which made a striking contrast with the buttercup blondness of the bride, Cecile thought. She felt honored that Sandra had chosen her to be part of the bridal party. After all, she was a newcomer to Sandra’s life, but their rapport, established before the big engagement party on Moondai, had been instant, which is about as gratifying as it gets.
Cecile drifted onto the balcony to look over the extensive gardens, ten acres in all. Huge white marquees with pink pelmets and tassels had been erected in the grounds: one for the banquet; another to house drinks of all kinds, from French champagne to Coca-Cola; the third for the lavish selection of desserts and coffee. Hundreds of circular white tables and chairs, their backs adorned with huge ivory satin bows, had been set out on the lush green lawn, which swept down to a delightful spring-fed lake that glittered under the tropical sun. Ever since she could remember the lake had been home to a pair of black swans called Apollo and Daphne. Though she recalled how Daphne, initially trying to escape Apollo’s attentions, had turned herself into a tree, the two had mated for life.
The surrounds of the small lake were densely planted with continuously flowering white arum lilies and gorgeous Japanese iris, the water and the boggy conditions ideal for both plants. The actual ceremony would take place not far from the lake in a sheltered glade where countless heads of blue hydrangea were in big showy bloom. The glade had been a favorite haunt of hers as a child, mainly because of the large pentagonal-shaped summer house with its exotic pagoda-like roof. Under that magical roof Daniel and Sandra would be married.
When she was younger—Cecile was now twenty-six and the despair of her mother, who thought twenty-six high time she was married off and carrying her first child—she had thought the glade was where she would like to be married. Stuart, her fiancé, didn’t care for that idea at all. He wanted a big cathedral wedding with lots of pomp in their hometown of Melbourne. Stuart was big on pomp and the symbols of success: the grand house; stable of luxury cars; beautiful wife; two perfect kids, boy first, then girl; rich in-laws highly respected in society. A lot to ask for and obviously not yet attained, but she had said yes to his proposal almost a year before. Why, then, was she having difficulty naming a wedding date? Both Stuart and her mother had been pressing her of late to do so—she didn’t blame them—but still she couldn’t bring herself to commit. She was beginning to realize there was something profoundly significant in that, though she continued to berate herself for her intransigence as though intransigence were a dirty word. She was certain Stuart loved her. She loved him. She did, didn’t she? Why this awful doubt? Why now? Their architect-designed house in Melbourne was already undergoing construction. The exclusive site was a gift from her parents. She and Stuart had known one another for years and years. Their families approved, especially her mother, who continued to try very hard to dictate her only child’s every move.
Thinking of her mother, Cecile gave an involuntary sigh. Her mother wasn’t a happy woman. She was a good woman who had tried all her married life to be the perfect wife. She fussed over her husband who was, in fact, a distant Moreland kinsman, so she’d never had to change her name. She was a tireless worker for charity. She kept a beautiful house and a legendary garden. For decades she had devoted herself to endless dinner parties run like military maneuvers to further her husband’s business and social status. Cecile’s father was now CEO of Moreland Minerals, a position he held for more than fifteen years. It was confidently expected he would one day take over from her grandfather as chairman. Her mother should have been happy, achieving so much. Instead she was a rather driven woman, taking pride but no joy in her accomplishments. Cecile knew for a sad fact that her father had sought physical and mental balm in the occasional discreet affair. For years she had been terrified her mother would find out, but eventually she realized her mother would never question her father until the day she died. Instead, she had made an art form of blocking out any unpleasantness. Her mother’s headstone might well read: Here lies a woman who never delved too deeply.
Cecile caught back another sigh as the old troubles and tensions of her childhood and adolescence began to creep over her. It was essential she throw off these unhappy thoughts, indeed obligatory, on this happy day, but they kept invading her mind. It saddened her deeply that there was no crucial spark of love between her parents, no special looks they gave one another as Stuart’s parents did. There were no intimate, loving glances indicative of a happy shared life, certainly no private let alone public displays of affection. They were more like colleagues who rubbed along comfortably together. There must have been a spark at the beginning surely? Or had her father—as her razor-tongued great-aunt Bea had occasionally suggested—considered that there were more important considerations in marriage than romantic love? Her father was brilliant at business transactions. Were she and Bea too cynical? On such a day as today it was difficult not to contrast what Daniel and Sandra had with what love was in her parents’ marriage. Maybe that blaze of love happened only rarely. Maybe her mother wasn’t destined ever to know it. Maybe, for all her so-called beauty, she wasn’t even the kind of woman who inspired passion. Physical beauty certainly didn’t reflect all the manifestations of the psyche. There were far more important traits that allowed one to take that enormous step forward.
It was Daniel and Sandra who had been so blessed. In less than an hour they would exchange their marriage vows. It was truly a love match. A fairy story that offered the promise of living happily ever after. Cecile hoped and prayed that promise would come true. Although Sandra was about to become Mrs. Daniel Moreland, the press was still calling Sandra the Kingston Heiress. Probably that label would stick to her all her life. The couple who had wanted a quiet wedding with only family and close friends had a big society wedding on their hands. It couldn’t be otherwise with the bridegroom having Joel Moreland for a grandfather. The top journalist from the nation’s leading women’s magazine was numbered among the guests. The hefty fee for sole coverage of the wedding would go to the charity closest to Sandra’s heart, a foundation doing research into childhood leukemia. Sandra had once had a little friend called Nicole, who had lost her life to that cruel disease.
At his death over a year before, Rigby Kingston, Sandra’s grandfather, one of the Territory’s most prominent and influential cattlemen, had shocked the entire Outback by doing what had never been done before. He had bypassed his son and his grandson to leave Moondai and the bulk of his estate to his estranged granddaughter, daughter of his deceased firstborn son and acknowledged heir, Trevor, who had been killed when the station Cessna plowed into the purple ranges that lay at Moondai’s back door. That tragedy had marked the family forever. When Trevor’s daughter inherited, many believed it was Kingston’s effort to “make things right.” Moondai would have gone to Trevor had he lived. That his daughter inherited was seen as reparation for Kingston’s having banished her and her social-butterfly mother shortly after the tragedy. At that time Sandra had been ten going on eleven—not the best time to be banished. Sandra had suffered because of it, but it was apparent to everyone who knew her that she hadn’t broken. Rather, she had grown strong in adversity, a sign of her strength of character. Cecile greatly admired her for it.
What happened after Sandra arrived on Moondai to take up her inheritance was the stuff of romantic fiction. Destinies converged when she met Daniel. He had been Rigby Kingston’s overseer at the time of his death, and Kingston’s right-hand man. With the future of Moondai at stake, Kingston had left Daniel a substantial legacy to ensure he would remain in place until such time as his granddaughter, Alexandra, could find a suitable replacement to help her run the historic station should Daniel wish to leave. Her uncle and cousin would be no help to her. Something Kingston had clearly taken into account. Neither by their own admission were cattlemen. They had no taste for the job, let alone the talent. Daniel, however, was highly regarded by everyone in the industry. Some thought having the brains and the sheer authority to run a vast cattle station had to be in the blood.
And so it had proved. Daniel had grown up in humble circumstances not knowing the identity of his father. His mother, physically and emotionally fragile, had been badly affected. She had gone to her grave never revealing his name. Daniel, not surprisingly, grew to manhood despising the man who had abandoned his vulnerable mother in her time of need. His mother’s fate had always rankled him far more than
