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

Her husband, an eminent barrister, agreed. “We’d never get home otherwise, my dear.”

“God bless you, Corin, old son!” another male guest yelled at the top of his voice amid more cheering. “This entire day has been perfect!”

Everyone knew a love match when they saw one. It was enough to make you bawl your eyes out with joy!

At long, long last the house was empty. The army of caterers had attended to every last detail of the clean up before packing their things and leaving. Corin’s housekeeper and the major domo, Hannah and Gil McBride, a very efficient couple in their late forties, taken on by Corin, had retired to their own secluded quarters perhaps an hour ago. Their comfortable bungalow was set in the grounds screened by a grove of luxuriant golden canes and only a short walk to the main house by way of an adjoining covered path.

Zara now felt free to roam.

Garrick had gone on with a party of revellers who obviously had no intention of allowing the night to end. She had no idea when and if he would be back but if he did he knew how to handle the state-of-the-art security system. Lord knew he’d made a huge impression on a number of young women looking for a rich handsome husband. The one in the beautiful blue dress came to mind—Lisa something. She had overheard Lisa telling a highly interested friend, “Garrick is simply gorgeous! He makes me go weak at the knees!”

She wasn’t the only one.

Include yourself!

Silently, Zara wandered in and out of the huge reception rooms, pausing to admire all over again the glorious flower arrangements. It was she who had suggested the florist to Miranda. Wayne was acknowledged as one of the country’s most creative florists and one of the most expensive by a country mile. Wayne had supplied all the flowers for the wedding, the exquisite bouquets for bride and bridesmaids, church, reception and the house. The effects were stunning. No expense had been spared. He could possibly retire if he so chose.

Someone once said the scent of a flower was its soul. She stooped to inhale the intoxicating sweetness of masses and masses of white gardenias arranged in a very tall famille verte Chinese vase with long trailing sprays of jasmine. The whole arrangement was supported by fig branches with their green fruit. She remembered her mother had often used this particular vase for her arrangements. Out of nowhere, she was assailed by the vision and, strangely, the unmistakable perfume of pink frangipani branches. Her mother had liked to mix them in with pink or red azaleas. She retained a little snapshot of her childhood—she and her mother picking armloads from the garden, the two of them so happy, so much the loving mother and daughter. No one should have to lose their mother. It was an awful business. She had mourned her father and, to a degree, Leila. Death required attention. But in no way had their deaths caused the enormous grief and feeling of utter loss she had suffered when she and Corin had lost their mother. Neither her father nor Leila had had room in their lives for her.

Tears pricked her eyes. One of the first things Corin had done after the death of their father was to go in search of their mother’s portrait. It had been painted by a famous Italian artist, commissioned by their father not long after the marriage. Their father had had it taken down within days of her death. She remembered with a feeling of pride that she had found the courage to volubly protest, Corin even more stridently. The two of them had all but yelled at their domineering, autocratic father. To no avail. Neither of them had had any idea where the painting had been stored. Not in the house. They had looked, risking severe discipline. Corin had finally located the painting in an art dealer’s storeroom.

“You’re so very beautiful, Mummy,” she whispered, looking up at the bravura portrait of her mother in her wedding gown. The irony of it—her wedding gown! “I’m sure you were here today. I felt you. So did Corin. So did Nan. We love you so much.”

For the first time she spotted a single white rose of exquisite form and fragrance tied with a silver ribbon. It lay on the white marble mantelpiece at the base of the portrait. She picked it up, curious to know who had put it there.

The tiny silver and white card said simply: From Miranda.

That a gesture could be so perfect!

Still holding the white rose, she went about quietly turning off banks of switches that controlled the lighting. She would take the rose upstairs with her. Pop it in a bud vase and keep it beside her bed. It was all so extraordinary when one thought about it. Lovely little Miranda, with her essential goodness and brightness, was Leila’s daughter. Hard to realise, given Leila’s cold, calculating, selfabsorbed nature. The connection had not come out—Corin had made sure of that. Not that it was the worst story in the world, but it was somewhat bizarre. No one had commented on the fact that Miranda had been given away by her New Zealand grandfather, a distinguished professor of medicine. Nor that a New Zealand cousin had made a beautiful bridesmaid. Maybe someone would uncover the true story as the years passed. It would make no difference to Corin and Miranda. Nor to her and her grandparents. Garrick was the only one who had raised a question about what appeared to have gone over everyone else’s head. But Garrick didn’t know.

Radiant moonlight was coming in through the many tall windows and the side lights of the front door. She could easily see her way across the entrance hall. She planned to leave a few lights on for Garrick, anyway. He had such a powerful effect on women. Always had, even if he had been genuinely unaware of it. Yet the highly eligible Garrick seemed no more successful at putting back the pieces than she was. The one had altered the life of the other.

She felt anger rising in her at her father’s multiple deceptions. The way he had worked on her to strip her of all confidence. Her father, therefore, had been her enemy. Good fathers affirmed their children’s value. She had received no such validation from him. She had to accept, too, that somewhere along the line Garrick must have become a point of bitter antagonism. When one considered it, her father had shown all the signs of pathological jealousy. Business giant or not, Dalton Rylance had been a very strange man.

She had only walked a few feet towards the grand staircase when the front door suddenly opened. It had to be Garrick. She spun just in time to see his tall, muscular figure outlined against the exterior lights.

“Garrick!” She felt the breathless vibrations of her heart.

“Well, what do we have here,” he mocked, “a welcoming party of one?” He slowly approached, devastatingly handsome in his formal pearl-grey morning suit. He hadn’t bothered to change. That would have been an additional excitement for the young women in his party.

His tone was so sardonic she waved the taunt away with her hand. “Have no fear. I didn’t think you’d even come back. You seemed to be getting along so well with…Lisa, wasn’t it?”

“Louise,” he said with a drawl. “Call me Lou!”

“Well, I was close.” She shrugged, the jewelled strap that held the one-shouldered bodice of her gown giving off sparkles of light. “Didn’t work out?”

“I prefer to do the chasing,” he said, turning back to reactivate the alarm system. Then he recommenced his graceful walk, sleek as a panther, across the expanse of black and white marble tiles. “Still wearing your bridesmaid gown?” There was an oddly seductive note in his voice, given he had done his level best to avoid her the entire evening. One more or less obligatory dance, both of them remaining silent, their bodies locked in tension, the two of them divided even when his arm was tight around her.

“I haven’t been upstairs yet.” The raggedness of her breath betrayed her. “I’m not in the least tired.”

“You should never take that dress off.” He didn’t sound as much admiring as maddened by how she looked. Her small perfect breasts were outlined against the luminous silk. “Why is it you’re so extravagantly beautiful, Zara?” It came out like an unrelenting lament. “Why is it a part of me still madly wants you? God, sometimes I think you nailed me when we were only kids. Zara, the little princess! I’d never seen such a beautiful little girl before or since.”

Her limbs felt heavy, as though heat was bearing down on her. She turned fully to confront him. “Drink has loosened your tongue, Garrick.”

“Maybe it has,” he admitted with a wry laugh, moving ever closer. “How come you got over me just like that—” his fingers clicked “—when I can’t seem to put you behind me?”

She managed a sceptical laugh, tilting her chin. “You’re just wound up.”

And you aren’t?

“You did put me behind you, Garrick,” she said. “Very successfully, I would say.”

“A matter of opinion, my dear,” he drawled. “I’d say not terribly well. More’s the pity! What have you got in your hand?”

She held the white rose up to the shimmering moonlight. “A beautiful little gesture from Miranda. She left it in front of my mother’s portrait.”

“How very sweet!” He smiled, sounding unsurprised. “Corin is a lucky man. Miranda has my full approval. I’d like to drink a toast to your mother, Zara. I had the feeling she was here today—in spirit, anyway. I didn’t see as much of her as I would have liked, but I remember her as the loveliest woman. She was so kind to me when your father lived to bawl me out. I remember my mother receiving the news of her death with tears rolling down her cheeks. She doesn’t cry easily; she’s learned to hide her tears.”

“Some of us have to,” Zara pointed out quietly.

“Did you cry for me?”

She couldn’t bear the hurtful edge to his voice. “A million times!”

“Liar!” He shook his handsome dark head. “Just a mad fling, wasn’t it?”

“It was mad, certainly!” The most exultant experience she had ever had. There was all the difference in the world between being passionately in love and giving and receiving the loving affection that brought a lot of people to marriage. So many degrees of loving! Piled one upon another.

“Well, you got over it soon enough.” In the intimate semi-darkness he reached for her. “Come with me.”

Her legs felt like those of a newborn foal, barely able to support her. Every time he looked at her she remembered the rapture, then the heartbreak. Unsurprisingly, she lost her composure. Emotion could be uncontrollable. At least that was her experience with Garrick. “What is it you want, Garrick?” she asked in a soft ragged voice. “You want to see me cry?”

“Zara, darling, I have seen you cry, remember?” His answer was sardonic. “All crocodile tears.” He drew her into the opulent living room, switching lights back on as they went.

“Why did you never answer my letters?” Her accusation flew at him. Her voice sounded the old heartbreak. Yet he made no response. She dragged back against his strong hand. “Answer me, you ghastly, ghastly man!”

At that, he jerked them both to such an abrupt halt that her body slammed into his. “Do you understand nothing?” he asked harshly. “Sweetheart, I never read any of them.”

She had always held on to the hope that he had at least read some of them. Now she felt shattered. She had poured out her heart in those letters, telling him of her hatred for herself for being such a fool as to be so effortlessly manipulated by her father. “But I sent you so many!” Her expression was eloquent with pain. “God, how many? You never read any of them. You can’t be telling the truth!”

“Even more serious than that, Zara, my lost love; I burnt the lot of them.” There was a bitter twist to his beautifully shaped sensuous mouth. “Had a little bonfire. You made it very plain you were done with me, remember? You revealed yourself for what you were. Probably still are. A woman who has the power to bring a man to his knees. Were you planning on keeping the torture going? Now that’s sick! I wasn’t having any. I have my pride. You ought to consider you’re more like your father than you think.”

“What?” She reacted with horror, stunned that he should say such a thing. Indeed, her shock was so great that the air turned red before her eyes. Anti-violence all her life, without a second’s thought, she brought up her hand and struck him as hard as she possibly could across the face. He could easily have stopped her by grasping her wrist, his reflexes were such. But for some reason, he didn’t. He took the blow. “I’m nothing like my father,” she said very tightly. “He was a cruel, cruel man.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.” His answer was as dry as ash. “You took a chance hitting out at me, Zara.” As he spoke, he was making a production out of rubbing his cheekbone. His skin was so tanned the red imprint of her fingers barely showed. “I could have retaliated.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, when she wasn’t at all ashamed of her actions. He deserved it. There was immense pleasure in connecting, if only in a blow.