Robyn Donald – Iceberg

"Daddy, why don't you marry linnet?"

Little Sarah Doyle adored Linnet, whose heart Was touched by the loneliness of the bright motherless child.

Sarah's father, Justin, was another matter entirely.

He could be cold as ice, yet he possessed an animal magnetism that was impossible to ignore--though Linnet

tried.

Justin knew that Sarah would be devastated if she ever lost her companion. He had the perfect solution to keep

Linnet around--but it certainly wasn't marriage....

'What on earth—!'

Linnet Grant couldn't stifle the astonished words as the taxi swung into a wide drive.

'Wrong place? That's the address you gave me.' The taxi-driver's voice was aggrieved.

She shook her head, wide gold-hazel eyes staring. 'No, this is the right address. It's just that everything's

changed!'

The driver looked puzzled, then remembered
the
labels on the large case in the trunk. 'How long is it since

you've been here?' he asked, as he pulled up beneath a wide
porte-cochere
in front of the low white modern

house.

'Eight years.' Linnet pulled herself together, pushed a hand through the pale red tendrils which fringed her wide

forehead as she bit her lip. 'It's exactly eight years since we left for Australia. But this is a different house— my

father and my sister lived in an old-fashioned place, all additions and gables and old sash-windows.'

The driver pushed his cap back on to his head, looking at his passenger with a mixture of wariness and kindly

concern. 'Place been sold while your bade was turned?' he suggested.

'Well, my sister still lives here. At least------' a frown creasing the candid brow—'this is the address she's always

given in her letters.' She did not add that the letters were few and infrequent, the last being six months ago.

Tell you what. You go and ring that hell; I'll wait. If your sister has moved on the people who own the place

might know where she is. If they don't, one of the neighbours will. They always do.'

Linnet looked gratefully at him. The shock of finding her old home vanished and this luxurious modem building

in its place seemed to have temporarily robbed her of initiative. Or perhaps it was jet-lag, she. thought as she

climbed out of the cab into the warm spring sunshine. Except that a flight of four hours across the Tasman Sea

from Sydney to New Zealand could hardly qualify her for jet-lag!

As she walked towards the wide wooden door she noted other changes. The big oak tree was gone, a piece of

vandalism which filled her with the kind of outrage her friends had learned to dread. Linnet loved growing

things with a fervour which was almost a passion, and that oak figured in some of her' most cherished childhood

memories.

With a firm jab of her long forefinger she rang the bell, then waited impatiently, while her gaze roamed the

garden, assessing just how much damage bad been done. Odd how the memory of the place remained so firmly

fixed in her brain that she was able to see that very little had been altered. The garden had test its Victorian

primness and there had been replacements, but although the atmosphere was now lush and sub-tropical, the

framework was essentially the same as it had been when, drenched with tears, she had gazed her last on it. The

magnificent magnolia still brooded in its corner, an enormous camphor laurel, all gold and green in its new

foliage and the grove of melia trees, slender of trunk with, graceful ash-like foliage, covered now in soft like

panicles of flowers were still all there.

Reluctantly she admitted that whoever had reconstructed the garden had made skilful use of the framework

already there. And perhaps it had been necessary to remove, the oak, for it had shaded the whole front of the

house almost all of the year. But she would miss it.

The opening of the door interrupted her thoughts. Linnet turned, her sensitive features unconsciously hopeful,

buoyed up by the expectation of it being Bronwyn who stood there.

But it was a middle-aged woman, severe of expression, who eyed her with obvious disapproval as she enquired

'Yes?'

Somewhat thrown by the frosty voice, Linnet found her childish stammer return. 'D-does Miss Grant live here?'

she asked, then taking a firm grip of herself
'Miss
Bronwyn Grant?'

The woman's mouth pursed, white the disapproval intensified.

'Not here,' she answered. 'Around the back.'

'Around the back?' Linnet was staggered, as much by the woman's unfriendly attitude as by this announcement.

I'm sorry,' she said faintly, 'but exactly where?'

'Just------'

A man's voice fell crisply and coldly on the soft air. 'What's the matter, Anna?'

The woman turned, explaining, 'It's, just somebody looking for Miss Grant. I've told her where to go.'

He came into view from inside the house, moving quietly.

Cat-feet, Linnet thought to herself. Unconsciously her pupils widened as they met his. A pulse beat rapidly in

her throat.

He was tall and fair, handsome, but the quality which impressed itself on her brain was a kind of stillness, not

the stillness of serenity, but that of an animal waiting for its prey.

He looked through her as if she were not these, Ms glance completely without interest or expression, sharpening

as it went past her to where the taxi-driver leaned against the door of his vehicle, a cigarette in his lips,

obviously watching them all.

'Are you planning to stay with Miss Grant?' he asked.

A cold prickle of dislike slithered along Linnet's nerves, but until she knew What the situation was she couldn't

antagonise him.

'Yes,' she answered flatly. 'I'm her sister. From Australia.'

The older woman drew in a short, hissing breath as her glance flew to the face of the man beside her, but he was

still looking at the taxi-driver. Then he transferred big gaze to Linnet's face, revealing such contempt that she

shrank back feeling that she had been flayed alive.

After a second of unbearable tension he said, Then you'd better come in. Anna, tell the driver where to go.'

‘I have to pay him,' Linnet protested, her considerable pride rejecting the idea of being in the same room as this

handsome, frigid iceberg of a man.

What on earth was going on here?

'Anna will do that,' he told her indifferently.

But Linnet could be obstinate.
‘I’ll
do it," she said, chin lifted as she walked down the two wide, shallow steps

beside the woman Anna, while the skin up her back prickled with the knowledge that he was watching her.

'Everything O.K.?'

'Yes, this is the right place.' Linnet held put a note. . Thank you.'

He gave her change, listened as the woman gave him directions and called out a jovial 'Cheerio,' when Linnet

made her way back up the steps to where the man still stood, motionless as an ice statue and every bit as

welcoming.

Not normally a nervous person, she found that Ac was moistening her lips as she came level with him; that pale

unblinking stare thoroughly unnerved her. Without vanity she knew that most men looked at her slim body and

fine-boned face with pleasure, not the downright condemnation he made no attempt to hide.

'Is Bronwyn not here?' she asked as she came through the door,

The hard mouth smiled, if such a humourless movement of muscles could be called a smile. 'She works,' he

Said, not attempting to disguise the note of disdain.

'Oh!'

Good lord, he had her completely terrorised. Of course she knew that for the last two years Bronwyn had owned

her own boutique in the fashionable suburb of Remuera.

Inadequately she went on, 'I must be suffering from jet-lag, I think. I did know. It was just such a shock—

seeing the house...'
her
voice trailed away at the chilling regard he bent on her.

'I bought the house from your sister about six months after your father died,' he told her coldly. 'My name is

Justin Doyle.’

He said it as though it should mean something to her. Linnet shifted the strap of her bag across her shoulder,

swallowed, then said lamely, 'I didn't know. About the house, I mean.'

'Indeed?'

Obviously he didn't believe her. Stiff with anger, she retorted, 'Yes, indeed. If Bronwyn sold to you why is she

still living here?'

'She is not living here. She has a flat at' the back of the property. As for why-----' he paused, then went on with

grim derision,'—you should know that.'

'Me?' Linnet was tired. Sleep had been difficult for months past, and as she was terrified of flying, the effort of

forcing herself on to the jet to actually get here had taken its toll too. She and Bronwyn had never been close;

six years' difference in age and the peculiar circumstances of their upbringing had seen to that, but she had

hoped for at least a 'blood-is-thicker-than-water' acceptance.

And now here was this—this
effigy
of a man, cold as ice and obviously, strangely, loathing her, regarding her as

if she were some kind of moral leper: To say nothing of me woman Anna, who had once more reappeared, and

stood watchfully waiting just behind them.

To her horror Linnet felt the hot prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. In a rush of words she said, 'Look, can I

just go to wherever she lives without being a nuisance to anyone? I'm rather tired,..' She groped in her bag,

found a handkerchief and blew her nose defiantly, determined not to break down and bawl like a fool in front of

granite-eyes Doyle and his henchwoman.

‘That's just it,’ the woman Anna said now, 'You can't get into the flat. Miss Grant has the key. I've just rung the

boutique and they say she's out for the day and they can't reach her.'

'Make some coffee,' Justin Doyle ordered curtly. 'Miss Grant, come with me.'

Rebelliously, because she couldn't think of anything else to do, Linnet followed him down a wide carpeted

corridor where the only relief from severity was the pattern of windows which looked on to a lushly foliaged

courtyard, a black bowl of gold-brown bearded irises and a superb Chinese painting on silk. Linnet would have

dearly loved to view it closely, but she had almost to run to keep up with the silent panther strides of the man

beside her, so she, was only able to give it the most fleeting of glances.

Then they were in a small sitting room, furnished in
the
same spare, opulent style, with wide sliding glass doors

leading out on to its own tiny sandstone terrace bordered by trellises and flower beds. The ambience was

Mediterranean, several feather chaos, a magnificently carved chest and a painting, a portrait of an old woman,

of such stark vividness that nothing else was needed.

'Sit down,' Justin Doyle ordered, waiting until Linnet subsided into the nearest chair before continuing, 'I gather

that Bronwyn doesn't expect you.’

'No.' How could she, when Linnet had only decided to leave Sydney last night? Lamely she went on, 'It was a

sudden decision.'

'I see.' Those pale ice-grey eyes surveyed her with aloof tack of interest. 'Are you certain that she'll welcome

you?'

This had the effect of straightening Linnet's back as she met his eyes squarely. 'I don't know that that's any of

your business, Mr Doyle.'

A momentary tightening of the muscles of his jaw warned her that she had gone too far, but the tension which

sprang into life died as swiftly as it had been born. He had control, she decided, and was thankful for it. A man

with such innate strength would be a bad enemy; unfortunately it seemed that he had decided that that was

exactly what he should be to her.

'Possibly not,' he said now, walking across to the window. Against the brilliant light his profile was harsh and

uncompromising, yet beautifully sculpted, a silhouette without any sign of weakness or slack muscle tone.

He was, she owned with considerable reluctance, a man of a certain attraction, and he could not help but know

it. Even across the room she could feel the raw animal magnetism which an expertly tailored suit and

immaculate linen only emphasised. A man of great
mana,
she thought, remembering the Maori term; an

inherent strength of character which combined with his sexual attraction an obvious intelligence to create a

formidable man. Bronwyn must be aware of this. He certainly seemed to feel some sort of responsibility for her;

perhaps they were lovers.

Then she remembered Anna, and wondered just where she fitted into the scheme of things^ Housekeeper?