of rage, shock and an involuntary stomach clenching excitement. This, at long last, was her mother. Albeit a personage invented. It didn’t seem possible. Yet she herself had set the wheels of fortune in motion. Now she felt not triumph—I’ve found her at long last—but a continuing sense of loss. Leila was a head-turner. No doubt about that. Ultra-glamorous. Streamlined seduction coming off her like a powerful incense.

  “Corin, dear!” She spoke in a husky, cultured voice, acquired over time. “What a shock it was to hear you were in London!”

  Corin remained where he was, remote, stunningly handsome, keeping his distance. “Shock? How would it be a shock, Leila?” he challenged. “You seem intent on following my movements.”

  “Well, you are my stepson!” A low amused gurgle deep in the throat.

  “We should go in,” Zara whispered, still rooted to the spot. Both had registered that Corin spoke in his coldest, hardest voice.

  “Give it a minute.” Miranda held tight to her vulnerable friend. She truly believed Leila had tried to break the young Zara. No female competitors for her husband’s time and attention. Least of all one who was the mirror image of his first wife. “I want to see something.” Indeed she did. There was a tremendous tension between Corin and the outwardly smiling Leila. She couldn’t ignore it.

  “She’s in love with him,” Zara confided in an intensely unhappy voice.

  “No question!” All trace of their pleasant evening had been wiped clear. “He must know it at some level.”

  Of course he does, said the warning voice in Miranda’s head. But he’s hidden it from you.

  “He won’t have it.” Zara was adamant. “Do you blame him?”

  “It would bring great shame to the family.” Miranda stared at the tableau before them. Leila had entered her life. There was no going back.

  There she is—your mother. A serial adulteress?

  “It would!” Zara breathed.

  “Then God knows how it will end.” Miranda transferred her gaze from her mother to the man she loved. His tall, handsome figure emanated hostility. But it was a man-woman thing. The two of them were locked in confrontation. Was it possible they had shared some secret moments Corin, at least, was desperate to forget? Miranda turned the burning question over and over in her mind. Here was a very beautiful, seductive woman. Such a woman would always have the advantage over a young man susceptible to a woman’s beauty. It didn’t bear thinking about. On the other hand, she might never be able to stop thinking about it.

  Women were lied to all the time. Betrayed. She ought to remember she was no woman of the world. She was twenty-one years old. Leila, on the other hand, was the walking, breathing epitome of ancient wisdom and womanly allure. A born seductress. She shook her head as if to clear it. “Your father is a proud and arrogant man. Not a man to cross.”

  “Not unless you’re tough enough to pick yourself up and put the pieces together again.” Zara shuddered. “Few are. Me included. Corin brings the ball right to him. Truth to tell, Father is somewhat in awe of Corin, though he’d rather die than admit it. Our father is profoundly unforgiving. I speak from long experience.”

  Great wealth appeared to make for dysfunctional families! “Oh, Zara!” Miranda locked a protective arm around Zara’s waist. How easy it would be to traumatise a young girl. Especially one who had lost the love and support of her adored mother. “Come on, now,” she said bracingly, putting her own fears aside. “Let’s get it over. Bring Leila’s movie-star efforts to fascinate Corin to an end.”

  Zara responded with a strangled laugh. Together they swung rather than moved quietly into the entrance hall.

  Their arrival stopped Leila in mid-flight. She turned from devouring Corin with her golden tigress’s eyes to address Zara and whoever it was with her. Perhaps with a few subtly mocking words. Nothing Leila could say would lack a certain sting.

  Except it didn’t happen that way.

  Leila stood transfixed. All colour drained out of her face. “What—?” Her voice cracked on the solitary word. She looked pole-axed, robbed of all confidence. Her almond eyes opened wide. Full of fear?

  “I’m sorry.” Zara made a little perplexed gesture, looking swiftly to her silent brother for guidance. “This is Miranda—a friend of ours, Leila. We’ve all been out to dinner. Miranda, this is my stepmother, Leila Rylance.”

  Pull out all the stops, Miranda. You’ve served a long apprenticeship. You can do it. You can cope.

  Her inner voice came through, unusually fierce. It was beginning to sound more and more like her grandmother. So many currents in the sea of life! Miranda stepped forward, an enchantingly pretty young woman, with exquisite colouring, wearing a short fuchsia silk dress. “How do you do, Mrs Rylance?” She couldn’t for the life of her order up a smile, but she found herself able to speak calmly, politely. A well brought up young woman.

  Hang tough. This is your mother and she’s only a few feet away. The closest she has been in twenty-one long years.

  Leila for her part seemed totally incapable of finding her usual brilliant smile. She might have been looking at an apparition, and a nightmare at that.

  “Leila, you’ve gone very pale.” Corin’s words were solicitous enough, but his tone was far from warm. “Are you all right?”

  Leila didn’t answer. She backed away, grasping behind her for the scrolled end of the balustrade. When her long, elegant fingers, flashing a fortune in diamonds, found it, she gripped it tight. Consummate actress that she was, she couldn’t collect herself, though she was clearly involved in some extremely harrowing thought processes.

  “The long trip, I expect,” Zara offered kindly, because kind was the way she was, trying to fill in the gap. Leila was feeling unwell for some reason. No. That wasn’t it. Leila, always in command of herself, appeared to have gone into extreme shock. Zara had no idea why. She had now taken to hugging her bare arms, as though the air had turned icy. How extraordinary! Something to do with Miranda? Zara cast about for a reason, however unlikely.

  Corin and Miranda had no doubts whatsoever. Whoever Leila was seeing, it wasn’t Miranda. It was Leila’s girlhood lover. The father of her child. The child she had been desperate to leave behind. As if she had never been born.

  This could be my first meeting and my last, Miranda thought somberly.

  So here I am, Mother dear. A threat. Only I don’t propose to threaten you at all. Your life is your life. I won’t disturb it. My life is mine.

  Corin was making some comment when
a deep, markedly authoritative voice called from the gallery. The voice of a dictator, a tyrant. One who must be obeyed. “So they’re home at last, are they?”

  Ah! The magnate billionaire was in their midst.

  You don’t bother me at all.

  Miranda had to wonder why she felt like that. Very many people went in fear and trepidation of Dalton Rylance. It was common knowledge. There was no such fear in her. Her mother knew her. Knew her instantly. How elemental was that?

  At the sound of her husband’s dark, sonorous tones Leila made a supreme effort to pull herself together. Perhaps before it was too late? It had to be an ongoing ordeal, getting into bed with one man while longing for another, Miranda thought without pity. Keeping it from an adoring, jealous husband would stretch the nerves to breaking point, surely?

  “They have a young friend with them, darling,” Leila called, though her voice, compared to the way Miranda had first heard her speak, sounded thin and weak. Not the voice of a practised seductress at all.

  Dalton Rylance appeared at the top of the stairs, an imposing figure in evening dress. He was very tall, very fit, still an extremely handsome man in his late fifties, with a thick dark plume of hair, silver wings, penetrating light blue eyes. He didn’t ask for a name. His entire focus was on his wife. “Is anything wrong, my darling?” In an instant he had reacted to the reedy sound in his wife’s voice.

  If anyone upsets my wife, I’ll destroy them.

  He might as well have shouted it aloud, Miranda thought. No wonder sensitive Zara trod warily with this man. He might be her father, but he wasn’t her friend, let alone her protector. Miranda took a violent dislike to Dalton Rylance on the spot.

  “Why would anything be wrong, Dad?” Corin lifted his head, his voice very smooth and self-assured. Corin obviously didn’t share his sister’s qualms. But then, Corin was the heir. “Leila was just saying she’s a little tired from travelling.”

  “My dear, why didn’t you tell me?” Quickly, as though he were at fault, Dalton Rylance descended the staircase. Obviously in thrall to her, he went to his wife’s side, staring with great concern into her exotic face, at her golden-olive complexion turned to parchment.

  Immediately, no doubt for cover, Leila held a hand to her temple, as though to contain the pain. “I don’t like to worry you, darling. You know that. I’ve been perfectly all right up until now. But it seems to have hit me all at once.” Suddenly she sounded very sober. And dangerous. A tigress under threat.

  “Then we’ll go back to the hotel immediately.” A deep frown creased the area between Dalton Rylance’s black brows. He pressed his greatest treasure—his wife—against his side. Only then did he notice Miranda.

  “Friend of Zara’s are you, young lady?” He shot the question at her, giving her a comprehensive once-over. Then, miracle of miracles, he smiled. A very attractive white smile that highlighted the strong resemblance between father and son. Dalton Rylance obviously had quite an eye for a pretty woman.

  “Miranda Graham, Mr Rylance.” Swiftly she improvised. To say Thornton would have confirmed Leila’s worst fears. The nightmare of her past was here to haunt her. Most probably to blackmail her. People had been killed for less. “It’s an honour to meet you, sir.” Graham was her grandfather’s Christian name. It was the best she could do on the run. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Zara’s head turn wonderingly towards her, but mercifully Zara said nothing.

  “We must meet again when my wife is feeling more like herself,” Dalton Rylance promised, his manner turned suave. Miranda had very obviously passed muster. “We only popped in for a few moments to say hello. It was Leila’s idea, actually, to have a few days in London. Didn’t intend it at all. Quite out of the way. But naturally Leila wanted to catch up with Corin and Zara. She’s a very caring woman.”

  Wouldn’t it be great to put him straight?

  “I’ll call a cab for you, Dad.” Corin had already pulled his mobile out of a pocket, dialling the number.

  “Thank you, son.” Dalton Rylance turned belatedly to his only daughter. “How are you, Zara?” There was a terse edge to his tone. To Miranda’s ears it was almost as though he felt obliged to speak to Zara—something he preferred not to do. She had rejected his darling wife, for a start. Dalton Rylance from all accounts had only become isolated from his daughter since the untimely death of his first wife, his children’s mother—or perhaps from the moment it became apparent to his very perceptive children that Leila was a cunning and ambitious young woman who would stop at nothing in her determined pursuit of their father. Certainly their mother had seen Leila for what she was. A woman consumed by the desire for wealth and social status.

  “I’m fine, thank you, Father,” Zara answered composedly. Zara the classic beauty. A young woman of charm, understanding and high intelligence. In short, a daughter any man would be proud of. Yet here was a man who fended such a daughter off.

  “That’s all right, then,” he huffed. “Getting along well enough with Boyle? No problems?” He turned back to his wife, as though uninterested in the answer. A wife counted far more than a daughter.

  “Sir Marcus thinks the world of her,” Corin broke in suavely. “Cab’s on the way, Dad. You’ll be back to the hotel in no time. A good night’s rest will help enormously, Leila.” He addressed his stepmother, his brilliant gaze black, fathomless. “We all hope so.”

  How could his father miss the lick of sarcasm?

  Miranda was beset by anxiety, but oddly enough Dalton Rylance took his son’s words at face value. “My angel!” He bent to kiss the top of his wife’s golden-brown head. “Come with me, now. Corin’s right. It’s sleep you need, dearest girl.”

  One had to hand it to Leila, her daughter thought. She was making a phenomenal recovery, though her cheeks were still colourless. “We’ll catch up,” she assured them all sweetly, with a brave little wave of her hand. But her gaze hit on Miranda with the force of a bullet. A warning Miranda was smart enough to catch. Leila, her long-lost mother, pretty much wanted her dead. “I didn’t see any of your things lying around, Miranda?” Leila delivered another bullet sheathed in velvet.

  So she’s been poking around? Checking in rooms. Despicable.

  Mercifully, not even Zara had the key to Corin’s apartment. Otherwise Leila would have been down there like a shot.

  “I’m very neat, Mrs Rylance,” said Miranda. “I hope you have a restful night.”

  “I will. I have my darling husband.” Leila lifted her head to bestow on Dalton Rylance a shimmering, conspiratorial smile.

  Obviously sex was on the agenda. Leila had to be terribly good at it. Here was a man dazzled on the outside, without bothering to get to know the woman on the inside.

  Corin closed the front door, then leaned back against it, releasing a long drawn-out breath. “Damn, damn, damn!” He spat out the words, as though choking on his feelings. The cab had left, taking his father and Leila back to their hotel.

  “My angel? Dearest girl?” Miranda questioned with some irony. If proof were ever needed, it was evident one of the toughest businessmen in the world was putty in Leila’s hands.

  “And who are you, dearest girl?” There was a catch of laughter in Zara’s voice, but an edge of perplexity too. “Miranda Graham?”

  “I’ll be darned if I know why I said it.” Miranda stalled for time, the muscles of her stomach badly knotted. “Motive unclear.” Zara was no fool. This looked very much like crunch time.

  “You didn’t want them to know who you are?” Zara looked at her searchingly. “That’s it, isn’t it? We saw Leila when she was talking to Corin. She was herself—the femme fatale, absolutely secure in her powers. But as soon as she spotted you she turned into a totally different women. It had to be you, Miri. The sight of you stunned her. I thought she was going to pass out.”

  Miranda looked pointedly at Corin, who shrugged, his brilliant dark eyes full of a simmering anger. “I just want to know who the mole is back home. Someone who
passes on my itinerary. Work itinerary, that is. Whoever it is, they’re sacked. Let’s go into the drawing room.”

  Zara took Miranda’s arm. “There’s something you two are keeping from me? I knew it. What is it?”

  “Sit down, both of you,” Corin said, though he remained standing, the dominant figure, obviously tense.

  And now you’re going to lose Zara. Most probably the two of them. You don’t belong here. Leila has seen to that.

  Zara was watching her brother very closely now. “You didn’t know Father was coming to London?”

  “Zara.” He groaned. “Do you honestly believe I wouldn’t warn you? Of course I didn’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zara apologised. “It’s just that woman upsets me so. I’m perfectly all right when I’m fourteen thousand miles away from her. She’s turned Father against me. For all we know she drove our beautiful mother—”

  “I don’t see that, Zara.” Corin stopped his sister from saying more. “I have been keeping something from you. But it was to protect you. I didn’t know how you would handle it then. I don’t know now.”

  “Oh, God, Corin. Tell me,” Zara begged. “It has something to do with Miri, doesn’t it?”

  Miranda thought it high time she spoke up for herself.

  Take what comes on the chin.

  “Leila and I are related, Zara,” she said.

  Zara almost jumped out of her skin. “Related? In what way?” Her great eyes locked onto Miranda’s. “I can’t think of anyone less like Leila than you.”

  “Thank God for that!” Miranda said gratefully. “I have no official standing in your stepmother’s eyes. She doesn’t know me. You know I’ve become very fond of you, Zara. You’ve been so kind to me. I look on you as a close friend. Someone I can turn to. It hasn’t been easy keeping my story to myself. You must believe that. I don’t think I could bear it if you didn’t.”