Guardian to the Heiress

by Margaret Way

  “She said you intended to divorce Dallas.” Carol trained her eyes on him.

  “That’ll be the day!” The glance he returned spoke volumes. “I was never going to divorce Dallas. My dear wife knew that well enough. So did Roxanne. Roxanne wasn’t even confident of my brother. Beautiful as she is, Adam was fast falling out of love with her. I understand that now. The sad thing is, Roxanne is indifferent to all feelings other than her own. Surely you’ve noticed? Adam was madly in love with Roxanne when they married. I was totally bewitched myself. In her way, she’s an extraordinary woman.”

  “But the spell wears off?” Carol had seen that for herself.

  “It certainly wore off with Adam and with me. That episode in my life is blessedly behind me. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if Roxanne and Jeff are about to call it a day. Jeff is not a happy man.”

  “Neither are you. Neither is Troy.”

  “Now, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Maurice said, leaning forward.

  “Then talk.”

  “Troy told me he fears Damon Hunter is getting too close to you personally. I have to say, he’s a truly exceptional young man. I like him. He’s extremely clever, ambitious and handsome enough to turn any young woman’s head.”

  “Agreed. So Troy came to you with my best interests at heart?”

  “Of course. We’re family. You have to be on the alert for fortune hunters, Carol. Hunter by name, hunter by nature. It would be an enormous coup for him. For all his cleverness he doesn’t come from money. Real money. His mother ran a catering business, for God’s sake.”

  Carol swept his snobbish comments aside. “The jarring truth is Troy, your son, tried to come on to me.” God forbid Troy should be her half brother, she thought with a shudder. “Damon intervened after I gave Troy a good knee in the groin.”

  Maurice fell back in his chair. “Well, bully for you! You’re actually telling me Troy tried something on with you?”

  “Like father, like son.”

  Maurice flushed a dull red. “I deserve that. I had no idea Troy had such feelings. Damn it all, you’re first cousins! Now, don’t you worry about this. I’ll put him straight and I won’t waste time. Incest is just too much.”

  “It wouldn’t be that.”

  “Close enough in my book.” Maurice Chancellor made a sound of disgust. “That boy is going fast to nowhere. His mother has ruined him. I told her over and over.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You’ve been very badly done by, Carol. But I feared contacting Roxanne to get to you, my niece. I was such a coward on a number of counts. I thought you might remember and start telling people. Some people don’t listen to children. Some do. The thing is we all should. That’s it, Carol—your uncle is a coward.”

  Carol braced herself. “Do you believe my mother had nothing to do with my father’s death?”

  “God, yes! Roxanne went utterly to pieces. It was no play-acting, I assure you.”

  “How can you say that when at the will reading you practically accused my mother of wrongdoing and Dallas, needless to say, backed you up?”

  He looked briefly sheepish. “A bit of play-acting on my part. I don’t care to get on the wrong side of my dear wife. She knows too much. The thing is, Carol, we all needed someone to blame. My mother especially. She adored Adam. He was the son most sympathetic to her and her oddities. And, let’s face it, she was quite odd. Roxanne didn’t let your father drown, Carol. Roxanne couldn’t do such a thing.”

  Couldn’t she?

  “Break their hearts, yes,” Maurice continued. “The big trouble was, no one liked Roxanne. Women were very jealous of her. She actually went out of her way to make them jealous. She paid the price.”

  “So did your brother. Face up to it,” Carol said in a toneless voice. She hesitated a moment, then plunged in. “You couldn’t possibly be my father, could you?”

  “What do you say?” Maurice looked stupefied.

  “Think for a moment. My mother was having sex with both of you.”

  Maurice Chancellor’s unlined skin turned ruddier as his blood-pressure soared. “I draw the line here, Carol.”

  “You should have drawn it then.”

  “I could now. Not a chance then. I was still a young man, or young enough. Roxanne reeled me in hook, line and sinker. We always used protection.”

  “Doesn’t always work,” Carol said dismally.

  Maurice walked back behind the desk and dropped down heavily into the swivel chair. “Roxanne suggested this, of course? I see her hand in it.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know herself.”

  “Oh, get real!” Maurice was lost in moody contemplation. “Roxanne always has an agenda. She would have blackmailed me. She wanted me to leave Dallas. I told her I couldn’t. I didn’t want her to leave Adam, for that matter. It was a mad and utterly despicable interlude. Tell me, when does Roxanne ever accept the word couldn’t?”

  He had a powerful point. “Would you agree to DNA testing?”

  “God, Carol!” He shot her a despairing look.

  “For your brother’s sake. For my sake. For your sake. We must determine the truth. Or maybe you think truth is a joke word?”

  Maurice shook his handsome tawny head. “You are your father’s daughter, Carol. Roxanne lives to stir up trouble. She knows how to push everyone’s buttons. She’s jealous of you. You’re young and beautiful—you’ve got so much more in the way of intellect than she ever had. That includes integrity. But, if it sets your mind at rest, I agree to DNA testing.”

  * * *

  Afterwards she went in search of Damon. Who else did she have to turn to? She was aware Damon had pulled back, as if regretting the massive shift in their relationship. She hoped it was because of his scruples—the thought it might throw a fragile balance into disorder. He was her lawyer and the man her grandfather had appointed to look out for her and her interests. She could understand he would be troubled by the gossip that was already doing the rounds. Amber Coleman had it in for her. So would Troy, now that she had rejected his unwanted advances. Damon had moved a few paces back to combat it. She had to accept he knew what was best for them both, but his decision had left her feeling very forlorn.

  Maybe falling in love really was a madness. She hadn’t seen it coming. She had the strong feeling Damon hadn’t see it coming, either. The attraction had taken them by storm. It had been instant and urgent. Whoever loved that loved not at first sight? There was overwhelming evidence of that. That didn’t mean the going would be easy or even turn out well. She needed to speak to Damon. She needed his legal advice apart from the comfort of his presence.

  She found him in the last place she looked, taking laps of the turquoise pool. As she expected, he was a strong swimmer, with a powerful, even stroke that had him gliding through the water. He didn’t see her until he was pulling himself with ease out of the pool.

  “Hi!” She thought she had never seen a better male body. He had such a physicality to him, such a fluid grace of movement, especially for a tall man. His broad, naked chest had a light matting of dark hair, ripples of hard muscle. There was an indent to his waist. His hips were taut. Her eyes ran over his lean, muscled arms, down the straight columns of his legs. As upset as she was, she still felt the erotic disturbances deep inside her. He was just so beautiful to her, one magnificent male creature.

  “Hi, yourself!” His teeth were a white flash in his sun-bronzed face. He appeared to be gilded all over. The top band of his black swimming briefs had slipped down a few inches and there was no paler layer of skin. He grabbed a towel. He was quite unselfconscious, drying himself off before securing the towel around his waist. “That was great!” He swept his wetly gleaming dark hair back off his forehead. “Just what I needed. I have to confess, breakfast was so good I ate more than I normally do.”

  “And Christmas dinner to come. May I speak to you, Damon?”

  “Need you ask?” He indicated two of the upholstered teak lounge chairs set aroun
d the perimeter of the pool and the adjoining pool house. Dry enough, he pulled on a white cotton shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. “You look stressed.” She also looked a dream in her gauzy buttercup-yellow dress. To protect her porcelain skin, she wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, decorated with yellow-and-white silk hibiscus on her head. So feminine! That was the romantic look he loved above all.

  “Wake-up time, Damon,” she answered, showing a hint of her forlornness. “I know you’ll be as shocked as I was, but my mother came out with an astonishing coda to what I’ve already told you.” She paused, as though unable to go on.

  “And?”

  “Since I was a child, trauma has trailed me like a shadow—my father’s tragic death, all the gossip about my mother. The trauma has reached a new height. My mother was not only having an affair with Uncle Maurice, she said—”

  “Go on,” he urged. “Obviously what she said deeply distressed you.”

  She lifted her blue eyes to him, the colour rivalling the burning blue of the sky. “Distress doesn’t cover it. I was stunned out of my mind. She told me she didn’t know for sure if Adam was my father. He could have been Maurice.”

  For a split second the ramifications of that exploded in Damon’s head. Carol mightn’t be the Chancellor heiress after all! If so, the will would be overturned. Maurice Chancellor would inherit. That would change everything. He could feel free to court her. As it was now, he was acutely aware of the big divide between them—wealth even more than her youth. He knew the guys she dated were fellow students, but Carol was very mature for her age. Within seconds, the bubble burst. His momentary elation was wiped out by her very real distress.

  “Knowing your mother, Carol, she could simply be talking up trouble,” he said comfortingly. “She likes to upset you. You have to speak to your uncle. I can come with you.”

  “Ah, Damon! I’ve already spoken to Uncle Maurice. He doesn’t deny the affair. He says it’s ‘blessedly long over.’ He’s adamant Adam was my father. He’s agreed to DNA testing.”

  “Well, that’s significant, surely? God what a shock for you, Carol.” Shock after shock. Damon’s brow creased. “If Maurice is your father—and we’re pretty sure he’s not—it means he can contest your grandfather’s will.”

  “I realise that, Damon.” She showed not a great deal of concern. “I might not be the Chancellor heiress.”

  His dark gaze glittered over her. “Can you tell me how you feel about that?”

  Carol didn’t hesitate. “The most important thing is to establish who fathered me. I never have cared about all the money. Money is to be used to do good. When I’m an old lady, I want to be able to say I did my very best.”

  “And you will,” he foretold. “I believe in you.”

  There was such sincerity in his voice. “So you believe I am who I’m supposed to be?”

  His handsome mouth twisted. “Might be easier for me if you weren’t.”

  Her heart took off like a bird in joyous flight. “What does that mean?”

  He wanted to speak out, but he knew he had to keep himself on track. “First things first, Carol. Your mother is a born provocateur.”

  “Uncle Maurice said the same thing.” Was it only a dream she had, she and Damon? Yet surely there had been something in his face, something deeply caressing that caught at her heart?

  “He knows her well,” Damon was saying. So had Selwyn Chancellor. The old man must have been absolutely sure Carol was Adam’s daughter, the person to grow into the position of wisely administering the Chancellor fortune. Clearly he hadn’t had the same faith in his younger son.

  She felt unwilling to meet his eyes now, reined back by intuitive reserve. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass him. “I suppose we’d better go back. There are the presents to be distributed.” She tried to recompose her face, only he suddenly reached out, caught the point of her chin and kissed her, as if the feel of her mouth against his gave him enormous pleasure. He might have been drinking in ambrosia fit for the gods. She closed her eyes so she, too, could record the moment of glowing rapture.

  Steady now. Easy now, warned the voice in Damon’s head, only he was being pulled under by the ever-widening ripples of excitement. Was there a name for this craving?

  Of course there was.

  It was love. Only, cravings were never satiated. They had to be constantly fed.

  When he finally let her go, her whole body was quivering. “That was unexpected,” Carol managed with a gasp.

  “You have the power to bind, Carol.” His answer was very serious.

  The moment was almost painful to her. “I don’t want to lose you, Damon. Not now. Not ever. You’ve become my rock.”

  He was so deeply moved he drew her to her feet, pulling the pretty straw hat off her head. “How beautiful you are!” So much beauty, so much delicacy in the porcelain perfection of her skin. He had to try very hard to dissipate the intensity of his desire.

  She felt tears spring into her eyes. “You say that like it’s a problem.”

  He looked away over her radiant head, the sun picking out gold and amber highlights. “In a sense it is—your beauty, your youth and your wealth.”

  “Do you wish it otherwise?” She caught his hand, staring up into his brilliant dark eyes. She was willing him to focus on her. Only his handsome features had drawn taut.

  “These are the things I have to remember, Carol.” His tone was slightly gritty.

  “Maybe the way you kiss me gives the lie to your words.” She was driven to challenge.

  “Maybe it does.” He was breathing deeply to steady his pulse.

  Carol unclasped her hand, took her sunhat from him and settled it back on her head. It was essential not to embarrass him but she was sick to death of the supposedly moral hazards.

  They began to walk back slowly to the house. Only Carol couldn’t stop the excitement from pouring into her body like the golden sunbeams that were beating down on them. Try as she might, there didn’t seem to be an escape from it. Her confidence soared one moment only to be shot down the next.

  He took her hand. “Have I upset you?” He bent his head, trying to see beneath the wide brim of her hat.

  “Everything about me is wrong,” she said with a little laugh. “How very perverse.” They were rounding the southern end of the garden. Innumerable buds of the Little Gem magnolias were bursting into flower, a waxy, creamy white against the glossy dark-green leaves with their purple undersides. Further on, arguably the most gorgeous of all tropical plants—the Medinilla magnifica—made a fantastic display with its hanging flower clusters, deep-pink flowers, mauve-pink bracts and purple-and-yellow stamens. She stopped to admire them. She wasn’t ready yet to go into the house. Her pulses were still throbbing, at odds with her feigned composure.

  “How easy it is to exalt in such beauty and profusion,” Damon said.

  His hand fell on her shoulder. It seemed like a very intimate gesture. She could feel the heat of it burning through to her skin. She heard him sigh. There was such a silence between them, yet it was crowded with unspoken words. She thought she could detect the strong beat of his heart.

  “What are we doing, Damon?” She turned fully so she could stare up into his dark eyes.

  He sighed again. “I can’t tell you. The main thing, Carol, is keeping you safe.”

  “Safe?” She did something foolish then; she wasn’t strong enough to resist. She turned her head so she could lay her cheek against his hand. Butterflies rose all around them in swarms, drunk on the flowers: the electric-blue Ulysses; the Golden Cruisers; the Lace Wings; the huge Bird Wings, Australia’s largest species of butterfly, the female with a wing span of twenty centimetres. So big were they, they were slower in flight than the gorgeous Ulysses. The warm breeze shook out the myriad scents. It was so soporific, they might have fallen into a dream pocket where they were hidden from the world.

  Discipline was proving far too exhausting for Damon. He drew her supple body fully into his arms
, bending his gleaming dark head to kiss her so deeply it was as if he sought to imprint himself on her heart and her soul. There was no space between them, no indecision... This was a profoundly private moment, just for the two of them.

  Carol had no idea how much time passed. It could have been moments, hours, a lifetime with one’s deepest feelings unmasked. Desire had drawn them out and beyond themselves. But there was a greater desire—the desire for more.

  * * *

  The Christmas presents were distributed later on to the usual ooh’s and aah’s. Carol presented Damon with a very expensive rollerball pen. He had bought her a late-nineteenth-century Meissen model of Venus and Cupid, a lovely piece he’d had the good fortune to source.

  “I love it, love it, love it!” She stood on tiptoes to kiss him on both cheeks. That apparently was acceptable to the rest. Such lightness of being! Only Damon could give her that.

  * * *

  It was nearing two o’clock and Amanda and Summer still hadn’t returned.

  “We’ll have to start without them,” Dallas said, sniffing her displeasure. “Have they no manners, no consideration? Why weren’t you with them?” It sounded for all the world like she was deeply disappointed.

  “If you must know, Dallas, it was an on-the-spot decision.” Carol stared back. Dallas was positively pulsating with rage. It was becoming something of a defining characteristic. Obviously she was furious her adored son, Troy, had been sent on his way. Dallas had seen him off, no doubt heaping dire imprecations on Carol’s head. Carol had the feeling Dallas hated her almost as much as she hated her mother, Roxanne.

  Only, where were Amanda and Summer? They should have been back well before this.

  “I’m going to tell the cook to serve the entrée,” Dallas said like a woman who brooked no opposition.

  “I suppose you should.”

  * * *

  It was another half hour, when the guests were well into a lavish Christmas feast, when Mrs Hoskins came into the dining room, heading for Maurice, who sat in the seat of honour as host, with Carol at the other end.

  Damon, to Carol’s right, waited to see how she would handle this. “I believe you might have a message for me, Mrs Hoskins?” She raised her voice only slightly. Probably Amanda would have lost sight of the time. Time didn’t mean a thing to her friend.