A Wish and a Wedding (2 page)

“What's wrong? Tell me? Don't you love me any longer?” God, she would die of abject shame if he said No. Or, worse,
I never did.
Nothing else for it after that but to jump out of the window.

“Tori, how can you ask?”

He sounded split apart. She had never ever seen Haddo agitated. He had always impressed her with his marvellous buoyant self-confidence, but a powerful agitation had clearly overtaken him. Scion of the legendary Rushford pioneering dynasty, Haddo had always used the lightest hand in all his dealings with her. He had smiled on her even when she was at her wildest—he had the best smile in the world—though admittedly she had on occasion been made to stand quietly while he delivered a few succinct words of caution. But all in all Haddo had treated her with such a broad deep affection it had forged what she had always believed was an unbreakable bond.

Who could blame her, then, if she was now utterly devastated
by his bizarre reaction. The unbreakable bond that had tethered her to him appeared to be no more than gossamer-thin threads.

“All I wanted was your arms around me.” She pressed her hands together in anguish, scalded by the inner knowledge that she had wanted so much more. “You know you're the one I turn to since Daddy went and left me.”

Ironically her father, a renowned yachtsman, had been drowned in a freak accident off Sydney Heads. She had been twelve at the time. Twelve was such a crucial turning point in life—on the cusp of adolescence, when all those core conflicts began to emerge. Any person of heart might find her actions understandable, even forgivable.

Not Haddo.

She had trusted him completely. Now he might as well have pushed her out of the Beech Baron minus her parachute.

“You can't possibly stay here, Tori.”

If that wasn't rejection, what was? She was diminished in his eyes, in her own eyes. Beyond consolation. What she had previously thought, she discovered to her great shame, was simply not true.

Except for the odd thing. And there was no getting away from it. Despite how he was acting—as if she had been attempting to rape him—there had been those brief moments when it was
he
who had handled her yielding body like the most ardent of lovers. It was
his
mouth that had covered hers so hungrily, his tongue that had lapped hers, his divine sex that had slammed into the delta of her throbbing body, as though desperate to plunge into her.

I didn't imagine it!
It had happened. Those were the moments that would be burned into her memory.

And why not? Those moments had shaped her.

 

Afterwards, with her name, her fortune, her beauty—which was to prove more problematic than anything else—and her social entrée, her relationship with Haddo had still played the
dominant role in her life. And not only because he would control the purse strings until she was twenty-five. Despite how much she told herself she loathed him, everyone and everything paled before Haddo. He was the quintessential magnificent male. She had as good as convinced herself she couldn't stand the sight of him, but her whole being yearned for what had been.

Even when her mind shut down on him, her body remembered. The terrible pity of it
then
was that she had been fool enough to believe she could bring a ravishing pleasure to them both. How could she have been so wrong? Surely what she had so strongly desired Haddo had too? How else was she to interpret the way he had been with her that special day? She'd been sixteen: a grown-up, a child no longer. And she had been lovely. Everyone had told her so. Except her mother, of course, who was never happy with her, no matter how she looked or what she did. But her mother, Livinia, hadn't been there for her birthday.

Liv's hectic social life—Victoria wasn't supposed to call her Mum or Mother—centred around Sydney and Melbourne. Liv was way out of her element on Mallarinka. No one in the extended Rushford family liked her anyway, though for the most part they did their best to hide it. All except Pip, who had a long, measuring stare and could be amazingly direct.

Victoria questioned herself constantly about what had happened. Was she certain of the way Haddo had looked up at her as she'd descended the central staircase in her beautiful emerald-green party dress? It had exactly matched her cat's eyes. Yes, she was. She would even swear to it in a court of law if she had to. Not that anyone would ask her to. She hadn't just invented what she saw in his eyes. They had sizzled over her with the blue intensity of a flame.

So, for the record, she hadn't imagined it. She had been tracking men's glances since she had turned fourteen—maybe since even earlier, when Liv had made the horrendous mistake of remarrying. Men were such lustful creatures. No wonder
Great-Aunt Bea had never married—never had a steady relationship, for that matter, according to Pip, who had been very hotly desired herself. And hadn't she, Victoria, been the unfortunate recipient of many obsidian glances from her stepfather, Barry? Barry's slimy manner had impelled her to maintain a strict physical distance between them. Though she'd acted just this side of contemptuous with him, privately she had been fearful of the little dark urges towards her she'd read in his predatory eyes.

So, no use to turn to Livinia for protection and advice. Liv only saw what she wanted to see. Besides, Liv wasn't her friend. Liv was that aberration in nature: a woman who was jealous of her own daughter; her only child. Just to make the derangement more reprehensible, having done it once, Livinia had taken a vow that she would never go through the trauma of pregnancy and childbirth again. In other words, she'd got the maternal instinct right out of her system first time off.

“You were a daddy's girl right from the cradle.” It had been a frequent accusation, as if the two of them, mother and daughter, were in fierce competition for Michael's attention. “After you were born he had no time for me.”

Not strictly true. But close. Up until the age of twelve she had been the adored only child of a loving and admittedly overly-indulgent father. By then her father had been snatched away by a cruel fate, and a lecherous stepfather installed in his place.

Yes, Victoria knew when a man desired her. Only Haddo, a god to her, had turned on her as though she were a tart off the streets—someone who had somehow gained unlawful entry to his bed, with him, six foot three, superbly fit, lying there helpless.

“You're sixteen, Tori. A child. God, you're still at school!”

“Maybe I'll quit!” she had flung at him, at that point pierced by terrible doubts. “So what have I done, Haddo? Please tell me. Have I broken some sacred code of honour? Some powerful taboo?”

She'd hated getting the tribal treatment. She had argued her innocence, all the while fierce little tears pouring down her cheeks.

“I can't do this, Tori.” Haddo, breathing heavily, had put paid to her dreams. “You're my cousin. It's my job to look out for you—though God knows these days you're making it bloody near impossible.”

She had been driven to attacking him, pounding the hard wall of his chest. He had let her, as though it was too much trouble to stop her. “We're not first cousins, Haddo. We're not even full second cousins. Great-Uncle Julien and Great-Uncle George were half-brothers with different mothers. Why are you so appalled?” She had reached out to him again, surrendering to one last moment of weakness

He'd held her off. “This can't happen, Victoria. I don't want to hurt you, but I'm going to take you back to your room. You're beautiful—so beautiful! Your powers are staggering. I suspect they will only grow stronger. But I can't—I won't—let you try them out on me. No way could I forgive myself.”

“Or forgive me either!”

It was over. She had bitten off far more than she could chew.

Disgraced, she had wrenched herself away from him, half sliding half falling off the high bed, blinded by the long riotous masses of her hair. How had she got such uncontrollable hair anyhow—and why
red?
Liv insisted her hair was just like her aunt Rowena's, whom no one had ever seen.

“You know what you've done, don't you?” She had rounded on Haddo in a sick fury. “You've given me a life sentence.”

“Don't be ridiculous” His voice, honed by privilege, had sounded unbearably well bred.

“I hate you—okay?” She, on the other hand, had sounded as grim as she felt. “I've got to go home. I can't be near you for another day.”

He had made not the slightest attempt to dissuade her, nor sweetened it in any way. “That might be for the best, Tori,” he'd agreed. “I'll organise it.”

 

It wasn't until she was back in her own room that she began to cry her heart out, weeping until there were no more tears left and she fell into an exhausted sleep. The day that had begun with such golden promise had all of a sudden ended in ashes. Contrary to what she had been led to believe, she wasn't even vaguely sexy. She didn't inspire lust at all. At least not in Haddo. She had totally misread the look he had given her when she'd come down the staircase. She might remember it for as long as she lived, but to Haddo she was ridiculous.

Her broken heart she kept secret for the next four years.

The present—Mallarinka Station, Channel Country,
South-West Queensland

S
UNSET
saw Haddo riding back to the homestead, dog-tired and yearning for an ice-cold beer and a shower, in that order. He couldn't wait for cooling rivulets of water to stream over his stressed, dehydrated body. He had even contemplated falling fully clothed into a billabong along the way, but hadn't thought he'd be able to drag himself out. Even his favourite workhorse, Fleetwood, was bone-weary.

“Only a kilometre to go, boy!” He patted the gelding's long satiny neck, offering encouragement. Fleetwood responded with a nodding motion of his proud, handsome head. Once Fleetwood had run with the wild horses—until he had been captured. He had broken in Fleetwood himself, though “broken” wasn't a term he used. A station rule was that none of the horses was to be treated roughly. Only recently he had to let an otherwise good stockman go because of the man's cruel streak.

Over the years he had developed a very different technique from the “breaking” favoured even in his father's day. No spurs, no whips. He didn't so much “whisper” a wild horse into tameness, though it helped. His method was the rope, while keeping constant eye contact with whatever horse he was working. He'd got that eye contact down to a fine art.

Fleetwood had thoroughbred blood in him. His dam was a runaway station mare, and the sire was probably Warri, a big rogue brumby stallion with an impressive harem.

Wild horses were part of the Outback's unique heritage, though the downside was that they did threaten the delicate ecosystems. But out here man and wild horses lived side by side, with properly schooled brumbies replenishing dwindling station stock. Once most of the cleanskins were in, they would start trapping a mob or two. The mobs were coming in from the hill country, in search of water. There were thousands of wild horses out there—many the progeny of good station blood-stock, but others too small or too scrappy to be put to any use.

Gently he swung Fleetwood away from the line of billabongs and up onto the vast open plain. It was thickly dotted with spinifex, golden as wheat. It had been a day of stifling heat, always a big problem. The heat made men, horses and cattle sluggish, which meant all three got careless and under-performed, but he had decided the cattle from the outer areas of the station had to be brought in without delay. The heat wasn't going to get better. No use hoping or praying for a storm—although some of the storm-like displays of late had been pretty spectacular, blazing Technicolor versions of an atomic bomb. But, for all the pyrotechnics, there was no rain. The rain gods just weren't answering these days, and when they did he was pretty certain drought would give way to flood. That meant the cleanskins that had been enjoying the good life, undisturbed by man, had to be mustered and branded. With vast unfenced stations, and cattle wandering miles into the desert, the duffing of cleanskins went on.

Pretty much most of the day had been spent trying to muster a big mob of seriously psycho cattle out of Ulahrii, one of the least accessible lignum swamps. At least they'd been compensated by a brief visual delight: Ulahrii had been alight with the most beautiful and fragrant water lilies, great creamy yellow ones that lifted their gorgeous heads clear of the dark green
water. He had come upon them in all their beauty, and vivid memories had caused him to suck in his breath.

Tori on her sixteenth birthday. He couldn't get a picture of her out of his mind. A group of them had been swimming in Silver Lake, and Tori had balanced a blue lotus water lily on her rosy head. To him, she had been the very picture of an exquisite water sprite, with her long sensuous hair, her extraordinary alabaster skin that never freckled, the beautiful slanting green eyes, even her little pointy ears. He thought if he could paint he would paint her as that—
Nymph of the Lagoon,
watching over the water lilies.

Tori.

She had been so vivid, so totally happy that day—a creature of light from some magical place. One way or another she was always in his mind, though she didn't come willingly to the station any more. Over four years now since their drastic falling out, but in that time he had at least held control over her life. That was until she was twenty-five, when she would come into her inheritance.

He had come into his own inheritance a whole lot earlier than anyone in the family had ever anticipated in their wildest dreams. Two years ago Brandt, his charismatic father, had pole-axed them all by abdicating his role of Master of Mallarinka and the Rushford cattle empire to hare off to South Africa, still very rich, to be with a young South African woman he had met on a visit to Darwin and fallen passionately in love with, literally overnight. This at the age of fifty-five. These days his father and his new wife owned and ran an up-market safari camp that catered to well-heeled international tourists looking for a bit of excitement.

His mother hadn't mourned.

“I gave the best years of my life to your father. Now I'm going to pursue a bit of happiness myself.”

The trouble was, the steam had gone out of his parents' largely arranged marriage by the time he had left for boarding
school at age ten. His mother, a pragmatic woman, had moved on with a vengeance. She, too, had remarried, in the process acquiring a stepson—a wealthy management stockbroker with an investment bank, like his high-profile father—adding to her own family of himself and his younger sister Kerri. His mother now spent her time between Melbourne and Mallarinka, visiting in Melbourne's cold winter.

His very glamorous sister Kerri's marriage was going through a bad patch. Kerri, like their mother, was a bit of a control freak. She had asked if she could visit, and bring a friend—Marcy Hancock. Of course he had said yes, though he had grave misgivings about letting Marcy come. Sometimes he thought Marcy would still be pursuing him when they were both geriatric, or at the very least middle-aged. It was a mind-set. Nothing more. He'd have to start praying some rich Melbourne guy would whisk her off. He'd need to be rich. Marcy Hancock wasn't cut out for normal life in the suburbs.

He rode on, grateful the home compound was coming closer and closer. From time to time he lifted his head to watch the thousands of birds that had been conserving their energy all day head into the swamps and lagoons. Every species of waterbird was among them—geese, ducks, herons, egrets, ibises, blue cranes—and budgies in their billowing iridescent squadrons. There were literally millions of birds on the station. The birds on Mallarinka were doing it lean, like the rest of the desert fauna, but so far they were sticking to their territory. Mallarinka had permanent water, and a few of the larger billabongs, like Bahloo, were still quite deep.

Even at this hour, with the imperious sun losing its heat, the mirage was still abroad. It shimmered across the infinity of desert landscape, creating the most tantalising illusions of distant oases. He readily understood how early explorers responding to those illusions had come to grief. Aboriginal tribes on walkabout could have communicated to them in some way that the inland sea belonged to the Dreamtime, but the abori
gines then had been very wary of the white man—and with good reason. Today only goodwill existed on Mallarinka. It would have been impossible to work the station without aboriginal stockmen. They were marvellous bushmen, uncanny trackers and accomplished cattlemen.

He loved his desert home, but he had to admit there was a wild, dark side to it. Man was never in control. Nature was boss. He could only hope to manage his great inheritance and live in harmony with all that stupendous raw power.

The western sky, one moment all aflame was now turning sullen, silver and black shot with a livid green, and the “rain” clouds banked low over the horizon. It would be dark before he arrived. Pip, his great-aunt, would be there. Philippa had long since retired from academic life, and she was staying with him for a month or two. Whatever she liked. He left it up to her. Pip was always entertaining company and he was very fond of her.

“I'm sorry, my dear, but Lucy's having a bit of trouble in Sydney.” Philippa was there to greet him the moment he stepped in the back door.

Instantly his heart and head sprang to Tori. He searched Pip's long, distinguished face for clues. “It's Tori, of course?” he groaned, removing his riding boots and shoving them inside the wet room door. ‘Just tell me she's all right?” Muscles of anxiety were knotting in his stomach. He was never free of worry where Tori was concerned. Probably doomed to worry about her for as long as he lived. “She hasn't been involved in any accident?”

“No, dear.” Philippa hastened to offer reassurance. “Well, not personally. No one was hurt.”

“That's all right, then,” he responded, his relief apparent. “Just let me have a quick shower. I'm beat. I can't listen to another thing until then. As long as she's all right. And, oh, I'd love a long cold beer.”

Philippa laughed. “No problem. I'll join you in a bath-sized G&T.” She wasn't kidding either.

Under ten minutes later, Haddo was downstairs again, visibly refreshed. Despite his back-breaking day, his whole being radiated an enormous energy other people saw but he was largely unaware of. He sank into a comfortable armchair, watching Philippa pour him a beer, before making herself a gin and tonic that would knock a lesser woman out.

“God, you're a handsome man!” Philippa remarked with satisfaction, taking an armchair opposite.

Seeing her great-nephew gave Philippa back something of her wonderful brother Quentin—Haddo's late grandfather. There was the same vitality, and the height, the lean powerful body, the finely sculpted features, the flash of those startlingly blue eyes. And, just to top it off, there was the
smile
—so wonderfully engaging, with fine white teeth contrasting with the dark tan of his skin. Quentin had looked just like Haddo in his youth. Haddo would look like Quentin in old age.

Haddo was smiling crookedly at her. “Let's face it, Pip. We Rushfords are a handsome lot,” he joked.

“Yes, isn't it wonderful?” Philippa agreed, then abruptly sobered. “Brandt would still be here if he weren't so handsome and virile.”

“He's happy, Pip.” Haddo sighed. He missed his larger-than-life father. “Dad's having a whale of a time.”

“So he says. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if we get word one of these days that the gel is pregnant.”

“I dare say as she's half Dad's age she would want a child.” Haddo's answer was reasonable. “Anyway, good luck to them. My heritage is entailed. The Rushford cattle empire remains in my hands until it passes to my son.”

“Then you'd better get a move on, dear,” Philippa suggested slyly. She knew who she had in mind for her darling Haddo.

“I've got to find a woman to love before I can make a commitment, Pip,” he responded, in an off-hand way. “I don't want to be like Dad. I want my marriage to work.”

Philippa frowned. “I'm sure Brandt wanted his marriage to
work as well. But that South African hussy had him in her sights the moment she laid eyes on him. Bessie Butler told me that. The trouble was, your parents weren't really in love when they married. Not a grand passion anyway. It was all stitched up between the families—the Rushfords and the Haddons. I suppose you could almost say it was a business deal.”

Haddo knew the family history. “No wonder Dad craved a bit of adventure, then,” he said laconically. “Anyway, it's Tori I want to hear about. So fire away.” He downed half his beer at a gulp.

“Poor old Lucy has finally mastered sending an e-mail,” Philippa commented.

“That's nice!”

“There are several on your desk in the study. All saying much the same thing. She must have expected you to hit reply on the spot.”

“Well, I suppose I'll be doing that shortly,” he answered dryly. “All about Tori, of course?”

Philippa nodded her thickly thatched platinum head. In her late seventies, she was a remarkably well-preserved woman: very active, mentally and physically. A fine horsewoman, she still rode out every day. “How I wish Michael had never died! Probably planned it, with Livinia for a wife,” she added waspishly.

“Except it wouldn't have felt right. Nothing in this world would have parted Michael from his only love—his daughter.”

Philippa sighed deeply. “I know that, dear. I was just making a sick joke. The proverbial cat would have been a better mother than Livinia.”

“Agreed. So, what's Tori done this time?” he asked. “God knows how she's missed out on spending a night in the cells.”

“Darling girl!” Philippa murmured fondly.

“Little firebrand,” Haddo tacked on tersely.

“She's by no means the wild-child the media like to make out,” Philippa spoke up loyally.

“You must be the only one in the family not to agree with them, Pip. I know how protective you are of her—”

“And you're
not?
” Philippa's eyebrows met up with her hairline.

“I have to be—as you well know. Don't—and I mean
don't
—tell me it's anything to do with drugs?”

“Absolutely not, dear.” Philippa looked shocked. “Tori swore to me she would never touch them.”

“And how true is that?” he asked tersely. “They're all around her. She's out every night of the week. Wild parties at the weekend. Always with a posse of press in hot pursuit. And that boyfriend of hers—Morcombe.”

“Ah, but it's Josh Morcombe who spent the night in the cells,” Philippa now informed him. “Driving under the influence, I'm afraid,” she said ruefully. “Unfortunately Tori happened to be in the car with him. That guaranteed a lot of coverage. A couple of their friends were in the back. They'd all been at some nightclub. Anyway, Josh isn't a proper boyfriend, Haddo. She's broken up with him. I believe her latest boyfriend doesn't have two beans to rub together. Tori has never cared about money.”