by Margaret Way
* * *
Damon saw her into her next port of call, her favourite department store, David Jones, although the city’s central business district was a serious shopper’s dream. She had run out of a few items of make-up that needed replacing. She had found these days she had to look just so. “Sorry if I embarrassed you back there,” she said. “I don’t need Troy’s attention.”
“Well, you have to know you’ve got it,” Damon replied very dryly.
“That’s why I said you were coming to Beaumont for a few days. I can’t spend time trying to analyse Troy’s various hang-ups.”
“But you know he’s got them?”
“I think he was born with them,” Carol said as her memories of Troy the boy came creepy-crawling back.
“So I’m protection?”
“Something like that.” Carol flashed him a crystalline-blue glance. She would welcome his acceptance!
“Hmm...!” He looked away over her radiant head. “I wondered why you didn’t tell me you were spending Christmas with the Chancellors. I just can’t identify that lot as your family.”
“Nothing I can do about it.” Carol shrugged. “I was going to tell you, Damon. But something got in the way.”
“Someone, you mean?”
“Well...that. I would love you to come, Damon, but I know you will have plans.”
He had. At least one had included her. Now this! “No plan that I can’t put off,” he said lightly. “Or change to another time.”
“Does that mean you will come?”
Her open pleasure was infectious. “The answer is simple. I’m here for you, Carol. What days were you thinking?”
Her spirits soaring, she started to fill him in. “I’m planning on driving there Christmas Eve. Uncle Maurice issued the invitation. He sounded very much like he wants to make amends.”
There was a sudden glitter in Damon’s clever dark eyes. “Did you swallow it?”
Carol winced at the dry-as-ash tone. “How could I? He spoke like he was very kindly inviting me to what is now my own home. It’s going to be hard to evict Uncle Maurice and dear Dallas. Poppy’s will smashed all their expectations to smithereens. It’s going to take time for it all to sink in.”
For someone so young, she displayed a bemusing maturity.
“By the way, I invited my friend from uni, Amanda Gregson. You met her briefly.”
“The cheeky one?”
“That’s Amanda. She’s very bright, you know. I told you, she’s the one who constantly tells me to watch my back with the family. She’ll come down with me. I suppose you can’t possibly come for Christmas Day?”
“Now, what can you offer as an enticement?” He slanted her a deliberately uncomplicated smile.
“The best Christmas dinner you’ve ever had.” She made an on-the-spot promise, acutely aware she had blushed when there had been little or no innuendo in his tone. Why would there be? “You can bring a friend, if you like.”
“Okay, I’m in, but I’ll come alone. I’ll drive down late afternoon. I’m bound to have a few outstanding matters to settle first.”
“God bless you!” Carol couldn’t help herself. She spoke fervently. They were standing in a quiet spot against an exterior wall, but she had actually ceased to be aware of her surroundings with well-dressed shoppers hurrying to and fro. She was equally unaware they had been the intense focus of a good many people, two in particular. Apart from the fact they were so good-looking and such perfect foils, their faces had become known to the public.
“Why are you doing this, Carol?” Damon asked very seriously. “You know the lot of them are consumed with envy. Your uncle is not to be trusted.”
“Some part of me knows that for certain,” Carol said. “Some fragment of memory. I don’t know what it is. You think he would try to hurt me?”
Damon turned his elegant hands out. “Maurice Chancellor wouldn’t be fool enough to do such a thing.” Chancellor would make sure he could never be accused of anything. But a man with his resources inevitably had people to do things for him. “He would never be so stupid.” He had no intention of creating additional concerns for Carol, but that childhood memory of hers troubled him as much as it apparently troubled her. Was a five-year-old child’s memory at all reliable? Yes, he thought, going on his own recollection of his father.
“Perhaps not.” Carol sighed. “But I wouldn’t put it past him to have a dogsbody always on hand to do his dirty work for him,” she said, echoing his own thoughts. “The rich don’t soil their hands.”
She had well and truly figured her uncle out. “Don’t allow your mind to run along those lines, Carol.”
“Most families have family feuds, I guess,” she said poignantly.
Especially the rich.
“Why are you really going?” Damon felt she had a definite agenda.
“I want to search the house for more photographs Poppy might have had taken,” she answered readily. “I want to find everything I can of my father’s. You know, some people thought my mother deliberately left my father to drown.”
“People love to talk, Carol,” he said gently. “You can’t stop them.”
“Have you ever noticed how a lot of people born to privilege and every advantage in life die early?” She stared up into his eyes.
“A lot die because of it,” Damon, the lawyer, said. “Drugs, an offshoot getting mixed up with the wrong people, lifestyle, high-powered cars, neuroses when things don’t go exactly as they want. I know none of that applied to your father. It was an accident—accidents can and do happen frequently on boats.”
“Maybe all the cruel gossip ruined my mother,” Carol suggested, hanging on his answer.
“Maybe,” Damon said, not believing it for one moment. He had only met Roxanne Emmett once, at Selwyn Chancellor’s funeral. He had seen behind the high-gloss, sexy mask. Here was your classic narcissist, centred on self. He had the dismal feeling if he did a bit of research he might unearth the possibility Adam Chancellor had wanted a divorce. There was bound to have been a pre-nuptial agreement limiting what Roxanne would get should the marriage fail; Selwyn Chancellor would have seen to that. From all accounts, Roxanne Chancellor had been spoiled rotten by a husband who just could have discovered in a relatively short time a woman totally different from the one he’d thought he had married. Maybe no one would ever know what had actually happened that tragic day. But one thing was certain—Carol’s father, the father who had so loved her, was long gone.
What had his dazed thoughts in his last struggling moments? Or had he been unconscious?
Only God and Roxanne Chancellor-Emmett knew.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ART SHOWING was well under way before Damon arrived. He had promised to make an appearance as a favour to a good client. The gifted artist was her son. The showing was entitled SCAPES, Land, Sea and Air. From what he could glimpse through the crush, the paintings were very good. At least, the ones he could see.
He was making his way to his client’s side—she had already spotted him and was waving him over—when he came face to face with Amber Coleman.
“Ah, the exact person I wanted to see!” Amber’s beautifully styled dark head was held unnaturally high. Very much in the confrontational position, he thought in dismay. It was accompanied by a twisted little smile. Evidently he was supposed to feel some sort of guilt. About what? He had never made any promises to Amber. Indeed their relationship, such as it was, was open. He saw other young women. She saw other men.
Tonight she was with James Brooks, a mutual friend. James was her standby. “Flyin’ high these days, Damon,” she said like an accusation. “Don’t see much of you at all.” Here was a woman throwing down the gauntlet.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or get annoyed. Instead, he glanced away, holding up a hand to James, who was fast beating a diplomatic retreat. “Amber, you know I have a pretty heavy workload. I’m only here tonight because Sandra Milton is a good client of mine.”
&
nbsp; “I know that,” she retorted, a sharp expression on her face. “A little bird tells me you’re actually having Christmas with the Chancellors.” She said it with such irony Damon gave a mild groan.
“Not another little bird? Would this one happen to be Troy Chancellor?”
Amber couldn’t frown. She’d just had another Botox injection. “What do you mean, another little bird?”
“Little birds are chirruping to you all the time, aren’t they, Amber? You’re a veritable magnet for information,” he reminded her.
“Oh, that!” Amber felt quick relief. It had been a constant worry that the little heiress had gone complaining to him. “People tell me things they tell no one else.”
“I bet only once,” Damon stressed.
Amber ignored that. “Troy tells me he’s concerned you’re getting way too close to his cousin.” She watched his expression harden. Damon Hunter was a marvellously handsome man, so charismatic people just stared at him. Every day he gained more and more recognition. Being Carol Chancellor’s lawyer had quite a bit to do with it, Amber thought. She had been relentless in her pursuit of Damon, but upsettingly unsuccessful. Any woman he took an interest in automatically became her enemy.
“Troy Chancellor would do well to watch his tongue,” Damon was saying. “The rich can be very litigious.”
Amber held up a hand, her long fingernails painted the same silver as her short sexy dress. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing beyond that, Amber. You, I’m forced to point out, have the knack of making trouble. Remember the Todds? You can be very indiscreet.” Amber and her gossip had helped wreck the marriage.
Amber flushed violently. “You should talk! As it happens, I was with Troy when the two of us witnessed your tête à tête with Carol Chancellor in the QVB this afternoon.” She didn’t mention the sight of them staring into one another’s eyes had almost given her a heart attack. She had even thought they might be looking at engagement rings.
“Look, Amber, where are you going with this?” Damon asked. “I’ve enjoyed your company on many occasions. I assume you have mine. But neither of us has made any commitment to the other. Far from it. Carol Chancellor is my client. I look after all my clients.”
“Not like her!” Amber’s tone was so strident, heads turned to look at her. She was oblivious, clutching Damon’s jacketed arm. She squeezed hard. “You fancy her, don’t you?”
Damon gently removed her hand. “My first thought is, it’s none of your business, Amber. My second is, spread any misinformation and you could find yourself in trouble. Carol Chancellor is not yet twenty one.”
“So what?” There was a trembling outrage in Amber’s voice. “She’s well and truly of marriageable age. It just so happens I know what’s going to happen before it happens. Call it a woman’s intuition.”
“I call it paranoia. Tell me, are you dead set on a public skirmish?” Damon asked very quietly. “I think if you move off it would be eminently sensible. You’re jealous, Amber. That much is clear. Just don’t make quantum leaps. You’ve made an inordinate number of them already.”
Amber retaliated by leaning into him, her voice slightly slurred. “Think your little Carol will believe me when I tell her we’re long-time lovers and that you’ve promised me marriage?”
“You think she’ll believe you before me?” Damon looked down at her, unable to hide his disgust.
“I just want to let her know not to trust you, Damon. It would be a very easy matter for you to break her heart. She’s halfway in love with you, the silly little thing. Just make sure you don’t drown in her big blue eyes.”
“Very beautiful blue eyes, I agree,” he said suavely. “I’m in no danger of drowning. Thank you for your concern. Go back to James, Amber,” he advised. “You’re wasting your time with me.”
* * *
Without mentioning it to her, Carol soon found out Uncle Maurice had invited three of his cronies with their wives, or at least two wives and the reigning girlfriend of the four-times-married Manny Bishop, a very successful, if somewhat dodgy, entrepreneur. Obviously her uncle thought he could walk right over her.
“I knew you wouldn’t mind, my dear,” he told her in syrupy tones, while patting her shoulder. “Plenty of room. In fact, it’s good to see the house full. Maybe you would like to join us in the little shoot I’ve organised. All perfectly legal, my dear, in case you have concerns. Just a few quail.”
Carol was aware her uncle loved to play the country squire. “I don’t like guns and I don’t like shooting, Uncle Maurice. I certainly have no interest in shooting quail.”
“But you’d buy quail and duck from the supermarket, wouldn’t you, my dear?” he parried blandly. “Urbanites like to distance themselves from the actual killing of the range of animals they eat. I assure you, I’m a clean shot. So are my friends—that’s important. Nothing suffers. We have no disrespect for wildlife and we are not endangering a species. Far from it.
“You’ve probably eaten Mussaman curry of duck, roast duck baked with tomatoes and herbs? Wonderful dishes—so, too, is roasted stuffed quail or quail wrapped in prosciutto with ricotta, sage and chard. Yum! There is a case for shooting, you know, even game birds, which we have in abundance. The country is overrun with kangaroos, emus, wild pigs, foxes and rabbits in huge areas where they do tremendous damage. I hope you’re not going to spoil a bit of sport for us? We’re not going after ducks, you know. You and your friend Amanda should come along, if only for the walk, and maybe admire the marksmanship.”
“And when is this to happen, Uncle Maurice?” Carol asked the moment her uncle concluded his spiel.
“Boxing Day, my dear. Around dusk, when they’re on the wing to the roost. You know the origin of the term Boxing Day?”
Carol could see he was getting ready to tell her. She forestalled him. “Yes, Nona told me on one of our walks around the fountain when I was a little girl. She was the one who started the custom here of giving Christmas boxes to the staff. Well-off households traditionally gave presents or money to their loyal employees. It’s a custom I want maintained. In fact, I’m glad you brought that up, Uncle Maurice. I’m assuming that will happen this Boxing Day some time well before the shoot?”
Maurice recovered quickly. “It will have to be money this year, my dear,” he said smoothly, unhappy about getting rid of a stash of cash in the safe. “With father’s death, no-one was of a mind to buy presents.”
Carol nodded. “I dare say the staff would prefer money. I’ll see you’re reimbursed.” Carol wanted no favours.
* * *
Damon watched the sports car come up way too fast in his rear vision. There was an eighty-kilometre speed limit on the road they were now on. The driver would know that. Signs were posted along the way. The car shot past, coming very close.
“Damned fool!”
It took Damon a second more to realise it was Troy Chancellor at the wheel. Troy Chancellor with a blonde young woman in the passenger seat. Troy Chancellor really was a bit of a clown and not to be trusted. He was the archetype of a young man ruined by money. He could even be self-destructive. He’d already demonstrated he was looking to get closer to his cousin. He didn’t need money; unless he became enormously profligate, he was set up for life. No, he wanted to get close to his cousin because of the sexual excitement she engendered.
God knew what the Christmas break would bring. The truth was he had accepted Carol’s invitation—apart from the scintillating pleasure he had in her company—because he wanted to protect her. Looking out for Carol Chancellor had become something of an obsession. It consumed him. The big regret was not that she was years younger than he—she was very mature for her age—but that she was an heiress. The Chancellor heiress. He had to admit that aspect of their relationship created a huge barrier in his mind. The last thing in the world he wanted was to be thought a man in the ideal position to take advantage of her. He had to face it, but gossip had already started. It was the way of the world
. Carol was big news.
As for him, he was Carol Chancellor’s lawyer, but he could be the man who had jockeyed himself into Selwyn Chancellor’s good graces. He could be the man determined on winning her hand. The general thinking would be, what a coup, a gift-wrapped opportunity. Only he didn’t see it that way. If Carol were a young woman he had met at some function and not Carol Chancellor the heiress, he would have been set on his course of getting to know her a whole lot better.
He had never forgotten his first sight of her. He never would.
The flash sports car that had sped past them earlier was parked in the gravelled drive by the time he arrived. He would have to avoid any confrontation with Troy Chancellor; this was Christmas, after all. He knew the very sight of him irritated Troy immensely. He was jealous, of course. Another one who followed their instincts. He supposed it was difficult to completely hide one’s attraction from interested parties making a case study of the two people involved. Amber had warned him not to drown in Carol’s sapphire-blue eyes. It was already too late.
Carol herself came to the door, looking grateful to see him. She didn’t wait for his courteous kiss on the cheek. She stood on tip-toe to kiss him. “I’m so pleased you’re here,” she whispered near his ear.
“What’s up? Is there a problem?”
She gave a faint shudder. “I want to put the Christmas tree up. I know we had one. I believe it was a Christmas tradition. But Dallas is totally against it. For some reason she’s playing at grief. Such hypocrisy! She was in no way close to my grandfather. Do you think we should put the Christmas tree up, Damon?” She sought his opinion as though it mattered to her.
“I fail to see why not.”
She looked up to give him her dazzling smile. “Okay, you have to help me. It must be stored away in the attic. But first I’ll show you to your room. I’m so pleased you decided to come, Damon. I know you were obliging me.”
“Not at all.”
She led the way. She was wearing a white silk tank-top with a nautical navy stripe over cropped-leg navy trousers. A decorative red belt was slung around her tiny waist matching the red sandals on her feet. A simple outfit, but she looked amazingly chic.