The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride
The thought gave her a foolish pang. She wondered if he had a girlfriend, and shook her head impatiently to dislodge the thought.
Bryn said, “Something wrong, Rachel?”
“No. I thought—a moth or something…”
“Maybe some insect you picked up from the garden.”
He got up and came near, looking down at her hair. Pearl finished her drink and rose from her chair. “I’ll go and check on our dinner.”
“Can I help?” Rachel asked. But Bryn was blocking her way.
“No, no!” Pearl said. “You stay here. I have everything under control.”
Rachel felt Bryn’s touch on her hair. “Can’t see any creepy-crawlies,” he assured her. “When did you grow your hair long?”
“Ages ago,” she told him. “While I was at university.” It was easier than trying to find someone who could make something remotely sophisticated of her unruly curls.
Instead of returning to his chair, he sank down on the sofa, resting his arm on the back of it as he half turned to Rachel. “How is the toe?”
“Fine. I told you, it’s nothing.”
“You always were a tough little thing.” His mouth curved. “It’s hard to believe you’re the same scrawny kid with the mop of hair who used to run about the place in bare feet, half the time with skinned knees or elbows.”
“Children grow up.”
“Yes. I had noticed before you—” He stopped abruptly, staring moodily at the screened fireplace. His voice altered when he spoke again, sounding a little strained. “What happened, before your family left—I’m sorry if I hurt you, scared you, Rachel. I was…” He raked a hand through his hair and turned to look steadily at her. “I wasn’t myself. And that’s no excuse. But I do apologise.”
Rachel bowed her head. “Not necessary. It wasn’t just you.”
“You were barely out of high school. I should have—I did know better.”
“Well,” she said, lifting her head and making her voice light and uncaring, “that was a long time ago. I’m sure we’d both forgotten all about it until today.” Her gaze skittered away from him as she uttered the words.
One lean finger under her chin brought her to face him again. “Had you? Forgotten?”
In ten years Rachel had acquired some poise. Her smile conveyed both surprise and a hint of amused condescension. “Men so like to think they’re unforgettable,” she said kindly, taking his hand from her chin and laying it on his knee. “Of course it all came back to me when I saw you.” She patted his hand before withdrawing hers. “Just as if I were seventeen again, with a schoolgirl crush on an older man.” Ignoring the twitch of his brows at that, she shook her head, laughing lightly. “Such a cliché, it’s embarrassing.”
His jaw tightened. A glint appeared in his eyes as he looked at her searchingly, and for a moment she held her breath, before he gave a short laugh of his own. “All right,” he said. “I guess I’ve got off lightly, at that.”
Rachel rather thought she had, too.
At dinner Bryn asked Rachel about her work in America and her research and writing experience.
She realised she was being grilled about her qualifications when he said, “This is a bit different, isn’t it? How long do you think you’ll need to complete it?”
“I hope to produce a first draft in three or four months,” she said. “You have so much raw material, it gives me a head start. I won’t have to begin by hunting for all the sources I need.”
Bryn looked at Pearl. “Do you know exactly what’s there?”
Pearl shook her head. “Supposing we found some old family scandal! Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“You may not find it fun if you do,” Bryn warned.
His mother looked only slightly quashed. “Oh, don’t be stuffy, darling! We don’t want some dull list of births, deaths and marriages and profit-and-loss accounts.”
Rachel said, “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of interesting events to colour the bare facts. By the way, do you have a scanner and printer, or is there someplace I can access one? I don’t want to handle old documents more than necessary.”
Bryn said, “When do you need it?”
“At a guess, in a few days, when I’ve had time to see what’s here.”
“I’ll see to it. If you need Internet access, I’ve set it up in the smoking room because I use it when I’m here.”
Bryn left shortly after dinner. He kissed his mother goodbye and said, “Rachel…a word?”
She followed him along the wide, dim passageway to the front door, where he stopped and looked down at her without immediately speaking.
Rachel said, “You needn’t worry about the book, really. You—or your mother—are paying for it, and have total control over what goes in, or doesn’t.”
He smiled faintly. “I’m sure we can trust your discretion, Rachel. It’s my mother I’m concerned about. She’s always been inclined to go overboard on any new enthusiasm. If she looks like tiring herself out I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know, quietly.”
Years ago she’d have blindly agreed to anything Bryn asked of her. But she didn’t fancy going behind Pearl’s back. “If I see anything to be worried about,” she said carefully, “of course I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
He didn’t miss the evasion. “She’s not as strong as she likes to pretend.”
“If you think she needs a nursemaid—”
Bryn gave a crack of laughter. “She’d skin me alive if I suggested it.”
“Hardly.” Her tone dry, she let her gaze roam over his tall, strong body before returning to his face.
He watched her, his mouth lifting at one corner, a faint glow in his eyes. “I wasn’t suggesting you add nursemaid to your duties. It’s good she has someone in the house anyway.” He paused. “This scanner-printer. Any particular specifications?”
“A good OCR programme. It needs to read documents.” She told him the make and model of her computer. He opened the door, hesitated, then leaned towards her and touched his lips briefly to her cheek. “Good night, Rachel.”
After closing the door behind him she stood for a moment, the warmth of his lips fading from her skin, then mentally she shook herself and turned to see Pearl come out of the kitchen at the end of the passageway.
“What did Bryn want?” the older woman asked.
“Oh, it was about the scanner,” Rachel said. Then she added, “And he said he’s glad you have someone in the house.”
“He worries too much. I love this place, and I intend to stay until they carry me out in a box. Or until Bryn has a family and moves in—should they want to.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to leave if he did that.”
“His wife might. And I might too by then.” Rather wistfully Pearl tacked on, “If it ever happens.”
By which time Rachel would be long gone, she told herself. Not that it mattered anyway.
CHAPTER TWO
BRYN DROVE OFF feeling oddly dissatisfied with himself. At least they’d brought that old business into the open, and that should have cleared the air between him and Rachel, as well as easing his conscience. He’d sensed a constraint in her from the moment their eyes met at the bus terminal, and he didn’t believe her claim that she’d not given any subsequent thought to their last meeting. A soft, rueful laugh escaped him, remembering the deliberate put-down with which she’d denied it. “Rather overdoing it there, honey,” he murmured aloud.
She certainly was different from the rather gauche innocent who sometimes reappeared in his dreams. If she’d never had a similar nocturnal problem he ought to be relieved, but at first he’d felt nothing but chagrin, and had to quell an impulse to exact a sweet revenge on her lovely mouth even as it mocked him.
Instead he’d swallowed the unaccustomed medicine like a man, because she was entitled.
There was an intriguing dislocation between the Rachel Moore he remembered and the Rachel he’d met today. Now and then a glimpse of the ardent, uncomplicated girl peeked through the cool reserve of the woman, arousing in him a capricious desire to probe deeper and find out just how much she had really changed.
A glance at the clock on the dashboard reminded him his departure was later than he’d intended. He’d been seeing a lot of Kinzi Broadbent lately, and he’d half promised to drop in after delivering the historian his mother had hired to Rivermeadows. But he hadn’t even thought to call Kinzi.
Already on the motorway, he didn’t want to use his mobile phone. For some reason he didn’t feel like seeing Kinzi now. Instead he drove home and phoned her from there, saying he’d stayed for dinner with his mother, was tired and wanted an early night. Although she accepted the excuse, her voice was a little clipped as she wished him a good sleep. He’d have to make it up to her.
Three days later Rachel was in the smoking room, sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries and papers and spreading the contents over the big table—made of a single slab of thousand-year-old kauri—that dominated the space.
The door opened and Bryn strode in carrying a large cardboard box. Absorbed in her task, she hadn’t heard the car.
“Your scanner,” he said. “Where do you want it?”
“On the desk?” She stripped off the gloves she was wearing to handle the fragile old documents and hurried to clear a couple of boxes from the heavy oak desk in a corner of the room where she’d placed her computer. “I didn’t expect you to deliver it yourself.”
“I wanted to check on my mother.”
“She seems fine. Did you see her on your way in?”
He’d taken a paper knife from a drawer and began slitting the tape on the carton. “Yes, busy watering potted plants on the terrace. She’s excited about this,” he said, nodding towards the documents on the table. “How’s it coming along?”
“Deciding what to leave out may be a problem. There’s such a wealth of material.”
They connected the machine to her laptop and she sat down to test it while Bryn stood leaning against the desk.
A sheet of paper eased out of the printer and they both reached for it, their fingers momentarily tangling. Rachel quickly withdrew her hand and Bryn shot her a quizzical look before picking up the test page and scrutinising it. “Looks good,” he said, passing it to her.
“Yes.” Rachel kept her eyes on the paper. “Thank you. It’ll be a big help.”
“Glad to oblige,” he answered on a rather dry note.
Looking up, she found him regarding her with what seemed part curiosity and part…vexation? Then he swung away from the desk and strolled to the table, idly studying the papers laid out there, some in plastic sleeves. Carefully turning one to a readable angle, he said, “What’s this?”
She went over to stand beside him. “A list of supplies for the old sawmill, with notes. Probably written by your great-great-grandfather.” Samuel Donovan had built his first mill on the banks of the nearby falls, using a water-wheel to power it. “You haven’t seen it before?”
Bryn shook his head. “I know who’s in the old photographs my father got framed and hung in the hallway, they have brass plaques, but I had no idea we’d have original documents in old Sam’s handwriting. It’s an odd feeling.” He studied the bold writing in faded ink. “Intimations of mortality.”
“There are letters, too.” Rachel pointed out a plastic envelope holding a paper browning at the edges and along deep, disintegrating creases where it had been folded. “This one is to his wife, before they were married.”
“‘Dearest one,’” Bryn read aloud, then looked up, slanting a grin at her. “A love letter?”
“It’s mostly about his plans to build her a house before their wedding. But he obviously loved her.”
His eyes skimmed the page, then he read aloud the last paragraph. “‘I am impatient for the day we settle in our own dear home. I hope it will meet with your sweet approval, my dearest. Most sincerely yours, with all my heart, Samuel.’”
Lifting his head, Bryn said, “Quite the sentimentalist, wasn’t he? You’d never have thought it from that rather dour portrait we have.”
“That was painted when he was middle-aged and successful and a pillar of the community.” The man in the portrait had curling mutton-chop whiskers and a forbidding expression. “When this was written—” she touched a finger to the letter “—he was a young man in love, looking forward to bringing home his bride.”
“Looks like he’s won your heart, too.” Bryn was amused.
“I think it’s rather touching,” Rachel admitted. Bryn would never write something like that, even if he were headlong in love. “There’s some wonderful stuff here for a historian. I can’t wait to read it all.”
He was studying her face, and said, “I remember you had much the same light in your eyes after your dad bought you a pony and you’d had your first-ever ride. You came bursting in at breakfast to tell us all about it.”
“And got told off for that,” she recalled. Her father had hauled her out of the big house with profuse apologies to his employers. It was then she became conscious of the social gap between the Donovans and her own family, although the Donovans had never emphasised it.
“Do you still ride?” Bryn asked.
“Not for years.”
“There’s a place not far from here where I keep a hack that I ride when I can. I’m sure they’d find a mount for you if you’re interested.”
“I’ll think about it. But I have a lot to do here.”
“Hey,” he said, raising a hand and brushing the back of it across her cheek, “you can’t work all the time. We hired a historian, not a slave.”
She tri ed not to show her reaction to his casual touch, the absurd little skip of her heart. Her smile was restrained. “I’m certainly not on slave wages. The pay is very generous.”
“My mother’s convinced you’re worth it.”
“I am,” she said calmly, lifting her chin. She would show him she was worth every cent before she finished this job.
His eyes laughed at her. “You haven’t lost your spark. I don’t doubt that, Rachel. I trust my mother’s judgement.”
“I had a feeling that you have definite reservations.”
“Nothing to do with your ability.”
“Then what…” she began, but was interrupted by his mother coming into the room, offering afternoon tea on the terrace.
“Or actually coffee. Unless you prefer tea, Rachel?”
Rachel said coffee was fine.
A few minutes later over their cups she said, “You really should have the records properly archived and safely stored, in acid-proof envelopes and containers. If you had those I could start doing that as I work.”
“Buy whatever you need,” Bryn said.
“You won’t find anything like that in the village,” Pearl warned. “You’d have to go into the city. I told you, didn’t I, there’s a car you can use?”
“Yes.” It had been one more incentive for Rachel to take this job, not needing to think yet about investing in a car.
Bryn asked her, “You do have a licence?”
“Yes. I need to get used to driving on the left again.”
“You’d better go with her,” Bryn told his mother, and shortly afterwards said he had to leave. The house seemed colder and emptier when his vital presence was gone.
When Pearl hadn’t broached the subject by the end of the week, on Friday Rachel asked if it would be convenient to drive into the city.
“I suppose you don’t want to go alone?” Pearl asked.
About to say she’d be quite okay, Rachel recalled Bryn’s concern about his mother’s reluctance to leave Rivermeadows.
Misconstruing her hesitation, Pearl said in a breathless little rush, “But if you’re nervous, of course I’ll come.”
The garage held a station wagon as well, but the red car that Pearl used to drive had gone, its place taken by a compact sedan.
In the city Pearl directed Rachel to a car park belonging to the Donovan office building, and used a pass card for Rachel to drive the sedan into one of the parking bays.
As they shopped for the things on their list, the older woman seemed ill at ease, sticking close by Rachel’s side. After they’d made their major purchases and Rachel suggested they have a coffee and a snack in one of the cafés, Pearl barely paused before agreeing. Waiting for their order to be brought, she looked about with an air of bemusement, as if unused to seeing so many people in one place.
Coffee and the cake seemed to make her a little less tense. Later, as they stowed their purchases in the car, she paused and looked up at the looming Donovan’s Timber building. “Why don’t we call in on Bryn while we’re here?”
“Won’t he be busy?” Rachel wasn’t sure how Bryn would feel about being interrupted in business hours.
“We needn’t stay long,” Pearl said. “Just to say hello.”
“I’ll wait for you here.”
“No!” Pearl insisted. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.” Less sure, and wondering if Pearl didn’t want to enter the big building alone, Rachel followed her into the marble-floored, wood-panelled lobby.
A silent elevator delivered them to the top floor, where Bryn’s secretary, a comfortably rounded middle-aged woman wearing huge, equally round glasses, greeted Pearl with surprised pleasure and ushered them both into his office. Rachel was warmed by the approving glance he sent her after greeting them both and suggesting they sit down in two deep chairs before his rather palatial desk.
“Just for a minute,” Pearl said, and proceeded with some animation to tell him about their shopping expedition while Rachel admired their surroundings.
Like the lobby, Bryn’s office was wood-panelled, the carpet thick and the furnishings solid and practical but obviously made and finished with expensive care.
The whole building spoke discreetly of prosperity and excellent workmanship—not new but magnificently modernised and maintained without spoiling its original character. While building their little empire from one country sawmill to a huge timber enterprise, and diversifying into paper production and even newspapers, the Donovans hadn’t lost sight of their history.
It was fifteen minutes before Pearl declared they mustn’t take any more of Bryn’s time. He got up to see them out, Rachel standing back to let Pearl go first. As she made to follow, Bryn closed a hand lightly about her arm, murmuring, “Thank you.”
Rachel shook her head to indicate she hadn’t done anything, but when he smiled at her she felt a momentary warm fizz of pleasure before they followed his mother through the outer office and he pressed the button for the elevator.
Pearl asked him, “Will we see you this weekend?”
“Not this time, I’ve made other plans.”
“Oh—with Kinzi?” She gave him an arch glance of inquiry.
“Yes, actually.”
Rachel, her gaze fixed on the rapidly changing numbers signalling the elevator’s rise from the ground floor, was relieved when a “ding” sounded and the doors whispered open.
Rachel worked most of Saturday, but Pearl insisted she take Sunday off, adding, “You’re welcome to use the car.”
“I’ll just go for a nice long walk, see what’s changed. I need the exercise.” Accustomed to working out at a gym, she had neglected her physical fitness since coming here.
Much of the farmland she remembered had been cut into smaller blocks occupied by city workers who hankered after a country lifestyle or whose daughters fancied a pony. The village of Donovan Falls, once a huddle of rough huts about Donovans’long-vanished sawmill, and later a sleepy enclave of old houses with one general store, had grown and merged into the surrounding suburb.
The little pioneer church the Donovans and the Moores had attended sparkled under a fresh coat of paint. And the falls named for Samuel Donovan, who had used the power of the river for his mill, were still there, the focus of several hectares of grass and trees donated to the community by Bryn’s father, a memorial plaque commemorating the fact. People picnicked under the trees, and children splashed in the pool below the waterfall.
Watching the mesmerising flow make the ferns at its edges tremble as the sun caught tiny droplets on the leaves, Rachel wondered what Bryn was doing.
Whatever it was, he was doing it with a woman called Kinzi. At first she’d thought—not admitting to hoped—that “Kinsey” might be male, but Pearl’s knowing, interested expression had dispelled any chance of that.
On the journey home from their trip into the city Rachel had suppressed a persistent curiosity while Pearl hummed a little tune to herself in brief snatches and engaged in only small bites of conversation. Rachel had an irrational idea that she was mentally counting potential grandchildren.
And there was no reason to feel ever so slightly irritated about that.
In the afternoon she caught up with her family and friends by e-mail, and on Monday was glad to get back to sorting through the Donovan records.
Pearl helped where she could, explaining family connections or identifying people in photographs. But she was outside dead-heading plants when the phone rang. Rachel picked up the extension in the smoking room and answered.
“Rachel?” Bryn’s deep voice said.
“Yes, your mother’s in the garden. I’ll call her.”
“No, I’ll catch up with her later. Everything all right?”
“She’s fine and the work is going well.”
“Did you have a good weekend?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
There was a short, somehow expectant silence. Was he waiting for her to reciprocate and ask how his weekend was? The thought hollowed her stomach.
Then he asked, “What did you do?”
Briefly she told him, not supposing he was really interested.
He said, “Next weekend I’ll take you riding. Unless you’ve made other plans.”
“I haven’t thought about it yet—”
“Good. Sunday, around ten. See you then.”
He’d put down the phone before she could refuse. And she didn’t really want to.
He must have mentioned the plan to his mother, because after talking to him that night, Pearl told her, “Bryn said you’re riding together on Sunday. It’ll be nice for him to have a companion. I don’t think Kinzi rides at all.”
“His girlfriend?” Rachel’s voice was suitably casual.
Pearl sighed. “Maybe something will come of it this time. They’ve been seeing each other for quite a long time.”
On Sunday Bryn turned up with a long-legged, green-eyed redhead. Her hair was cut in a short, straight, jagged style that would have cost a modest fortune. A primrose cashmere sweater and skinny jeans hugged a figure that most women would give a whole mouthful of teeth for, and high-heeled ankle-boots brought her near to Bryn’s height. A short denim jacket finished the deceptively casual outfit.
Kinzi gave Rachel a dazzling smile on being introduced and announced she was here to keep Pearl company while Bryn and “Rachel, isn’t it?” went off to “do your horsy thing”. On a rueful note she added, “The only time I got on a horse the brute threw me.” She laughed, a surprisingly hearty sound. “I know about getting back on and all that, but I thought, why should I? You don’t ride, do you, Lady Donovan?”
Pearl shook her head. “It’s kind of you to sit with an old lady, my dear. But not at all necessary. And please, let’s dispense with the title.”
Rachel had to choke back laughter at the uncharacteristic, almost querulous tone of Pearl’s little speech. Meeting Bryn’s slightly pained expression, belied by the amused appreciation in his eyes, she knew he hadn’t missed it, but Kinzi didn’t seem to notice.
Whether his bringing Kinzi along had been her own idea or Bryn’s, Rachel was very sure Pearl Donovan didn’t, and probably never would, think of herself as an old lady.
Perhaps it was the look she turned on her son that made him say, “Ready, Rachel? We’ll get going then.”
She had put on jeans and sneakers with a sweatshirt and was relieved to see that he, too, was casually dressed, although he wore riding boots.
In the car she told him, “Did your mother mention she had some visitors this week?”
“She asked them to come?”
“I don’t think so. They were passing through, I gather.” Pearl had invited Rachel to join them for afternoon tea, but she’d declined, not wanting to intrude. Afterwards Pearl had seemed quite animated, describing the middle-aged couple as old friends and saying what a nice chat they’d had.