agitated to stay within the house but for some strange reason unwilling to leave by the same exit Kane had just used, she turned and made her way out through one of the rear doors into the gardens.
She stood and breathed in the scent of sun-warmed roses, their heady fragrance a welcome relief from the cold and formal atmosphere of the house.
A light afternoon breeze shivered over the surface of the lake in the distance, its fringe of weeping willows offering Bryony a solace she found hard to resist. She walked across the verdant expanse of well-manicured lawn, her light footsteps cushioned by the lushness of fastidiously clipped growth, and headed for the shade of the arc of willows on the far side of the lake.
It was much cooler near the water.
She sat on one of the large rocks and, slipping off her shoes, dangled her toes in the cool dark depths, watching as the bowing branches moved on the surface like feathery fingertips as the eddy of disturbed water reached them.
She hadn’t been to this dark secluded spot for ten years.
Even the gardeners didn’t come this far. Their work was to make the exposed parts of Mercyfields appear perfect at all times. Under here, where the pendulous branches of the willows shielded the house from view, was of no interest to them.
She breathed in the earthy smell of the damp bank, the fragile lace of maidenhair fern shifting faintly as the warm breath of the breeze moved through the shady sanctuary, and her thoughts drifted just like the water she’d disturbed…
It had been one of those unbearably hot afternoons the countryside of New South Wales was famous for, the smell of eucalyptus-tinged smoke lingering in the sultry air, the clouds overhead gathering in wrathful grey clusters as if deciding whether or not to take out their rage on the earth below.
She’d come down to the lake to bathe in private, for even though the large kidney-shaped swimming pool lay near the wisteria walk at the rear of the house she hadn’t wanted to be observed, preferring the secluded shade of her favourite hideaway.
At seventeen she’d been conscious of the weight she’d gained during her final term. An injury to her knee, her anxiety over exams and the stodgy diet ordered by Madame Celeste had taken its toll on her normally svelte figure. She hadn’t been able to dance for eight weeks and it showed.
She’d slipped into the cool embrace of the dark water and sighed with pleasure, her limbs feeling like silky ribbons released after months of being tightly coiled. She’d swum back and forth beneath the shield of the hanging arms of the willows, glad to be finally free of the constraints of the school term.
She’d lain on her back and looked up through the canopy, the dapple of sunlight speckling along her wet body as if someone had dropped a handful of gold-dust over her.
Smiling at her overactive imagination, she’d begun stroking backwards, her arms slicing through the water, gradually gathering speed as she’d pretended she was in the final heat of the Olympic fifty metre backstroke, she was in front…she was going to win…Thump!
Bryony had gagged on the mouthful of water she’d swallowed before turning around to see what she’d run into, expecting to find a fallen log or even a partially submerged rock.
She had not expected to see Kane Kaproulias standing waist-deep in the water with his nose streaming blood…
‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped while her feet searched vainly for a foothold in the slippery mud.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked as his hands came out to her shoulders to steady her.
Bryony felt her feet sink into the velvet mud, offering her a stability she badly needed once Kane’s warm brown work-roughened hands touched the creamy skin of her shoulders.
She stared up at him, fighting for breath, suddenly conscious of the tight cling of her Lycra bathing suit which, in her current physical shape, was at least two sizes too small.
‘No…’ she said a little breathlessly, ‘you didn’t hurt me at all but look what I did to your nose.’
‘It’s nothing.’ He let her go and rinsed his face in the water.
‘I didn’t know anyone was here, otherwise I would have—’
‘It’s just a nosebleed, Bryony, it won’t kill me.’
She found it hard not to stare at his face. She hadn’t seen him for months. During her last holiday he’d been working part-time on a neighbour’s property, only coming home occasionally to see his mother. She’d heard he was saving up enough money to put himself through a university course but she had never asked him what he’d intended studying.
He looked much fitter and stronger than the last time she’d seen him. At twenty-two he was only a year older than her brother but somehow he seemed to be so much more mature.
Austin was boisterous and loud, as were most of his friends who often spent time at Mercyfields during their university vacations, their numerous boyish pranks in stark contrast to Kane’s silent brooding presence. She suspected his surly demeanour was an inbuilt part of his personality and not just a reaction to being labelled the cleaning lady’s son.
She couldn’t imagine what her father would say if he could see her now, standing in the water with Kane, his broad smooth chest glistening with droplets of moisture as he looked down at her with eyes darker than the mud beneath her curling toes.
‘Do you usually swim here?’ he asked.
‘I…no…not usually.’
‘You shouldn’t come here, especially not alone.’
She didn’t care for the quiet authority in his tone. She was the daughter of the house, he was the servant’s son—he had no right to tell her what to do.
She tilted her chin at him. ‘Why not? It’s my lake, not yours.’
The look he gave her was hard to decipher given the shady nook they were in, but she suspected he was sneering at her behind the screen of his dark lashes.
‘If you hurt yourself no one would find you.’
‘How could I hurt myself? I’m a good swimmer.’
‘You’re a very careless swimmer.’ He gave his nose another wipe with the back of his hand. ‘Instead of me it could have been a rock you hit. You could have easily knocked yourself out and drowned.’
‘It’s none of your business what I do,’ she said, annoyed that he was right but unwilling to admit it. ‘If I want to swim here I will and nothing you say or do can stop me.’
Bryony became increasingly aware of the pulsing silence. The shadows danced like wraiths around them, the water where his blood had spilled lapping gently against her thighs like a caress, heightening her awareness of his physical closeness in the most intimate and primal way.
The sunlight shifted, revealing more of his face to her, and she was relieved to see that his nose had more or less stopped bleeding. But then she gave a tiny involuntary shiver as she saw his eyes slide down to the overflow of her breasts, her tight bathing suit doing an inadequate job of keeping them contained with any sort of decency.
