Meant To Marry

‘It’s like paradise,’ a big Australian man said now, gazing around at the glittering lagoon, the abrupt peaks in the centre of the main island, the graceful grey trunks of the coconut palms. He tried some of the fish salad and laughed. ‘If my mother could see me now—she’d never believe that I ate raw fish and enjoyed it!’

‘The lime juice actually cooks the flesh,’ Anet said. ‘Sort of, anyway.’

He grinned. ‘I’m not going to tell her that. You’re Anet Carruthers, aren’t you?’

Schooling the resignation from her face, she nodded.

‘I saw you at the Olympics,’ he said. ‘You were brilliant.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. At his next words she thought the air froze around them. His voice went on, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying until she swallowed fiercely and cleared her ears.

‘Whatever happened, you deserved that medal,’ the man finished earnestly, the upward intonation of his voice at the end of the sentence revealing that, like so many others, he wondered whether perhaps she would tell him something no one else knew about the rumours that had shadowed her Olympic triumph.

The muscles in her face ached with the effort it took to keep them passive. Although it had happened years ago, the wound was still acutely tender—the only thing that would heal it would be Victoria Sutter’s confession that she had lied.

And Anet knew just how likely that was.

She said calmly, ‘Thank you.’

Lucas Tremaine’s voice broke into the prison of her thoughts. ‘Excuse me, Anet, but several people want to collect shells,’ he said. ‘Is it allowed?’

She met his assessing look with a feeble attempt at aplomb. Words stumbled from her tongue. ‘I—yes, of course. Although they can’t take any live shellfish.’

‘You’d better show them how to tell whether they’re alive or dead,’ he said. When she didn’t move he held out an imperative hand. ‘Coming?’

Obediently she got up, gave the man beside her a vague smile and went with Lucas, mesmerised by his size, she supposed, or by the unfaltering strength she sensed in him.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked when they were out of earshot.

‘Nothing.’ The denial came automatically.

His brows rose. ‘You went as white as a sheet, and although the insensitive clod you were with didn’t seem to notice, you looked as though you’d been shown a glimpse into the pits of hell.’

Angered by his astuteness, she returned grittily, ‘You should do well with fiction if you ever give it a try.’

He turned his head and looked her way. An inner chill shivered through her body; she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from flinching. Her chin came up as she stared back unwaveringly, defying him to comment.

Instantly it was gone, that secret, hidden menace, the cold power that had slipped its leash and blazed from his unreadable eyes for a fleeting moment before he’d reimposed control.

‘Thank you,’ he said ironically, and for the rest of the time they were on the island stayed close to her—like, she thought foolishly, a huge guard dog, more intimidating than he was handsome.

Back at Fala‘isi he left them at the wharf, but before he went he found Anet and said, ‘Scott says you’re staying with him. How would it be if I drop the present around this evening just after seven?’

‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, fighting an odd mixture of anticipation and antagonism.

Time that afternoon seemed both to stretch to infinity and hurry past, so that when they arrived back at Scott and Serena’s bungalow—set in suburbia that was familiar yet exotic, with streets shaded by coconut palms and scented by frangipani bushes, their cream and gold and cerise flowers uncurling from spiral buds between rosettes of large, lushly green leaves—Anet wondered where the hours had gone.

‘I’m taking you out to dinner,’ Scott said firmly as he switched off the engine of his somewhat aged car. ‘And then we’ll go on to a nightclub.’

‘Dinner would be lovely, but I’m not a club person really, Scott,’ she said quickly. Although the business was doing well, he couldn’t afford to waste money.

‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘I won’t wear a T-shirt with “Paradise Diving” in big red letters all over it like I usually do, and I’ll behave very nicely—no haring off to drum up clients, I promise.’

She gave him a teasing smile. ‘You don’t have to take me out, you know, even if it is my birthday. I’m perfectly happy staying at home.’

‘I know,’ he said earnestly, ‘but bear with me, Annie. You’ve been a real brick, leaving everything to come up and help out, and I’d like to do something for you.’

‘Well, I didn’t get where I am today by refusing to go out with handsome men,’ she said, smiling as she gave in. ‘And you’d better wear that T-shirt—at least to the nightclub. Serena would never forgive me if you missed out on an opportunity to attract more customers. Where will we go for dinner?’

‘I thought you might like to try the local Chinese restaurant. It’s the best in the Pacific, and believe me, that means something, because there are some brilliant Chinese restaurants in the South Seas. Then we can go on to an island night in one of the hotels. It’s always a good do.’

‘What’ll I wear?’

‘Anything that isn’t hot,’ he said. ‘Casual but pretty—that’s what Serena calls the island look. Most of the women will probably be wearing sarongs.’

Anet regarded him with affectionate exasperation. Those sarongs would have been bought from hotel shops or the main street boutiques; they’d be expensive, the epitome of informal chic, and they didn’t suit her.

‘Casual but pretty I can manage, although it won’t be a sarong,’ she said, adding, ‘Oh, by the way, Lucas is coming over at seven. He’s bringing a present for me from Olivia and Drake Arundell.’

‘Do you know him?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t say.’

‘No, I’ve never met him before, but obviously we share some friends. How did you get to know him?’

‘I went to school with him,’ he said. ‘I was in his house when he was head prefect.’

Of course he’d been head prefect. ‘What was he like?’

‘Tough but fair,’ Scott told her. ‘Bloody clever. More respected than quite a few of the teachers.’

‘Did you ever meet his wife?’

He whistled between his teeth. ‘Yeah. Remember when Serena and I were in the Auckland-Suva yacht race? Well, he and Cara were in Fiji at the time. We saw quite a bit of them.’

I am not going to ask what she was like. To stop the impetuous words, she said remotely, ‘That was a tragedy.’

Scott nodded, his cheerful face for once bleak. ‘Yeah. She was—Oh, hell, every so often you meet a woman who really stands out, you know? Cara was beautiful, but she was open and easy, and funny with it, and somehow she made you feel that just to be alive was a wonderful thing. I couldn’t believe it when I saw in the paper that she’d been murdered.’

‘It must have been terrible for Lucas.’

‘I don’t know how he got over it. She doted on him, you could tell, and although he didn’t show it so much, he thought she was everything. Hell of a thing to happen. He’s never said anything about it, but I think that’s why he went bush after she died. He disappeared for nearly a year. Nobody knew where he was or what he was doing until he marched into the capital with the freedom fighters.’

‘I suppose he blamed himself for his wife’s death,’ she said.

Scott nodded. ‘Yeah. Years later in a bar in Greece I met a journalist who knew him quite well; he and I got talking one night over a bottle of whisky and he swore that Lucas had hunted down the men who’d planted the bomb.’

‘Killed them?’ she asked faintly.

‘Well, delivered them to justice.’

Anet shivered. Yes, she thought. Yes, I can imagine him doing that. He’d be utterly merciless. ‘Poor Lucas,’ she said, unfolding herself from the front seat of the car. Poor Lucas, and poor Cara, and the poor unborn child.

Could anyone ever get over such wholesale destruction of their family?

If anyone could, Lucas Tremaine looked as though he was the man; he exuded a concentrated, self-sufficient toughness that had been grafted onto an already strong character. But even he might find it hard to forgive himself for the death of his wife.

‘You have the shower first,’ Scott said generously as they went into the house. ‘I’ve got paperwork to do and people to telephone.’

Cool water washed away the sweat of the day, sleeking down her body, giving Anet an illusion of freshness as she shampooed. Once out, she dried herself off, sighed as the humid heat enveloped her once again and combed back her fine black hair, wondering just what Cara Tremaine had looked like.

Scott eyed her dubiously when she emerged from her bedroom. ‘You should go and have a shopping session,’ he said.

She knew what he meant. The linen shirt-dress, striped in off-white and a dusky pink, suited Auckland, not the vivid colours and heavy, sensuous atmosphere of Fala’isi. ‘Perhaps I will,’ she said airily.

He gave her a sharp look. ‘Have you got any money? And don’t frown—I know you. Too independent for your own good.’

She lifted haughty black brows at him. ‘This sounds a little strange coming from the man who turned his back on his family to make his own way in the world.’

Grinning, he aimed a punch at her upper arm, then reeled back dramatically and shook his knuckles, wincing and blowing on them. ‘God, will I never learn,’ he mourned, ‘that you’ve got muscles like a drain-digger?’

‘If you keep punching me you’ll learn it very soon.’ She looked at him sideways and said demurely, ‘Although you were never exactly noted for rapid understanding, were you?’

He opened his mouth to return her amiable insult with one of his own, then changed his mind. ‘Did you bring any money?’ he persisted.

She sighed. ‘We live in the era of the credit card, my dear.’

‘Oh, yes, I keep forgetting you’re an heiress.’

She said cheerfully, ‘I used the last of Gran’s money to buy into the practice.’

‘So you’ve got—?’

She shook her head at him. ‘Dad advanced me some money. I’m all right, Scott. I certainly don’t need anything from you, and if by any chance I do, I’ll let you know, don’t worry.’

Scott’s reply was forestalled by the sound of the doorbell. ‘See that you do,’ he said. ‘That’ll be Lucas,’ and went off to let him in.

Anet smoothed a hand over her hip. Resisting the sudden need to swallow, she picked up a birthday card from a Canadian woman she’d beaten years before, after a particularly tense competition in Rome, and turned it over in her hands. In spite of their torrid struggle they’d become firm friends.

‘Have a beer with us?’ Scott was asking as the two men came into the room. ‘Or better still, why don’t you come out to dinner? We’re going to The Jade Horse and then on to the Plaza’s island night.’

An involuntary protest trembled for a second on Anet’s tongue, before being swallowed unspoken.

‘I didn’t intend to butt in,’ Lucas said, his expression unreadable. He wore grey trousers and a shirt that was superbly cut across his wide shoulders. Hair the golden brown of dark honey gleamed in the light of the central lamp; in his long, tanned hands he held a small package.

‘You’re not,’ Scott told him. ‘Is he, Annie?’

‘No, of course not.’ Smiling stiffly, she added, ‘We’d like it very much if you came.’

He sent her a considering glance before saying with a politeness that came perilously close to parody, ‘Thank you. I’d like it too.’

‘OK, that’s settled.’ Scott grinned at them both and headed towards the door. ‘I’ll ring the restaurant.’

Anet put down the card and looked across at the man who stood watching her, his attitude oddly forbidding. Summoning a wry smile, she said, ‘He feels he has to entertain me on my birthday.’

‘You seem to be a close-knit family.’

‘Very,’ she said, thinking of her lovely, laughing mother and sister, and her reserved, drily humorous father, as well as his two sisters and three brothers—parents to a whole horde of cousins who had alternately delighted and plagued her childhood.

‘You don’t look much like your sister.’

‘We’re half-sisters, actually. Jan is five years older than I am.’

‘Ah, that explains it. Here,’ he said, proffering the parcel, ‘is my commission.’

Anet took it and turned it over, more curious about Olivia’s reasons for sending it with a courier than its contents. ‘I wonder what it is?’ she murmured.

He laughed softly. ‘If you open it you might find out.’

So she sat down and, feeling absurdly self-conscious under his enigmatic gaze, began to take off the wrapping. Beneath it she discovered a flat box. After wrestling with the fastenings, and more bubble plastic than seemed necessary, she managed to get it open and slide its contents out. In her hand lay a tiny portrait in a frame. Anet gasped as she stared down at the delicate little countenance some eighteenth-century artist had painted on ivory.

Luminous, glowing, a very young woman looked out at the world with solemn blue eyes set in a sweetly imperious face. The features were fine yet not weak, and a squareness to the jaw hinted at an interesting personality.

‘Intriguing presents you give one another.’ Lucas’s voice was noncommittal.

Her brows meeting, Anet looked at the back. A tiny clip held a flap in place. With extreme care she turned it over so that once more she could see the painted face. ‘It’s valuable, isn’t it?’

‘If it’s genuine—and although I’m no expert it certainly looks that way—then yes, it’s quite valuable. And very beautiful.’

It was obvious that he thought the second attribute more important than the first.

‘There must be some mistake,’ Anet said slowly. ‘Olivia wouldn’t give me anything like this. It looks like a family heirloom.’

‘She told me to look after it and said you’d probably protest but to ignore you. She means you to have it.’

The young woman gazed serenely back at Anet. ‘Her expression seems to change,’ she said, before she realised how stupid such a remark was.

‘May I have a look?’ Lucas asked, and came over to sit beside her.

Silently she handed the portrait to him, watching as the lean fingers deftly took the dainty thing. Her stomach jumped.

‘I wonder who painted it,’ he said. ‘He was a master, whoever he was.’

She said, ‘It could have been a woman.’

‘Do you think so?’ The tip of a lean forefinger almost touched the surface, moved a fraction of an inch above it to trace the small mouth. Thick black lashes almost hid the enigmatic blue-green of his eyes.

Once again Anet felt a swift wrench inside her, as though some fundamental force had altered her cellular structure, transforming her. She swallowed, held captive by the masculine strength of his finger against the soft pink and whiteness of the unknown woman’s face.

He said, ‘I think it was painted by her lover.’

Fortunately Scott strolled back into the room. ‘All OK,’ he said. ‘Hello, what’s this?’

‘Olivia sent it to me,’ Anet said woodenly.

Her nerves were tautly stretched. Yet nothing had happened. She had watched Lucas almost touch a painting, that was all. Her gaze fell on the portrait. Strange that she hadn’t noticed the sympathy in the painted smile, or the tinge of smugness.

Lord, she thought, I’m losing my mind!

It was essential that she regain command of the situation. Saying quickly, ‘I think I’d better ring Olivia and find out who this mysterious woman is!’ she held out her hand.

Lucas didn’t respond immediately; instead he looked at her with a hooded, elemental challenge that chilled her right through.

Then he smiled, irony and mockery nicely blended. Her outstretched hand shook slightly but she kept it extended. ‘I’ll take it with me,’ she said lightly.

‘If it’s valuable,’ Scott observed in a blessedly normal voice, ‘we really should put it in a safety deposit box at the bank. There’s no crime to speak of on Fala’isi, but just in case...’

Lucas put the portrait into her hand, his fingers brushing hers. Her skin seemed to have become thinner; she almost recoiled as sensation leapt from nerve-end to nerve-end through her body, setting it on fire.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’

Fala‘isi and New Zealand were in the same time zone, so she got Olivia as she was preparing for dinner. ‘I was just going to ring you!’ she said, her voice golden with affection. ‘Happy birthday!’

‘Thank you. It’s been a super one so far.’ And then she stopped, because how could she tell Olivia that she didn’t feel comfortable about accepting her gift?

But of course Olivia knew. With a little laugh she said, ‘You think the portrait is too much.’

Thankfully, Anet took a deep breath and said, ‘Olivia, it’s absolutely beautiful and I love it, but I can’t keep it. You must see that—even I can tell it’s valuable.’

Olivia said warmly, ‘I don’t know whether it’s genuine or not, but it’s yours.’

‘I can’t accept it,’ Anet protested. ‘Olivia, does Drake—?’

‘Agree? Of course he does. Truly, Anet, I haven’t lost my mind. She’s not a family heirloom. She’s a—a good luck charm, I suppose you could call her.’

‘Whatever, you must see that it’s impossible for me to even think of—’

On an odd wry note, Olivia said, ‘I don’t know that you’ve got any choice, my dear. I think she knows where she wants to be.’

Anet’s head came up. A shade brusquely she asked, ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Relax, relax. I’m not hinting at witchcraft or the occult. The lady is very determined, that’s all. Anet, why not just keep her while you’re in Fala’isi? If you really don’t want her you can return her to me when you come back. All right?’

It wasn’t all right, but Anet knew that she couldn’t say so. Trying to banish the reluctance from her tone, she said, ‘Yes, of course. And—thank you, Olivia.’

‘Think of her as a temporary visitor,’ Olivia said, laughter and a kind of understanding texturing her words. ‘What do you think of Lucas Tremaine?’

‘Overwhelming,’ Anet returned drily.

‘Isn’t he just!’

Anet said, ‘He’s coming out to dinner with Scott and me tonight.’

‘He’s an interesting man,’ Olivia said. ‘I like him. So does Drake. He met him in San Rafael—Drake spent some time working in the mines there. He was delighted to see him again.’

“‘Interesting” describes Lucas exactly,’ Anet said, hoping she didn’t sound as ambivalent as she felt. ‘Olivia—’

‘Have a wonderful night, Anet, and I hope this year is better than any other you’ve ever lived through. Yes, all right,’ she said to someone else in the room, turning back to confide, ‘I have to go now. Phillips has prepared a new dish and he’s rather worried about it. I had to promise that Drake and I would be at the table dead on time!’

‘Is Simon not at home?’ Simon was Olivia’s much younger half-brother, who lived with the Arundells.

‘He’s staying with a friend. Come and see us when you get back, Anet. All right, Phillips...’

The Arundells’ manservant, housekeeper, nanny and good friend combined, a middle-aged man called simply Phillips, was a domestic tyrant who ruled the house with a rod of iron—especially when Olivia was pregnant, as she was now for the third time. Olivia and Drake hoped for a daughter to round off their family—‘Although if it’s another boy,’ Olivia had said placidly the last time Anet had seen her, ‘I’ll be perfectly happy. I like my boys.’

Anet was smiling as she hung up, but the smile faded as her eyes fell on the miniature. Tranquilly the small, exquisitely painted face gazed back at her.

‘Young as you are, I think Olivia was right. You look to me,’ Anet said, rewrapping her carefully, ‘like someone to be reckoned with. I don’t think you’d like the tropics—you’re a Gainsborough lady, not a Gauguin. If Olivia’s baby is a girl, I’ll give you to her as a christening present.’

And she carried the parcel to her bedroom where, after some thought, she hid it in a drawer.

Compelled by an obscure impulse, she walked across her room to stand in front of the full-length mirror. ‘Sturdy,’ she told her reflection after several moment’s scrutiny, ‘describes you exactly. And solid.’

Everything about her was big—broad shoulders, wide hips, long, powerful legs. Since she’d given up field sports the heavy layers of muscle in her thighs and shoulders had sleeked down, but with her bone structure she’d never be anything but big.

‘Just like your father,’ her petite mother used to say, hugging her, unable to hide the note of regret in her voice.

Anet’s eyes moved to examine her face with dispassionate interest. She was certainly no beauty, although she had her mother’s pale, clear, fine skin. The best she could be called was striking, with her wide mouth and square jaw beneath cheekbones flaring away from a straight nose. Black short hair and barely arched brows contrasted shockingly with eyes of a light, limpid grey. If they’d been blue or brown their size would have been emphasised, but in spite of the curly dark lashes that surrounded them their transparency seemed to rob her of personality.

She and the woman in the miniature had nothing in common except their gender, she thought with a self-mocking smile. Not even in her cradle had she been called dainty. What on earth had made Olivia think she would like her gift?

Although perhaps Olivia knew her better than she did herself, because she did; she loved it.

Into her mind there popped Scott’s words about Cara Tremaine. ‘Beautiful...made you feel that just to be alive was a wonderful thing...’

Of course Lucas would marry an exceptional woman. Exceptional men did—it was the law of the jungle, or the survival of the fittest, or something. Alpha men married alpha women. She, as she had always known, was not an alpha woman. In fact, on occasion she had been the butt of remarks questioning her femininity; they had hurt when she was young, but she ignored them these days.

Which made the shivery inner feelings now assailing her ridiculous.

Perhaps some weakness in her made her fall passionately—futilely—in lust with tall, handsome men who possessed uncompromising authority and intense, bone-deep sexuality, men with charisma. And that, she thought derisively, was a much overrated word that meant nothing.

Anyway, Lucas was going to Hawaii, so she was safe.

Suddenly realising that she had been staring at her reflection with the still solemnity of a moonstruck owl—she, who never looked at herself except to comb her hair—she pulled a hideous face and walked out of the room.

Lucas and Scott were in the sitting room drinking beer. Both looked up as she came into the room, but it was Scott who demanded, ‘What did she say?’

‘If she weren’t Olivia,’ Anet answered thoughtfully, ‘I’d say she was being cagey.’

Scott brought a glass of lime juice across to her. She’d have preferred wine, but when she’d found how much it cost on the island she’d blenched and given it up for the duration.

‘That doesn’t sound like Olivia,’ Lucas commented, sounding amused and indulgent.

‘No, it doesn’t, but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming.’ She recounted Olivia’s words.

‘A whim,’ Scott decided. ‘She suddenly thought you’d like it.’

Anet suppressed her inchoate suspicion that there was more to the unexpected present than a mere feminine whim. Conjuring up a social smile copied from her mother, she turned to Lucas and said, ‘Thank you very much for breaking your journey to deliver it.’

‘It was nothing,’ he said with negligent courtesy.

‘You’re too kind,’ she said automatically, and felt heat run along her cheekbones and hairline at the subtly taunting smile he directed at her. Hurriedly she continued, ‘Do you have your flight booked for Hawaii?’

‘I had to cancel when I stopped off here, but it’ll be easy enough to get another one.’

Scott put his glass down. ‘How long do you think you’ll be there?’