He suddenly turned his smooth dark head, so elegantly shaped. ‘You could be the enemy.’
She looked out of the window at the desert landscape that had come so wondrously alive. ‘You know I’m not.’ She loved him without limit. Always would.
He laughed briefly. ‘You’re certainly not typical of the Forsyths.’ She was the improbable angel in their midst.
Her next words were hard for her to say. ‘You hate us?’ It was very possible. She knew Lady Macallan had despised her grandfather with a passion. There had to be a story there.
A shadow moved across his handsome face. ‘I can’t hate you, Francey. How could you even think it?’
She sighed. ‘Besides, how could you hate me when you own half my soul?’ She spoke with intensity. But then, wasn’t that the way it always felt when she was with Bryn? The heightened perceptions, every nerve ending wired?
‘Do you believe it?’ He turned his dark head again to meet her eyes.
‘I wouldn’t be here without you, Bryn,’ she said, on a soft expelled breath. ‘I like to think we’re … friends.’
‘Well, we are,’ he replied, somewhat sardonically. ‘I want you to promise me something, Francey.’
Something in his tone alarmed her. ‘If I can,’ she answered warily.
‘You must,’ he clipped out, abruptly steering away from a red-glowing boulder that crouched like some mythical animal in the jungle of green gilt-tipped grasses. ‘If you’re worried or unsure about something, or if you need someone to talk to, I want you to contact me. Will you do that?’ There was a note of urgency in his voice.
‘I promise.’
He shot her a brilliant glance that affected her powerfully. ‘You mean that?’
‘Absolutely. I never break a promise. A promise is like a vow.’
‘So let’s shake on it.’ He hit the brake and brought the vehicle to a stop in the shade of a stand of bauhinias, the branches lavishly decorated with flowers of purest white and lime-green. ‘Give me your hand.’
On the instant her heart began fluttering wildly, as if a small bird was trapped in her chest. She was crazily off guard. She only hoped her face wasn’t betraying the turmoil within her. ‘Okay,’ she managed at last. She gave him her hand. Skin on skin. She had to fight hard to compose herself. Beneath her reserved façade she went in trepidation of Bryn Macallan and his power over her. So much so she feared to be alone with him, even though she spent countless hours wishing she were.
But how did one stop longing for what one so desperately longed for?
Bryn’s hand was gripping hers—not gently, but tightly. It was as though he wanted her to understand what her promise might mean in the days ahead.
To Francesca the intimacy was breathtaking. The heat in her blood wrapped her body like a shawl. Her limbs were melting, as though her body might collapse like a concertina. For glittering moments she accepted her deepest longings and desires. She was irrevocably in love with Bryn Macallan. She couldn’t remember a time she hadn’t been. It was the most important thing in her life. She was off her head, really. And it was so humiliating. Carina was the woman in Bryn’s life. She had to clamp down on the torment.
‘Where will it finally end, Francey?’ Bryn was asking quietly, not relinquishing her hand as she’d thought he would. ‘You know I mean to take over Titan?’
He waited in silence for her response. ‘I’m aware of your burning ambitions, Bryn,’ she said. ‘I know you want to put things right. I don’t know your secrets, and you won’t tell me, but I do know you would probably have the numbers to oust Uncle Charles.’
‘Without a doubt!’ Not the slightest flare of arrogance, just plain fact, though the muscles along his jaw clenched.
‘Grandfather’s dearest wish was for you and Carina to marry.’ She turned to look him squarely in the face. ‘To unite the two dynasties.’
‘I’m well aware of that,’ he answered, his tone suggesting her grandfather’s dearest wish didn’t come into it.
Or so she interpreted it. Was she wrong? ‘And it will happen?’
If for whatever reason the longed-for alliance didn’t eventuate, he knew Carina would become his enemy. He laughed, but there was little humour in it. ‘Why don’t you leave all that to me, Francey? My main concern at the moment is you.’
Heat started up in her veins. ‘Me?’ She was unable to find another word.
‘Yes, you. Don’t sound so surprised. I don’t see much of you. Certainly not as much as I’d like,’ Bryn continued as she remained silent. He firmed up his hold on her trembling hand, then—shockingly—raised it to his lips.
‘“Thus with a kiss I die.”’ he quoted lightly, but Francesca’s heart flipped in her breast.
It was easy to identify Romeo’s final line. What was Bryn thinking, saying that? It bewildered her. So did his darkly enigmatic gaze. Didn’t he know how difficult it was for her, loving him and knowing he was with Carina? But then, how could he know? She did everything possible to hide her true feelings.
‘Break out of your shell, Francesca,’ he abruptly urged. ‘You’ve been over-long inside it.’
She felt a rush of humiliation at the criticism. Doubly so because he was right. ‘I thought it was for my own protection.’
‘I understand all that.’
There was a high, humming sound in her ears. ‘May I have my hand back?’
‘Of course.’ He released her hand on the instant, leaning forward to switch on the ignition. ‘We should get back anyway,’ he added briskly. ‘I want to leave as soon as possible.’
‘I’m ready.’
It wasn’t a good feeling.
She could feel her heart sink.
The Jeep bounded across the vast sun-drenched plain accompanied by a great flight of budgerigars—the phenomenon of the Outback that had materialised again. Francesca gazed up at them, wondering if and when she would see Daramba again. She was certain her uncle would inherit the pastoral chain, but Charles had never much cared for Daramba.
Like all inhabitants of the great island continent, in particular of remote Western Australia, he was used to vast open spaces, to incredible emptiness, but on his own admission something about Daramba spooked him. It was there, after all, that Gulla Nolan had mysteriously disappeared. The verdict after an intensive search at the time was that Gulla had been drunk and had slipped into one of the maze of waterholes, billabongs, lagoons and swamps that criss-crossed the station. Everyone knew Gulla had had a great liking for the booze. Gulla Nolan had been the famous tracker Sir Theodore Macallan and her own grandfather had taken along with them on their expeditions. Gulla had been with them when they had discovered Mount Gloriana.
To this day no one knew Gulla’s fate—although
