Beresford wouldn’t have wanted to go along with that idea. Probably not Byrne, either. He had all but told her her defection to Zoe had reduced her standing in everyone’s eyes.
Byrne picked them up in the Castle Hill helicopter at nine-thirty sharp Saturday morning. Kerry was all smiles at the prospect of spending the weekend with his beloved, but Toni, despite her varied and sometimes downright distressing experiences over the past years, felt a flutter of nerves. Arriving at Castle Hill wasn’t exactly like flying into the lion’s den, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d be under the microscope. A polo match, a final between amateur teams from all over the Outback, was due to start at three.
“Two matches even,” Kerry told her, a proud member of Byrne’s team, which comprised the two Beresford brothers, Kerry and Sandy Donaldson, a big-shot player from Emu Downs, a sheep and cattle property in Central Queensland.
“It’ll be a great game, Toni,” Kerry promised. “Plenty of drama with Byrne on the field.”
“Just so long as you don’t come a cropper.” Byrne gave him a lazy smile. “You have to walk down the aisle in a month’s time.”
“I know how to hold my own.” Kerry grinned. “You’re the player. Hell, you won our first match at a canter.”
“The supreme man’s man!” Toni widened her eyes in mock admiration.
Once they were airborne, Toni saw the infinite blue sky without a single speck of cloud stretched from horizon to horizon. She felt her heart racing as she looked. Castle Hill was the flagship of the Beresford chain. It had been built up and enlarged with steely determination from generation to generation, its history a larger-than-life saga that really needed recording. It was full of high drama, of danger and tragedy, of drought and flood and one terrible fire in the early 1920s when an entire wing of the homestead had been destroyed and a Beresford son had lost his life. The station took its name from a monolithic sandstone hill that towered behind the homestead and that resembled an ancient ruined castle. There were many of these extraordinary castle-like formations scattered throughout the Outback, but Castle Hill, or Korrunda Koorun, as the aborigines called it, was one of the most spectacular. Over the years Toni had seen it in all its manifestations. Glowing fiercely against the cobalt sky, larkspur at dawn and at dusk, impossible to describe at sunset when it flashed gold and rose, ominous when the great electrical storms blew and it glinted silver, lurid green and black. The aborigines looked on Korrunda Koorun as a sacred site, spirit-haunted, not fantasy but closely associated with many a scary tale family and staff kept locked away in their hearts. Usually Castle Hill was benign, a truly wonderful natural feature to be admired, but all of them had felt its occasional menace.
Today it looked spectacular, standing like a great fortress with the homestead at its feet. Byrne landed them on the front lawn of the grand colonial set so incongruously in a million wild acres, but for all the grandness of the mansion, it was the unique setting that filled the visitor with the greatest shock of excitement.
“That’s not your hand trembling, is it?” Byrne asked as he helped her descend onto the ground.
“Don’t tease.” Nervous, she forced herself to speak lightly.
“What are you afraid of?” His vibrant voice was surprisingly gentle.
“You might eat me for dinner.”
“I’d be more interested in kissing you.”
That brought her head up. She stared at him, finding lights flickering in his brilliant eyes. “Don’t endanger yourself doing it,” she warned.
“I can take care of myself, Antoinette.” He brought his gaze deliberately to her soft, luscious mouth.
“Ah, the optimism of the confirmed bachelor.” Toni was grateful the breeze was cooling her cheeks.
“Really. I can get married any time I like.”
“Lord knows, you’re entitled,” she managed to say, smooth as honey. “I almost feel sorry I’m not available.”
“I’m not a baby snatcher, either.”
“Byrne Beresford, I’m way over the legal age.” Her violet eyes glowed.
He brought up his hand and mussed her shining hair a little. “To me you’re a minor.”
“Could it be you feel threatened?” Suddenly she was enjoying herself, caught between the need for control and going off like a rocket.
“Distracted, maybe.” Byrne’s silver eyes sparkled like coins in the sunlight.
“Well, I figure that’s good enough.”
He threw a glance over her shoulder, and Toni turned. Two women were coming down the steps, the older with some regality as befitted the mistress of Castle Hill, the younger, tall, slim, dark-haired, at an excited rush.
“Front up, young Streeton,” Byrne drawled.
Cate went into her fiancé’s, waiting arms, turning to beam radiantly at his sister. “Toni, how lovely to see you. You’ve grown every bit as beautiful as Byrne said. Welcome home.”
Toni moved spontaneously so they could exchange a kiss. “I’m thrilled to be home, Cate. Thank you so much for wanting me as your bridesmaid. I’m honoured.”
“How could I not have you?” Cate exclaimed. “We’ll be sisters in a month’s time. I’ve always wanted a sister.”
“Antoinette, my dear.” Sonia Beresford had reached them, a handsome, forceful woman of well above aver age height with dark gray eyes, a thick sweep of near black hair and a manner that suggested she never, but never lost her cool.
“Mrs. Beresford.”
Toni was hugged lightly. “Welcome home, my dear. I hope you’re not going to go off and leave us again?”
“My plans are a little unsettled at the moment, Mrs. Beresford,” Toni said, keeping her mouth curved in a smile. “I’m so thrilled and excited about the wedding.”
“We all are, my dear. Our two families united.” Sonia Beresford looked with pride at her son, then turned her patrician head to Kerry. “And how are you, my dear?”
“Fine, Sonia.” A white smile lit Kerry’s attractive face. “It’s wonderful having Toni back. We talked into the small hours and we still haven’t talked ourselves out.”
“So much to catch up on, dear.”
“Take the bags to the veranda, would you, Pike?” Byrne spoke to an approaching houseman. Giving orders was a Beresford way of life, Toni thought.
“Well, don’t let’s stand here in the hot sun. Come into the house,” Sonia said in her smooth contralto.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Byrne said, sketching a brief salute.
“You’ll be back in time for lunch, won’t you, darling?” his mother asked a little anxiously.
“Sure. I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he answered, and gave Toni a final sizzling glance.
“Notice any changes?” Sonia asked as they walked to the house.
“It looks perfect, as always,” Toni said. “That magnificent white creeper is new.” She looked toward the lofty exterior of the two-storeyed building, a central core flanked by two large wings set to form a semicircle. The stone pillars of the ground floor formed a magnificent colonnade that was festooned with a luxuriant creeper bearing masses of pure white trumpet flowers.
“I got very tired of the bougainvillea,” Sonia explained. “It made a wonderful display but it was hard to control. The moon flower has been in for about three years. It’s just perfect for the wedding. It flowers right through spring and summer.”
Inside the house Toni could see at a glance it had been refurbished on the grand scale