The Man From Southern Cross

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne ‘for every possible joyous occasion’. She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

The Man From Southern Cross

by

Margaret Way

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter One

HE LEFT the mustering camp late afternoon, when the still-blazing sun was slipping down the sky in a glory of red, gold and amethyst.

Every bone, every muscle in his body was throbbing with fatigue. It had been a long hard day made doubly frustrating because he and a handful of the men had to fight yet another brushfire at the old “dancing grounds.”

The aboriginals claimed, perhaps with perfect truth, that the grounds were sacred and the brushfires, which had gone on for as long as anyone could remember, were the work of Jumboona, one of the more mischievous of the ancient gods. Sometimes when he was tired, like now, he accepted that possibility with a laconic shrug. Unless the fires were lit deliberately—and no one had ever found any evidence of it—there seemed to be no easy explanation. As his father used to say, “Old Jumboona strikes again!” Charlie Eaglehawk, their best tracker, claimed to have seen Jumboona through the flames, but then Charlie specialized in stories that made the hair on the back of one’s neck prickle.

He rode on, allowing the splendor of the sunset to revive him. The muster would resume at dawn the next day, but there was a tension in the men and in the cattle he didn’t much like. The hot winds had a bearing on it. As well, for the aboriginal stockmen, Jandra Crossing was the site of an old ritual killing by one of the dreaded kurdaitcha men, dispensers of justice since the Dreamtime. Stories about the ritual kurdaitcha killings were interwoven with the legends of Southern Cross; so were the stories about Jumboona and his hostile cavortings. Jumboona certainly liked to keep them all busy, he thought now with a sort of rueful humor.

A wallaby jumped out in front of his big stallion, The Brigadier, who executed a high-stepping dance. He reined the horse in, then pushed his akubra farther back on his head, looking up at the sky. It was pearlescent with smoke, the smell of burned bush land hot in his nostrils. Even the birds seemed disturbed, sending up spine-tingling shrieks as they flew home to the billabongs and swamps. The kurdaitcha man’s victims, transgressors of the tribal laws, were said to wander the lignum swamps at night. Many a stockman over the long years had claimed to see their spirits setting up camp near the water. He had never seen anything paranormal himself, and he didn’t expect to. But even his so-called iron nerves had been tested now and again in the hill country, where the extensive network of caves served as immensely old galleries for images of love magic and sorcery.

Southern Cross, the Mountford desert stronghold since the 1860s, was also a mythical place for the Jurra Jurra tribe. So the legends had begun and were allowed to grow. This was his country and he loved it with a passion. No woman could ever hold him in the same way. At thirty, with half a dozen affairs behind him, he had reason to know. He’d come close to marriage once—it was expected that at some stage he would provide the historic Mountford station with an heir—but he’d found himself unable to take the final step. No woman had ever fired his blood.

Dusk saw him riding through the main compound on his way to the huge complex of stables at the rear of the homestead. He dismounted in the circular courtyard, looking around. Where the hell was Manny? Probably whittling away at one of his little wooden sculptures; they were so good, he thought it was about time he encouraged the boy to do something with his skill. He summoned him with a loud whistle and Manny came running, his face split in a wide grin.

“Old Jumboona get yah again, Boss?”

Tired as he was, he couldn’t help returning Manny’s infectious grin. “The worst thing, Manny, is that you seem to enjoy it.”

“No, Boss.” Manny shook his curly head. “You’ll cut ‘im down to size and that’s a fact. I’m beginnin’ to wonder if the old boy ain’t losin’ his powers.”

His laugh rasped in his dry throat. “You should have spent the day with me. And I wouldn’t speak too loudly, either. The old boy might hear you.”

“Wouldn’t bother about the likes o’ me.” Manny took charge of The Brigadier’s saddle. “Saw Miss Annabel a while ago. She was all excited about her friend.”

Her friend! God, he didn’t know whether to laugh or bang his head against the stone wall. He’d clean forgotten about Annabel’s friend. She would be up at the homestead right now.

“Everything okay, Boss?” Manny asked anxiously.

“I just need an ice-cold beer, Manny. And a hot tub. In that order.” He didn’t say the thought of having to make small talk with a strange woman intensified his feelings of tiredness and irritation. He swept off his akubra and ran an impatient hand through his hair, black and shiny as a magpie’s wing. It was too thick and too long at the back and, he supposed, that together with the marks of grime and smoke gave him the appearance of a wild man. Not exactly what Miss Roishin—what kind of name was that?—Grant would expect to see. He laughed out loud remembering how some women’s magazine had voted him one of the sexiest men in the country. Eligible and rich. The rich surely helped; the sexy bit amazed him. He knew he was attractive to women, but he didn’t flatter himself unduly. Most women were very frivolous, he’d found. They had this big ongoing affair with glamour and glitz.

His thoughts inevitably shifted to the wedding. In a few days’ time, Annabel, his stepsister—the elder, by fully five minutes, of identical twins—was to be married in the homestead’s ballroom, with the reception in the Great Hall. The whole thing had gotten a little out of hand as far as he was concerned. And he was footing the bill.

To be fair, as a leading “landed” family, their guest list had to be long. The extended Mountford family was spread over three states, with Southern Cross the ancestral home. They all expected to be represented, along with close friends, business friends, the usual socialites, assorted politicians and a fair sprinkling of the legal profession to which the groom, Michael Courtney, belonged. It sometimes seemed to him that half the country had been invited, but Annabel assured him 250 guests was the lowest possible count. Roishin—was it Gallic for rose?—was one of the four bridesmaids. She had been a close friend of the twins at university, yet strangely enough he had never met her. The one time she’d visited the station he’d been on a business trip to Texas, seeing a fellow rancher. The girls, Annabel and Vanessa, spent a lot of time with her in Sydney where she lived and he maintained an apartment as a family pied-à-terre. When he’d had time to listen, he’d learned that her father was a merchant banker, her mother a divorce lawyer. Roishin probably arranged flowers. The twins, “the Mountford heiresses” as they were usually referred to in the press, didn’t work much, either. He, as head of the Mountford clan since the untimely death of his father, worked like a dog and always had.

His stepmother, Sasha, of whom he was very fond, had taken to spending a good deal of her time traveling. In fact, Sasha’s travels had become something of a family joke. His own mother, Charlotte, had walked out on him and his father after a grueling seven years of marital war. His father had applied for custody of their only child, with the considerable weight of the family’s power and influence behind him, and had emerged triumphant, just as everyone had known he would. He had been the heir, the helpless six-year-old victim who’d never been prepared for the emotional devastation. Even now, sometimes, in some deep place inside him, it hurt like hell. He’d had such love for his mother. Enormous love. He’d worshiped her. For years he just couldn’t take in her treachery. She had left them both for a man she hadn’t even bothered to marry.

His father had engineered it so that he rarely saw his mother. On those few occasions, he’d been full of hurt and hostility, very difficult to handle. He hadn’t seen his mother in many years now, though Sasha persisted in trying to shove photographs in the glossies under his nose. She was Lady Vandenberg now, wife of Eric Vandenberg, the industrialist. His mother had tried to make contact with him after his father’s death, but feeling as he did, he couldn’t bring himself to see her. She was the one who had made an art form of rejection.

He decided to enter the house through the front door. It was the quickest route upstairs, where he had the entire west wing to himself. Sasha and the twins shared the east wing. The house was so big they could all rattle around in it without even seeing each other. The Hon. George Clifford Mountford had begun work in the early 1860s on what was to become a thirty-five room mansion. The complex of surrounding buildings included a picturesque old stone church built for the master, his family and servants. No way could it accommodate 250 wedding guests, but the big reception rooms at the homestead could.

He had barely moved across the threshold when the sound of footsteps along the gallery made him look up. A young woman was descending the staircase at a rush.

His first thought was she had strayed out of a painting. Something by John Singer Sargent. Her image stamped itself indelibly on his mind. She was a waking dream, a creature of incredible light and grace. She kept moving…floating…. Colors shimmered. She had long dark hair with a burnish of purple, luminous white skin, large faintly slanted blue or green eyes. He couldn’t be sure. Her full mouth, so fresh and tender, was smiling in some kind of pleasurable anticipation. She was wearing what had to be her bridesmaid’s gown. A sumptuous champagne silk creation with a neckline cut to reveal bare sloping shoulders. The rich material gleamed. The beading and embroidery on the bodice and the full sleeves flickered and flashed in the light from the chandelier. She was tantalizing…tantalizing….

Something like a wave of heat broke over him. It was as though his skin caught fire. Just as he thought no woman could move him, he felt a shock of desire so powerful his fists clenched instinctively until the knuckles showed white. For an instant he was the helpless male again. Bitter and powerless in the face of a woman’s sheer magic. He was no match for her. The thought appalled him, influencing his attitude drastically.

She looked down. Saw him. Became arrested, unsure of her next movement. She’d been hurrying down the staircase, one hand holding up the skirt of her long billowing gown, the other trailing along the banister. Now she stood immobilized.

Adrenaline pumped through him, energizing his tired body and keying up his senses. Experience had taught him to be a very careful man. But here she was! Out of nowhere, a crisis in his life. And more than anything he wanted her away. Back to the city and the hothouse where she belonged. Such women couldn’t bloom in the desert. They only brought heartbreak and trouble.

He saw her make a visible effort to speak. A soft ripple moved her throat. “You must be David. We’ve never met, have we? How do you do? I’m Roishin.”

She had a lovely voice, warmly pitched, self-possessed. Or it would have been except for the faintest tremor. Perhaps his appearance frightened her? The wild hair, the dark stubble of beard, his stained clothes. She pronounced her name Roh-sheen with the accent on the second syllable. Appropriately, it sounded like a name from myth and legend.

Any civilized man would have moved to greet her, but he stood perfectly still, making her come to him. No one had ever called him David except his mother. He’d been Mont to his father, as he was to Sasha and the twins. Mountford to just about everyone else, including family.

She went to give him her slender white hand, but he evinced cool surprise. “Welcome to Southern Cross,” he said, aware his voice sounded curt and formal. “I won’t take your hand. I’m covered in grime and it’s important not to mark your beautiful gown.”

There was a fraught little silence as if she realized he didn’t want to touch her. Her iridescent eyes darkened, glistened as though stung by tears.

I want her, he thought. This is the woman who will change my life.

Chapter Two

HE KNEW he was quiet at dinner. Once or twice he caught Sasha and the twins looking at him, obviously wondering why he wasn’t making his usual contribution to the conversation, especially when a guest was present. But Roishin Grant was having a strange effect on him. She might have been a creature from another planet, beguiling his eye but stilling his tongue. Her presence undermined his control, dredging up some part of him he’d thought long buried—a need and a longing that seemed to possess him although he was reluctant to experience such emotions again. Remembered love burned in him. For an instant he had a clear recollection of his mother sitting where Sasha was sitting now. He wasn’t aware of it, but his eyes turned stormy. The pain had dulled, but not the anger. The anger was a permanent scar.

His mother had been beautiful in just the way this woman was beautiful. Dark-haired, jewel-eyed, pale-skinned. Bewitching, where Sasha and the twins with their fair pretty faces and rounded curves had the freshness of apples. Tonight she wore something silky in a swirl of blues, greens and purples, the V neckline allowing tantalizing glimpses of the shadowy cleft between her breasts. Her features in the rose gold lighting had the perfection of sculpture, but the eyes and the mouth were ravishingly female. That he could do without. He could even understand why a man might want to marry a sensible plain-faced woman. A dull woman, who wouldn’t have the capacity to inflict mortal wounds.

From time to time, because he couldn’t resist it, he inserted a probing question, which she parried without fluster. She had a charming candid way about her, but he was determined to remain unimpressed—far from easy when his every sense was being seduced. By the time coffee arrived, the realization suddenly hit him that she had been drawing him out. And she’d done it with considerable tact and skill, leaving him in no doubt that as a lawyer she’d be a very deft operator. In a whispered aside, Annabel had told him about Roishin’s qualification in law. Another shock. Not a flower-arranging dilettante, after all. At least she had a career to take her straight back home. She wouldn’t be lingering here to finish what she’d started—the oldest story in the world. Seduction.

He excused himself fairly early, saying he had correspondence to attend to; it was true, but had their guest been almost anyone else, the job would have kept. Later, when he was drafting a letter to the chairman of a government committee of which he was a member, he heard them fooling around the piano. Both his sisters played, Annabel extremely well, and he smiled to himself as she launched into a spirited and highly embellished version of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” It was so entertaining he got up to open his door. From “The Wedding March,” Annabel began to work her way through a number of songs, old and new, love songs, wedding songs, with Vanessa singing snatches as her twin played. Sasha, who wasn’t terribly accurate with her pitching, called for an old wedding song that had probably been all the rage in her day and began singing it almost before Annabel had finished the introduction.

He put down his pen, listening to the words.

His own lips formed the words ironically. Promise me. Promises. Love and togetherness…

His mother had made sacred promises she had never kept. She had scorned the husband she’d married in the sight of God, abandoned her small son. So much for promises and dazzling women. He had a sure instinct in these matters.

Sasha was having difficulties with her vocalizing, and another voice took over. At first happily, slightly exaggerating the sentimental lyrics, then as though with a sudden change of heart, seriously, in a voice that held him spellbound.

His hands on the huge mahogany partner’s desk, his father’s desk, clenched and unclenched. He’d liked Vanessa’s version of some Whitney Houston song, but this was unbearably sweet, a naturally beautiful female voice singing an old song with great tenderness, sincerity and purity. Annabel’s accompaniment moved into a matching mode, became stirring, full of feeling. The extreme top note soared with ease and absolute certainty. As a performance it was unique in his experience, invading caverns in his heart he had thought sealed.

Annabel called a spontaneous “Bravo!”, clapping like a devotee at a classical concert.

Vanessa, as always, seconded her, barely a heartbeat later, sounding the least bit tearful. Then Sasha’s astonished, “That was lovely, Roishin!”

Now he heard her laugh. A melodious ripple, with a music all its own. He should have known from the cadences of her speaking voice that she could sing. Roishin Grant was becoming more disturbing by the minute.

Later he came to stand in the doorway to say good-night. “I enjoyed the concert, ladies!” He gave a slight bow, contemplating the charming tableau, faces turned toward him. “Roishin was the soloist?” As though he didn’t know.

“Yes, isn’t she brilliant?” Pleasure and animation was all over Annabel’s sunny open face. “She even made us cry.”

“Dare I admit to a tear myself?” His eyes singled out Roishin briefly. He meant his tone to be pleasant, but even then an edge crept in. “Would you care to go riding in the morning, Roishin?” he asked, to make amends. What in sweet hell was making him say her name like that? It was rolling off his tongue like honey.

“Yes, go!” the others urged.

“You do ride?” Again the degree of challenge.

The twins exchanged glances, but Roishin was perfectly poised, looking at him with her iridescent eyes. Blue, green, he wasn’t sure. They seemed to change dramatically with different flashes of color from her dress.

“I do, but I think as a renowned horseman and polo player you might judge me harshly.”

“Mont’s always kind to beginners,” Van, his faithful disciple, said.

“Roishin doesn’t look terribly convinced,” Annabel laughed.

“I’d love to come with you, David.” She smiled, softening his mood and charming him. “If it makes you feel happier, I belonged to a pony club as a child.”

Her voice was actually connecting with his nerve ends, vastly unsettling him. “Well, that’s something, I’m sure. Until the morning, then. Just around daybreak is perfect, but I suppose that’s too early for you?” Did he have to make everything sound like a rebuke?

“Dawn sounds perfect.” She continued to smile gently, humoring his abrasiveness. Her mouth was full, soft, with a pronounced cupid’s bow. Was that supposed to mean sensuality? Vulnerability? All he knew was that he wanted to crush it with his own.

“We’ll have breakfast waiting when you come home,” Sasha promised, her smile registering a certain roguishness.

Don’t try your matchmaking on me, Sasha, he thought. Fond as he was of his stepmother, he was the master of his own fate. And he had rejected Roishin Grant on sight.

HE AWOKE at first light from long habit, finding in himself an excitement he wanted to shut out. Damn and blast, what was the matter with him? He wasn’t a callow adolescent. If he wanted to brag, he could have said he was immensely successful with women. But this Roishin Grant was affecting him sharply, bringing out something almost primitive in his nature. He felt threatened, hostile, enslaved. All at the same time. He couldn’t help feeling a certain contempt for himself, as well. No woman was going to dominate his life ever again. He’d decided that long ago.

Still, the coming of Sasha, then the twins, had made Southern Cross cheerful. When he married—and he would have to—he’d have the sense to find an honest openhearted woman like Sasha. She’d brought peace, but no drama. His father’s experience, and he remembered his beloved father in all his moods, had warned him off drama for life.

Yet here he was, showering and dressing at full speed. It was a spell of sorts, and he despised it. He scooped up his akubra and went out the door, hoping she’d have the sense to bring a hat. The sun would be up soon enough, and he found himself hating the thought of any burning to her skin. No wonder they described a woman’s skin as “magnolia.” Hers had the same flawless, creamy, stroke-me quality.

Miracle of miracles, she was waiting for him in the hallway, as straight as a boy except for the soft, high thrust of her breasts. She actually jumped when he came up behind her saying, “Hello, there,” then swung to face him, her long hair, very thick and straight, brushed back from her face and caught in some kind of knot on her nape. As a hairstyle it couldn’t have been more severe, but she carried it beautifully. In fact, he saw more this way—the lovely line of her jaw, the way it merged with the graceful column of her neck, the almost flower-like set of her ears.

“David, you startled me!” she gasped. “You have a very quiet tread.”

“So I’ve been told.” He could see a trace of something—near-fright?—in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I had no intention of alarming you.” But she knew there was a hardness in him; a hardness that might make a sensitive woman shrink. “I’m glad you thought to bring a hat.”

“One of Van’s.”

“Then put it on. The sun’s strong even this early, and your skin is very white.” He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her, although that wasn’t what he wanted at all. Her hair, her face, the feminine slope of her shoulders. She, too, stood staring up at him, like a creature trying to struggle out of a trap.

“I’m not arguing with you, David,” she said finally, putting the hat on and adjusting the chin strap. “It’s very obvious that you’re right—and it’s equally obvious that you’re accustomed to command.”

His gaze raked her, trying to decipher her expression. “I do run Southern Cross. And I know that any other way wouldn’t work.” He extended his arm, indicating she should precede him out the door.

Manny was already up and about, parading his infectious grin. “Mornin’ Boss. Mornin’ Miss.”

“Miss Grant,” he told the boy briefly.

“Miss Grant, o’course!” Manny studied Roishin with immense approval.

“Good morning, Manny,” she smiled. “We’ve met before. Don’t you remember?”

“Sure do, ma’am. Are you gonna take the same horse?”

“And which horse was that?” Mountford asked, deceptively quiet.

“Miss Grant’s a plenty good rider,” Manny told him warmly. “She really knows how to treat horses.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, Manny.”

“She took The Brigadier!” Manny whooped.

He looked and felt thoroughly jolted. “The Brigadier is much too strong for a woman.”

Manny sobered abruptly, doing a little mime with his hands.

“Please don’t blame Manny,” Roishin begged. “I…rather insisted.”

“Manny should know better. You won’t be riding The Brigadier today.” He couldn’t control the curtness and he saw her flush. Damn! He didn’t really want to upset her.

He gave an order to Manny and the boy moved away, returning a few moments later leading Star Lady, a small but beautifully proportioned silver gray mare with a sweet temper and a surprisingly long stride.

“Oh, isn’t she lovely? Is she for me?” Roishin must have forgiven him, because she looked up at him with a smile that would have melted a stonier heart than his.

“She is. You’ll find her a pleasant ride. I’ll take The Brigadier…if you don’t mind.”

It didn’t take long to saddle up the horses, and soon they were on their way. He rode the big, dashing jet black stallion that stood a good seventeen hands high. If she could hold The Brigadier as she must have done, she was an excellent horsewoman.

As he soon found out. The talk of the pony club had been no more than a tease. She was an experienced rider, with considerable style. A feeling of great contentment welled up in him, calming his inner conflicts. It was an incomparable feeling, riding together in the pearly dawn. The air was blissfully pure and cool, laden with the sweet scents of the bush. Bird song poured from the trees that scattered blossom like confetti as they rode beneath them and out onto the open plain. Her face beneath his sister’s white akubra was alive with quick feelings. She looked entranced, as though the magic he always felt was getting to her, too. It pleased him more than he would ever have believed.

Not everyone understood the outback, its vastness and savage majesty. Some found it eerie, others intimidating, and many professed to a kind of atavistic fear that raised the short hairs on the backs of their necks. It had something to do with the enormous empty distances, the great silence, the play of color, light and shadow on the monumental primeval rocks. The outback had an incredible mystique. It was the wild beating heart of the most ancient continent on earth.

At one of the crystal-clear gullies overhung by the weeping casuarinas they came upon a small party of aboriginal women and children gathering herbs, and they exchanged greetings before moving on. After a long and agonizing drought, Southern Cross had experienced its first good season in years, and the wildflowers were prodigious, running in a marvelous multicolored embroidered carpet to the curiously domed hillocks that rose like Persian minarets on the station’s western border.

At this time of day the hills were a soft pink, but like many of the great rocks of the interior they changed color with weather conditions, aspect and time of day. Mountford had seen them run the gamut from salmon pink to rose to glowing furnace red, then back to deep purple and misty mauve. There were aboriginal legends connected to every natural feature on the station, and as they slowed their exhilarating gallop to a comfortable walk, he began to point out different places of geographical interest, outlining the Dreamtime legends that went along with them.

The sun was up now in full splendor, dispersing the strange mists that hung like clouds along the ancient watercourses. The aborigines looked on them as guardian spirits, and to an imaginative eye they appeared to be just that, lying in milky circlets and ribbons only a few inches above the green canopy of trees. One could expect mists when a chill hung over the bush, but the mists moved in faithfully even when the weather was brilliantly clear and hot.