* *
Mounts Lidgbird and Gower presented quite a different image as they drove off. The sun sparkled on them, a few white clouds floated around their peaks, and Davina caught her breath.
Steve Warwick glanced at her with a lifted eyebrow.
‘They just—get to me,’ she said. ‘Can you climb them?’
‘Gower yes, but with a guide. Lidgbird is virtually inaccessible beyond the Goat House which is a bit over halfway up and so-called because it’s a cave where the few wild goats left on the island shelter.’
‘Are they indigenous?’
‘No. They were put on the island to provide meat for any callers. Because of the damage they caused to the local flora they were then marked down for eradication.’ He changed gear and turned on to the road over a cattle-grid.
‘It’s an incredibly beautiful island,’ Davina said as they turned away from the mountains and she could see the lagoon with its turquoise water that hugged the western side of Lord Howe. ‘Has your family always lived here? I’m afraid I don’t know any of the history of the place.’
‘Ah.’ He grinned. ‘Well, very briefly, it was discovered in 1788 by Lieutenant Lidgbird Ball when he sailed past on his way from Sydney Cove to Norfolk Island which became a penal colony. But until 1834 no one lived here although there were frequent visits from whaling ships and ships en route to Norfolk. The first settlers existed by trading provisions with passing ships and then in the late 1800s the Kentia palm, which is indigenous here, came wildly into vogue in European drawing-rooms and a flourishing trade in the sale of seeds became the island’s main income—it still is today, together with tourism.’
Davina sighed and smiled. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean these islands of the South Pacific, Norfolk and Pitcairn, Norfolk with its awful history as a penal colony and both of them with their descendants of Fletcher Christian—and Lord Howe. It’s a romantic part of the world.’
He grimaced. ‘Are you a romantic, Davina?’
‘In that respect, I guess I am,’ she replied after a moment.
‘Well, this is the airport, as you no doubt remember, and across the road here, up that incline and down the other side is Blinky Beach. If you’re a good surfer it’s great, but there are more protected beaches for kids.’
* * *
An hour later Davina had seen all there was to see by road of the island and had indeed been charmed. She loved the fact that there were no high-rise buildings, very few shops, an almost total lack of commercialisation and that most of the guest-houses and private dwellings were screened from sight behind luxurious, tangled foliage and the beautiful, tall, sometimes unbelievably tall, Norfolk pines. She loved the lush paddocks studded with yellow daisies and white clover and the lovely, secluded little beaches. She was introduced to the Kentia palm and saw her first white tern as they drove down Lagoon Road between towering walls of trees, and was amazed to be told that they laid their eggs on a bare branch, no nest, no nothing.
She was beguiled by the tiny community hall and the radio station alongside the only jetty the island boasted and she itched to don a back-pack loaded with her camera and explore the walking trails to places with bewitching names such as the Clear Place, Malabar, Mount Eliza. And everywhere on Lord Howe, she discovered, there were birds, from the island’s distinctive landbirds like the plump, busy as a housewife emerald ground-dove, the Golden Whistler and the pied currawong to all the migratory species Steve Warwick had told her about—birds that performed unbelievable feats, to her mind, such as returning each year to the Arctic Circle or the North Pacific.
Another thing he’d been right about was the bicycles, and not only that, but the bicycle racks that were placed at every entrance and at the start of all the mountain trails and walks.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said with a laugh as they inched past yet another group of cyclists all wearing crash helmets—the speed limit she’d noticed was twenty-five kilometres. ‘And everyone wears a helmet!’
‘Oh, our local policeman is very strict about that!’
‘How is the island governed?’ she asked curiously.
‘Well, it’s part of New South Wales but we have a local island board and an administrator who lives here. Since the island was inscribed on the World Heritage List, everyone’s main aim has been to keep it as undisturbed as possible so that everything unique about it can flourish. That’s why the tourist ceiling is set at four hundred, why there are no giant complexes and casinos et cetera. There are also no freehold titles on the island.’
Davina looked surprised.
‘A rather sore point with some,’ he said wryly.
‘So you don’t own your land?’
‘Not freehold, no. We have a system of perpetual and special leases for islanders only, which is designed to protect the island as well as the locals. For example, if you wish to sell your lease it has to be valued and offered to island residents first, at that valuation. Only if it’s not purchased by a resident may it then be offered for sale on the open market.’
‘I suppose, then,’ she said slowly, ‘a lot of it is passed down from generation to generation.’
‘You suppose right.’
‘So—I asked you this before but we got sidetracked—’
‘Yes, my grandfather was descended from one of the early families to settle on the island.’
Davina was silent for a time. It was obvious that Steve Warwick was a very well-respected resident of Lord Howe Island—everyone they’d spoken to had made that quite clear—and that he had a finger in a lot of pies. He’d shown her his two tourist boats that made sightseeing trips round the island, and fishing trips to Ball’s Pyramid. He also owned a shop, a restaurant and a guest-house. She glanced sideways at him involuntarily and found herself wondering why he’d never married. Because, if you were anyone else but her, you would have to admit he had an awful lot going for him. There was so much inherent ease and lightly held authority in his dealings with all the people they’d met, you could be forgiven for imagining him being—well, anything, she mused. There had been, only yesterday, evidence of how dangerous it was to cross him. There was the cultured way he spoke and his lovely house. And there was that unmistakable assurance of a man who was exciting to women...
‘You were thinking, Mrs Hastings?’
Davina twitched her gaze away and felt her nerves prickle once more. You couldn’t call the confines of the Land Rover cramped but it was impossible not to be aware of things like his hands on the wheel, the width of his shoulders, the length and strength of his legs, not to mention a rather powerful intelligence from which it was a little difficult to hide... She decided not even to try. ‘I was wondering why you’d never married, Mr Warwick,’ she murmured.
He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘What brought that on?’
Davina waved a hand. ‘You seem to have a small empire here; you seem,’ she paused, then went on deliberately, ‘to have a lot of things going for you.’
‘Are you saying that from the conviction that I should at least share it with a woman?’
‘No. I don’t hold those kind of convictions,’ she replied calmly. ‘But it is the accepted convention, if you like, for very normal reasons, and more so here than otherwise, I would imagine—keep the island in the family kind of thing.’
He grimaced, but said, ‘Well, the answer is quite simple. I’ve never met a woman I—couldn’t live without.’
‘Dear me.’ Davina had to smile. ‘Are your standards impossibly high?’
He shot her a narrow, glinting little look. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Or are there times when you’re just so—abrasive that no woman has been able to put up with you?’