Secret Courtship

A tall, leggy female emerged, her hair—ash-blond and straight-glistening like a sheet of pale water around her shoulders, her slender figure immaculate in a powder-blue sheath dress that flattered every feminine curve. Her glance barely flickered over Laura, as, with a tinkle of silver bracelets, she raised an arm and waved to Nicholas.

“Are you ready, Nick?” Her voice was soft, and had a built-in huskiness that would, Laura mused tautly, appeal to men of all ages; it was a voice that would be hard to resist.

Nicholas Diamond showed no signs of wanting to resist it.

“Be right there, Melody,” he called in an easy tone.

But before he moved away his eyes slewed down to meet Laura’s for one fleeting moment. “Remember what I said,” he warned grimly. “The forest is off limits.”

Then he was gone, striding away toward the powder-blue Jag as if he’d already forgotten her existence.

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER her altercation with Nick Diamond, Laura showered and changed and then walked down to the village, where she bought a sturdy second-hand bicycle. Before going home, she crossed to the supermarket, where she purchased enough groceries to last her a week.

It was fortunate that she had, because the following morning she woke to the sound of heavy rain ... rain that showed no signs of letting up in the near future.

Depressing though the bad weather was, it had its advantages. Laura couldn’t go out, so she set herself to spring-cleaning the cottage and to sorting out Charity’s clothes, and other items, for disposal ... shedding more than one tear in the process.

It took her six days to complete the work, and during that time it rained solidly. But when she woke on the seventh day she discovered that the rain had spattered itself to a stop through the night; when she stumbled to the bedroom window, it was to look out on a dazzlingly bright scene.

In her cream cotton robe and slippers, she wandered, yawning, through to the living-room, where she flung open the French doors and stepped out onto the patio.

Birdsong greeted her, and air so sweetly fresh that she drew in great lungfuls as she looked at the raindrops sparkling like jewels on every leaf. Raising her face to the sun, eyes closed, she stretched her arms high, as far as her fingers could reach. The belt of her robe slipped open, and the sun stroked her bare legs, and the swell of her breasts above the ribboned yoke of her nightie. It felt good—it felt free!—to stand there like that, and though her muscles ached it was a pleasant ache—a reminder of a job well done.

She was about to retie her robe and go inside again when she had a feeling someone was watching her. She jerked her head up to glance at the house next door...and froze.

Nick Diamond must have been passing an uncurtained window upstairs as she’d stepped outside, because she could see him standing there now—at least, she could see the upper half of his body. That body might be half-naked, or it might—her cheeks became warm-be totally naked; the lower frame of the window cut him off at the waist. What she could see of him was disturbingly male—wide, tanned shoulders and muscular arms, and a deep chest clouded with crisp black hair.

Her breath caught in her throat as their eyes locked, and she felt her pulse quiver as, for a time-stopping moment, she saw a flicker of sexual awareness in his gray gaze. It was only for a moment, because even as she felt an answering tingle run through her body his expression changed. He looked, all of a sudden, as if someone had struck him a blow on the head from behind.

He had, Laura realized, finally recognized that the female he’d almost run over with his truck, the female he’d also forbidden to trespass in his forest and the female with whom he’d tangled in the dark-shadowed living-room at Sweet Briar were one and the very same.

But, before she could move, before she could tilt her chin haughtily and stomp back inside, he raised one hand in a mocking salute, and, moving away, disappeared from view.

Resentment poured through her like burning acid as she absorbed the hard reality of the situation: there was nothing she could do to prevent Nick Diamond from staring down on her, at any time, from his window.

She remembered how, during her visit to Sweet Briar that long-ago summer when she was ten years old, Great-Aunt Charity had often flung off her blouse after a weeding session, and had collapsed in a deckchair with a glass of lemonade to sunbathe in her bra and her baggy old shorts while Laura played under the lawn sprinkler in her swimsuit.

How had the elderly woman reacted, Laura now wondered, when the cottage next door had been bulldozed to the ground and Nick Diamond had erected a house so tall that he could look down into her yard? Had she been horrified? Or had she, with the confidence of her years, continued to sunbathe in her—?

Splash!

Laura compressed her lips into a tight line as she heard, from the other side of the wall, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting water—a man’s body, she surmised irritably, a whipcord-lean and hair-roughened body, a darkly tanned and glorious body, slicing with tautmuscled perfection into the deep end of a luxurious swimming pool.

The sun was shining more brightly with every passing moment, but to Laura it might as well have been floundering behind a bank of thunder-purpled clouds. Her morning was already. ruined—as every morning would be when it had to be spent in such close proximity to Nicholas Diamond.

It wasn’t until later, after she’d showered and dressed, that she decided there was only one course to follow if she hoped to enjoy living at Sweet Briar. She had to ignore her next door neighbor. She had to wipe the man from her mind. She had to pretend he didn’t exist. If she couldn’t do that, then her every moment would be unbearable. She’d be constantly wondering if he was peering down on her—watching her as she gardened, watching as she hung out her washing, watching as she lay reading in the shade of the apple tree.

And she would ignore him.

She had intended to garden today...and she would garden today. If Nick Diamond had nothing better to do with his time than watch her, then she should feel sorry for him.

As she sat down at the kitchen table to eat breakfast she propped one of Charity’s gardening books against the cornflakes package, and while she ate she immersed herself in the chapter entitled, “Roses—the Pruning of”.

Half an hour later, she went out to the shed in search of a pair of secateurs. She found some right away, in excellent condition. Charity Brown must have been a conscientious gardener, she mused; the blades were oiled and sharp.

It was with a spring in her step that she approached the first rose bed, and it was with a smile on her lips that she tentatively snipped off the first dead branch.

She made good headway, and soon gained confidence in herself, and after lunch she went back out to prune the last of the rose bushes, situated in a plot running under the wall separating Sweet Briar from the house next door.

During the morning she’d heard sounds from the other side of the wall—Sally’s low voice, accompanied by the lighter voices of children. It hadn’t taken Laura long to deduce that there were two of them—little boys, Matthew and Michael—who sounded as if they were quite small.

They must have been put down for a nap after lunch, because in the afternoon she heard no signs of life from next door...not till around two o’clock. As she was pruning the second to last rose bush voices came floating over the wall again—this time those of Sally and her brother.

At first the two chatted desultorily about someone called James, who seemed to be Sally’s husband and who had gone to the Kootenays on business. Laura tried to ignore the voices, even wondered if she should cough to let the two know that she was there, but in the end decided that if she were to do that every time they were in their garden and she was in hers it would be ridiculous. Instead she speeded up her pruning, and had almost finished when she heard Sally speak in response to a muffled comment by Nick.

“Yes, it’s strange, isn’t it, how things turned out? Before I married James, Melody and I spent so much time together... and now you see more of her than I do! And she’s good for you, Nick—you complement each other. She calms you down when you get stressed through overwork... as you so often do...”

Laura tried to block her ears to their conversation, and managed for a while, but as she began pruning the last straggly branches Nick’s voice, loud and clear, came floating to her reluctant ears.

“...unrealistic expectations about marriage. Let’s face it, what you and James have is rare—the exception that proves the rule. I’m not expecting that kind of marriage—I intend that it will be more like a business arrangement—”

“A business arrangement?”

“Mmm. Everything cut and dried beforehand, so there’ll be no unpleasant surprises for either of us. I intend for the two of us to agree on certain conditions, to set them out in a detailed legal contract, and then we’ll both sign on the dotted line. When we have children, we shall, of course, have to write out a second contract—”

“How many children?”

“Two. A boy and a girl.”

Sally chuckled. “You really do have everything planned, don’t you?” There was the sound of chair-legs scraping on brick. “I tell you, Nick, life isn’t that simple.” She said something else, which Laura didn’t hear, and they both laughed, then Sally said, “This heat’s getting to me. I’m going indoors for. a while.”

Laura heard footsteps crossing the patio, and then Nick’s voice, faintly. “I’m going out in ten minutes I have to go downtown. I want to know if there’s been any headway in the...” The footsteps and the voices faded away.

Laura’s breath came out in a rush, and it was only then that she realized she’d been holding it. She straightened, grimacing as she wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Eavesdropping—that was what she’d been doing.

Despite her twinges of guilt, though, she couldn’t help feeling glad she had heard what she had. It displayed Nick Diamond in an even more unflattering light than before, and confirmed her negative opinion of him. The man was not human ... he was little more than a machine. Whoever it was he planned to marry—Melody, the powder-blue blonde, of whom Sally approved?—whoever she was, someone should warn her...

Laura pushed all thoughts of Nick Diamond from her head as she finished her pruning; whatever he did, whomever he married, it was, thank the Lord, no concern of hers.

She was in her bedroom, getting ready to go down to the village for groceries, when she heard the sound of Nick’s Porsche backing out of the driveway next door and onto the street.

Firmly squashing an impulse to cross to the window to make sure he had gone, Laura continued brushing her hair, frowning at the long mousy strands. She really should have her hair cut and frosted, she mused. It looked so much prettier that way—the way it had looked when she was a teenager, the way it had looked when she’d met Jason.

Her eyes became shadowed. Jason. After they’d been married he had told her he hated it that way, and had insisted she let it revert to its natural color. She sighed. He had really done a number on her—and she had been too intimidated to fight back. Within weeks of their wedding day he’d changed her—had changed her image, her appearance.

He had tossed out her fashionable designer pants and pretty silk blouses, her perky summer shorts and tube tops, her favorite rings and earrings and bracelets ... and had made her replace the clothes with garments she’d detested—in dull shades and nondescript styles that had drawn the color from her cheeks and the sparkle from her eyes and had down-played her attractively curved figure. He had also prohibited her from wearing any jewelry other than her wedding and engagement rings. She had felt like a butterfly crushed brutally back into its chrysalis.

She had thought Jason had acted the way he had because he’d been twelve years older than she was, and had found her taste immature, but the reasons had been deeper and uglier than that. He had been jealously possessive—though it had taken Laura a long time to realize it.

Putting down her hairbrush, she shook her head as her glance skimmed over her reflection. She was still wearing clothes Jason had bought for her during their marriage—a shapeless beige blouse and a pair of drab and equally unflattering shorts.

Some day, she told herself, she would go on a shopping trip; some day, also, she would make an appointment at a beauty salon and get her hair done—but she had been dowdy for so long it was going to take an effort to break out of the chrysalis in which she’d been imprisoned. The day would come, though, when she’d feel up to it, when she’d feel strong enough to ignore the images of Jason—the cold and contemptuous and disapproving images that still lingered in her mind...

And that day, she sensed, feeling a little lurch of excitement, might come quite soon!

She was walking her bike down to the end of the drive when she saw Sally hurrying out to the sidewalk.

When Laura said, “Hi, there!” the other woman turned with a rueful grimace.

“I wanted to catch Nick but he’s gone! Drat—I I phoned the video store down in the village to see if they had a copy of The Seventh Secret. They said they had one left and they’d keep it for me—hut only till three-thirty—and I wanted to ask Nick to pick it up as he passed on his way to the lawyer’s office.” She brushed a curl back from her brow. “Ah, well, I guess I’ll have to phone and cancel—”

“I’m on my way to the village. I’ll pick it up for you, if you like.”

“Would you?” Sally’s face brightened. “Oh, that’s s sweet of you! Hang on a sec till I get my purse—”

“That’s okay—you can pay me later.”

“Come to the back door, would you, when you get home? The front doorbell’s awfully loud—wakes up the boys.”

“Right.” With a push of her foot, Laura was away, and moments later made a left turn from Juniper Avenue to the road leading down to the village.

Sally seemed so nice, she mused as she freewheeled down the hill with the sea breeze riffling through her hair. How on earth could such a likeable person have come from the same parents as someone as hateful as Nicholas Diamond?

It was an absolute mystery to her!

When she got back, she went into the cottage to put away her groceries before taking the video round to Sally’s.

The other woman must have heard the side gate clicking, because by the time Laura rounded the corner to the back garden Sally was opening the screen door that led out to the pool area. She was carrying a tray with a jug of iced lemonade and glasses.

“Lovely—you’re back!” Sally crossed to an umbrellaed table. “Come and have some lemonade.”

She took the video from Laura, and her smile was so appealing that Laura found herself smiling in return. “Thanks.” The blue waters of the pool sparkled as if scattered with dancing silver sequins. “I’d love a cool drink.”

“Make yourself at home—” Sally waved toward a lounger “—and excuse me a sec. Oh... your money’s on the tray...” Sally took the video inside, and Laura was tucking the bills into the pocket of her blouse when the other woman returned.

“I won’t sit on a lounger,” Sally said as she gave Laura a glass of lemonade, “because I’m afraid I might never be able to heave my great bulk up again.” With a laugh, she lowered herself awkwardly onto a straight-backed vinyl-strapped chair.

“What a beautiful pool,” Laura murmured. It was, but she couldn’t help comparing its formal setting with the charming English country garden Charity had created next door. Where Nick had interlocking brick, Charity had lawn; where Nick had mosaic tiles, Charity had fruit trees; where Nick had stiff rows of color co-ordinated annuals, Charity had a wonderful medley of old-fashioned perennials.

Absently, Laura slid her hand across her nape and lifted her perspiration-damp hair; even under the shade of the umbrella, the heat was intense.

“I can see you’re as hot as I am! Why don’t you pop home for your swimsuit and we can go for a dip?”

“I don’t have one.” The words slipped out before Laura could stop them. She dug her teeth into her lower lip. That had been careless ...

“You don’t have one?” Sally’s tone was surprised.

As casually as she could, Laura sipped from her glass before laying it down on the table. “My swimsuit wore out, and I’ve just never got around to replacing it.”

“Well, do get yourself a bikini next time you’re shopping, then we can cool off together!”

Laura cast around for the right words to extricate herself from the situation. She never wore a swimsuit now—and never would. Though the ugly scars on her back were no longer raw, they were still there ... and would be forever. She controlled a faint shudder as she pictured them.

“Thanks, Sally, but ... I’m not a swimmer—I’ve... er ... never really been a water person.” In her distress, she snatched at the lie, hoping it would put an end to the conversation.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Sally said. “But if you change your mind—”

“Hi, there.”

Laura felt her body become rigid as Nick’s lazy drawl sounded from right behind her. She hadn’t heard his car arrive; hadn’t heard him open the screen door and come out of the house. Bracing herself, she half turned to face him.

“Nick,” Sally said, “you’re back early!”

“The meeting had to be canceled at the last minute.” He had crossed to stand beside Sally, but as he responded to her comment his gaze was fixed on Laura.

“Too bad you had to go all that way downtown on such a hot afternoon.” Sally turned in her chair and gestured toward Laura. “You two have met, of course...”

“Yes.” Nick’s gray eyes held Laura’s steadily. “We’ve met.”

No man had any right to be so attractive. With the collar of his crisp white shirt open and the knot of his tie tugged loose, with his board-flat stomach accentuated by an expensive-looking leather belt and his long, powerful legs outlined by narrow-fitting trousers, he was so magnificently male that Laura felt her blood hum wildly in response. She gripped her glass and fought an almost overpowering impulse to press its cold surface to her heated cheeks.

What was he thinking as he stared at her so unblinkingly? How dull, bland and unattractive? How mousy, pale and boring? She had no way of knowing; his eyes were shuttered, his thoughts concealed as if behind a cold gray wall. She saw him place his fingertips lightly on Sally’s shoulders.

“Honey,” he said, “I heard the boys moving around.”

“Oh, they’re awake. Thanks, Nick.” She reached up a hand and he helped her to her feet. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured, straightening, “once I get Matt and Mike into their swimsuits—they’ll want to go in the pool. It’s such a pity,” she called back over her shoulder as she crossed the patio to the house, “that Laura’s afraid of the water. We could have had an impromptu pool party!”

The moment Sally had closed the screen door behind her Laura felt panic tense her nerves even further. Why didn’t the man move? Why didn’t he either sit down, or go away? She couldn’t bear it when he stood like that, towering over her, like some hostile, threatening giantcouldn’ t bear the silence stretching between them...

“So—” Nick’s voice was neutral “—you’re Charity Brown’s great-niece.” He remained where he was, standing over her, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets as he spoke.

“That’s right.” Forcing herself to appear calm, Laura sipped from her glass, and relished the cooling feel of the lemonade in her throat. “She was my father’s aunt.”

He moved his hands slightly, and she heard the jingle of keys. “You came here as a child, I gather.”

“You gather?” Laura raised her eyebrows.

He shrugged. “Let me put that another way. I know you came here as a child. Charity Brown told me you stayed with her for one whole summer.”

“Yes,” she said, “I did. When I was ten.”

“And you didn’t keep in touch with her afterward?”

Laura heard a warning bell go off in her mind. Had there been a trace of disapproval, even criticism in his tone? “I wasn’t allowed to keep in touch,” she said coolly. “When my father came to pick me up at the end of August, he and his aunt quarreled. Harsh things were said—on both sides. My father was an unforgiving man. From that time on he sent back his aunt’s letters unopened, and I was forbidden to write to her.”

“He was a drummer, I believe, with a popular band?”

How much had Charity Brown told this man? Laura felt a twinge of annoyance and resentment that he knew what he did about her. “A very popular band,” she said in cool tones. “He traveled all over North America... And after my mother died, when I was six, he took me with him.”

“Not very good for your schooling, I imagine, being on the road constantly.”

There it was again, that undertone of criticism...only this time it was more pronounced. “My father was a very clever man—” she put her glass down “—and he taught me himself, with the help of correspondence courses.”

“So you’re an educated woman, Miss Grant—” his voice was silky “—and one well able to make her own decisions. So tell me, as a matter of interest, are you still so much under your father’s influence that you continue to obey him without question?”

“My father died when I was eighteen,” Laura said, looking up at him angrily. “Just what are you getting at?”

His eyes glittered down at her. “And how old are you now?”

“I’m twenty-three, but—”

“What I’m getting at, Miss Grant, is this. I can understand a child, even a teenager, obeying her father’s orders unquestioningly. But did you develop no mind of your own during those growing years? I’m curious to know why you never tried to make contact with Miss Brown once you became an adult. She led me to believe that the relationship forged between the two of you that summer was a strong and emotional one... and one that meant a great deal to her.”

“It meant a great deal to me too.” Laura spoke defiantly, yet her voice shook. “But that’s none of your—”

“It meant so much that you couldn’t find time to come and visit her? You never wrote, you never phoned, you never came to see her. Not even when she was in hospital dying. Yet, when she passes away and leaves you her home, you manage to leave your busy little life and come flying out here... when it’s too late?” His last words came out in a hard voice, and with added emphasis on each word.

Laura felt her throat muscles tighten, and she started to push herself up from her seat. She didn’t have to sit here, subject herself to this inquisition. But as she straightened his hand came flying out toward her, and with a strangled “No!” she fell back into her seat, cowering against the cushions, her heart thumping against her ribs.

But even as she huddled there, her body trembling, she heard an exclamation hiss from him, and as she flicked an apprehensive glance through her lashes, she saw a look of astonishment on his face.

“It was just a bug!” he exclaimed, his tone bewildered. “It was making for your eyes—didn’t you see it? You didn’t think—?”

Oh, God, she thought despairingly. What a fool she must seem ...

“Surely you didn’t think I was going to hit you?”

She tried to still the trembling in her body, but without success. During her marriage, after Jason had shouted at her during one of his jealous rages, she had trembled for hours, uncontrollably. Now she clenched her fists till she felt her nails cut deeply into her palms.

“Of course not.” The words, by some miracle, came out convincingly as she forced herself to meet his gaze, and from somewhere deep inside her she gathered enough strength to unflex her fists and grip the arms of the chair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—” she pushed herself to her feet again “—I have to go. I just dropped by with a video movie for Sally-please thank her for me, for the lemonade.”