Lindsay Armstrong - A Marrying Man?

‘Go on,’ she commanded.

‘Well…’ He sat back. ‘Twenty-three, been to all the right schools and finishing schools, mixed in the right society, could ride almost before you could walk, were a show-jumper—those are the kind of things I came up with. Plus the fact that Daddy has never been able to deny you anything, apparently, including this little spread.’ He looked around. ‘Then there’s the reputation you seem to have acquired for being—stuck-up.’

She sat forward and propped her chin on her hands. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Several people.’

Georgia laughed. ‘I wonder if you researched any of my friends? It doesn’t sound like it to me.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You seem to be curiously unmoved by these allegations, Georgia,’ he said reflectively.

‘I am, mainly because they’re untrue, so perhaps I could set the record straight, Will?’ She eyed him, then continued without waiting for a reply, ‘I did do a bit of show-jumping in my teens, but it was never a career or an ongoing passion with me—just the kind of thing a lot of girls who love horses dabble in for a while.

‘And my father didn’t buy this place for me. I inherited it from my grandmother, as a matter of fact, but what I inherited was a ramshackle old set of stables on twenty acres of bush, whereas what you see today,’ she said proudly, ‘is the result of my own efforts.

‘Yes, I did borrow from my father for some of the improvements, but I’ve paid him back every cent and I’ve turned this place into a successful spelling farm where people know they can send their racehorses between campaigns to rest, be pampered and cared for excellently. In other words I’ve turned it into a thoroughly good business proposition. I support myself entirely from it and it has the added advantage of being something I love doing.’

‘I stand corrected,’ William Brady murmured, although he didn’t appear to be chastened in the slightest, as he proceeded to demonstrate. ‘What about the men you’ve been associated with?’

‘All those men I gave my doorkey to?’ Georgia said with genuine amusement in her eyes. ‘Don’t you believe a word of it, Will! I’m surprised someone didn’t tell you how frigid and stuck-up I am.’

‘So they didn’t represent a long line of affairs?’

‘Hardly any of them, Will. Hardly any of them,’ Georgia said gently, but for some reason a glint of anger was back in her eyes. Although she added lightly enough, ‘Nor was Neil Dettweiler in love with me, Will. I really would have known, and taken great pains to avoid it, you see. And do you honestly believe a man in love would want to exhibit his beloved in the altogether for the Archibald Prize?’ She put her head on one side and scanned him with rueful amusement.

But he laughed back at her. ‘It’s not such an insult, you know. For a man in love who also happens to be an artist—’

‘Possibly not,’ Georgia conceded. ‘I mean, to want to paint the portrait, but not the exhibiting bit—not the kind of man I would want to be in love with me, at any rate.’

‘Then do you have any explanation for your name being in his diary, your key amongst his things, for the way he’s asking for you?’ he asked drily.

Georgia stared at him and felt her skin prickle as she realised that this man simply didn’t believe her—and that on certain evidence which she simply couldn’t explain he was probably within his rights not to. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said baldly at last. ‘It’s a complete mystery to me.’

‘Would it be too difficult to work on the assumption that he hid this grand passion for you from you, Georgia?’

‘Do you mean…?’

‘Yes. Come to Sydney with me tomorrow morning. What have you got to lose?’

‘I’ve got horses —’

‘Do you have no one to help you with them? For a day or two?’

Georgia tightened her mouth, then looked at him coldly. ‘How do I know this isn’t some plot?’

‘What kind of plot? Oh, come now, Georgia—’ William Brady looked at her quizzically ‘—you’re really not my type. I thought you might have sensed that.’

‘Easy to say, Mr Shakespeare. Easy to say,’ Georgia taunted. ‘There’s no reason on earth, however, why I should believe a word of what you’ve said—in fact there are a few good reasons for me not to!’

He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it across the table to her. ‘Ring the hospital yourself.’

Georgia stared down at it then rose and walked to the desk. A few minutes later she put the phone down and turned back with a frown to William Brady.

‘Well?’

‘He’s in Intensive Care—they’re not making any predictions at the moment,’ she said slowly. ‘His mother’s with him—they offered to let me speak to her.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind I’ll give…his mother a call myself in a moment. In the meantime, will you come?’

‘But look,’ Georgia said in sudden genuine desperation, ‘what am I going to say to him if I do ?’

William Brady got up, came round the table to her and said with chilling evenness, ‘My dear, I have no idea what is going on—if there’s a new man in your life or whatever—but would it be such an imposition to ask you to come up with some slight reassurance for a poor guy who is hanging between life and death and asking for you?’

‘It’s no good, I can’t sleep like this—look, I’ve told you I’ll come!’

The lights were out, Georgia was in her bed and William Brady was reclining on her tartan sofa, having declined the spare bedroom. It was raining, her bedroom door was open and she’d tossed and turned restlessly for the past hour. ‘You don’t have to treat me as if you’re my jailer,’ she added bitterly.

‘Count sheep,’ he suggested. ‘Or fences, triple gates, water jumps—whatever.’

‘If you really want me to be wide awake, that’s the way to do it, Will,’ she said with irony, and reached over to switch on her bedside lamp. In the weak light her bedroom’s glory, which had caused him to raise his eyebrows wryly earlier, was somewhat dimmed.

She’d used a mixture of cornflower-blue and ivory to decorate it: ivory carpet and cornflower-blue quilt, stitched and appliquéd with ivory flower-heads—it alone was a work of art. Her dressing table and wardrobe were lovely walnut pieces, there was a padded armchair and matching footstool with a magazine rack beside it, a glorious gold-framed print on the wall, of mountains and snow against a lavender sky, and a bowl of exquisite white roses on the dressing table.

‘From an admirer?’ William Brady had said on his way to the bathroom, which could only be reached via the bedroom.

‘You could say so,’ Georgia had replied airily. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, however.’

He had not replied.

Georgia plumped up her pillows angrily and surveyed her tormentor through the open bedroom door. He’d taken off his jacket and shoes but otherwise remained clothed, and he seemed perfectly comfortable and at home on her sofa beneath one of her spare blankets, with his hands folded behind his head.

Not only comfortable but serene, even, she thought darkly, so that you could almost forget that steely little glint he’d had in his eye when he’d told her the bedroom door would remain open for the night. Not to mention all the other things he’d said to her.

‘Tell me about yourself, Will,’ she said, arranging herself comfortably with her arms folded on top of her bedclothes. ‘What do you do for a living? What kind of women do appeal to you—are you married to one, for example? Why do I get the feeling you’re a bit of a dry stick who lives in an ivory tower and feels he can afford to throw stones? Those kind of things.’