Kelly's Man (3 page)

There was no sign of Nicholas in the dining-room or in the grounds of the hotel, and Kelly told herself that she was glad. His contempt as they had begun the walk down the mountain was still very vivid in her mind.

Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal, hasty and tasteless. It was as if Gary, Alex and Sheila could not wait to go. When they had finished eating the men bundled the suitcases into the car. As they drove down the long winding path that led from Great Peaks Lodge to the main road, Kelly noticed that none of her companions turned back to the hotel for a last look.

They had been out of the mountains for some hours now. The countryside was less dramatic but still beautiful, green and gently undulating in a manner very typical of Natal, but Kelly saw none of it.

'We ought to go back,' she observed.

'That's the fourth time you've said it.' Gary was impatient. 'You're beginning to sound boring.'

Alex and Sheila said nothing, but they had made their comments already. Kelly knew that they felt as Gary did; George Anderson had known what he was doing when he had agreed to guide them up the mountain. The accident had been unfortunate, but they were in no way to blame. As far as they were concerned the matter was ended.

'George didn't know you would go down the slope.' Kelly bit her lip, knowing the remark would incur her fiance's anger. 'He tried to call you back.'

'Give me a break, Kelly!' The hands that clenched the wheel were white-knuckled, the eyes that turned momentarily from the road blazed with uncontrolled fury. 'I didn't mean to slip. None of us are perfect.' He paused. When he went on his tone was edged with malice. 'Though perhaps having so much money gives you an illusion of perfection.'

A hushed silence followed his words. Kelly stared at Gary as if at a stranger. Every nerve quivered with anger and disappointment. Words rushed to her lips, but she bit them back as something inside her urged her to keep silent, telling her to leave further discussion of what had happened until a time when emotions had cooled. This was only the first crisis in her life with Gary. There would be others. Unless she learned how to deal with them there could be no happiness in their marriage.

And then she knew that she could not keep silent, no matter the consequences. In a tight voice she said, 'When we get to Estcourt you can drop me at the station.'

'Honey...' There was a new look in Gary's eyes, one which Kelly wished she had not seen. It was a look which was oddly out of place in her exuberant fiance, as if he was seeing a prize vanishing from his fingers and wondered what he could do to prevent it happening. His voice too held an unaccustomed note of panicked conciliation. 'Look, honey, perhaps I've been a bit hard, but...'

She could not bear to hear any more. She did not want to see Gary debase himself. 'Leave it now.' She forced a smile. 'I'll take a railway coach back to the hotel. I want to make sure George is all right.'

'We could all go...'

'No.' She shook her head a little too firmly. More than anything else she needed to be on her own for a while. 'I'll meet up with you in Durban. No, Gary, please don't say anything more. I'm going back alone.'

The desk clerk looked only mildly surprised to see her. In response to Kelly's question, he said that he thought Mrs Anderson was resting; she had spent most of the night at the hospital.

A little disconsolately Kelly turned away. She had returned to Great Peaks Lodge with the purpose of seeing Mary Anderson. She still would see her. But for the moment she was uncertain what to do next. It did not occur to her to ask for a room. After she had spoken to George's wife she would make her way back to Estcourt and from there to Durban.

She walked a little way from the desk in the direction of the big french doors which led on to a wide slastoed verandah. Sooner or later, she supposed, Mary Anderson would emerge from her room. Then she would talk to her. In the meantime, it seemed there was nothing to do but stroll around the garden a while and enjoy the view of the mountains.

'Well, if it isn't Miss Stanwick!'

Kelly spun round. Lost in thought, she had not seen him approach. He was looking down at her, hands stuck carelessly in the waistband of well- tailored cord trousers, grey eyes narrowed and watchful. She knew his full name now—Nicholas Van Mijden. Irrelevantly it came to her that no man had the right to look quite as virile and masculine as he did.

She swallowed. 'Hello, Mr Van Mijden.'

'I understand you and your friends had left.'

'We had. I... I decided to come back.'

'Why?'

For somebody who, it seemed, must be employed at the hotel—hard though it was to see Nicholas Van Mijden accountable to anyone but himself— there was an arrogance in his tone towards a guest which was surely inappropriate.

He was waiting for her answer. For a moment she was tempted to turn her back on him. Then she thought better of it. The memory of his contempt on the mountain had in no way faded. For some reason she needed to redeem his impression of her. It did not occur to her at that moment why this should in any way be important.

'I'd like to help,' she said simply.

His eyes held hers steadily. 'Interesting,' he murmured without expression.

Kelly could have left it at that. Her business was with Mary Anderson, nobody else. But the direct gaze of the steady grey eyes was doing peculiar things to her heartbeat. She was filled with the sudden need to talk, anything to lessen the tension that was building inside her.

'I'll be speaking to Mrs Anderson.'

'Mary is resting. In the meantime, I'd like to hear about this offer myself.' He gestured. 'We'll talk in the card-room.'

'No!' The exclamation bubbled hysterically from her throat. She knew the card-room. She could not go there with this man. It would be empty at this time of the day, and she did not want to be alone with him. Not that he would harm her in any way, but there would be an intimacy, even if only she Herself was aware of it, which she could not endure.

'Yes.' An impatient command. A hand gripped her arm, as if he meant to force her to go with him to the little room near the office. When she could catch her breath she would resent his autocratic manner. But for a moment there was only the tingling feeling on her skin where the lean fingers held her.

Abruptly she shook herself free. 'All right,' she agreed jerkily, 'though it's really no business of yours.'

'Where's Mr Sloan?' came the unexpected question, when the door of the little room was closed.

Kelly's chin lifted defiantly at his tone. There was no reason for this insufferable man to know the truth. 'He had to get back to Durban.'

'Leaving his fiancee to make amends on her own.' She saw the gleam in the dark eyes as he cut off her protest. 'Don't bother to defend him. What interests me is your own offer of help.'

For a few seconds she toyed with the idea of remaining silent. But there was something about this man—the tall broad shoulders blocking the doorway, the inherent sense of unyielding authority— which seemed to demand an answer.

'I intend to give Mrs Anderson some money.'

'Really?' he drawled, and it came to her that he was in no way surprised. 'So you've come back to play Lady Bountiful?'

'No need to make it sound so ugly!' She threw the words at him tightly. 'I had the feeling it might be of help.'

'Because you remembered George saying that money would be useful right now.' There was an
ominous
quality in the quiet voice.

'Well, yes...'

'Tell me, Miss Stan wick, do you buy your way out of every situation?'

She was stung by the deliberate insult. 'How dare you!' she exclaimed angrily.

He laughed mockingly. 'You don't like the truth?' A slight pause. 'Or is it just that your tribe of hangers-on tell you only what you want to hear?'

Anger surged through her, but even through the anger his words had the power to hurt. 'I don't care for your implications, Mr Van Mijden.' Somehow she managed to keep her voice low and controlled.

'No?' His gaze lingered on her face, taking in the stormy eyes, the flushed cheeks. Then it descended slowly, blatantly, to the intensely feminine curves of her figure. 'Perhaps it's just that as you're the only daughter of a millionaire industrialist none of your other acquaintances has ever thwarted you?'

She was shaken. He knew more about her than she had realised.

'I didn't think my father's name had spread this far.' She tried to keep her tone light.

'We do read newspapers in the backwaters of the Drakensberg.' There was a sardonic light in the glance he threw her. 'Even without that—there was the gossip of your friends.'

She looked at him, feeling a little sick. Whatever other faults her fiance might have, surely he had not stooped to discussing her father's position? Nicholas Van Mijden seemed to sense the unspoken question, and unexpectedly there was a slight softening in the hard face. But it was a softness which did not extend to his words. 'You might have found their comments enlightening.'

Kelly found her voice. 'I don't believe you. Gary ... My fiance wouldn't stoop to gossip.'

A shrug of broad shoulders. 'What you believe is of no concern to me. But to get back to my original question—you
do
believe that money is the solution to all your problems, don't you?'

She made an effort to meet his eyes. When that became difficult her glance slipped to the well- shaped nose, the mobile lips, the strong sweep of the jaw. If he was not handsome in a conventional sense his air of uncompromising maleness and toughness nonetheless made him the most arresting man she had ever encountered. He was also rude and arrogant and lacking in manners. In fact he possessed all the qualities she most detested.

'You're referring to the payment I offered George yesterday,' she said at last, with as much composure as she could muster.

'Offer of payment,' he jeered. 'A spade is a spade, Miss Stanwick, and a bribe is a bribe in any language.'

She felt the colour rise in her cheeks. It was becoming hard to breathe. It was as if the tall broad- shouldered figure took up most of the space in the room, though she knew, logically, that this could not be so.

There was truth in what he said. But it was not the whole truth. She
had
offered the money as an inducement, but she had not meant it as a bribe. She had seen it only as a way of averting an accident, never dreaming that an accident of another sort would happen in consequence.

'I don't expect you to understand,' she began uncertainly, then stopped. It was hard to explain her motivation, without in some way indicting Gary. He was reckless, even selfish perhaps. But she wore his ring, and had promised to be his wife, and she owed him some loyalty. A small pink tongue went out to moisten a dry lower lip. 'The photo was of great importance to my fiancé.'

'So important that all safety precautions could be disregarded. No,' he said in a hard voice, 'I don't understand.'

How clever he was at making her feel small! But not so clever that he did not see the only fallacy in his accusations.

'Assuming it was a bribe—which I dispute—why did George accept? He could have remained firm in his refusal.'

Something came and went in the grey eyes, and a muscle tightened in the long line of the jaw. 'You heard George say the money would be useful. The Andersons have been through a bad patch, and Mary's baby is due soon. You caught George at a very low moment, Miss Stanwick.'

'I see...' She kept her expression composed, but deep inside her there was a stab of shame and compassion. Then she said, 'That being the case, Mr Van Mijden, why do you object to the fact that I want to help?'

An eyebrow lifted. 'Did I say I object?

She stared at him uncertainly, wondering that he had the power to make her feel quite so vulnerable. 'Isn't that what all the sarcasm is about?'

'You
have
misunderstood.' He chuckled, and the sound was low and sensuous, sending a sudden quiver through her nerve-stream. 'It's not your help I object to, it's the fact that you seem to see help only in the form of money.'

'What other form is there?' she asked, puzzled.

'The only form that counts.' His words were measured. 'The kind of help that involves your time and your hands.'

Was he quite mad? Kelly wondered. She was aware that he was studying her, his eyes watchful as he registered the conflicting emotions which flickered across her face. 'You don't expect me to fill in for George?' she asked at last. 'I couldn't do a man's work.'

'But you could do a woman's,' he said very softly. And then, as she continued to look at him speechlessly: 'You could do Mary's work.'

She stepped abruptly away from him. More than ever she was aware of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the room—odd that she had not been aware of it when she had played cards here with her friends. But perhaps the atmosphere had less to do with the size of the room than with the sense of maleness now pervading it, a maleness that was so potent as to be dizzying.

'Let me go,' she ordered low-toned, knowing that her only way out of the room was past the lean muscled body which stood between her and the door.

'When you've agreed to my proposition.'

She sent him a burning look. 'I've never heard anything more absurd in my life!'

'Absurd?' He was baiting her, she thought, and taking pleasure in it.

'Of course. I know nothing about hotel management.'

He looked at her steadily. 'You could learn.'

He means it, she thought. He actually means it. This is not just a game.

Aloud, she said, 'I suppose I could. But there'd be no point in it.'

'There would. George will be operated on tomorrow. If you took over Mary's duties she could be at his side.'

If it was anyone other than Nicholas Van Mijden who was speaking these words, Kelly thought, she would understand. She would even be prepared to consider the proposition. She had noticed the love that existed between the Andersons, and she realised that it would make all the difference to George to have Mary by his side. She did not know what Mary's duties entailed, but it was probable that she could learn them. But the man
was
Nicholas, and an irrational rebelliousness would not let her give in to him.