you expect me to say? He wasn’t Superman. There was nothing memorable about him—not that I wanted to remember anything about the whole wretched business anyway. I’m swamped in gorgeous men every day of my working life, darling, why should I remember some unimportant stranger I met ages ago?’
Honor looked at the valentine—slightly dog-eared from months of affectionate handling—that had started it all, and sternly made herself face facts.
‘He couldn’t possibly have meant to write to me—not after having met you,’ she sighed, far too aware of her sister’s devastating tunnel-vision effect on men to have any illusions about how she rated in comparison.
‘What does it matter who he meant to write to? It was you he ended up corresponding with,’ Helen pointed out kindly, spoiling it by adding, ‘If you ask me, he’s got to be pretty arrogant in the first place if he thinks a woman like me would be interested in some country hick...’
‘He doesn’t live in the country, he lives in Auckland,’ Honor automatically defended.
‘Small-town hick, then,’ said Helen, ignoring the fact that Auckland was New Zealand’s largest city. She was very proud of the fact that she had outgrown her home country, whereas Honor had very proudly grown back into it after several years’ enforced stay in the canyons of New York city.
‘Anyway, it was a gross piece of assumption on his part that I’d be interested. I don’t know what you’re worrying about. If he dumps you what have you lost? Only another penfriend, for goodness’ sake. You used to have stacks of them when you were twelve—I should have thought you’d have grown out of that sort of teenage stuff by now. Doesn’t say much for your social life, does it? I told you burying yourself in this place would stunt your growth. I suppose, as usual, you let your imagination run away with you and built it into some grand romance in your mind.’
By now Helen was into full, condescending stride. She had never understood Honor’s fascination with the written word, had pitied her for wasting her time reading about life instead of following her big sister’s example and going out and actually living it.
‘They’re just letters, Honor, it’s not as if he ever actually bothered to make the effort of meeting me—you—face to face,’ she continued bracingly. ‘And stop looking so guilty. The whole thing was his mistake in the first place for assuming that there was only one Miss Sheldon. Imagine thinking I’d enjoy writing letters to someone I don’t even know!’ She shuddered delicately. ‘If I tried to answer every fan letter I get I’d never have time to do anything else. You know what I’m like—I don’t even answer yours...’
Honor gave up trying to explain. Helen would never understand in a million years what those letters had meant to her. How much joy they had brought her, how deeply committed she had felt as she had progressively revealed more and more of her thoughts and feelings to a man she’d never met.
And what about those most recent letters she had sent? Honor went cold with horror at the thought of what she had ardently revealed. Talk about drooling! Oh, God, what a mess...!
She knew she couldn’t just hang around waiting for the axe to fall. She couldn’t stand the agony. And the thought of putting it all into writing was abhorrent. She couldn’t present him such a shock in a letter, in cold black and white, with no opportunity for her to test his mood first for the best way to explain. Whatever the embarrassment to herself, she owed it to them both to talk to him in person. But how? If she wrote asking for a meeting without telling him why, he would still get an awful shock on seeing her. It would be far better if she could talk to him first on the phone—soften him up for the disappointment...
There lay the rub. Adam didn’t usually bother to head his letters with any address and the recent letters hadn’t even been dated. All she had to go on was the North Shore box number he had originally given her.
While Helen was upstairs packing the vast number of clothes she had brought for her few days’ visit, Honor leafed through the telephone book with sweaty palms although she already knew what she would find: curiosity had tempted her to peep once before. There was no A. Blake in either the personal or business listings with an address on the North Shore.
This time, desperation led her to run through all the very numerous Auckland Blakes and at the very bottom of the alphabetical listings something jumped out at her.
Z. Blake, Arrow House, Blake Rd, Evansdale.
Honor blinked. Coincidence? A vague memory stirred and her thick brows drew together in an effort to bring it into focus. Hadn’t she read in the local paper a few years ago about a local hero, Zachary Blake, who had made a fortune diversifying his family’s citrus fruit orchard into production of avocados, kiwi fruit, nashi and other exotic and expensive fruits aimed at the overseas restaurant market? He had been one of the first ‘Kiwi fruit millionaires’ in the boom days before farmers all over the country started jumping on the exotic fruit bandwagon and he had used his wealth to diversify even further, into food processing and other related industries.
Might Adam be a relation of the Zachary Blakes? He had never mentioned having relatives who lived in her vicinity, but then she had never mentioned having a sister. Their letters had been for and about each other, a deliciously selfish and possessive indulgence that no one else was permitted to share.
But if Adam was a relative, even only a distant once, that might explain his presence at the Valentine Ball, since people in the area had been encouraged to sell tickets among their wider circle of families and friends. Perhaps the Evansdale Blakes could tell her how to get in touch with Adam. It was worth a try.
Never one to procrastinate, Honor made a furtive phone call to the number in the book, nervously aware that if Helen walked in and realised what she was doing she would probably earn herself another patronising sisterly lecture.
The discovery that Adam was not only known to the Evansdale Blakes but was actually in current residence with them shocked her into stammering confusion, especially when it became evident that unless she stated a very explicit purpose for her call she was not going to be put through to him. The sheer unexpectedness of it all caused her to hang up in a panic and only afterwards did she think it strange that the man had never bothered to ask her for her name and yet had seemed fixated on demanding to know what she wanted from Adam. The thought of having to ring back and humiliate herself by relating the ghastly mix-up to an unknown and obviously unsympathetic third party made up her mind. The direct approach was the only option left.
As soon as Helen wafted out the door in a cloud of L’Air du Temps, trilling farewells, Honor grimly wheeled her bicycle out of the shed. There was no point in trying to get any work done until she had done everything she could to talk to Adam.
In ordinary circumstances she would have enjoyed the bike ride, being quite used to the eccentricities of the dilapidated machine that she had bought from the previous owner of the house, along with all the other junk in the rusting corrugated-iron shed at the bottom of her garden. The Waitakere Ranges were a popular training ground for triathletes looking to build up their cycling stamina on the hilly terrain and although Honor was nowhere near their league, either in fitness or in the snazziness of their gear and complex machines, she shared their appreciation of a brisk workout along the quiet, winding, bush-lined country roads. This morning, however, an unexpected spring shower and the hollow nervousness in her empty stomach served to make her wish she had at least waited until after lunch to do her duty.
Consequently, by the time she arrived at the Blake house she had a very severe case of cold feet even before she saw its palatial splendour. Looking down at her mud-spotted shoes and stockings,
