Look-Alike Fiancee

‘I haven’t lived here for a while, no, but my home’s here and my father’s a long-time resident. Who are you?’ he rapped without enlightening her further. ‘An over-zealous forest ranger? An employee of the paper company? If not, then you—if you wish to quibble about it—are trespassing yourself!’

She drew herself up to her full height of five feet six inches. Which was still several inches below the square jaw above her.

‘I own this forest,’ she said imperiously. ‘At least, my family does.’

His eyes turned to glinting aqua slits. ‘You’re saying Gippsland Paper has sold this pine forest? To your family?’

‘That’s right. My father made them an offer and they accepted.’ She felt a momentary qualm as something dark and dangerous flared in his eyes. ‘They’ve been selling off some of their smaller plantations, and this one wasn’t of much use to them anyway—it’s never been thinned out. Access would have been difficult too, with all those heavily timbered hills behind and no roads. They were happy to get rid of it, I think.’

‘Your father bought it, you said.’ Now there was pure ice in his eyes. ‘Your father wouldn’t happen to be Hugh Conway, the city big shot who bought Fernlea a year ago, by any chance?’ He waved a hand in the general direction of the hill opposite, across the sweeping green valley.

She shivered at the biting contempt in his voice. ‘My father did buy Fernlea...yes.’ From here, deep in the pine forest, the gabled two-storey house on the high side of the opposite hill wasn’t visible, though there was a clear view of the pine forest from the house. ‘You have some problem with that?’

He gave a mirthless smile. ‘I knew it was too good to be true. A fairy-tale beauty with raven hair and stunning black eyes and a face and figure you only see in your dreams... There had to be a catch.’

‘A catch?’ She heard the huskiness in her voice, and winced. Normally comments on her looks left her unmoved. She’d been fêted and fawned over all her life—either for her looks or her father’s money—and had come to mistrust extravagant compliments. She was never sure if they were genuine or merely empty flattery because of who she was.

But this man, she had a feeling, wouldn’t be the type to indulge in meaningless flattery. Back-handed compliments would be more his style.

‘If you’re Hugh Conway’s daughter, you can’t be the girl of my dreams,’ he said flatly, cynicism hardening his voice. ‘The girl of my dreams would never be a pampered city socialite, with a doting daddy who lavishes more money and worldly possessions on his daughter than she needs or is good for her.’

She seared him with a glance, anger hiding a quick flare of hurt. A pampered socialite? How her mother would laugh at that! Her horse-mad, country-loving daughter preferring the high life in the city? That would be the day! As for pampered, she’d always been determined not to let her father’s wealth or the privileges that came with it go to her head...vowing never to become the spoilt, superficial creature this man obviously thought she was. It had made her rather cool and aloof instead, except with friends she trusted.

Only now her coolness had deserted her.

‘My you do have a chip on your shoulder,’ she bit back. ‘Do you always leap to conclusions about the people you meet?’

‘Only when their name is Conway.’ He tilted his head at her, his lips taking on a sardonic curl. ‘I should have guessed who you were from the toffy accent. Not many people around here speak with a Toorak twang.’

She seethed inwardly, unable to refute the fact that she’d lived all her life in Melbourne’s exclusive Toorak. There were, she knew, some snooty, social-climbing Toorak types who put on a studied, syrupy ‘twang’ purely for effect, but her own clipped, polished accent was as natural to her as breathing...she hadn’t carefully cultivated it.

‘What do you have against the Conways?’ she hissed at him. He had a chip on his shoulder all right. A sizable one. ‘Who are you?’

‘The name’s O’Malley. My father owns the dairy farm across the river from Fernlea.’

‘You’re Patrick O’Malley’s son?’ Her eyes gleamed as she saw her chance to turn the tables on him. ‘You’re the son who turned up his nose at dairy farming, thinking it too lowly and commonplace for him—’ she felt a stab of satisfaction as she said it ‘—and walked out, leaving his poor widowed father in the lurch?’

The icy glitter in his own eyes showed the shaft had hit home. ‘Is that what my father told you? That I walked out and left him in the lurch?’

‘Your father and mine aren’t exactly on speaking terms—as I’m sure you must be aware.’ But she didn’t want to dwell on that. ‘No...it’s common talk around here. How your father wanted his only son—you—to help him run the family dairy farm once you’d qualified as a vet, but you chucked your course to join a chemical company and study engineering instead.’

‘Chemical engineering,’ he corrected her. ‘And I didn’t chuck vet school...I’m a qualified vet. I just didn’t practise...except as a part-time emergency vet for a while.’

‘Whatever.’ She shrugged, not feeling he deserved an apology. ‘And since then,’ she ploughed on, ‘you’ve been roaming round Australia, making money selling some kind of parasite-killing chemical...forcing your father to hire a local to help him. You broke his heart, everyone says,’ she added for good measure.

The heavy brows lowered, making her wish she hadn’t repeated the gossip. But he deserved it. The way he’d reviled her and her family—so unfairly—had made her want to lash back at him.

‘My father may have been disappointed,’ O’Malley conceded, his deep voice roughening, ‘but the only time he’s been heartbroken was when my mother died. He’s backed me all the way. You shouldn’t listen to idle gossip.’

‘Neither should you,’ she flashed back. ‘You’ve obviously made up your mind about me—about my family—without even bothering to get to know us.’

‘From what I’ve heard about the Conways since I came home a couple of days ago, I’m not sure I’d want to be bothered.’

‘Oh?’ She was dismayed at the stab of hurt she felt. Not so much at what he might have heard—there was always envious gossip about the Conways—but at the derision in his voice. It was a new sensation, being scorned by a man. She tossed her head, not showing her hurt. ‘And just what have you heard?’

‘Let’s head back to the orchard, shall we, and I’ll enlighten you? Hopefully we’ll find our wayward mounts there.’

She swallowed a flare of pique that he’d been the one to think of the horses first, not herself. Honestly, what was wrong with her? She was usually so cool and in command of any situation she faced. But with this man she felt as if she were floundering in an uncharted sea.

Not sure she wanted to be enlightened, she swept past him, determined not to fall casually into step beside him. But she could hear him close behind her, his heavy boots scrunching through the pine needles.

It had become darker in the forest, she realised. Much darker. Where before there’d been fleecy white clouds above with occasional bursts of sunlight, now there was a heavy blanket of ominously dark grey above and no sign of the sun. Not that it was cold. It had been hot and humid all week, with bouts of unusually heavy early-summer rain, and it was still sultry. Not that she minded the heat. She loved everything about her rustic home-away-from-home. She had everything here...peace, spectacular beauty, fresh air...and freedom.

As she headed for the old fruit orchard around which the pine forest had been planted well over a decade ago, she heard O’Malley’s voice curling around her, answering the question she wished she’d never asked. Any gossip he’d picked up about the Conways was bound to be twisted, if not totally wrong.

‘The story going around,’ he drawled, ‘is that Hugh Conway—well-known member of the Melbourne Establishment and head of the famous Conway stockbroking firm—bought Fernlea, with its thousand-odd acres, historic Federation mansion, and old English garden, to indulge his only daughter...you, Miss Conway.’

She shot a virulent glance over her shoulder, but she couldn’t deny it. Her father had bought Fernlea, basically, for her.

‘You wanted more room for your horses, it seems.’ The lazy voice wafted after her. ‘The family’s previous weekend farm closer to Melbourne didn’t provide enough space for your riding and jumping pursuits. Your father’s prize Angus cattle were beginning to overrun the available space, so a bigger and better property had to be found.’

When she made no comment, he added languidly, ‘Not that you or your parents have been living down here permanently, I gather. You’ve been flitting between Fernlea and the palatial family home back in Toorak...with jaunts to the luxury beach-house at Portsea and the odd trip to Paris and London and New York in between. You’ve spent time at international horse shows.’ He paused, then drawled silkily, ‘I’m sure you sit a horse beautifully, Miss Conway.’

‘I thought it was only women who lapped up gossip,’ she snapped over her shoulder. ‘You’ve been back home for barely two days and you think you know all there is to know about us! Well, you’ve told me more than I’ll ever want to know about you, Mr O’Malley. You should do something about that chip on your shoulder. It’s most unattractive!’

‘If I have one, it’s with good reason.’

Her step faltered. ‘Meaning?’

‘Forget it. Are Mummy and Daddy down here with you?’ he asked blandly.

She gritted her teeth and answered levelly, ‘My parents had to go back to town this morning, but they’ll be down again on Friday for a few days.’

‘Well...so for now you’re lady of the manor? Literally.’

Her eyes wavered. ‘What do you mean—literally?’ ‘Fernlea—as I’m sure you already know—was once one of the grand old homes of Gippsland. Some of the old English oaks and elms in the garden are over a hundred years old. You must have great fun swanning around your grand estate, throwing house parties for your socialite pals!’

‘It might have been a grand old home once,’ she flashed back, ‘but it was badly in need of repair when we bought it.’ A fractious frown creased her brow. He made it sound as if her father had bought Fernlea simply to indulge a spoilt daughter’s whim...as if it were no more to her than a diverting hobby farm or weekend retreat. How wrong he was! ‘We’ve been gradually repairing and renovating the place over time...’

‘Sparing no expense, I’m sure.’

‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ignoring his comment, ‘it’s quite livable. Peeling paint and frayed curtains and a sagging, rusty roof are not things that greatly bother me,’ she assured him tartly. ‘There were lots of other more urgent things that needed doing first. Like mending fences and clearing away the choking blackberries and fixing up the run-down stables and levelling off an area for a jumping course and—’

‘And buying up old Henderson’s property, Plane Tree Flats, to add to your domain...even though it’s on our side of the river and of more use to us.’ The contempt was back in his voice.

Her head jerked round. ‘You’re saying that you—the O’Malleys—wanted to buy that piece of land?’

‘That’s right. It used to belong to my family—until a bushfire and drought nearly wiped us out when I was a boy, forcing my father to sell off that chunk of land. Dad’s been wanting to buy it back for years. When the chance came,’ he ground out, ‘Hugh Conway swanned in with a higher offer and we lost out.’