Island of escape (4 page)

coyne? I've been waiting to hear from you.'

`I've been away from home, and your letter's only just reached me. I'm in Hobart, right here at the hotel as a matter of fact, so we can meet.'

`You—you want me to come?' she insisted. 'I'm quite free—I can come tomorrow—'

`Don't rush it, Miss Lincoln,' he interrupted. Through her nervousness and excitement she thought vaguely that it was a curiously familiar voice, but she didn't realise why until later. 'I want to see you before rash decisions are made on either of our parts ... Can you have dinner with me ?'

Ellis glanced across at Jake, who was listening openly. She wondered fleetingly if she should ask Mr Gascoyne to join them, but decided not. She didn't want Jake in on this—she wanted, rather obstinately, to make her own decision.

`Well?' The voice sounded rather impatient.

`No, I can't,' she said quickly. 'I've made other arrangements.'

`You've what?' he asked in a curiously thoughtful tone that gave her the impression he had heard what she said and merely wanted to have her say it again.

`I have a dinner date,' she said.

`Oh, I see. Well, I'm leaving tomorrow, so if you'll come to my suite right away we'll have a few minutes to look each other over. I'll expect you shortly.' He gave her his room number and hung up,. and Ellis, feeling slightly dazed and unsure whether he seemed interested or not, told Jake unnecessarily and rather breathlessly, `That was Mr Gascoyne. He's here, and he wants to see me about that position—now. I'll—I'll have to get dressed.'

Jake nodded. 'Shall I come along with you, Ellis?

I'm a more experienced judge of character than you are, and I'd like to know what you're letting yourself in for.'

`No, really, it will be quite all right,' she said quickly. `If I have any doubts I won't commit myself.'

`That's sensible,' Jake approved. 'You don't have to accept the first thing that comes along ... Well, I'd better let you dress. I'll be downstairs in the Birdcage Bar. Join me there when your interview's over—and it might be a good idea to bring this fellow along so I can meet him. Our table's booked for nine o'clock, so we've plenty of time. Right?'

`Right,' Ellis agreed, and when he had gone she stood motionless for a moment. Something was bothering her at the back of her mind, but she felt too flustered to dig it out, and switching her attention to what she should wear, she went to the wardrobe. Reason told her she had better wear something neat and sensible, because her age, that she hadn't mentioned in her letter, was somewhat against her when it came to taking on the responsibility of someone else's house.

A frown creased her brow. The wardrobe was filled with the pretty, expensive clothes Jake had lavished on her. There was nothing there in the least sober and sedate-looking. She turned away and rummaged in her suitcase, and rooted out a long-sleeved white blouse and a slim black skirt. That was more like it. Only before she joined Jake she would have to change. She didn't really think, in any case, that she'd ask Mr Gascoyne down to the Birdcage Bar to meet Jake. There would be a little awkwardness about introducing him, about explaining how she came to be spending a holiday with him. It would be different if he were her uncle, but as it was he was too good-looking and gallant, and

she didn't want to go into detailed explanations.

So, she told herself with a shrug, she had better depend on her own judgment entirely. Anyhow, what was she worrying about? That poor sheep farmer from a tiny island ! He was sure to be absolutely dependable, and she felt more certain than ever that Jan had merely been amusing herself with him to entertain herself during her holiday.

Except—his voice over the phone hadn't sounded slow and drawling and countryfied. Not even frightfully Australian. Well, a sheep farmer could be well educated, couldn't he? she reminded herself.

She tossed off her gown and in seconds had stepped into the skirt and buttoned up her blouse to its rather demure neck. She looked at herself critically in the mirror. She did look young without her make-up, as Jake had said, but though it might add sophistication, she decided not to use it. She'd stress the practical side of her personality. She rather wished now she hadn't had her hair cut. Drawn back from her face and caught in a neat knob at her nape, it had given her a certain staid quality. Now her golden-brown locks had been styled so expertly and cunningly that her hair stood out and framed her pale face in a sophisticatedly sculptured fashion that completely changed her personality. It was impossible to make herself look like the Ellis Lincoln who had kept house so assiduously for Uncle Bill.

Hastily she dragged a filmy black scarf from the drawer and tied it loosely around her head, confining her gleaming hair. She looked at herself critically. Now she looked more circumspect! And, in fact, without lipstick or
eye shadow
, she looked encouragingly prim and proper.

So she thought, unaware that the blue dazzle of her

eyes when she raised her dark lashes destroyed that effect utterly.

Not many moments later she was stepping out of the elevator and walking along the thickly carpeted hallway to Steven Gascoyne's suite. Her heart was beating fast. She had been waiting for this to happen. She had assured Jake it was what she really wanted. Yet now, unaccountably, she was aware that some part of her was drawing back. She even began to wonder if she had been a fool to write that impulsive letter to the unknown man her cousin had jilted so callously. After all, she really hadn't the least idea what he was like. Her mental picture of him was purely imaginary. She wondered too if she had indiscreetly bared some part of her soul in what she had written in those sleepless hours of the early morning.

Her footsteps had slowed, but now with a slight shock she realised she was standing outside the door of his suite. She very nearly turned on her heel and went silently away, mad images floating through her mind of herself telling Jake she had decided against the job after all. That would mean she'd have to go to Adelaide, and once she was there, would Jake use his wiles to persuade her to continue the idle life? And how would she get on with Pat? After all, the marriage hadn't taken place yet. Pat might decide it wasn't for her if there was an—unofficial stepdaughter around.

Ellis braced herself, and with a feeling that fate was pushing her on, she raised her hand and knocked, and in the very instant that she did so she realised in a flash .what was at the back of her reluctance—why she was -feeling so churned up.

That voice on the telephone ! Of course—it had reminded her of the voice of the—the green-eyed monster! Yet it couldn't be his. No way in the world could

she persuade herself that that man was her nice sheep farmer. The very thought was ludicrous.

But when a second later the door was opened to her, her fears were realised. It was the man with the cynical green eyes.

QUITE obviously he was nothing like as surprised—or shocked—as she was, and his hard green gaze moved deliberately over her, from the black scarf confining her hair to the tips of her high-heeled black sandals. By the time it returned to her face, so innocently devoid of make-up, the rose colour that had come into her cheeks had subsided, leaving them pale.

She licked her lips and swallowed on a dry throat.

`Are you—are you Mr Gascoyne?' she asked, and crazily she willed him to say no, that she'd come to the wrong suite, or that Mr Gascoyne was waiting for her inside.

`That's right,' he agreed, reaching out to take hold of her arm and draw her into the room. 'And you, of course, are Ellis Lincoln. I thought I recognised your voice over the telephone, though I doubted my ears. You're hardly the heartbroken little creature I'd been expecting from the tone of your letter, but then you've been consoling yourself already, haven't you?'

Ellis slid away from his hands. All the thoughts she had harboured of somehow making amends for Jan's behaviour now seemed quite absurd. She couldn't even imagine this man needing help, let alone having a broken heart. He was nothing like the man she had envisaged herself working for-the simple countryman her cousin had treated so cruelly—and she was already well aware of his opinion of her.

`Look, Mr Gascoyne,' she said, trying to keep her voice calm and even, 'we needn't go on with this, need
we? I—I know you're not interested—'

`Then you know wrong. I'm very interested,' he said smoothly. The door clicked shut, and helplessly, Ellis took a few more steps into the room, then sank into the armchair he indicated mainly because suddenly her legs felt in danger of giving way. She had just remembered she'd told him she was engaged to a man on Flinders Island. That was going to take some explaining, and all she really wanted was to get out of here quickly. She kept her lashes lowered defensively, acutely aware that he was once more scrutinising her.

`You're quite a new proposition this evening, aren't you?' he pronounced after what seemed an endless time. 'Now you've scrubbed off your make-up and got into some—lamb's clothing. It's lucky we'd already met last night.'

`Lucky?' she repeated, her hand going nervously to the neck of her neat white blouse.

`Yes. For both of us.' He took a chair facing her and stretched out long legs, muscular-looking in well-cut dark pants. 'Do you know what you remind me of at this instant?'

He sounded amused, and though it was a purely rhetorical question she shook her head, and as if compelled glanced up to meet his eyes, then recoiled inwardly from their cynicism and worldliness.

`You're like a little moonbird chick,' he said ruminatively. 'Sitting warm and well fed in its burrow happily unaware that at any tick of the clock someone will come along and scoop it up for dinner.' His wide mouth curv
ed faintly in a mocking smile. B
ut you're no innocent chick, are you, Ellis, so I'm not impressed. And it's good luck for you I haven't been fooled, or I might say no to your prettily put suggestion you should come over to Flinders to live with me.'

Ellis stared at him, her mouth falling slightly open, her eyes wide. What on earth was he talking about? She asked the question aloud, and he ran impatient fingers through the thick black and silver of his hair.

`My dear girl, your appearance would have thrown me. If I hadn't seen you living it up with your ageing Romeo, I'd have believed in you as the broken reed you made yourself out to be when you wrote to me. And my taste doesn't run to—innocents.'

`To—to innocents ? Ellis repeated foolishly. 'What's that to do with—with keeping house, and—and cooking for the shearers?'

`Not a thing,' he said laconically He raised one dark eyebrow and his eyes skimmed over her. 'But I'm hardly picturing you in that role. I'm envisaging you in my bed.'

Ellis stifled a gasp and the colour rushed to her face. `I—I don't know what you mean,' she said huskily.

`Of course you know what I mean. Your cousin was going to marry me and you offered to take her place.'

`I didn't offer to take Jan's place !' she exclaimed hotly. 'I offered to—to do your housekeeping and cook for the shearers.'

He looked slightly amused. 'Those shearers are really on your mind, aren't they? Well, that's great—but you had other things on your mind when you wrote to me that decidedly come-on letter I received this evening when I came back to the hotel.' He screwed up his eyes and leaned back in his chair. 'It was half past three in the morning, you said. You'd been lying sleepless in bed thinking of me and of how you and I should get together. Our hearts were broken, our lives were shattered—we needed each other. Jan had taken your man, why shouldn't you and I team up—do a swap, as it were.'

Ellis's pulses were racing. She hadn't written those things ! But had she implied them? Crazily, she didn't know. It was all too possible—she had thought they needed each other; he needed a housekeeper, she needed a job. That was what she had meant, and she told him determinedly, even though her voice shook slightly, 'I meant we could team up in a—a certain way. I thought you needed a housekeeper, and as I needed a job, it was an opportunity. Or—or has your aunt come back? Jan said she'd been taken to hospital '

His dark face grew sombre and his lips tightened. `No, my aunt hasn't come back. I attended her funeral two days ago, and I've been seeing to her affairs today.'.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. 'I'm sorry.'

There was a moment of silence which she at least found awkward, then she said practically, deciding to forget the things he had said that had shocked her, 'I can be of use to you, then, Mr Gascoyne. I'm a responsible person, I assure you. I've kept house for my uncle for several years.' She stopped. The way he was looking at her she was mad to be trying to persuade him. He wasn't at all the kind of man she wanted to work for.

He reached into the pocket of the dark coat he wore and produced cigarettes. He offered her one and when she declined it lit one for himself, doing it slowly, a thoughtful look on his hard, handsome face.

`Well then, I'm offering you a job,' he said at last. `But it's a double-sided proposition. I can do with a woman in the kitchen, but more than anything I need a woman in my bed, not merely to satisfy my sexual appetite but to give me sons. It's not all that easy for a man living the life I do on a sparsely populated island to find himself a wife. I'm thirty-six and aware of a