sleeping habits aren’t what they used to be,” Isabelle answered. In truth she was immensely grateful to sleep alone.
Her brother heard the sorrow behind the words and misconstrued it.
Isabelle let him make inroads on a substantial breakfast, sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes a couple of hash browns, toast, before starting any conversation. She smiled at the enthusiasm with which he attacked his meal. She couldn’t fill him. Never could. A big man like their dad. Six three, whip-cord lean with a wide wedge of shoulders. His down bent head gleamed blue black like her own. His fine grained skin was a dark gold. His eyes like hers were a remarkable aqua. Their mother’s eyes. Otherwise they were Sunderlands through and through. When they were just little kids people had often mistaken them for twins, but Ross grew and grew while she stopped at five-eight, above average height for a woman.
“So have you made up your mind about tonight?” She poured them both a cup of really good coffee—a must—hot, black and strong the way they liked it. None of that milky stuff.
He didn’t answer for a moment, absently chewing a piece of toast. “I don’t know.”
“Hey, they’re expecting you,” she reminded him, knowing full well he didn’t like to leave her. “Cy and Jessica will be there. After all, Jessica was the one who arranged it all. It’s Robyn’s gallery.” Robyn was Cy’s rather difficult stepsister married to a big developer. “You’ll see Samantha again.”
His lean handsome features tautened. “Who said I wanted to?”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.” Isabelle considered for a moment. “She got under your skin didn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “I don’t like women getting under my skin.”
It was no revelation to his sister. “We’ve paid heavily for our past, haven’t we?”
“Sure have.” His eyes reflected the grimness of his thoughts.
“The past can spoil relationships.”
“I know. It’s all patterned and planned and destined.” He looked at her. Always slender Belle was close to fragile. There were shadows under her eyes from many hours of lost sleep and probably bad dreams but she was indisputably beautiful. That was the main reason Hartmann had wanted her. For her beauty. It had woven a spell around him. With so many other things about Belle to appreciate and admire, her intelligence, her talent, her sheer quality Hartmann had seemed to ignore all that. If indeed he even saw it. Poor Belle! She had rushed in to a marriage that probably wouldn’t have endured even if Blair had lived.
“Talk to me, Belle,” he found himself pleading. “I’m here to listen. Tell me what went so terribly wrong in your marriage?”
“I’m a tough nut like you. I keep it all locked up.” Isabelle stirred a few more grains of raw sugar into her coffee.
“It might help to talk don’t you think?”
What could she say? Good-looking, softly spoken, Blair had been abusive? What an upsurge of rage that would arouse! It was unthinkable to tell her brother, just as she had never been able to tell her father. It was all so demeaning. Both Sunderlands big strong tough men living a life fraught with dangers and non stop physically exhausting work, would have cut off a hand before lifting it in anger to a woman. Her father had never so much as given her a light slap even when she got up to lots of mischief. Ross was intensely chivalrous. An old word but it applied to him and a great many Outback men who cherished women as life’s partners and close friends. Blair could have considered himself done for if she had ever told her father or brother of her treatment at his hands. But for all his insecurities, cunning Blair had known she would never expose him. In exposing him she would be devaluing herself. Pride, too, was a sin. There was just no way she could tell her brother her terrible story. He would wonder if she had been in her right mind not seeking her family’s protection.
“Well?” Ross prompted after a few moments of watching the painful expressions flit across his sister’s face. “He adored you, didn’t he? I mean he was really mad about you. It might seem strange but Dad and I never thought he plumbed the real you. Was that it? Terrible to speak ill of the dead and the tragic way he died so young, but Blair gave the impression he was extraordinarily dependent on you. Needy I suppose is the word. You couldn’t walk out of the room ten minutes before he was asking where you were. Who you were with. You don’t have to tell me but I know he was terribly jealous. Even of our family bond. Did it become a burden?”
She couldn’t meet her brother’s eyes. “We had problems, Ross.” She concentrated on the bottom of her coffee cup. “I imagine most married couples do, but we were trying to work them out.”
“What problems?” Ross persisted, knowing there was a great deal his sister wasn’t telling.” I know you wanted to start a family. You love children. Every woman wishes for a baby with the man she loves.”
Only I didn’t love him. Blair was the baby. Blair wanted a real baby to stay away. His mania was her sole attention.
“There’s no point in talking about it now, Ross,” she sighed. “I feel terrible Blair had to die the way he did. Such a waste of a life!”
His brows drew together in a frown. “Surely you mean you find it unbearable to be without him?”
“Of course. We both know what it’s like to lose someone we love.”
“But you can’t despair, Belle. You’re young. In time you’ll meet someone else.” Someone worthy of you, Ross thought. “I realise the fact the two of you had an argument before Blair left the party is weighing heavily on you. His mother’s attitude didn’t help but she was so intensely possessive of her son she would have blamed any woman who was his widow. Grief made her act so badly.”
By and large Evelyn Hartmann was right. She had sent Blair to his death.
“Evelyn wasn’t the only one to assign the blame to me. Blair’s whole family did. A lot of our so called friends looked at me differently afterwards. There was a lot of talk. I couldn’t defend myself. I was the outsider. Everyone looked on Blair as the most devoted of husbands.”
“But wasn’t he?” Ross asked, hoping he could get to the truth. Did the truth set you free or make matters worse?
“He adored me just as you say, Ross.” Isabelle spread her elegant long fingered hands. “I know you’re trying to help me but can we get off the subject.” Stay away from it entirely. “Samatha Langdon now. I’d like to meet her. I missed out on Cy’s and Jessica’s wedding. Impossible to go under the circumstances.”
“Cy and Jessica understood,” Ross assured her. “If you really want to meet Samantha Langdon why not come along with me tonight? We’ll take the chopper into Darwin late afternoon. You’ll need to book an extra room at the hotel. I think it might do you good to get out of the house.”
Would it? All the hurtful rumours and she supposed she hadn’t heard the half of them had given her a strong feeling of being separated from other people. Her problem—early widowhood and ugly spate of rumours—wasn’t their problem, thank God. She knew all the gossip would be doing the rounds of Darwin but then she wouldn’t be on her own. Nevertheless she said: “It’s just that I don’t think I can, Ross.” She began to gather up plates remembering how Blair in one of his moods had smashed their wine glasses, deliberately
