In the middle of taking a bite out of a bread roll he coughed, then quickly swallowed a mouthful of water. ‘God, Francey!’ he exclaimed, touching a lean hand to his scratched throat.
‘I’ve shocked you?’
‘You have. But shock on.’
She kept her eyes on him. ‘Annette and I get on so well together. You know we do.’
He nodded. ‘Okay, so you’re very sensitive and intuitive. Both my grandmother and my mother have a soft spot for you. And it’s you more than anyone outside myself that my mother confides in. She knows whatever she says to you you’ll be certain to keep it between yourselves. My mother doesn’t trust a lot of people. With good reason. But she trusts you.’
Francesca did something she had never dared to do before. His lean tanned hand was lying on the table. She reached across and closed her hand over it, interlocking their fingers. ‘That goes both ways,’ she assured him, feeling stronger for his touch. ‘I trust Annette. I’ve told her a lot of things I haven’t told anyone else.’
‘Including me?’ Did she know his senses were being heightened to a painful edge? He wanted to pick up her hand and carry it to his mouth. But he knew that would only scare her off.
‘Yes, including you.’ She blushed, rose mantling her beautiful skin. ‘But just think of this for a moment. Lady Macallan is such an exceptional woman that Annette might consider herself unable to act on her level. But with me? She’s known me since I was a baby. I’m the merest beginner.’
‘Are you really? The merest beginner? You’d have fooled me.’ Bryn’s brilliant black eyes glittered, but in his way he was already tossing this extraordinary idea around in his head. ‘You could ask her.’
‘I have your permission?’ There was a quick flare of joy in her eyes. ‘You don’t know how much I appreciate that. We both know people might question why Annette Macallan would choose to join the Forsyth Foundation in any capacity.’
‘Count on it,’ Bryn confirmed bluntly.
‘Oddly enough, I think she might enjoy it. As much love as there is between Lady Macallan and Annette, Lady Macallan is a formidable woman—a true personage. It’s in that sense your mother might feel overshadowed.’
Bryn gave her a fathomless stare. ‘She told you that?’
‘No, no, no!’ Francesca shook her head. ‘Your mother would never say such a thing. Lady Macallan is her second mother. She adores her. It’s just something I sense. Surely you’ve sensed it too?’
When he answered his tone was crisp enough to crackle. ‘God, Francey, I’m confronted by this every day of my life,’ he said. ‘I’m very proud of my grandmother. What a woman! And I think I get some of my own strengths from her. But she and I have been waiting for years now for my mother to take back her life. She was only a girl when my father married her. Just nineteen. She had me less than two years later. Dad was her lord and master. He didn’t aim to be that. It just happened. They were very much in love, right up until the end. We were all so damned happy. Too happy. One shouldn’t ever tempt the gods. After Dad was killed much of my mother died too. Her own parents—my Barrington grandparents—didn’t stand by her. Oh, they tried for a while, but gradually they became impatient with her. She was supposed to pull out of it after a certain period of mourning. She didn’t. I’m sure she’ll be saying my father’s name with her last breath.’
‘And who’s to say he won’t be waiting for her?’ Francesca spoke gently to this man she loved, wanted to be with through eternity. ‘Millions and millions of people believe in a resurrection, an afterlife.’
Bryn’s sigh was jagged. ‘Be that as it may, we have to get through what life we have now. Speak to my mother if you want. Anything that helps her helps me. But don’t be disappointed if she gently rejects the idea.’
‘That’s fine. I won’t press her. I understand her pain. I understand the way she felt nearly destroyed without your father. But she did live for you.’
A terrible frustration showed itself in Bryn’s eyes. ‘She can’t continue to live for me, Francey. She has to live for herself. God, she’s only just turned fifty. She’s a beautiful woman. Yet she has locked herself away for years. Dad would never have wanted that. He loved her so much he would only want her to be happy.’
Francesca smiled in an effort to relieve his tension. ‘Let me talk to her. In some ways I’m not in a good situation, am I? A lot of people are waiting for me to screw up. Carina is hoping one of these days I’ll simply disappear into the desert and never come back. I need help. No one knows that more than you. I want a woman—women, as it happens, as Elizabeth is another—I can trust. I’ll put it to Annette that way. I won’t be asking a great deal of her. I’ll do as you say. Take it day by day.’
Bryn gave a hollow laugh. ‘If you can get my mother out of the house I’ll worship at your feet for ever.’ Though wasn’t he already doing just that? ‘Did I tell you, you look stunningly beautiful?’
‘Yes, you did.’ Colour mounted beneath her flawless skin. ‘It’s a new outfit. I didn’t go shopping. No time. I asked Adele Bennett to pick me out a wardrobe, which she did, and then brought it all over.’
‘You couldn’t have asked for anyone better,’ Bryn said, his eyes travelling over her. She wore a sleeveless navy silk dress that showed off the elegant set of her shoulders and her slender arms. The dress was very simple in design but striking in effect, with broad strokes of colour as if she, the artist, had taken to it with a brush: violet, yellow, and a marvellous splash of electric blue that put him in mind of a kingfisher’s plumage. It looked wonderful on her. Adele Bennett he had met at various functions. She owned exclusive boutiques in several state capitals. She must have relished the job of outfitting Francesca, with her beauty, her height and her willowy figure.
‘You like what you see?’ she prompted gently, though she felt more as if she was being consumed by his brilliant black gaze.
‘Francey, I have to say yes.’ He threw up his dark head, then gave a swift glance at his watch. ‘Shame we have to part, but there it is. I have a meeting at two-thirty.’ He lifted a hand to signal the waiter, who came on the double. ‘By the way, I thought we’d take this weekend off to visit Daramba.’ He spoke as if he wouldn’t brook any argument. ‘I’ve cleared my schedule sufficiently to warrant it. I can’t and won’t wait another week. It’s absolutely essential to find time for relaxation. We’ve both been doing precious little of that. So see you keep the weekend free. Understood?’ He lifted his eyes from the plate where he had placed his platinum credit card and smiled.
Such a smile! His whole face caught light.
‘Understood,’ she said calmly, when inside she felt wildly happy. She had held the thought of them being together at Daramba all these long days. The thought had sustained her—a wonderful weekend that was waiting for her. And she had no intention of taking along a chaperon. A chaperon was all very well for the old Francesca Forsyth. But the old Francesca had been forced out of her shell. She was now the Forsyth heiress, like it or not. She no longer lived her old life. She no longer lived like a normal person. She even felt emboldened enough to throw her own cap in the ring. Maybe Bryn had been right all along. He was a free man.
It was getting on towards four on the Friday afternoon prior to their trip to Daramba when Carina of all people burst through the door, bringing with her a whoosh of perfumed air.
‘Carina!’ Francesca rose from her desk, aware that Valerie Scott was hovering in the background, wringing her hands and looking extremely agitated. Obviously she had taken fright. ‘It’s all right, Valerie,’ she said, a model of calm.
It was doubtful if anyone on the planet would be capable of stopping a Carina hell-bent on gaining entry to what after all was their late grandfather’s resplendent office. Francesca had reduced the splendour considerably by stripping it of