Margaret Way - Diamonds are for Marriage - The Australian's Society Bride

“It’s a wonder I’m not purple!” Rupert bellowed. “I thought you were different, but you’re like every other god-dammed female.”

“That’s enough, Dad,” Boyd said, rising to his feet. “I consider myself honoured that Leona has consented to marry me. And, I have to tell you, she needed persuading.”

Rupert swore violently.

“Okay, that’s it! We’re done here!” Boyd put out a hand to Leona. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going.”

She took Boyd’s hand. “What have you got against me, Rupert?” she asked as Boyd started to draw her away. “Is there something I should know about? You may be disappointed that Boyd won’t fall in with your plans, but you’re much more than disappointed, aren’t you? You find the idea intolerable. What is the real reason you’re so angry? There has to be one.”

“Don’t do it,” Rupert said, looking fiercely into her eyes. “And that’s an order.” His voice was harsh with authority. “If you know what’s good for you, your father and that upstart Robbie, you’ll do as I say.” As he spoke the blood was draining from his face, leaving a marked pallor. He looked far from a well man. Indeed, he looked as if he was suffering a psychotic episode.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Boyd demanded, brilliant blue eyes narrowing to slits.

For answer, Rupert lifted his heavy head, laughing darkly. “You’ll be waiting a long time before you’ll take the reins from me, my son!”

Arrogance, but the arrogance of achievement, settled on Boyd like a cloak. “I’ve as good as taken over the reins now, might I remind you, Dad? How could you threaten Leo and her family in such a way? I can tell you now you’ll have me to deal with if you try to hurt them in any way. You may be put out by our decision—you’ve spent a lifetime imposing your will on us all—but this time you won’t get anyone to back you. The family is very happy with me in the driver’s seat. So are the shareholders. So were you, for that matter. Leona is, by anyone’s standards, a beautiful, gifted, cultivated young woman. You’ve always treated her most kindly. What’s the huge problem now?”

“It’s not a good thing for you two to marry,” Rupert said rigidly, adopting his familiar autocratic tone.

Boyd tightened his hold on Leona’s trembling hand. “Stop talking rubbish. You know what you’re saying is ridiculous. There’s no impediment whatever—legally, morally or socially—to Leona and me marrying. We’re not even full second cousins. You’ll have to do better than that.”

Leona, mind racing, broke in, her green eyes fixed on Rupert’s face. “If you think there is some impediment, Rupert, you should speak out.” She could hear the fear in her own voice. Rupert’s violent reaction could be carrying them into dangerous waters.

There was a long silence, during which Rupert’s eyes drifted to the picture of Serena, which had hung on his wall since her death.

Leona heard the mounting anger and the challenge in Boyd’s voice. “So what are you going to come up with now, Dad?” he asked with icy contempt. “Guess what, Leo’s your half-sister? I wouldn’t put anything past you. You’d defame Leo’s dead mother. You’d defame my own beautiful mother, who had to tolerate so much from you. Only it won’t wash. There was no affair between you and Serena, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest. God, you disgust me!”

Abruptly, life for Leona had moved beyond challenging. Her breath was locked in her chest. “This isn’t happening, is it?” She looked to Boyd for confirmation. It came to her that he appeared much the more formidable of the two men.

“Sit down again, Leo,” Boyd said, putting gentle pressure on her shoulder and easing her into her chair. “Don’t let this upset you. This is only Dad playing his rotten games. He wanted Serena. My mother knew that. She told me years later that Dad had developed a real yen for Serena—the unobtainable—but Serena was an innocent. She didn’t even know about your secret infatuation, did she, Dad? She was a young wife and mother and she and my mother were very close. Serena would never have betrayed her husband, her child or her close friend even if she had known of your aberrant feelings.”

Leona’s voice was little above a whisper. “No, she wouldn’t have,” she said. She might have been only eight, but she remembered her mother vividly—her vital presence, her wonderful sense of fun, her endless grace, her capacity for loving, their secure family unit. These attributes had informed her life. “Is that why you’ve been so kind to me all these years, Rupert? Because I remind you of my mother?”

“The one woman he couldn’t have,” Boyd said, with no sympathy at all for his father. In fact, he was staring at him with open disgust on his face. “It follows, as it does with men like Dad who spend their lives in competition with their sons, I couldn’t be allowed to have you. My father is paranoid about losing. He lost my mother’s love very early on. Didn’t you, Dad? It took a while but then she began to see through you.”

“Shut up, Boyd!” Rupert gritted, his handsome features cold and set.

“Is that it, Rupert?” Leona appealed to Boyd’s father, sounding desolate. “You wanted to deny your own son?”

Difficult as it was to comprehend, there was a great ambivalence in Rupert Blanchard’s complex nature. Existing simultaneously with a great love and pride in his son and heir was a tremendous level of competition and rivalry. That conflict had found its most powerful expression right here and now. Boyd had to be denied Leona as he had been denied Serena. Not that Serena had been aware of his illicit feelings or the conflicts within him. Rupert couldn’t attempt to explain it. It just was.

Rupert had passed to a stage where he no longer tried to formulate answers. All his life he’d been under tremendous stress. People imagined that being a scion of the very rich was fortunate indeed. He’d had no real choices in life. His father had made it very clear to him that he was to take over Blanchards, run it with the same hard-headed skills and determination as the men of his family did. His sisters were permitted to do as they liked. Gerri had followed an academic career, while Josephine, who kept well clear of the limelight, had married her medical scientist, had four children and led a happy, fulfilled life. Not him. His beautiful Alexa had escaped him. In spirit at least. Serena had been a mid-life aberration. It could never have come to anything. But he had not forgotten. He had given Serena’s daughter, Leona, her mirror image, every advantage. She was a lovely young woman in her own right. Now he was finding it unbearable for his son and Leona to be looking at him in the way that they were.

Rupert groaned aloud, then buried his face in his hands. He had always thought that he knew Alexa well, yet he had never known that she had discovered his secret infatuation. Not only that, Alexa had confided his secret to their son. Why not? Mother and son had always been very close.

The humiliation was not to be borne. Neither was it to be permitted. Rupert Blanchard reached out for a small trophy that sat on his desk, then crushed it in his bare hand.

AS THEY CAME out of the study and walked quickly towards the entrance hall, they saw Jinty poised in an attitude of listening at the bottom of the staircase. Obviously she was wondering what was going on, so she had taken the opportunity to eavesdrop. What they didn’t know was that Jinty was also taking a near primitive satisfaction in the fact that Tonya, her own sister, had missed out. Not that she had ever had a chance, but then Tonya had never really caught on to the hard realities of life.