By Marriage Divided

by Lindsay Armstrong

  And they finally wrestled their three reluctant children into the car and drove off waving.

  Angus dropped his hand and looked down at Domenica. ‘You came. You also conquered, and not only Madeleine,’ he said with a smile lurking at the back of his eyes.

  Domenica shrugged. ‘Only because of a dress—’

  ‘Not only because of a dress,’ he contradicted, and said no more, but his grey gaze skimmed down her figure, then came back to rest on her loose hair that a gentle breeze was lifting, and the contours of her face.

  ‘Well, I came,’ Domenica said, controlling the tremor that ran through her, ‘with a set plan in mind.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Yes.’ She walked to the hatchback of her car and opened it to lift out a basket covered with a checked cloth. ‘I came to make you lunch. A very special lunch, as it happens.’

  ‘You didn’t have to do that, Domenica.’

  ‘I felt like it,’ she responded demurely.

  ‘Some sort of culinary masterpiece?’ he hazarded.

  ‘Oh, definitely. Hamburgers. And I brought some beer just in case you didn’t have any in stock.’

  She stopped as he started to laugh, then he took the basket from her and said, ‘You’re a genius, Miss Harris. I would kill for a hamburger and a beer right now.’

  He sat at the kitchen table while Domenica moved around it and displayed her familiarity with the kitchen as she cooked the hamburgers she’d pre-prepared, warmed the rolls and chopped salad to go with them.

  ‘Does this give you a sense of déjàvu?’ he asked at one point.

  She waved the spatula over a couple of eggs she was frying. ‘I guess so, but I’m also intensely grateful to you, Angus. All of a sudden my life seems so much less complicated now and my mother is like a new person.’ She looked over her shoulder at him briefly and started to tell him about the Blacktown news too.

  He listened in silence and said nothing when she’d finished speaking until, at last, she had to turn to him again. ‘I had to say it, I am very grateful,’ she said helplessly.

  He’d opened a bottle of beer and he swung it idly by the neck between two fingers as he regarded her steadily. He wore a khaki bush shirt stained with sweat, with jeans and short boots, his hair was ruffled and there were blue shadows on his jaw. ‘So long as it’s not the only reason you came here today, Domenica.’

  She turned back to the eggs and lifted them carefully out to set them on top of the burgers. ‘There. All done. Would you mind getting me a tray—out of that cupboard?’ She pointed. ‘And why don’t we eat outside?’

  ‘Domenica.’ He didn’t move.

  She rested half a bun on top of each deluxe hamburger with all the trimmings—eggs, pineapple, bacon and salad—and piled the chips she’d also made beside them.

  Then she turned and leant back against the counter, and their gazes clashed. ‘Something still makes me—wary of you, Angus. I don’t know what it is but it’s there. So I’m not sure…why else I came. I do know I had to thank you, though. Nor did I get a chance to thank you properly for the books and CD. You couldn’t have chosen better.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re tilting at windmills?’

  She shrugged and crossed her arms over her waist. ‘I don’t know. I would like to think…I can be sensible and take heed of my intuition, that’s all.’

  He smiled briefly. ‘My intuition tells me you don’t like to surrender the lead, Domenica, but let’s not let your culinary masterpiece get cold.’ He got up at last and produced the tray.

  ‘Tell me about the Baileys?’ she invited as they ate outside with the breeze wafting the scent of roses over them, and an awkward sense of constraint between them, at least on her part.

  ‘I met Pete years ago when I was at night school studying economics. He was doing law. And, although he didn’t come from quite as far west as Tibooburra, we had that in common. We’ve been friends ever since. I was his best man when he married Lorraine and I’m Darcy’s godfather. Darcy is the elder boy. Pete has a thriving law practice now and Lorraine is an ardent florist with her own business.’

  ‘I liked them.’

  He glanced at her. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Do you have many friends like that?’ Domenica asked as she finished her lunch and patted her stomach ruefully.

  ‘A few. And quite a few unlike that. Did you imagine me as being completely self-contained?’ The look in his grey eyes was faintly sardonic.

  ‘It’s not hard to imagine you as a kind of Lone Ranger, Angus,’ she retaliated without thinking.

  ‘And Lorraine and Pete didn’t reassure you that I’m really quite normal?’ he countered dryly.

  She stood up.

  ‘So now you’re about to run back to town?’ he speculated, sprawling back in the teak garden chair. ‘Because you’ve done your duty, paid your debt—as you see it?’

  ‘I always knew it would come down to that,’ she said tautly.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ he drawled, then stood up himself. ‘It’s a convenient excuse you devised because you’re scared of letting yourself go, Domenica, for one of two reasons. You like to see yourself as the boss at all times or—you really do think you’re too good for me.’

  He paused as she stiffened, then went on, ‘But, believe me, my dear, I prefer my encounters with women to be of the mutually satisfactory variety, and if you are that stuck-up, then why don’t you run back to town?’ he finished lethally.

  She did just that. She stalked to her car, got in and drove away as far as the gate which was about half a mile from the house. She was so angry she nearly ran over a Hereford cow on the way but it was that that stopped her. Not so much the shock of it, although she did get a fright—but the fact that it was there. And she looked back to see some more Hereford cattle grazing in the paddock beside the drive, splendid animals that would have brought tears of joy to her Lidcombe grandmother’s eyes.

  She also saw that a new race and loading yard had been built and new fences erected and she remembered on Friday night Angus saying that he had some things to show her and her heart jolted for some reason.

  She stopped just before the gate and dropped her head into her hands. Then she turned the car around and drove back.

  He was still outside but sitting again at the teak garden setting around the other side of the house, with his feet up on a bench. He had his back to her but she could see a fresh bottle of beer in his hand. And he was staring out over his kingdom but not in a way that was relaxed or as if it gave him much pleasure.

  She saw the already tense line of his shoulders tense further as she said quietly, ‘I do tend to be bossy, I can give off the impression that I’m stuck-up, but no man has made me feel the way you do, Angus, and I’m not sure how to handle it. If you’d like to take the time to help me—handle it, if you’d like to show me your improvements of Lidcombe Peace along the way, I…would like that.’

  He didn’t move for a long moment, and she felt her heart start to sink. Then he stood up carefully, put the beer down and turned to her, and said nothing. But he put out his hand to her, and after she’d taken it and they’d stared into each other’s eyes for a long time he drew her into his arms and said her name into her hair in that same, slightly unsteady way she remembered from the beach.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘RIGHT, enough of this,’ he said a little later.

  ‘I have to agree,’ she responded but made no move to leave the circle of his arms. Instead she put the tip of her finger to the scar at the end of his eyebrow. ‘How did that come about?’

  ‘I fell off a horse into a barbed wire fence.’

  ‘Ouch! You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye.’

  ‘Mmm… Talking of eyes, yours are the most amazing. And with your hair loose like this, you remind me of a gorgeous, blue-eyed gypsy girl.’ He twined his fingers through it.

  ‘First a mermaid, now a gypsy,’ she teased.

  ‘Both capable of seriou
sly interfering with my equilibrium. The fact that I don’t seem to be able to let you go should testify to that.’

  She laughed and leant against him. ‘I have not the slightest inclination to be released, as it happens, so you may as well kiss me again, Angus Keir. Then we might be able to get on and do…other things!’

  He stared down into her eyes a little narrowly.

  ‘Or—’ she looked wry ‘—would that be putting too much pressure on—us?’

  He started to say something but she got the impression it wasn’t his first choice of words that emerged. He said, ‘I could kiss you until the cows come home, Domenica, so, no, it would be my pleasure.’ And he started to do so.

  But when he’d done with her—why did she think of it like that? she wondered—she knew that her light-hearted words about pressure had turned back to haunt her if not to say taunt her. Because what started out as playful and curiously friendly became again that leaping flame between them. Had she expected a repeat of their first kiss when she’d come back to find him on the veranda? But that had been more a mental union, she now realized. An unspoken relief that they’d found some accord, a quiet, although deep gratitude that they were together.

  But as he moulded her body to his and she responded with her arms around him, as he kissed her mouth, then her throat and his thumbs found her nipples unerringly, even beneath her clothes they flowered and she not only felt like a seductive siren or a tempting, blue-eye gypsy girl, she was swept with joyful rapture.

  And she kissed him ardently in return. She slid her arms around his neck and made no protest when his hands found their way below her overall dress and beneath her T-shirt to circle her slim, bare waist then wander down towards her hips, she revelled in the sensations he aroused and let her own hands explore the feel of his skin and his shoulders beneath the khaki shirt.

  The rough and the smooth, the thought chased through her mind. The slight abrasion of those blue shadows on his jaw against her cheek, but the sleek skin and powerful muscles of his shoulders under her fingers. The sheer temptation—was another thought that skipped through her mind—of a man who could handle her in a way that made her feel glorious. The allure of the tanned column of his throat beneath her lips, the friction of her breasts against his chest, and the little glint of passion in the smoky-grey of his eyes beneath heavy lids, when he made her gasp with pleasure and arch her body even closer against him.

  But how to cope, when it ended, with a feeling of loss and incompleteness? How to be unaware that she was hectically flushed and trembling, dishevelled and not quite steady on her feet—unaware that her mouth felt bruised and there was an ache within her, of frustration.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ she managed to murmur finally as she combed her fingers through her hair, pulled her T-shirt down beneath her dress and licked her lips several times.

  He took her hands and stilled them between his. ‘What?’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, you didn’t say it, I did, but it was a thoughtless thing to say.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘About pressure?’

  ‘Didn’t you—’ she paused briefly ‘—just show me that I was playing with fire, Angus?’

  ‘If so,’ he said steadily, but she noticed a nerve beating in his jaw, ‘there can be no flame without a match. But let’s not get too technical.’ A smile started at the back of his eyes. ‘Instead of me kissing you until the cows come home, Domenica, may I show you my cows instead?’

  It took a moment for her to rearrange her mind set. Had she been warned? Against lighting a flame that could become a bush fire? Or not? she wondered, then shook her head slightly. ‘Uh, you may. I nearly ran one over earlier—it’s OK, I missed it.’

  They did a tour of the whole property by foot and Range Rover. He told her all his plans and she was able to contribute with things she remembered from the past. Where there had been fence lines and paddocks, how the bottom of one paddock tended to flood, where frost had wiped out a crop her father had experimented with, and the exact spot she’d fallen into the creek that meandered through the property, aged four.

  ‘I got a belting for it,’ she reminisced with her mouth curving. ‘I couldn’t swim then and they got the fright of their lives before they could fish me out. I was trying to catch a fish and, although it was only about three feet deep, it was running quite strongly. I ended up over there.’ She pointed to some slippery rocks. ‘All torn, muddy and coughing up water.’

  He laughed. ‘That might have been punishment enough.’

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the creek, let alone fishing in it.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘So you were an adventurous kid?’

  ‘I suspect I was a right handful but perhaps more in my teenage years,’ she confessed after a moment’s thought. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I suspect the same, if the number of beltings I got were any indication. Although I can remember the day my father suddenly realized I might be more than a match for him.’

  They were sitting on a grassy peak beside the Range Rover, overlooking most of the property, and he was chewing a stalk of grass.

  ‘Did you like him?’ Domenica asked abruptly. ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘No. And no.’

  ‘Not even now, with the vision of hindsight?’

  ‘No. I tried to believe he was the kind of man he was because of my mother’s desertion, whatever the whys and wherefores of that, and, yes, it hardened him even more but—there was nothing I could have done about it.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Was it a very hard upbringing?’

  He shrugged. ‘There was a lot to recommend it, actually. If you like open spaces, physical activity, horses, pitting yourself against the elements, flood but mostly drought, et cetera, if you measure your achievements in those terms and have an affinity with the land and the mysticism of the real outback, it can be bewitching. I felt all those things,’ he said reflectively, ‘but I knew I needed more.’

  She watched him as he stared out over the very different, green and fertile acres of Lidcombe Peace, fascinated by his eloquence and the mental images he’d conjured. And she said at last, ‘This must seem like a—toy environment in contrast, though.’

  He glanced at her. ‘Perhaps. But I’ve built a company, I own…other bricks and mortar, as your mother put it, but these are the first acres I’ve ever owned and can do what I like with.’

  It amazed Domenica how his words moved her.

  Then he said quietly, ‘Will you stay the night? In your own bed and your own room?’

  She looked away and studied the cloud shadows on the pasture and the dark green lines of the huge old hoop pine trees an ancestor of hers had planted, and knew she’d like nothing better than to stay but wondered if she’d have the strength of mind to do so on a platonic basis.

  ‘Would you hold it against me if I did stay—in my own bed and my own room? In view of how we affect each other?’ she asked straightly.

  ‘Domenica…’ he said her name as if the cadences of it were especially intriguing to him at the moment ‘…no, I wouldn’t. I’d be too happy to have your company to hold anything against you. But if I do get any foolish ideas, you may slap me down smartly.’

  ‘It’s myself I’m a little worried about,’ she said ruefully, ‘and don’t you dare laugh at me, Angus Keir!’

  But he did, and she laughed with him as he hugged her then put her away from him with decision. And they got up and drove back to the house.

  ‘That’s called—letting your fingers do the walking,’ Domenica said rather sternly.

  They were sitting in the lounge on a thick rug, leaning back against a heavy settee and watching the flames of a blaze Angus had lit in the fireplace to counteract the chill of the higher air of the Razorback Range, as well as a day that had clouded over towards the end of it. A bottle of wine stood in a cooler on the low table beside them. She had her glass in her hands but he didn’t appear to be interested in his win
e.

  He had his arm round her shoulders and his long fingers were caressing the side of her neck, a light pattern that was nevertheless interfering with her breathing.

  ‘These fingers would love to walk all over you, Domenica, but they shall desist. Shortly,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Because dinner will be ready shortly.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Can I do anything?’

  ‘You could set the table.’ She put her wine down, stretched and levered herself up. Then she laughed down at his expression. ‘It was either that or—let dinner burn,’ she said.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he replied gravely. ‘I’ll bring the wine.’

  She’d found his fridge well stocked but she’d made a simple meal of macaroni cheese and a salad. And as they ate she asked him if he intended to ‘do’ for himself, and why, as she looked around, could she see nothing that hadn’t always been at Lidcombe Peace?

  ‘Because all my things are still packed in boxes sitting in the garage,’ he answered. ‘And Mrs Bush is coming down tomorrow for a few days to do the unpacking as well as attend to hiring some local help for me.’

  ‘So you’re not moving the invaluable Mrs Bush down here permanently? Incidentally, I can give her a few names.’

  ‘Thank you. And no, I’ll still be spending time in town so I need her there. Besides which, she doesn’t like the country.’

  ‘Where—how do you live in town?’ Domenica asked curiously, then gestured. ‘I mean, in a house, an apartment, on the harbour or…?’

  ‘On the harbour, on the north shore, in a penthouse with lovely views of the water.’

  ‘How nice.’

  ‘It is.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘How about your apartment?’

  ‘It has one bedroom, it overlooks a park but has no harbour views.’ She stopped and looked around suddenly at the lovely interior of Lidcombe Peace.

  ‘It’s not exactly in enemy hands, Domenica,’ he said quietly.

  ‘No.’ She pushed her hair back behind her ears. ‘No, of course not.’