through life, all drive and ambition blunted by wealth.
In the end Gregory had made it very plain that he was violently opposed to the marriage, but gentle, sensitive Ava for once in her life had defied him and ignored the concerns of her brother. Dev had been against the marriage, as well. Dev was devoted to his younger sister and her to him.
He knew the rest of them had arrived—Langdons and a fair sprinkling of Devereaux. They thought the world of Dev, nicknamed after their family. They looked up to Dev and admired him.
Only so far—and he couldn’t hold out much longer—no Dev and no Amelia. He drew a shallow breath, pain sweeping over him in a monstrous wave. He was dying. He accepted it. There was no place else to go. The pain would finally cease. But he couldn’t die before Dev and Amelia arrived. He had resisted another jab of the needle that lessened the agony but befuddled his mind. Even dying, he needed to be in possession of his faculties. The pain didn’t matter. He needed reconciliation even if he didn’t deserve it. Dying was a terrible business. Better to die quickly than have an agonizing end drawn out. He had been such a vigorous man. Splendid health he had taken for granted. But finally the traumas of old age had unleashed themselves upon him. Black oblivion would come as a mercy.
At a slight sound, Gregory Langdon looked towards the bedroom door. Probably the nurse. He didn’t like her one bit. A big, broad-shouldered, no nonsense woman, competent, but distressingly plain. He was used to having beautiful women around the place—Ava, Amelia, and the light of his life, Sarina. There had been no happy start, let alone a happy ending for him and Sarina. That was one miracle he couldn’t command. The timing, right from the beginning, had been all wrong. He and Sarina, a married woman, had been a generation apart, not that it had mattered. Mireille had hated him and hated Sarina to the death. He couldn’t condemn his wife for all her cruelties. He had married Mireille without love, but at his parents’ constant urging. To give Mireille her due, she had genuinely tried to make him a good wife. Only a man should never marry a woman he didn’t want.
He knew which woman he wanted the instant he set eyes on young Sarina Norton, so beautiful she took his breath away. He had never counted on a woman doing that. And Mireille was by no means his first woman. He would carry that vision of Sarina into the next life. If there was one. He wasn’t a religious man. What we had was all we got. Let folk have their faith. It didn’t do any harm. Then again, he could be in for a big surprise two minutes after lift-off. Some leap of faith there!
A woman’s slender form floating towards him in a cloud.
An angel, his dark angel. “Sarina?” he called.
“I’m here, Gregory.” Sarina moved across the carpeted expanse of the huge room to stand beside his bed. She took his emaciated hand in hers. “Are you sure you can stand the pain?” she asked, looking down at the wraith of the once-invincible Gregory Langdon.
Gregory carried her hand shakily to his mouth. “Tell me, Sarina. Are my grandson and Amelia coming?”
“They are, my dear one.” Sarina choked back a sob. “They’re due to fly in at noon.”
“God, haven’t I made a mess of my life?” Gregory groaned. “My son lived in fear of me. News to me, but my grandson accused me of it, anyway. Dev never went in fear of me. Neither did Amelia. Ava was always so quiet and shy. Dev and Amelia were more a pair than Dev and his own sister. Could I have a drop of water, please, Sarina?”
“Of course.” Sarina went to the other side of the bed, pouring a little water into a spouted cup. Fears were rising in her. Gregory could well die before Dev and Amelia arrived. She prayed their flight hadn’t been delayed. Noel Devereaux had allowed Dev the use of his plane to pick Amelia up. That had been a generous gesture. Gregory and Noel Devereaux had shared a complex past. They had never been friends.
Gregory Langdon was able to swallow a few drops of water. A little dribbled down his cleft chin. Sarina picked up a tissue and very gently dabbed at his chin and dry, cracked lips.
Gregory! Her gaze rested on him. She had thought him immortal. She bent to kiss his sunken cheek. She’d had feelings for Michael, the man she had chosen as her rescuer, but they were as nothing compared to the feelings Gregory Langdon had been able to arouse in her just by looking. Many years older, he was nevertheless the man who had taken full possession of her heart. One didn’t choose these things. They just happened. She and Gregory weren’t the first to be taken victims by fate. Then, as Gregory had begun to age, she had found her eyes resting on another. She had been shocked at that point—how bad could things get? She’d been desperate not to register her feelings, her lust, in her eyes. She loved Gregory. But her body had played a bitter trick on her. Her body needed a young man. She had begun to crave Gregory’s grandson. Dev, who was bonded to her own daughter.
It had been hell locked up in close proximity to this extraordinary young man forbidden to her. Sometimes she had tortured herself with the notion that Gregory knew. She had been really frightened after the monumental row Gregory and Dev had. They were always rowing about something or other, but that time it had to have been really serious. Dev had left.
“Sit with me, Sarina,” Gregory was whispering to her, snapping her back to the present. He was clearly in extreme pain.
Sarina drew up a chair. “They’ll be here soon,” she said in a voice of gentle solace. “I hate to see you suffering, Gregory. You don’t want me to call the nurse?”
“No!” The words leapt from his throat, almost as forceful as in the old days. “It’s you I want, Sarina. You opened up a whole new world for me. Life might have been perfect if we had met at another time, but we got it all wrong. I got too old for you, didn’t I, my dark angel?”
She felt a flicker of fear. She was relying on her inheritance to escape. “No, Gregory.”
He ignored that untruth. “I sensed it before it happened,” he rasped. “But it’s all in the past. I was totally out of order when I turned on my grandson. Half off my head with jealousy. That feeling of shame has never gone away. I was jealous, so jealous, even of my own grandson.”
Fear was unfolding rapidly in her chest. “Don’t let’s talk about it now, Gregory,” Sarina begged.
Gregory took a huge, shallow breath. “No. No point. Stay with me, Sarina.”
“You know I will. To the end,” Sarina vowed.
The flight to Kooraki took much longer than expected. Takeoff had been delayed as a backlog of light aircraft was given clearance. A station hand drove them up to the house. Mel felt so sick and nervous she stumbled up the short flight of stone steps that led to the broad veranda.
Dev took hold of her arm, rubbing it gently. “I’m here, Mel.” He looked down at her, his expression grave. “We can handle this together.”
“What if we’re too late, Dev?” She stared up at him, drawing on his strength.
“We did our best. Even my grandfather can’t dictate his time of departure from the planet.”
They had barely reached the entry to the Great Hall with its bold chequerboard marble floor when Sarina came at a rush towards them. Her olive skin was close to marble-white. Tears were pouring down her cheeks, unnoticed and unchecked. The astonishing thing was that she looked furious. “He’s gone!” she cried, wringing her hands and making no attempt to embrace her daughter. “Whatever delayed you?” Her voice resounded in the double-storey
