Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

He broke off, and Regan’s knuckles whitened further as she guessed what he was thinking. Sir Frank had curbed his disappointment when she had notified him that she was dropping out, assuming that she was suffering from an understandable excess of grief and that when it passed she would regain her enthusiasm for law. In the meantime, he had had Fred Stevenson in the legal office to take her on as a full-time employee.

‘He was very miffed when I said that I was going to steal you away for few weeks for a roving assignment.’ Sir Frank regained his bounce. ‘But I told him it was one of the privileges of rank and since I wouldn’t have the rank for much longer he should cut me some slack.’

‘I did offer to take part of it as my holiday entitlement—’ began Regan.

‘Nonsense—we can’t have you paying for the privilege of helping us out!’ he huffed. ‘Besides, you offered to work in the Palm Cove site office in your spare time, so that’ll square things up with the books.’

It was an unfortunate choice of phrase, but Regan certainly hoped so!

‘Ahh, home James!’

They had reached almost to the nature reserve at the tip of promontory, the road dividing into two—one route leading to the reserve carpark, the other passing between the gates of a massive drystone wall emblazoned with the Palm Cove name and logo in solid brass, glowing in the late-afternoon sun.

‘Impressive, isn’t it? Michael never brought you up here, did he?’

She shook her head. ‘No, although I’ve seen the publicity brochures and newspaper ads.’ Michael had been extremely careful to keep her well away from anything to do with his work at Palm Cove.

On the other side of the wall the rolling green fields of a massive new subdivision stretched before them. The roads which snaked through the pegged-out sites were broad and palm-lined, and the numerous houses already under construction looked hugely palatial. Beyond, marching down towards the glittering sea, were the fully completed parts of the project—the country club with its eighteen-hole golf course and the triple tower of condominiums rising from the banks of the canal that formed the man-made marina. She knew from the photos that when they got closer they would see the multi-level paved terraces that surrounded the cafés, bars and shops at the base of the towers, and, flanking the canal moorings on both sides, blocks of two-storeyed condominiums stretching right down to the sea, so that true boating fanatics could walk straight out of their expensive living rooms onto their expensive yachts.

Regan turned up the narrow private road indicated by Sir Frank, following it through the thicket of mature native bush which fringed the edge of the new subdivision, completely screening it from sight of the adjoining property. The road wound out of the trees again and a house came into view—a huge, sprawling, double-storeyed white wooden villa, a graceful old lady from a bygone era surrounded by a crinoline of verandahs and set in what seemed like acres of ground—a mixture of formal plantings and rambling natural wilderness. The back of the house had a clear view to the sea, the front was a welcoming smile of curved flowerbeds, bursting with late summer roses.

Regan drew up where directed, around the side of the house, in front of a six-door garage which looked as if it might have been converted from stables.

She stretched the kinks in her legs as she got out of the car, glad she had worn an uncrushable camel skirt with her cool leaf-green summer blouse, but when she tried to get her bags out of the car boot, Sir Frank hustled her away.

‘Beatson will get those and put the car away—Steve’s our caretaker and odd-job man—chauffeur, too, if you need him.’

Regan was staring at something around the back of the house. ‘Is that gazebo on an island? ’

Sir Frank chuckled at her astounded expression. ‘Hazel’s idea—thought it would be a romantic place to go for al fresco lunches. Had to have a brute of bulldozers in to dig the lake and divert a stream to feed it.’ His blue eyes twinkled brightly in his plump red face. ‘Why don’t I go and break the good news about your arrival while you take a stroll in the fresh air…?’

Since Regan would sooner not be around when Sir Frank broke his ‘good news’ to his sister-in-law, in case it fell badly flat, she accepted his suggestion with alacrity.

The small oval lake was a marvel of engineering, and she wandered out onto the small wooden jetty where two small rowboats were moored and looked across the narrow divide of water at the latticed gazebo, guessing that the huge spreading oak that dappled the grass on one end of the little island had been there long before the bulldozers had moved it, probably as long as the main house itself.

The hot afternoon sun beat down on her unprotected head and she was drawn across the wide, luxuriant lawn to walk in the cool shade of the wild wood which grew along one side of the house. The undergrowth to the mature canopy of deciduous and evergreen trees was a mingling of native and exotic shrubs and seedlings, and Regan idly plucked a large, glossy leaf as she turned to view the building from this new aspect.

A movement at one of the ground-floor windows caught her eye and she saw the figure of a man talking on the telephone, pacing restlessly back and forth past the open sash. She was at least a hundred metres away, and at first all she registered was that he was dressed in a suit and that he was tall and dark-haired, but then he halted by the window, glancing up from the sheaf of papers in his hand, and she got a good look at him full-face.

A thrill of dumbfounded horror turned her blood to ice.

Adam!

The leaf fluttered to the grass as her hand flew to her mouth.

He noticed her at the very instant of her appalled recognition, and for a moment they were both motionless, staring at each other.

Even at a hundred metres she could read his body language. His back stiffened in surprise and then his torso tilted forward in puzzlement. He moved right up to the open window and she began to edge backwards into the undergrowth, praying that he wouldn’t realise who it was that he was seeing. Surely in her summery skirt, short-sleeved blouse and simple flat shoes she was a far cry from the sophisticated Eve whom he had tumbled in his bed.

The phone still plastered to the side of his head, he suddenly thrust his shoulders out of the window.

‘Hey—you!’

Regan’s body jerked. She took another step back. No—this nightmare couldn’t be happening. Not here—not now!

‘Hey! Don’t go!’ To her horror he dropped the phone from his ear and put one long leg over the windowsill. ‘Eve?’

Oh, God!

‘Eve, is that you?’

He was already out on the verandah, striding along to the wooden steps. Regan whirled around and blindly fled, crashing through the shrubbery in a desperate attempt to put as much space between them as possible before those long, powerful legs hit the grass running. Even in full business-kit, with a one hundred-metre handicap, he could probably still sprint her down on a flat track.

Fortunately she was small enough to scuttle through chinks in the tangled undergrowth that would have snagged larger bodies, but as she got deeper into the trees she could still hear him thrashing somewhere behind her, hoarsely yelling at her to stop, pausing now and then in his pursuit to gauge her direction.

When she almost ran slap-bang into the sturdy trunk of an old macrocarpa pine, top-heavy with needle-like green foliage, she let instinct take hold and shinned up the untrimmed branches until she reached a high fork into which she could safely wedge herself, out of sight of the ground.

None too soon. She clutched at her perch, the rough bark pricking her cheek and bare forearms as she flattened herself against the trunk, holding her breath as dried pine needles crunched under the pounding feet below.