A Very Secret Affair

‘No one forced you.’ Her mother sounded indignant. ‘You were all for going.’

All for getting away from you, you mean, Clare thought, then felt guilty. Despite their differences, she did love her mother. But Sam was right. They didn’t always get along. ‘I didn’t have much choice, you know, Mum,’ she soothed. ‘Bangaratta is hardly the education capital of the world.’ She stood up and carried her cup and saucer over to the sink. ‘I’d better be going. I guess I’ll be seeing you tonight after all.’

Agnes walked with her to the door.

‘What’s this dress like that you’re going to wear?’ she asked once they reached the front veranda. ‘Are you sure it isn’t out of fashion? You have been back here in Bangaratta a couple of years, after all.’

‘It’ll do, Mum,’ Clare said, aware that this was a wicked understatement of the truth.

Agnes sighed. ‘I suppose it’ll have to, but it’s a pity for our guest to think that the ladies of Bangaratta don’t know how to dress. Country does not mean dowdy!’

Something deep and dark darted through Clare. ‘Some people think so,’ she murmured, but at her mother’s quick frown, Clare forced a bright, if somewhat brittle smile to her lips. ‘I doubt Mr Sheffield will give a hoot what I wear, Mum, but don’t worry, I won’t let you—or Bangaratta—down.’

The Bangaratta Town Hall hadn’t looked this grand in years, Clare thought. Built in 1886, it had always been the focal point of the small bush town. This was where the dances were held, the meetings, the wedding receptions. It had even doubled as the schoolhouse till the 1920s when the success of the wheat crops brought an upsurge in population and, of course, more schoolchildren. Of late, the building had been looking shabby, but tonight…tonight there was fresh paint on the walls, the windows sparkled, the wooden floor gleamed and high above, banners, balloons and streamers lent a festive spirit.

Clare walked up on to the wooden stage where the main table was located, her eyes sliding from her name card to the splendid table setting. Who would have believed that underneath the crisp white tablecloths and bowls of fresh flowers lay plain wooden trestles?

Flora and her progress committee had outdone themselves this time. Why, even the cutlery was not the usual catering stuff, but genuine silver. Clare gazed down at the spruced-up old building with a sense of pride. Not the sort of sophisticated venue Matt Sheffield was probably used to, she conceded, but still, it looked its very best. As did she…

Clare’s heart contracted. There was a certain irony in wearing this particular dress tonight which did not escape her. The dress had remained in her wardrobe, unworn, as a symbol of her hurt and a warning never to be so stupid again.

She was only wearing it tonight because she’d been goaded into it by her mother—she had another dress which would have sufficed—but she supposed it was a good thing in a way. It was time to exorcise the ghosts once and for all. Time to show the world—and Bangaratta—that she was not old maid material after all.

The thought of the expression of her mother’s face when she saw her designer-clad daughter did give Clare some satisfaction. Not only was her dress an original worth many hundreds of dollars, but the rest of her matched it for style and sophistication. Her hair, despite being out, was definitely not straggly. She’d spent all afternoon putting a warm red rinse through its midbrown colour, then shampooing, setting and styling it till it bounced around on her shoulders in a profusion of large loose curls, coppery highlights dancing on the crests of the waves that curved sleekly around her face.

Aah, yes…her face. Normally left au naturel, that too had received a lot of attention. She had spent a long, agonising hour painstakingly applying the sort of makeup that made the most of even the plainest girl. A bronze gloss now shimmered on her expertly outlined lips; blusher emphasised her good cheekbones; and after a careful application of misty eyeshadows, eyeliner and mascara, her grey eyes had taken on a more mysterious look, as opposed to the cool clarity she usually presented to her customers across the counter of the shop.

Of course, it was the dress, in the main, that would draw eyes, a turquoise Thai silk gown with a wide offthe-shoulder wraparound collar, a fitted waist and a gathered skirt which curved up and down at the front to show her best asset—her long athletic legs. With a push-up strapless bra underneath, she had contrived enough cleavage to be interesting, knowing that a lot of men were tantalised more by what was hinted at than what was flaunted.

Not for the first time that evening, Clare wondered if Matt Sheffield would find her attractive. Her innate honesty forced her to concede she hadn’t gone to all this trouble just for her mother.

Clare was a woman, after all. What woman wouldn’t want to look her best in the presence of a man as handsome and sophisticated as Matt Sheffield? Pride demanded it. Or was it something else which had prompted her to pull out all the stops?

Clare’s heart began to race nervously as she stared at the place she would fill at the table on the stage. Within half an hour she would be sitting there, next to the sort of man whose real character she knew oh so well. And while Clare knew she wasn’t a raving beauty, she was far from plain. Her mother would have been astounded at the number of men who had tried to chat her up since her return home.

Yes, she was not so unattractive that their visitor wouldn’t take a second look. What worried her was how she would act if he started flirting with her, or even made a pass? She hoped her foolish female heart would be able to differentiate the actor from the doctor he played on television. There was no doubt Mrs Brown was right about one thing. Dr Adrian Archer did have a marvellous bedside manner!

Clare dragged in then expelled a shuddering sigh. She should not have agreed to this. No matter what. She had very bad vibes about it.

‘Clare! Yoo-hoo, Clare!’

Clare looked down into the body of the hall to see Flora waving at her from near the back doors. With a resigned sigh she made her way over, trying not to cringe over the dress Flora was wearing—a loud floral which looked hideous on her plump figure. The poor sweet darling was also all pink and flustered as she kept checking arrivals out the back.

‘Oh, my, don’t you look simply stunning!’ Flora praised between anxious peers. ‘I…er…hope you didn’t mind about my putting you on the main table after all, dear. I was speaking to your father in town this morning and he said you must have misunderstood what I wanted because he was sure you wouldn’t mind at all. I…er…hope he was right.’

Clare smiled. ‘He was perfectly right. I just thought maybe you could find someone better suited than me, that’s all.’

‘Oh, goodness me, no. I told Jim that there wasn’t a brighter or prettier girl in town than you and if anyone could charm our guest it would be our own darling lady chemist.’ Flora suddenly squealed and grabbed Clare’s wrist. ‘Oh, look. There’s his car! Isn’t this thrilling?’

Clare pulled out of the other woman’s grasp, alarmed to find that her heart was galloping. She also found herself joining Flora in the avid peering through the doorway.

A shiny black car was rolling into the kerb. When it stopped, a man in a black dinner suit slid out from behind the wheel. A tall man. A nice-looking man. He wasn’t, Clare recognised with sick relief, the man himself.

‘That would be Mr Marshall. He’s our guest’s manager. Oh, there’s Dr Archer, getting out now. Aren’t you coming down to meet him?’

Clare swallowed, finding her eyes riveted on the opening passenger door. ‘No,’ she croaked.

‘Well, I certainly am.’ Flora surged down the steps towards the welcoming committee.

The passenger door was wide open now and a sleek dark head appeared, connected to a black dinner suit. Clare did not wait to see any more. Totally unnerved, she turned and fled back into the hall.

CHAPTER TWO

CLARE shut the door of the back-stage powder-room and leant heavily against it. Literally shaking, she tried to calm her thumping heart and failed miserably.

Finally she managed to still the ragged, painful breathing that her mad flight had caused. Levering herself away from the door, she walked over to the seat that ran along one wall of the small rest-room.

Thank the lord, she thought as she sank down, that no one had seen her hurtling down the hall and stumbling up the stage steps. She would be eternally grateful for a country town’s obsession with the rich and famous, grateful that all eyes had been fixed elsewhere.

Clare closed her eyes and leant back against the wall. Just a few minutes, she told herself. A few minutes so that she would feel collected enough to return to the hall and take her place at the main table.

What on earth had caused her to panic like that? So she found the man attractive? So what? She had found any number of men attractive over the years. She’d even been attracted to a couple of local men since coming home. Unbeknown to her mother, she’d gone out with them too, thinking that in Bangaratta she might find a man of principle she could fall in love with and possibly marry.

But in truth, Clare had found the local men so boring, their personalities so flat and dull, that she now lived a lonely life rather than keep seeking an elusive dream. 19

Clare stood up and walked slowly towards the mirror that hung above the washbasins. Her eyes travelled slowly over her hair, her dolled-up face, her glamorous gown. When she went to push back a stray hair she was dismayed to see her hands were trembling. With a groan she leant against the bench and stared into the basin. When she glanced up again she was hotly aware of the over-bright eyes, the still racing heart.

Face it, she warned herself in a harsh whisper. The man excites you. The man himself…not the character on television. Why else have you avidly read everything printed about him? Those articles were about Matt Sheffield, not Dr Adrian Archer.

That’s why you refused to come tonight in the first place: because, underneath, you knew he was too much like David for your peace of mind. Both exceptionally handsome men. Both brilliant actors. Both, amazingly, the only sons in wealthy Sydney families, each even more amazingly headed by a politician patriarch. The similarities were quite striking.

OK, so David had given up acting shortly after leaving university to pursue a career in a law firm, presumably with his eye on politics. But lawyers and politicians were consummate actors anyway, Clare reasoned cynically.

Given his similar background, it was hard to see Matt Sheffield turning out any differently from the smoothly polished, superbly arrogant and insidiously charming type David had been. But beneath the surface appeal would lie a soul so shallow and insincere, so utterly, utterly selfish, that such a man should wear a brand across his forehead declaring to the world at large—and women in particular—that they were poison.

Oh, yes, Clare knew exactly what to expect tonight. Yet even so, the prospect of being in Matt Sheffield’s company had stirred her as no man had since David.

Fortunately, being forewarned was forearmed. With her past bitter experience to the forefront of her mind, Clare felt reasonably confident she could sustain a coolly polite faade all night, no matter how attractive she found the man, or how much he flirted with her. Any direct defensive rudeness was out of the question, of course. Flora and Bangaratta were counting on her.

Steeling herself, Clare left the rest-room. She had just walked past the gents’ room and her foot was on the first of the three steps that led back up into the right wing of the stage when a man’s exasperated voice pulled her up short. ‘Good God, Bill, this place is a lot more backwoods than I expected.’

‘You’re not wrong there. Did you get a load of the decorations? Bloody balloons, no less! Why on earth you accepted this invite, I have no idea. The appearance fee won’t even cover expenses. As for publicity…you don’t need that any more.’

‘Certainly not of the nature I’ve been getting. But I agree, this doesn’t seem to have been one of my better decisions. Talk about the back of Bourke!’

Clare cringed inside. She knew instinctively whom that superbly cultured voice belonged to. She’d heard it often enough on the TV. Normally, she liked its deep rich tones, especially when it was soothing an accident victim, or a woman in painful childbirth. But overhearing it utter words flavoured with sarcasm and contempt reminded her of that other highly educated voice from the past, brutally putting her down because she was country born and bred. The memory brought a rush of rage that overpowered her resolve to remain cool and she hurried forward to confront this pair who dared speak disparagingly of her home town.

The two men were standing between the two sets of heavy stage curtains, their backs towards her, but their broad-shouldered, dauntingly male figures made Clare hesitate. When they resumed speaking, she found herself retreating behind a backdrop.