art. She doubted again whether her father would approve, but she didn’t really care. Teaching had given her back her confidence, had made her aware of her own worth as a human being, and erased the blank uncertainty that had coloured her early years.
The Charlottesville Mission School was not really a mission school at all. Not any longer. It was supported by the local education department and the church authorities and, as island schools went, it was very good. The children were taught arts and crafts, as well as more academic subjects, and the percentage of pupils who went on to do further education on one of the larger islands was quite high. Holly had been teaching at the school for almost eighteen months now, ever since Stephen Brent had visited the house and seen her paintings.
The Brents and the Gantrys were the oldest families on the island. When Holly visited the island as a child, her grandmother used to take her to visit the Brents, and she and Stephen, and his younger sister, Constance, had all been friends. By the time Holly returned to the island however, Stephen’s father was dead, too, and Stephen had married Verity Turner.
Even so, they were still friends, and it was Stephen who had suggested Holly should offer her talents to the education authorities. Although the Brent plantation was not in such a run-down state as the Gantry’s, he himself spent four mornings a week at the school, teaching English and history, and their liking for one another had been cemented by their mutual interests.
Stephen’s car was already parked on the dusty lot beside the schoolhouse when Holly drove the buggy in to join it. Although it was barely eight o’clock, school started early in the islands and, apart from a fifteen-minute break mid-morning, it continued, uninterrupted, until two o’clock.
As she got out of the buggy, Holly paused a moment to look at the view. She often did so thinking, as she did now, what an ideal location it was. Set above the harbour, with waving pandanus palms as a backcloth, and the sloping roofs of the little town sweeping down to the mast-dotted careenage below, it was an infinitely pleasant place to be, and she appreciated her good fortune. Determinedly putting all thoughts of her father and Morgan Kane to the back of her mind, she hoisted out her bag and crossed the sun-baked parking area. mounting the steps that led into the building with a slightly lighter heart.
She found Stephen in her classroom, propped against her desk, examining the sketches she had drawn for the play the children were hoping to produce at Easter. In his middle twenties, Stephen Brent was everything Morgan Kane was not, she thought reluctantly, despising herself for allowing that man’s image to intrude yet again. Sturdily built, and about her own height, with curly brown hair and blue eyes, he was different in every way from the lean, dark-haired Englishman. Morgan Kane would top him, as he did her, by at least four inches, and whereas Stephen was broad and muscular, Morgan looked nothing like an athlete. Yet, for all that, he did have a toughness the West Indian lacked, a rapier-honed hardness that shortened the odds between them considerably. Holly suspected it was the life he had led—the constant changes from one time zone to another; the shortage of sleep; the hastily snatched meals; the ravages of junk food and alcohol, and too many late nights. But whatever it was, in any physical contest between them she would be loath not to choose Morgan as the victor; the simple result of any conflict between a sleekly fed tabby and an alley cat.
Ignoring the small voice inside her that probed her reasons for even contemplating such an eventuality, Holly walked firmly into the schoolroom and dropped her bag on the desk. ‘Good morning,’ she said, easing the straps off her aching shoulders, and Stephen looked up.
‘Hi,’ he said, surveying her somewhat windswept appearance with evident enjoyment. ‘You look ready for anything. What happened? Didn’t your visitor arrive?’
‘Oh, he arrived all right.’ Holly flopped down on to one of the children’s chairs and pulled a face. ‘How could you think otherwise? He is my father’s creature, after all.’
Stephen looked sympathetic. ‘And have you decided what you’re going to do?’ He frowned. ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’
Holly sighed. ‘I don’t know. It—depends.’
‘On what?’ Stephen put the sketches aside and straightened away from the desk. ‘Surely your father can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. You’re over eighteen, Holly.’
‘I know.’ She grimaced. ‘But it’s not that simple. I may be five thousand miles from England, but I’m still living in my father’s house.’
‘Mm.’ Stephen grunted. ‘That’s what’s so bloody unfair. I’m sure the Gantrys didn’t intend Andrew Forsyth to get control of their property.’
‘No.’ Holly shrugged. ‘Perhaps not. But they did give it to my mother before she died, never dreaming she would pre-decease them.’
‘And your father inherited,’ muttered Stephen grimly, shaking his head. ‘It’s barbaric!’
‘Yes—well—’ Holly made a dismissing gesture. ‘That’s all past history now. The house does belong to my father and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not to mention the fact that my salary here is hardly enough to live on.’
‘Money!’ Stephen’s jaw hardened. ‘It all comes down to money, doesn’t it? I bet that spineless pimp Forsyth has sent out to do his dirty work for him gets a damn sight more than you do!’
‘I—wouldn’t call Morgan Kane a spineless pimp,’ murmured Holly reluctantly. ‘Really. He’s quite—nice.’
The word almost stuck in her throat, but it occurred to her that she might need Stephen’s help to accomplish her purpose, and he would never agree to be a willing party to her subterfuge.
‘Nice!’ he echoed now, his lips twisting. ‘Holly, how can you say the man is nice? He’s a puppet! A yes-man! You said yourself he was your father’s creature.’
‘Well, yes, he is.’ Holly licked her lips. ‘But what else can he do, when all’s said and done? My father is his employer, and—he does have a family to support.’
‘You sound like you’re defending him,’ said Stephen coldly. ‘Are you saying integrity has a price?’
Holly lifted a hand, palm outward, and rose abruptly to her feet. ‘I’m only saying he has a job to do, and he’s doing it. Be reasonable, Steve. I don’t suppose you’re proud of everything you’ve done in the cause of the Great God Mammon. I seem to remember the case of a family your father had evicted, just to appease Horace Turner.’
Stephen hunched his shoulders. ‘That was different.’
‘How was it different?’
‘Turner was threatening to cut off our water supply, you know that. If he had, countless other families would have been affected.’
‘So you consider the end justified the means?’
‘In that case, yes.’
‘Oh, Steve!’ Holly gazed at him impatiently. ‘Can’t you see? Put Morgan’s family in the place of your employees, and what have you got? An identical situation!’
‘That was a long time ago, Holly.’
‘I know.’ Holly gave him a wry smile. ‘Since when, you’ve married Verity Turner, and secured your irrigation rights.’
Stephen turned red. ‘That
