Late Harvest

by Yvonne Whittal

  'His mind was perfectly sound, Kate, and you know that as well as I do,' the attorney informed her.

  'Aunt Edwina?'

  Her hands reached out to the woman who had taken the place of her mother ever since she had been a small child of two, but there was no comfort in the hands that gripped Kate's.

  'My dear,' Edwina began gently, 'I don't want Solitaire any more than you want to marry Rhyno, but it wouldn't be wise to come to a hasty decision. Give yourself time— you have almost thirty days, and perhaps, when the shock has worn off, you might not find your father's wishes so unpalatable.'

  'I could never marry a man I dislike as intensely as I dislike Rhyno van der Bijl, and besides…' Kate paused and withdrew her hands agitatedly from her aunt's, 'there's Gavin.'

  'Gavin Page, yes,' Edwina murmured, her lips tightening. 'And where is Gavin today? Why isn't he here to give you the necessary support?'

  'He had business to attend to in Cape Town, and he'll only be back tomorrow,' Kate defended the man she had come to care for since their chance meeting three months ago.

  Hubert coughed politely. 'Shall we retire to the living-room?'

  Edwina nodded, and they rose from the table, their footsteps on the yellow-wood floor echoing across the room.

  Naomi van der Bijl awaited them in the spacious living-room with its mixture of modern and antique furnishings. She was seated facing the door, and her dark glance darted towards Rhyno who' stood in front of the tall window with his back turned resolutely towards them when they entered. Kate's glance travelled briefly from his proud, dark head down to his polished shoes. His lean body was tanned, and muscled beneath that sober grey suit, and no one knew better than Kate of the strength in those long arms and large rough hands. She had seen him working alongside the labourers in the vineyards when they had been short-staffed, and it was Rhyno who had carried her father single-handed into the house after he had collapsed in the cellars with cardiac arrest.

  'I suppose Rhyno has told you?' said Kate, staring down into Naomi van der Bijl's troubled face.

  'Yes, and I—'

  'I think the least said at this moment, Mother, the better for all of us,' Rhyno interrupted harshly, turning from his contemplation of the garden, and Naomi glanced at him somewhat nervously and nodded.

  'Perhaps you're right,' she acknowledged with some reluctance, her hands tightening on her handbag.

  'Will you stay and have tea with us, Naomi?' Edwina asked, breaking that short, awkward silence in the room.

  'No, thank you,' Naomi shook her head and got to her feet. 'I must think of going home.'

  Rhyno stepped forward at once. 'I'll walk you out to your car, Mother, and then there are a few things I have to see to before the afternoon progresses too far.'

  Rhyno's abruptness bordered almost on rudeness, and Naomi glanced at him reprovingly before she took her leave of everyone.

  Hubert Walton left Solitaire a short while after Naomi van der Bijl, and when Kate found herself alone with her aunt, she cried hoarsely, 'I can't marry that man! I just can't!'

  'I dare say he feels the same way about you,' Edwina reminded her caustically. 'No man likes to be bulldozed into a marriage he's not ready for.'

  'I wish to heaven I knew what had possessed Daddy to make such a ridiculous will,' Kate muttered, pacing the floor agitatedly. 'He knew how I felt about that man. Good lord, didn't we have enough arguments during the past eighteen months to make him realise how much I resented that man's presence here on Solitaire?'

  Edwina smiled reminiscently. 'Your father was always a shrewd man. He was extremely clever too, but he had an unpredictable streak in him which made it difficult to know exactly what to expect of him at times.'

  'Lord, don't I know that!' Kate exclaimed, her sapphire blue eyes flashing as anger and resentment fought for supremacy. 'I love Solitaire. I love every square inch of it, and I'm damned if I'm going to lose what belongs to me!'

  'You've made up your mind to marry Rhyno, then?'

  'No!' Kate retorted fiercely, swinging round to face her aunt, and her face was set with a mixture of distaste and determination. 'I'll never marry Rhyno, but I'll get Solitaire somehow.'

  When the sun dipped in the west, heralding the start of a warm January night, a feeling of desolation and despair replaced the initial shock of hearing the stipulations Jacques Duval had made in his will. The house was quiet, too quiet, when Edwina and Kate finally sat down to dinner in the dining-hall. Her father's chair was empty, but she felt his presence so distinctly that she could almost smell the musty odour of the wine cellars which nearly always clung to his clothes. A lump rose in her throat, and her eyes filled with tears. She was going to miss him dreadfully, but mingled with her sorrow was resentment, anger… and bewilderment. If only she could understand her father's reasons for making those crazy stipulations!

  'You're not eating,' Edwina accused, her voice butting in on Kate's unhappy thoughts.

  'I'm not very hungry.'

  'You're much too thin,' Edwina complained, her grey eyes taking in Kate's slenderness in the pale blue dress she had changed into before dinner. 'And you're not going to solve your problems by going on a starvation diet.'

  Kate raised her glance, and her eyes were clouded as they met those of the grey-haired woman seated opposite her. 'How am I going to solve my problems?'

  'You could come to some agreement with Rhyno.'

  'Never!' Kate snapped fiercely, her hands clenching on the table.

  'He stands to lose just as much as you do,' Edwina reminded her quietly. 'La Reine was once his home, and it's only natural that he would wish to take possession of it again instead of letting it fall into strange hands.'

  'Well, that's too bad for him!' Kate replied with unaccustomed callousness. 'Solitaire is my concern, but I refuse to tie myself to any man in order to get it.'

  'How are you going to get Solitaire without marrying Rhyno?' Edwina asked the burning question.

  'I don't know.' Kate bit her lip irritably. 'There must be another way. There has to be!'

  Kate could not fall asleep that night. She lay awake for hours thinking; planning, rejecting, and planning again, but each time she came up against the same blank wall. To take possession of Solitaire she had to marry Rhyno. But what if he did not want to marry her? She suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. She had not thought of it that way before. What if there was no other way out of this mess, and Rhyno refused?

  She shivered despite the warmth of the night, and slipped down beneath the sheet, dragging it up to her chin. There was no reason why Rhyno should want to marry her, except if he wanted La Reine as much as she wanted Solitaire, and not even that would be reason enough. He disliked her as much as she disliked him, and there was no way the two of them could live together peaceably for a year.

  'Why do I dislike him so much?' she finally asked herself, and she could not, in all honesty, answer that question. She could not deny that there had been times when she had actually felt attracted to him, and neither could she deny that she had found herself watching him intently on so many occasions when he had been unaware of her presence. There was something indefinable about him which had disturbed her from the first moment they had met all those months ago, but antagonism and conflicting ideas concerning his method of farming had overshadowed everything else, and mostly she had thought of him with resentment; a resentment which had turned to dislike.

  Her father had had a very high regard for Rhyno, and there had been times when he had treated him almost like a son. This had puzzled Kate, but she had never questioned her father on the subject. You could argue with Jacques Duval, but one never questioned his actions, for it was something he seldom tolerated. Now he was no longer there; he was lying next to her mother in the shade of the whispering cypress trees, and his actions could not be questioned even if Kate had wanted to.

  The slave bell was rung early the following morning to herald the belated start of the harvest, and it was a cool, cloud
y day, ideal for picking those swollen, gleaming berries which hung in heavy bunches on the vines. Life had to go on, the production of Solitaire's superb wines had to continue, but Jacques Duval would no longer be there to witness the proceedings. From now until late summer almost every man, woman and child of Solitaire's community would be in the vineyards, filling their baskets as swiftly and deftly as they could. Every basket they filled meant more money in their pockets, and every load that reached the winepress would guarantee the good quality of Solitaire's wines.

  Steen… Riesling… Colombard… Kate knew every cultivar grown on Solitaire, she knew their character, and how to blend them, if necessary, for the best results. She had been an apt pupil, eager to learn all there was to know, and always there had been the knowledge that one day Solitaire would belong to her. That dream had now been shattered into tiny fragments. Unless she married Rhyno, or found some escape hole in her father's will, Solitaire would belong to Aunt Edwina with the clear understanding that it would be sold after her death. With Aunt Edwina, however reluctant, at the helm of this large estate, life would go on very much the same as it had done in the past. This was not what troubled Kate. It was the sale of Solitaire after her aunt's eventual death that drove her nearly out of her mind. Strange hands would till the soil, harvest the berries, and nurse the fine wines towards maturity, and those hands might not be as loving as they ought to be.

  It was these discomfiting thoughts that made Kate drive into Stellenbosch after lunch that day to see Hubert Walton. She wanted him to read her that last part of her father's will, she wanted to hear every word again to make certain that she had not missed that vital loophole while she had been in a state of shock the previous day, and then, perhaps, she could come to a decision about the future.

  When she entered Hubert Walton's, office she found Rhyno lounging in a chair with one of his battered pipes clenched between his strong teeth, and the aroma of his particular brand of tobacco was all around her in the smoke-filled room.

  'If you've come to find some way out of those confounded stipulations your father made in his will, then you're wasting your time,' Rhyno told her bluntly before Hubert could formulate some sort of welcome. 'Mr Walton and I have spent an exhausting hour going over every detail in your father's will with meticulous care, and there's nothing anyone can do to alter it.'

  'I'd like to decide that for myself, thank you,' she told him coldly, resentment stiffening her back, and lighting a spark of antagonism in her eyes.

  'Please yourself,' he shrugged, pocketing his pipe and rising to his feet to dominate her with his height, if nothing else. 'When you've satisfied yourself, as I have, that there's no way out, perhaps we could have a serious discussion concerning this awkward matter.'

  He nodded abruptly in Hubert's direction, and moments later the panelled door closed behind his tall frame.

  'Don't you think you should open a window, Uncle Hubert?' Kate suggested tritely. 'This room positively reeks with his filthy tobacco!'

  Hubert raised his heavy eyebrows in faint amusement, but he nevertheless got up behind his desk and opened one of the windows to admit the fresh air. 'Is that better?' he asked blandly.

  'Much better,' Kate nodded, still feeling prickly at finding Rhyno there with the attorney.

  'Kate,' Hubert began, resuming his seat behind his wide desk, 'if you won't take Rhyno's word for it, then at least take mine. Your father's will is most explicit, and when it was drawn up Jacques made quite sure that his wishes would have to be carried out to the very letter.'

  'You mean if I want Solitaire I shall have to marry Rhyno, if he'll have me, or I shall have to buy it after Aunt Edwina's death.'

  'No bank or building society will give you a loan without the necessary collateral, and if Solitaire should go on the market the price would be beyond most people… even you, Kate, and the deposit would be phenomenal.'

  'But surely I shall have a share in the profits during the years that Solitaire will be in Aunt Edwina's possession?' Kate questioned sharply. 'Won't there eventually be enough with which to—'

  'I shall be handling the financial side, Kate,' Hubert interrupted firmly, 'and I've been instructed to see to it that you and your aunt live comfortably. The rest of whatever profits there are will go into a trust, and it will be added to the money received when Solitaire is sold.'

  Kate stiffened and paled considerably. 'You never mentioned this yesterday.'

  'No, I didn't mention it,' Hubert admitted calmly, 'and I withheld this information for the simple reason that I was hoping you and Rhyno would be able to work something out together.'

  'You mean you're actually hoping that I'll marry him?' she asked incredulously, lowering herself into the chair Rhyno had vacated some minutes before, and she stared at the attorney as if she thought he had gone mad.

  'I'm hoping,' Hubert said, 'that you'll give the situation a great deal of sensible thought, and I'm hoping that you love Solitaire enough to want to keep it.'

  The intercom buzzed on his desk, and when he flicked the required switch his secretary's voice said: 'Mr Baxter is here to see you, Mr Walton.'

  'Ask him to wait a moment, will you?'

  Hubert flicked that same switch and raised his glance apologetically, but Kate was already on her feet, her handbag clutched tightly under her arm.

  'It was kind of you to see me without an appointment, and I must be going,' she said quickly, disappointment etched in the curve of her mouth. 'I have a lot to think about.'

  She walked out of his office and took the lift down to the ground floor. Slim and elegant in her cinnamon-coloured suit, she was unaware of the admiring glances following her as she crossed the street to where she had parked her Mercedes sports car which had been a gift from her father on her last birthday. She had too much to think about, and her mind was in too much of a turmoil to be aware of anything that went on around her at that moment.

  'Kate!' A hand gripped her arm, and a startled gasp escaped her as she found herself staring up into Rhyno's dark, unfathomable eyes. 'We have to talk, and the sooner we do so, the better.'

  'We have nothing to say to each other,' she argued stubbornly, trying to extricate her arm from his steel-like grip, but his fingers merely tightened, biting into the soft flesh until she was forced to cease her efforts.

  'There's a bench over there beneath the trees,' he said, gesturing with his free hand. 'We'll talk there.'

  His dominating attitude infuriated her, but a busy pavement in the centre of town was not the place for a scene, and she allowed herself to be led towards the bench with an audible sigh of resignation which lit a spark of anger in his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  'You may let go of my arm,' Kate said icily when she was seated beside Rhyno on the wooden bench, and although he released her at once she had the distinct feeling that she was as much a prisoner as before. His lean, muscled body was ready for action at a moment's notice if she should try to escape, and she knew that it would be futile to try.

  'I know we haven't always agreed in the past, but I think we've always managed to be civil to each other.'

  Kate flashed him an angry glance. 'Get to the point!'

  'Don't treat me as if I dictated your father's will.' His eyes were hard, and his mouth was drawn into a thin, ruthless line. 'We're in the same boat, you and I, and we'll just have to make the best of things. We have time to consider what we're going to do, but that's the only thing we have time for at the moment. The harvest must go on, and without your father there to help me I'm finding it difficult trying to be in two places at the same time.'

  Her soft, pink lips curved in a cynical smile. 'Are you asking me to help you?'

  'Why not?' His mouth twitched and relaxed slightly. 'Despite your old-fashioned ideas you have an outstanding knowledge of winemaking, and your assistance now during the harvest season could be a valuable asset.'

  'Really?'

  'Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Kate,' he rebuked her sharply. 'Wil
l you help me?'

  'Yes,' she snapped bitterly. 'Although I don't know why I should. Between you and my father you did your level best to exclude me from everything except the paper work during the past year and a half, and now I'm suddenly good enough to take my father's place.'

  'Until you decide one way or the other, Kate, Solitaire is yours,' he reminded her harshly. 'Let me down now, and in the end you'll be letting Solitaire down.'

  Kate winced inwardly and avoided those dark, penetrating eyes. 'You certainly know how to hit below the belt, don't you?'

  'Someone has to bring you to your senses.'

  'And you consider you're the one to do it?'

  'If I have to do it, then I will,' he stated bluntly. 'We can't all spend our days feeling sorry for you, Kate.'

  'Feeling sorry for me?' She almost choked on the words, and anger sparkled in the eyes that met his. 'How dare you!'

  'It's the truth, whether you like it or not,' Rhyno insisted blandly. 'Hubert Walton and your Aunt Edwina are both too sorry for you to tell you to snap out of it. The future has to be faced, and you can't face it with a head full of woolly notions. When you want something you have to work for it, and that goes for Solitaire as well. If you want the estate, then you will have to prove that you're worthy of it.'

  Her angry glance did not waver from his as she asked cynically, 'How badly do you want La Reine?'

  His expression hardened ruthlessly. 'I want it badly enough to consider marrying you for it.'

  'Over my dead body will you get La Reine that way!' she exclaimed fiercely, her insides in revolt at the mere thought of marrying this man.

  'I think we should get back to the estate. There's work to be done, and we're wasting precious daylight,' he said, and his seemingly unperturbed manner merely infuriated her more, but she bit back the angry words that rose to her lips as he drew her to her feet and accompanied her to where she had parked her car.