‘So I gathered.‘ Would you mind letting go of me?’
‘Yes, ma’am—sorry, ma’am,’ he said hastily, and released her, only to add in puzzlement, ‘How do you know who I am?’
Francesca explained briefly, including the fact that Annette was now in Cairns.
‘I see!‘Jericho let out a long whistle. ‘So you know all about me—that’s got to be good news, don’t you reckon? I mean, she wouldn’t bother to talk about me unless she liked me—Do you think she would?’ he asked with disarming anxiety.
Francesca considered this as they sat side by side on the top step. ‘No, I think she does like you, but she is only eighteen, Jerry—do you mind. if I call you that?’
‘No, everyone does,’ he said with a grimace.
‘Well, you see, amongst other things, at that age it’s not easy to explain to your parents that you’re going on holiday with a young man, even if you do believe he’ll keep his promises. And well brought up girls are taught not to take promises like that at face value anyway.’
‘But I meant it,’ he protested with unmistakable fervour and youthful dignity.
‘I believe you, actually,’ Francesca said, and patted his large, clenched hand. ‘What you should do, Jerry—if it’s all right with Annette—is take this opportunity to make yourself known to her mother and father. And you should try to take things slowly.’
Jerry sat sunk in thought for a few minutes. ‘I was going to do that,’ he said at last. ‘I was going to wait until she got. back from her holiday but I just couldn’t. I go back to work myself on Tuesday, so I thought. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I drove up here was so that I could meet her mother and father—now I’m up here and they’re back in Cairns.’ It’d make you spit chips, wouldn’t it?’
‘But you could still get back to Cairns tonight, couldn’t you? Then you’d have tomorrow…Well, as I said, it’s up to Annette now.’
Jerry straightened. ‘Faint heart never won fair lady—isn’t that what they say? My mother was full of those kind of sayings,’ he added, at Francesca’s look of surprise. ‘The same mother who called me Jericho. OK—I’ll go straight back. But not before I’ve squared things with that bloke—whoever he was,’ he added with definite pugnacity.
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Francesca said soothingly. ‘I’ll tell him—he’ll understand.’
‘Jerry turned to her. ‘Are you sure? I mean, he’s not your—? Well, It thought he might be… kind of involved with you, and that’s why he took it so badly, if you know what I mean.’
Francesca stood up. ‘I’m only the governess, Jerry. No, he’s not involved with me at all, so don’t you worry. Look, why don’t you take Annette’s raincoat back. to Cairns with you? She must have forgotten it in all the rush.’
‘But won’t you get wet?’
‘Only a little. I’m driving, not walking anyway, and it’s not cold.’ She took the raincoat off, giving it a vigorous shake.
Jerry stood up beside her to tower over her. ‘Will do. She’ll also believe me then—she tends to, well, make fun off me, you know.’
Francesca found that her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and she discovered that Annette’s Jerry, while not handsome, was pleasant-looking despite his size—although that alone might be a little off-putting to an inexperienced girl. But it was all hard muscle, and he had very nice, honest and earnest blue eyes.
She smiled. ‘Jerry, even if it’s not Annette, there will be one very lucky girl out there for you.’
‘As for you, Raefe Stevensen,’ she murmured to herself as she climbed into her four-wheel drive, ‘we shall see …’
She sprinted across the lawn to the back door of the house, but as an effort to keep dry, it was pretty much in vain. She stood on the kitchen porch to wring out her hair and her skirt, then took a deep breath before she marched inside.
But the kitchen was dim and quiet—the whole house was dim and quiet, she discovered, apart from a light showing beneath Raefe’s study door. Francesca hesitated, then decided there was no point in delaying things—although she paused to take a towel from the linen cupboard in the passage. After rapping lightly on the door, she opened it without waiting for an answer.
‘Come in, Francesca,’ he drawled, dropping his pen amongst litter of papers on the mahogany table. ‘Has your frustrated lover left?’ He ran a hand idly through his hair.
Francesca rubbed her hair vigorously with the towel and said abruptly, ‘There was misunderstanding. He—’
‘So I gathered! Now I must admit I thought he was a little… young for you, but there’s no doubt he’s a fine physical specimen,’ he mused. ‘By the way, I wouldn’t believe for one moment that he’s not after sex with you, so don’t be too disappointed,’ he added gently,with the kind of gentle satire that cut as lethally as a sharpened arrow.
She took an angry breath, threw‘ the towel to the floor and placed her hands on her hips. ‘How can you say those things without at least listening to what l have to say?’
Raefe smiled. ‘You mean your side of the story, Chessie? Do you think I don‘t. know it? Do you really, think you’d be standing there in all your see-through glory if your side of the story wasn’t coming through loud and clear?’
Francesca blinked, saw his gaze roam down her body, then looked down herself. And she cursed beneath her breath because her flimsy pearl-grey skirt and pale blouse were moulded to her figure like second skins. Her breasts were outlined as if her bra didn’t exist—it was the lightest one she possessed anyway—and the triangle of her light white bikini briefs was hardly concealing either.
Her frustrated gaze rose and clashed with his sardonic almost savagely amused one. Why didn’t I stop to think? she berated herself. Why do I never stop to think? How to explain so he’ll believe I hadn’t given it a thought?
‘You were saying, Chessie?’ he drawled.
‘I’m saying it was a mistake; In fact, it was a case of—’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ Raefe murmured, with such patent mockery that her shackles literally rose again. ‘Very young men can be a little hard to control, can’t they? I mean, once they got the come-on you really need your wits about you, I’m sure. Well…’ he shrugged ‘ …that’s one scenario.’
Francesca stared at him, her shoulders rigid, her hands still planted firmly on her hips and her eyes darkening to sapphire. ‘So you think he followed me here somehow?’ she said, in a strangely restrained voice.
‘Either that or you summoned him here because you were getting a bit tired of the celibate life you were being forced to lead—how else could it have happened?’ he mused mildly. ‘I’m only sorry I got a bit worried that you might have bumped into another python when you took such a very long time—sorry from your point of view, that is. It might have saved us this scene.’ His gaze roamed her figure again.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, still in the same voice.
‘Saved us from this display of frustration.’
Her mouth hardened. ‘Oh?’
‘Oh, yes, Chessie.’ He was suddenly grim. ‘Because l don’t intend to help you out.’
‘Really?’ She took her hands from her hips. ‘Not even if I do this?’ She started to unbutton her blouse.
He stayed grimly silent while she coolly and carefully released each button from its damp enclosure. She straightened, ran her fingers through her hair and shook it, and slid the blouse off. Then she walked the few steps to the table, pushed aside a pile of papers and perched herself on a corner.
‘What do. you say now, Mr Stevensen?’ She leant towards him, her hands planted on the table, her hair swinging and recovering its toffee-gold colour as it dried, her skin like satin, her breasts firm and proudly cradled in the damp silk and lace of her low-cut bra.
‘Go away, Chessie,’ he said roughly.
‘Getting a bit hard to handle, is it?’ she taunted gently, and slipped off the desk to release her skirt. But before her fingers found the zip he stood up violent
ly.
‘Mmm; . .I thought, so,’ she murmured, not flinching an inch from his murderous gaze, nor allowing the way he stood, taut and almost-breathless with control, to escape her cool, ironic gaze.
‘Now that’s a pity,’ she added, and took her hands away from the zip of her skirt as she bent gracefully to pick up her blouse. ‘Because I’m about to go to bed—alone, Raefe. Sleep well.’
She was almost at the door before he said, ‘One thing, Francesca.’
She stopped, turned and raised an eyebrow at him. ‘And what would that be Mr Stevensen?’
‘I’ve found a married couple—that’s why I took Jess to visit our neighbours yesterday. They’ve been working for them there, but will be happy to transfer to Bramble.‘ Their employers have agreed to sell their property to me, you see.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful! Thanks for letting me know—when will they be able to move in?’
‘In the next couple of days.’
‘It gets better and better!’ she said cheerfully. ‘By the way, that young man you thought I was having such difficulty controlling—that or I’d summoned him here—I’d actually never set eyes on him in my life before.’
Their gazes clashed, and Francesca could find no way of masking the anger in her eyes that so belied her tone of voice. But she didn’t care.
‘No, he’s Annette’s boyfriend, in fact,’ she continued, almost gaily. ‘He wasn’t aware that she was in Cairns and he mistook me for her because of the rain, the gloom and because I had happened to borrow her raincoat. Goodnight.’
At six o’clock the next morning there was a knock on her door and it opened unceremoniously.
Francesca sat up, rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair back sleepily. It was Raefe—showered, brushed and shaved, wearing his khaki bush shirt and trousers.
‘What do you want?’ she asked, a shade uncertainly.
His gaze lingered briefly on her French blue camisole top. ‘I just came to find out what your plans for the day were,’ he said evenly.
‘My…?’ Comprehension dawned, as he looked round searchingly. ‘No, I haven’t packed. Why? Have you come to escort me off the property personally?‘
‘Are you planning to leave today?’ he countered coolly.
Blue eyes met grey, and Francesca swallowed as she tried to grapple with this in her barely wakened state. Then she remembered all the details of their last encounter and her eyes moved involuntarily to her skirt and blouse, lying in a corner where she’d hurled them the night before. She looked heaven-wards exasperatedly.
Unfortunately he’d followed her gaze, and his eyes, as they met hers again, were sardonic.
Sardonic enough to rouse some fighting spirit in her. ‘You did ask for it! And if it’s something else you’re going to choose to disbelieve, why don’t you check with Annette? His name is Jericho,’ she added bitterly.
A faint smile twisted Raefe’s lips. ‘Is that a fact? Then my apologies to both you and the unfortunately named, young man. Are you planning to walk. out on me today, though? Or do you think you got sufficient revenge with your little strip act?‘
Francesca moved to cast aside the sheet, but suddenly. thought better of it.
‘Wise,’ he murmured, following her movements ‘You could even find I might be a little hard to control one day.‘
‘You don’t believe a word of it!’ she gasped.
‘Of course I do,’ he said shortly. ‘I just don’t believe it was all motivated by a desire to make me eat my words. Now is that sufficient to make you reveal your plans for the day, Chessie? I’m sorry to say that I haven’t got a lot of time to stand around chatting.’
‘You— Do you mean to say you have the absolute nerve to be wondering whether I will stay and care for your daughter, after all—? I’m speechless.’
‘Listen, Chessie.’ He walked over to the bed and towered over her, and there was something suddenly infinitely dangerous about Raefe Stevensen.
‘Let’s not play any more games. You got yourself into this; you started it all. And what I want to know now is whether I can rely on you to look after my most precious possession—the totally innocent party in all this, incidentally—for at least one or two more days.’
‘So long,’ she said, through stiff, pale lips, ‘as that’s it. And when, incidentally, have I not proved totally reliable towards Jess?’
She thought, dimly, through other anger and outrage, that he relaxed slightly. ‘Thank you,’ was all he said, however, very formally. ‘I’m picking Sarah up in Cairns this morning,’ he went on. ‘She’ll be back here this afternoon. We’ll be able to work something out then.’ And he walked out, closing the door.
Francesca stared at it, then dropped her face into her hands, ground her teeth and burst into tears.
By the time she’d started to make breakfast, Francesca had relaxed slightly. It would help, she reflected, to have someone else around while this deadly war between her and Raefe Stevensen s came to an end. Although she hoped Sarah wasn’t coming home so suddenly because she hadn’t been able to mend her marriage.
But Francesca was still possessed of .a cold anger towards the man who continued—indeed. relished—believing the worst of her. And, whether Sarah was home temporarily or not, between them they could make arrangements for Jess, because she, Francesca Valentine, was leaving Bramble as soon as possible—even today if Sarah could cope.
‘Is it a good day to make biscuits, Chessie?’ Jess enquired, coming into the kitchen still flushed from sleep, in her pink and white dotted shortie pyjamas. ‘We won’t have Daddy under our feet.’
Francesca stared at her—and sighed. And she picked the little girl up to sit her on her lap. ‘I guess we won’t. Jess…’ But she stopped and grimaced as she cradled the slight form against her and rested her chin on Jess’s fair curls.
How to tell her she was leaving? How not to damage a child who’d built herself a fairy-tale family out of golliwogs and teddy bears, a child whose aunt might not be coming home to stay, whose mother, to all intents and purposes, might not have existed? Who might be about to have to come to grips with a strange couple ordering her life…
‘Yes, it is a good day, Jess. We’ll make the best biscuits in the world,’ Francesca heard herself say, with a tinge of helplessness.
Sarah arrived at about four o’clock, alone. That was to say a Banyo Air helicopter, not piloted by Raefe, dropped her off and flew off. But it was plain to see this was a transformed Sarah. Gone was that faintly haunted air of sadness. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were pink and there was a spring to her step.
‘I… Look,’ Francesca said, ‘Raefe told me. I hope you don’t mind. But I only have to look at you to know that…things have worked out well, and I’m glad.’
Sarah hesitated, then she hugged Francesca impulsively. ‘Thank you. Oh, Jess, darling—how are you, my poppet?’
Jess was fine, she told her aunt, and with Chessie’s help .they’d made some zoo biscuits for afternoon tea, and would she believe it but Mo now had at mate, a girl called Flo, and he was much better behaved, and she could do backstroke really well now, and…
‘Stop a moment,’ Sarah begged. ‘This Flo can do backstroke?’
‘No, silly—me!’ Jess said fondly. ‘Come and meet Flo—Chessie made her.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on in the meantime, ’ Francesca said, seeing. Sarah’s look of wild speculation.
‘You’ll probably need a cup of tea.’
They had their tea on the veranda, and after a while Jess wandered off to play.
‘So it’s been going really, well by the sound of it?’ Sarah bit into a pink-iced biscuit with a white teddy bear on it.
Francesca paused with her cup half raised to her lips. ’Is that what Raefe said?’
‘I haven’t seen Raefe today. I haven’t seen him since I left.’
‘But I thought…’ Francesca stopped.
‘He was going to collect me this morning in Cairns, but something came up,
apparently, so Bill deputised.’
Francesca put her tea down untasted. ‘Then does he know? I mean—’
‘Does he know my good news? Yes, I called him yesterday afternoon, quite late. He said you were down feeding Bob and Barbara’s menagerie—fancy that happening on top of me breaking my wrist! Thank heavens for you, Chessie.’
Francesca picked up her cup again and this time drank some tea. ‘Do you think he’ll be back tonight? Raefe?’
‘No. He’s in Brisbane—it’s to do with his concession for the airport. There’s some hitch, apparently. Someone else has tendered for it, or—don’t ask me the details.’ Sarah shook her, head ruefully.
‘In my state of seventh heaven it’s all going over the top of my head.’ She sobered suddenly. ‘I’m afraid I was a bit of a fool.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Francesca said warmly. ‘It’s none of my business, but I’m sure you had your reasons. Are you…home to stay?’ she added. ‘For any length of time, I mean, obviously.’
‘Well, that rather depends on you, once again,’ Sarah said wryly. ‘Mark and I are planning a second honeymoon.’ She blushed attractively. ‘I know at my age that seems a bit … But anyway, it’s a case of Tahiti, here come a pair of middle-aged second honeymooners! But only if you can put up with Bramble for another fortnight, Chessie. ‘
‘What are your plans, by the way?’ Sarah said anxiously. ‘I should have asked you first, but Jess seems so happy and contented and,‘ well, you seem to have fitted in so well! But then I keep forgetting who you are!’
He hasn’t told her anything. The realisation staggered through Francesca’s dazed mind. Let me think. I suppose, when he spoke to her yesterday, all was going fairly well. For us. But, did he know about the second honeymoon then?
‘Er—does Raefe know? About your second honeymoon?’
Sarah blushed again. ‘No, I didn’t actually tell him that. But I can’t see that it would be any problem from his point of view—so long as it’s OK; with you. Of course when I get back—I mean, I realise you can’t stay here for ever—we’ll have to have a round-table conference of some kind.’ She stopped and sighed suddenly.
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