then Peter, came up to Leona, expecting and getting good luck and best wishes for a win. Peter put his arm tightly around her in some sort of claim, before his kiss landed on the side of her mouth, despite her best attempt to dodge it.
Nevertheless she knew the clinch would set off a chain of gossip. She remembered how one elderly member of the family had had a girl pregnant from a single kiss she’d caught one of the cousins exchanging with his then girlfriend. “Such things do happen!” was the dire warning.
“That boy’s in love with you,” Geraldine now told her, shaking her arm as if to put her on the alert.
“What a lot of rot, Gerri!” Leona tried to answer carelessly.
“Not rot, my dear,” Geraldine corrected her firmly. “Just be sure to tell him you’re spoken for.”
Spoken for? Leona felt the hot wave of colour stain her cheeks. “Are you going to tell me how you heard that?” Boyd was very close to his aunt. He must have told her.
“I’ve heard nothing. So far,” Geraldine maintained, adjusting the brim of her straw hat to a snappier angle. “I have eyes.”
Leona fell into the deckchair beside her, urgently taking Geraldine’s hand. “So what exactly is it you think you’ve seen? And with whom?”
Geraldine patted the small fine-boned hand that held hers. Then her shrewd grey eyes went past Leona’s lovely, imploring face. “He’s coming over right now. Don’t look so worried, child. I’ve had my suspicions for quite a while.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Leona jumped up, stopping only to whisper in Geraldine’s ear, “Gerri, I swear I’m frightened of you.”
“Don’t be frightened, child,” Geraldine looked up with a reassuring smile. “Everything will be fine.”
All it would need was a miracle.
“Flower Face, still running away?” Boyd swiftly caught up with her as she dodged through the trees, catching hold of her hand.
“I have to, Boyd. I’m feeling absolutely stretched.” Indeed she was. She rounded to stare up into his sapphire eyes, gemlike against his bronzed skin.
“You want us to have a nice quiet game?” he asked with such a beguiling half smile.
“Damn it! The game’s only half of it,” she said spiritedly. “I am nervous for you and Robbie. I couldn’t bear it if either of you were injured.”
“For heaven’s sake, I thought all your thoughts were with Peter!” he scoffed. “Where does he get off, hugging you like that? I was gratified to see you turn your head away. He was most certainly aiming for an off-to-the-wars type kiss.”
“Well, he didn’t get it!” Leona said in a tart voice. “Have you said anything at all to Gerri about … about … us?”
“One would have to get up very early in the morning to take Gerri by surprise,” Boyd said. “Gerri’s a mind-reader. Why, has she said something?”
Leona bit her lip. “She said everything will be fine.”
“And so it will,” he said. “So, are you going to wish me luck?” Those blue eyes sparkled a challenge at her.
“Think you’re clever, don’t you?” she muttered. On impulse, she reached up and pulled his shining blue-black head down to her. “Good luck, darling Boyd,” she crooned in a sweet seductive voice, her green eyes alight with malice. With infinite gentleness she cupped his dynamic face in her hands, then she kissed him squarely on his sardonic mouth.
There! Served him right! She never could resist his dares.
On her way back to her chair, Leona ignored the expressions on the faces all around her. Some were soft with astonishment, others hard with calculation. The family was already divided in its opinion of Leona and Boyd as a couple.
“Think you’re a siren, don’t you?” Tonya, frowning fiercely in the grip of jealousy, hissed at her as Leona passed close by. “Don’t get your hopes up. You’ll never lure Boyd.”
“Still, he’s just wonderful to kiss,” Leona pretended to gush, hastening to take her place beside Gerri. The match was due to start.
Robbie, nicely set up by his captain, scored the first two goals.
“Oh, jolly well played!” Geraldine clapped enthusiastically. “Of course it was Boyd, the tactician, who turned the play to offence, but I must say Roberto responded brilliantly. I’m just loving this. Rupert was a darn fine player. But you wouldn’t remember all that well, would you, dear?”
“Of course I do,” Leona said. Rupert, approaching sixty, had been warned off the game by his doctor after a number of bone shattering “bumps” and one crashing fall in his late forties.
“Didn’t have Boyd’s finesse, though,” Geraldine further commented.
As the match progressed it became apparent that it was a duel of wits between Boyd, captain of the Red Team, and Bart Ellory, captain of the Blue Team, the two most experienced players on the field. From time to time Leona found herself with a clenched fist to her mouth, while Geraldine persisted in jumping to her feet at her nephew’s heroic deeds. The crowd was getting a superlative display of horsemanship and polo sense. Given yet another opportunity for scoring by his captain, Robbie got set for a full free swing, his team mate Peter wisely giving him plenty of room. A few seconds more and Robbie put the ball across the goal line, bringing the crowd to its feet. At half-time the score was six-three for the home team. The second half promised to be a cliff-hanger.
“I don’t know that my heart can take it!” Leona said, accepting the cold glass of sparkling lime and lemon that was handed to her. What a day! Just how many people had seen her kiss Boyd? How many more had heard about it since? Rupert was sitting with his cronies some small distance away. Eventually, Leona supposed, it would get to him.
What form would his outrage take? Leona was forced to ask herself the question.
Just minutes before full-time, facing a two-pronged attack, a member of the Blue Team frustrated by Boyd’s superior speedier game, suddenly created a hazardous situation when he crossed the line setting up an inevitable collision and a certain foul that would result in a penalty. Leona didn’t want to look but she couldn’t turn away either. Her heart had jumped into her mouth and a wave of sickness welled up from the pit of her stomach. Even Geraldine gasped in fright and began to wipe away the perspiration that broke out on her face with a lace trimmed handkerchief.
Boyd’s control of himself and his mount was nothing short of superhuman. Somehow, he managed to pull out of what looked like an imminent spill.
“You can breathe again, lovey,” Geraldine instructed Leona, still gasping from the near miss.
Is anyone I love safe? Leona asked herself. Only that day she had called Boyd invincible. Well, she had been made to suffer for it. Boyd was the heart of her. The meaning of everything.
The silent crowd broke out into such applause that it bounced off the hills as the whistle blew, announcing a win for the Red Team. Now for the lavish afternoon tea with all the trimmings. It was Leona’s experience that most people ate everything on offer.
