Margaret Way - Six Australian Heroes

‘Thank heavens someone is here to—well,’ she said to Rhiannon, then looked embarrassed, ‘I wasn’t sure if the party was still on after the shenanigans of yesterday, not to mention this morning—damn! I wasn’t going to say anything about that.’ She reddened.

‘It’s OK, I’m up-to-date,’ Rhiannon assured her, ‘and the party is still on.’ She stopped, struck by a sudden thought. ‘You wouldn’t know who the guests are, would you?’

‘Not by name but they’re all Mary’s friends from TV and the movies. Some of them are flying in from interstate apparently—oh, not to stay here but down on the coast.’

Rhiannon stared at her. ‘She must have been really upset to walk out—I mean—’

‘She was. She doesn’t like living up here and Matt has been away for a week on business so she was feeling extra-lonely and she’s.’ Sharon grimaced. ‘Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like about her but she can be a bit spoilt. She’s so gorgeous, she’s probably used to getting her own way a lot.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, by the way, she told me she’d organised a DJ, hopefully for the right date, but I’m not sure if Lee knows about it. And it may be more than thirty people, she told me she’d lost count but she thought it could be forty or fifty. She has a lot of friends.’

Rhiannon heaved a sigh. ‘I think I’d better tell him.’

But, along the way, Rhiannon got another surprise.

She almost bumped into a strange woman who was striding through the lounge, probably the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.

For a moment she wondered if it was Mary Richardson then decided not; this woman was in her early thirties, possibly, and she looked faintly familiar. She also, from her flashing dark eyes, set mouth and the way she was walking, looked furious.

‘Oh, sorry! Hello,’ Rhiannon said, and introduced herself.

‘Ah, the housekeeper! How do you do? I’m Andrea Richardson.’

Rhiannon blinked. ‘You mean …?’ She broke off as full recognition dawned.

Andrea Richardson née Comero was tall and had a river of dark, glossy hair flowing down her back. Her skin was smooth and olive, her lips a luscious red, and she wore a glorious pomegranate-pink silk blouse with hipster black satin trousers and silver sandals. She held herself regally and you could just see her striding the catwalk.

‘The wicked stepmother no less?’Andrea shot back. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘I—didn’t mean that at all,’ Rhiannon disclaimed. ‘I mean to say, all I know is that you married Ross Richardson but most people probably know that.’ She looked quizzical for a moment.

‘Then you either haven’t been here long enough to hear otherwise or they’ve been unusually discreet.’ Andrea Richardson shook out her hair. ‘They—make that particularly Lee—regard me as a fortune huntress who preyed upon their father and trampled the sacred memory of their mother.’

Rhiannon stared at her with her lips parted. ‘I—uh—I don’t know anything about that. Anyway, it has nothing to do with me, I’m just here to do a job.’

‘Well, don’t be surprised if you’re shortly taking your orders from me, Miss Fairfax. Please do excuse me now.’

And she stalked away with a hip-swinging walk that contrived to be provocative even though it was so angry.

Rhiannon found Lee Richardson in the library.

She looked longingly at the book-lined walls for a moment then advanced across the red Turkish rug towards the desk. French windows opened on to a side-veranda and the perfume of jasmine wafted in. One end of the room held a comfortable settee and armchair covered in mint-green crushed velvet, as well as a writing table.

The desk at the other end of the room, where Lee was working, was much bigger and held some impressive computer equipment.

She stopped in front of it and sniffed. There was another perfume on the air and overlaying the jasmine. A perfume she knew because she had used to wear it herself. The same perfume Andrea Richardson had been wearing, now she came to think of it.

So, putting two and two together, had an angry confrontation between Lee and Andrea Richardson just taken place in the library? One could be forgiven for thinking so, Rhiannon reasoned and suddenly remembered Sharon’s comments about the shenanigans of yesterday, not to mention this morning.

She decided the matter in the affirmative when Lee looked up.

He did not look to be in a good mood. His eyes were hard, his face was set in uncompromising lines.

‘Mr Richardson, I’m sorry to disturb you—’

‘Call me Lee, Rhiannon, and have a seat. You look like the bearer of ill-tidings. Don’t tell me your confidence of yesterday at the airport was misplaced?’

It had happened to her before and it happened to her again. One moment she found herself feeling—how to put it?—in charity with this man, the next, he said or did something that made her feel as if she’d had a door slammed in her face. But that was ridiculous she assured herself angrily, and sat down.

‘I’ve just been given to understand that a conflict of interest may have arisen,’ she said precisely

He frowned. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’ve just met your—stepmother. She led me to believe she might be the one to be in charge.’

She saw his teeth clench and a look of supreme irritation chase through his eyes but he only said one word, a lethally cold one, all the same. ‘No.’

‘But—’

‘Rhiannon,’ he overrode her, ‘what I say goes and that’s all there is to it.’

‘But if she lives here it could make things awkward for me, I mean—’

‘She does not live here.’

‘Well, if you’re sure—’ She broke off and bit her lip as he swore softly. ‘OK. Um—what you obviously believed was going to be a … refined buffet dinner for thirty people may not be that at all and not only number-wise.’ And she passed on Sharon’s news, including the DJ.

‘Bloody hell!’ Lee Richardson swore quite audibly this time.

‘That may not be such a bad idea,’ Rhiannon murmured. ‘To keep them entertained.’

He stared at her broodingly.

‘I believe she’s only twenty-two, your sister-in-law,’ Rhiannon said.

‘That’s—what? A whole four years younger than you?’

Rhiannon shrugged. ‘She can’t help it if she hasn’t had some tough times yet. She also,’ she hesitated, ‘well, apparently she doesn’t like it up here.’ She stopped awkwardly.

‘Go on.’

‘No, it’s nothing to do with me. Look, I’ve really got an awful lot to—’

‘You wondered what she’s doing stuck up here?’

‘Well, yes,’ Rhiannon confessed.

‘It suits me to have someone legitimate in residence,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And, since you’re bound to work this out for yourself, Mary and my brother need something real to settle them into marriage rather than the erratic course Mary had in mind.’

‘Erratic?’ Rhiannon stared at him.

‘She wanted to live in Brisbane or on the coast and continue her career.’

‘I hesitate to say this but most women have that ambition in regard to their careers these days.’

They exchanged glances, hers combative, his amused.

He said, ‘Before you label me a male chauvinist, I agree that’s the way it is these days but—’

‘You don’t have to approve, you were going to say?’ she interrupted tartly. ‘That’s almost the same thing.’

‘Don’t put words into my mouth, Rhiannon,’ he advised coolly. ‘I was going to say that, if Mary had wanted to continue her career and her particular lifestyle, she should have at least taken into consideration Matt’s side of the story before she married him.’