When Only Diamonds Will Do (12 page)

He smiled slightly at the tinge of sheer Theron arrogance he saw in her expression. ‘Put some clothes on—otherwise, despite what I said a few minutes ago, it could be back to Plan B.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Kim reached for her dress hastily and stepped into it. ‘Is that better?’ she asked innocently.

‘No, it’s not.’ He took a step towards her.

‘Hang on.’ She tried to pull the zip up at the back but it jammed. ‘Damn!’ She looked over her shoulder as she tugged at it in vain.

‘Here, let me help. You’ve got a bit of the lining caught in the teeth—there.’ He pulled the zip up and slipped his arms around her waist from behind.

She leant back against him.

He said into her hair, ‘OK. That was a close call but I think we could get this show on the road now.’

She turned around in his arms and laughed up at him, knowing that he caught his breath at the sheer animation of her expression, the wonderful colour of her eyes and hair, the lovely shape of her face, her smooth skin and tantalizing mouth.

Nor was she to know how close she had come to thawing the icy rock his emotions had become, how close to lightening the darkness that had invaded him a long time ago and grown within him.

But would he ever come to completely trust her? he wondered. And frowned suddenly. What did he mean by that? Was he always going to wonder if she would
revert to her roots? In other words, decide or be persuaded he was not good enough for her? Would he ever entirely forget the encounter that had prompted him to force her to marry him?

‘Reith?’

He came out of his reverie to see her looking questioningly up at him now. Questioningly and soberly.

‘Nothing.’ He kissed her and released her.

T
HEY
had a fun afternoon at the races in the Members’ Enclosure. Reith’s horse came second and Kim picked two winners. They drank champagne. The fashions, the glossy horses and the colourful jockey silks contributed to a gala feeling. Then there was the green sweep of the track with the glint of the Swan River in the background, the children playing on the grass, the blue sky above—all of it gave Kim a feeling of being on top of the world.

But the other reason for her feeling of well-being was their closeness. They rarely left each other’s side and, once, she turned to him to find him looking down at her intently and in a way that made her colour slightly.

He smiled and slid her hand into his and, although they didn’t say a word, their mental unity was complete.

The only thing that might have spoilt the day for Kim was catching sight of her brother, Damien.

He was with a gorgeous, very expensive-looking blonde in a party of six and if he saw her he gave no sign of it. She half lifted her hand to wave to him as he looked her way once but he looked away immediately.

She turned away with an inward shiver.

Whereas their father appeared to be reconciled to the idea of her marriage to Reith, Damien still hadn’t forgiven her, much to their mother’s ongoing distress. Kim couldn’t understand why. Had he also hoped for some kind of a miracle to save them? Or was it the blow that had been administered to his pride by having his sister marry the man who’d exposed his lack of business acumen?

He’d moved his polo ponies out of the Saldanha stables and never came back to visit. He had, according to their mother, bought into a bloodstock agency.

It also struck her that Damien could rightly have expected to inherit Saldanha and seeing her in his place could be a thorn in his side. There was nothing she could do about it, though, and she deliberately pushed it from her mind.

In this she was aided by the fact that they picked Darcy up from school on their way home to Saldanha. It was a half-term holiday, and she was able to implement a plan she’d had in the making for some time.

Her first action some weeks ago had been to advise Alice that she needed Reith home for the three days of Darcy’s half-term holiday. She had asked his secretary to make sure that Reith was appointment- and travel-free. Alice had been only too happy to comply.

Her next line of action had been to select a horse suitable for Reith and have it brought in from the paddock. She’d then groomed it and ridden it herself a couple of times.

The end result was that on the morning of the day
after they’d picked up Darcy, they loaded their horses onto a truck and took them down to the beach for a gallop.

It was a cool overcast day with showers etched like pencil lines over the ocean as it pounded against the shore.

They cantered side by side, rising rhythmically in the saddle on the hard sand left by the outgoing tide, with the balls of their feet planted firmly in the stirrups.

She and Darcy were bundled up in anoraks and tracksuits, while Reith wore a navy jumper and jeans. He looked completely at home on his horse, although he’d been a little taken aback on discovering what her plan was.

‘I haven’t ridden for years,’ he’d said.

‘It’s not something you forget,’ she’d replied.

He’d looked across the breakfast table at her with a faint frown. ‘Something I wanted to ask you. You wouldn’t by any chance be behind the fact that I have absolutely no appointments at the moment?’

‘I?’ She’d looked at him, wide-eyed.

‘Yes, you.’

She was saved from answering by Darcy, who could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of a gallop along the beach. ‘I’m sure Rimfire will love it. Has he ever seen the sea, Kim?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t think so. So he may be a bit puzzled at first. Just take it slowly.’

‘I will. I can’t wait!’ And he’d turned a glowing face on his father. ‘Would you like Kim to take you on a leading rein for a while? She did that for me, just for the
first couple of times until I was sure of myself. She’s a really, really good rider,’ he assured his father.

Kim had struggled not to laugh at the fleeting expression that crossed Reith’s face before he brought it under control.

‘I think I’ll be OK,’ he said gravely to his son.

Darcy shrugged. ‘You did say you hadn’t ridden for years.’

‘True,’ Reith agreed, ‘but I still think I’ll be OK.’

Back on the beach, Kim dropped behind after they’d had an exhilarating gallop through some light showers and she walked Mattie, patting her horse’s steaming neck, while she watched Reith and Darcy splashing through the shallows.

Would this bring them together? she wondered. Would this common interest, assuming she could pin Reith down long enough to make it a common interest, be the bridge he needed to get through to his son?

Later that day, after Darcy had gone to bed and when they were getting ready for bed themselves, Reith, if not so much answering her question, acknowledged the thought behind it.

‘You’re clever, you know.’

She was sitting before her dressing table smoothing moisturizer into her skin. Her long nightgown was the finest pearl cotton, pintucked across the bodice and with frills at her wrists. It was also the height of modesty.

She turned on the stool and studied him. He was lying back in bed with his pillows pulled up behind him.
His pyjama jacket was unbuttoned, exposing his lean torso sprinkled with dark hair. He looked, in a word, she thought with an inward tremor, sexy.

‘Clever? How so?’

‘I never thought of horses as a means of getting through to Darcy. I’ve tried surfing, rugby, golf, athletics—’ He broke off and grimaced.

She lifted her shoulders. ‘That’s probably only because you hadn’t seen him exposed to them before.’

‘Mmm …’ He didn’t sound convinced. ‘I’m thinking of bringing him here now.’

‘Oh, Reith!’ She glinted him a radiant look. ‘I’d love that and I think maybe he would too.’

He was silent for a long moment. ‘Come to bed,’ he suggested at last.

She did as requested, turning off the lights, except the bedside lamps.

‘This is a very…old-fashioned item of nightwear,’ he commented as she pulled the covers over her.

‘Ah, but it cost a small fortune,’ she replied. ‘It’s handmade, it’s light but warm now the nights are getting chilly and it’s comfortable. My mother has a lady who makes them and it’s a pattern that came down from my great-great-grandmother.’

‘So the history goes back even to what you wear to bed?’ He paused, then said, ‘If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand through all this—’ he took his fingers from her hair and fingered the material of her nightgown ‘—it’s…I guess your nightgown encapsulates it.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When there’s as much history involved as there is here, there has to be a terrible, tearing sense of loss at the thought of losing it, however it happens.’

Again it was ages before Kim spoke and then it was with tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you for that,’ she said huskily, and she reached for his hand and kissed it.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you do realize, history or none, that I’m going to take it off?’

She smiled and released his hand. ‘My nightgown?’

He cupped the curve of her cheek. ‘Uh-huh. I’m still a guy who can’t get enough of you, I’m afraid.’

‘Mr Richardson,’ she replied seriously, ‘which is how I would have addressed you in my great-great-grandmother’s time, incidentally, be my guest.’

It was in the languorous aftermath of their love-making that he made another suggestion. ‘Since you have me at your mercy for the next two days, will you come to Clover Hill?’

Kim stiffened slightly.

‘Only to have a look around,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of taking Darcy. After all, it’ll be his one day.’

Kim moved her head on his shoulder. ‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘Is anyone living there?’

‘No. But it’s being looked after.’

‘All right,’ she repeated, and relaxed as his arms went around her. What could it hurt? she thought, and fell asleep feeling loved and cherished.

That’s what they did the next morning.

Sunny Bob went with them, and Darcy, in his new role of horse-lover, was visibly impressed.

Impressed by the three powerful stallions standing at Clover, by the mares and foals, the paddocks, the stables, all of which made the Saldanha horse presence look small.

Not only that, but he seemed to have a way, particularly with the foals, prompting Reith to say to him, ‘You take after your mother.’

‘Do I? How?’

‘She was especially good with young horses. She …’

Kim found she had sudden tears in her eyes as she watched the two of them standing side by side and, as Reith went on to speak to Darcy about his mother, she melted away and took herself up to the house.

It was a two-storey creeper-clad house set on a slight rise which gave it a marvellous view, not only of the paddocks and surrounding countryside but the hills as well.

As Kim walked through the silent rooms, still partly furnished, not only the view impressed her but a strange feeling of peace came to her.

The reason it was partly furnished was because the previous owners had not been able to fit all their furniture into their new smaller home, but the lovely old pieces they’d left behind looked to be part of the house, part of its history. And although it didn’t have the uniqueness of Saldanha with its distinctive Cape Dutch
architecture, it was, as she’d sensed all those months ago, as special as the rest of the property.

She wandered upstairs and was charmed to find a nursery with a beautiful cherrywood cot and Mary Poppins flying round the walls.

There was a sewing room with a marvellous old treadle sewing machine, a linen press the size of a small room, an empty master bedroom that opened onto the veranda and just beyond it a huge jacaranda tree that would be a sight to behold in spring.

Downstairs, all the main rooms—library, lounge, dining room—opened onto the veranda, only a step above the formal gardens.

Kim strolled out into the garden and looked around. She was proud of her garden at Saldanha but even it couldn’t rival the sweeps of lawn between beautiful old trees and the riot of colour in the vast beds of winter-flowering bulbs: daffodils, jonquils, hyacinth, narcissus, tulips, irises.

Nor could it rival the secret paths that led to separate areas with different plants: native plants, perennial beds, succulents, grevilleas.

And then there were the roses.

She was simply standing, drinking in the rose garden with the house behind it and wondering at the same time why the peace and tranquillity of Clover was so…so mesmerizing.

Did it have a more peaceful history than Saldanha?

That wouldn’t be hard, not lately, anyway, she thought with a frown.

‘There you are.’ Reith and Darcy with Sunny Bob
came into view. ‘What do you think of it?’ Reith went on to ask.

‘It’s—’ she paused and wondered how to do Clover justice ‘—beautiful.’

Reith looked at her intently for a long moment, but said nothing more on the subject and they strolled back to the car.

But Darcy was in good form. He didn’t stop chatting all the way home about everything he’d seen, about how his dad thought he took after his mum, and Kim couldn’t help marvelling at the difference in him. He’d changed from the quiet, self-contained child she’d first met to this eager, bubbling ten-year-old.

If nothing else good had come out of all the Saldanha strife, she caught herself thinking, Darcy had benefited so much.

Over dinner that night Reith enquired of her what she had planned for the next day.

Kim had cooked dinner—it was Mary’s day off—and she’d served it in the breakfast room: steak, eggs, chips and a salad.

‘Boy, oh, boy!’ Darcy commented soulfully as he looked at his plate, ‘you really, really know how to feed a kid, Kim.’

‘Really? Thank you,’ she replied, looking gratified.

That was when, with an amused grin, Reith asked his question.

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Well—’

‘Thought you must have something planned,’ Reith interrupted.

‘I don’t, but—’

‘Highly unlikely for you not to have,’ he broke in again.

Kim planted her fists on the table, with her knife and fork most inelegantly upright in them. ‘Will you let me finish?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Darcy said severely, ‘it’s rude to keep interrupting.’

‘I stand corrected!’ Reith looked rueful. ‘You have the floor, Miss Theron.’

‘I …’

But this time it was Darcy who interrupted. ‘Why do you call her that?’

‘He calls me that to annoy me, Darcy,’ Kim said, shooting Reith a dark glance, ‘but if you’ll both desist, I thought that between you, you two, you could decide what you want to do tomorrow.’

‘Ah,’ Reith said.

‘Wow!’ Darcy said.

‘So what’ll it be?’ She glanced from one to the other.

‘How about,’ Reith said thoughtfully, ‘we take the chopper out to Rottnest?’

Rottnest Island, just eighteen kilometres off Perth in the Indian Ocean, with its secluded beaches and bays and its great surfing spots, was a tourist destination accessible by big ferries as well as helicopters and light planes. Darcy loved every minute of their time there.

Rotto, as it was affectionately known to the locals, was a car-free zone so they hired bicycles and explored some of the beaches, stopping to swim in the turquoise
waters, as well as looking at some of its history, early buildings and the lighthouse.

They bought lunch from the famous local bakery and went quokka hunting, looking for the furry little marsupials for which the island was also famous.

Then, tired but exhilarated, they flew directly to Perth, where they dropped Darcy off at his boarding school and, for the first time, Kim detected a reluctance in Reith’s son to go back.

He even hugged them both and extracted a promise from Kim to look after Rimfire, as well as thanking Reith for a really, really super day.

As the helicopter lifted off, Kim said to Reith, ‘When will you bring him home?’