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

‘No, she won’t—the girl loves a good blow! Got a great pair of sea legs,’ beamed Sir Frank.

‘I wonder if I ought to go and wake her?’ Hazel was pondering dubiously. She had quietly divulged to Regan over last evening’s sherry that Carolyn had been unpredictable in her moods of late, and extremely touchy about her privacy. From which Regan had deduced that she was disappointed that her daughter’s daughter, whom she had brought up from babyhood after her parents were killed in a plane crash, was not co-operating wholeheartedly on the home front.

‘I suppose it’s all part of her growing up and preparing to move out into her own separate life, but it makes it a bit difficult when I’m trying to work out what she wants for the wedding,’ she had admitted. ‘She’s so inconsistent—one minute she’s madly enthusiastic; the next minute she’s yawning with boredom. One day she seems happy; the next everything’s a tragedy. Perhaps it’ll be good for her to have another young woman in the house who can relate to something of what she’s going through…’

‘Would you like me to nip up and see if she’s up and about—and let her know that Joshua’s here?’ asked Regan now.

‘Not if you haven’t finished your own breakfast, dear,’ demurred Hazel.

‘But I have.’ She smiled, pushing back from the table and trying not to look too eager to escape. ‘I don’t usually have a great appetite in the mornings—’

‘You save it all up for the evenings?’ murmured Joshua, rising to his feet in unison with his son as she stood up. Whatever else kind of father he was, he had made the effort to teach his offspring old-fashioned manners. The top of Ryan’s dirty-blond head only reached Joshua’s eyes, but he was obviously still growing, and Regan guessed that one day he would be even taller than his father. There also seemed to be a mutual respect and easy affection between them that spoke volumes about their relationship.

‘Well, it was nice meeting you again, Ryan,’ she said, concentrating on the safer of the two. ‘Good luck with your exams.’

‘Luck should have nothing to do with it,’ his father answered for him. ‘But don’t make it sound as if you’re saying goodbye, Regan. Didn’t anyone tell you that the condominium I’m living in at Palm Court is the one I bought as my personal investment in the project?’ He paused a moment to let her sense the axe that was hovering over her head. ‘And my visit here is proving so…fruitful and enlightening…that I’ve decided to stay on at the condo while Frank and I sort out the fine print on our deal. I can commute down to Auckland whenever I need to touch personal base with my staff, and Ryan’s school holidays start in another week, so he only has to commute daily until his exams are over, then he has two weeks of freedom.’

Weeks! Regan’s face paled slightly above the cherry-red dress as fresh panic fluttered in her chest. She had thought that it was only the weekend she would have to endure. Joshua lurking around for two days taunting her with his veiled threats and stalking suspicions was bad enough, but now he was talking about weeks of having to cope with him breathing down her neck, monitoring her behaviour and possibly thwarting her attempts to put her plan into action. Not to mention arousing forbidden desires!

‘Dad says I can fly down and back in the company helicopter every day,’ Ryan informed her.

‘Won’t that be rather expensive?’ she said faintly.

‘Perhaps, but I can afford it,’ said Joshua. ‘I look after my own, and I don’t consider it extravagant when you consider what I’m getting in return.’

‘And what would that be?’ she braved.

‘Peace of mind.’

‘And of course you’ll be able to spend much more time with Carolyn,’ chirped Hazel.

‘There is that,’ Joshua replied gravely.

‘I’ll just go and see what’s keeping her,’ said Regan, and fled.

I look after my own.

Regan wasn’t one of his own. She was an outsider, a threat to his established order, and it seemed he was preparedto go to any lengths to neutralise her as a possible source of trouble.

There was no answer to her brisk tap on the door, but when she tentatively poked her head into the bedroom she found Carolyn lying on her back in bed, wide awake. She had propped herself up on her elbows as the door opened.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, letting herself collapse back against the heap of pillows.

‘Your grandmother just wondered if you were coming down to breakfast,’ said Regan, taking that as an invitation to enter. The bedroom was twice as big as her own, with a prime view over the lake from the bed itself, and furnished in feminine but unfussy style in eggshell-blue and white.

‘I’m not hungry,’ said Carolyn listlessly. In her white batiste nightdress with her hair in a single plait she looked girlishly young, emphasising a natural beauty that didn’t depend on cosmetics. She probably never woke with sleepcreases on her face or an embarrassing crust in the corners of her eyes, thought Regan enviously.

‘You should eat something. Perhaps it might make you feel better…’

‘ Nothing can make me feel better!’ was the vehement declaration.

‘Maybe I could slip down to the kitchen and bring you up a piece of toast, and perhaps a cup of tea—’

Carolyn looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why should you?’

Regan offered her a friendly smile. ‘Well, if you’re feeling nauseous, it might help to settle your stomach…’

Carolyn’s lightly tanned face had gone from pale and wan to glowing pink in the space of a few seconds. ‘What makes you think I’m feeling sick?’

‘Uh…last night—you said you might be.’

Carolyn swore: a very unattractive, unladylike phrase. ‘He told you, didn’t he?’ She thumped an angry fist against the bedclothes. ‘It was supposed to be a secret and he told you! ’

‘No—’

‘Oh, don’t bother to lie!’ she cried shrilly. ‘I saw you two huddling together. He told you! And he has the nerve to call me immature and vindictive! He gave away an intimate detail of my life to someone he doesn’t know from Adam! ’

Her emphasis gave Regan a nasty jolt. ‘Honestly, Carolyn, he didn’t give away anything—I guessed. In the circumstances…and after the way you were talking about feeling sick for half the day…I just jumped to the obvious conclusion. Joshua didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already guessed.’

‘Joshua?’ Carolyn looked disconcerted, the flags of temper in her cheeks fading.

‘Yes, who did you think I meant? I didn’t think anyone else knew…’

Carolyn smoothed her manicured nails over her rumpled covers. ‘No one does…that is, only Chris—’

‘Oh, is he your doctor?’

‘No, of course not!’ Carolyn looked horrified at the idea.

‘He’s still doing his residency. He wants to be a cardiac surgeon.’

‘Nothing as lowly as wanting to specialise in caring for the mothers of our species, huh?’ joked Regan.

Carolyn’s reluctant laugh was tinged with bitterness.

‘You’re not kidding!’

‘So, is your own doctor up here or in Auckland?’

Carolyn picked at the batiste ruffle on the scooped neck of her nightgown. ‘I’m not sure yet who I want to use…’

Regan was shocked. She sat down on the side of the bed.

‘You mean you haven’t been seeing a doctor?’

Carolyn’s eyes flashed. ‘There’s no need to yet. I know I can’t be more than three months along—’

‘But you must have had a pregnancy test?’

Her lips tightened. ‘The test was positive; I’m going to have a baby. There’s nothing any doctor can do about that! ’