Heart of the Outback (8 page)

“From the photograph in this morning’s newspaper.”

Perhaps the award had been worth winning after all, Alida thought, if it meant winning a ready approval from Gareth’s daughter. If the girl was disposed to like her, Alida was more than willing to meet her halfway. Hope blossomed anew. With Stacey on her side, Gareth might come to view the situation differently. A girl of Stacey’s age was in need of a woman’s guidance and sympathy.

As they drove through the impressively pillared gateway to Heatherton, it was obvious that the girls had already been released from their last lessons of the day. They were streaming down the paths leading from the classroom block to the various boarding houses in the beautifully kept grounds.

Manicured lawns, rose gardens, tennis courts, hockey fields, old brick buildings dressed with ivy… Heatherton lived and breathed old money, and a great deal of it. Perhaps it was easy to ignore status symbols when you’ve belonged to old money for generations, Alida mused. Perhaps you simply took them for granted.

Gareth Morgan and his daughter were of that class. One of the great landowning families, established as such since the territory was opened up for settlement. It was not surprising that Gareth considered her business trivial, but she wished he wasn’t quite so dismissive of it. Her work was worth more respect than he gave it. Gareth’s lack of respect for it reflected on her personally, and she didn’t want that to rub off on his daughter.

“Just in time,” Gareth muttered, swinging the Mercedes into a parking bay in the visitors’ area. He swiftly alighted and strode around the car to Alida’s side.

She felt a flutter of nerves as he opened the door for her. “Stacey won’t know which car I’m using so it’s better if we get out,” Gareth explained. “Easier for her to spot us.”

Alida had no sooner joined Gareth than a couple of high-pitched squeals drew their attention. A huddle of young schoolgirls stared at them from the nearest path, their eyes agog, their mouths moving in busy whispers to each other. Two broke away from the group and scuttled up the path while the others remained staring at Alida.

“I think you have been recognised,” Gareth observed drily.

“Why would they recognise me?” Alida asked in puzzlement. She was hardly a public figure, and her fame, such as it was, could only be of interest to a small section of the community.

“Stacey informs me that the girls here have a fixation about clothes. Among other things,” Gareth replied sardonically. “From the reaction you’re getting, I suspect she brought your photograph to school with her. Probably as a piece of one-upmanship.”

Alida wasn’t sure how to take that. “Is Stacey herself interested in fashion?” she asked warily.

“No. But I think peer-group pressure is getting to her.” He heaved a rueful sigh. “That’s her coming now, being clutched and whispered to.”

A long-legged girl, tall for her age, and not looking at all pleased by what she was being told, Alida thought with a sinking feeling of disappointment. Stacey certainly wasn’t breaking into an excited run to greet her father and his companion. If anything, her steps had slowed, and the dark frown on her face suggested that this meeting was not only unexpected, but unwelcome.

She said something with vehemence, shook off her companions and strode ahead of them, her head tilted high in haughty independence, two thick black plaits swinging their disapproval of whatever had been suggested to her. She totally ignored the huddle of girls who watched her approach with avid interest, their eyes darting from Stacey to Gareth and Alida. She skirted them and came straight towards her father, disdaining to even glance at Alida.

Any similarity to Gareth stopped at her black hair and long legs. She must take after her mother, Alida thought, noting the flashing dark eyes, the straight aristocratic little nose, the full-lipped mouth and the smooth oval chin. It was a vivid little face, and Alida felt a fierce stab of jealousy at the thought that Gareth’s wife must have been a strikingly attractive woman.

She must also have been dark-haired to have left that legacy of brilliant dark eyes in her daughter. Pale skin and a high colour in her cheeks. I’m so different in looks, Alida thought. Is that why Gareth had chosen to use me, because I’m such a contrast to the wife he had loved? Because I couldn’t remind him of her in any way whatsoever? Had that made it easier for him?

“You said you were taking me out,” Stacey opened up in angry accusation.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Gareth replied curtly. “Do they teach you rudeness at this school, Stacey?”

“Then what’s she doing here with you?” Stacey demanded, too worked up to reply to her father’s reproof.

“I invited Miss Rose to meet you. I did not expect her to be greeted with such discourtesy from my daughter,” he grated.

The flush on Stacey’s cheeks burnt more brightly. She shot a hostile look at Alida. “I don’t mind you having my father at night. But I don’t get to see him very often and—”

“Stacey, get in the car!” Gareth commanded coldly. “We will not put on a show for your goggle-eyed friends.”

She flounced past him and opened the front passenger door. In an instant, Gareth wheeled and had her arm in a vicelike grip, preventing her from taking the seat. “Thank you for opening the door for Miss Rose, Stacey,” he said. “I’m glad to see you haven’t entirely forsaken good manners. Alida…”

The girl stood there seething as Alida blindly complied with Gareth’s command. He shut the door after her, then opened the back door for his daughter. Stacey got in with bad grace but no verbal protest. Alida no longer cared what the girl did or said. Her sickening words I don’t mind you having my father at night, were eating into her heart. Gareth had discussed her with his daughter, apparently in such terms that Stacey had reason to resent Alida’s sudden appearance in her time.

What had he said? It’s nothing serious, Stacey? Just a city woman I happen to fancy? Oh, yes, very beautiful, but not the type to ever take your mother’s place!

She couldn’t look at Gareth as he took the driver’s seat and started the engine with an angry roar. He reversed abruptly from the parking bay and accelerated out of the school grounds. The school where girls of Stacey’s class were sent, the privileged, moneyed class that bought the clothes designed by Alida, but who would always consider her beneath their level of establishment society.

Only when they were on the road and into the traffic stream leading to the city centre did Gareth speak. “You will now apologise to Miss Rose, Stacey, for your incredibly rude behaviour towards her,” he commanded tersely.

“You said you’d take me to the movies,” came the rebellious reply. “You said —”

“I said you will damned well apologise!” he shouted over his shoulder in temper.

Mutinous silence.

“Stop the car and let me out, Gareth,” Alida said quietly. It was the end. The absolute end. There was no possible hope of any future for them.

“No!” he snapped. Then he expelled a long shuddering breath and produced a calm controlled voice. “Stacey, I am not cutting you short. I do not forget my promises. I simply asked Miss Rose to join us. She wanted to meet you. I thought you might like to meet her. What, might I ask, is your problem with this arrangement?”

More mutinous silence.

“Stacey!” Impatiently.

“She doesn’t fit into our lives,” came the fiercely resentful reply. “Go to bed with her if you have to, but why should you want me to meet her?”

It was precisely what Alida had deduced from Stacey’s behaviour towards her, yet the bald shock of the spoken words sent a wave of utter revulsion through her. Gareth was stumped for a reply. He had none, Alida’s dulled brain told her. The only reason he had instituted this gambit of meeting his daughter was as a sop to her sensibilities so he could get his own way with her!

“Let me out, Gareth,” she repeated more strongly. “I don’t want this any more than your daughter does. She’s the same as her mother!”

“You didn’t know my mother!” Stacey sniped from the back seat. “And don’t think you can ever take her place!”

“Stacey!” Gareth yelled, then blazed a furious look at Alida. “What the hell does that mean?”

All the pain he had given her forged her reply. Why should she spare them anything? Neither of them had given one damn about her feelings.

“Your wife didn’t mind you treating me as a whore. Neither does your daughter. As long as I’m kept separated from your real lives. Which is what you want, too,” Alida seethed at him. “So stop the car and let me go, Gareth! And don’t ever come near me again. Because I’m through with being used as your whore!”

“Alida, no!” He shook his head. “It’s not like that! I swear to you.”

“Stop it! Just stop it!” she screamed. “I can’t bear anymore!”

He swore and thumped the driving wheel. “As soon as we’re off the freeway I’ll stop and we’ll talk this over sensibly.”

He still wasn’t prepared to give up his plan. He was totally without conscience or caring where she was concerned. Only what he wanted mattered to him.

“What did she mean, Mummy didn’t mind?” Stacey demanded.

Gareth muttered something venomous under his breath, then his mouth compressed into a hard grim line, denying any ready answer to his daughter.

“Dad?” Stacey persisted. Then with angry resentment, “You can’t let her speak about Mum like that.”

Alida gave a harsh bitter laugh. “But you can speak about me any way you like. As nasty and hurtful as you please.”

“Alida.” Gareth’s eyes stabbed a plea at her but it didn’t reach her heart. She had no heart left for any of the softer, kinder emotions, only a hard core that burned with a blistering demand for the unvarnished truth and a meting of some justice from the murk of how she had been treated.

“Why not answer her, Gareth?” she mocked. “Tell your daughter about your arrangement with your wife. Tell her how you used me and left me five years ago. No doubt she’ll understand and approve of how you handled the situation.”

“Dad?” Stacey’s voice quavered uncertainly. “What’s she talking about?”

“She!” Alida jeered, her mind torn by all the unanswered needs that both Gareth and Stacey had dangled in front of her. “Oh, what a good word for the other woman! Just she! No name! A nobody on the sidelines! Discarded after she has served her purpose!”

“Dad?”

“Alida! For God’s sake! Stacey is only a child!” Gareth pleaded hoarsely.

It triggered another outpouring of bitterness. “Yes! A child of your wife! Your precious daughter who treats me like dirt to be swept under the mat! Just like you did.”

“I had no choice then,” he protested fiercely. “I promised—”

She laughed, a high, hysterical peal of derision. “Promises to your wife, promises to your daughter, but none to me. Oh, no! Don’t ask for promises, Alida. Just give me what I want. After all, it’s only one more hitchhiker wanting a quick ride on the fast lane. Why shouldn’t I indulge you? We only live once!”

“Daddy?” Another urgent appeal from the back seat.

“Stacey, this is not how it sounds,” he answered.

“Why lie to her?” Alida jeered. “You obviously have a fine understanding between you of what’s important and what’s not.”

“I haven’t lied to her,” Gareth shot back furiously. “I don’t know who’s been filling Stacey’s head with a load of rubbish, but if you’d ever had a child, you’d realise—”

The last bastion of any sensible discretion exploded, and before Alida could stop herself the most painful truth of all was spilling out. “I have a child, Gareth. The bastard son you fathered on me. But you don’t know about him, do you? You didn’t care enough to protect me from any consequences.”

“Daddy?” It was a panicky appeal.

Alida swung around in her seat, her green eyes blazing with fathoms of uncontrollable bitterness. It was as though the madness of revealing what she should never have revealed released an even wilder madness. Words spat from her tongue in a totally destructive torrent.

“Oh, yes, Stacey! You have a brother. Or I should say half-brother. And while you’ve enjoyed your father’s devotion all the years of your life, your little half-brother hasn’t known a father at all. But you wouldn’t care about that, either. You want your father all to yourself. Well, you keep your father all to yourself!”

“Alida!” Shock was stamped on Gareth’s face, draining it of colour and drawing the flesh into stark tautness. He was suddenly breathing hard. “What the hell are you saying?”

“You have a son, Gareth!” she hurled at him. “A son you’re never going to know! Because he’s mine.

And just as your daughter won’t let me near you, I won’t let you near him!”

The blue eyes turned to her in glazed horror.

Suddenly they were all flung forward, the force of the impact coming before the sound of crunching metal. Their seat belts saved them from any serious injury but they sat dazed for several seconds before realising the Mercedes had crashed into the stationary vehicle ahead of them. A red traffic light, Alida noted belatedly. A man stepped out of the skewed and crumpled car in front of them, shaking a furious fist at Gareth.

The light turned green and other cars drove on, but they were stopped. Forcibly stopped. Alida undid her seat belt, opened the door and got out of the car.

“Alida…”

Gareth’s voice was ragged, but she didn’t look back. Her brain told her that the other driver would hold him up, demanding retribution of one kind or another. She was safe from pursuit. She felt weak and shaky from the shock of the accident and the emotional trauma of the last few minutes, but she managed to keep walking. She turned a corner and saw a taxi coming towards her. She raised her arm.

She dropped into the back seat, gave her address, then let herself go limp and closed her eyes. A phrase from the Bible slid through her mind. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. What she had done was wrong, Alida knew it was, but somehow she didn’t care.

Let them suffer, she thought. Let them suffer as she and Andy had suffered, forced into a void that had no resolution. No more contempt from Gareth and his daughter. When they finished answering to each other for what they’d done, she hoped they felt as low as they had made her feel.