The Cattle King's Bride

“Then please remember it was Mr Langdon who insisted you have a first-class education. You were very bright.”

“I remember the way Dad used to read to me,” Mel said with intense nostalgia. “Thinking back, I realise he was a born scholar in the true sense of the word. He craved knowledge. He was an admirable man.”

“Yes, he was, Amelia,” her mother agreed. “He had great plans for you, but I have to remind you, you wouldn’t be where you are today without Gregory Langdon. Why, you were given access to one of the finest private libraries in the country right here on Kooraki.”

“And wasn’t dear Mireille savage about that?” Amelia did her own bit of reminding. Yet she had to consider the magnanimity of the gesture! A young girl, daughter of a servant, granted access to a magnificent library with wonderful books bound in gold-tooled leather with gilt-edged pages—the great books of the world, tomes on history, literature, poetry, architecture, the arts of the world. It was a library that had come together over generations of book-lovers and collectors. “What a cruel woman she was, poisoning every relationship. She even distanced her own son from his father. No wonder the grandson took off, but he never did say why.”

“Dev, unlike his father, resisted control,” Sarina said. “Gregory was a mountain of a man.”

“That’s not it, Mum,” Mel flatly contradicted. “It was something more. Another unsolved mystery. Dev had to have had some private issue with his grandfather he wasn’t prepared to talk about. Not surprising, really. They were one screwed up family.”

“Too much goes on in your head, Amelia.”

“Maybe, but I spent much of my life walking through a minefield. Right now I’m making a life for myself, Mum. I can’t come—I’m sorry. I have a good job. I want to hold on to it. Mr Langdon may say he wants me, but no way the clan will. Dev mightn’t turn up, either.”

“I think otherwise,” Sarina replied, quite strongly for her. “Ava and her husband are already here. Ava’s marriage wouldn’t appear to be a happy one, though she would never confide in me. Luke Selwyn is charming, but perhaps Ava isn’t the woman he thought she was.”

Mel reacted to the definite note of malice. “Please don’t criticise Ava, Mum. Ava is a gentle, sensitive soul. In her own way she’s had a tough time. Women have always been second-class citizens to Gregory Langdon. Sons matter, grandsons matter. Men are the natural born rulers of the world. If there’s blame to be placed for a marriage breakdown it’s on Luke. The charm—I certainly don’t see it—is superficial at best. He’s a shallow person, full of self-importance. He wasn’t near good enough for Ava. Dev didn’t like him and Dev is a good judge of his fellow man.”

“But Ava would have him,” Sarina said, again without empathy.

“She needed an escape route.” Mel understood Ava’s underlying motivation.

“Be that as it may! Dev has been contacted. He’ll come and he isn’t a forgiving man.”

“Why would he be?” Mel’s heart gave a familiar twist at the very sound of his name. “But it’s his grandfather. They’re family, Mum. I’m not. I have no place there.”

“It was the first thing Dev asked. ‘Is Mel about to obey the summons?’“

“And I can just imagine how he said it! That’s exactly what it is. A summons, never a request.”

Her mother provided an answer of sorts. “Gregory Langdon lived his whole life as the heir to, then the inheritor of a great station. Orders come easily to men like that. They don’t really know anything else. Money. Power. The rich are very different, my dear. Dev is very different.”

“I know that. His world view is simple. Born to rule.”

“You must make the effort, Amelia.” There was a steely note in Sarina’s voice. “Surely you’re due a vacation? It has to be a year since your trip to New York. You and Dev are needed here. There is that bond between you.”

A bond that up until now couldn’t be broken.

Two parts of a whole. Dev had said that. Dev wanted her there.

Jump, Mel, jump!

What Dev wanted, Dev got. He lived in her heart and in her brain. Indeed, he was part of her. She had always loved him. She couldn’t stop loving him, no matter how hard she tried, or the relationships she had tried to make work because she knew at some subterranean level Dev was out of reach. Only his dominance over her was beyond her control. Fate was unavoidable, predestined, she thought. She missed Dev more than anyone could possibly imagine, even if it was she who constantly held out against him and the tantalizing talk of marriage. She was lost in a maze of doubts and misgivings and she couldn’t get out.

She had never told her mother that Dev had been with her on a brief visit to New York. She felt that the older woman would have vented her strong disapproval. Her mother, though ultra-restrained in her manner, had a curiously implacable streak and a blackness of mood that seized her from time to time. Odd that she would disapprove of her and Dev, considering the endless rumours about Sarina and Gregory Langdon.

Her brain churning, Mel hung up at the conclusion of the call. There was no denying Gregory Langdon had shown her affection as a child. Probably the fight in her had intrigued him. Would Gregory Langdon reinstate his splendid grandson? She had the absolute certainty that he would. Underneath the tyrannical hand, Gregory Langdon had been proud of Dev, loving him as he had never loved his own son, Dev’s father, Erik. Besides, Gregory really didn’t have an option. It was an open secret that Erik Langdon would never be up to the job. No way could Erik step into his father’s shoes.

Dev could. She knew it would be wise to stay away from Kooraki for her own peace of mind. Stay away from Dev. Stay away from the on-off passionate love affair neither of them seemed able to resolve. In Mel’s view there were too many powerful forces aligned against it.

Dev—James Devereaux Langdon—in all probability his grandfather’s heir.

Who was she?

That woman’s daughter.

She would never escape the tag.

CHAPTER TWO

GETTING through the day was surprisingly difficult. Even her boss at Greshams, the merchant bank, Andrew Frazier, had asked if she had anything on her mind. Obviously he had noted her abstraction and she owed him an explanation. He was her mentor and a kind of father figure, and she found herself confiding that Gregory Langdon, national icon, was dying. Andy knew all about the Langdons. She didn’t mention she had been summoned to Gregory Langdon’s deathbed. Only Andy, being Andy, asked.

Since she had been recruited straight from university with an Honours degree in Economics, Andrew Frazier had come to learn a lot about what went on under Amelia Norton’s smooth, confident and very hard-working exterior.

“I don’t want to go, Andrew. Nothing good can come from my going back to Kooraki.”

Andrew steepled his fingers, looking across at his protégée. “But Langdon has asked for you and your mother wants you there?”

“Yes,” she admitted wryly.

“Isn’t the grandson the guy you’re in love with?” Andy questioned, concerned about her. Amelia Norton was a very clever young woman, a glowing Italianate beauty, with considerable business skills, but he knew beneath the surface she wasn’t happy or fulfilled.

“I should never have told you that, Andy,” she said, dipping her dark head.

“Just answer the question. This love affair has been on the boil for years!”

The light of irony came into Mel’s beautiful dark eyes. “A bit like Scarlett and Rhett.”

“So what’s the stumbling block?”

“Lots of things, Andrew. I don’t want to get mixed up with the Langdon-Devereaux clan. Most of them are shareholders in Langdon Enterprises. I had to break free of all that. I have to stay free. Peace of mind is very important to me.”

“I think it comes down to your fear of being dominated, Mel. I gather young Langdon is a very forceful guy.”

“It’s in the chromosomes,” Mel said. “Nothing and no one, least of all me, could change that.”

“You have fears he could possibly turn into his grandfather at some later stage of life?”

“Dev is a real piece of work,” Mel said in a low voice. “A force of nature. He’s as tough as they come. He’ll take on anyone, including his own grandfather. No one does that. Absolutely no one.”

“But surely you told me the old man was a virtual tyrant?”

“He was. He dominated Dev’s dad, Erik, completely. With all that money and power, people tend to turn into despots.”

“Are you sure you’re giving your Dev a chance?” Andrew asked, disconcerting her. “I would have thought the last man you’d want would be a wimp.” Such a man would never be able to handle her, Andrew thought to himself. “I thought we’d agreed your upbringing on Kooraki has a lot to do with your mind-set. The late Mrs Langdon being so unkind, your mother made to feel like a servant in the worst Victorian times.”

“How I hated it, Andy!” Mel said, tears actually coming to her eyes. “Hated it,” she repeated.