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“Ouch, Cleo, that hurt!” She tipped the cat on to the timber deck, then made her way back into the house, briefly checking her appearance in the mirror. She looked composed enough. She quickly ran down the staircase, to the entrance hall. There wasn’t a soul for miles around. Very few people ever ventured along the private road unless invited. For one dismal moment, the luxuriant jungle that enfolded the house now seemed like prison walls. Her father hadn’t wanted her to come until someone could go with her. Who knew when that would be, considering her parents’ heavy workload and her grandmother’s “illness.”
Alyssa’s first thought was that her visitor might be the local police chief, Jack McLean, checking on her. She knew him and his assistant, Constable Bill Pickett, well. Or it could be a neighbor? Maybe even the neighbor? She moved out onto the front veranda, seeing an unfamiliar dark-gray Range Rover pull beneath the canopy of trees, the ground beneath them carpeted with wind-stripped scarlet blossom.
Moments later a man climbed out, turned and looked toward the house.
He was tall, certainly over six feet. Even from a distance she recognized something dynamic about him. He was simply dressed, in a navy T-shirt and jeans, but his superb physique made the casual outfit look classy. Burnished by the blazing sunlight, his sweep of hair gleamed a rich mahogany. Thick and wavy, it was worn fairly long. None of the fashionable short spiky cuts for him. He walked like an athlete, loping along on the balls of his feet. Hero material dropped from the heavens, she thought cynically. After her experience with Brett she was feeling pretty wary of men.
This had to be Adam Hunt, Zizi’s mystery friend. A mystery to be solved, she reminded herself. It was important to her to get to the truth of people. She had taken way too long to get to the truth of Brett, in the process shaking her view of herself and her own judgment. She felt no fear of her visitor, yet her hand on the balustrade was trembling. She couldn’t have said why that was, but she made an urgent effort to steady it.
Her visitor covered the distance between them in no time. He was standing on the graveled drive a few feet away, looking up at her with a curious air of intensity. His eyes were startling in his tanned face, a true aquamarine like the shoals of the Reef waters. They compelled her into an extraordinary awareness of him. A sudden vertigo took hold, and she felt dizzy enough to pitch over the balustrade and into the gardenia bushes. That should get her even more attention.
He smiled faintly. “Miss Sutherland.” It wasn’t a question. He already knew the answer.
She realized belatedly that they were united in the intensity of their appraisal, matching glance for glance. He had a good voice. Voices were important to her. “Adam Hunt,” he said. “I’ve spoken to your father several times. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
She couldn’t manage a proper smile. Not yet. Besides, there were too many loose ends she had to sort out. “Adam Hunt, of course. Please come up.” She knew she sounded very formal, but she wasn’t about to jump into the deep end of instant familiarity—despite that odd moment of…recognition?
“Thank you. I won’t stay long.” He turned his head back toward his vehicle. “I have some provisions for you in the car. I really should get them out first. Some of them will need to go in the fridge.”
“How did you know I’d be here? I didn’t tell a soul.”
“You told your parents.”
“Surely Dad didn’t call you?” she asked in dismay.
He nodded, an amused glint in his eyes. “Fathers generally like to keep an eye on their daughters. It’s very lonely here, very isolated.” He gestured about him as if he wouldn’t recommend the remote plantation to any woman on her own.
“He asked you to keep an eye on me for him?” she asked, her tone incredulous.
Now she was treated to his full smile. It was a smile of enormous attractiveness, sexy yet wonderfully open. He would find it very useful when dealing with women. “Trust me, he loves you.”
“I know that, Mr. Hunt.” She had a desire to put him in his place.
“Adam, please.”
She inclined her head. “I’m well able to look after myself, Adam,” she assured him, sounding more confident than she felt. “Nevertheless, we’re in your debt. I know my father’s thanked you but I want to add my own thanks for being on hand when you were. It must’ve been an extremely upsetting experience.”
He made no attempt to deny it. “I couldn’t believe it. I don’t need to tell you Elizabeth was always so bright and alert, remarkably youthful for her age. I’m surprised it happened the way it did, and so very sorry. We were just getting to know one each other.”
“May I ask why you wanted to get to know her?” It came out more bluntly than she’d intended.
“Certainly. She didn’t tell you?” He kept his eyes trained on her, more than a touch of skepticism in his expression.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought Elizabeth would’ve told you. I understand you were very close.”
“As close as we could be,” she answered without hesitation. “But for some reason she neglected to mention you. You were saying?”
A sardonic pause. “A close relative of mine wanted me to look her up. He knew her back in the old days.”
“And your relative has a name? Perhaps I’ve heard it. Zizi and I had no secrets from each other.” Actually they did. Him!
“Julian Wainwright,” he said.
“Julian Wainwright! Of course! Several of his paintings are in the house. They belonged to the same artists’ colony in the early sixties. His paintings are splendid, especially the seascapes.”
He nodded his agreement. “Julian had to abandon his artistic career for business. He always said he regretted it. You probably know he continued to carry a torch for Elizabeth all his life.”
Was this a joke, or was a huge chasm opening beneath her feet? “I’m sorry, I didn’t know any such thing.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded defensive.
“You didn’t know that at one stage they intended to marry?” He maintained the look of skepticism.
For a moment she felt the reality of her life might be stripped away. “Forgive me, but I have only your word for it. Is Julian Wainwright still alive?”
“Barely.” He shrugged, regret on his handsome face. “His doctors have given him no more than six or seven months.”
“I’m sorry.” Love for her great-aunt and a feeling of apprehension were inextricably entwined. If this was true, how much more had Zizi kept from her, from them all?
“Julian is four years older than Elizabeth,” he was saying. “He’s been in ill health for the last ten years. He was devastated to hear of her death.”
“You told him?”
“Of course.” His tone was clipped. He looked back at the Range Rover. “I should be getting the cold things into the fridge.”
“Can I help? I’m stronger than I look!” This time she managed a shaky smile.
His glance, brilliant as the gemstone, touched her lightly. She was still wearing the outfit she’d traveled in—a white tank top over navy straight-legged pants. “You look fine.”
“A girl does her best!” She spoke flippantly, to combat the heat that washed over her. It irked her to feel more like a flustered teenager than an experienced woman. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” She leaned over the wrought-iron balustrade to call to him. A cluster of white trumpet flowers from the vine-wreathed pillar tickled her cheek, its perfume entrancing.
“I won’t say no,” he said over his shoulder. “Elizabeth always made me a cup.”
Did she indeed? She had to wrestle with that picture. Adam Hunt and Zizi sharing friendly cups of coffee?
Zizi, whatever were you up to?
For the first time in her life, Alyssa began to realize that her great-aunt must’ve had a life about which she knew little or nothing. She was starting to feel desperately hurt at being kept in the dark.
CHAPTER THREE
A BIG MAN, he filled the kitchen. He left Alyssa, who was above average height, feeling small. And it wasn’t only his height and breadth of shoulder that made him so powerful, but a kind of blazing energy. The two of them worked in fraught silence while they packed the provisions away. She took care of the things that went into the refrigerator. He’d brought her more fresh bread, butter and milk, and in addition a carton of cream, vanilla ice cream and some small tubs of fruit yogurt. From the excellent village delicatessen he’d thrown in some King Island Camembert, a chunk of Havarti, New Guinea coffee beans and a half-dozen little pastries. It was more than enough to keep her going.
She’d noticed him putting away a small bag of locally grown baby potatoes and some red and white onions, about the only things Zizi hadn’t grown herself. Alyssa hadn’t checked on the vegetable garden yet, but she had a feeling he would’ve given it some water as well as fed Cleo. He looked that sort of man.
“You seem to know your way around.” She couldn’t help the dryness creeping into her tone.
“Elizabeth showed me all over the house the first time I came here,” he explained as he emerged from the large pantry. “It’s a marvelous old place, incredible atmosphere. The widow’s walk is quite unique in this part of the world. I’d heard about it, of course.”
“From Julian?” She was having difficulty coming to terms with Zizi’s late-blossoming friendship with him, let alone a supposed romantic involvement with Julian Wainwright. “What is your relationship, by the way?”
“Ah, a woman who wants answers!” he jibed gently.
“Julian’s my great-uncle. Think back. Surely she mentioned their close friendship at some point? Perhaps you’ve forgotten?” There was an unmistakable note of challenge in his voice.
Alyssa stood staring at him. “I assure you I wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“So, what did she say about him?”
Alyssa felt ill at ease beneath that probing gaze. “She did speak of him, but only as a friend—a colleague—of her youth. There was never any hint of romance. Zizi never spoke of any romantic attachment to anyone. Don’t you find that extremely odd if what you say is true?”
His expression was reflective. “I do find it odd, but it would seem Elizabeth was a woman for secrets. She was beautiful at seventy. Imagine what she was like in her twenties. Very much like you, I’d imagine, except for the eyes.”
She bit her lip, feeling bewildered and upset. “That’s true. Zizi’s eyes were a definite green. No one else in the family has eyes like mine—with gold flecks. My mother’s more like Zizi than I am, but I see what you mean. Zizi was bound to have many admirers. So how far did this involvement with Julian go? Were they thinking of getting engaged?” She felt a flare of antipathy and it showed.
“Didn’t happen. Elizabeth lost her heart to someone else.”
“Another suitor?” she asked with a brittle laugh.
“Your great-uncle gave you all this information?”
“He can give it to you if you like.” He registered her every passing expression. He’d seen her portraits in the house and enough photographs of her in Elizabeth’s scrapbooks to know in advance that she was beautiful. None of them did her justice. One had to see her in the flesh to fully appreciate the exquisite complexion, the delicately sculpted bones of her face, that cascading hair, the lovely mouth and those distinctive eyes. The body matched the face, willowy and graceful. She was the kind of woman a certain type of man hungered for. The kind of woman that man could only dream about.
“That is, if you want to risk hearing what he has to say,” he added, dragging out a kitchen chair for her. “Why don’t you sit down? You’ve lost color.”
She obeyed him, waiting until the darkness at the edge of her vision receded. “Why have we never heard of Julian Wainwright in all these years?” Impatiently she pushed a long coil of hair over her shoulder.
He watched her do it, fascinated by the femininity of the movement. She was a natural ash-blonde, as her great-aunt had been. But whereas Elizabeth had worn her hair shorn like a small boy’s, she wore hers center-parted and falling in loose waves over her shoulders and down her back. He studied her; she was either a superb actress or what he was saying was a shock.
“Let me get you something to eat first,” he suggested briskly. “Then we can talk. What about a sandwich with the coffee?”
She waved a distracted hand. There was a firmness and strength about him, a masculinity that would turn any woman’s head. Wasn’t it a good thing hers was now firmly screwed on? “Would you mind answering the question?”
“Sure.” His handsome mouth compressed. “Let me grind the coffee beans first.”
“Please, don’t worry about the coffee.” She wanted to move forward with this.
“It’s no problem.”
She gave up. So many chaotic emotions were running through her. Shock, pain, confusion and a sense of wonder that he was moving so authoritatively around her kitchen. Had he done this with Zizi? She had to admit he was very deft in all his movements. In no time at all, the percolator was on the hot plate and turkey-breast sandwiches, neatly cut into four triangles, were in front of her. “Surely you’re going to join me?” She was starting to feel quite…unreal.
“Delighted to,” he said, taking a chair opposite her.
“Elizabeth and Julian corresponded for years. You didn’t know?”
“Why do you continually doubt me?” He watched the sparks in her eyes flare brightly.
“Because it’s hard to believe Elizabeth kept all this from you.”
“It is,” she acknowledged, her tone bleak.
“He used to visit her often after Langford was lost at sea.”
She was forced to take two big steadying breaths before answering. “Are you about to tell me she was friends with Richard Langford, the yachtsman?”
There was a quick flash of impatience in his eyes. “You have to know about Langford.”
She struggled to control her temper. There was flat disbelief in his voice. “Look, just take my word for it, will you? All I know is what Zizi told me. She bought this house when it came on the market. This was after Richard Langford was lost at sea. As I understand it, he took his yacht out in very dangerous conditions. The locals thought the house was haunted, so Zizi got a bargain. It is haunted, by the way.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” he said without any trace of humor.
“I only have your word for all of this,” she reminded him. “Zizi and I were as close as we could be. I spent all my vacations with her since I was seven. We talked about everything and everyone.”
“Except Richard Langford and Julian Wainwright,” he retorted bluntly. “Both of whom were her lovers.”
She had to put a hand to her heart, it gave such a lunge. “Well, well, well! Why didn’t I see that coming?”
His features tightened. “You’re not going to say you didn’t know that, either?”
“It’s not possible.” This man was a stranger. Zizi was her much-loved great-aunt. Why should she believe one word he said? For all she knew, he could have a hidden agenda.
“But very easy to prove.” He spoke more gently this time. “Elizabeth and Julian were seriously involved. Then Langford came into her life.”
She sat there, speechless, almost in a trance.
“Alyssa?” he prompted.
She made a huge effort to respond. “This is a far cry from the encounter I expected to have with you.” She began to rub her temples, which ached.
“I know and I’m sorry. The fact is, Langford deeded this house to Elizabeth a year before he died. He also presented her with her little sailing yacht, the Cherub.”
All at once Alyssa felt a great surge of anger. She leaped up, unwilling to accept a word of it. “For pity’s sake, stop! Zizi bought this house. She bought the yacht. Either you’ve got your facts wrong, or you’re making it all up. Zizi would never have lied to me. She was a woman of integrity!”
He seemed unimpressed, although his tone was calm. “Please sit down again. I’m sorry to upset you. You may have been led to believe otherwise, but Richard Langford deeded the house to Elizabeth. The yacht, too, was a gift.”
The air thrummed with electricity. “That can easily be checked out.” She spoke sharply, but resumed her chair. “Why didn’t you tell my father any of this?”
“It wasn’t the time to talk to him about Elizabeth’s affairs. It was you Elizabeth was most focused on. She told me she was leaving you the house.”
“Do you have anything else to tell me?” she asked coldly, struggling with unfamiliar pangs of jealousy that Zizi could have been so drawn to him, confiding even that piece of information.
He seemed to realize it. “She spoke about you at length. How gifted you are, how much she loved you. How you both loved Flying Clouds. She was more than happy to speak freely about you, but it was extremely difficult to get her to talk about herself.”
“Why should she?” she asked angrily. Her heart was hammering away.
“Because of Julian,” he said, rising abruptly.
“Julian deserves some consideration. Julian is the issue for me. Here, let me pour the coffee.” The rich fragrance pervaded the kitchen. “There’s no question that was a very painful area of her life. She was loath to talk about it, although I think she accepted that she’d soon have to.”
An awful suspicion came into her mind. “You’re not a writer, are you? I shudder at the thought of some unauthorized biography of Elizabeth Jane Calvert, full of shocking disclosures.”
He didn’t answer until he’d placed her coffee before her. “It could happen,” he said with a shrug. “It’s quite a story, but it won’t be written by me. I’m an architect.”
Something clicked. “Hunt Hebron?” She referred to a Sydney-based firm, multi-award winners for many years.
He nodded, setting his own coffee down on the table. “My father, Philip Hunt, heads the firm since Uncle Julian retired.”
“I daresay you’ve won a few awards of your own.” She allowed her eyes to rest on him, struggling to keep the slow burn of hostility and a perverse awareness out of her voice, although it must have been obvious. Brett had always told her she was hopeless at hiding her feelings.
“A few,” he answered, “with better to come, I hope. I’ve checked out your work, although I’ve never managed to get to Brisbane to a showing. It seems to me that you’re on your way to matching and—who knows?—one day surpassing Elizabeth.”
“I doubt it. Zizi was wonderful.”
“And you aren’t?” A smile curved his lips.
He’d shared that smile with Zizi. No wonder she’d softened toward him. Alyssa had no difficulty picturing the two of them sitting here in the kitchen as they were doing now, sharing a cup of coffee. She could see Zizi letting him make it.
Alyssa shook her head, trying not only to conceal her reaction to this man, but also to push it away. “Not yet,” she answered. She picked up another sandwich, scarcely aware of what she was doing. “Does your father know any of this? If it’s true.”
“Everyone in the family knows that Julian was madly in love with Elizabeth Jane Calvert when they were young. We also know it was serious between them. Everyone expected a wedding, but in the end nothing came of it. Julian never married.”
“Neither did Zizi. So what? Perhaps they were genuine loners. There are people like that. Zizi was reclusive. She was eccentric—I can’t deny that—but she was the most lovable woman in the world.”
“And one of the most secretive, it seems,” he said with quiet irony.
Alyssa shook her head once more. “Provided what you’re telling me is true,” she repeated. “We’ve only got your great-uncle’s word for it. Artists are highly imaginative people. Perhaps he dreamed up this epic love affair? Perhaps the love was all on his side? He wouldn’t be the first or the last to get it all wrong.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him.” He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Besides, there’s more.”
Her laugh was slightly hysterical. “Of course there’s more! Next you’ll be telling me there was a child, in the true tradition of soap opera.”
“Which nevertheless manages to echo real life.” His voice was so grave it gave her a jolt of foreboding. “Why don’t you finish those sandwiches,” he urged.
Her skin flushed. “I must really look like I need reviving.”
“You do. More coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He refilled her cup, topped up his own, then sat down again. “There’s no easy way to go about any of this, Alyssa. Not for you, not for me, certainly not for Elizabeth. Not for Uncle Julian. Or for that matter, the Langfords.”
Her tenuous control snapped. She set down her coffee cup so forcefully, it clattered against the saucer. “What on earth have they got to do with it?” she asked. “They’re ancient history. I assume you’re talking about the Langfords, as in LCL?”
He nodded, a glitter in his eyes. “Richard Langford had a great many shares in the family company, as you might imagine.”
“So? They would’ve passed to his heirs. Why have you really come here, Adam? To stir up trouble?”
“I told you.” Muscles bunched along his firm jawline.
“I came as my great-uncle’s emissary. He desperately wants to know before he dies if Elizabeth’s child was his or Langford’s.”
Shock flooded her. She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound emerged. For an instant she feared she might faint. Her brain seemed totally dislocated from her heart. Elizabeth’s child?
“Alyssa!” He was on his feet, shoving back his chair.
“Here, put your head down.” He placed his hand on her nape, his touch gentle but nonetheless compelling.
For a full minute she obeyed, then when she felt better, she shook off his hand. She was angry and afraid of his effect on her. She’d felt that touch of his hand not only on her neck, but in her breasts, the pit of her stomach, between her legs. If she put all those sensations together, what did she get? She fought to compose herself. “I’m fine.”
“Just sit quietly for a moment,” he advised, himself so affected by a moment so intimate he wished now he hadn’t touched her. Was it possible she truly didn’t know about Elizabeth’s baby?
I’ve got to stop this, Adam thought. Start again another time.
“This is a shocking conversation, isn’t it?” she lamented. “Zizi never had a child. I’m sorry to have to say it, but Julian Wainwright must be crazy. There’s a name for it, isn’t there? Erotomania, something like that. The poor man must be fantasizing, especially if he’s pumped full of drugs.”
He looked at her with compassion. “If Elizabeth told you so little—after all you were a child when she was already a middle-aged woman—surely someone else in your family knows. Her sister, Mariel, perhaps?”
“No way! Zizi never married. She never had a child. Do you seriously believe we wouldn’t know if she had?”
He sat back, staring at her. Her emotional upheaval appeared real. “It’s happened before,” he mused. “All families have secrets, even from one another. The thing is, secrets don’t always remain buried. My aim isn’t to shock or upset you, Alyssa. I see I have, but you must trust me on this. Elizabeth did have a child. What Julian’s desperate to know is who was the biological father. Julian’s a very rich man. He’s made his will, but it’s obvious to us all that he doesn’t feel he’s put his affairs in order. Over the years he begged Elizabeth for the truth. She always said the child died within twenty-four hours of its birth. We now know that’s not what happened.”
“We?” she cried. “Who’s we, your dying uncle and you? It’s all hearsay in your case. And it’s not true! None of it is true! I hate when people make up lies. I hate you. Zizi must have hated you.”
He gave a half smile. “I think Elizabeth braced herself the moment she laid eyes on me. I’m told I look very much like Julian as a young man. Elizabeth, for reasons of her own, appears to have led a life of deception. In doing so she turned her back on fame and fortune, a full life, a successful career. All the things most people would give anything to have. I think some part of her was greatly relieved it was all coming to an end.”