Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor: Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

You can’t allow your emotions to overcome you. Breathe deeply. Restore your calm.

Not so easy when what she had witnessed was the union of soulmates. Her heart was filled with happiness for her brother and for Miranda, her new sister-in-law—sister. Of course it was. But there was emotional upheaval as well. Only once during the ceremony had Garrick’s gaze locked with hers. Just the space of a few searing seconds, both of them standing immobile. The brilliant blue of his eyes, bluer than the deep vibrant blue of the sky, seemed to be mocking her. She had been the first to look away. It was as if he was telling her she had let her only chance of real happiness slip away from her.

Ah, the piercing ache of loss!

She couldn’t allow it to claw at her heart. Not today. Today was one of celebration. She was the chief bridesmaid. She had an important role to play. Feeling as she did, Zara would have been surprised to learn she looked the very picture of beauty and serenity, her great dark eyes eloquent with the love and happiness she felt for the bridal couple. Her family. As chief bridesmaid, she sat to Corin’s right. Garrick, as best man, was seated beside Miranda, so they were a good few feet apart. The other bridesmaids and the groomsmen alternated down the long rectangular bridal table, positioned centre front, so all the guests had a clear view of them. Exquisite garlands of gilded organza and chenille roses ran the perimeter of the table, framing it, with strands of gold beads and faux white pearls that had an amazing sheen. The bride and her bridesmaids had used their lovely bouquets to deck the table instead of arrangements.

The food was sumptuous; the drink the finest vintage champagne. Corin offered a deeply touching speech to his bride that moved many to tears. Garrick’s speech created a fine balance. A moment or two of high seriousness, as was to be expected, then his speech moved to the entertaining, with highlights from his and Corin’s boyhood. In particular an incident when they were ten, when he had talked Corin into an adventure; catapulting themselves out into the river by means of a stout rope, he had slung from one of the overhanging trees. It wouldn’t have been so bad, only the river was running a thrilling white foaming banker at the time.

“An Outback kid, you see,” he explained, to indulgent general laughter.

Bring on the Outback, sighed every last female.

“We both lived to tell the tale.” A flashing grin from Corin. Both of them had gotten into a lot of trouble. Garrick was a “wild bush boy, as headlong as a brumby” his father had thundered, all the more furious because Garrick wasn’t flustered or fearful. In fact, Garrick had been remarkably cool for a ten-year-old kid.

Zara remembered too. Their mother had been perturbed—the river, after all, was deep and swift, and in flood—but she had withheld any show of anger. Both boys were excellent swimmers but her father had gone to town, dressing them down for the reck-lessness of their actions. Garrick had told him repeatedly that he was the instigator, but to no avail. Garrick had looked suitably chastised, but no way had he been in awe of her father and his lashing tongue. Even then, her heart had been stirred by admiration. Perhaps her father had decided that very day that Garrick would forever be on the outer. Dalton Rylance had been so used to people kowtowing to him he would accept nothing less.

At last it was time for the married couple to leave. They were spending a night in Sydney. From there they would fly to Los Angeles, stay a week or so on the West Coast, then fly to New York. To much excitement, waving arms, a little light shoving and non-stop pleas to “throw it to me!” Miranda let her exquisite bouquet soar like a bird from the upstairs balcony into the blossoming field of beautifully dressed young women, themselves like flowers.

Zara kept her hands down and her eyes lowered. The man she yearned for, now standing only a few feet away, was laughing at the antics of one of the bridesmaids who, right from the wedding rehearsal, had made no secret of the fact that she found the best man “absolutely gorgeous—a guy a girl would follow anywhere!”

She, on the other hand, had played her part as chief bridesmaid with grace and dignity, but in no way did she lose her head, even slightly, or her sense of occasion. After the Hartmann affair, when she had been so falsely accused of being, at best, his mistress, at worst, privy to his business dealings, she had felt like a woman who lived in a house with glass walls. Those who had wanted to for a variety of reasons, mostly because she was an heiress—rolling in money—threw rocks.

She had told herself a thousand times she was too sensitive for her own good. She was so much like her mother and what had happened to her mother was a great weight on her shoulders. Some women were more vulnerable than others.

Like a bird on guided wings, Miranda’s bouquet, aimed at Zara, landed with a burst of fragrance against Zara’s breast. There were groans of disappointment, many more congratulatory cheers. There was great goodwill towards Zara within the extended family and beyond. Zara was so beautiful yet so modest, with the sweetest possible nature. Just like her late mother, Kathryn, beloved of them all and sadly missed.

“You’re next, Zara!” a soft voice fluted in her ear. Chloe, one of her young cousins.

Her grandmother, Sibella De Lacey, looking stunning in royal blue silk with a striking broad-brimmed hat, came up to her, taking her arm. “Is this a happy omen, my darling?” she whispered, full of protective love for her granddaughter.

“Nan, Miri aimed this at me deliberately,” Zara said wryly.

“And she’s a darn good shot.” Sibella laughed. “What you have to do now, my darling, is put your life in order. There’s a whole new life, a whole way of being, open to you. As a Christian, I should say God rest his soul, but your father had a lot to answer for. He failed you on so many levels.”

Zara knew the ocean of tears her grandmother had wept for her mother. No easy way out of grief. Sometimes no way at all. “You can’t forgive him, can you?”

“No, I can’t,” Sibella bluntly confessed. “Not for my Kathryn. Not for all eternity. And for shutting you out. When you appeared to have found happiness, he decided to inflict more suffering. He banished the young Garrick from your life. Such an intensely ambivalent man, your father. He really did love your mother in those early years but, gentle though she was, Kathryn refused to fit the mould. The other one did that.”

“She took great care to do it,” Zara said.

“Of course. Leila was prepared to do anything to get Dalton. Afterwards, I believe Dalton came to hate himself. He couldn’t look back on what he’d done. How Leila came to have that very special child, one would never know.”

“Good grandparents, Nan!” Zara said. “They would have been lovely people. Leila was a one-off.”

“Dazzling, yet nothing to her!” Sibella said sardonically. “She did everything in her power to sideline you. Jealousy. So much like your mother, you see. This may not have been obvious to you, my darling, but Dalton had a powerful jealousy of Garrick.”

Zara looked at her grandmother in astonishment. “Garrick? Don’t you mean Corin? Dad’s dominant characteristic was keeping control.”

“Bullying, don’t you mean?” Sibella said. “Splitting you and Garrick up was your father’s revenge. In no way was Garrick the kind of son-in-law he had in mind. He wanted a yes, sir, no sir man, someone who would conform. Someone he could take into the business so he’d have you both beneath his eye and under his control. He could never do that with Garrick. What did Dalton call him again?’ She sought Zara’s dark eyes. Eyes that Kathryn, then Zara had inherited from her.

Zara had to smile. “The wild bush boy! Garrick never went in awe of Dad. His attitude was even more pronounced than Corin’s. Even as a boy of ten, Garrick was a man in the making. I turned out a real wimp by comparison. Dad’s domination of me should have ended with my adolescence, Nan. I should have been strong enough to break free. Why wasn’t I?” she agonized. “I’ll tell you why!” Sibella had to hold down her wrath. “We’re talking about a tyrannical man here. Control was a compulsion. Here was a man who made tough competitors crack. It would have been easy to strip my daughter of all her confidence. She should never have married him, but she wanted him at the time. He was very cunning, determined to win her, whatever the cost. Kathryn, as a girl and a young woman, had a wonderful inner contentment and her own strength. That was the sad part. Yet, within a few years, your father had drained it. Stripped her of her happiness. You children were everything to her.”

Zara felt such a wave of pain that she hid her face in Miranda’s fragrant bouquet. “Dad robbed me of my confidence as well. He pretended—he was so convincing and I was thrilled he was even paying me attention—he was acting in my best interests. He convinced me no way would I fit into Garrick’s way of life. He told me I simply wouldn’t be able to handle any future role as Garrick’s wife and mistress of Cooranga. He pointed out to me that Mummy had felt pushed to the limit, having to assume the role of wife and partner of an important industrialist like himself. That’s what was responsible for the breakdown in the marriage, he said.”

“Not Leila, then,” Sibella commented bitterly. “Dalton was in all areas of his life a control freak.”

“He couldn’t control Corin.”

Sibella nodded with understanding and pride. “Not my Corin. But don’t forget, my darling, there was a marked contrast in how Dalton treated Corin and how he treated you, his only daughter. You were too young to lose your mother. Kathryn acted as the buffer between you children and your father. You in particular because you shared her gentle nature. She angled herself between you and Dalton. We lost her, Zara, but she never meant it She would never have deliberately left you.”

“No!” Zara nodded when she didn’t really know at all. Some questions would forever remain unanswered. But no way was she going to add to her grandmother’s grief.

Sibella spoke very quietly. “She’s here today, you know.”

“I’ve felt her,” Zara said in an equally quiet voice. “Corin told me he did too.”

“Every day of my life I pray for her and for you, Zara. You are so much like Kathryn, it’s as though she’s still with us. Now, I want you to do something for me. Garrick is standing only a few feet away. The two of us are going to stroll over for a chat. Garrick and I always did get on well. He might be smiling at that very frisky girl in the lovely blue dress, but I know where his thoughts are. You must try for a reconciliation, Zara. Too many years have been wasted.”

Beneath the silk of her beautiful bridesmaid’s dress, her heartbeat was urgent. “I’ve told you, Nan. He hates me.” Her grandmother had long since pried out of her her short-lived love affair with Garrick and its disastrous end.

“Garrick is a proud man.” Sibella glanced once more in Garrick’s direction. Garrick Rylance, so tall, bold, bronzed, vividly handsome! He could not have been more striking. His brilliant blue eyes framed by thick sooty lashes any girl would die for. A challenging man was Garrick. Never a devil like her late son-in-law, Dalton. “Garrick has it firmly in his head you threw him over, no matter how often you tried to explain. But I’ve caught him watching you. Garrick might still be angry with you, my darling, but hate you? Never! Neither of you has settled for anyone else, I notice, when both of you could have just about anyone. I find that very telling, don’t you?”

Garrick knew Zara and her grandmother were coming his way. There had scarcely been a second when he hadn’t been aware of Zara, despite the audacious attentions of several young women so hell-bent on flirtation one would have thought their lives depended on it. The one he was with now fitted the bill. She was a real stayer. The sad thing was, he only had eyes for Zara. That was his bitter fate. Being anywhere near her was like being electrified. She looked so beautiful in that pink silk gown, her long dark hair falling like a bolt of shining silk down her back. He loved the exquisite pink roses that dipped in under her ear. It had been a monumental effort trying to keep his eyes off her.

You’re totally messed up, Rylance. He’d told himself that repeatedly. Didn’t do much good. His feelings for Zara would never die. They wouldn’t even die down and it was years later. Maybe he ought to arrange a session with a really good shrink, he thought with a flash of humour.

How to cure obsession—for one particular woman.

He had already spoken to Sibella, of course. He greatly admired her. Zara was very much like her in appearance. Sibella De Lacey, nearing seventy, remained a beautiful woman. She looked after herself and dressed superbly, no doubt aided by the fact that she had retained her slender figure. He knew Sibella liked him. He knew that if Sibella could wave her magic wand she would make everything come right between himself and Zara. That was if Sibella could ever find her lost magic wand.

Zara, still holding Miranda’s lovely bouquet like some magic charm, drew a deep breath. Said a silent prayer. Perhaps she and Garrick could never get back to what they had had, but she had to try.

Her time was running out.

Celebrations continued on into the night, with couples dancing on the rear terrace to a great band who were enjoying themselves as much as anyone else. Others roamed the extensive gardens, which were lit by thousands and thousands of white fairy lights that decked the trees. Flirtations aplenty were going on. A lot of tender hand-holding. Delectable kisses stolen in the scented semidark. One overeager, overenthusiastic young male guest for a bit of fun launched himself into the swimming pool with its flotilla of big beautiful hibiscus blooms, but further silliness on the part of others was swiftly discouraged by an unobtrusive security man, dressed like the other guests, who hauled him out.

Older guests retired to the house, agog at the wonderful renovations. They flowed through the main reception rooms and the library, chattering and exclaiming, coming to settle into the opulent sofas and armchairs to go over the great day in detail and catch up on all the latest news and gossip. Many who had thought of her often that day went to gaze with a moment’s sadness at the life-size portrait of Kathryn Rylance. It hadn’t been seen for quite a while. Certainly not during the reign of the second wife, Leila. Recently it had been taken out of storage, cleaned, reframed and it now hung above the splendid white marble fireplace.

“In its rightful place!” murmured one of Kathryn’s friends to another.

Kathryn Rylance had been such a beautiful gracious woman! How sad that she couldn’t have been here on this day of days, the wedding of her only son. All agreed that Zara was the image of her, both in looks and in manner. All had decided Miranda had deliberately thrown her bouquet to her sister-in-law. Didn’t that declare to the whole world that the two young women were very close? No one had seen such happiness in the Rylance household for far too long.

The King is dead. Long live the King!

By one o’clock in the morning the last of the guests departed in chauffeured limousines that stood waiting for them. This service had been planned well in advance, the thinking being that, very few would be in any condition to drive their own cars. One woman guest was so grateful and maybe so tipsy she started to cry.

“How enormously thoughtful!” she gushed as the chauffeur opened the door for her and her husband.