An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden

by Margaret Way

  Brock had half known that already. “So having Philip for a son-in-law would be useful in your father’s eyes?”

  She flushed. “You can see their reasoning. It involves security.”

  “But it’s all wrong. I can’t understand your willingness to allow your family to use you, Shelley.”

  “You’d accept it more readily if you could see how my parents are,” she answered, stung. “You’re right, of course. My parents are hiding behind closed doors. My once fine, upstanding father at this very moment is on a bender. Shocked? My mother, denied her husband’s support, is locked away from the world. I simply can’t bring myself to leave them.”

  “They might be better off,” he said harshly. “At the very least you wouldn’t have the life drained out of you.”

  “So there you are. We’re both caught up in dilemmas, Brock. Both of us have walked hand and hand with tragedy.”

  “Are we that much alike?” It was said more in acceptance than question.

  She had found him a clean white T-shirt of her father’s to put on, disposing of the ruined denim shirt. She fully intended to replace it the next time she went in to Koomera Crossing and told him so, though he briskly dismissed the suggestion.

  Amanda reappeared in a purple tank top over flower-sprigged cotton jeans, thinking it was maybe time for some afternoon tea.

  “That’s very kind of you, Amanda,” Philip said, knowing perfectly well Amanda wanted extra time to fascinate his cousin. “But we must get back to Mulgaree. We can’t leave Grandfather for long.”

  Your mother either, Brock just stopped himself from saying. Had his uncle Aaron not been tragically killed, Frances would be getting ready right now to take over as mistress of Mulgaree Station. It was all she had ever cared about anyway.

  Nothing in the world created as much trouble as money, Brock thought. Money and the quest for power. It could be very destructive in families. It had ruined his.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE desire to be rich in her own right had had a big bearing on Frances Kingsley’s life. Born of hard-working but struggling parents, she had insisted on a good education as a means of getting ahead. Both parents, secretly in awe of their strong-willed, ambitious only child, had juggled two jobs to send her on to university—where, she had informed them, she was most likely to meet a suitable husband.

  Blessed with striking good looks and a flair for dressing, she had gone single-mindedly about her studies—graduating with a degree in Economics—always on the lookout for the scion of a wealthy family. Most scions had realized her objectives very early, having been well prepared for such eventualities by their parents. Aaron Kingsley, son of multimillionaire cattle king Rex Kingsley, reared in the bush had not.

  Desperately in love, Aaron Kingsley—for the one and only time in his life—had defied his father. He’d married the young woman of his choice. It had taken him less than six months to decide he’d made a huge mistake. Their marriage had been a farce.

  Astonishment had faded and disillusionment set in. Under his very nose his bright, supportive, good-natured, hungry-for-sex girlfriend had turned into a different person. A person who wasn’t in love with him at all—who in fact disliked having sex with him—who wasn’t delighted by his little jokes, wasn’t the least interested in anything that was troubling him. Like his rocky relationship with his domineering father. Who was cold.

  Maybe if Aaron Kingsley, a decent young man, had married someone else he might have taken more care with his life. He might have been more ready when the rogue steer charged him.

  Frances, the young widow, had made sure she’d fallen pregnant early on in the marriage to secure her position, and continued to live in a very rich man’s home. The house of her father-in-law. Rex Kingsley. He’d been prepared to keep her and, far more importantly, his grandson in the style which Frances had taken to like a duck to water. Nevertheless Frances had found it difficult, given Mulgaree’s isolation and Rex Kingsley’s eagle eye, to meet new men. She wasn’t frigid, as poor Aaron had thought. It was simply that she’d married him on a cool, professional basis. He hadn’t been the lover she’d wanted.

  That was how her affair with Gerald Maitland had started.

  Frances greeted him at the airstrip. “Gerald, dear, how are you?”

  No one would have called Gerald Maitland handsome. He had a heavy face. He had lost a good deal of his hair. He had a full mouth and thick-set jaw. He was carrying too much weight, but he was a big man and there was something important-looking about him—only natural when he was senior partner in a top law firm. He had beautiful white even teeth that enhanced his smile when he was meeting personages. The Kingsleys qualified.

  “Delighted to see you again, Frances, my dear.” He bent to kiss her cheek, admiring how immaculately turned out she always was. “I’ve missed you. How’s Rex?”

  “Failing fast.” Frances favoured him with a smile of her own. “But his nurse is the very best. I do so rely on her. Rex is in terrible pain.”

  “Ah, well!” Maitland, still reasonably fit in his mid-fifties, shrugged philosophically. “I’m sorry to hear that. Money can buy most things, but immunity from death isn’t one of them.”

  “I’m terribly worried, Gerald,” Frances confided, lifting her dark eyes to him and at the same time laying a hand on his arm. “I think Rex means to change his will.”

  “Perhaps add a codicil?” Maitland suggested with a frown.

  “No.” Frances shook her head. “I think he means to pass Mulgaree to Brock.”

  “Surely not,” Maitland protested, running a snowy white handkerchief over his bald pate. God, it was hot! “Philip has always done his duty. He’s been here. He’s the elder grandson, not to mention Aaron’s son.”

  “Rex on his deathbed is seeing things differently.” Frances began to steer him towards the waiting four-wheel drive. “I think he’s brought you here to make a new will. To change everything. Even for me. I can’t bear the thought of that.”

  “It mightn’t happen, Frances.” Maitland sought to reassure her though his own thoughts had been running parallel. He never had found out just what had happened to Catherine—beautiful, sad Catherine—and her high-spirited, high-powered son. There was a lot of animal passion in that young man. He made his cousin seem drab.

  “You must let me know, Gerald,” Frances was imploring him. “You’re my friend. The best I have in the world. I don’t think I ever knew peace or love until I met you.”

  Gerald Maitland, shrewd as he was, actually believed her.

  Maitland had expected to see the old man soon after his arrival, but Rex Kingsley wasn’t well enough to talk. He and Frances sat down to an excellent lunch served by the Kingsley housekeeper Eula, who had been with the family virtually since dinosaurs roamed the Outback.

  Afterwards, to fill in the time, Frances took him off on the pretext of cooling down in the homestead’s splendid swimming pool. In fact they settled for leisurely sex in the locked pool house.

  Maitland, though he had loved his wife until the day she’d died, and would never have left her, hadn’t been averse to taking a mistress when the opportunity presented itself. It had worked out very well for both Gerald and Frances.

  Late afternoon in Rex Kingsley’s huge bedroom, that reeked of illness, saw that stern despotic man propped up by pillows, rasping to Gerald Maitland to get down to work.

  Maitland was shocked to see the great change in his client—and in so short a time. Without question Kingsley was dying. From the look of him, in a matter of hours.

  “What is it you want me to do, Rex?” Gerald Maitland half turned from the small table where he had set out pen and paper, lacking a business office.

  “Change my will. Why the hell else would I have you here?” Kingsley suddenly bellowed, struggling with his last spurt of red anger. “To facilitate your affair with Frances? Did you think I was such a fool I didn’t know what was going on with you two? Get started, man. I have to set things right�
��don’t I, Catherine?”

  Aghast on many scores, the lawyer turned around, almost expecting to see the ghost of Kingsley’s beautiful daughter in the shadows. Anything was possible in this old mausoleum.

  “You can get Eula to witness it, not the bloody nurse,” Kingsley barked. “Eula’s a good servant. She knows her job. Of course she hates me, and loved Catherine and the boy. I could have sacked her, but I understood. Get a move on, man. You don’t think it’s easy for me, do you? I’m in agony.”

  “I’m sorry, Rex. So sorry,” Maitland said, though he was filled with a terrible dislike of the man.

  Kingsley’s savage remark had brought home a truth. He was a fool to have allowed Frances to seduce him. That made him liable to a little blackmail. He had a fine upstanding son, who worked in the firm, and two lovely daughters, both married, giving him grandchildren. They thought the world of him. They had adored their mother.

  Gerald Maitland picked up his fountain pen and sat down. “I’ll take this down in longhand, Rex. When I return to the office I’ll have the will properly typed up and a photocopy sent to you immediately.”

  “Get on with it, for God’s sake!” Kingsley blasphemed, his once powerful hands clenched like talons on the coverlet.

  Kingsley swiftly began to pen the most serious of words:

  This is the last will and testament of Rex Burkett Kingsley, widower, landowner of Mulgaree Station, in the State of Queensland…

  Eula Martin never told anyone what she knew. But she didn’t think her niggling worries were a product of her imagination. She didn’t like the way Frances Kingsley and the lawyer had their heads together. It was all about money, she knew. No one could amass considerable wealth without the heirs putting up a fight to get their hands on it. Miss Catherine was out of the picture. She was in her grave in Ireland. Now her son was back to assume his rightful position.

  Eula couldn’t remember the precise moment when it had come to her that Frances and the family solicitor had formed a closet relationship. She only knew it was years ago. Since then Frances had had no shame about inventing any number of reasons why she should take a trip to the State capital. Shopping, checks on her health, big social functions—whatever. Eula was certain Frances had managed to fit in a rendezvous with her lawyer lover on every single occasion over the past years.

  Now they were talking as secretively as terrorists, at the far end of the hallway, the bright light streaming through the tall casement window illuminating their expressions. Obviously Frances was deeply upset and the lawyer was attempting to console her.

  Had old Kingsley, dreadful man that he was, found the strength and natural justice to change his will? If so, Eula rejoiced. It had to be that. Of course Gerald Maitland had no right to pass on the new will’s contents to Frances, but Eula was certain that was the cause of Frances Kingsley’s evident distress, which looked like helpless rage.

  There was not an instant to lose.

  Brock and Philip wouldn’t return to the house until sundown. Brock had slotted right back into station life, showing himself to be first-rate at handling the men and allocating duties around the vast station. What possible point was there in his cousin Philip objecting? Mulgaree and the Kingsley chain of cattle stations that stretched right across the giant State of Queensland was their future.

  The lawyer had asked her if she could find a large manila envelope to contain the handwritten will, duly witnessed by him and herself. Eula decided on the spur of the moment she’d go a step further.

  In desperate times one had to take desperate risks. Since Gerald had made her aware of the contents of Rex Kingsley’s new will Frances had been literally beside herself. She could speak to no one.

  Not yet.

  Brock had joined them for dinner, handsome face mocking, eyes aglitter, as though he knew very soon he would be lord of all he surveyed.

  “How did the day go, Gerald?”

  He addressed the solicitor, but Frances intervened. “Let’s hope you’re not too disappointed, Brock.” She gave him a bitter smile.

  “Stop teasing, Frances.” A warning light came into Gerald Maitland’s eyes. “It’s confidential, my boy. But you’ll know soon enough. Poor Rex can’t have too much longer to go.”

  “It must bother him the thought of facing up to his Maker.” Brock couldn’t sympathize. His grandfather had treated them all with a callous hand.

  Jealousy was a very powerful force. Frances knew from her lover that Rex Kingsley had left her and her son well provided for, but were they supposed to fall to the ground and kiss it in gratitude? The real power had been passed to Brock, who possessed far more formidable natural skills than his cousin and was already demonstrating them, even in the short time he had been back on Mulgaree. Philip, her son, had been bypassed.

  It wasn’t to be borne. The prize had been snatched from them right at the death—unless she could make a pact with Gerald, and only then after Rex Kingsley had passed away. It was only a matter of time. Days at the most. Really, when one thought about it, it would be doing the old man a great service to help him die quickly and painlessly.

  Furious as she was, Frances didn’t think she could carry it off.

  It was barely half past six the next morning when Shelley answered the phone. She’d been sitting alone in the kitchen, having a light breakfast and wondering how to approach her father about some refurbishments for the homestead, when the shrill sound of the phone had startled her. Her spoon clattered to the tiled floor. As she bent to retrieve it she bumped her head on the edge of the counter.

  “Not a good start!” She spoke aloud, fingering the bump.

  It got worse. It was Philip.

  “Grandfather’s dead,” he announced baldly. “His nurse found him an hour ago. I had to ring, Shelley. Times like these one needs the support of one’s friends. Could you do me a huge favour and come over to Mulgaree? I can collect you in the helicopter.”

  Shelley’s first thought was that it was entirely inappropriate. Her second that she didn’t want to go. She took a deep breath. “But what of the others, Philip? Brock and your mother? They won’t want me there at a time like this. Your mother would see it as an unwarranted intrusion.”

  “Who cares how she sees it?” Philip retorted, sounding thoroughly jangled. “She only cares about herself anyway. You’ve no idea of all the aggravations this last hour. Brock could inherit. He’s acting that way. Do you realize what a stunning blow that would be to me? It would mean so much if you lent your support. Please don’t object. I’d do the same for you,” he added with great intensity.

  He probably would. In the end compassion won out. With one possible undesirable side effect. Her gesture of sympathy for Philip might be interpreted by Brock as a kind of betrayal.

  She knew the instant before the tall, athletic figure jumped down onto the scorched grass it was Brock. No one else moved through space like he did. He dominated it with his energy and precision. As he came closer she noted the pallor beneath his dark polished skin, the diamond glitter of his eyes.

  “What happened to Philip?” she asked a little nervously, aware a devil had him.

  “Are you unwilling to fly with me?” he asked, as arrogant as you please.

  “Don’t be like that, Brock.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “This wasn’t my idea. Philip insisted he needed a friend.”

  “So sweet of you!” He put a hand to his strong throat, as if he was all choked up.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, exasperated, “he hit it right on the head when he said no one really cares about him.”

  “Hell, it’s not as though it’s hard to understand,” Brock retorted. “My cousin all his life did a big fat nothing for me. But he needs all the softness he can get from you.”

  His anger was triggering her own, the air between them crackling with tension. “If you’re so much against my coming, I won’t.”

  “Ah, please do. We don’t want Philip desperately upset,” he scoff
ed. “Who am I to stop you?”

  She looked full into his dark handsome face. “You could be a little more understanding.”

  “Well, I’m not a nice person.” He stared back at her moodily.

  “You certainly aren’t on occasions,” she answered crisply. “But please—don’t let’s fight.”

  “But I’m eager for more!”

  His eyes dazzled her. “I’ll do whatever you want.” She sighed. “Philip has his mother to hold his hand.”

  “Except she seems to have gone to pieces.” He gave a grim laugh. “That’s why I’m here. For once it’s Philip who’s supporting Mama. Frankly, I never thought Frances capable of such feeling. She may not be weeping buckets, but she’s giving a good impression of being distraught.”

  “Maybe you’ve been selling her short,” Shelley suggested dryly. “It’s possible she had some gentle feelings towards your grandfather.”

  “Never!” he mocked, bending down to press a brief hard kiss on her mouth before drawing away. “Her boyfriend’s there, of course. She may be trying to impress him. Probably he was brought up to believe a daughter-in-law should grieve.”

  “Who’s the boyfriend?” she asked, realizing her heart was pounding after that short, disturbing contact.

  “You mean you really don’t know?” Brock gave her a cynical glance.

  “I’m not exactly in on your family secrets.”

  “What? With Phil’s high regard for you on open display?”

  She glanced away, trying to hold onto her temper. “I’d feel for you too, Brock, if you’d only let me. But you’re too damned proud. So, who’s the boyfriend? Should I know?”

  “Phil must have been too embarrassed to tell you,” he drawled. “Gerald Maitland of Maitland-Pearson, the family solicitors. They’ve had fun and games for years now.”