‘Yes, sugar,’ Francesca murmured, and touched her lips to the curly fair head in the moment before Jess slipped off her lap and ran to greet Raefe as he walked into the room.
‘Daddy, Daddy—I thought you were never coming!’ Jess said with a hint of tears in her voice, causing Raefe, at the same time as he swung her up into his arms, to glance across at Francesca with a frown of enquiry in his eyes.
‘Just a slightly unsettling day,’ Francesca murmured.
‘Well, Miss Muffet, here I am—you should know your old dad never stays away for long!’
‘You’re not old, Daddy,’Jess said lovingly, and she snuggled against him, obviously content again. Half an hour later, after sitting with him as he ate his kept-hot dinner, she was quite happy to be put to bed.
Francesca came out of Jess’s room and closed the door softly—to encounter Raefe walking down the passage with a cup of coffee in his hands. He raised an eyebrow at her.
‘Asleep,’ she said. ‘It’s probably this heat and awful uncertainty that’s as much to blame as anything,’ she added, and wiped her hand across her clammy brow. Her hair was damp at the roots, and perspiration was trickling down between her breasts.
‘Oh, we’re quite safe tonight,’ he said, and turned into the lounge.
Francesca frowned, then followed him into the lamplit room. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean it’s gone out to sea again and it’s travelling south-east—away from us in other words.’
‘And you didn’t see fit to tell me this as soon as you got home?’ she asked ominously, putting her hands on her hips.
He cast himself down onto the settee and regarded her wryly. ‘You look like an avenging angel, Chessie,’ he drawled. ‘Albeit a slightly hot and bothered one.’
‘Don’t— Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I thought you knew.’
‘No, I didn’t know; I mean—well, obviously I knew it wasn’t about to hit right now, but—’
‘Obviously,’ he agreed drily. ‘Why are you over-reacting like this, Chessie? You must know I’d never leave Jess alone in any danger.’
‘You were the one who told me how unpredictable they could be. I’m the one who has spent the best part of her day taping things down, tying things up and so on!’
‘Very wise,’ he commented. ‘You never know and you can’t be too ‘prepared. Are you, by any chance…’ he paused to study her thoughtfully ‘ … finding yourself not quite as brave as you first thought, Chessie?’
That did it. She stepped forward, bent down and slapped his face. Unfortunately, the angle robbed the blow of most of its sting and—disastrously—after a frozen, split second gave him, the opportunity to tumble her down into his lap. And the opportunity to silence her protestations before they left her lips by placing his mouth on hers and commencing to kiss her brutally.
‘You…promised!,’ she gasped when he allowed her to come up for air.‘
‘No, you promised, Chessie,’ he corrected her grimly, gathering both her wrists in one hand as she struggled to get free. ‘Stay still,’ he warned, and she couldn’t doubt that he meant it.
All the same, as she subsided she said bitterly, ‘Well, you started this!’
‘I hesitate to contradict you, but you started it—surely you know by now that to slap a man’s face is more than likely going to get you kissed in retaliation?’
The terrible unfairness of this struck her speechless, then she forgot his warning and sat up, although still in his arms, to say passionately and incredulously, ‘It never crossed my mind! How dare you? I was simply responding t-to—’ she stammered in her anger ‘—to one of your interminable insults!’
‘Which one was that?’ He raised an eyebrow and she could see amusement creeping into his grey eyes. ‘I don’t recall—’
‘You called me a coward. Well, as good as,’ she amended.
‘No, I didn’t,’he replied. ‘I merely intimated, that—’
‘That I was not as brave as I might like to think I am,’ she finished deliberately for him. ‘If that’s not— If that was not intended as an insult, then I’m a Dutchman!’
They stared at each other. Then he let her wrists go suddenly and smiled unexpectedly. ‘All right. You were so sure this morning that you could cope with anything, perhaps I was indulging in a bit of derision—for which I apologise.’
Francesca eyed him haughtily—and sighed abruptly. ‘It’s not that ‘I’m scared so much; it’s this awful waiting. And to see you going around as cool as a cucumber, as well as Milly and Pete, is very aggravating, if you must know,’ she added candidly.
‘There are several reasons for that, Chessie. We’re used to it. We generally get a couple of these cyclone alerts an year and you learn to live with them. I admit, at times it’s frustrating, having to go through all the motions, but you can bet your bottom dollar the one time you ignore an alert is the time it’s going to hit. By the way, I don’t remember being as cool as a cucumber when we discussed this this morning,’ he reminded her.
‘You were distinctly annoyed, as I recall correctly.’
‘So you see.’
She shrugged and looked at her hands desolately. ‘I still think you could have told me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said barely audibly, after an age, and put his fingers beneath her chin to tilt her face towards him.
She resisted looking. at him for a moment, then lifted her lashes, but something had already told her what she would see—-naked desire in those grey eyes that could be so cool, so damningly amused, so cynical…
She took an uncertain breath and whispered, ‘No, I should go…’
‘Go, Chessie?’ he murmured, his lids heavy now. ‘There’s no place to go. Besides, I need to make amends.’ And he drew her against and started to kiss her again.
So different this time, she marvelled on one plane of her mind. So lovely—why am I not resisting? How to resist? Don’t be foolish, Francesca Valentine. There’s always a way to resist, even if only by not responding. But I am responding. Does that mean l haven’t given up hope entirely? The hope that I can change things?
Then she thought no more for several minutes as she gave herself over to the sheer rapture of his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, slipping beneath her top and touching her breasts until she trembled. She made a strange little sound in her throat, and slid her hand up the long, strong lines of his throat.
That was when he stopped. Not hastily, but with an unmistakable sort of finality as he eased her away from him gently, so her head was lying against his shoulder. And when her breathing steadied she could see that he was staring fixedly across the room. She turned her head and knew immediately why he had stopped—not because of anything she had done, as she’d first thought.
Had he forgotten? she asked herself. Had Olivia’s photo been put away for so long that he hadn’t remembered it was now sitting on the‘ cabinet, only fee from them, looking down on them?
Then he closed his eyes, and there were lines of pain etched beside his mouth. His hands left her body—and she slid off his lap, got to her feet and slipped out of the room.
She woke the next morning a bare instant after she’d fallen asleep—or so it seemed. Woke to the sound of wind and heavy rain. The cyclone, she thought groggily. Don’t. tell me it’s coming after all.
The only good thing that could be said about that day in particular and cyclones in general was that one’s mind was taken off all else.
Raefe called a council of war in the kitchen, which Milly and Pete attended as well as the three stockhands employed. ‘According to all reports it’s going to cross the coast here.’ He indicated a spot south of Bramble on the large-scale map rolled out on the kitchen table. ‘If it stays on that course we’ll only get the side-effects of it, but that can still mean destructive winds.‘
‘Sounds a bit destructive now, if you know what I mean,’ one of the stockmen drawled.
They all paused to listen to the
wind, which was indeed howling—tearing at the bougainvillea on the walls of the house and bending small trees almost in half, as well as blowing the teeming rain nearly horizontal.
‘About thirty-five knots, I’d estimate—expect it to get worse,’ Raefe said briefly. ‘Now, just in case it changes course and crosses here, does everybody know the game-plan?’
They all nodded
‘OK. The main thing is to keep Jess calm and occupied—Chessie, don’t you worry about anything else; leave that to us.’
‘Will do,’ she said quietly. ‘Has she ever—?. I suppose she has.’
‘Yes, she’s been through a few blows, but this may be the worst.’
It was a long day, but Francesca suggested to Jess that, seeing as they couldn’t get outside, it might be a good time to spring-clean the whole playroom. So that was what they did.‘
Fortunately the playroom faced away from the wind, so they weren’t worried by seeping water, as was becoming a problem in the rest of the house, and could have a window open.
Once they’d done that, they went through Jess’s ‘family’ one by one. Francesca got out Sarah’s sewing box and patched up any seams coming adrift. They, replaced a couple of button eyes and then brushed all the furry coats, washed and ironed any removable clothes and did the same for the entire dolls’ wardrobe.
‘There,’ Jess said finally at about three o’clock in the afternoon. ‘Don’t they all look lovely?’
Francesca agreed, then put the back of her hand to her forehead.
‘Something wrong?’ Raefe asked, coming in at that moment.
She took her hand away and said briefly, ‘I’m OK.’ But in truth she had a pounding headache, and the sound of the wind was a sheer torment to her nerves. The way the house seemed literally to shake on its foundations was frightening, and the odd bumps and thumps and tearing of timber she heard the same.
‘It’s easing,’ he said abruptly. ‘I came to tell you that it’ll be over in a couple of hours.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve just heard on the radio. The eye passed over the coast about seventy miles south an hour ago. It’s still heading in the same direction—away from us—and once they get over land cyclones invariably weaken.’
‘Thank heavens.’ She smiled palely. ‘I hate to think what it would have been like in the thick of it.’
‘Yes—look, why don’t you have at break? I’ll look after Jess.’
‘What about the house?’
‘Milly’s mopping up, but there’s not much more we can do until it stops raining. There’s no great damage.’
‘All right. Just for an hour, if you don’t. mind,’ she said quietly.
‘Take an aspirin and lie down—take as long as you want.’ He turned back to Jess.
She did, and although she hadn’t, planned to fall asleep she did just that. When she woke the sun was shining, the wind had dropped and the rain had stopped.
It was like a miracle, she thought as she stared out of her window. The sun was actually setting in a blaze of fiery splendour—and the roof of Raefe’s beach shelter was sitting in a huge puddle in the middle of the lawn. A tinge of amusement lit her eyes as she thought of all the work he’d put in to the hut, and then she wondered why she should find anything, amusing that was to do with Raefe Stevenson.
Still, at least her headache had gone. She had a shower and washed her hair, changed into fresh clothes and, with a deep breath, sallied forth. But Raefe was down at the stockyards, she discovered, as were all the men of the property—and Jess was sitting on Milly’s lap in the playroom, introducing her to her ‘family’.
Francesca paused on the doorstep and thought, with a strange, tearing little ache, I should be happy. Happy for Jess and happy. for myself, because the sooner I can get away the better…
* * *
She drove Milly home just before it got dark—the older woman was obviously tired—and Raefe came up in time to have dinner with them before Jess went to bed. He was obviously tired too, but they maintained a stream of conversation for Jess’s benefit. What Francesca refused to do was so much as catch his eye.
Then Jess went to bed and they were alone. Raefe stretched and yawned.
‘Why don’t you go to bed too?’ Francesca murmured. ‘It’s been a big day.’
‘Mmm…how’s your headache?’
‘How did you—?’ She stopped. She was drying the dishes, half turned away from him—he was sitting at the kitchen table with his hands behind his head.
‘I could see the pain in your eyes—I had one myself, anyway.’
‘Oh.’.She dried the last plate, then picked up a pile of them and put them away in a cupboard. ‘It’s fine now, thanks. And I must tell you—’ she turned and their eyes met at last ‘—I think Jess is going to take to Milly. I was a bit worried yesterday—she seemed. to have gone into her shell—but this afternoon she was much better.’
‘So?’
‘So I can go soon,’ she said, after an age during which their gazes clashed and all that was unsaid between them hung in the air like a twirled and tormented thread.
‘About last night,’ he said abruptly. ‘I—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go—as soon as possible,’ Francesca said quietly.
‘I … Have you rung your father?’
‘No. If I go in the next couple of days I won’t need to.’
Raefe frowned. ‘He may just. have heard about the cyclone.’
‘Then he can ring me.’
‘Are you seriously being groomed to take over?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Other than simply being humoured?’ Francesca said, with a glimmer of amusement that died almost before it was born. ‘Is that what you mean?’
He shrugged.
She leant back against the counter and folded her arms. ‘Probably being humoured,’ she commented prosaically, then added with some irony, ‘I… insisted that I should know more about this empire he flourishes at me all the time. So he said, “Go ahead, dear girl, go ahead.”’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘As if to say, I’m sure this phase will pass, kind of thing. So I went ahead.’
‘Determined to prove him wrong—is that how you came to be at Wirra?’
‘Well, I hadn’t planned on Wirra. He suggested that when—’ She stopped and glanced at Raefe wryly.
‘The married man?’
Francesca started to say something, then paused. ‘What exactly did you hear?’
‘That you’d been banished up to Wirra because of an affair with a married man.’
Their eyes met. ‘There was no affair,’ she said quietly.
‘So what did happen?’
‘He was on the board of one of the Valentine companies I was getting to know. He started to send me flowers and gifts, all of which I returned—as well as doing my level best to keep him at arm’s length in a businesslike way. But unfortunately his wife found out about the flowers, and she confronted me one day in a very public place.
‘I’m not sure what infuriated her more—her husband’s perfidy or the fact that I told her he was a disgusting little creep and I no more wanted him than I would want a hole in the head. It was at the company’s annual dinner dance.’
Raefe was silent for a moment, then he burst out laughing.
Francesca didn’t follow suit. She said instead, with a touch of bleakness, ‘I’m glad you find it amusing. As a matter of fact so did my father.’
‘You didn’t slap his face? The husband?’
‘I’m only sorry I didn’t,’ she said ruefully. ‘But I was trying to be very, adult, mature and businesslike. I was trying to prove, if you must know, that I might be capable of stepping into my father’s shoes if ever the need should arise. He said, my father, “Chessie, you really don’t need to bother your head about the empire, dear girl! Especially if it’s going to land you in this kind of bother.” ’
‘Very galling?’ Raefe suggested.
‘Extremely.’
‘But you didn’t stay to fight it out? Or at least fight for your right to be considered adult, mature and businesslike?’
Francesca looked into the middle distance, then sighed. ‘I poured as glass. of wine over him—the husband. In the heat of the moment. But, anyway—’ she grimaced ‘—I ended up feeling rather sorry for the poor woman, so when Dad said it was a kind of no-win situation, and suggested Wirra if I was still determined to persevere, I—it seemed like a good idea at the time. I might have known it would all get horribly distorted, though.’
‘You’re a…strange mixture, Chessie,’ Raefe said slowly.
‘Don’t tell me. I know,’ she returned wearily.
‘I mean, sometimes you are mature and adult and, it’s not all that difficult to imagine you as a cool, level-headed, businesswoman tycoon—is that really your ambition?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said guardedly, her eyes downcast.
He waited, watching her speculatively, as if he thought there might be more.
‘Did you have your life mapped out to the last detail at twenty-three?’ she said, lifting her lashes suddenly.
‘No…’
She was silent.
‘Would I be wrong in assuming you don’t totally despise your father?’ he said then.
Francesca moved abruptly. ‘Yes.’
‘I wonder—there’s, as lot of him you.’
‘Again, you don’t have to tell me that. But it so happens I’m also quite unlike him in many respects, as you might have discovered if you hadn’t been so determined to believe I was tarred with the same brush.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t—now.’
She glanced at him almost absently, and it occurred to Raefe that she’d fined down as little in the last few days. The heat, all the extra work she’d taken on, the cyclone and, just possibly, what he himself had done to her had stripped some of that expensive gloss from Chessie Valentine. And, damnably, he found himself thinking that this fined-down version carried as much allure. if not more than the previous one.
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