Bride Of His Choice

Impossible task. She stared broodingly out at the wet street, a zigzag of lights reflected in sheets of streaming water. A dark and stormy night…was it an omen? Should she have stayed in Broome, keeping the past pushed behind her? Was she on a totally hopeless mission?

No point in not going through with it now, she stubbornly reasoned. She was here. Tomorrow she would go to Lawrence Durant’s funeral, see her mother and sisters, and their attitude towards her would determine if she had a place here or not. One day was probably all it would take to settle her future course. At the very least, she wouldn’t be left wondering for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER TWO

NOTHING had changed…

Leigh stood in the grand reception room of the Durant mansion, feeling the same oppressive sense of being utterly worthless as she had as a teenager, as a child. It was as though she’d moved back in time and all she had escaped from was swamping her again; the insecurities, the rejections, the fear of not fitting in, the despair of not belonging.

It should be different now, she fiercely told herself. Lawrence Durant—her father for the first eighteen years of her life—was dead. Surely his repressive, tyrannical force had died with him, leaving her mother and sisters free to follow their own inclinations instead of kowtowing to his rule. Was it too soon for them to realise he was truly gone? Hadn’t the funeral today brought that home to them?

Conversation at the chapel service had naturally been limited. The shock of seeing her after so long an absence might have caused a loss of words, too, but why were they avoiding her now, ignoring her presence, leaving her completely alone? If they would only show her a glimmer of welcome…

Feeling hopelessly ill at ease amongst the crowd of notable people who filled the reception room, paying their last respects to a man who’d wielded wealth and power, Leigh felt a jab of hopeful relief on seeing her mother detach herself from one mourners’ group and move away, unaccompanied. She moved quickly to intercept her, touching her arm to draw attention.

“Mother?”

Alicia Durant shot her youngest daughter a brief, impatient glance. “Not now, Leigh. I must get back to Richard.”

It was the barest pause, a frowning acknowledgement, so devoid of warmth it made Leigh shrivel inside. She dropped her hand and watched with a sense of wretched helplessness as her mother made a beeline towards the man who already had the undivided attention of her four sisters.

Richard Seymour…the heir apparent of Lawrence Durant’s financial empire, presiding over the great tycoon’s funeral and this ostentatious wake in the family mansion. She’d refused to even glance at him at the funeral. Looking at him now brought an instant resurgence of her old hatred of him.

He was still everything she wasn’t and never could be…what Lawrence Durant had wanted of his fifth child…the shining son to carry on from him. Except the fifth child his wife had delivered was Leigh, another daughter by another man, a total reject who’d never shown any attributes worth the slightest bit of notice, apart from disapproving notice. Cruel notice when comparisons were made to Richard Seymour, the chosen one.

He certainly shone in every department—looks, brains, personal charisma. The aura of power and success and confident purpose literally pulsed from him. Leigh deliberately turned her back on him, telling herself none of this mattered any more. She no longer had any reason to hate Richard Seymour. She’d made her own life away from everything Lawrence Durant had ever touched, and had only come to his funeral out of a sense of closure to that miserable part of her life.

And to see if she meant anything to the rest of her family…her mother and sisters.

It was self-defeating to let these old feelings get to her today. She no longer wished to be something she wasn’t. It had taken her a long time to become her own person—six struggling, lonely years—and Richard Seymour could not affect that now. If she could just show her family that she’d come of age, more or less, and that things could be different…

Leigh heaved a sigh to relieve the painful tightness in her chest. Her mother and sisters were probably dancing attendance on Richard Seymour out of habit. The king is dead. Long live the king. Except Richard was not family, so Leigh didn’t really understand their fixation on him. He couldn’t rule their lives as Lawrence Durant had. Not with the same iron hand and surely not with the same cruel judgement of crime and punishment.

Maybe when the wake was over and all these people who had to be impressed were gone, there would be a better opportunity to re-unite with her family. She’d give it a chance anyhow, one concerted effort to mend the bridges she’d broken in fleeing from the unbearable existence she’d led in this house.

Meanwhile, there seemed little point and no pleasure in hanging around the edges of this crowd, forced to chat to people who could only see her as a curiosity. She made her way out to the back patio which was not in use, due to a gusty wind which would undoubtedly discomfort most guests.

It didn’t worry Leigh. She wasn’t wearing a hat and she didn’t have a fancy hairstyle that could be ruined. The thick mass of her almost waist-length hair could be untangled with a brush when she went back inside.

She wandered over to the steps leading down to the gardens which were terraced to the water’s edge, and paused to look out over the much prized vista of Sydney Harbour. Last night’s rain had gone but it was a grey winter day, no warmth or sparkle anywhere. Even the boats seemed to be hurrying to get to their destination.

She thought of the seaport of Broome, high up on the coast of the other side of Australia where there was constant heat, turquoise waters, and “hurry” was a foreign word—a different life a long way from this city. But had she really made her home there or was it still a refuge?

“Leigh…”

Her head jerked around at the unexpected call of her name. Nerves already shredded by being virtually ignored by her family were instantly on edge. Richard… Richard Seymour…seeking her out for attention? He was so closely entwined with Lawrence Durant in her mind, fear clutched at her heart, making it skitter until defiance surged to the fore.

She wasn’t a teenager trapped in this place any more. She was an independent young woman, twenty-four years old and well established in another life away from here. There was nothing she could be threatened with, nothing anyone could hold over her head, and she’d learnt to cope with all manner of things.

She stood tall and straight and still, forcing herself to stare coolly at the man who had been a figure of torment to her in the past. Her mind was a total blank on why he’d bother with her at this point in time. What business with or interest in the black sheep of the Durant family could he possibly have?

Not once in the past six years had she asked for or tried to claim a single thing from the Durant holdings. So why on earth would Richard Seymour leave his admirers and follow her out here? She had to be totally irrelevant to his life.

“…you’re not leaving, are you?” he demanded more than inquired.

He looked concerned, which confused Leigh even more. “Why would you care?” she asked in bewilderment.

He strolled towards her, a whimsical appeal in the smile he constructed for her. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.”

Leigh instinctively bristled at the projection of charm. He hadn’t attempted to charm her in the past. Why now? What was the point? “I wasn’t aware we had anything to talk about,” she blurted out.

It didn’t stop him. Her nerves screwed up another notch. She didn’t want him with her. He brought back too many memories…painful, bitter memories of hopes dashed and dreams turned to dust.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” he remarked casually as he closed the distance between them, making her very conscious of how tall and aggressively male he was.

The perfect tailoring of his dark mourning suit gave him a polished veneer but Leigh wasn’t fooled by it. Richard Seymour was a hunter in the same mould as Lawrence Durant. For some obscure reason he was hunting her at the moment and her heart was quivering, still reacting to the old fear of being pounced upon.

Somehow, she summoned up an ironic smile. “Did you want to welcome me home?” No one else had and she certainly didn’t expect him to.

He was quite sickeningly handsome up close. The photograph in the newspaper hadn’t done him justice, missing the compelling vitality he’d always emitted. He had to be thirty-four now and definitely in his prime. His clear tanned skin gave his face a healthy glow. His hair, not quite as black as hers, had an attractive wave which some hairstylist had made the most of. His nose was strong and straight and his mouth perfectly balanced. Although his jaw line was rather squarish, the firmly defined chin lent even more strength to his features.

Despite all this impressive framework, it was his eyes that drew and dominated, piercing blue eyes, all the more compelling for being set off by thick black lashes and arched eyebrows which carried more than a hint of arrogance. They scanned her expression with too sharp an intelligence for Leigh’s comfort.

“Have you come home?” he asked in a soft lilt that sent a shiver down her spine.

All the defences she could summon shot into place. He was not going to get to her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him. With the most determined deliberation Leigh could manage, she adopted a careless air.

“Only to test the waters again. They seem rather cold at the moment so I thought I’d take a walk in the garden while the VIPs are attended to.” She threw him a dismissive little smile as she added, “If you’ll excuse me…” then proceeded down the steps.

His voice followed her. “Do you mind if I accompany you?”

It wasn’t so much a shiver this time. Her spine literally crawled with a tangled mass of unresolved feelings, but nothing good could come of pursuing any of them with Richard Seymour. That time was gone…gone…gone! He might look like hero material but he hadn’t been a hero when it counted to her, when she’d wished he’d charge in like a white knight, smiting her father and rescuing her. Such foolish, teenage yearnings!

She squared her shoulders before glancing back at him. “You’ll be missed,” she pointed out, mocking the importance everyone else placed on his company.

“You’re the person I want to be with,” he said with a directness that jiggled something deep in Leigh’s heart, deep and dangerous to her.

“Not a good choice,” she quickly parried.

“It’s mine. I don’t allow other people to make my choices for me.”

There was purpose written in his eyes, undivertable purpose. As much as Leigh wanted to defy it, she knew he would not be turned away. A ruthless hunter always caught up with what he was hunting.

Did he think she’d come home to make trouble for him? Did he see her as someone he might need to pin down and neutralise so his takeover from Lawrence Durant was absolutely smooth? A black sheep could be unpredictable. After all, why turn up at the funeral after six years of non-communication?

Knowing herself to be a total waste of Richard Seymour’s time, Leigh decided no harm could come to her from one brief cross-examination from him. “Fine!” she agreed, then, determined to show she wasn’t disturbed by the prospect, she added, “I do admire people who have the strength of character to make their own choices.”

He smiled. “So do I.”