Master of Maramba

by Margaret Way

  “I know that,” she responded a shade tartly.

  “So why the look in those amber eyes?”

  “Describe it,” she challenged.

  “All right.” His tone was soothing. “You look like you’re trying to decide whether you should pick up that daffodil skirt and run.”

  “Do you blame me?” she asked in a low voice. “You’re a stranger.”

  “No I’m not.” He looked at her amusedly. “I told you I’m your knight in shining armour.”

  “Dragooned into the job.”

  “Don’t think that.” His fingers just brushed the tip of hers yet she felt the hot wave of reaction wash over her from head to toe.

  “That blush is exquisite, Catrina.” He watched the apricot colour spread over her flawlessly creamy skin. “I haven’t seen a woman blush for years. Make that a decade,” he added rather bitterly.

  Why wouldn’t she blush with so much heat in her blood? “Perhaps we’d better establish at once exactly who I am,” she suggested. On the defensive. “The new governess. An employee.”

  “Perhaps a distant cousin?” He held her golden gaze. “If you’re uncomfortable with kissin’ cousin.”

  She couldn’t speak for a moment thinking this man unanswerable. “I can understand why the other governesses left and I don’t believe Regina was all to blame,” she finally managed briskly.

  He smiled and the faintly saturnine expression was totally banished. Instead sensuality dwelt in the depths of his eyes. “If you think I teased them you couldn’t be more mistaken. You’re as unusual to me as I am to you. Besides with that little air of hauteur, you’re exactly right to tease.”

  She knew she was playing with fire but the flame was too bright. “Perhaps now and again I might even respond?” she quietly replied, aware she was feeling a little dizzy and she hadn’t even touched a single drop of wine.

  For answer he turned his attention back to the leather-bound menu. “I’d like that, Catrina, but it won’t actually happen. I think we both know where that path might lead.”

  She had never met nor expected to meet a man so dangerous, so mesmerizing in her life. For the first time since her accident she felt acutely alive, all her senses returned to her. Probably by tomorrow she’d return to earth with another sickening crash.

  The food was superlative, the sauces that accompanied the seafood dishes so delicious, so creamy, so beautifully flavoured, she found she was hungry. Both had settled for a starter of Moreton Bay oysters in an amber-tinted champagne sauce with caramelised spring oysters followed by the lobster dish Vivaldi’s was famous for, the main course. All through Royce McQuillan quietly entertained her with a fund of stories about station life, some of them brilliantly funny, deliberately so because he told her he liked to hear her laugh. It was when they were debating a dessert versus a cheese platter with the cheese platter ahead, that the strange harmony of the evening was shattered. With her back to the entry Carrie wasn’t able to observe the late arrival of a very glamorous-looking foursome but she couldn’t help remarking the spectacular change to Royce McQuillan’s expression. Perceptibly the lean powerful body tautened, the brilliant black eyes became hooded and the muscles along his hard firm jaw line clenched.

  She remained perfectly still, asking quietly. “Is everything all right?” Obviously it wasn’t.

  He frowned heavily. “A shame to have the evening ruined. Don’t turn your head, it’s possible they’ll miss us.”

  Whoever they were. Faint hope, she thought, of missing him. Not with his height, breadth of shoulder and striking good looks.

  In another few moments a woman’s bright brittle voice exclaimed from somewhere just behind Carrie’s shoulder. “But how absolutely charming!” The remark to Carrie’s sensitive ear was charged with venom. Yet she fully expected Royce McQuillan to rise to his feet. Instead he remained seated, staring up at the ultra-slim woman who moved into view, standing over the table. How utterly sophisticated she looked! She wore a very sexy side-slit silver dress, her dark head with its full fringe pulled into a high knot with a long fall at the back. She was looking at Carrie oddly, pale blue eyes like ice chips. “Why, isn’t she like a flower?” she cooed in a frankly sarcastic tone. “A bright orange lily. And so young! Aren’t you going to introduce us, darling?”

  “Sorry, Sharon,” he drawled. “I’m not going to introduce you at all.” The perturbation was now very successfully hidden beneath coolly amused detachment.

  “A man like you always needs a beautiful woman around,” the woman Sharon observed, continuing to stand there staring from Royce to Carrie with extraordinary intensity. “How are you, Babs?” she suddenly addressed Carrie directly. “I’m Sharon McQuillan by the way. Yes, I do exist. Very much so. And you are?”

  “No one of any interest, Mrs. McQuillan,” Carrie replied, keeping her tone courteous but neutral.

  “But I feel—I just know—you are.” Clearly under the icy sarcasm Sharon McQuillan was disturbed, maybe even furious.

  “You should just accept you’re past tense, Sharon,” Royce advised.

  “I won’t!” she responded, her expression so tight for a moment she looked almost plain. “You always were a cruel devil, Royce.”

  “I don’t think that would stand up to examination.” His answering tone though low definitely grated. “Anyway, don’t let it bother you. I’m out of your life. Now why don’t you rejoin your friends? They’re throwing all sorts of looks in this direction. I see Ina is with you?”

  Sharon McQuillan gave an odd almost contemptuous laugh. “Ina is very insecure. My sister has accepted she can’t move out of my shadow. I’d appreciate it, too, Royce, if you didn’t allow her to visit the station so frequently. Of course she’s using poor Regina as an excuse. It’s you she comes to see.”

  So that’s it, Carrie thought, hearing the ring of truth.

  “Still jealous of one another? I don’t know how you find the energy.” Royce McQuillan sounded sharply amused. “Why don’t you leave quietly, Sharon? You’ve stood there long enough. It’s rather sad.”

  Sharon McQuillan countered by leaning closer, her confident voice floundering slightly. “Don’t let him humiliate you as he has humiliated me,” she warned Carrie. “He might bewitch you now—he’s bewitched us all—but he’ll starve you of affection in the end. I know.”

  Empathy for another woman moved Carrie to respond. Rightly or wrongly, Sharon McQuillan was suffering. “Mrs. McQuillan, I told you, you’re making something out of nothing.” Not that it was any of her business.

  But Sharon McQuillan continued to stare bitterly into Carrie’s great golden eyes. “I’m sorry, that’s impossible to believe. I’ve had a lot of experience in these matters. You’re someone in my husband’s life.”

  Utterly fed up, Royce McQuillan rose to his impressive height, dominating both women. “Ex-husband, Sharon,” he corrected her. “Surely it’s not necessary to remind you? We’ll say goodnight. Best wishes elude me.”

  It was then Sharon McQuillan made her move. She put one hand on his shoulder, then raised herself on tiptoes just long enough to land a kiss clearly meant for his mouth on his cheek. “’Night, darling,” she breathed in a voice that combined ecstasy and torture. Then she rounded on Carrie, putting an oddly sympathetic expression on her face.

  “Goodnight, Miss Who-ever-you-are. May I compliment you on your hair? It’s absolutely beautiful. Though I can’t distinguish if it’s natural or from a bottle.”

  “You really need to look at the roots for help.” Royce’s voice had a hard mocking edge. “’Bye, Sharon. I won’t forget to give your love to your daughter.”

  “Do that, darling.” Sharon waved over her shoulder, already beginning to thread her way back to her table.

  “Lord!” Carrie murmured after a long moment’s hesitation. She was used to infighting but was unnerved by the quality of this exchange.

  “’I’m sorry about that,” Royce apologised. “The timing was terrible. It’s th
e first time I’ve been out to dinner in months and I have to run into my ex-wife.”

  “It must have been very painful.” She recognised his upset.

  “Not in the way you mean. The pain is for Regina. Sharon rejected her from day one.”

  Carrie’s own sense of fairness made her read for an excuse. “Could it have been possible she was suffering from postnatal depression?” she suggested.

  He thought on that very briefly. “I do have sensitivity, Catrina,” he answered, his handsome face dark and moody. “Sharon couldn’t bond with her child because she didn’t want her. She demonstrated that over and over again. Regina has never known a mother’s love.”

  Carrie shook her head in a kind of denial. “That is so sad, but she must be very close to you?”

  “Intensely so,” he said in a gentler tone, “but unfortunately it involves a lot of screaming and yelling. Regina wants to come with me to places I can’t possibly take her. She’s only a little girl and I have a huge cattle chain to run. I have to be away from home at different times. I can’t dance attendance on her and she can’t and won’t understand. In that way she’s a little bit like her mother. In other ways, too. Sharon was always what they used to call ‘highly strung.’ I thought it was simply being spoiled rotten, but I soon learned.”

  “It’s upset your evening.”

  “And yours.” His voice was quiet. “You’ve gone pale.”

  “She still loves you,” Carrie said.

  He looked back into her eyes with brilliant irony. “Sharon can’t bear to let go of anything she thinks is hers. Love doesn’t come into it. She needs to retain possession.”

  Carrie wasn’t convinced. “And her sister, Regina’s aunt is with her? I don’t want to turn my head but I can feel eyes boring into my back.”

  “All four pairs of them,” he said. “The men because you’re beautiful. Sharon and Ina have been in competition ever since I can remember and I’ve known them both forever. By and large Sharon always comes out the winner. Why don’t we have coffee somewhere else?” he suggested.

  Carrie felt quite in control. “Please don’t bother about me. I’ve had a very enjoyable time. I’m quite happy to go home.”

  “Surely that’s just an expression.” He raised a black brow.

  “Yes it is,” she was forced to admit. “I mean, I’m ready to go home.”

  He raised a hand to summon a waiter. “No, we’ll have coffee,” he said. “No need to rush. You know all the in places better than I do.”

  “Well, I know where they serve the best coffee,” she said. “Look, I really don’t…”

  “Forget it,” he said. It was as they were preparing to leave the restaurant that Sharon’s younger sister, Ina, made her own move. She rushed up to them, a little breathless though Royce had acknowledged her presence with a little wave directed to her table.

  “Royce!” she cried, smiling at him brilliantly. “How marvellous to see you. What brings you to town?”

  “Business, of course.” He accepted her quick peck on the cheek fairly charmingly. “How are you, Ina?” Again defying conventional manners he didn’t introduce Carrie who took her cue and wandered a little way off.

  The two sisters shared a strong resemblance, Carrie thought. Both tall, ultra-slim, dark-haired, light eyes, very sophisticated in their dress. The elder Sharon was the more striking, sexier, sharper, with a slightly febrile look about her. Ina appeared softer, less overwhelmingly self-confident. Her voice was more attractive, too, lacking her sister’s less pleasant brittle note. Though she wasn’t looking in their direction, Carrie was aware part of Ina’s forward rush was to find out exactly who Carrie was. It could even have been at Sharon McQuillan’s insistence. From all accounts, she was the dominant sister.

  Carrie was pretending to be engrossed in a very beautiful arrangement of spring flowers when Royce returned to take her by the elbow. “I’m terribly, terribly sorry about that,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive my bad manners not introducing you but I don’t want you drawn into this.” He didn’t add, though Carrie guessed, his ex-wife wouldn’t rest until she had found out exactly who Carrie was. A private investigator wasn’t out of the question. Sharon McQuillan had used one before.

  “I didn’t know I was so interesting,” Carrie responded lightly, though she was becoming unbearably aware of his proximity.

  “Extraordinarily enough, interest becomes fixated on anyone on my arm,” he told her dryly.

  They walked in what seemed a loaded silence along the brightly lit waterfront promenade with its strolling couples, the breeze fresh and clean, tangy with salt, the sky full of stars, the Milky Way a flittering trail of diamond daisies. Luxurious yachts were moored out front, the City Kats, the ferries in operation, the big beautiful paddlewheeler, The Kookaburra Queen, the cruise craft docked at the pier. Nearing where the Jag was parked on the street, a short distance from the restaurant, a very expensive sports car going much too fast suddenly shot out of a hotel drive causing Carrie to react with alarm. Her fears and anxieties had not diminished in the many long months since her accident. They had increased.

  “Catrina, it’s all right.” Instantly his arm went around her, gathering her in. Just like that. Her body had come to rest against his, her head pressed into his shoulder. “There’s always some fool showing off to his girlfriend,” he muttered, staring after the car with its young male and female occupants. “Probably over the limit.”

  Carrie scarcely heard. Her whole body had dissolved. Or that was the way he made her feel? Liquified. She’d been much too busy with all her studies for a close relationship but she knew enough to realise real passion, burning passion, violent desire was unknown to her.

  Until now.

  How utterly senseless.

  One of his arms was cradling her back. She only had to lift her head for her mouth to brush hotly against his brown throat. She knew she was trembling. Her body was emitting all the wrong signals; the most terrible folly of female surrender. She could inhale the wonderful male scent of him, the power and glamour, feel his masked strength. She even thought she murmured something. Or was it a soft moan that escaped her lips? This was a man who could break her heart. Instinct born of a lifetime of pain.

  If Carrie was buckling under the weight of desire, Royce McQuillan, too, felt its extraordinary impact. How could feeling like this spring from nowhere? Her body was so soft, so female-fragile in his arms. He wanted to slip his other hand across her breast. He wanted to bring his mouth down on that alluring little beauty spot. He wanted to kiss her open mouth. He didn’t want to stop there. He hadn’t been celibate since he and Sharon had broken up. But he’d always known how to contain himself.

  Until now.

  His sudden violent need of her was akin to man’s need of pure water. He had a clear image of himself in the desert. A dry canyon of reflected colours, his throat badly parched until he turned and saw a crystal spring. He wanted to gather the silvery droplets on his tongue…

  How could one moment go on forever? He forced himself to breath deeply; telling himself it was a man’s primitive response to a beautiful woman. But control didn’t come easily when adrenaline was like fire in his blood. She was resting her soft weight against him, her own breathing ragged.

  God, what was happening, he thought, stultified at the speed of it? It was like being on a wild ride. Terrifying and at the same time exhilarating. He couldn’t seem to contain the ferocity of desire despite the tight rein, as his fingers found her nape beneath the thick silk of her hair, traced the curve from neck to shoulder.

  Stop now. He gave himself the stern warning though little frissons of arousal were running up his arm. Desire was hell. It ruined lives. Alive with self-contempt, he took her lovely face in one hand—he could feel the heat of her flush—his voice deeper than usual but fake-casual.

  “I’d love to prolong the moment, Catrina,” he said, “but there’s someone on a bicycle about to ride over us.” In fact the bike ride
r was walking his bike to the traffic lights. But no matter. He had to abide by the rules. This was one girl he couldn’t ravish. God, he hardly knew her. Regina’s new governess. A young woman with her own problems so the potential for trouble was enormous. He had to focus very hard on that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CARRIE had a task in front of her convincing her father she needed to get away. They were seated at the breakfast table—her father had delayed his leaving time for the office—and the atmosphere was very tense.

  “But a governess, Carrie?” Jeff Russell exclaimed, hurt and surprise on his face. “Why on earth would you want to do something like that?” He made the job sound like the most menial of domestic positions. “You’ve spent all these years training to be a musician now you want to bury yourself in the jungles of North Queensland. I don’t understand it. There must be something more to it. This man McQuillan,” he asked forcefully, “have you fallen in love with him?”

  Carrie stared back at her father without answering. She hadn’t. She believed she hadn’t. She didn’t want to think it had happened. She had decided absolutely not to. Yet last night she could have stayed with him forever. At one point he could have picked her up and carried her right away. A fatal attraction? That’s what it was. God, why not? The man was devastating.

  “Carrie? Are you going to stay like that, not opening your mouth?” Jeff Russell, a dominating sort of man, demanded.

  Carrie paid attention, her body taut and strained. “I’m sorry, Dad. I know you love me. I know you want the best for me, but I don’t think you truly understand what my injury has done to me. I might sound spineless but it’s upset my whole world. I just want to get away for a time. I don’t want to have anything to do with the music scene.”

  Her father muffled an explosion of disbelief. “After all the money that’s been spent on you. Why the price of the Steinway alone! Good God, what father pays that kind of money?” Jeff Russell threw up his hands in despair. “I don’t know how you can think I don’t care. You’re my daughter.” His dark blue eyes flashed. “I’ve always done my best for you. I can’t let this happen.”