Master of the Outback

by Margaret Way

  “Let me find the woman first,” he suggested, super-gently. He pushed a glowing strand of hair back into the rippling red-gold mass.

  “Could I ask you to let me go?”

  “You sound a bit afraid?”

  “So should you be,” she said.

  “Why would a goddess need to be afraid, let alone entreat?” he asked. “Besides, you don’t want me to let you go, Genevieve. I do know a little bit about women.”

  “You know nothing about me.” A flash of spirit.

  “Ah, but that’s the puzzling thing. I feel I do know you,” he said. “You’re familiar to me somehow. Maybe since you’re so spiritually accomplished you can explain that?”

  Everything seemed to be unfolding in slow motion. The sense of intimacy confounded her. So much so Genevieve found it a huge effort just to keep breathing. “Maybe we met in another life?” she suggested. Her voice, even to her own ears, sounded dreamy. But that was the mesmerising effect his brilliant dark gaze was having on her. “Maybe we’re kindred souls? Who knows?”

  “Karma, perhaps? But how can you tell?”

  He was staring down at her as if the answer lay in the shimmering depths of her eyes.

  She turned her head to one side. “Are you trying to hypnotise me?”

  “Do you think that might help us to understand what’s going on here?” he asked.

  “So you are trying to hypnotise me?”

  His voice dropped low into his chest. “I might, if I didn’t have to consider the enormity of it.” He turned her face back to him. “You’re here under my roof, hence under my protection. Headache gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow! That was quick.”

  She flared up at his changed tone. “I wasn’t lying. I did have a headache.”

  “Miraculously cured.”

  Was his smile that left her throbbing with desire triumphant? “How you enjoy baiting me.” She turned on him in accusation.

  “Maybe I do, Genevieve. But my heart isn’t really in it.”

  “You’ve got a heart, then?” If he didn’t, she had.

  “I must. It’s hammering away. Like yours.” Briefly he touched a hand to her breast, as if to check her heartbeat. “Anyway, I thought you wanted some excitement?” His breath was warm, spirit-flavoured against her cheek. “Isn’t that what you said was needed? A bit of excitement?”

  “Who would have thought it? You’re a devil with women.” Her iridescent eyes challenged.

  “Nonsense.” Very gently he moved his hands beneath the thick silky fall of her hair, encircling her nape. “The way I see it, Genevieve, you’re definitely a witch—as stated.”

  She was trembling visibly, vibrations moving through her body. She wanted him to touch her breast again. How foolish was that? “I can’t be. I don’t twitch my nose.” She tried for a joke. Anything to lighten the emotion-charged atmosphere.

  They were both in some sort of sensual trance. Pressure was mounting. None of it of her choosing, she tried to excuse herself. There had been no rapid escalation of attraction. She had been visited by that most extraordinary of events. The coup de foudre. Love at first sight. The deed was done. No magic spell could undo it.

  They continued to remain tantalising inches apart. It was a distance Trevelyan felt committed to, astounded to find his habitual hard control was damn near fragile. He weakened to the extent that he allowed his questing mouth to trail down from her temple, across her heated cheek, finally taking and closing in on her luscious mouth.

  Genevieve’s whole body convulsed as his tongue slipped into her open mouth, tangling with hers after a single erotic split second. She felt engulfed in flames. Her nipples, already aroused, budded tight against the silk-satin of her gown. There was an urgent near-painful throbbing down low in her body. What was happening was beyond reason she thought.

  He breathed her name.

  Genevieve.

  She couldn’t be sure. It could have been her mind playing tricks on her. Her limbs felt so weak she felt the urgent need to lie down with him. She was drowning in an unprecedented rapture. It was even possible she would dissolve in her own tears. They were pricking her eyes.

  Adrenalin was raging like volcanic lava through Trevelyan’s veins, causing his heart to knock punishingly against his ribs. He wanted this woman so badly he would have had to be forged from steel to resist her. Yet he managed to hold on to sufficient strength, bolstered by his innate sense of responsibility, to realise that if he pulled her beautiful yielding body into him, fused her hard against him, he would lose himself and her in the bonfire.

  Doing the right thing mattered. He had a duty to her. That wild, primitive part of him that she so easily called up like a great storm, that part that was mad to take her, had to be controlled. For both their sakes.

  He gave it long moments, his hands clutching her delicate shoulders. When he spoke his voice had a rough edge. “What do you say? Enough excitement for the night?”

  It was a worry, but she couldn’t speak.

  “You’re a very sensual woman, Genevieve,” he breathed, thinking it had to be the understatement of the year.

  “So I’m to believe I initiated this?” Slowly she lifted her head. If his hands weren’t clamped so firmly on her shoulders she felt she might slump to the floor.

  “You are every man’s dream.” His voice was still rough with control. “Your ex-fiancé must have been a perfect fool.”

  “I don’t remember.” How could she remember Mark when she was utterly exposed to Trevelyan?

  “Let me get this straight. He didn’t grovel? Beg for you to take him back?”

  Her backbone straightened. “I wouldn’t have taken him back if he’d prostrated himself on the floor, inviting me to stomp all over him.”

  He cut his laugh short. “I take it he betrayed you in some way?” He was closely watching her face.

  “Trust counts,” she said. No residual anger, just a plain statement of fact. “It’s probably the most important thing between a man and a woman.”

  “You mean that?”

  The seriousness of his tone had her searching his eyes. “Of course I mean it. I do.”

  “That sounded a bit like a marriage vow, Genevieve.”

  “Well, we all have to get married finally, don’t we? I want children. I want the man I love to father them.”

  His lustrous eyes gleamed. “I’m not reading your need for a marriage proposal into this, am I, Genevieve?”

  She forced herself to cast off the enveloping veils of sexual languor. “I think it’s about time we finished this conversation, don’t you? Are you going to open the door?”

  “Alas, alas, I must,” he lamented, removing his hands from her shoulders. “I might wish we could stay here until dawn, but we both need our sleep.”

  When they were safely back in the corridor she said, “Before I leave I’d love to see the rock paintings. I understand they’re in what you call the Hill Country?”

  “Before you leave?” he queried, making it sound as if there was no possibility of that.

  “Five or six months’ time,” she faltered, perturbed by his tone.

  “Well, we’d better get cracking then,” he said with a satirical edge. “I’ll find time fairly soon. I can’t promise when. The aerial muster comes first.”

  “You mean you’ll take me?”

  “You’re not going to see them without me,” he assured her dryly.

  “Exactly what I thought.”

  “And one more thing,” he called as she turned away to make her escape, the hem of her apricot robe spinning around her ankles.

  “Yes?”

  His dark gaze held her firmly in place. “Will you want to leave? That’s t
he thing.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT TURNED out to be a hectic week. Wonder of wonders, Hester had taken it into her head to approve the young woman who was ghostwriting her book.

  Hester Trevelyan with Genevieve Grenville.

  Genevieve could see it now. Hester’s name in capitals, of course.

  Hester spent several hours a day with Genevieve, imparting recently surfaced memories and more information. “I’m really pleased with the way you’re working,” she said, fingering her pearls. “You’ve organised everything into fine order.”

  “I think so too.” No point in being unduly modest. She had worked very hard, not needing motivation.

  “Dull bits out. Interesting bits in. Djangala has a ghost, you know.”

  Genevieve’s heart leapt into her throat. “Man or woman?”

  “A young woman speared to death many times by her wicked old husband,” Hester said quite casually, as though spearing were an everyday affair. “Such violent creatures, men,” she said derisively. “They behave like savages even when they’re not. It was the same old story. A young man—the lover—died too. The kurdaicha man got him. It was the kurdaicha man’s job to avenge the husband on the young man.”

  “So this is an aboriginal legend?” Genevieve asked, her heartbeat slowing.

  “Legend nothing!” Hester sent her a sharp look. “The killings were real. There are strict rules. They were broken. The lovers knew what would overtake them, but they took the risk nevertheless. Lovers are forever doing that,” she said harshly. “Lovers are the biggest risk-takers of all.”

  “So the speared young woman has been seen at various times around the station?”

  “Not around,” Hester exploded. “There is only one place. That is where my father found her body. Actually what was left of her body, what with all the birds and wildlife around.”

  “How horrible!” Genevieve shuddered. “So how does she appear—and where?”

  “Everyone on the station knows where she appears. You’re the only one who doesn’t and I’m not about to enlighten you. You’re a young woman with a great deal of imagination.”

  “But I’d like to put it in the book. Any other ghosts?” Genevieve looked directly into the old lady’s eyes, wishing she could tap into Hester’s secrets.

  “We white people keep our ghosts corralled,” Hester said dryly, in her turn studying Genevieve closely. “I’m not speaking in fun, my dear. This is serious business. Aborigines believe in sorcery and magical operations. Not so long ago on this very station the kurdaicha man was responsible for several deaths. Men and women who had broken jealously guarded taboos. If he was powerful enough he didn’t have to creep up on them with his spear, he sang them to death. You can’t question it. I assure you it happened.”

  “Even in the city one hears of such remarkable stories,” Genevieve said. “The Outback has a mysticism and a glamour for we city-dwellers. Is it possible the person under the spell believed in it so implicitly it was broadly speaking suicide? Auto-suggestion? It works. Many people believe placebos work if the idea is firmly planted in their minds.”

  “There you go!” exclaimed Hester. “Anyway, it was a very long time ago.”

  “Is anything a long time ago?” Genevieve asked. “Aren’t we all immersed in the past?”

  Hester subjected her to a long fixed stare, then she leaned in. “You’re a highly unusual young woman.” She tapped Genevieve sharply on the back of the hand. “I don’t expect comments like that from someone your age. Mine, certainly. But you?”

  “That’s my mindset. I studied philosophy at university.”

  “Ah, the great minds!” Hester exclaimed. “I have to tell you I’ve been grappling with life’s most fundamental questions for donkey’s years now. I know no more now than I did then. In my view even the most brilliant minds didn’t get it right. Now, enough of that! I’ve put my hand on some old photographs we might be able to use.”

  “Let’s see them,” Genevieve responded with keen interest. “You really were remarkably beautiful, Ms Trevelyan.” It was no stretch of the truth.

  The expression on Hester’s face didn’t change with the compliment, as sincerely as it had been meant. “Didn’t have a beautiful heart,” she said with what sounded like self-loathing. “Much less soul. I wasn’t a good person. The years haven’t improved me. I know what people think of me. They want me to die. Not Bret. Bret knows me better than anyone. You don’t find men like Bret.”

  No argument there.

  Genevieve began to sort through the faded photographs, offering up a silent prayer that she would find Catherine in at least one of them. Not prominently featured, perhaps, but a figure in a group?

  When she finally came on a surprisingly clear photograph of a large group of guests she could barely make a sound or utter a word. Most were smiling at the camera, a few had been caught off guard, one was grimacing in the sun.

  Hester, expecting a different reaction, looked at her in amazement, brows fiercely knotted. “What’s wrong with you, girl? You’ve gone quite pale.”

  Genevieve had a struggle to find her voice. “The heat, I expect. I’m not used to it.”

  “You looked as cool as a cucumber a moment ago,” Hester said with some scepticism but real concern. “So what caught your eye?”

  “A p-particular face, I suppose,” Genevieve stammered. “A lovely face. Who’s that?” She turned the black and white photograph towards Hester.

  For an instant Hester turned to a pillar of stone. Then, galvanised, she grabbed the photograph out of Genevieve’s hand with no apology for her rudeness. “This one shouldn’t be here.” Her voice was reedy with strain.

  “It was stuck behind one of the others, but it’s a photograph that should be included, don’t you think? Who is the lovely blonde standing beside you? You’re resting your hand on her shoulder. You look so happy.”

  The petite dark-haired young woman on Catherine’s left was smiling broadly. It had to be Patricia. A rather formidable-looking young woman to Hester’s right was staring off into the distance.

  Hester’s forehead had broken out into a damp sweat. “You’re right. It is hot. I need to go back to my room. Carry on without me.”

  “May I have the photograph back?” Genevieve dared to ask.

  “No!” Hester Trevelyan barked. “I don’t want anyone to see her.”

  But I have seen her.

  The lovely blonde was Catherine. Her mouth was tilted in a carefree smile, her beautiful hair was caught back with a scarf, a silky flap falling on her shoulder. Genevieve recognised Hester’s hand on her shoulder as proprietorial.

  Genevieve had the absolute certainty that Catherine was the young woman Hester had loved. No doubts at all. A voice had been continually whispering in her ear since she’d arrived on Djangala. Catherine dead for decades but still here. Hester had loved Catherine, but for some reason come to hate her. Was it conceivable both brother and sister had fallen in love with Catherine? It wasn’t that unusual. And what of Patricia? The woman in waiting? If it was a love triangle it had an entirely different configuration from her initial conventional beliefs.

  Love and hate were different sides of the same coin. She could see now her initial preconceptions would have to be jettisoned.

  A few mornings later, Nori came at a near rush into the library. The expression on her normally serene face was somewhat rattled.

  “Well, what is it?” Hester cranked her snow-white head about like a highly irritable cockatoo.

  Hester had to be going for the world record for rudeness, Genevieve thought. Maybe she had it already? Or was Hester’s abrasive manner so long entrenched it could be the result of the self-loathing she had so briefly glimpsed?

  “I thought you would want to know, M
s Trevelyan, Ms Rawleigh has flown in,” Nori explained.

  “What through the door?” Hester’s voice came close to an enraged squawk.

  Genevieve’s own intense interest in the morning’s proceedings was spoiled. Liane Rawleigh! She was no happier to hear that than Hester.

  “One of the men brought the message. A helicopter dropped Ms Rawleigh off. She is staying over, perhaps?”

  “Damn and blast!” Hester looked as if she wanted to commit murder. “I wonder what she wants?” she asked wrathfully. “I suppose the simplest explanation is she wants Bret. I’m most unpleasantly put out, I can tell you. What that young woman did still comes back to me. I never did like her. Moreover, I don’t wish to deal with her.”

  She staggered up, as majestically as she could, looking down at the seated Genevieve.

  “You will have to take care of it, my dear. Not that she will stay in the house long,” she commented acidly. “She’ll be chasing after Bret. If she asks where he is, don’t tell her. It gladdens my heart to know she’ll never get him back. Not in a million years. I don’t know how they got together in the first place. Proclivity, I suppose, and that pushy mother of hers. Why, they don’t even speak the same language! Liane Rawleigh was simply not good enough for my great-nephew. I’m going to my room. You can send up tea, Mrs Cahill. I’ll have lunch in my room as well. Dinner too, if she’s staying over. God forbid for a few days. I’m off!” she announced, as though she was about to lead an expedition into the Interior. “Genevieve, I put you in charge.”

  Nori remained in the library for a few moments after Hester had stalked off, listing to one side. “For once I agree with Ms Trevelyan,” she said.

  “Liane is not popular?”

  “If it’s possible she’s even more odious to me than Ms Hester,” Nori confessed.

  “Why tolerate it?” Genevieve asked, angry on Nori’s account.

  “You know the old saying—softly, softly, catchee monkey?” Nori smiled.