Rich, Ruthless and Secretly Royal

by Robyn Donald

  Tempted to go without make-up, she decided after a critical survey of her reflection that a naked face might make her look conspicuous, and her security depended on blending in. So she compromised on lipstick a slightly deeper shade than her dress, and pinned her badly cut hair off her face with two frangipani clips made from the moonbeam shimmer of pearl shell.

  Kelt waited for her beside the gate. Her shoulders held a little stiffly to hide an absurd self-consciousness, she walked towards him, sensing a darker, more elemental level beneath his coolly sophisticated exterior. Trying to ignore the smouldering need in the pit of her stomach, she saw him as a warrior, riding his big bay gelding into battle…

  Not, she thought with an inner shiver, a man to cross swords with.

  With a carefully neutral smile she met his gaze, and in a charged moment her wilful memory sabotaged the fragile veneer of her composure by supplying a repeat of how it had felt when he’d carried her—the powerful litheness of his gait, the subtle flexion of his body as he’d lifted her, his controlled strength…

  CHAPTER THREE

  KELT examined her face with the impersonal keenness of a doctor. ‘How are you?’ he asked, opening the door of the car.

  Hani’s smile faded. His persistent view of her as an invalid was—demeaning, she decided on a spurt of irritation that didn’t quite mask a deeper, more dangerous emotion. After all, in the light of her unexpected attraction, it was far safer if he saw her as an invalid than as a woman.

  A desirable woman.

  With a hint of frost in her tone she answered, ‘Fine, thank you.’ And met his scrutiny with head held high and an immobile face that belied the unsteady rhythm of her heart.

  ‘You still have dark circles under your eyes. Lack of sleep?’

  Strangely enough, for the first time since she’d come to this side of the world all those years ago she’d slept deeply and dreamlessly, waking with an energy that seemed alien.

  ‘No, not at all,’ she told him evenly. Steering the conversation away from her illness, she asked, ‘How far away is your house?’

  ‘About a kilometre by road; half that distance if you walk across the paddocks—which I don’t want you to do.’ He set the car in motion.

  ‘Why?’

  He sent her a narrow glance. ‘You could spook the cattle.’ After a pause, he added, ‘Or they might spook you.’

  Hani examined some large, square animals, their coats glowing deep red-gold in the rays of the evening sun. ‘They don’t look excitable, but your point is well taken.’

  Not that she planned to be going cross-country.

  ‘And you?’ he asked levelly, turning across a cattle grid.

  She waited until the rattling died away before saying, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Are you excitable?’

  Startled, she looked across at him, saw an enigmatic smile tuck in the corners of his hard mouth, and was shocked again by a fierce tug of arousal, sweet as honey, dangerous as dynamite.

  Surely he wasn’t flirting with her?

  She felt winded and fascinated at the same time until a moment’s reflection produced sanity. Of course he wasn’t coming on to her. Not unless he was the sort of man who indulged in meaningless flirtations with any available woman.

  Somehow she didn’t want to believe he’d be so indiscriminate. A man with Kelt Gillan’s effortless masculinity could have any woman he wanted, and he must know it. And unlike Felipe he had nothing to gain from seducing her.

  In her most sedate tone she said, ‘Not in the least. Teachers can’t afford to be volatile. It’s very bad for discipline.’

  That should tell him she wasn’t in the market for a holiday affair. To clinch it, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t walk in your fields or excite your cattle.’

  ‘Paddocks,’ he said laconically, explaining, ‘New Zealanders call anything with animals in it a paddock. Fields are what we play sport on, and as far as we’re concerned meadows don’t exist.’ He nodded at the setting sun. ‘And that range of hills to the west is covered in native bush, not forest or woods.’

  Intrigued, she said, ‘I do know about bush. One of the Australian teachers at the school explained it to me. It’s fascinating how countries colonised by the same power could develop such different words to describe things. In South Africa—’

  She stopped suddenly, her mind freezing in dismay, then hastily tried to cover the slip by asking the first question that came to mind. ‘What are those trees, the ones that grow in groups in nearly all your f—paddocks?’

  ‘They’re totara trees.’

  ‘Oh. Do they flower?’

  ‘Not noticeably—they’re conifers. As for terminology—well, the world would be a boring place if we were all the same. Settlers in different countries adjusted to different conditions.’ He paused a beat before adding casually, ‘You’re not South African, are you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, dry-throated.

  ‘But clearly you’ve been there.’

  Trying to banish any reluctance from her voice, she admitted, ‘I spent a holiday there when I was young.’

  He accepted that without comment. ‘So what made a young Englishwoman decide to spend years teaching in a village school in a place like Tukuulu? The lure of tropical islands I can understand, but once you’d got to Tukuulu and realised it’s really nothing but a volcano with a huge mine on it—beaches of dead coral, only one fleapit of a hotel, no night life—what kept you there?’

  A little shudder tightened her skin, but she kept her gaze fixed steadily ahead. Let him probe as much as he liked; she had her story down pat.

  ‘I wanted to help. And they were desperate for teachers. It’s really hard for them to keep staff. But the principal is your friend so you must know that.’

  After a moment’s pause he said, ‘How long do you plan to live there?’

  ‘For several years yet,’ she evaded.

  ‘I imagine it’s unusual for anyone to stay for long in a Pacific backwater like Tukuulu.’ Let alone a young Englishwoman, his tone implied.

  ‘You’re a sophisticated man but you don’t seem to mind living on a remote cattle station in a Pacific backwater like New Zealand,’ she retorted sweetly.

  He gave her swift, ironic smile. ‘Don’t let any New Zealander hear you call the place a backwater. We’re a proud people with plenty to be proud of.’

  ‘The Tukuuluans are proud too, and doing their best to move into the modern world without losing the special things that make their culture so distinctive.’

  ‘I suspect that’s an impossible task,’ he said cynically.

  ‘I hope not. And I like to think I’m helping them in a small way.’

  They crossed another cattle grid and drove through a grove of the big trees she’d noticed before, their great branches almost touching the ground.

  ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed in involuntary pleasure, ‘the leaves are silver underneath! From a distance the trees look so sombre—yet how pretty they must be when there’s any wind.’

  ‘Very, and when they flower in a month or so they’ll be great torches of scarlet and crimson and maroon. I’ll take you over the top of the hill so you can look over Kiwinui and get some idea of the lie of the land.’

  Kelt slowed the vehicle to a stop, switching off the engine so that the silence flowed in around them, bringing with it the sweet scent of damp grass and the ever-present salt of the sea.

  Gaze fixed in front of her, Hani said on an indrawn breath, ‘This is glorious.’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was all, but his controlled voice couldn’t hide the pride of ownership as he gazed out at his vast domain.

  At the foot of the hill a sweeping bay fronted a large, almost flat, grassed area with what appeared to be a small settlement to one side. More huge trees fringed the beach and a long jetty stitched its way out into the water towards a sleek black yacht and a large motorboat.

  ‘The working part of Kiwinui,’ Kelt told her. He leaned sligh
tly towards her so he could point. ‘Cattle yards, the woolshed, implement sheds and the workers’ cottages.’

  Hani’s breath stopped in her throat. He was too close, so near she could see the fine grain of his tanned skin, so close her nostrils were teased by a faint, wholly male scent. Hot little shivers snaked down her spine, and some locked, previously untouched part of her splintered into shards.

  Desperate to overcome the clamour of her response, she scrambled from the car and took a couple of steps away. When Kelt joined her she didn’t dare look at him.

  Several measured breaths helped calm her racing heartbeats, and as soon as she could trust her voice she waved a hand at the nearest hill. ‘What’s that mown strip over there?’

  ‘An airstrip. Kiwinui is too big to fertilise except from the air.’ His words held a lick of amusement, as though he had sensed her stormy reaction to him and found it entertaining.

  Mortified and bewildered, Hani wondered if the forced intimacy of their first meeting had somehow forged this—this wild physical reaction.

  Yes, that had to be it. Relief eased her shame; her response was not some weird aberration or a frightening return to the servitude of her affair with Felipe. Kelt had held her closely, given her comfort while she fought the fever—changed her clothes—so naturally her body and mind responded to his presence.

  Well, they could stop it right now. Discipline was what was needed here. She didn’t want to feel like this every time she saw him, completely unable to control herself!

  Trying to block out his presence, she concentrated on the view. To the north a series of ranges scalloped the coast, the lower-slopes pasture, the gullies and heights covered by forests—no, native bush—that reminded her of the jungles of Moraze. Between them she glimpsed a coast of sandy beaches and more green paddocks.

  Stretching to the eastern horizon was the restless sea, its kingfisher-coloured expanse broken by a large, high island that formed an offshore barrier.

  And, to cap it all, she heard the high, exquisite trill of a bird, joy rendered into song that soared into the golden light of the setting sun. Pierced by sudden delight, Hani dragged in a long breath.

  And even as she thrilled to it, she knew that the man beside her somehow intensified her mood, her appreciation, as though his presence had the power to magnify her responses.

  Felipe had never done that.

  Hani swallowed. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she managed. ‘What’s the bird that’s singing?’

  He gave her a sharp look. ‘It’s a thrush,’ he said. ‘They were introduced here by the early settlers. He’ll be perched on top of one of the pohutukawa trees.’

  Bother, she thought on a surge of irrational panic, oh, bother and double-bother! Too late she remembered a poem she’d learned at school; if she were as English as her accent she’d probably recognise a thrush’s song…

  On the other hand, why should Kelt be suspicious? And even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to find out who she was. Once she’d escaped Felipe she’d covered her tracks so well that even he, with all his resources in brutal men and tainted money, hadn’t been able to hunt her down.

  Kelt told her, ‘The original homestead was down on the flat, quite close to the workers’ cottages you can see, but when it burned down early in the twentieth century the new one was built up here.’

  Hani filed away the fact that in New Zealand—at least in the countryside—substantial houses were called cottages. ‘What’s the difference between a cottage and a homestead and a bach?’

  ‘A bach is a holiday cottage, always casual, very beachy. They used to be small and primitive, but nowadays that isn’t necessarily so.’

  ‘No indeed,’ she said, thinking of the bach she was staying in.

  He gave her an ironic smile. ‘My grandmother made quite a few renovations to it. She enjoyed the simple life for a short time, but had no intention of giving up any comfort.’

  His grandmother had clearly been a sophisticate. Well, Kiwinui was a big farm, and Hani didn’t need to know the size of his bank balance to accept that Kelt was a wealthy man.

  Kelt said, ‘As for workers’ cottages, the term’s a hangover from the days when they were fairly basic. Nowadays no worker would be happy with basic housing, and even if he was his wife certainly wouldn’t be, so they’re usually good-sized family homes.’

  ‘And a homestead is where the owner of the farm lives?’ she guessed.

  ‘Either the owner or manager’s house on a farm or station.’

  Hani nodded. ‘Is this estate—Kiwinui—a farm or a station? What’s the difference?’

  ‘Basically a station is a larger farm—usually settled early in New Zealand’s history. The first Gillan arrived here about a hundred and forty years ago. And yes, Kiwinui is a station.’

  Hani looked down at the bay, frowning at the abrupt change of colour in the water. ‘It looks as though it gets deep very quickly there,’ she observed. ‘Surely my cove—’ colouring, she hastily corrected herself ‘—I mean, the one with the bach, would be safer for the children? I truly don’t mind them coming, and I’d be happy to supervise their swimming. And young Kura seems very capable.’

  ‘We’ll see how things go.’ His tone was non-committal. ‘When those dark circles disappear then perhaps the children can pay you visits.’

  Hani sent him a sharp look. ‘The darkness under my eyes will go in its own good time. And I enjoy children’s company.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it more when you’re stronger.’

  His tone left no room for negotiation. Fuming, Hani decided that autocratic wasn’t emphatic enough to describe him. Clearly he was accustomed to giving orders and seeing them obeyed.

  And yet—she didn’t feel suffocated as she had when she’d fancied herself in love with Felipe.

  But then, after the first few times she’d never argued with Felipe. Unpleasant things happened to those who crossed him.

  Chilled, she turned to get back into the car.

  Kelt retraced their path, turning off over a cattle grid when they reached the drive to the homestead. More great trees shaded them, deciduous ones with fresh green foliage. Amongst them she recognised a flame tree, and a pang of homesickness tore through her, so painful she bit her lip and turned her head away. On Moraze the flame trees bloomed like a cloak of fire across the island…

  You’ll never see Moraze again, she reminded herself starkly.

  Kelt’s fingers tightened on the wheel. The sheen of moisture in her great green eyes struck at something fundamental in him. Just what the hell was going on inside that black head with its gleaming fiery highlights?

  Probably nothing more than a lack of control due to her prolonged illness.

  Yet behind Hannah Court’s cool, serene facade he sensed something stronger, more deeply emotional than a physical weakness, and had to repress an urgent desire to tell her that whatever her problems, he’d probably be able to help.

  This fierce urge to protect was something new, and he distrusted it. Because he avoided breaking hearts, he’d always made sure his lovers had been capable of looking after themselves.

  Damn it, he didn’t want to lust after a woman who was here to recuperate from a severe bout of tropical fever. So it was infuriating that he couldn’t prise the image of Hannah, sleek and desirable in the hot, tropical night, from his mind. He felt like some lecherous voyeur.

  Abruptly he asked, ‘How long have you been driving?’

  Her brows lifted, but she answered mildly enough. ‘Since I was sixteen.’

  For some reason—one he wasn’t prepared to examine—her dismissive tone exasperated Kelt. ‘And do you have an international licence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He braked as they came up to the portico of his home. ‘I’ll lend you a vehicle, but you’d better read New Zealand’s road rules before you take it out.’

  She gave him a startled glance. ‘That’s very kind of you, but—’

  ‘That way you’ll be inde
pendent,’ he said coolly.

  Hani chided herself for feeling deflated. Naturally he wouldn’t want a total stranger relying on him for transport. Yet her pride baulked at accepting the use of a car.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean—you don’t know anything about me. And lending me a car isn’t necessary—’

  ‘I’ve lent the same car to every other teacher who’s stayed at the bach, and so far it hasn’t had a scratch.’ His tone was amused yet definite. ‘If I thought you’d break the mould I wouldn’t be offering.’

  ‘I—well, thank you very much.’ It didn’t seem enough, but all she could think of was to repeat lamely, ‘It’s very kind of you.’

  The vehicle stopped. The warm light of the westering sun emphasised the classical framework of his face as he turned to her. In a voice that gave nothing away, he said, ‘Welcome to my home,’ before opening the door and getting out.

  Awkwardly she unclipped herself and scrambled free, wondering why she’d been so affected by the unsmiling look that accompanied his conventional words.

  Cool it, she commanded herself; stop seeing things that don’t exist. As with the offer of a car, he wasn’t being personal. No doubt he said exactly the same words to everyone who came to his house for the first time. She had to stop foolishly seeking hidden meanings in every steel-blue glance, every alteration of tone in the deep voice.

  Farming, she decided with a slight shock while she absorbed the full extent of the house, must have been exceedingly profitable during the first quarter of the twentieth century when this was built. The big wooden building had been designed in an Arts and Crafts style that fitted seamlessly into the ageless, almost primeval land and seascape.

  Kelt showed no sign of pride when he escorted her to the door and opened it. Did he take it for granted—as she, in her self-centred youth, had viewed the castello, her family home in Moraze?

  Trying not to stare around like a tourist, she said, ‘This is very beautiful.’