The Final Proposal

From the edge of the terrace there came a muted peal of laughter from Cynthia. Great-Aunt Kit said, ‘There’s no such thing. Look at your mother. She adored your father but she couldn’t be more happy than she is with Stephen.’

‘I wish I’d known my father.’

‘Hugo was a charming scamp,’ her aunt said acidly. ‘He broke his father’s heart and then he did the same to your mother’s. He might have grown up if he hadn’t died on that racetrack, but I doubt it.’

‘I remember him—just isolated incidents,’ Jan said wistfully. ‘And I know my grandfather used to sing nursery rhymes with me. It would have been nice if he’d stayed in New Zealand.’

Her aunt snorted. ‘He couldn’t bear to see Hugo’s eyes in your face. A fine excuse for running away to Australia!’

‘I’d like to know more about your side of the family.’

‘There wasn’t much to know about Hugo beyond the fact that he had more charm than was good for him, and the only family he had was a doting father who couldn’t endure his grief. Fergus even blamed your mother for letting Hugo race, when he knew perfectly well it was impossible to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to!’

Jan hadn’t known this. She said indignantly, ‘What a nerve!’

‘He has that, does Fergus Morrison. Ah, well, he adored your father—I suppose it was understandable. He was middle-aged when he married Betsy, and they only ever had Hugo.’ Her voice softened as it always did when she mentioned her only sister, who’d died in childbirth.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t her father but the restrained figure of her grandfather that Jan had missed the most. She used to wonder why they had both gone, leaving her alone with a mother who had wept for months. Perhaps, she thought now, it had been her memories of the family they’d been that had led her to long so desperately for another. Curiously, she asked, ‘Was there no one else? No aunts or uncles or cousins?’

‘Not a one. We had no relatives in New Zealand, and I think Fergus had lost touch with his too.’

Carefully avoiding the part of the room where Kear Lannion stood, Jan looked around. ‘Family’s important,’ she said softly.

‘You’re a nice girl,’ her great-aunt said with unexpected force.

Jan kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you.’

‘You look like Cynthia, but you’ve got Betsy’s eyes. Set on the merest slant, and that bright, intense blue. Now, go on; you don’t want to sit here talking to me all night. Here comes Cynthia—you go and enjoy yourself. I want to hear all the gossip, and your mother won’t tell me any if you’re here.’

Laughing, Jan left them. It was a good party. She looked around in case someone was in trouble, but everyone in the noisy, laughing, chattering crowd appeared to be enjoying themselves without any help from her.

Then Kear Lannion walked down the steps and came across the lawn. She felt her smile tremble, and before it died forced herself to produce another.

‘Hello,’ she said, wondering if she’d overemphasised her bright tone. ‘Can I get you something?’

The thick dark lashes that curled around his pale eyes screened his thoughts too well. She couldn’t read him at all, and this made her uneasy because normally she was good at body language.

‘You can talk to me,’ he said, a hint of irony in his words. ‘You’ve done your duty.’

‘What shall we talk about?’

His mouth tightened, then eased into a lazy, almost insolent smile. ‘Your innermost secrets,’ he said gravely.

Jan’s brows shot up. ‘Not after such a short acquaintanceship,’ she said, just as seriously, wishing that she could hide behind curtains of long hair like some of her young cousins. Smiling, she parried his bard, intent gaze and said, ‘Tell me about your farm.’

Yes, that sounded fine—interested but not prying, and social rather than personal. But when she looked up at him, she noticed with a faint quiver in her stomach the speculative gleam in his glance.

‘I breed and run beef cattle on Doubtless Bay. Have you ever been up there?’

‘It’s quite close to Kaitaia, isn’t it? I’ve flown there several times to take seminars and workshops,’ she said, trying not to sound indignant. ‘And I’ve sailed around the Bay of Islands.’

His mouth tilted. ‘Let me guess. You went on a gin palace and saw all the sights from the deck.’

Ruffled by the amusement in his voice, she bent down to snap off the suede-soft bloom of a gardenia and held it to her nose. Erotic, disturbing, the scent of the flower floated like an offering to unknown gods on the humid air.

She lowered it and said, ‘It was definitely a gin palace, but I did go ashore a couple of times.’ She didn’t care what he thought of her—after all, he was nobody, a mere passer-by in her life.

Kear glanced across to her mother, now walking with Great-Aunt Kit down her favourite border, pointing out flowering treasures. Lights in the garden illuminated them—the tall old woman, the smaller, younger one unobtrusively lending a supporting hand. ‘After meeting your mother, I can see where you got your features from. You don’t have her eyes, though.’

‘Apparently I inherited mine from my father’s mother,’ she said evenly, thinking it odd for this conversation to turn up twice on the same evening.

‘So intense a blue they make me think of the sheen on steel,’ he said, and held out his hand for the gardenia.

Startled, she gave it to him and watched as he smelled it, his dark features etched arrogantly against the lights.

The compliment unnerved her totally, melting the bones at the base of her spine. ‘Really?’ she said in a quiet, startled voice.

‘Yes.’ His brief smile sent her heart thudding. ‘My cousin said that you’re Anet Carruthers’ sister. I saw her win gold at the Olympics. You’re not in the least alike.’

‘We’re half-sisters. Anet gets her javelin-throwing expertise from my stepfather.’ Jan sent a swift, winged smile across to Stephen Carruthers. Obeying a distress signal she hadn’t realised she’d sent, he said a few smiling words to the couple he was with and came down to join her.

After that it was easy. Listening to them as they talked, Jan was surprised to find out that Stephen liked Kear; her stepfather was clever and an excellent judge of character, yet he responded to the other man’s magnetism without any sign of resistance. But what set her stupid heart galloping in an uneven rhythm was the sight of that gardenia tucked negligently into Kear’s buttonhole.

‘Interesting chap, Lannion—I’ve always liked him,’ Stephen said hours later, when all the guests had gone.

‘I didn’t realise you knew him,’ Jan murmured.

‘He’s on a couple of boards with me. Not an easy chap to know, and no one pushes him around, but he’s a good man to have beside you in a fight.’

Cynthia nodded. ‘As well as being a very desirable piece of real estate.’

‘Mother!’ Jan pretended to be shocked.

Laughing, her mother defended her choice of words. ‘That’s what Gerry called him. I think she might be smitten.’

Jan subdued something that came ominously close to being jealousy, and kissed her parents. ‘Well, I’m heading off. Goodnight, and thank you. I had a lovely party.’

‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay the night?’ her mother asked automatically.

‘No, I’ll go home, thanks.’ Jan hid a yawn. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning, though. And don’t have the place cleaned up by the time I get here like you did last year!’

‘There’s not a lot to do, darling. The caterers have already tidied up, so all that’s necessary is a bit of vacuuming.’

‘Don’t do it.’ Jan looked at her stepfather. ‘Dad, keep her in bed.’

His answering grin was transformed into laughter as Cynthia blushed and bridled and shook her finger at him.

She was very lucky, Jan thought as she drove through Auckland’s darkened streets. She had a super family.