The Australian Heiress

by Way, Margaret

  “Well, he has commented on the extra exposure I’d be subject to in my own gallery as opposed to a merchant bank. Beaumont’s offered me a job. I rather think Nicholas simply lifted the phone.”

  Claude laughed. “Nicholas, is it?”

  “He’s much more a Nicholas than a Nick. To get back to our mystery client—who is it?”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.” Claude swung back in his chair. “It’s his lady friend, Clare Tennant. I managed to get it out of my friend Cosmo. I have to admit I was miffed. So I went round to see him. Apparently she’d bought a few antiques. Major pieces. Obviously she doesn’t want you in that building. It would have suited you beautifully. Right size. Good location. But there you are! I’ve always said women make the worst enemies.”

  “She’ll have to stand in line.” Camille tried to say this casually, but Claude, knowing her so well, sensed her disquiet.

  “What’s up, pet?”

  It all came tumbling out.

  By the time she’d finished, Claude looked deeply concerned. “My dear, you must go to the police.”

  “With not a lot for them to go on, I’m afraid. I’m having lunch with Nicholas today. He insisted on hiring a private detective to look out for me. Check on the apartment. See anyone who might be hanging around.”

  “Good man!” Claude exclaimed warmly.

  “He rang me early this morning. He has something to report.”

  “You don’t suppose that Tennant woman has anything to do with it, do you?” Claude asked. “It fits her style.”

  Camille shrugged. “Even for her it seems a bit over the top.”

  “I’d still be a bit suspicious.”

  “Philip turned up on my doorstep last night,” Camille confided.

  “Dearest, never ever trust him again.”

  “No chance of that! He wanted to tell me he’s getting engaged to Robyn Masterman.”

  “Yet he’s still trying to see you. Now that would really scare me. Bert Masterman is a dangerous opponent. He’s been up to his neck in dirty deals for most of his business life. Despite or because of it, he’s worth at least two hundred million.”

  “And Philip can’t walk away from that. Lord, to think I took him so seriously.”

  Claude shook his head. “All he has, dearest, is that golden-boy appearance and a charming manner. It always ropes the woman in. For a time. I thank God every night he walked away.”

  “Ran, Claude. Ran.”

  They met each other’s eyes. Then Camille saw Claude’s pink face begin to twitch, and they both burst into peals of laughter.

  SHE DIDN’T HAVE LONG to wait at the restaurant. She’d been sitting for four or five minutes at the table looking out at the beautiful view of the harbor, her chin cupped in one hand, when he walked toward her.

  She felt the same pounding pulse, the same rush of heat. He was stunningly handsome, a man of distinction. That was the big difference between him and Philip. Nicholas radiated intelligence and power. Philip, charming as he was, did not

  “Have you been waiting long?” he asked courteously, his dark gaze brushing over her face.

  “Only a few moments. How did your meeting go?”

  He sat down and inhaled deeply. “I’m afraid we have a mole in the organization. A senior one at that. I’m in the business of ferreting him or her out Someone’s been passing inside information to our competitors.”

  “It really is a jungle out there, isn’t it?” She spoke from experience.

  “Don’t I know it. Payoffs are irresistible bait to some.”

  He said no more as the maitre d’ arrived with menus. Camille allowed herself time to study hers. She felt too febrile to be hungry, so she settled on the lobster salad while Nicholas briefly debated between the ocean trout or the lamb. The ocean trout won out Neither wanted an appetizer. It all presaged a serious discussion rather than a relaxed lunch a deux. The restaurant was spacious and quiet, although all but a coupie of tables had been taken. Camille had encountered a few discreet stares when she arrived, Nicholas even more. One way or the other they were always in the news.

  “So please, what is it you want to tell me?” Camille asked over a glass of wine.

  “That’s the attraction, is it? Information?”

  She swallowed on a certain dryness in her throat. “I wanted to see you, as well.” It was impossible to sustain his gaze, so she swung her titian head toward the window.

  “That’s hard to accept when you’ve been doing your level best to avoid me,” he answered bluntly.

  She looked back. “I thought we needed a little distance from each other, Nicholas.”

  “You’re probably right,” he conceded after a moment, “but I’m concerned about you, to be honest. Why have you been keeping so much from me?”

  She took a long sip of her wine before answering. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Do you think allowing Garner back into your life is accomplishing that? I’d have thought it was a decidedly risky thing to do.”

  So he knew. Damn! Suddenly the air was alive with sexual hostility. “Your spy saw him entering the building?”

  He nodded. “Your spy, too, I might remind you. I suppose Philip could have been visiting someone else, but I needed to check with you.”

  “He did call in to see me,” Camille admitted, feeling guilty when she was not. “Not at my invitation. Apparently he charmed his way through the security door.”

  “But you did allow him into your apartment?”

  Camille’s emerald eyes sparkled. “Whatever else he’d do, Philip would never harm me.”

  “I guess you mean physically,” Nicholas said in the same clipped voice. “He’s hurt you in every other way.”

  She moistened her dry mouth with the tip of her tongue. “Look at it my way. The last thing I needed was for Philip to start up a loud conversation outside my door. He came in for a short time only, as I’m sure your man reported.”

  “Why are you so nervous?” Nicholas asked.

  “You make me nervous. Philip means nothing to me.

  Nicholas nodded but continued to study her for several seconds. “I certainly hope so. I don’t trust either one of them, Garner or that Masterman woman. I don’t need to impress on you that they’re ruthless. I don’t want you made the scapegoat for their jealousy and anger. Let Garner take the full consequences for his actions.”

  Camille bit her lip, looking very young and appealing. “I’ve explained to him he must never come again. Don’t let’s talk about Philip,” she implored. “He’s not important. What’s your news?”

  Nicholas leaned forward, his expression one of grim satisfaction. “We’ve identified the occupants of the car that’s been following you. While they’ve been watching you, our man has been sitting quietly taking photographs of them.”

  Her shoulders braced for the revelation. “Do I know them?”

  He nodded. “One is Hilda Gray’s son, Sebastian. The other is his homosexual lover. The car is registered to the lover, who’s on the dole, the same as Gray. Both have a history of misdemeanors. There’s a law against stalking. The matter has already been referred to the police.”

  “Lord, that’s a relief!” Indeed it was like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I suppose they took the photographs, as well.”

  His stare was lancing. “What photographs?”

  “I’ve been meaning to show them to you.” She spoke rapidly, anything to rid herself of a sense of guilt. “My only excuse is I’ve needed time. My life has changed so dramatically. I knew I would come up against a good deal of ill will, but I—”

  “Let’s calm down, shall we?” His voice had a menacing edge. “What photographs?”

  “I didn’t bring them,” she admitted. “You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you?” She raised her eyes, feeling miserable.

  “I have to say I thought you had more sense. What are the photographs of?”

  “Please,” she begged,
“let it wait until later.”

  The food, when it came, was superb, but Camille had lost all appetite. So, apparently, had Nicholas.

  He went with her in her car to her apartment. He hadn’t bothered with his car for the short drive to the restaurant, preferring a taxi.

  In silence they took the elevator to her floor, each lost in thought. As chance would have it, the first thing his eye fell on when they were inside the apartment was the very thing she didn’t want him to see—Philip’s turn-of-the-century white birdcage. She hadn’t put it away.

  “A gift?” he asked with evident distaste.

  “Why would you say that?” It was a silly attempt at evasion.

  “I’m psychic. Especially when I have a few clues. The gift wrapping beside it. I hope you’re going to return it?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip. “As a gift it has slightly malicious overtones.”

  “You’re all cooped up?”

  “Well I am, aren’t I?” She moved to the coffee table, picked up the manila envelope and handed it to him. “These are really what you want to see.”

  “And I’ll take them with me if you don’t mind.” He sat down and shuffled through them quickly, then lay them out on the coffee table.

  “These are taken by a professional,” he said, showing signs of anger. “I doubt very much if Gray and his friend would own such a camera.”

  “So you think there’s another mystery man out there?” Her heart sank.

  “That’s what we’ve got to find out. I can’t understand how our man failed to spot Gray and his friend if they were doing this.”

  “Maybe he was taking a nap.” It was a weak joke. “I was even followed when I went to see Tommy and Dot. It’s a bad feeling, being spied on. Me. Melissa. Your home.” She stopped, daunted by his expression.

  “I don’t like that,” he said. His tone was very quiet but deadly. “I wouldn’t like to think, either, that more than one person was trying to harass you.”

  Camille had been standing, and now she moved closer, running her hand along the back of a sofa. “Perhaps I should do as Clare Tennant suggested. Take an overseas trip until all the furor dies down.”

  He turned to look at her. “Clare suggested that?”

  She was piqued by his surprise. “Why not? She’s already stymied one of my chances of getting a good location for my gallery.”

  “How, exactly?” He looked at Camille almost coldly. “Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I find it very odd of Clare.”

  She told him, leaving nothing out. “Claude let me know this only today. He got it out of the antique dealer.”

  “For God’s sake! This puts a different complexion on things.”

  “I’m glad you agree.” She looked at him with some asperity. “I’ve told you before. She’s in love with you.”

  “Oh, spare me.” He shook his head, his face showing extreme irritation. “What Clare is in love with is social recognition.”

  “She’s probably been in love with you for years,” Camille continued, undaunted. “I know she’s stunning in appearance, but she has some sinister quality about her.”

  He tilted his head back, closed his eyes for a moment. Wearily. “I’ve heard that before. My sister, Elizabeth, dislikes her intensely, but I can’t forget Clare tried very hard to be a friend to my wife.”

  “The wife you treated so badly?”

  It was a terrible thing to say. An unforgivable charge based on hearsay. She realized it the instant the words fell from her mouth.

  He stood up immediately, his expression utterly withdrawn. “I can’t think where you got your information. It’s not true.”

  “I’m sorry.” She pressed her hands together at her breast. “You never talk about her.”

  He looked through and beyond her. “I don’t think I can. Like you, there’s been a lot of trauma in my life. I blame myself for Carole’s death. She was beautiful and bright. We had a full life, a happy life for a time. Her pregnancy and Melissa’s birth changed that Suddenly we had a lot of problems. Carole always was prone to mood swings, but never to the degree she was after Melissa was born.”

  He sighed. “At first we thought it might have been postpartum depression, but it didn’t go away. Her doctors spoke of a psychological instability. A genetic thing triggered by childbirth. I couldn’t accept that. But I know that Carole didn’t want the baby. It grieves me to say it, but her attitude did Melissa a lot of damage. Melissa takes after our side of the family. As she matures she’ll come into her own, I’m sure. If she had a child at all, Carole wanted a son in my image. A daughter in hers. It didn’t happen.”

  A veil of stillness fell over the room, which Camille eventually broke. “Melissa says her mother adored her.”

  “That wasn’t the way it was,” he said starkly. “Melissa’s describing her dream of a mother.”

  Camille looked away, feeling sad and chastened. “I’m sorry I spoke.”

  “It’s not a time in my life I like to recall.” His voice was husky. “Just in case your informant hasn’t gotten around to telling you yet, my wife was killed in a car crash. I had to use what influence I had to get the full story repressed. In the last few years of her life Carole was using drugs, which one of her so-called friends introduced her to. That night she’d been on some new designer drug.

  “It was Clare who recognized the early signs, tried to help her through her crises. I was under a lot of pressure at work, and Carole was on her own for long periods of time. I bear responsibility for that.”

  He sighed again. “I love my daughter much more than my wife. Carole refused all help, and I was at the end of my tether. So I started talking divorce, taking Melissa out of her custody. Perhaps that triggered the tragedy. If it did, I have to live with it.”

  He turned to leave. “I’ll take these photographs. Detective Lewis will want to see them. He’ll probably call on you.”

  Camille followed him, feeling drained. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Nicholas.”

  “Of course you did.” He turned on her, his eyes blazing with passion. “For some people, love and hate are two sides of the same coin.”

  “You can’t think I love you, surely!” She almost recoiled from him. She wasn’t ready to reveal her heart. There were too many threats, too many twists and turns in her life.

  “Love me, hate me, what’s the difference?” He pulled her to him roughly. “You make me so damned angry!”

  “I know.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

  “Yet I want you badly.” He seemed to be struggling for control. “I want to be deep inside you right now. Everything about you speaks to my heart. Your voice, your face, your body, the way your hair billows around your shoulders, your body scents. Your lovely mouth.” He pressed her hard against his aroused body, feeling the soft shudders that passed through her. “God, the folly of it!” he exclaimed. “Is it never going to end?”

  “You act as if your feeling for me is a curse.” She raised her head.

  “What does one call a feeling that overwhelms all else? I’ve been obsessed with you from the beginning. Wanting you is eating away at me. The urge to pick you up and carry you into your bedroom is overpowering. To feel the burning sweetness again…” He trailed off in despair.

  She lifted her fingers, pressed them to his mouth.

  The touch was electric.

  He caught up a coil of her hair, winding it around his wrist and holding her face to his. At first his kiss was frenzied, as though he wanted to somehow punish her, but when she gave a faint cry, his kiss gentled and conveyed such passion she responded to him helplessly. She was so susceptible to him now that his merest touch ignited her blood. She could feel a yearning everywhere in her body—her breasts, the pit of her stomach, her loins. She couldn’t get enough of him—and realized the instant before he swept her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom that an affair could threaten them both….

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN THE END it was Nicho
las who found suitable premises for Camille’s gallery. A prime site in a neighborhood amid other galleries, dress and jewelry boutiques, trendy restaurants and coffee shops. Nicholas had bought the corner building some years before Sydney prices had started spiraling. The premises were currently occupied by an award-winning young jeweler whose work had attracted attention in New York; when her lease ran out early in the New Year, she intended to head for America.

  The premises were much better both in location and size than those she’d seen with Claude. Nicholas had offered to waive the rent for a time, at least until the gallery got under way, but rather than do that, Camille sold another piece of her mother’s jewelry.

  Nothing of a sinister nature happened for almost two weeks. No more photographs. No more phone calls. The police had interviewed Sebastian Gray and his friend, warning them off. They’d stuck to their story that they’d been following Camille out of curiosity and because they had nothing better to do with their time, something that was referred to the Social Services Department. They swore they hadn’t taken any photographs. Rankin, Gray’s boyfriend, owned an old Ford sedan, the color bright yellow. No break-through there. At that stage it was agreed Camille would take no further action. If the stalking continued, she would press charges.

  LINDA’S PROBLEMS weren’t going away, either, although Beth Selkirk, of the all-women legal firm, had offered to take Linda in as an associate. Stephen had not reacted favorably to Linda’s plan to reenter the workforce. He was earning quite enough for both of them, he said, and wanted his wife to be at home for him. He wanted them to try again for a baby. It was an issue they had addressed before their marriage. Linda had agreed to the terms. Was she being fair to him or the family?

  She and Stephen were openly estranged now. Linda was no longer prepared to accept her mother-in-law’s treatment of her—which was only hearsay to Stephen, the lawyer. It was Linda’s word against his mother’s. He had never seen his mother anything other than supportive. If Linda persisted in seeing herself as a martyr, their marital problems would never be resolved.