would be a very serious mistake.
“Maybe it’s proved a pretty effective defence,” he suggested, as though he had discovered the answer. His handsome, dynamic face was caught in a shaft of sunlight. She realised he looked unexpectedly serious, faintly troubled.
“Against what?” Horribly, her voice wobbled.
He turned a concentrated gaze to her. “Do you remember when you were a little kid you used to pester me with questions?”
“The miracle is you used to answer me.” Despite herself, she gave him her lovely smile, her green eyes changing from stormy to dancing.
“You had such an insatiable curiosity about everything. You read so widely, even as a child.”
“That may have been because I was so lonely after my mother died. You know, sometimes when I’m walking about the lake, I hear her calling to me,” she confided with a poignant little air.
That didn’t surprise him. Many times he had fancied he had seen his own mother near the little stone temple that stood beside a secluded part of the lake. “We never lose the images of those we love,” he murmured gently, wanting only to comfort her.
“She was a beautiful woman, Aunt Alexa. She was so kind to me.” She sighed deeply, in many ways still the child denied her beloved mother. “After my mother died—the way she was killed—I thought I’d never get on my pony again. You were the one who helped me through that. Not my father. He was too dazed. He went off to some distant planet. It was you who convinced me it was what my mother would have wanted. She loved horses. She adored riding. You made me understand that although peril can be anywhere, we have to go on with our lives; we have to hold our simple pleasures close.”
“Then I was good for something,” he said, a faint twist to his sculpted mouth.
“You were. You are,” she said, unbearably conscious of his closeness and the fact that they were alone together. But did it really have to put her in such a frenzy? Why, for the love of God, couldn’t she relax? Was it because she knew Boyd, heir to the Blanchard fortune, would always be denied her? Maybe she had to accept, once and for all, that he was much too much for her.
The silence between them had taken on a deeply intimate turn whether she wanted it or not. She had the strongest notion that the nerve fibres in their bodies were reaching out to draw them together. When all was said and done, he knew her better than anyone. Her eyes smarted with tears. To be together like this always. To have their relationship develop and flourish as she wanted.
She knew in her heart that it wasn’t possible. It wouldn’t be allowed. That was the reason she kept that side of her hidden. Now alarm bells were going off in her head. How easy it was to slip into a dream. But it wouldn’t do at all. Boyd was so far above her she couldn’t begin to calculate the distance. Resolutely she squared her shoulders. “D’you want a race? Let’s say to the old ruin?” she challenged him. The old ruin was what they called an extraordinary rocky outcrop on a wilder part of the estate.
“Flower Face, you couldn’t beat me,” he answered, slowly coming out of his elegant slouch.
“Then I’m going to have a darn good try.” Abruptly she turned the mare, spurring her into action. They were tearing up the fairly sharp incline, vanishing down the other side while startled magpies croaked their high displeasure and wild doves shot up into the blue, blue air.
He was giving her a start. She knew that, not sure if in plunging away she wasn’t revealing what an emotional coward she was. What made her so emotionally insecure? Was it because she had lost her mother at such a tender age? In many ways she had lost her father to his grief. Lord knew Delia hadn’t turned out to be a mother substitute. She couldn’t even mother her own son. Galloping wasn’t half as dangerous as getting into an intimate conversation with Boyd.
She travelled so fast towards the ruins that an old time Western movie posse might have been giving chase. She wondered excitedly when he was going to close in on her.
To her left was a thick copse of cottonwoods, the golden poplars whose foliage put on such a wonderful brilliant yellow display in the autumn; to her right Chinese elms covered in spring’s delicate whiteish-green samaras. Beyond that an indigenous forest of eucalypts in a country where the gum tree was king.
Did anyone who didn’t ride realise the wonderful exhilaration of being in the saddle? Her breasts beneath her cream silk shirt rose and fell with her exertions. The balls of her feet, encased in expensive riding boots felt weightless in the stirrups. Compared to the order of the rest of the estate, she was heading into near virgin country as she veered off to take the short cut to the ruins.
She sucked in her breath as the remaining section of an ancient weathered wall threw up a challenge. The wall was covered in an apple-green vine with a beautiful mauve trumpet flower. It would be a very small risk taking the wall. The mare was a good jumper; she rarely stumbled, never baulked. Leona felt completely safe. She had taken far higher obstacles than this. Taking obstacles had claimed her mother’s life, but everyone had agreed it was a freak accident, not a miscalculation on her mother’s part. Leona trusted to her own judgement.
They literally sailed over the wall. She gave a great shout of triumph, even though her breath had shortened and her breasts were heaving. The old ruins were dead ahead. They looked for all the world like tumbled stone masonry and pillars. She knew she could beat him. What a thrill! She absolutely revelled in the thought.
When Boyd realised she was about to jump the old weathered wall his heart gave a great leap like a salmon making upstream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he shouted, “No!” In an instant he was back in time, caught up in a terrible moment of déjà vu. Reining the bay in sharply, he sat stock still in the saddle, back erect, but driven into shutting his eyes. Nothing ever really healed. For a moment he was a boy of fourteen again, waiting for Serena to return so they could all go swimming. He didn’t think he could bear to suffer a worse loss. He had a vision of Serena’s body, brought back to the house on a stretcher. The sorrow he had seen. His mother, Alexa, her beautiful face distorted by grief; the pulverising shock and grief of the others. Leona’s father had been unable to speak, totally gutted. Rupert had taken charge of everything, as was his way, his strong autocratic features set in stone.
He opened his eyes again as he heard Leona’s shout of victory. She was galloping hell for leather towards the ruins. Like her mother, she brimmed over with life. He was over his fear now, but for several moments he sat on his quivering horse, trying to quell the sudden upsurge of anger that swept in to take the place of his enormous relief.
“Sorry, Boyd, dear, I beat you!” She waved an arm high above her head and, not content with that, pulled off her wide brimmed hat and threw it rapturously in the air, bringing home her victory. “Goodness, you’re not mad, are you?” she asked in the very next second, catching sight of the bright sharp anger in his face. He had dismounted, too, and was stalking towards her.
“Why do you take risks?” he gritted with what she took to be hostility.
“I don’t. I never do.” Hurriedly she tried to defend herself. “Risks? Don’t be absurd.” This was Boyd. How could she be afraid of him? Boyd would never hurt her. “You’re upset,” she said as she quickly comprehended. “There’s no need to be. I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
His eyes burned with the blue intensity of sapphires. “Your mother didn’t do anything stupid.”
Now both of them were confronting the past. She
