Margaret Way - Six Australian Heroes

‘Oh, all right!’ She turned away hastily and went back to wrapping cutlery.

Two hours before the guests arrived Rhiannon was happy with all her preparations, and she decided to take a break, checking up on the veranda, where Cliff was setting things up, on her way out for a breath of fresh air.

Three long trestle tables clothed in dark green linen had been set up for the food and a portable bar was tucked into a corner. Smaller round tables and chairs were scattered about as well as some potted lemon trees.

Candle glasses sat on the tables and lined the edge of the veranda. A bowl of roses and a lovely silver six-branch candelabrum with pink candles dominated the main table.

She moved the roses and the candelabrum to show them off more effectively and repositioned the baskets of linen-wrapped cutlery and stood back to study the effect.

Satisfied, she looked at the sky but it was clear and there was no breeze.

‘Good night for it, thank heavens!’ she said to Cliff who was working behind the bar.

‘Not only that, we’ve got a full moon tonight. It’s quite a sight from up here,’ he replied.

Rhiannon looked enchanted. ‘I believe you!’

She decided to enjoy the rose garden for a few minutes before she went indoors again. The sun was starting to set. A flock of corellas, white parrots without the sulphur crests of cockatoos, was wheeling and squawking as they made the best of the last of the daylight before they put themselves to bed.

There was a sprinkler system watering a section of the garden and lawn and raising the rich scent of damp earth and wet grass.

She stopped and breathed in deeply—it really was the most beautiful place and it brought back memories of her home before the crash. Although it hadn’t been as grand as Southall, her parents had had a lovely estate perched in the Blue Mountains above Sydney.

She sniffed suddenly as she thought of it, and her father and mother.

Tears trickled down her cheeks.

She brushed them away with her fingers and turned to go in, only to bump into Lee Richardson.

He put out a hand to steady her. ‘Rhiannon?’ He frowned down at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She pulled a hanky from her pocket and blew her nose. ‘Some pollen, maybe, that’s all.’

He looked unconvinced and she rushed into speech, the first thing that came to mind.

‘What on earth have you been doing?’

He looked down at his sweat-soaked T-shirt, track pants and bare feet. He also had a towel slung round his neck. ‘Boxing.’

Her lips parted in surprise. ‘You’re a—boxer?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s a horrible sport!’

‘There you go, making snap judgements again,’ he drawled. ‘Done scientifically and with all the proper rules, it’s actually a great way for boys to let off steam and curb their sometimes naturally destructive instincts—as I should know. Walk with me,’ he added. ‘I’m going for a swim.’

She hesitated then fell into step beside him. ‘What do you mean? And who have you been fighting?’

He laughed. ‘A bunch of late-teen boys at a sports club the family set up and endowed some years ago. I always try to show my face when I’m here.’

Rhiannon blinked a couple of times. ‘That—sounds rather laudable if only it wasn’t boxing. And why should you know about boys needing to let off steam et cetera?’

They’d reached the pool and he unwound the towel and dropped it onto a sun lounger. He also looked at her quizzically.

‘Obviously apart from having been a boy yourself,’ she amended. ‘What I mean is, it sounded rather pointed the way you said it.’

He shrugged. ‘It was. I had a pretty torrid late-teen period myself. I thought I was invincible when it came to cars, bikes and speed, to girls and the high life.’

Rhiannon stared at him wide-eyed.

He grimaced. ‘It’s not so unusual, you know.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she said slowly. ‘I know it’s not—especially when you’re rich.’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ he agreed.

‘So boxing saved you?’

He nodded. ‘Plus a wise mentor. Not that I went on with boxing but I did learn to channel all that energy more productively. I took up polo.’

Rhiannon looked heavenwards. ‘How very élite!’

‘But competitive, physically challenging and dangerous,’ he murmured.

‘I’d still like to bet it didn’t change your dangerous ways with girls,’ she said involuntarily.

‘Maybe not,’ he conceded and pulled off his T-shirt, ‘although this may interest you. They didn’t seem to mind.’

She was about to say ‘Tell me another!’—but a vision of Lee Richardson as a virile twenty-year-old with all those dark good looks and a bit of a bad-boy reputation planted itself in her mind and she shivered suddenly.

They would and they wouldn’t, she thought. Yes, they’d have known they were playing with fire but when he smiled at them as she’d seen him do two days before in an airport lounge, they’d have melted.

They still melted. She herself had melted.

She shook her head to dissolve the image. ‘Surely you had plenty of opportunity to channel your energy productively on all those cattle stations in the family?’ she objected.

‘Of course.’ He smiled fleetingly. ‘I was mustering cattle as a kid. But I also spent long years at boarding-school then university.’

He stripped off his track pants, revealing a red and white pair of hipster board shorts, and he placed his hands on his hips. ‘Why don’t you swim too? After a long, hard day slaving over a hot stove you deserve it.’

Rhiannon realised she was staring at him. Again. And again it was hard to stop because he was a work of art. Lean and tall with long, strong legs. Those wide shoulders tapering to a taut, narrow diaphragm; dark, springy hair on his chest and thighs; sleek, smooth, tanned skin sheathing streamlined muscles.

‘I—I don’t have a costume,’ she stammered as she backed away a couple of steps and was brought up short by a pillar.

‘You mean you weren’t at all tempted to try out our fabulous beaches if nothing else?’ he queried gravely but she knew he was laughing at her confusion as he followed her and came to stand right in front of her.

‘I was actually going to splash out and buy a new bikini,’ she replied as tartly as she was able to, considering that her breathing was ragged and her senses were leaping about like any teenage girl’s.

‘There’s not a lot of difference between some bikinis and a bra and undies,’ he said meditatively.

‘There is for me,’ she contradicted. ‘Besides which, with your reputation—’

He started to laugh. ‘Not only am I reformed and a lot older but I never did make a practice of leaping on girls even in their underwear without an invitation.’

‘It’s how you go about getting that invitation,’ she began but he stopped her short.

‘Rhiannon,’ he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear—for once she hadn’t done it herself, ‘I would say we’re both a long way from either the indiscretions or disappointments of our earlier years. So don’t blame the effect I have on you,’ he looked at her breasts as they moved up and down agitatedly in tune with her uneven breathing, ‘on anything but a spontaneous attraction. I will do the same.’ His gaze came back to hers and it was curiously sombre and probing.

‘I don’t trust spontaneous attractions,’ she said a little raggedly. ‘Not only that—if you must know!—the whole concept irritates the life out of me.’ She shook her head frustratedly.

‘Because you don’t feel you’re completely in charge of yourself?’ he suggested drily.