Emma did not want to socialise with Kane Talbot, but it would be nice to meet the neighbours. So she smiled and replied, ‘I’d love to, thank you very much.’
‘Good. Around seven? I’ll get someone to come down and pick you up.’
‘No, no, I can walk up.’
Mrs Talbot looked startled. ‘You’ll get your shoes dirty. It’s no problem.’
Clearly one did not attend a dinner party at the Talbots’ place with dirty shoes, or even carry a pair to change into. Emma said, ‘I’ll drive up, then.’
‘I thought the car was in dock?’
Emma said, ‘It should be ready by tomorrow night.’
Unfortunately it wasn’t. Emma, now dressed neatly in a silk shirtdress of black with a soft violet pattern, had had every intention of donning gumboots and walking, but late in the afternoon Kane had rung and told her laconically that he’d pick her up at seven.
Emma had opened her mouth to protest, then shrugged and agreed. She’d have graciously accepted any other offer of a lift; it was only because it was Kane that she wanted to assert her independence.
He arrived exactly on time and in a downpour of rain. Warned by barking, Emma raced from the bedroom, grabbed her umbrella and shot out through the front door, closing it carefully behind her. She’d had a last-minute battle with the strap of her slip—it tore from the bodice as she put it on and had to be anchored with a safety pin—but she met Kane with a smile and her best social manner.
‘Good evening,’ he said, taking her umbrella and holding a much larger one over her.
In one swift, startled glance Emma understood what Mrs Firth had meant. Kane looked as completely at home in the well-cut trousers and fine cotton shirt as he’d looked in the working clothes she’d first seen on him—not a rough edge in sight.
Of course his tailor had a good frame to work on. Kane’s lithe, perfectly proportioned body enhanced anything he wore, but more than that, his powerful male potency reduced his clothes to mere accessories, carefully chosen and then forgotten.
‘Hello,’ Emma said, pretending that her heart was ambling along in its normal unnoticeable fashion. Rain hurtled against the roof of the house, and she raised her voice to ask, ‘Do you want to wait until it goes over?’
‘No. Guests will be arriving soon, and I need to be there when they come.’ He looked down at the narrow-heeled shoes she wore. ‘Would you like me to carry you out to the car?’
‘No,’ she said firmly as heat burnt across her cheeks. She peered out at the rain, driving in curtains of silver through the brilliant glow of the security lights, then said desperately, ‘I think it’s easing up,’ and set off towards the car.
He got there before her and opened the door with one strong, negligent hand.
While she did up the seatbelt she watched him walk around to the other side. He didn’t waste time or effort, moving with an economical, spare grace that liquefied her spine, and when he got in beside her the muscles in his thigh flexed beneath the superb cloth of his trousers. Swiftly, precisely, he put the car into gear, long-fingered hands casually competent.
Emma’s pulse began to throb in her throat. On the way back from Parahai the other day it hadn’t occurred to her that only a few centimetres separated her thigh from his; nothing had changed, so why was she so aware of it now?
She stared out at the avenue of magnolias, big, swooping trees holding their splendid flowers up to the dark sky. When they fell the petals would carpet the vivid grass in pink and white for two weeks of exquisite beauty...
And because the silence in the car stretched and simmered with tension, she said, ‘Those trees are a magnificent sight. Who planted them?’
‘My parents, when my mother came here as a bride.’
Emma said, ‘She must delight in them now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will the rain spoil the flowers?’
‘No.’
All right then, she thought, irritated rather than hurt by his abruptness, you can come up with the next subject of conversation.
The drive swooped past paddocks where large red cattle placidly chewed cuds in the sudden exposure of the headlights, then it branched and almost immediately a cattlestop rattled under their wheels. Skilfully placed lighting illuminated a pond large enough to be called a lakelet. Framed by trees and gardens, it glimmered in the dusk and then was left behind as they drove beneath more trees and between wide lawns.
Emma said impulsively, ‘What a magnificent setting!’
‘My mother will enjoy showing you around,’ Kane Talbot said levelly.
‘My mother adored gardening. I remember her laughing at her grubby hands, and my father asking her why she didn’t wear gloves. She said she couldn’t work in gloves.’
‘It doesn’t sound as though she’s still alive.’
Emma said slowly, ‘She died when I was fifteen—almost sixteen.’
‘That’s a bad age to lose a mother,’ he said unexpectedly.
Emma nodded. ‘Yes. Too young to be able to view her with any degree of judgement—I just thought she was perfect—and I was so self-absorbed I couldn’t see past my own grief. But I don’t suppose there’s any good age to have your mother die. Oh!’
The drive had eased around a clump of large trees and run out in front of the homestead, a splendid, modern structure that fitted the garden and the landscape, both enhancing and being enhanced by its surroundings.
‘It’s lovely,’ Emma breathed. ‘But surely the framework of the garden is older than the house? Those trees have been here a long time.’
‘The original homestead burnt to the ground about thirty years ago,’ Kane said. ‘After that we lived in the manager’s house until my mother persuaded me to build this.’
Emma glanced up swiftly at a stony, unrevealing profile. Choosing her words, she murmured, ‘It’s always a shame when a piece of history goes up in smoke.’
‘It happens. And this is a superbly comfortable replacement.’
Gracious, too: behind big double doors the hall opened out in tiled splendour. Lit by a wide skylight, an indoor garden planted with leafy, tropical shrubs ran in cool, soothing harmony down the entire side of the hallway, set off by the white flowers of peace lilies hovering above their glossy green leaves like small doves.
‘My flight of fancy,’ Mrs Talbot confided when she saw Emma’s admiration. ‘Kane indulges me shamelessly, even though I’m only here over summer. I’m an Australian, and winter here is too cold and wet for me, so I flee across the Tasman for nine months of the year.’
It was difficult to imagine Kane indulging anyone, but when Emma looked involuntarily upwards she surprised an ironic amusement in those enigmatic golden eyes. ‘You and the architect waited until I went overseas,’ he said, ‘and then changed the plans.’
‘It was just going to be a pool of still water,’ his mother confided, ‘very modern and tranquil and lovely, but I prefer plants. And—be honest now, Kane—don’t you like the plants better?’
‘How can I know, as I never had a chance to enjoy the water?’
His mother said sternly, ‘It will be much better when you have children. If the reflecting pool was there you’d have to put