by Margaret Way
Nevertheless he was condemned and is now dead.
THE STRAIN BETWEEN HERSELF and Stuart was of such magnitude Cecile judged it would be easier for everyone if she didn’t accompany her mother, Bea and Stuart to the airstrip where the charter plane waited. She would bid her farewells at the homestead.
Now she. stood on the veranda with Justine and Bea. “God knows what your father is going to say, Ceci,” Justine said with that familiar note of censure in her voice.
“No, no, no!” Bea protested, waving her arms in the air. “Don’t start that again, Justine.”
Jaw set grimly, Justine ignored her. “There’s going to be a scandal,” she said. “Judy Carlson is a truly dreadful woman.”
“Ho, ho, we all thought you liked her!” Bea winked laconically at Cecile.
“Keep out of this, Bea, would you?” Justine’s nostrils flared, then deflated.
“Lighten up, can’t you, Justine?” Bea groaned. “It’ll be a nine-day wonder and Howard won’t lose any sleep over it. He wants his daughter to be happy. Stuart was a terrible choice for Ceci, anyway. Where the hell is he, by the way?”
Bea looked behind her into the interior of the house. “Uh-oh, take cover. Here he comes.”
Stuart strode out onto the veranda with a very aloof expression. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said icily. “I just wanted to have a word with Montalvan.”
“Did you find him?” Bea asked with the greatest interest.
“I think you know very well I haven’t. He’s probably gone into hiding.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous!” Bea burst out laughing. “Hide from you, Stuart?”
Raul chose that precise moment to appear in the entrance hall, then catching sight of them walked out onto the veranda.
“Everyone set?” he asked pleasantly.
“Not until you give me another kiss,” said Bea cheekily.
“It will be my pleasure.” He smiled at her. “You wanted to talk to me, Stuart?”
Stuart drew himself up to his full six-foot height. “You don’t have a shred of guilt, do you?”
Raul looked puzzled. “I’m not sure what for.”
“No shame! No remorse, either,” Stuart continued. “Cecile was my fiancée.”
“Stuart, please,” Cecile begged.
Raul appeared to think about it. “I really can’t be held responsible for your inadequacies as a fiancé, Stuart,” he said finally. “However, would it be out of line for me to say I understand your pain?”
“I don’t want your bloody sympathy, damn it!” Stuart burst out.
“Right, I’ll withdraw it.”
“I think that’s our cue for departure, kids,” Bea suggested dryly. “Kiss me, Raul, before I go.”
“He heard you the first time, Bea.” Justine frowned, obviously thinking her aunt was just too embarrassing.
“Just because you’ve lost your charm doesn’t mean I have, thank you very much, Justine,” Bea came back with a snap, moving toward Raul. “You know I always thought Lord Nelson said, ‘Kismet, Hardy.’ Not that silly, ‘Kiss me.’ It wouldn’t have set a good example for his men, would it?”
Stuart took no notice of her and pointed a finger at Raul. “You’re nothing but a con man,” he said contemptuously.
“Really?” Raul’s response was outwardly mild, but inwardly he sought to put a rein on his temper. “I’ll kiss our beautiful Beatrice—I’m quite sure Nelson said kismet, too, Beatrice, then I’ll walk with you, Stuart, to the Land Rover.”
Stuart declined the offer. “I don’t like being threatened,” he said, his voice tight. “I don’t have the stomach for this sordid mess, either. Goodbye, Cecile,” he threw at her harshly, almost running down the steps as though he couldn’t bear to look at her a moment longer. “You’ll be hearing from me, don’t worry.”
“WHAT WAS THAT all about?” Raul asked after the Land Rover, driven by Jack Doyle, disappeared from sight. “It sounded very much like a threat.”
Cecile sighed. “I think Stuart intends to contact the FBI to see if you’re on their Most Wanted files.”
Raul’s mouth compressed. “He thinks I’m an international criminal?”
“He thinks you’re a mystery man,” Cecile said quietly. “So do I.”
“So what is it you want to know?” Raul went to her, linking his hands around her waist and drawing her to him.
She stared up into his burnished eyes. “It’s more what you want to know, Raul. You’ve been asking a lot of questions.”
“Such as?” He wasn’t surprised she’d realized that. He hadn’t been all that subtle.
“The circumstances surrounding my uncle Jared’s death.”
“Wouldn’t anyone want to know?” He gave one of those very European shrugs he had picked up along the way. “It’s a tragic story. I’m close to you, aren’t I? Aren’t I, Cecile? Tell me, who thought it necessary to report back to you?”
She felt the hot color rise to her cheeks. “No one reported, Raul. It only came out in conversation.”
“Yes?” he prompted, unaware his features had gone tight.
“It was Brad, after the match. He mentioned that your playing style, which very much impressed him along with everyone else, reminded him of Uncle Jared’s. Then he added you’d shown a good deal of interest in how the whole tragedy occurred.”
Raul forced a laugh he didn’t feel. “Forgive me if I don’t find that the least bit unusual. Perhaps being a Moreland makes you overly suspicious of people, Cecile, is that it?”
She was still staring at him, overwhelmingly conscious of his sexual attraction for her and because of it, her utter vulnerability. “You may be right.”
“Don’t you love me a little for saving your life?” he asked gently, bending his head so he could murmur in her ear. It would have been impossible to suppress the excitement that ran through her…except a shocked voice called from the open doorway.
“Excuse me, am I interrupting anything?”
It was Tara. The poleaxed expression on her face made Cecile feel not only embarrassment but a real prickle of alarm. “Not at all, Tara,” she said as Raul with no haste withdrew his arms. “Seeing Stuart off wasn’t terribly pleasant.”
“Well, it looks like you have Raul to comfort you!” There was more than a thread of outrage in Tara’s voice. She looked from one to the other, having realized in a split second what she should have picked up on long before if she hadn’t been so stupidly blind. Cecile and Raul Montalvan were sexually involved. No question about it. Tara had never felt so upset and so horrendously jealous. She wanted to pack her bags on the instant and leave. Didn’t Cecile have enough? She was beautiful. She was gifted. She was filthy rich. Tara would have given anything to attract Raul Montalvan to her side, but she couldn’t compete with Ceci. She’d never been able to. She should never have tried.
Tara gave a little agonized cry at the pity she saw in Raul’s eyes. Burning with humiliation, she turned on her heel and rushed back into the house.
Cecile stared after her, heart torn. “Oh, Lord, I have to go to her!” She realized, too late, she hadn’t taken her friend’s interest in Raul half seriously enough. But then, Tara always had been good at covering her deepest emotions with frivolity and amusing banter. She couldn’t bear to see Tara hurt. It was far worse than having had to hurt Stuart, and now she’d done both at the same time!
She found Tara facedown on her bed.
“Oh, Tara, I’m so sorry!” Cecile approached hesitantly, feeling weighted by sympathy and something like guilt.
“I’ve made a bloody fool of myself, haven’t I?” Tara railed, thrashing her slender legs on the mattress.
“Of course you haven’t.” Cecile went to sit on the side of the bed.
“Is he why you broke your engagement?” Tara swung her unhappy face to Cecile accusingly.
“No!” Cecile stroked a damp blond strand from Tara’s face. “No, Tara. I would have broken my engagement to Stuart if I’d never eve
n laid eyes on Raul. You said yourself that Stuart and I weren’t soul mates.”
“And you and Raul are?” Tara lashed out with such dislike and contempt that Cecile drew back. She felt for the very first time that their long friendship was in peril.
“I don’t know what you thought you saw, Tara—”
“Oh, come off it,” Tara retorted furiously. “Have you been to bed with him? What’s he like? Bloody marvelous, I bet.”
Cecile stared at her friend’s puffy, tear-streaked face in utmost dismay. “I haven’t been to bed with him, Tara. And really, it’s none of your business, is it? You’re my dearest friend. I don’t want to hurt you. But be reasonable. I didn’t come between you and Raul. I couldn’t have stopped him falling in love with you if he wanted to.” Cecile tried to put an arm around her friend, but Tara threw it off.
“Who’s going to fall in love with me with you around?” Tara asked with great bitterness and resentment. “It was the same for years and years until you got yourself engaged to Stuart. You turn your bloody charm on them and I don’t stand a chance.”
“I had no idea you felt this way.” Cecile shrank from Tara’s contorted face. “Who did I take from you exactly?” she asked in bewilderment, searching her memory.
Tara punched, the pillow violently. “Oh, you didn’t do it deliberately. I know that. But the combination of beauty and big bucks is too much for most guys. It could be the same with Raul. Canny old Stuart—he is a top lawyer, after all—could well be right. Our devastatingly handsome and charming Raul could be a fortune hunter.”
Cecile tried to maintain some dignity and control. “Do you honestly believe that, Tara?”
“Ohhh! I don’t know what I believe!” Tara made a terrible keening sound. “I’m outta here. I can’t stay, Ceci. I know I’m going to be terribly ashamed of myself later, but I think it advisable if I go home now. You won’t suffer in my absence, anyway. You’ve got Raul.”
Cecile stood up from the bed, unable to believe this was Tara, her friend, who was mad with jealousy and rage. How long had Tara been harboring such thoughts? She had always treasured Tara’s loyalty. Now it appeared she’d been deceiving herself. Tara, like many others, had only been using her. That was the downside of being Cecile Moreland. Envy inspired deep resentment. Even hate.
In the heat of the day Cecile felt chilled to the bone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE WAS A MAN at war with himself.
To be free, even momentarily, of all the myriad agonies going round and round in his head! They were causing him many nights of lost sleep. Raul put down the phone after a brief call from Cecile saying she was coming to see him. She didn’t say about what and he didn’t ask. Just to see her was enough. But it did leave him to speculate on the nature of this unscheduled visit. They were to have dinner that evening. He had always been aware a man like Joel Moreland had the wherewithal to have him thoroughly checked out. Any good private investigator would be able to establish without too much trouble his mother’s background: her maiden name, her marriage to his father, her first husband, then to Ramon Montalvan, her second, who had legally adopted him at age twelve. Further investigation would reveal the young man held responsible for the death of Jared Moreland, one Benjamin Lockhart, deceased, had been his mother’s younger brother and thus, his uncle.
Was that it? Was he about to be unmasked as the impostor in their midst? So be it! It would almost come as a relief especially as the results of his own investigation had diluted Moreland responsibility for the terrible downturn in his family’s lives. But justice must prevail.
Raul walked out onto the terrace of the spacious Darwin apartment he had recently moved into. The vast Darwin harbor sparkled a deep turquoise in the late-afternoon sunlight. Moreland Enterprises owned the exclusive apartment complex, which featured every amenity, including a fifty-meter swimming pool and a superbly equipped gym, so securing a very cozy place indeed to live had been an easy matter.
What deeply troubled him now was the shift in his position. A gradual letting go. He hadn’t foreseen it. He hadn’t foreseen Cecile. He couldn’t help but see the shift‘ as a betrayal to his family. He had returned to Australia with vengeance on his mind. Revenge on the Morelands had twined itself around his life like a great python twined itself around a tree. He seemed as though he had never been free of its coils. Only, what he had long believed as being the truth wasn’t revealing itself to be so. There were baffling aspects to the whole thing. A bigger cast of characters than he or his mother had ever imagined. He was certain his mother hadn’t lied to him; they were very close. The truth now appeared to have been buried beneath a mountain of grievances, hearsay and outright misinformation. The more he came to know Joel Moreland the more he liked and respected him. No one could have been kinder or more helpful to him than Joel. He was a grandfather figure with a wonderful combination of wisdom, charm and command, as well as a personal history that was the stuff of Outback legend. Add to that the fact that Joel Moreland had a very tolerant Way of looking at the world. He believed now, as he had never done before, that Joel had not been the deliberate instrument of his family’s ruin. It had clearly been Joel’s wife, Frances, but the woman had died, only a handful of years back, thus escaping having to admit to him and then the world what she had done. His family name would never be cleared. He had taken a great gamble coming here. The gamble had not paid off.
They were all dead, Raul thought wretchedly. All the main characters in that tragic tale. Even Frank Grover had met with a horrific end. If Frances Moreland had been prepared to turn her back on a pregnant young woman carrying her grandson, she was capable of anything. He had talked about that with Beatrice, who hadn’t held back on what she thought of her late sister-in-law.
“Wicked! What she did was wicked!” Beatrice had said, her tiny face pinched in remembrance. “The sad thing was, Frances was totally fixated on her son. She adored him. She had little time for poor Justine. None of us, most of all Joel, had any idea she was going to change so drastically after only a few short years of marriage. Joel was away a lot—it was always business, business, business. He thought Frances had accepted that’s what he did. He’d talked seriously to her about it before they married—so for that matter did l—and she seemed to understand. She was madly in love with him. She clearly enjoyed being his wife and all that went with it. Frances was a beautiful woman, but obsessive, as is sad to say Justine. It’s in the genes. As the years went on, Jared, not Joel became Frances’s obsession. He became her whole life. Whatever persuaded Daniel’s mother to set her sights on Jared, heaven only knows. It was madness! Frances was more than capable of ruining the life of anyone who got in her way. Having a lot of money encourages megalomania sad to say.”
A sickening perception but in many cases true. He had longed to question Beatrice about the circumstances surrounding Jared’s death, but he knew Beatrice, as shrewd as they come, might be alerted to the quality of his interest and see it as a suspicious intrusion into Moreland family matters.
As for Cecile? It was hardly the scenario he had planned. Cecile had grown into his own personal obsession. She’d woven a web around him, in fact around them both. He knew how much Tara’s running off had hurt her. It wasn’t hard to realize Tara had, without any encouragement, taken a fancy to him. He couldn’t help that. He knew he was attractive to women, but he was no womanizer. Anything but. Once or twice he had divined that beneath the breezy banter, Tara was deeply envious of her friend, of Cecile’s stunning natural beauty and very privileged lifestyle. It didn’t seem to matter that Tara, from all accounts, had long enjoyed the benefits of having Cecile Moreland for a friend.
In another week Cecile was due to return to Melbourne to her family, to her professional career, to her wide circle of friends. He could understand how being an heiress had complicated her life. Most people would assume, as Joel Moreland’s granddaughter, she lived a charmed life. She was certainly free of any worrying financial burdens, but tha
t wasn’t the whole story. She’d had to accept she was a target for fortune hunters and supposed friends only too willing to help her spend her money. Tara appeared to have been one such experience. Even if at some later date Tara apologized for her behavior, the damage would have been done. It was sad and disillusioning. But Cecile was strong and she was independent. She could have given herself over to a life of pleasure, yet instead had chosen a serious career working with children in deep distress and dire need like her patient, little Ellie, who appeared to be never far from her mind. Cecile was a deeply caring person. Even Justine, who couldn’t quite approve of him, involved herself heavily in charitable work. He had also learned from a number of sources the extent of Joel Moreland’s philanthropy. As Moreland’s empire had grown, his endowments to hospitals, medical research centers and a whole raft of charities grew apace.
This wasn’t a man who destroyed lives.
CECILE ARRIVED about forty minutes later. He let her through the security door at the entrance to the building, then waited for her at the elevator.
His first glance told him the mystery of Raul Montalvan had been unraveled. He couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming. Neither of them spoke but walked in silence to his apartment, of which there were only two to a floor. Once inside she turned to face him, a cool, grave beauty in a lovely white silk dress, belted at the narrow waist in silver-studded turquoise that matched her high heels. “You deceived me utterly, Rolfe,” she said. “I suppose I should call you Rolfe from now on…but why?”