- -
- 100%
- +
Pride had had her up at six. By nine there hadn’t been an inch of her body which wasn’t attended to, from the top of her sleekly groomed head to her perfectly pedicured toenails. Fiona had told herself that even if there was only the remotest chance of having to remove her shoes and stockings—or any other part of her clothing—she was going to be as perfect underneath as she was on the surface.
Oddly enough, it had been the surface clothes which had ended up causing her the most trouble. Downright perverse, in Fiona’s opinion, when she had a wardrobe chock-full of the best clothes money could buy.
The fact that it was winter should have made the choice of outfit easier. But it hadn’t. The black suits she favoured for work had seemed too funereal, her grey outfits a little washed out, now that her summer tan had long faded. Chocolate-brown and camel were last year’s colours. She certainly wasn’t going to show up in them! Which had left cream or taupe. Fiona never wore loud colours. Or white.
Certainly not white, had come the bitter thought.
She had dithered till a decision had simply had to be made. Time was beginning to run out.
In desperation, she’d settled on a three-piece trouser-suit in a lightweight cream wool. It had straightleg trousers, a V-necked waistcoat and a long-sleeved lapelled jacket. The buttons on the waistcoat were covered, but rimmed in gold, so a necklace would have been overdone for daytime.
But she had slipped eighteen carat gold earrings into her pierced ears and a classically styled gold watch onto her wrist—both gifts from one-time admirers. Her shoes and bag were tan, and made of the softest leather. They’d cost a small fortune. Make-up had been kept to a minimum, her mouth and nails a subtle brown. Her perfume was another gift from an admirer, who’d said it was as exotic and sensual as she was.
Finally, she’d been fairly satisfied with her appearance, and just before ten had left her flat, ready to face the woman who’d almost destroyed her.
‘But I rose again, Kathryn,’ Fiona said aloud as she turned off the highway and headed for Kenthurst. ‘Just like the phoenix.’
Fiona laughed, well aware that the likes of Noni w ould not even have known what the phoenix was. ‘You’ve come a long way, honey,’ she complimented herself. ‘A long, long way. Worth a few nerves to show Philip’s darling mama just how far!’
The sun broke through the clouds at that point, bouncing off the shiny polished surfaces of the silver car and into her eyes. Fiona reached for the designer sunglasses which she kept tucked in the car door pocket, slipped them on, and smiled.
Fifteen minutes later she was driving slowly past the Forsythe place, her confident smile long replaced by a puzzled frown.
It had changed in ten years. And she wasn’t talking about the high brick wall which now surrounded the property. Somehow, it looked smaller than she remembered, and less intimidating. Yet it was still a mansion; still very stately, with its imitation Georgian facade; still perched up on a hill high enough to have an uninterrupted three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the surrounding countryside.
Fiona stopped the car, stared hard at the house, then slowly nodded up and down. Of course! How silly of her! It wasn’t the house which had changed but herself, and her perceptions. After all, she was no stranger to mansions these days, and no longer overawed by the evidence of wealth.
Her confident smile restored, Fiona swung the Audi around and returned to the driveway, where the iron gates were already open, despite the security camera on top of the gatepost and an intercom system built into the cement postbox.
It seemed careless to leave the gates open, but perhaps Kathryn had opened them in readiness for her arrival. Her watch did show two minutes to eleven. Fiona drove on through, a glance in the rear-vision mirror revealing that the gates remained open behind her.
Oh, well. She shrugged. Kathryn Forsythe’s security wasn’t her problem, but it seemed silly to go to the trouble and expense of having all that put in without using it. Such rich remote properties would be a target for break-ins and burglaries. Maybe even kidnappings. You couldn’t be too careful these days.
Admittedly, Philip’s branch of the family wasn’t as high-profile as his two uncles’. His uncle Harold was a captain of industry, owning several food and manufacturing companies as well as a string of racehorses, whilst his uncle Arnold was a major player in the media and hotels, along with expensive hobbies such as polo and wine.
Philip’s father, Malcolm, had been the youngest of the three Forsythe boys and had gone into corporate law, the law firm he’d established handling all the legal transactions for his older brothers’ business dealings. Philip had once told her that his father was probably richer than his two brothers, because he didn’t waste money on gambling and other women.
All three Forsythe brothers had married beautiful girls from well-to-do society families, thereby increasing their wealth and securing a good gene pool for their children. Harold had sired a mixed brood of five children, and Arnold three strapping sons. Malcolm had only had the one child, Philip.
Surprisingly, none of the brothers had ever divorced, despite rumours of serious philandering by Harold and Arnold. All three Forsythe wives were regularly photographed by the Sunday papers and gossip magazines, showing off their tooth-capped smiles along with their latest face-lifts. They seemed to spend half their lives at fashion shows, charity balls and racing carnivals.
Fiona had once been impressed by it all.
Not any more, however.
Her brown eyes were cool as they swept over the groomed lawns and perfectly positioned trees, her pulse not beating one jot faster as she drew closer to the house. A little different from the first time she’d come up this driveway, her heart pounding like a jackhammer, her stomach in sickening knots. Back then she’d been as nervous as the heroine in Rebecca, driving up to Manderley with her wealthy new husband at her side.
Fiona could well understand that poor young bride’s feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. She’d felt exactly the same way back then. Ironic that on her unexpected return to Manderley she was now the first wife.
The house grew larger on approach. But of course it was large. Wide, white and two-storeyed, with a huge pitched grey slate roof and long, tall, symmetrically placed windows. It looked English in design, and somewhat in setting, with its clumps of English trees and ordered gardens. Nothing, however, could disguise the Australian-ness of the bright clear blue sky, or the mountains in the distance, also blue with the haze from the millions of eucalypti which covered them.
The tarred and winding driveway finally gave way to a more formal circular section, with a red gravel surface and a Versailles-like fountain in the middle. The Audi crunched to a halt in front of the white-columned portico and almost immediately the front door opened and the lady of the house stepped out into the sunshine.
Fiona frowned as she stared over at Philip’s mother.
Kathryn was still as superbly groomed as she remembered. And just as elegant, in a royal blue woollen dress, with pearls at her throat and not a blonde hair out of place.
But she looked older. Much older. Probably even around her real age.
She had to be coming up for sixty, Fiona supposed. Ten years ago she’d been in her late forties, though she’d looked no more than thirty-five.
She appeared frail as well now, as though the stuffing had been knocked out of her. There was a slight stoop about her shoulders and a sadness in her face which struck an annoyingly sympathetic chord in Fiona.
Her whole insides revolted at this unlikely response. Sympathy for Kathryn Forsythe? Never!
Steeling herself against such a heresy, Fiona pulled the keys out of the ignition, practically threw them in her handbag, climbed out and swung the door shut. Sweeping off her sunglasses, she turned to face her one-time enemy, waiting coolly to be appraised and not recognised.
Kathryn’s lovely but faded blue eyes did sweep slowly over her from head to toe, but, as Fiona had predicted to Owen, there was not a hint of recognition, let alone rejection. Nothing but acceptance and approval. One could even go so far as to say...admiration.
Oddly, this did not give Fiona the satisfaction she’d hoped for. She didn’t feel triumphant at all. Suddenly, she felt mean and underhand.
‘You must be Fiona,’ Kathryn said in a softly gentle voice, smiling warmly as she came forward and held out a welcoming hand.
Fiona found herself totally disarmed, smiling stiffly back and taking the offered hand while her mind fairly whirled. She’s only being nice to you because you look the way you do, she warned herself. Don’t ever think this woman has really changed, not down deep, where it matters. She’s still a terrible snob. If she ever found out who you really were, she’d cut you dead, and, yes, she’d be furious. Make no mistake about that. So put on a good act here, darling heart, make your abject apologies and get the hell out of Manderley!
‘And you must be Mrs Forsythe,’ she returned in her now well-educated voice, a far cry from the rough Aussie drawl she’d once used, with slang and the odd swear-word thrown in for good measure.
‘Not to you, my dear. You must call me Kathryn.’ Philip’s mother actually linked arms with her, gathering her to her side and giving her a little squeeze.
Fiona froze. The Kathryn Forsythe of ten years before would never have done such a thing, not even to her friends and relatives. Philip’s mother had been a reserved and distant woman with an aversion to touching.
‘After all,’ Kathryn went on, before Fiona could recover from her shock to form a single word, ‘we’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks, aren’t we?’
Fiona should have put her right then and there, but she hesitated too long and the moment was lost.
‘So how did your wedding go yesterday, dear?’ Kathryn asked as she steered Fiona over towards the house. ‘You had lovely weather for it, considering it’s August.’
‘It...um...it went very well,’ Fiona replied truthfully, while she tried to work out how to tactfully escape this increasingly awkward situation.
‘I can imagine everything you do goes very well, my dear,’ Kathryn complimented her. ‘I’m already impressed with your punctuality and your appearance. A lot of people these days don’t seem to care how late they are for an appointment, or how they look when they get there. I’ve always felt that clothes reveal a lot about a man, and everything about a woman. You and I are going to get along very well, my dear. Very well indeed.’
Now that sounded more like the old Kathryn, Fiona thought.
To be strictly honest, however, she now shared some of those sentiments. She couldn’t abide people who were late for business appointments. Neither was she impressed with the slovenly dressed, or the grunge brigade. Fiona had found that people who didn’t care about their own appearance were usually not much good at their jobs.
You mean you judge a book by its cover these days, darling? an annoying inner voice pointed out drily.
The sound of a car speeding up the driveway interrupted her distracting train of thought.
‘That will be my son,’ Kathryn said, just as a black Jaguar with tinted windows roared into view. It braked hard inches before the gravel section, then passed sedately by them before purring to a cat-like halt on the other side of her Audi.
Panic had Fiona jamming her sunglasses back over her suddenly terrified eyes and praying Philip wouldn’t recognise her with them on.
‘I thought you said Phi...your son...couldn’t come today,’ she pronounced tautly.
Fortunately, Kathryn didn’t seem to notice her agitation. ‘He rang a while back on his mobile to say that Corinne—she’s his fiancée—had woken with a migraine this morning and begged off going on the harbour cruise luncheon they were supposed to attend. He didn’t fancy going alone so decided to pop home for lunch instead. He rang off before I could remind him you would be here as well.’
Fiona found herself staring over at the car. From the side, she couldn’t see the driver, because of the tinted windows. Several fraught seconds ticked away without Philip making an appearance, and she found herself waiting breathlessly for that moment when the driver’s door would open.
Fiona began to feel sick to her stomach. It had been a dreadful mistake coming here today, she was beginning to realise. A dreadful, dreadful mistake!
As though in slow motion, the door finally opened and his dark head came into view, followed by his shoulders—his very broad shoulders. Once fully upright, he turned to glance at them over the bonnet of the car.
Was she imagining it or was he staring at her? Surely not. She had to be imagining it. He couldn’t have recognised her, not with her sunglasses on!
She was being paranoid. Besides, he was wearing sunglasses too. Impossible to see where his eyes were being directed, or to determine their expression with those masking shades on.
Which was a reassuring factor from her own point of view, because the moment he strode round the front of his car and started towards them Fiona’s eyes began eating him up in exactly the same way they had the very first day he’d walked into Gino’s fish and chip shop ten years before.
Yet he was only wearing jeans and a grey sweater. Nothing fancy. Just casual clothes.
Philip the man, she was forced to accept, was even more impressive than Philip the youth, the promise of future perfection now fulfilled. His long, lanky frame was all filled out, his once boyishly handsome face fined down to a more mature and classical handsomeness, his thick unruly brown hair now elegantly tamed and groomed.
At twenty, Philip had been dishy.
At thirty, he was downright dangerous.
Kathryn disengaged her arm from Fiona’s as Philip approached, moving forward to give her son an astonishing hug. ‘It’s so nice to see you, son. I hope you didn’t drive too fast, now.’
‘I never drive too fast, Mother dearest. Can’t afford to get any blemishes on my record.’
‘My son’s a lawyer,’ his mother proudly explained, with a smiling glance over her shoulder at Fiona.
Philip’s gaze swung to Fiona as well, who felt as if there was a vice around her chest, squeezing tightly.
‘So, who have we here, Mother?’ he said quite nonchalantly. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’
A little of the pressure eased, though a perverse dismay was added to the emotions besieging Fiona at that moment. So he hadn’t recognised her! She shouldn’t have been disappointed. But, stupidly, she was. He’d once claimed he would never forget her, that he would love her till the end of time.
‘The end of time’ apparently expired after ten years, came the pained thought. If truth be told, it had probably begun to run out the moment she’d exited his life.
Philip’s father had been so right about his son’s so-called love. It had had about as much substance as fairy-floss.
‘Your memory for some things is appalling these days, Philip,’ his mother said, blissfully unaware of the irony within those words. ‘Fiona is the wedding co-ordinator from Five-Star Weddings that I was telling you about on Friday. I’m sure I mentioned I was having lunch with her today. Fiona, this is Philip, the absent-minded groom. Philip, this is Fiona. Fiona Kirby, wasn’t it, dear?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘How do you do, Mrs Kirby?’ he greeted her.
‘Miss,’ she corrected sharply, and his eyebrows lifted above the sunglasses.
‘My mistake. Sorry. Ms Kirby.’
‘Oh, don’t call her that, Philip,’ his mother said with a soft laugh. ‘We’re already on a first-name basis, aren’t we, my dear? As I said to Fiona, we’ll be spending quite a deal of time together in the near future so we might as well be friends.’
Fiona wanted to scream and make a dash for the car. Friends? She was no more capable of being friends with Philip and his mother than she was of being friends with a pair of serial killers.
Yet for the moment she was trapped. Owen would kill her if she alienated such an influential family as the Forsythes, thereby damaging the reputation of Five-Star Weddings. And, frankly, she wouldn’t blame him. She’d been very foolish indeed to come here in person and risk all for the sake of her infernal pride.
‘You’ve already decided on Five-Star Weddings to do the wedding?’ Philip asked his mother, a frown bunching his forehead.
‘I certainly have. The moment I met Fiona I knew she was the right person to do the job.’
‘Did you indeed? How interesting. I, however, would like to see what she has in mind before any decisions are made and any contracts signed.’
‘Lawyers!’ Kathryn exclaimed, with a roll of her eyes and an apologetic glance towards Fiona. ‘They see trouble at every turn.’
‘Not at all,’ Philip countered smoothly. ‘I simply don’t believe in rushing into anything, especially when it comes to business dealings. The world is full of conartists and shysters. I know nothing of Five-Star Weddings other than what you told me over the phone. And absolutely nothing about Ms Kirby here, except what I can see for myself. As attractive as her outer package might be, in reality she might be anybody!’
Fiona stiffened, then saw red. Be damned with what Owen thought. Be damned with everything. She was not going to let Philip stand there and insult her.
Sweeping off her sunglasses, she glared up at him, her cold fury only increasing when he still didn’t recognise her.
‘Five-Star Weddings has an impeccable record and reputation, Mr Forsythe,’ she stated through clenched teeth. ’As do I. Might I remind you that your mother solicited this appointment, not the other way around? Nevertheless, I can show you many personal letters of recommendation, plus extensive portfolios of weddings I have arranged. Believe it or not, I am heavily booked at the moment, and only came here as a favour for my business partner, who agreed to this appointment without consulting me.
‘Under the circumstances, it would be better if you found someone else, Kathryn,’ she directed at Philip’s mother. ‘Lovely to have met you.’
Kathryn grabbed her arm before she could make good her escape. ‘Please, don’t go!’ she cried, before rounding on her son, her voice trembling and full of reproach. ‘What on earth’s got into you, Philip? I’ve never known you be so rude before!’
‘I wasn’t being rude. I was trying to be sensible. Anyway, given that Ms Kirby says she overbooked, it’s better you do hire someone else.’
‘But I don’t want someone else! I want Fiona. She’s the one who was recommended. On top of that, I like her. You’d do the job personally, wouldn’t you, dear, if I paid you double your usual fee?’
‘Well, I... I...’
‘Mother, for pity’s sake, you don—’
‘Philip!’ his mother interrupted sternly, the stubborn and autocratic Kathryn of ten years ago emerging for a few moments. ‘You and Corinne asked me to organise your wedding and I am only too happy to do so. But with your proposed wedding date only ten weeks off, and your bride-to-be overseas for most of that time, I will need help. I want Fiona to be that help. Please don’t be difficult about this.’
Philip stood there silently for several tense seconds, his shoulders squared, his mouth grim.
Fiona didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It really was a bizarre situation.
Suddenly, Philip swept off his sunglasses and stared deep into her eyes, his own no longer masked.
They had always been his most attractive feature, his eyes. A vivid blue and deeply set, with a dark rim around the iris which gave them an added intensity, both of colour and expression. The first time he’d looked at her all those years ago, across the shop counter, her knees had gone to jelly.
He stared at her now and she stared boldly back, her knees only marginally shaky.
His gaze raked her face, his expression puzzled and searching. For what? she thought angrily. Was he finally being bothered by a faint glimmer of familiarity? Was his subconscious teasing him with all those times he’d looked deeply into her eyes and told her she was the most incredible, adorable, irresistible girl in the world?
Quite abruptly, his eyes cooled to a bland, infuriatingly unreadable expression.
‘I apologise,’ he said, but insincerely, she believed. ‘I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your reputation. I have to confess to a certain cynicism these days, especially in matters of business. I’m sure Five-Star Weddings is without peer in its field and I’m sure you’re one of its star co-ordinators.’
‘She certainly is,’ his mother joined in, looking both relieved and pleased. ‘You should have heard the photographer rave. He said Fiona was the very best in the business.’
‘I’m sure,’ Philip murmured. ‘Still, perhaps Fiona could humour me a little by coming inside and telling us some more about herself. But first, I’m dying for some decent coffee, Mother dearest. Do you think you could make me some? I know it’s Brenda’s day off, but you make much better coffee than she does anyway.’
‘Flatterer!’ Kathryn returned, but she was beaming.
‘What about you, Fiona?’ Philip said, with the sort of suave smoothness she both desired and despised in a man. ‘You look like a coffee girl to me.’
‘Coffee would be nice,’ she agreed, with a smooth smile of her own. She would have liked to tell him where to shove his coffee, but things had moved beyond her making any further fuss, or flouncing off in some dramatic exit. She had to see this unfortunate scenario through now, or Owen would kill her! But come tomorrow she was going to fall mysteriously ill and be unable to take on any new clients.
‘I’ll take Fiona through to the terrace,’ Philip informed his mother.
‘Oh, yes, do,’ she replied. ‘It’s lovely out there today. I won’t be long.’
Kathryn hurried off to do her son’s bidding. Another vast change in the woman’s character. She’d never been sweet and accommodating in the past. She’d expected everyone else to do her bidding.
‘This way,’ Philip murmured, taking Fiona’s elbow rather forcefully and steering her speedily inside, across the spacious marble foyer and down the wide cool hallway which bisected the bottom floor of the house.
Fiona barely had time to scoop in a couple of steadying breaths before she was ushered through a pair of white French doors onto an enormous sun-drenched terrace which stretched the length of the house.
It was an area she’d never been, or seen before. Probably new, she decided.
As Philip directed her towards the closest grouping of outdoor furniture Fiona replaced her sunglasses and glanced around, her wedding co-ordinator’s eye automatically taking over. Kathryn wouldn’t need to book a special place for the reception, she realised. This setting could look magnificent, with the right kind of marquee and the right lighting.
There wasn’t just the one terrace. There were two. The top one conveniently had shelter, with a pergolastyle roof which had slats one could open or shut. The next terrace, much longer and wider than the first, was tiled in terracotta and incorporated a large rectangular swimming pool, lined at each end by Corinthian columns of grey marble. It reminded Fiona of a photograph she’d once seen of a pool in ancient Rome. All that was missing was the nude statues.
At each end of the terraces lay an extensive garden, which was distinctly tropical, full of ferns and palms and rich green shrubs of all kinds. Oddly, it didn’t look out of place, exuding an exotic and sensual pull on the senses, making one long for the warm, balmy evenings of summer.
Fiona could easily envisage a near-naked Philip, stretched out along the edge of the pool, his eyes shut, one hand languidly trailing through the cool blue water. She could almost feel the coolness of that water on her heated skin as she imagined swimming towards him, stopping right next to him, then taking that wickedly idle hand and lifting it to her hot... wet...flesh.