Margaret Way - Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor - Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

“Every day of my life I pray for her and for you, Zara. You are so much like Kathryn, it’s as though she’s still with us. Now, I want you to do something for me. Garrick is standing only a few feet away. The two of us are going to stroll over for a chat. Garrick and I always did get on well. He might be smiling at that very frisky girl in the lovely blue dress, but I know where his thoughts are. You must try for a reconciliation, Zara. Too many years have been wasted.”

Beneath the silk of her beautiful bridesmaid’s dress, her heartbeat was urgent. “I’ve told you, Nan. He hates me.” Her grandmother had long since pried out of her her short-lived love affair with Garrick and its disastrous end.

“Garrick is a proud man.” Sibella glanced once more in Garrick’s direction. Garrick Rylance, so tall, bold, bronzed, vividly handsome! He could not have been more striking. His brilliant blue eyes framed by thick sooty lashes any girl would die for. A challenging man was Garrick. Never a devil like her late son-in-law, Dalton. “Garrick has it firmly in his head you threw him over, no matter how often you tried to explain. But I’ve caught him watching you. Garrick might still be angry with you, my darling, but hate you? Never! Neither of you has settled for anyone else, I notice, when both of you could have just about anyone. I find that very telling, don’t you?”

Garrick knew Zara and her grandmother were coming his way. There had scarcely been a second when he hadn’t been aware of Zara, despite the audacious attentions of several young women so hell-bent on flirtation one would have thought their lives depended on it. The one he was with now fitted the bill. She was a real stayer. The sad thing was, he only had eyes for Zara. That was his bitter fate. Being anywhere near her was like being electrified. She looked so beautiful in that pink silk gown, her long dark hair falling like a bolt of shining silk down her back. He loved the exquisite pink roses that dipped in under her ear. It had been a monumental effort trying to keep his eyes off her.

You’re totally messed up, Rylance. He’d told himself that repeatedly. Didn’t do much good. His feelings for Zara would never die. They wouldn’t even die down and it was years later. Maybe he ought to arrange a session with a really good shrink, he thought with a flash of humour.

How to cure obsession—for one particular woman.

He had already spoken to Sibella, of course. He greatly admired her. Zara was very much like her in appearance. Sibella De Lacey, nearing seventy, remained a beautiful woman. She looked after herself and dressed superbly, no doubt aided by the fact that she had retained her slender figure. He knew Sibella liked him. He knew that if Sibella could wave her magic wand she would make everything come right between himself and Zara. That was if Sibella could ever find her lost magic wand.

Zara, still holding Miranda’s lovely bouquet like some magic charm, drew a deep breath. Said a silent prayer. Perhaps she and Garrick could never get back to what they had had, but she had to try.

Her time was running out.

Celebrations continued on into the night, with couples dancing on the rear terrace to a great band who were enjoying themselves as much as anyone else. Others roamed the extensive gardens, which were lit by thousands and thousands of white fairy lights that decked the trees. Flirtations aplenty were going on. A lot of tender hand-holding. Delectable kisses stolen in the scented semidark. One overeager, overenthusiastic young male guest for a bit of fun launched himself into the swimming pool with its flotilla of big beautiful hibiscus blooms, but further silliness on the part of others was swiftly discouraged by an unobtrusive security man, dressed like the other guests, who hauled him out.

Older guests retired to the house, agog at the wonderful renovations. They flowed through the main reception rooms and the library, chattering and exclaiming, coming to settle into the opulent sofas and armchairs to go over the great day in detail and catch up on all the latest news and gossip. Many who had thought of her often that day went to gaze with a moment’s sadness at the life-size portrait of Kathryn Rylance. It hadn’t been seen for quite a while. Certainly not during the reign of the second wife, Leila. Recently it had been taken out of storage, cleaned, reframed and it now hung above the splendid white marble fireplace.

“In its rightful place!” murmured one of Kathryn’s friends to another.

Kathryn Rylance had been such a beautiful gracious woman! How sad that she couldn’t have been here on this day of days, the wedding of her only son. All agreed that Zara was the image of her, both in looks and in manner. All had decided Miranda had deliberately thrown her bouquet to her sister-in-law. Didn’t that declare to the whole world that the two young women were very close? No one had seen such happiness in the Rylance household for far too long.

The King is dead. Long live the King!

By one o’clock in the morning the last of the guests departed in chauffeured limousines that stood waiting for them. This service had been planned well in advance, the thinking being that, very few would be in any condition to drive their own cars. One woman guest was so grateful and maybe so tipsy she started to cry.

“How enormously thoughtful!” she gushed as the chauffeur opened the door for her and her husband.

Her husband, an eminent barrister, agreed. “We’d never get home otherwise, my dear.”

“God bless you, Corin, old son!” another male guest yelled at the top of his voice amid more cheering. “This entire day has been perfect !”

Everyone knew a love match when they saw one. It was enough to make you bawl your eyes out with joy!

At long, long last the house was empty. The army of caterers had attended to every last detail of the clean up before packing their things and leaving. Corin’s housekeeper and the major domo, Hannah and Gil McBride, a very efficient couple in their late forties, taken on by Corin, had retired to their own secluded quarters perhaps an hour ago. Their comfortable bungalow was set in the grounds screened by a grove of luxuriant golden canes and only a short walk to the main house by way of an adjoining covered path.

Zara now felt free to roam.

Garrick had gone on with a party of revellers who obviously had no intention of allowing the night to end. She had no idea when and if he would be back but if he did he knew how to handle the state-of-the-art security system. Lord knew he’d made a huge impression on a number of young women looking for a rich handsome husband. The one in the beautiful blue dress came to mind—Lisa something. She had overheard Lisa telling a highly interested friend, “Garrick is simply gorgeous! He makes me go weak at the knees!”

She wasn’t the only one.

Include yourself!

Silently, Zara wandered in and out of the huge reception rooms, pausing to admire all over again the glorious flower arrangements. It was she who had suggested the florist to Miranda. Wayne was acknowledged as one of the country’s most creative florists and one of the most expensive by a country mile. Wayne had supplied all the flowers for the wedding, the exquisite bouquets for bride and bridesmaids, church, reception and the house. The effects were stunning. No expense had been spared. He could possibly retire if he so chose.

Someone once said the scent of a flower was its soul. She stooped to inhale the intoxicating sweetness of masses and masses of white gardenias arranged in a very tall famille verte Chinese vase with long trailing sprays of jasmine. The whole arrangement was supported by fig branches with their green fruit. She remembered her mother had often used this particular vase for her arrangements. Out of nowhere, she was assailed by the vision and, strangely, the unmistakable perfume of pink frangipani branches. Her mother had liked to mix them in with pink or red azaleas. She retained a little snapshot of her childhood—she and her mother picking armloads from the garden, the two of them so happy, so much the loving mother and daughter. No one should have to lose their mother. It was an awful business. She had mourned her father and, to a degree, Leila. Death required attention. But in no way had their deaths caused the enormous grief and feeling of utter loss she had suffered when she and Corin had lost their mother. Neither her father nor Leila had had room in their lives for her.