she looped the long side of her hair behind her ear, although it never stayed there. And how expertly she was arranging the roses.
A little different, he reflected, from the swiftly passing but obvious confusion she seemed to have experienced when he’d first spoken to her earlier.
Not such an iron maiden when it comes to men maybe, Ms Fairfax, if you ever were? he thought ironically. But, of course, the irony touches me as well, doesn’t it? I put her down as just another woman on the make then I made a resolution not to allow myself to be intrigued, but I seem to be growing more interested by the minute.
‘My mother and my grandmother were great collectors,’ he said at last. ‘Did you always have an appreciation of fine old things?’
‘I guess so. There.’ She moved the vases to a counter. ‘I’ll work out where to put them shortly. In the meantime I should concentrate on the menu for tomorrow, but,’ she looked across at him, ‘are you a breakfast person?’
He nodded.
‘So am I. I’m starving. How about a herb omelette?’ Her fingers hovered over the array of Cliff’s fresh herbs.
‘That sounds—terrific,’ he said gravely.
‘And some fresh, proper coffee.’ She looked at his mug with disfavour.
‘Miss Fairfax, will you marry me?’
She laughed. ‘Thank you, sir, but I must respectfully decline.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ Rhiannon said half an hour later when they’d consumed her delicious omelette and she was pouring real perked coffee, ‘what I mean to say is—um—great wealth is associated with the Richardson family so.’
‘So why do I put up with this state of affairs?’ Lee Richardson said with a trace of humour. ‘I don’t. I don’t spend much time here at all these days. The place hasn’t really been lived in since my father moved to the south of France. But things have changed now. It seemed sad for it to stand empty with a skeleton staff when Matt and Mary could make it their home.’
Rhiannon nodded without comment.
‘I think she does want to learn,’ he murmured.
‘I’ll do my best. Now I really should get busy, Mr Richardson.’ She stood up.
‘Just a moment.’ He frowned. ‘What’s your background, Rhiannon?’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’
‘So where did you learn all your—expertise?’
‘Here and there.’ It was her turn to frown. ‘I’m sure your very correct PA checked my business record and my references in case you’re wondering whether I’m likely to nick the silver.’
‘It’s not that.’
Rhiannon sent him a speaking look that said clearly—it had better not be.
He stood up. ‘Why so secretive, though?’
‘Look, I come and I go. I do my level best to get things running smoothly but I always try to retain a professional … distance, if you like.’
‘All the same, you’re Luke Fairfax’s daughter, aren’t you?’
RHIANNON froze. ‘How did you—?’ She stopped abruptly.
‘How did I know? I didn’t until last night. But something about your name niggled me so I looked it up on the internet. I came up with, amongst others, Luke and Reese Fairfax.’
He paused and shrugged. ‘They were household names until a few years ago. Two musicians who’d gone into the entrepreneurial side of the business. Their open-air country-music and rock concerts were legendary and made them a lot of money. They had one child, a daughter, Rhiannon, who would be twenty-six now.’
He paused and studied her sudden pallor. ‘I’m sorry if this is painful but I believe that your father is still alive, although your mother passed away at the time of the company crash?’
Rhiannon swallowed. ‘Yes, but I don’t see what it has to do with you.’
He eyed her meditatively. ‘I just like to have things right, although—not that it has anything to do with you—Richardson’s, as a creditor, lost a fair amount of money in the collapse of your father’s empire.’
‘Now you’ve really made my day,’ Rhiannon said, standing uncharacteristically still. ‘So you are concerned about my honesty? In which case, I think it’s best if I leave immediately.’
‘Oh, no, you don’t—’
‘You can’t stop me,’ she flashed at him.
‘I could but I won’t,’ he said coolly. ‘Sit down and listen.’
Rhiannon eyed him and couldn’t quite suppress a little shiver. He looked so very much the man who always got his way she’d sensed yesterday at the airport and there was no denying his physical presence was impressive, even dressed in jeans and sporting designer stubble—if anything, that made him more impressive.
She forced herself to say, however, ‘I’ll stand and listen.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not at all concerned about your honesty. It wasn’t your father’s dishonesty that caused the crash. There were a lot of factors involved. There were some bad, rather erratic judgements made but show business is notoriously difficult to predict.’ He sat down again and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Of course, many of the details aren’t known.’ He looked at her interrogatively.
Rhiannon, rather blindly, went to move away but he got up and propelled her back to her chair. When she hesitated then sat down, he poured them both another cup of coffee and sat down himself.
‘I don’t suppose the heiress to what was once quite a nice little fortune expected to find herself doing this,’ he said.
Rhiannon looked around. ‘No, but funnily enough I enjoy it for the most part.’
‘So what really did lead to the demise of the family fortune?’
She fiddled with her teaspoon then shrugged. ‘I suppose, as a creditor, you’re entitled to know.’ She paused and frowned. ‘How did you become a creditor?’
He stirred his coffee. ‘We have a transport division. It started out as a cattle-trucking operation but we expanded into a national express freight carrier. Your father used us to carry all the equipment required for his concerts from venue to venue—sound systems, demountable stages and so on.’
Rhiannon closed her eyes briefly. ‘I see. Well, it all started to go wrong when my mother was diagnosed with an incurable disease. My father was distraught and that’s whenhe seemed to lose his judgement. He backed the wrong bands, ones that didn’t take off, crowds
