A Marrying Man?

‘No one—’

‘You mean he’s not the reason you gave Neil the old heave-ho?’ he queried sardonically.

Georgia flicked her hair back and sat up. ‘He is not,’ she said crisply. ‘Neither is he any of your damn business, Mr Brady, and if you don’t want to have to drag me kicking and screaming all the way to Sydney you’d be wise not to say another word on the subject!’

William Brady inspected the luxurious disorder of her hair, the pale, perfect skin of her face, her elegant neck as it disappeared into a fun, hot-pink cotton nightshirt with big white daisies all over it, the imperious set of her mouth and her rather aristocratic nose, and said neutrally, ‘Sugar?’

But Georgia subjected him to a scathing scrutiny of her own—the blue shadows on his jaw, the rather weary lines of his face and the way his thick brown hair fell in his eyes—before she said regally, ‘One.’

He smiled slightly and spooned the sugar into her cup. ‘There you go—stay there; I’ll bring you breakfast.’

Georgia regarded his retreating back with utter disdain for a moment then collapsed back onto her pillows with a bemused sigh.

What could you do with a man who insulted you and threatened you, who planned to hijack you, but who brought you breakfast in bed, who, in an oddly laid-back but very adult way, showed his contempt for you but still aroused your curiosity? And made you wonder what he meant by ‘less flamboyant and a bit more tractable’—did he really like meek and mild little mice of girls?

She sat up again, shaking her head as if to clear it, and reached for her tea. Five minutes later he reappeared and presented her with perfectly cooked scrambled eggs on toast on a tray. ‘Thank you,’ she said this time, but with irony, and started to eat.

He sat down on the side of the bed, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him and say, ‘Well? What now, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘We have a slight complication.’

‘Don’t tell me—you’ve decided to believe me?’

‘No—’

‘Then you’ve reconsidered and decided that apart from the sheer impropriety of kidnapping a complete stranger against her will—’

‘It’s not like that,’ he broke in.

‘Oh, yes, it is, but I said I’d come and come I will, so—what?’

‘I rang to check our reservations earlier but the flight has been cancelled, as have all others, on account of a wildcat air traffic controllers’ strike. They don’t expect to be able to resume normal operations until this afternoon—and that might be an optimistic prediction. What I plan is to give them a couple of hours’ grace and then start to drive down.’

‘Drive down!’

‘It’s only a fourteen-hour drive. We could share it but we’d have to take your car.’

‘Look, it’s your brother—’

‘Georgia,’ he said quietly but dangerously, ‘bear with me, please. I thought it might even help you out a bit—to have a couple of extra hours to organise yourself in.’

Georgia stared at him, set her lips, then said, ‘How is he?’

‘The same.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were half-brothers right from the start?’

He shrugged and watched her dissect a piece of toast with her knife and fork, then lifted his eyes to hers. ‘It’s a long story, but I guess I thought it might adversely influence your decision if you thought you were also up against family disapproval. His family’s.’

‘Influence my decision?’ she marvelled. ‘You’ve blackmailed me, threatened me, insulted me—the only thing you haven’t done is allow me to make any sort of decision for myself!’

‘You told me a moment ago that you’d said you’d come and you’d come—’

‘Oh, look, go away, will you?’ Georgia commanded exasperatedly. ‘And take the tray with you. I want to get up.’

He stood up and picked up the tray, saying politely, ‘Very well, ma’am.’ But she knew he was laughing at her.

‘And close the door this time,’ she added through her teeth.

‘With pleasure.’

‘I’m going down to organise things with my staff, Mr Shakespeare. Do you want to come? It might give you a better understanding of how well run this spelling farm is and lessen the impression you have that I am a rich, lazy layabout who has had everything handed to her on a platter.’

Georgia stood before him, showered, dressed in jeans and a navy blue sweater, with her hair tied back neatly and her eyes challenging.

‘Yes, I would—if you wouldn’t mind me having a shower and a shave first.’

‘Oh, do make yourself at home,’ she said with irony. ‘Would you like to borrow one of my razors? They’re pink, unfortunately, but they work.’

‘Thank you very much, Georgia,’ he said gravely, ‘but I did bring my own.’ He indicated a small, battered grip.

Georgia tossed her hair. ‘Come down when you’re ready, then, Will!’

Her ‘staff’ was in fact quite an overstatement, although she was in no mood to acknowledge this. It was she herself who did most of the work involved in caring for the maximum of ten horses she was able to agist in neatly fenced paddocks while they were resting from their racing careers.

The work amounted mainly to feeding them carefully prepared formulas, watching over them as they luxuriated in the freedom of a paddock rather than a stable, and rugging them as the weather dictated. All the same, to do it as conscientiously as she did it was no mean task and she did have one part-time staffer.

Brenda was the daughter of her neighbours, a horsemad though surprisingly mature seventeen-year-old who was able to combine her love of horses with the earning of some pocket money by helping Georgia out. It was an ideal arrangement since she lived only a paddock away, and, moreover, on the odd occasions when she was left solely in charge she could call upon her father, an ex-jockey, for help if needed.

It was while Georgia was waiting for Brenda to arrive, and as she was making out some lists for her, that she stopped to think irritably, What do I care if he thinks I’m a spoiled little rich girl? Why should I care what this perfect stranger thinks of me?

Yet for some reason, she acknowledged, this perfect stranger had somehow contrived to get under her skin. How old was he? she wondered, and decided thirty something. And then she wondered why she should have accused him of being a ‘dry stick’ yet be unwittingly intrigued by him as a man…As a man? she pondered, and turned at a sound behind her to be confronted by the object of her somewhat mystified musings. It didn’t help her state of mind to feel a tinge of colour warm her cheeks.

‘Well, Will,’ she said tartly, ‘what do you think?’

William Brady walked over to the window of her small office and contemplated the view through it. It was pleasantly green and rural and populated by ten alert-looking specimens of the equine world in their paddocks, awaiting their breakfasts. ‘I’m impressed, Georgia,’ he murmured. ‘Do you have any horses of your own?’

‘Two hacks,’ she said. ‘I still like to ride and I give a weekly class at the local pony club. Otherwise all my energy goes into looking after other people’s horses. Do you ride, Mr Brady?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ride well?’ She put her lists in a pile and moved round the desk into the adjoining feed-room, where she started energetically to move buckets and feed bins around.

‘Well enough, although not nearly so well as you, I’m sure. Allow me,’ he added, and helped her to line up some more bins.

‘Thanks,’ Georgia said briefly, and pushed her sleeves up as she started to mix the feeds. She looked up once to see him watching her with a wry little smile playing about his lips. ‘What’s amusing you now, Will?’ she asked sardonically. ‘Or rather, it’s obvious I am, but in what particular way this time?’

‘I was thinking,’ he said slowly, ‘that you seem to have an enormous amount of energy, Georgia. It actually seems to leap out of you like an electric current—and that alone must be a problem for you sometimes. I mean how to channel it.’