“Nan, Miri aimed this at me deliberately,” Zara said wryly.
“And she’s a darn good shot.” Sibella laughed. “What you have to do now, my darling, is put your life in order. There’s a whole new life, a whole way of being, open to you. As a Christian, I should say God rest his soul, but your father had a lot to answer for. He failed you on so many levels.”
Zara knew the ocean of tears her grandmother had wept for her mother. No easy way out of grief. Sometimes no way at all. “You can’t forgive him, can you?”
“No, I can’t,” Sibella bluntly confessed. “Not for my Kathryn. Not for all eternity. And for shutting you out. When you appeared to have found happiness, he decided to inflict more suffering. He banished the young Garrick from your life. Such an intensely ambivalent man, your father. He really did love your mother in those early years but, gentle though she was, Kathryn refused to fit the mould. The other one did that.”
“She took great care to do it,” Zara said.
“Of course. Leila was prepared to do anything to get Dalton. Afterwards, I believe Dalton came to hate himself. He couldn’t look back on what he’d done. How Leila came to have that very special child, one would never know.”
“Good grandparents, Nan!” Zara said. “They would have been lovely people. Leila was a one-off.”
“Dazzling, yet nothing to her!” Sibella said sardonically. “She did everything in her power to sideline you. Jealousy. So much like your mother, you see. This may not have been obvious to you, my darling, but Dalton had a powerful jealousy of Garrick.”
Zara looked at her grandmother in astonishment. “Garrick? Don’t you mean Corin? Dad’s dominant characteristic was keeping control.”
“Bullying, don’t you mean?” Sibella said. “Splitting you and Garrick up was your father’s revenge. In no way was Garrick the kind of son-in-law he had in mind. He wanted a yes, sir, no sir man, someone who would conform. Someone he could take into the business so he’d have you both beneath his eye and under his control. He could never do that with Garrick. What did Dalton call him again?’ She sought Zara’s dark eyes. Eyes that Kathryn, then Zara had inherited from her.
Zara had to smile. “The wild bush boy! Garrick never went in awe of Dad. His attitude was even more pronounced than Corin’s. Even as a boy of ten, Garrick was a man in the making. I turned out a real wimp by comparison. Dad’s domination of me should have ended with my adolescence, Nan. I should have been strong enough to break free. Why wasn’t I?” she agonized. “I’ll tell you why!” Sibella had to hold down her wrath. “We’re talking about a tyrannical man here. Control was a compulsion. Here was a man who made tough competitors crack. It would have been easy to strip my daughter of all her confidence. She should never have married him, but she wanted him at the time. He was very cunning, determined to win her, whatever the cost. Kathryn, as a girl and a young woman, had a wonderful inner contentment and her own strength. That was the sad part. Yet, within a few years, your father had drained it. Stripped her of her happiness. You children were everything to her.”
Zara felt such a wave of pain that she hid her face in Miranda’s fragrant bouquet. “Dad robbed me of my confidence as well. He pretended—he was so convincing and I was thrilled he was even paying me attention—he was acting in my best interests. He convinced me no way would I fit into Garrick’s way of life. He told me I simply wouldn’t be able to handle any future role as Garrick’s wife and mistress of Cooranga. He pointed out to me that Mummy had felt pushed to the limit, having to assume the role of wife and partner of an important industrialist like himself. That’s what was responsible for the breakdown in the marriage, he said.”
“Not Leila, then,” Sibella commented bitterly. “Dalton was in all areas of his life a control freak.”
“He couldn’t control Corin.”
Sibella nodded with understanding and pride. “Not my Corin. But don’t forget, my darling, there was a marked contrast in how Dalton treated Corin and how he treated you, his only daughter. You were too young to lose your mother. Kathryn acted as the buffer between you children and your father. You in particular because you shared her gentle nature. She angled herself between you and Dalton. We lost her, Zara, but she never meant it She would never have deliberately left you.”
“No!” Zara nodded when she didn’t really know at all. Some questions would forever remain unanswered. But no way was she going to add to her grandmother’s grief.
Sibella spoke very quietly. “She’s here today, you know.”
“I’ve felt her,” Zara said in an equally quiet voice. “Corin told me he did too.”
“Every day of my life I pray for her and for you, Zara. You are so much like Kathryn, it’s as though she’s still with us. Now, I want you to do something for me. Garrick is standing only a few feet away. The two of us are going to stroll over for a chat. Garrick and I always did get on well. He might be smiling at that very frisky girl in the lovely blue dress, but I know where his thoughts are. You must try for a reconciliation, Zara. Too many years have been wasted.”
Beneath the silk of her beautiful bridesmaid’s dress, her heartbeat was urgent. “I’ve told you, Nan. He hates me.” Her grandmother had long since pried out of her her short-lived love affair with Garrick and its disastrous end.
“Garrick is a proud man.” Sibella glanced once more in Garrick’s direction. Garrick Rylance, so tall, bold, bronzed, vividly handsome! He could not have been more striking. His brilliant blue eyes framed by thick sooty lashes any girl would die for. A challenging man was Garrick. Never a devil like her late son-in-law, Dalton. “Garrick has it firmly in his head you threw him over, no matter how often you tried to explain. But I’ve caught him watching you. Garrick might still be angry with you, my darling, but hate you? Never! Neither of you has settled for anyone else, I notice, when both of you could have just about anyone. I find that very telling, don’t you?”
Garrick knew Zara and her grandmother were coming his way. There had scarcely been a second when he hadn’t been aware of Zara, despite the audacious attentions of several young women so hell-bent on flirtation one would have thought their lives depended on it. The one he was with now fitted the bill. She was a real stayer. The sad thing was, he only had eyes for Zara. That was his bitter fate. Being anywhere near her was like being electrified. She looked so beautiful in that pink silk gown, her long dark hair falling like a bolt of shining silk down her back. He loved the exquisite pink roses that dipped in under her ear. It had been a monumental effort trying to keep his eyes off her.
You’re totally messed up, Rylance. He’d told himself that repeatedly. Didn’t do much good. His feelings for Zara would never die. They wouldn’t even die down and it was years later. Maybe he ought to arrange a session with a really good shrink, he thought with a flash of humour.
How to cure obsession—for one particular woman.
He had already spoken to Sibella, of course. He greatly admired her. Zara was very much like her in appearance. Sibella De Lacey, nearing seventy, remained a beautiful woman. She looked after herself and dressed superbly, no doubt aided by the fact that she had retained her slender figure. He knew Sibella liked him. He knew that if Sibella could wave her magic wand she would make everything come right between himself and Zara. That was if Sibella could ever find her lost magic wand.
Zara, still holding Miranda’s lovely bouquet like some magic charm, drew a deep breath. Said a silent prayer. Perhaps she and Garrick could never get back to what they had had, but she had to try.
Her time was running out.
Celebrations continued on into the night, with couples dancing on the rear terrace to a great band who were