Australia: Outback Fantasies

‘I can’t think she can be aching for his,’ Francesca said sharply, then winced. ‘Oh, what would I know? Maybe Uncle Charles knows something the rest of us don’t?’ She finished off one of the sandwiches, then used the edge of a linen and lace napkin to brush away a crumb.

‘He could know the contents of the will,’ Bryn mused aloud. ‘But it’s inconceivable he might be bypassed. Or is it?’ He spoke as though the thought had just occurred to him.

‘What are you saying?’ Francesca stared back. ‘By tradition Uncle Charles will take over from Grandfather, won’t he?’

‘Well, we’ll soon know.’ Bryn deflected her question briskly, an edge of mockery in his tone.

‘We?’ There was a flicker in her eyes. ‘You mean you’re staying?’ She had thought now that he had brought her home he had come to say goodbye.

‘It appears I’m a beneficiary.’ He gave a brief laugh that was quite without humour.

‘Good Lord! Aren’t you wondering what it is?’

Bryn held up a hand. ‘A set of golf clubs? He borrowed my grandfather’s and never gave them back. Come here, Francey.’ He watched her rise gracefully from her chair and walk towards him. ‘People do the damnedest thing when it comes to making wills. We all might be in for a few shocks. Even the wicked, like Frank, aren’t absolutely sure they won’t have to face up to a higher authority. Give an accounting. Face the music. Listen while a long list of sins are read out.’

Her father had been sinned against, Francesca thought. His share of the family fortune had been slashed right back. ‘Well, Carrie was very anxious you should stay.’ She lifted her eyes to his, aware she was trembling. ‘She needs your support.’

‘Carrie is well able to look after herself,’ he replied, without expression.

‘Yes, but we all need a shoulder to cry on from time to time. I couldn’t help seeing the two of you together. The way you gathered her to you.’ The kind of intimacy she imagined herself and Bryn might share!

‘So? What would you have had me do?’ he countered, raising a black brow. ‘Carrie was looking for comfort. I gave it. All three of us have been locked together since we were kids.’

‘I’ve never felt it was a triangle,’ Francesca said slowly, hardly able to sustain his concentrated glance. Until now.

‘Sure about that?’ Very gently he lifted a finger and began to twine a silky lock of her hair around it.

The slightest contact; a wild adrenalin rush. ‘What are you doing, Bryn?’ Her voice quavered, soft and intense. By now he had drawn her face closer, his filled with mesmerising intent.

‘Looking at you,’ he answered, mildly enough. ‘What else? You must be used to it by now. You’re very beautiful, Francey, though I see it torments you.’ She would have dreaded upstaging Carrie, he knew. Something she could easily have done.

‘I’m unsure why you’re looking at me,’ she questioned. ‘And with such concentration.’

‘Should that make you feel threatened?’ He drew back a little, to stare down into her eyes, putting her further off-balance.

Oh, my God … Oh, my God … Oh, my God …

The breath caught in her throat. ‘I’ve never felt more threatened.’ Her head was beginning to swim.

‘Does that happen when I touch you?’ A kind of agony was deep in his voice.

Such a change in pace! Such a tremendous build-up in pressure. What was he doing? Her heart seemed to be pumping at the base of her throat. Her will giving way under the force of his. ‘You are not to kiss me, Bryn,’ she warned, aware she sounded pathetically frantic. ‘If that’s what you’re planning.’ She had been exposed to such a look many times before—desire—but never from Bryn. Yet there seemed no way out. As if it was something he fully intended to do.

Her whole body was locked rigid. All the breath was sucked out of her. How could she resist him? It would take every ounce of her will and self discipline. She knew in her heart of hearts she didn’t have enough.

‘How do you know I haven’t been planning to kiss you for some time?’ he challenged her, a burning intensity in his eyes. His hands closed slowly and gently around her throat, a warm, living rope binding her to him.

‘Bryn, it makes no sense to experiment.’ She tried to free herself to no avail. ‘You have no reason to hurt me.’

That appeared to make him angry. ‘Hurt you? Would kissing you do that?’ He maintained his hold on her, the air thrumming with electricity.

‘You need to consider that possibility.’ Even as she argued her position, hot blood was thrashing through her veins. ‘It could hardly be worth it.’

‘Now, that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said very crisply, his dynamic face all taut planes and angles, his eyes glittering with such dark radiance Francesca was forced to close hers.

Pretend it’s make-believe.

How could she, when every nerve was screaming reality? Francesca found herself standing perfectly still while his hands slipped over the curve of her shoulders, then he locked a steely arm around her quiescent body.

Sensation was so overwhelming she gasped aloud. She knew she would remember these moments all her life: what it meant to be swept away. But if she allowed herself to go with it, this would be a life-changing moment. An emotional disaster, even. She wasn’t equipped to handle disaster.

But what use to fight the tyranny of the senses? His dominant face was bent over her. What could seem absolutely wrong, could also seem absolutely right.

He kissed her—not once, but repeatedly, the pleasure blotting out all resistance.

Each kiss was deeper, more seductive, than the last. She could taste the salt of her own tears. ‘Bryn, you mustn’t. ‘Yet she was going with the moment. It might only happen once. Rapture was flooding her heart and her mind and her body. Filling up every little bit of her, swirling into the deepest recesses. The masks were off!

It was an agony to think of it, but if she didn’t stop him soon, she would be totally consumed. She had to end it. There would be no way back. She would never have the life she’d once had again. She had to stop him.

She didn’t.

Why? She could die for this. Die for it day after day after day …

‘Some shall be pardoned, and some punished.’

Who was that? Shakespeare, of course. Romeo and Juliet again. Tears ran down her face.

Bryn took them blindly into his mouth, savouring them like nectar. ‘Francey, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry!’ he begged, but the instant he said it his mouth closed on hers again like an all-powerful compulsion. Desire was thundering, smashing through Bryn’s defences. Her parted lips bloomed, opened like petals to him.

Just this once. Just this once, Francesca prayed. She couldn’t hold back the inexpressibly aching yearning. She couldn’t turn away from the sheer splendour. She was truly alive, made feverish by the exploration of his tongue, stunned by her own high-spiralling sensuality. The illumination was blinding. She felt ready to give him everything he desired. Thereby flouting every rule by which she had lived.

This is Bryn Macallan.

The warning voice in her head suddenly tolled loudly, gathering strength as if to deafen her. Loving him is a danger.

Hadn’t it been drummed into her right from the beginning? He and Carina had been lovers. Could still be, for all she knew. Carina would never give up on Bryn even if Bryn was prepared to. There was a huge difference between her and Carina. Try to remember it. Carina was the Forsyth heiress. The perfect partner for Bryn Macallan. Besides, it would break Carina’s proud spirit if she were to lose him.

Bryn, sensing her inner turmoil, drew back a moment, looking down at her beautiful face, still in thrall. Her eyes were closed, her long black lashes lying like crescents on her pale golden skin. Slowly he slipped a hand across her face, tracing the fine bone structure.

‘I couldn’t fight it any more,’ he said, an edge to his voice as though his own nerves were jangled. ‘The moment was bound to come.’

Her eyes flew open. ‘Then we must forget it!’ she cried passionately.

His admission had done nothing to calm her troubled heart. The way forward was fraught with dangerous snares. She had revealed herself when she had fought so diligently not to. No other man could affect her like this. No other man could even come close. She had spent so long hiding her true feelings that now she was aghast at what she had done. They had given in to an involuntary urge. That was it. In the stress of the day, they had given way to a passing desire. But did that excuse her? She knew how Carrie felt about Bryn. This was treason.

‘Francey, don’t go into a panic.’ His voice rasped. He placed his two hands on her delicate shoulders, looking down on her bent head.

‘How can I not?’ She dared him to doubt it. She had never experienced anything remotely like this. She had never been so aware of the softness of her woman’s body against the hardness of a man’s, so aware of the expanse of a man’s chest, his strong arms enfolding her, his superb fitness, his superior height. It was thrilling! But that wasn’t all there was to her feeling for Bryn. She had enormous respect for him. She didn’t want that to change. She had always turned to him for support. As a child; as an adult. Still she was afraid. If Bryn wanted her even for a brief moment there was much to be afraid of. In the heat of the moment both of them had taken a great step into the unknown.

‘Francey, I’m sorry. I’ve obviously upset you.’ He could see her anguish.

‘There’s no future in this, Bryn,’ she pleaded. ‘You know that. More likely there will be consequences.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ He cut her off more harshly than he knew. ‘You sound like you might never be seen again.’

‘Like Gulla Nolan?’ The name tumbled from her lips. What mysterious force had prompted her to mention him? And why now?

A darkness descended on Bryn’s face. ‘Whatever made you bring up Gulla Nolan?’

‘God knows.’ She found the strength to break away. ‘I can’t pretend I do. His name just came into my mind.’ Her eyes were shimmering like silver lakes. ‘The last thing I want, Bryn, is to threaten our friendship. It means everything to me.’

His handsome features tightened. ‘Francey, I’m much more than your friend.’

She rounded on him. ‘So don’t break my heart. Don’t break Carrie’s heart. I’m speaking for both of us.’

His reply carried swift condemnation. ‘I guess that means you don’t want to break out of your safe little hidey-hole?’

She reacted as if he had slapped her. Her cheeks flushed. ‘You might say that. I have to forget what’s happened here, Bryn. I’m sure you will too. It’s an odd day all round. There’s so much at stake.’

‘Like what?’ he asked sharply, staring at her with what she thought was a lick of contempt.

She reacted by throwing up helpless hands. ‘You know the answer to that. What is it you want from me? Really?’ Tears gathered again behind her eyes. ‘I’ll never forgive you if you tell me those kisses meant nothing.’ Could romantic dreams possibly become romantic nightmares?

The answer was yes.

‘I wasn’t the only one who lost my head, Francey,’ he told her bluntly. ‘If that’s what you’re convinced it was. I always knew there was a lot of passion behind the Madonna façade.’

‘Well, I’m not proud of myself,’ she uttered emotionally. ‘You’re a very sensual man, Bryn. I admit I lost my head. But it’s not as though you intend to make a practice of it.’ What she had most ardently desired was now worrying the life out of her. But such was her perilous world. The world of the Forsyths and the Macallans. Enough money and power to act any way they liked. Great wealth created impregnable cocoons. Carina would not be mocked.

‘I’ll be fighting not to for a while,’ he told her, bitterly sardonic. ‘But let’s leave it there, shall we?’ He turned purposefully towards the door, tall and commanding. ‘This conversation is going nowhere.’

‘Because it can’t.’

His black eyes were full of scorn. ‘So you’re still the little girl afraid to step out of her cousin’s shadow?’

She reacted with spirit, even though she could see the smouldering anger in his eyes. ‘That’s a brutal thing to say, Bryn.’

His laugh cut into her deeply. ‘The truth often is. But I won’t press it further. Not today, anyway. But it’s high time you took up a full life and started slaying your dragons, Francey. You’re the best and the brightest of the Forsyths. Wake up to it.’

It was a pep talk he obviously thought she was badly in need of. She wrapped her arms around herself protectively. ‘I’m sorry, Bryn. I’m sorry we got into this.’

‘It didn’t feel like you were sorry when you were in my arms,’ he pointed out, so cuttingly she flushed. ‘Anyway, forget it. What’s done is done.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. She couldn’t bear to see him walk away in anger. She made a huge effort to change the subject before he left. ‘Can you tell me something before you go? Please? Something I’ve always wondered about. That old story of Gulla Nolan … the way he disappeared without trace.’

Bryn froze in his tracks. Hadn’t he mulled over the old mystery for years? How strange Francey should bring it up now. But then that sort of thing often happened with Francey. Over the years she had said many things to catch him off guard and cause him to re-think. ‘What is there to tell? No one knows anything. A thorough investigation was carried out. The tribal people on and around the station were questioned.’

‘Maybe they did know something but feared to speak out.’ She looked back at him, huge-eyed. ‘Who would have believed them anyway? Things being what they were—still are—an aboriginal’s word against the findings of Sir Francis Forsyth? Unthinkable! They hated him with a passion. Maybe they even put a curse on him and his family. My family. My parents—’ She broke off, knowing she was deeply overwrought.

He retraced his steps. ‘No, Francey, no!’ He made no further attempt to touch her. ‘Don’t even go there,’ he warned. ‘My grandfather had Gulla’s disappearance investigated. He shared a real bond with Gulla. But in the end no one knew anything. Gulla went on extended binges. That in itself was a danger. His disappearance is just another bush legend.’

‘You don’t really believe that,’ she said. ‘I can hear it in your voice. You’re just saying it to make me feel better. Even if he had died out there and the dingoes had taken his body the bones would have been found, traces of his clothing.’

Resolutely he turned on his heel, ignoring the dull roaring in his ears. ‘We should go downstairs.’

‘You mean before Carina comes up?’ Her voice shook.

‘Neither of us should put it past her.’ His tone was openly ironic. ‘Look, Francey, I don’t want you walking around in a state of dread. I won’t even look sideways at you if you don’t want it.’

‘Don’t look at me at all might be better.’

He gave a hard, impatient laugh. ‘I can’t go so far as to promise that. So don’t expect it. Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we? And do try to remember I’m not a married man. Not engaged either, last time I checked.’

Douglas McFadden, distinguished senior partner of McFadden, Mallory & Crawford, the Forsyth family solicitors, was seated behind the late Sir Francis Forsyth’s massive, rather bizarre mahogany desk in the study. The desk was lavishly decorated with ormolu mounts and lions’ feet, the gilded claws extended. Francesca had been truly frightened of those claws as a small child.

Like the rest of the mansion, the ballroom-sized study was hugely over the top. A life-size portrait of Sir Francis in his prime—some seven feet tall and almost as wide, its colours enriched by the overhead light—hung centre stage on the wall behind the desk. It said a great deal for her grandfather—undeniably a strikingly handsome man, if not with the look of distinction the Macallans had in abundance—that the portrait was able to dominate such an impressive room. The artist was quite famous, and he had captured her grandfather’s innerness, Francesca thought. The man behind the mask. Francesca found herself looking away from those piercing, somehow gloating blue eyes.

The beneficiaries, some fourteen in all, looked suitably sober. With the exception of Bryn they were all Forsyths, like herself: some the offspring of her grandfather’s two younger sisters, Ruth and Regina, who wisely lived very private lives, well out of their brother’s orbit. Four of the grandsons, however, worked for Titan. Sir Francis himself had recruited them, as some sort of gesture towards ‘family’. They did their best—they were clever, highly educated—but they could never hope to measure up to Bryn Macallan in any department. At least one of them—James Forsyth-Somerville—knew it. Bryn Macallan was his hero.

Bryn, the outsider, sat as calm and relaxed as though they were all attending a lecture to be given by some university don. Possible topic: was Shakespeare the real author of his plays? Or was it much more likely to have been the brilliant and aristocratic Francis Bacon, or even Edward De Vere? Anyway, it was a talk Bryn appeared to be looking forward to. He sat wedged—the delectable filling in a sandwich—between herself and Carina. The two Forsyth heiresses. She had to recognise she was that. Much as she had sought to remain in the background, she was an heiress—a Forsyth, like it or not.

‘I don’t care where the hell you sit, as long as Bryn is with me!’ Carina had snapped at her as they had entered the study, lined with a million beautifully bound books her grandfather had never read.

Bryn, however, had taken his place on Francesca’s right. ‘Okay, I hope?’ he’d asked with faint mockery, causing Carina, who had seated herself dead centre, directly in front of the desk, and had patted the seat beside her, indicating for Bryn to take it, to jump up and grab the other chair, pure venom in her eyes.

In the end everyone was arranged in a two-tiered semicircle in front of the huge mahogany desk. It was difficult to believe Sir Francis was dead. One of the great-nephews, Stephen, kept looking behind him, as though expecting Sir Francis’s ghost to walk right through the heavy closed door.

Francesca had noticed her uncle Charles had poured himself a stiff whisky before positioning himself to one side, as though instead of being her grandfather’s only surviving son and heir he didn’t think he would figure much in the will. How very odd!

A quick glance at Bryn confirmed it. ‘Could be a rocky ride!’ he murmured, just beneath his breath. He looked tremendously switched on. Ready for the performance to begin.

The elder of Sir Frank’s two sisters, Ruth, choked off a little sob, probably thinking there was still time to show a little grief. She hadn’t been able to manage it up to date. Carina, however, wasn’t impressed by the display. She swung about to frown at her great-aunt. ‘For God’s sake, not now!’

Ruth leaned towards her, murmuring a falsehood. ‘But I’m missing him so!’

‘Rubbish! You haven’t so much as spoken to him for months,’ Carina flashed back, before turning to address the always dapper solicitor, with his full head of snow-white hair of which he was justifiably proud. ‘Well, what are we waiting for, Douglas? Read it out.’

Bryn leaned in towards Francesca, his voice low. ‘A command—and a very terse one at that! Frank couldn’t have done better.’

Francesca prayed fervently there wouldn’t be more outbursts from Carina. If their grandfather had been a tiger, Carina was a tigress in the making.

As though in agreement, Charles Forsyth sank back heavily in his chair. The room stank of danger! Ruth gave another hastily muffled moan. She too was unnerved by the fact that her great-niece had turned into what looked very much like the female version of her late brother. Frank might have come back from wherever he had gone.

Francesca stole another glance at Bryn, thinking that in some strange way they were acting very much like a pair of conspirators. Bryn reacted by raising his brows slightly, his smile laced with black humour. He was inoculated against Carina’s outbursts.

Francesca sat quiet as a nun, pale as an ivory rose, her elegant long legs to one side, and her head, with her hair in a sort of Gibson Girl loose arrangement, inclined to the other, showing off her swan’s neck and the delicate strength of her clean jawline. She might have been the subject of a painting herself, Bryn thought. A study of a beautiful, isolated young woman. He vowed to himself that state of affairs wasn’t going to continue. The sleeping princess had to wake up.

Douglas McFadden responded impassively to Carina’s rudeness. He had had half a lifetime of it from Sir Francis. ‘Very well, Carina,’ he said obligingly, picking up his gold-rimmed glasses. He did, however, take his time to settle them on his beak of a nose. Once done, he appeared to take a deep breath, then launched into the reading of the last will and testament of Sir Francis Gerard Oswald Forsyth …

Already Francesca had begun to panic. She desperately wanted it all over. Great wealth ruined people. She had seen it with her own eyes. But none of them, with the exception of Charles Forsyth, was prepared for what was to come.

It was Carina who tempestuously brought proceedings to a halt.

‘It can’t be true!’ She catapulted out of her chair, sending it crashing to the floor. Her blonde hair flew around her visibly blanched face. Her furious blue eyes lashed the solicitor. ‘What kind of bloody lunacy is this?’ she shouted, her voice loud enough to shock the profoundly deaf. Her arms flailed wildly in the air, causing her copious eighteen carat gold bracelets to out-jangle a brass band.

‘Carrie … Carrie.’ Charles Forsyth very belatedly tried his hand at remonstrating with his headstrong daughter, while the great-aunts moved their chairs closer together, in case things got so bad they might have to cling to each other for support. Their menfolk stared steadily at the Persian rug, their faces varying shades of red.

Bryn moved smoothly to pick up Carina’s chair, setting it right. ‘Why don’t you sit down again, Carrie?’ He placed a kindly restraining hand on her shoulder. He didn’t appear at all shocked by Carina’s outburst, Francesca noticed. Indeed, he was looking about him, as though deciding on the next object Carina might send toppling.

‘You’re supposed to be here to support me, Bryn!’ she protested, not sparing a glance in her father’s direction. She ignored him. As she would from that day forward. Nothing her father said from now on would hold much value for her.

‘Please. Sit down,’ Bryn advised, bringing his powerful influence to bear.

Carina obeyed. ‘Just when did Gramps make such a will?’ she cried out the moment she was seated. ‘I know what was in his will—the real will—and it surely wasn’t this! This stinks to high heaven of conspiracy.’

Douglas McFadden pursed his lips and looked profoundly displeased. ‘I beg your pardon, Carina.’

‘Carrie … Carrie,’ Charles Forsyth bleated. His fair handsome face was ruddy with distress. ‘It’s all in order, I assure you.’

Carina’s blazing blue eyes narrowed to slits. ‘You knew about this, Dad? What kind of a fool are you? You’re the great loser! You’ve been cut out, and you look like you’re accepting it. Gramps has publicly dismissed and humiliated you. You are the rightful heir. You administer the Forsyth Foundation. You have to fight this. By my reckoning you’ll win.’

‘Don’t bet on that.’ Bryn sent her a lancing glance.

‘But … But …’ Carina actually sputtered, looked fearfully taken aback.

‘I’m not fighting anything, Carina,’ Charles Forsyth told her quietly, but with surprising finality. ‘I’m very happy with my lot.’