When Only Diamonds Will Do (8 page)

But although the sight of Saldanha pulled at her heart-strings, it was the carte blanche Reith had given her to renovate the estate that had saved her sanity in the early days of her loveless marriage. Not only that, it had brought to light skills she hadn’t known she possessed, such as gardening. She was taken by surprise when the head gardener had approached her for instructions but, once the idea that she was in charge settled in, she took to it like the proverbial duck to water.

She supervised everything that went into the garden and everything that came out of it. She cherished her mother’s and grandmother’s beloved roses. She’d built a Japanese water garden with lilies and carp in the pond and stone benches under a jasmine creeper-covered lattice canopy. In the heat of mid-summer just the sound of water trickling down into the pond would be cooling.

Then she’d turned her attention to the house and looked around with new eyes. Saldanha homestead was still beautiful, it was still filled with furniture brought from South Africa in different woods—kiaat or teak, stinkwood, yellowwood—but it had got shabby and her parents hadn’t been in the position to remedy that.

The first thing she did was have the house painted inside and out. She used some of her favourite colours, like chalk and lagoon-blue, mocha, raspberry, mango, mushroom and heritage green and some beautiful wallpapers,
although she maintained white for the exterior. Then she’d pulled up all the fitted carpets and replaced them. Fortunately this was restricted to the second floor, as the ground floor and the main rooms had wooden parquet floors that were almost an artwork on their own. And she’d had all the bathrooms upgraded.

After this major upheaval, her efforts had been less disruptive—she and Mary Hiddens had had a great time modernizing the kitchen as well as replenishing the linen.

And after all the work and cherishing she’d lavished on it, on top of coming so close to losing it, Saldanha meant even more to her than ever.

But there were other things that weighed on her and filled her with a feeling of guilt at times—how lightly she’d taken everything that had made up her old life. Expensive schooling, then a gap year backpacking around Africa and Asia. University, all the right clothes, all the right friends, her horses, her parents’ wealth.

She’d heard it said that Damien and Kimberley Theron went around as if they owned the district. She’d ignored the jibe at the time but now she was forced to look back and acknowledge that she may have, at times, behaved like a spoilt socialite.

If so, it sometimes helped to remind herself that at the grand old age of twenty-two she’d come to earth with an almighty bump. And she would never forgive herself for not noticing the dire straits her parents had got themselves into sooner.

Thinking of her parents led her to wondering—yet again—if Reith had sent them on a luxury cruise to relieve
the pressure of their shock and disapproval about their daughter’s marriage.

That’s me, she reminded herself. And she had to confess it made things much easier because, since they’d got back, the sting and impossibility of it all seemed to have subsided.

Yes, her mother had several times tried to dig below the surface Kim presented of a busy, capable if not deliriously happy wife, until Kim had sat her down one day, taken Fiona’s hands in hers and said, ‘Mum, I’m fine. Please don’t ask me to explain things between me and Reith…they’re complicated but he’s no monster and…I am fine.’

Fiona had grimaced, then said tremulously, ‘I just wish we were a happy family again. I hardly see anything of Damien these days.’

‘You’re lucky to see him at all,’ Kim had replied, then bitten her tongue. ‘But you’ve got me,’ she’d teased then.

And her mother had hugged her mightily.

One of the other aspects of her new life that was more rewarding than contemplating how things had changed for her, was dealing with Reith’s motherless son.

For the most part, Darcy Richardson appeared to be a perfectly normal ten-year-old. Unlike his father, he was fair with hazel eyes and freckles, but it had struck Kim early on that he was just too perfect. He was polite, he had beautiful manners, he ate everything that was put in front of him and he came and went from his boarding school every second weekend with no sign of any regrets, no evidence of homesickness, no elation
at being home either. In fact she got the feeling he was happier at school.

Once, Kim had involuntarily said to Reith as they’d dropped Darcy back at school, ‘Is he a bit traumatized?’

Reith had stared at the image of his son diminishing in his rear-view mirror and, as she’d watched him, Kim had taken an unexpected breath.

There was not much she cared to admit she admired about Reith Richardson, but for one moment she’d seen a sort of suffering in his eyes she hadn’t expected him to be capable of feeling.

‘He…he can be a little hard to get through to sometimes,’ he’d said.

‘Because he lost his mother? And now his grandmother?’

Reith had accelerated the car down the school drive. ‘He never knew his mother, but that’s obviously a cross to bear for any child. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to spend as much time with him as I’d like to have.’

‘That’s not unusual for a father, a breadwinner,’ Kimberley had said slowly. ‘Perhaps especially without a wife. What about your parents? Did they help out?’

He’d cast her a look of such irony, she’d been jolted. ‘My parents?’ he’d said. ‘My mother left home when I was ten and my father never recovered. He died before Darcy was born.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she’d murmured and one glance beneath her lashes at his harsh features had not encouraged her to pursue the subject.

It hadn’t left her, though, and she might not have mentioned it or discussed it with Reith but from then on
she’d taken a special interest in Darcy. From her interest in and experience with kids, she knew not to crowd the boy so she bided her time and watched what he did and how he reacted to life at Saldanha. It wasn’t long before she noticed something that appeared to break through that excruciatingly polite, almost touch-me-not exterior Darcy Richardson presented to the world—a horse.

Mattie’s half-brother, to be precise, a chestnut two-year-old Kim had often despaired of raising because of a throat deformity. But an operation had finally cured the problem and, although the colt was small and would only ever be a children’s pony, he was now sound and just the right size for Darcy. What was more, she could see that Darcy was drawn to the chestnut.

‘What’s his name?’ he’d asked Kim one day as he was scratching his forehead.

Kim grimaced. ‘Rusty. Not very original but we didn’t think he was going to survive.’

‘Can he be ridden?’

‘Sure—do you ride, Darcy?’

The boy had nodded. ‘I get lessons at school. But they’re all old hacks.’

‘Would you like to ride Rusty?’

‘Yes, if it’s OK.’

‘No problem, but we’ll have to find a saddle and a hat for you. We’ll go out together because he hasn’t been ridden for a while and Mattie will be a good influence on him. And, just for safety’s sake, we’ll use a leading rein. But only until you’ve got to know him.’

So that was what they did, and got into the habit of doing it whenever Darcy was home.

Then one day Darcy had said to her, ‘Kim?’

She’d looked across at him in some surprise as they jogged through the paddock, because it was the first time he’d called her by name. ‘Yep?’

‘Can I give Rusty a new name?’

Kim blinked. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Rimfire!’

She’d scanned the two of them, the under-sized chestnut horse and his freckle-faced, enthusiastic rider and smiled to herself as she wondered what flights of fancy Darcy was indulging in with his horse. ‘Wow! Sounds super.’

‘Really? Do you really, really think so?’

‘Yes, I really, really do.’

The other thing she noticed was how Reith went out of his way to establish a rapport with his son, not entirely successfully, however.

Coming back to the present, the morning after Reith had driven to Perth in the middle of the night, she slid off Mattie and took some time to wash her down, dry her and mix her feed. Time, she understood, she was using to delay her return to the house, where it was much more difficult to ignore her problems …

‘Thanks, Mary,’ she said as the housekeeper delivered a laden trolley to the breakfast room.

Kim loved the breakfast room, with its view out over the herb garden. It had a stone fireplace, her mother’s desk, which she’d inherited, and some comfortable arm-chairs
as well as the walnut dining table and chairs. The décor was beige walls, white woodwork and splashes of peppermint-green and rose-pink. Despite being labelled the breakfast room, they took all their meals there when they were alone.

Mary had been part of the Saldanha establishment for as long as Kim could remember and she was the soul of discretion. However, possibly because she’d known Kim since she was a baby, Mary also took a stance at times that advised Kim she liked to be kept up to date with ‘movement on the station’ and not only physical movement, a stance she demonstrated as she returned with the silver coffee pot.

‘Mr Richardson didn’t mention he was going away,’ she said as she placed the pot carefully on a trivet.

‘No,’ Kim agreed. ‘It…uh…came up out of the blue.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kim replied and grimaced at the sharp look she received. ‘That is to say
he
didn’t seem to know.’

Mary tidied the table unnecessarily. ‘He didn’t take any clothes.’

‘Well, you know, Mary, we keep things in the apartment so we don’t have to pack and so on.’

‘The apartment in Perth? So that’s where he’s gone?’

‘That’s what he said,’ Kimberley replied with a lilt, meant to convey complete unconcern, although, of course, Reith had said nothing of the kind.

But the housekeeper shrugged and went on her way looking reassured, although leaving Kim wondering whether she ever fooled Mary Hiddens.

She stared at her breakfast, bacon and eggs, then poured herself a glass of orange juice.

Fortunately, considering the state of her marriage, she mused, her parents had always had separate bedrooms.

Could they have any idea how handy that had been to their only daughter when she’d embarked on her marriage of convenience to Reith Richardson? she often wondered.

Mind you, she reminded herself, the other thing that helped conceal the true state of their marriage was the fact that Reith spent very little time at home. He’d had a helicopter pad installed behind the house and his royal-blue chopper was a common sight coming and going. He often left home ridiculously early or late, so it made sense for Kim to have her own bedroom. Well, she grimaced, more or less.

She thought about Reith’s secretary, Alice Hawthorn, who was devoted to him. Alice was in her fifties, a widow, and secretly in love with Reith but a model of efficiency. She lived in Perth and worked in the office Reith maintained in the city.

If she had any doubts about her employer’s marriage being made in heaven she never gave the slightest indication of it. But surely she must wonder, Kim sometimes thought.
She
has to brief me about all his movements, all the engagements we need to attend together—surely she must wonder if we ever pass the time of day with each other?

She shook her head and turned her attention to her breakfast, feeding most of her bacon to Sunny Bob, who
grinned widely at her. Then she poured herself some coffee and found she was unable to tear her thoughts away from Reith and his dramatic departure last night, not to mention the gauntlet he’d laid down.

And with the memory of that came a cold little bubbling sense of fear brought on by the thought that if she didn’t hold up her side of the bargain she would lose Saldanha and Balthazar. Not only that, but her parents could lose their pleasant lifestyle and her father could lose his position on the board of the winery, which seemed crucial to his self-respect.

Would he do that to her?

She sighed, a sound of pure frustration, because trying to read Reith was like trying to break a particularly difficult code.

Yes, the last few months had revealed that he was a tough businessman who invariably got his own way, but then she’d guessed that although she’d not known the full extent of it.

What had surprised her, as well as her father, who was nevertheless loath to admit it, was the depth and breadth of his vision in the cattle and wine business. It should have been new to him, she’d reasoned, the wine business anyway. But, new to him or not, what many saw as risks, he saw as challenges and some of his lightning decisions had taken her breath away.

She sometimes thought back to their first dinner, when she’d asked him what the appeal was in rescuing and buying ailing businesses. When she’d been, she thought with a private little grimace, a touch superior about vocations, and he’d answered that it was
the challenge and the learning curve, or words to that effect. She now saw a powerful intellect at work as he absorbed knowledge like blotting paper.

She’d seen Balthazar pick up and only in seeing it did she realize she hadn’t noticed its decline. She’d seen the Saldanha estate and the cattle it ran go through the same transformation.

She’d not known what to make of it when he’d complimented her on having a commercial instinct herself.

‘What do you mean?’ she’d asked rather sharply.

He’d grimaced and leant his wide shoulders against her bedroom door frame. She’d been sitting at her dressing table, brushing her hair as her final step towards getting ready for a luncheon they were hosting at home.

‘It appears,’ he’d said, ‘that you could sell ice to Eskimos.’

Kim had been watching him in her mirror but she twisted on the stool and frowned at him. ‘I don’t understand. It sounds a bit fishy …’

He’d grinned. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Why? What about?’

‘That anything to do with commercialism has vulgar connotations for you.’

Kim had blinked several times. ‘I said no such thing,’ she objected.