Marriage On Command

This time he had to laugh. ‘I’m not surprised! I thought you were so law abiding, Miss Westwood—don’t you know you can’t go about impeaching people’s integrity at will?’

‘I happen to know,’ Lee said stiffly, ‘that he’s a con man and a thief! How would you feel if your grandparents were in the same position?’ she asked burningly.

‘All right.’ Damien sobered and made a few notes on the pad in front of him. ‘Who is this man?’

‘Cyril Delaney.’

The silver pen dropped from his fingers and he blinked at her. ‘You’re joking!’

‘No, I’m not,’ Lee denied.

‘Miss Westwood, Cyril Delaney is a respected property developer with a long-standing and impressive record. It is highly unlikely that he would be going around pulling scams on defenceless old age pensioners.’

‘I have a document signed by a C. Delaney, I have my grandparents’ word that the man they dealt with gave his name as Cyril Delaney, and I have their explanation that it was Cyril Delaney’s “impressive record”, Lee said with irony, ‘that got them in. What do you make of that, Mr Moore?’

‘That it was very likely someone masquerading as Cyril Delaney,’ he replied promptly.

‘Then he has a double,’ Lee retorted.

A frown grew in Damien Moore’s eyes. ‘Are you serious—really serious, Miss Westwood?’

Lee looked heavenwards briefly. ‘Do you honestly think I’d have gone to the amount of trouble I have on a deluded whim, Mr Moore? I’ve spent a fortune on phone calls alone, trying to get this appointment with you. You’re only lucky,’ she said, ‘that your secretary gave in—otherwise I might have camped out on this doorstep!’

‘Heaven forbid.’ He looked at her coolly.

Lee grimaced. ‘I can be determined and stubborn,’ she conceded.

He studied her in silence for a long moment, then shrugged. ‘I believe you. So you never got to meet Cyril?’

‘No. I was fobbed off all the time. And then—well, I’ve told you that bit.’

‘Have you put your claims down in writing to him?’

‘That too, but I’ve received no reply. But he wouldn’t reply, would he, if he was guilty?’

Damien Moore tapped his pen thoughtfully on his desk. ‘It may have been interpreted as a crank claim.’ He seemed to come to a decision. ‘All right—show me your document.’

Lee delved eagerly into her string bag and produced it. ‘What do you think?’ she asked anxiously when he’d read it.

‘That ninety-nine per cent of the population always fail to read the fine print,’ he said witheringly. ‘However, it would appear to me that some scam has been perpetrated, so I will write to Cyril Delaney and apprise of him of this document’s existence—as well as the failure of the scheme.’

‘And?’

He looked amused. ‘That’s all I can do at the moment.’

‘What if he ignores you the way he ignored me?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I doubt that will happen, Miss Westwood.’

Lee failed to look reassured. ‘I really want to face him and have this out with him,’ she said passionately.

‘Yes, well, Miss Fire-eater, I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me, but you’ll have to practise some patience. We’ll do this one step at a time—unless you’d like to find yourself another lawyer. May I have some details—where we can get in touch with you, et cetera?’

Lee subsided—until it became obvious that he required virtually her life history. ‘I am not going to skip town without paying your fees,’ she said proudly.

‘Perish the thought,’ he murmured, and threw her a keen, dark look. ‘So you’re a horticulturist? In what way?’

‘I work as a landscape gardener, but my dream is to have my own business one day. I’ve always been passionate about gardens.’ She looked wry. ‘I’ve even dreamt about becoming as well known as Capability Brown was.’

It struck Damien Moore then that Lee Westwood’s green eyes were little short of stunning. Long-lashed and a clear jade-green, they were extremely expressive and—captivating. He also noticed for the first time that she was faintly freckled, and that her auburn hair shone with vitality. ‘Uh…’ he said, drawing his mind from her physical attributes. ‘Have you seen any of his landscaping?’

A glint of mischief lit those eyes—a complete give-away—although she said demurely, ‘Yes. I backpacked my way around the UK and Europe a couple of years ago. Have you?’

‘No.’ He didn’t look put in his place, only amused. ‘But my mother is a very keen gardener. She has books on him.’

‘Are you interested in gardening, Mr Moore?’

‘Not in the slightest, Miss Westwood. But…’ He paused, and then surprised himself. ‘If the way you’re pursuing this matter is anything to go by, it seems likely your dreams will come true—I hope they do.’ He stood up. ‘In the meantime, leave this with me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I have a response.’

Lee stood up but did not shake his proffered hand. ‘Is that all?’

He raised a dark eyebrow and his mouth quirked. ‘What more did you have in mind?’

For a moment Lee mistook his meaning. She even opened her mouth to say that surely they had enough evidence to do more than write to Cyril Delaney. Then she realised abruptly that his gaze had flicked up and down her body in a brief but unmistakable way—put plainly, in the way of a man asking an age-old question of a woman. Was she subtly suggesting she was ripe for the taking?

Her mouth fell open as comprehension came to her. Colour flooded into her cheeks and a burning sense of injustice possessed her. How dared this man think her capable of double entendres, or that she had any personal interest in him at all?

‘You’ve got the wrong girl, Mr Moore,’ she said arctically, ‘if you mean what I think you mean.’

He looked faintly amused. ‘It has been known to happen, Miss Westwood. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date.’ He pressed a button on his desk and right on cue his secretary opened the door and came forward to usher Lee out.

Lee’s bedsitter was small but comfortable. Her couch doubled as her bed, and her compact kitchen resembled a ship’s galley. But it was furnished brightly and attractively to match a glorious reproduction of Van Gogh’s Irises that dominated one wall.

Normally her home soothed her, but that evening she was still unsettled by her encounter with Damien Moore as she ate her dinner: salad and an omelette. Not, she mused as she ate, that it was entirely surprising to imagine him being subjected to double entendres from women with more than business on their minds. Those dark good looks, the fact that he was obviously a man of considerable substance and his physique all added up to a dangerously attractive man.

What was more, he knew it—and not only that, he was perfectly capable of summing you up. And in her case, she thought a little gloomily, discarding you on a scale of one to ten of female attractiveness—to him anyway.

Then she had to grimace, because she couldn’t believe this nettled her somewhat. Yet she was forced to acknowledge it did.

She offered herself some internal advice. If I were you, I would put Damien Moore as a man right out of your calculations, Lee. And if he doesn’t come up with something soon—well, he’ll hear from you, won’t he?

She pushed her plate away and sighed. The nest egg she’d spoken of was small, and lawyer’s fees would eat it away like a plague of locusts, she had no doubt. But she adored her grandparents, and the prospect of seeing them forced out of the home they’d lived in ever since she could remember was more than she could bear. It was also that home, in a country village three hours south of Brisbane, that had seen her green fingers come to light. Her grandmother was a passionate gardener and Lee had followed in her footsteps.

After leaving school she’d done a course in horticulture at the Southern Cross University in Lismore, not far from home, but then she’d had to move to Brisbane to find work. Her present job was with the city council’s parks department, and she enjoyed it, but there was always at the back of her mind the prospect of owning her own business. As an adjunct to landscape gardening she was also interested in interior decorating; she’d done several night school courses in it. Her grandmother claimed that Lee was artistic, and could turn her hand to anything in that line.

Now, however, she thought a little sadly, until she got her grandparents out of this mess her dreams were receding a bit—unless Damien Moore fulfilled her expectations of being the cleverest lawyer in town. But, she reflected, even if he was, had she succeeded in getting him to take her seriously?

She got up to wash the dishes and decided she would give him a week.