smiled. ‘My grandmother was a Lidcombe and her favourite rose was the Peace rose.’ She waved a hand towards the rose bushes planted all around the veranda with bees humming through them. ‘They’re all Peace. We always maintained her preference in roses although this house was built after her death.’
‘They’re lovely,’ he commented. ‘I shall endeavour to do the same. So you won’t miss being able to spend your holidays here or having a retreat so close to the city?’
Domenica inserted a brass key into the heavy wooden double front door and swung it open. ‘A bit,’ she confessed, ‘but I’m actually so busy at the moment, holidays are not on the agenda.’ She smiled ruefully.
‘As in?’ Angus queried.
She glanced at him, then preceded him into the foyer. ‘I design children’s clothes. I have my own label and it’s finally taken off! I have more orders than I know what to do with and I’m thinking of branching out into women’s sportswear.’
Angus Keir discovered that he was surprised. A lovely social-butterfly type was what he’d assumed she was and it occurred to him that perhaps he should have instigated some more research into Domenica herself as well as her famous family.
He said as he stepped over the threshold, ‘Forgive me, but I did wonder why I was dealing with you rather than your mother, Miss Harris, in whose name this property is, or was, registered?’
Domenica laid her hat down on a lovely mahogany drum table with a leather inlaid top. ‘Both my mother and my sister Christabel are wonderful people, Mr Keir, but not exactly business orientated. Neither was Dad.’ She looked briefly sad, then smiled wryly. ‘I don’t know where I inherited a few down-to-earth, practical genes from, but they’re happy to leave it all to me—I have her power of attorney. Now, I have an inventory here,’ she continued, suddenly brisk and practical right on cue. ‘I believe you have a copy?’ She glanced at him out of those amazing blue eyes.
‘I do.’ He drew some folded sheets of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket.
‘And, as you know, while most of the contents of the house were included in the sale, you did agree that we could keep some personal treasures.’
‘Yes.’ He inclined his head.
‘Well, I think we should check the inventory of what was to remain together now, then we can both sign it so there can be no disagreements later.’
Angus Keir looked her over unsmilingly and the nature of the mysterious niggle he’d experienced earlier suddenly came clear to him. He would like to have some power over this cool, serene and utterly gorgeous girl, some hold, even if it was only that she bitterly regretted having to part with a home he now owned. Why? he wondered. So he could lure her back to it? As an excuse to get to know her? Yes, he concluded, and his eyebrows rose in some surprise at the thought.
Then he realized that Domenica was looking at him curiously, but only because of the lengthening pause between them, and the irony of not making much of an impact on this girl at all when she’d done the opposite to him amused him inwardly but activated a resolve to change things…
‘I think that’s a very good idea, Miss Harris,’ he said. ‘And if you have second thoughts about anything you’d really like to keep, please let me know. I’d be happy to accommodate you.’
This time Domenica’s eyebrows rose, in sheer surprise. ‘That’s very kind of you but I don’t think there’s anything,’ she said slowly, as if she was not quite sure whether to believe him.
‘Should we start in here, then?’ he suggested.
It took them over an hour, and, although he’d inspected the house before and although houses didn’t mean that much to him, Angus Keir felt a sense of triumph to think that this lovely home with its use of timber and slate, the design that made the best use of natural light and the wonderful views, was his—even denuded of some of the Harris family treasures.
There was also an air about it of a home, not as if it should grace the glossy pages of an interior design magazine, not matched or co-ordinated within an inch of its life, but comfortable and gracious. Although, he conceded to himself, there would be one thing lacking.
And almost as if reading his thoughts, Domenica said, ‘I gather you’re not married, Mr Keir?’
‘You gather right, Miss Harris, but how could you tell?’
They were in the living room, looking out over the roses towards Sydney. Domenica glanced at him. They were standing almost shoulder to shoulder and, although she was five feet ten, even if she were wearing heels he would be taller than she was, she judged. And his physique and height at this close proximity plus the lines of his face—good-looking but with the hint in the uncompromising set of his mouth and the worldliness of those smoky-grey eyes of a self-assured man who got his own way frequently—did something strange to the pit of her stomach, she found.
He was also tanned where she was not, and it was impossible not to sense that he was extremely fit, and not only from the honed lines of his body but the way he moved. Then there was the masculine scent of crisply laundered cotton, tailored fabric and just plain man about him that was a little heady and, oddly, something rather touching about a small, star-shaped scar at the end of his left eyebrow.
A very fine example of a man in his prime, she thought, but with a slight sense of unease. She remembered, belatedly, what he’d said.
‘Uh—’ she wrenched her mind from the purely physical ‘—if I were a wife whose husband had just bought a house, any house, you couldn’t have kept me away,’ she said with a quizzical little smile, then shrugged. ‘On the other hand, it could be easier without a wife who may have wanted to change the house and imprint her personality on it—which could have cost you some more money.’
‘I don’t think, assuming I had a wife, I would let her change anything about Lidcombe Peace, Miss Harris.’
Domenica’s eyebrows rose. ‘Really?’
One word but uttered with such hauteur, Angus Keir reflected, he should feel instantly demolished. ‘Really,’ he agreed smoothly, however, and added, ‘I like it very much the way it is, you see.’
‘Oh.’ Domenica looked around and he could see her doing battle with pride in Lidcombe Peace and the kind of man who would not allow a wife to express her individuality. ‘Well—’ she faced him again with a fleeting expression in her eyes, this time of ‘It’s nothing to do with me anyway’ and held out her hand ‘…I’m sure you’d like to explore a bit more on your own, so I’ll get going. The other keys are on the hook in the pantry.’
He didn’t take her hand but said, ‘Would you have lunch with me, Miss Harris? I noticed a restaurant a few miles back that looked rather pleasant. And I wasn’t proposing to stay here any longer.’
She hesitated and frowned. ‘That’s very kind of you but—um—no, I should be getting back to work.’ She looked at her watch and then said with a fleeting grin, ‘Thanks, but I definitely should be making tracks!’
‘You don’t eat lunch?’ he queried.
‘Yes, I do, but on the run, if you know what I mean.’ Domenica stopped rather abruptly.
‘How about dinner this
