She burst into speech. ‘What about you? You don’t really expect me to believe I am your only alternative.’
‘Well, you are, so bear that in mind as well, my dear. But I’m afraid celibacy, inside marriage, certainly won’t suit me forever.’ He stood up. ‘And you know, Lucy, while I give your devotion to Dalkeith full credit, there’s no way a twenty-year-old girl could run it. There was no way you could have gone on without the kind of cash it needs again—and Dalkeith has become a rather expensive pastime for us Waites.’ He stopped and watched her as she took the point and looked away uncertainly. Then he went on quite gently, ‘But this way, here you are, mistress of it, and if you’ve got as much sense as I think you have in your more rational moments you must know it’s in good hands. By the way, I’m taking a couple of weeks off and we’re giving a house party this weekend. You might need to get in extra help. Goodnight.’
A couple of hours later, Lucy walked into her bedroom and closed the door.
As part of the austerity measures her father had been forced to introduce before his death, there was no live-in house help on Dalkeith. In fact Lucy had cut short her bachelor of arts degree to come home and look after her father six months ago and after her marriage, a curious marriage to say the least, she’d decided to keep it that way. It gave her something to do, and she’d discovered that, in lieu of her deep interest in Dalkeith being taken seriously, her interest despite herself in the crops Justin planned to grow and the sheep it still ran across its thousand acres of outback western New South Wales, that only left her horses for her to occupy herself with. And two mares in foal and two gelding hacks, devoted to them though she was, didn’t take up a lot of time.
She did have a cleaning lady who came in daily and a farmhand to tend the fireplaces, but it had come as some surprise to her, in those last days of her father’s decline, to find that she enjoyed cooking and gardening.
She sighed suddenly, pushed herself away from the door and picked up the silver-framed photo of her father from her dressing-table. No matter the things that she’d come to suspect even before his death, such as his being eminently suited to being a gentleman of leisure but not a gentleman farmer, and what she’d discovered about him after his death—that he’d tried to rescue Dalkeith from the brink again by gambling on horses, despite it all, she’d loved him and, only three months later, still missed him unbearably at times. If nothing else he’d certainly loved her unstintingly, and he’d taught her all the things he held dear to his heart, among them riding, shooting and fishing. He’d also taught her about art and music, he’d taken her to faraway exotic places, he’d helped her to fix her taste in clothes and all manner of things and yes, spoilt her wildly. But he’d never foisted a stepmother on her after her own mother, whom she couldn’t remember, had died. In fact, she suspected he’d never got over her mother’s death, and certain things in life hadn’t had much meaning for him after it. Including Dalkeith.
He’d also sent her to a very expensive convent school where the Mother Superior had been strong-minded enough to persevere with the motherless, precocious, mischievous and often downright naughty Lucy Wainright despite the battles royal they’d had since Lucy had been placed in her care at nine and a half, and she’d continued there until she was seventeen and a half. They’d even parted on terms of mutual respect and by that time quite some mutual affection, although each was loath to admit it.
But had her father, Lucy wondered, as she stared down at his handsome likeness, never really realised how much Dalkeith, above all else, had meant to her? That even in her giddy salad days when she’d been queening it over all and sundry—her eyes flashed briefly—it, even more than her father, had been the rock to come back to. Did she have more of her Scottish great-grandparents in her than he’d ever had? A spiritual affinity with the land that was like a physical tie? Had he not known that, without him and without Dalkeith, brave, bright Lucinda Wainright, darling of society, was in fact lonely and more than a little frightened? But he had known how much she loved Dalkeith; wasn’t that why he’d never told her he’d lost half of it to Justin’s father?
She pushed off her shoes and curled up in the pink velvet armchair beside the fireplace, and stared into the flickering flames with a faraway look in her eyes.
It was ironic but true that she had hero-worshipped Justin Waite as a child. It was also true that Justin had, without her quite understanding it, achieved the status of a hallmark in her mind during her adolescent yeais. A hallmark that she had involuntarily found herself measuring other boys, then men up against, and finding most of them wanting. This had also led her, once she’d left school and on the few social occasions that they had met, to treat him with cool hauteur, yet to experience an undoubted desire to be noticed.
‘And he noticed,’ she murmured a little bitterly, her cheeks feeling warm again. ‘Although the only sign he ever gave of it was that hateful little glint of amusement in his eyes—I really do hate him now!’
She sat up breathing quickly but also feeling a curious mixture of confusion and guilt. Why hadn’t she pressed her father for details about his rift with the Waites, daspite his extreme reluctance to say more on the subject? Well, I did try, she admitted. And of course I know now that he couldn’t bring himself to tell me what was going on—the fact that Riverbend did diversity and go into breeding racehorses with spectacular success must have been an awful blow to his pride, but why couldn’t I have realised it at the time? And then what he did say, about us no longer being good enough for the Waites, set my back right up. With the result, she conceded gloomily, sinking back in the chair, that I made myself ridiculous by treating Justin the way I did. But did I really offed him enough for him to take this kind of revenge? To make me marry him although he didn’t love me and so he can get all of Dalkeith? she asked herself miserably.
And answered herself a little tartly—apart from amusing him, I doubt it. I mean, I never saw him without some beautiful woman on his arm or doing something spectacular like playing polo or crewing on some twelve-metre yacht, and of course he then proceeded to make his own fortune.
She brooded darkly for a moment on how Justin had taken a run-down saddlery business and built it into a nationwide success story—another one—and so not only did Riverbend Stud produce top-flight progeny, but Riverbend Saddlery produced saddles of the finest quality, with an international reputation and all sorts of horse products, as well as clothing—riding boots et cetera. Yes, Justin was clever and not only with horses—and there was a ten-year age gap between them, damn it!
She got up and paced about angrily. ‘So what?’ she murmured to herself, and picked up her silver-blacked hairbrush and turned it over and over in her hands. Then she stopped and looked down at it and fingered the ornate ‘W’ engraved into the handle, and drew herself upright and stared at her reflection with cold eyes. ‘Just remember what he said when he proposed. He said, “We won’t even have to change the monograms, will we? Surely that demonstrates what a practical arrangement it would be.”’
But she shivered suddenly because, in a moment of rage and panic, she had accepted. And then, in a moment of further panic on her wedding-night had made her ‘dramatic declaration’. That she’d never willingly sleep with him. Had she in fact been seriously unbalanced by grief and everything else?
CHAPTER TWO
‘I NEED you. Justin—’
‘Well, well—’ Justin Waite put out a lazy hand and grasped his wife’s wrist ‘—did my little lecture set you thinkimg, dear Lucy?’
Lucy closed her eyes, attempted to free herself to no avail and ground her teeth. ‘I need to talk to you. About this party.’
It
