honour from me, and my life is done.
A hard creed, she thought; a creed for a strong man who held to a spartan belief.
Thoughtfully she closed the book, sat down in front of the computer screen and began to write.
At first the words came easily. She’d told the story so many times to her mother that she almost knew it by heart. The unicorn snorted, its blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight, she wrote. ‘Very well then,’ it said smugly. ‘Don’t blame me when the Master realises what you’ve done. I did my best to stop you.’
But after she’d typed a page she stopped and read it, frowning. It looked—clumsy. And whenever she tried to summon the unicorn’s image, its blue eyes had a disconcerting trick of changing to other eyes—quite different ones, cool and distant and enigmatic.
She got to her feet and glowered out of the window. The garden looked very desirable, the lounger eminently appealing.
Doggedly, Jacinta sat down at the desk again. She had promised her mother she’d write this and she was going to do it, even if it did look raw and childish and unformed on paper.
An hour later she got up and walked across to the French windows, trying to recall the look in Paul McAlpine’s eyes when she’d told him that the computer equipment had been Gerard’s.
Perhaps, she decided, trying to be fair, he had reason to worry about his cousin She knew and Gerard knew that she wasn’t trying to sponge off him, but to an outsider it could look that way. He’d lent her his car, would have lent her money if she hadn’t refused it, and out of the kindness of his heart had organised this chance to fulfil one of the promises she’d made to her mother. He didn’t know anything about the other promise she’d made, the one she was actually working on now. She owed him a lot.
And, talking of the car, she’d better see where she could garage it, because salt winds were notorious for causing rust. But before she bearded the lion in whatever den he was ensconced she’d go for a quick walk to the gate and back.
Out in the garden she smiled and clipped a leaf from the lemon verbena Her mother had loved its citrus perfume, sharp and delightful, and always had a bush of it in the garden. And now she was dead, but the world was still beautiful beyond belief, and it was an insult to her not to enjoy it.
Blinking, Jacinta unlatched the gate and walked through it straight into a pair of hard, masculine arms.
For a moment she thought she’d managed to stumble into Paul McAlpine’s grip, but the voice that said, ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were there,’ was younger than his and lighter, the New Zealand drawl more pronounced.
‘No,’ she said, stepping backwards, ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking...’
Dark eyes rested on her face with unmistakable appreciation, and the smile he gave her was open and guileless and very infectious.
‘Dean Latrobe,’ he said. ‘I’m Paul’s farm manager.’
Jacinta returned his smile and told him her name, adding after a short pause, ‘I’m staying here.’
‘Oh, yes, the lady who’s supposed to be spending the summer in the bach,’ he said, and grinned again. ‘Paul was ropable when I told him no one would last a night there.’
‘I imagine he would have been,’ she said, laughing a little. ‘But he very kindly offered me a bed for the holidays just the same.’
‘If you’ve got the keys,’ he said, ‘I’ll put your car in the garage. It is your car, isn’t it?’
She said hastily, ‘No, it belongs to Paul’s cousin. He’s in America at the moment.’
‘Yeah, thought I recognised it.’ He ran a knowledgable glance over it. ‘He was up a month or so ago. Got the keys?’
‘I’ll get them from my room,’ she said. ‘But there’s no need for you to put it away—if you’ll just show me where the garage is...’
‘All right,’ he said obligingly.
Jacinta hesitated. ‘I’d better ask Paul first.’
‘Why? There’s room in the garage. Trust me, he won’t throw his cousin’s car out.’
Well, no, he hadn’t thrown his cousin’s protégée out, but that didn’t mean he wanted her there.
‘He’s a hard man,’ Dean Latrobe said cheerfully, ‘but he’s not unreasonable.’
In other words she was being silly.
‘Trust me,’ Dean Latrobe said, and winked at her.
He was nice, and there were no undercurrents in his smile or his voice. She laughed back at him and turned to go through the gate.
And there was Paul, the magnificent framework of his face clamped in aloof austerity, eyes slightly narrowed as they went from her smiling face to his manager’s.
Startled, Jacinta stopped. ‘I thought I should put the car away,’ she blurted. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I just have to get the keys.’
Courteously he stood aside. Again absurdly self-conscious, she walked swiftly past him and up onto the verandah, found the keys in her bag and ran lightly back.
To find that Dean had gone.
Paul’s vivid eyes dwelt on her face with a chilling lack of emotion.
Her smile probably flickered, but she said easily, ‘If you’ll point me in the direction of the garage, I’ll put the car away.’
But Paul said calmly, ‘I’ll come with you,’ and opened the car door for her.
Slowly she climbed in and waited. Because it gave her something to do, she wound the window down and made little fanning motions with one hand, saying as he lowered himself lithely beside her, ‘This car really heats up in the sun.’
‘Do you use it often?’
Recalled to herself, Jacinta hastily set the engine going and put the car m motion. ‘Not often,’ she said aloofly. Once a week to pick up groceries from the supermarket, in fact.
‘Turn left,’ Paul said.
The drive ducked under an archway of Cape honeysuckle and over a cattlestop into a large gravel courtyard at the back of the house. A garage, doors open, formed one wing
When the house had been first built, the other wing had probably been workshops and the laundry; possibly the pots of flowers at a door indicated a conversion to the housekeeper’s flat. Between the two wings stretched the rear wall of the house. In the centre of the courtyard a well-planted herb garden surrounded an arbour where a glorious apricot rose bloomed with prodigal lavishness.
Jacinta concentrated hard on getting the car into the garage, braking with relief as the car slid to a stop beside a substantial continental saloon.
‘You
