know about that.”
“Unfortunately, no.” She lowered her gaze. “I should point out it’s Amanda who is your brother’s widow.”
“Half-brother,” he corrected a shade curtly, again surprising her. Mark had never said. “My mother died of the complications of malaria when I was going on six years of age. She and my father were staying at a friend’s coffee plantation in New Guinea at the time. Both of them had had their shots, but in my mother’s case the vaccine didn’t take. My father, our New Guinea friends, the entire family were devastated by the loss. I still remember my beautiful mother, though those memories have kept changing over time. Hard to forget what she looked like, however. My father commissioned a large portrait of her by a famous Italian artist to celebrate their marriage. It hung in the Great Room. It never came down.”
Not even when the second wife, Mark’s mother, took her place? That couldn’t have been easy for Hilary Kilcullen. Come to that, this cattle baron himself was eminently paint-able. She knew her father could do a wonderful portrait of him, but she very much doubted whether he would be up for a commission.
“So you have a permanent reminder of your mother,” she said with gentle compassion. “I’m so sorry for your loss.
The feeling of being deprived of your mother must never go away. I’m very close to my mother. I can’t imagine life without her.”
“Then you’re blessed,” he said, looking across the small circular table and right into her eyes.
Really looking—as though she was in some way important to him or his agenda.
“And you have both your parents,” he continued. “My father died a few years back.”
Just as Mark had said. She’d concluded Blaine Kilcullen was a man of iron control, but a flash of pain crossed his chiselled features.
“Dad remarried, according to Adeline, to give me a stepmother.” He didn’t tell her Adeline had actually said a ready-made nanny. Everyone in the family knew his father’s marriage to Hilary had been one of convenience, although Hilary, daughter of a pastoralist friend of the family, had long idolized Desmond Kilcullen from afar.
“Mark never made it clear you and he were half brothers. He always talked about you as though you were—well … full brothers.”
“Did he?” He took care to keep his tone even. He could well imagine what Mark had told them all, the damage Mark had done. Not only to him, but to the rest of the family. Mark had near destroyed himself with bitterness and resentment. “Mark was still engaged to a very nice young woman when he took off without a word to anyone,” he said, just to put part of the record straight. “He jumped on a freight plane that had flown machinery into the station, as it happened. From the look on your face you didn’t know about that either.”
“Remember, please,” she said again, “I’m Amanda’s cousin.” She needed to explain her lack of knowledge.
“But you are close?” He resumed his piercing silver-grey scrutiny.
She hoped she didn’t flush. She and Amanda had coexisted rather than ever growing close as she had hoped. The closeness simply hadn’t happened. “Amanda’s parents were killed when she was five. Her parents were returning from a long trip and her father apparently fell asleep at the wheel. My mother and father opened up their home and their hearts to Amanda. Amanda, my brother Emile and I all grew up together. He’s a highly gifted architect and interior designer.”
“So the artistic gift runs in the family?” he said. “May I ask what you do?”
He actually sounded interested. “I manage one of my father’s galleries, and I paint myself. As you say, it’s in the blood.”
“Do you show your work?”
She gave him a sparkling glance. He knew the sparkle was unconscious, but a man could find it powerfully seductive. “I’ve had four showings up to date. Each time they become more successful. I specialize in landscapes, the occasional still-life. My father’s speciality is portraiture, though he can paint anything. Many of his subjects have been very important people, and of course very beautiful women. My father worships a woman’s beauty. I’m not in his league—” she smiled “—but Lucien is wonderfully supportive. Which is not to say he isn’t highly critical when he feels the need. My brother loves Dad but he took off to New York to make his own way in the world. When Emile is home it’s like being around twins—Dad and Emile are so much alike.” She changed the subject, although she could see his interest was unfeigned. “Did you know Amanda and Mark actually met in Paris, not here in Vancouver?”
He gritted fine white teeth. “Sienna, it was Mark’s plan to vanish into thin air. At that time he was a very disturbed young man.” No need to add that he’d had chips as big as desert boulders on both shoulders.
“You don’t want me to press you about Mark?” At her question he gave her a searching look. It was as though he wanted to know everything that went on inside her.
“I think I have summed it up,” he said in a clipped voice.
“Perhaps you should know what he thought of you?” Unforgivably, she was returning his brusqueness.
“Not right now,” he said. “Mark was family. His death matters.”
He had turned the tables on her. She felt ashamed of herself. “Of course it matters. Please forgive me. I only thought it would explain so much about Amanda if I could tell you—”
“That Mark hated me?” His black brows rose. “Sienna, I know. It was a very bad case of sibling rivalry. We all live in isolation on a vast Outback station, yet Mark and I never really connected. We never did things together. It’s hard to explain.”
Not to me, she thought. It was almost exactly her experience with Amanda.
“I was my father’s heir. His firstborn. Mark grew up knowing I was the one who would inherit Katajannga. That’s the name of our cattle station. Not that he had any interest in being or becoming a cattle man.”
Her interest had soared. “That’s the name of your station? Katajannga? How extraordinary Mark never mentioned that.”
“Mark kept a lot of things locked up,” he said sombrely. “There’s a long story attached to the name. It more or less means ‘revelation’, or sometimes ‘many lagoons’ when translated from the aboriginal. One can understand why. After good rains the desert is indeed a revelation.”
Her beautiful eyes, fixed on his, revealed her fascination. “I’m here to listen.”
“When Mark’s wife is not?”
She sat back abruptly, trying to interpret the question. “You said that as though you’re trying to catch me out?”
“Did I?” He didn’t back down.
“I can’t be held responsible for Amanda, you know.”
“Of course not. But I have the feeling you’re covering for her now.”
She released the breath she’d been holding. “Amanda just can’t deal with this now, Mr Kilcullen. Surely you
