‘If you mean am I going to deny that an attraction exists for me? No, I’m not. But…’ She paused and rubbed her palms together, then laced her fingers. ‘I can’t let it affect me. I made one terrible mistake in the name of what I thought was love, but it turned out to be only a passing attraction. I’m still trying to pick up the pieces—the pieces not only of my life but of my—my morale, maybe.’
She stopped, and didn’t know that a terrible tension was visible in her expression. She did try to lighten her tone. ‘You’d think five years would be enough to get over it.’ She smiled briefly. ‘But not so. And then, if you’ll forgive me, Mr Hillier, there’s you.’
‘Go on,’ he invited dryly. ‘Or can I guess? You don’t know whether my intentions are honourable or the opposite?’ He paused, then said deliberately, ‘I certainly wouldn’t be so heartless as to leave you pregnant and alone.’
‘I did…walk out on him,’ she whispered.
‘Liz, you’re twenty-four now. That means you would have only been nineteen when it happened. Right?’ he said interrogatively.
‘Well, yes. But—’
‘How old was he?’ he continued. ‘Older, I gather?’
‘He—he was thirty-five.’
‘And who was he? I don’t want names,’ he added as she took a quick, tempestuous breath. ‘What was he in your life?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘One of my tutors.’
He studied her for a long moment. ‘That’s an old, old story, Liz,’ he said. ‘An older man in some sort of authority. A young, possibly naïve, starstruck girl. He shouldn’t have walked out of your life without a backward glance when things came right for him with another woman. He should have known better right from the start.’
Liz fiddled with her bangles for a long moment and found that breathing was difficult. Why? she questioned herself. Because those had been her own bitter sentiments even while she’d changed courses and campuses and finally finished her degree as an external student?
‘Look,’ she said in a strained voice to match the expression in her eyes, ‘for whatever reason—I mean legitimate or otherwise—I’m not ready to go down that road again.’
‘Why are you taking the job, then?’
She gestured. ‘It’s the only opportunity that’s come my way so far to climb out of the hole Scout and I are stuck in. And…’ She stopped.
‘Go on?’ he prompted.
She moistened her lips. ‘This may sound strange, but seeing you with Archie sort of—made up my mind. But if it’s going to…’ She hesitated.
‘Going to what? Make my life uncomfortable?’ he suggested.
Liz coloured. ‘I don’t—I mean I—’ She bit her lip.
He crossed to the desk and dropped into his chair. ‘Perhaps I should take up wood-chopping?’ His lips twitched.
‘Seriously,’ Liz said quietly, ‘perhaps we should forget all about it?’
He swung his chair round so he was facing her, and she could see suddenly that he was stone-cold sober. ‘No. You seem convinced you can handle it, so I’ll do the same.’
‘I still don’t quite understand why you’ve offered me the position if—’ She stopped a little helplessly.
‘If I’m not going to get you down the slippery slope into my bed?’ He looked coolly amused. ‘I think it’s because of my sister,’ he went on. ‘One reason, anyway. Hers was a similar story to yours, but we never got to know who Archie’s father was. She refused to say, but she was obviously traumatized. She was bitter, and she felt she’d been betrayed. I sometimes wonder if she thought I would—’ he gestured ‘—take matters into my own hands if she told me who he was. Then she was killed on a skiing holiday in an avalanche when Archie was three, and the secret died with her.’
‘Would you have?’ Liz asked round-eyed. ‘Taken matters…?’
Cam Hillier looked away, his mouth set in a hard line. ‘I don’t know what I might have done. I hated seeing her so distressed.’
‘So you had absolutely no idea who he was?’
‘No. She was overseas at the time.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
He stared past her, his eyes bleak, then he shrugged. ‘So we’re on, Miss Montrose?’
Liz hesitated.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t impose on you.’
He was not to know that his promise not to impose on her had sent an irrational—highly irrational—shiver down her spine, although she ignored it.
‘Yes,’ she said at last.
‘OK. I’ll get things underway. Now, let’s see what the diary holds for today.’
Liz hesitated, then reached for the diary and went through his appointments one by one.
At the end of it he told her what he wanted her to arrange for him in the next few days, and it was all normal and businesslike as Liz made notes. Finally she stood up, saying, ‘I’ll get on to it.’ She turned away.
It was as she was almost at the door that he said her name.
She turned back with her eyebrows raised.
He paused, then said quietly, ‘You can always talk to me, you know. If you need to—or want to.’
Liz stared at him, and to her horror felt tears rising to the surface. She blinked several times and cleared her throat. ‘Thanks,’ she said huskily. ‘Thank you.’ And she turned away quickly, praying he would not notice how she’d been affected by a few simple words of kindness…
Lying in bed that night, though, she wondered if it was that unexpected streak of kindness in him that she—loved? No—not that, surely? But it was something that drew her to him.
CHAPTER SIX
A MONTH after she’d started work at Yewarra, Liz had to concede that Cam Hillier had kept his promise.
It had been a hard-working but satisfying month. She’d settled into the cottage, which wasn’t far from the house and, although small, was comfortable, with its own fenced garden. It was not only comfortable but picturesque, with some lovely creepers smothering its white walls. There was also a double swing seat with a canopy in the garden that just invited you to relax on it.
Probably because of having lived in an apartment all her life Scout loved the garden, and Liz loved the fact that when she could work from the cottage, in an inglenook converted to a small office, she could keep an eye on Scout through the window.
It also gave Liz her own freedom. Although she sometimes accepted Mrs Preston’s invitation to eat up at the house, she more often cooked for herself and Scout. And when Cam was in residence and entertaining she had a place to retreat to.
At the same time—and she hadn’t thought it possible—Scout was weaving her way more and more into her heart. She tried to analyse why, and decided it had something to do with she herself being under much less stress and being able to spend much more time with Scout.
They’d got into the habit of Scout coming into her bed every morning, bringing her favourite doll, Jenny Penny.
One morning Scout said to Liz, ‘You’ve got me and I’ve got Jenny Penny. We’re lucky, Mummy!’
‘Sweetheart,’ Liz responded, giving her blue-eyed, curly-haired daughter half a hundred kisses—a game they played—‘I am so lucky to have you I can’t believe it sometimes!’
She had been aware that she’d been under discreet surveillance as she’d fitted into the job. Mrs Preston might be a motherly soul, and Bob might be a friendly bear of a man, but that hadn’t stopped them from monitoring her progress—especially where Archie was concerned.
It hadn’t annoyed her. It had made sense.
Mary had come up for a couple of weekends, and appeared satisfied that her daughter and granddaughter were in a good place. At the same time Liz had been happy to see that her mother was in high spirits—excited, and full of ideas for the costumes she was designing. Plus, Liz thought she’d detected that Mary might have a man in her life, from the odd things she’d let drop about how this or that had appealed to Martin.
But Liz’s enquiries had only sent her mother faintly pink at the same
time as she shrugged noncommittally.
Mary had also met Cam a couple of times and been visibly impressed. Not that that was so surprising, Liz acknowledged. What was surprising—although Mary had always been intuitive—was her mother’s discreet summing up of the situation between her daughter and her daughter’s employer.
She knows, Liz thought with an inward tremor. Somehow she’s divined that things aren’t quite as they seem between Cam and me.
Mary had said nothing, however, and Liz was more than happy to allow it to lie unspoken between them and, hopefully, to sink away into oblivion.
As for the work side of Liz’s life—she’d gone through the big house and identified what needed repairing, replacing or upgrading, and she’d set it all in motion. She’d had a section of the stable driveway repaved where it had badly needed it, and she’d personally checked all the fence lines on Yewarra.
She’d done this on a quiet mare Bob had told her she could ride whenever she wanted to. She’d thoroughly enjoyed getting back into the saddle, and she loved the country air and the scenery.
Setting up a computer program for the stables had come easily to her, and had provided a source of great pleasure for Scout and Archie as she often took them with her to check out the foals born on Yewarra. They made up names for them as they watched them progress from stiff-legged newborns to frisky and confident in an amazingly short time.
There had been some moments of unease for her, however, during the month. Faint shadows that had darkened her enjoyment and sense of fulfilment…
Don’t get too used to this, she’d warned herself. Whatever you do, don’t get a feeling of mistress of all she surveys. Don’t let yourself feel too much at home because sooner or later you’ll have to move on.
She’d reiterated those warnings to herself a couple of times, when Cam had been home with a party of guests, but from a slightly different angle. It was one thing to work with Mrs Preston and the household staff to make sure everything went like clockwork. It was another to watch from the sidelines and feel a bit like Cinderella.
And it was yet another again to find herself keeping tabs on her employer—no, not that, she thought with impatience. Surely not that! So what? To have a sixth sense whenever he was home as to his whereabouts? To feel her skin prickling in a way that told her he was nearby?
To—go on: admit it—feel needled by the way he kept his distance from her? How ridiculous is that? she asked herself more than once.
Then there was Archie.
A serious, sensitive little boy, with grey eyes and brown hair that stuck up stubbornly from his crown, he worried about all sorts of things—when five of Wenonah’s puppies were sent to their new homes he hardly ate all day and couldn’t sleep that night. And he pulled at her heartstrings at times when she thought about him being motherless and fatherless. When she could see how he hero-worshipped Cam, who tried to temper the little time he could spend with the boy by sending him postcards and books and weird and wonderful things from different parts of the country and overseas—things that Archie took inordinate pride in and kept in a special cabinet in his room.
‘Of course they’re not all suitable for a five-year-old,’ Archie’s nanny said to her once, when they were looking through them. ‘Take this.’ She pulled down a full-size boomerang from a shelf Archie couldn’t reach. ‘Archie didn’t realise he shouldn’t experiment with it inside and he threw it through a window, breaking the glass. He was really upset—until Mr Hillier found him a song about a man whose boomerang wouldn’t come back. Archie loves it. It really cracks him up and it made him feel much better.’
‘I—I know it,’ Liz said with a smile in her voice, and she thought, so that explains that!
She couldn’t deny that she was getting very fond of Archie.
As for Scout, although she’d missed Mary for a time, she’d taken to Daisy Kerr, Archie’s nanny, and so had Liz. Daisy was a practical girl, very mindful of her responsibilities, but with a streak of romance and nonsense in her that lent itself to the magical world kids loved.
And, between them, Liz and Daisy had soon joined forces to occupy the children with all sorts of games.
One memorable one had been the baby elephant walk. When a real baby elephant had been born at Taronga Zoo, they’d watched its progress avidly on the internet, and Liz had found a recording of Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk” from the movie Hatari.
She and Daisy had mimicked elephants, and with one arm outstretched for the trunk and one held behind the back they’d paced around the playroom to the music. Scout and Archie had quickly caught on, and it had become a favourite game.
None of them had realised that Cam was watching one day, unseen from the doorway, as they shuffled their way around and then all fell in a heap, the kids screaming with laughter. Liz had coloured at the indignity of it as she’d hastily got to her feet and patted herself down, but her boss had been laughing and she’d caught a glint of approval in his blue gaze.
Scout had been a little wary of Archie to begin with. It was plain Archie saw himself as the senior child on Yewarra, not to mention owner and architect of the menagerie. As such he dictated what they should do and what they should play.
Scout bore it with equanimity until one day, almost a month on, when Archie removed a toy from her. She screamed blue murder as she wrested it back, and then she pushed him over.
‘Scout!’ Liz scolded as she picked up the astonished Archie and gave him a hug.
‘Mine!’ Scout declared as she clasped the toy to her chest and stamped her foot.
‘Well…’ Liz said a little helplessly
‘Like mother like daughter,’ Cam Hillier murmured, causing Liz to swing round in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you were here!’
He straightened from where he’d propped his wide shoulders against the playroom doorframe. ‘Just arrived. I drove up. So she’s got a temper and a mind of her own, young Scout?’
Liz grimaced. ‘Apparently. I’ve never seen her react like that before.’ She turned back. ‘Scout, you mustn’t do that. Archie, are you all right?’
Daisy took over at this point. ‘You’ll be fine, won’t you, Archie? And we’ll all be friends now. I know—let’s go and see Wenonah and her puppy.’
Liz and Cam watched the three of them head off towards the stables, peace and contentment restored, although Liz felt somewhat guilty.
‘Thank heavens for Wenonah and her puppy—look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘They usually get along like a house on fire.’
He shrugged. ‘It probably won’t do Archie any harm to learn from an early age that the female sex can be unpredictable.’
Liz opened her mouth, closed it, then chuckled. ‘But you must admit I don’t go around pushing people over. Or screaming at them,’ she said humorously.
He glanced down at her quizzically as they walked side by side into the kitchen.
Liz clicked her tongue. ‘Well, maybe I did threaten you once—but under extreme provocation, and I would never have carried it out! I didn’t scream either.’ She stopped and had to laugh. ‘I would have loved to, though.’
‘Oh, good. There are some things I did want to speak to you about. When would you like to have a tour?’
‘I think I’m going to hit the sack after this. How about tomorrow morning?’
‘Fine.’ But she said it slowly and looked at him rather narrowly.
‘What?’ he queried.
‘Are you feeling OK? I only ask,’ she added hastily, ‘because I’ve never seen you less than…well, full of energy.’
Cam Hillier drummed his fingers on the table, then raked a hand through his hair and rubbed the blue shadows on his jaw. He wondered what she would say if he told her the truth.
That he was growingly plagued by thoughts of her. That when he allowed himself to step into his imagination he could picture himself exploring the pale, satiny, secret places of her slim elegant body. He could visualise himself, with the li
ghtest touch, bringing her to the incandescence he’d seen in her once or twice—but much more than that, more personal, more physical, more joyful.
He could see her, in his mind’s eye, breathless, beaded with sweat, and achingly beautiful as she responded to his ardour with her own…
How would she react if she knew that to see her apparently blooming when he was going through all this was actually annoying the hell out of him?
That, and something else. He was the one who had visualised a family unit. He was the one who’d dug into his subconscious and realised his business life had taken over his whole life—to its detriment—but he didn’t seem to be able to change gears and slow down. It had been his somewhat shadowy intention to see how Liz fitted into Yewarra, and therefore by extension his life, to make it work better for him—for both of them.
Yes, he’d kept his distance for the last month, to give her time to settle in and because he’d made her a promise, but it had become an increasing hardship. What he hadn’t expected was to find that the family circle had been well and truly forged—Liz, Scout and Archie—and he now felt like an outsider in his own home.
Was there any softening in her attitude towards men, and towards him in particular? he wondered, and was on the point of simply asking her outright. Take it easy, he advised himself instead. Don’t go crashing around like a bull in a china shop. But he grimaced. He knew himself well enough to know that he would bring the subject up sooner or later…
‘I’m OK,’ he said at length. ‘Thank you for your concern,’ he added formally, although he couldn’t prevent the faintest hint of irony as well. ‘I should be back to fighting fit by tomorrow.’ And the sooner I get out of here the better, he added, but this time to himself.
Liz might not have been privy to her employer’s thoughts, but she found she was curiously restless after their encounter.
Restless and uneasy, but not able to say why.
The next morning she told herself she’d been imagining things as they toured the house and she pointed out to Cam what she’d organised for it.
He appeared to be back to normal. He looked refreshed, and his manner was easy. He also looked quintessentially at home on his country estate, in jeans and a khaki bush shirt. And he’d already—with Archie and Scout’s assistance—been on a tadpole-gathering exercise in a creek not far from the house, to add to the menagerie’s frog population.
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