live butler, for heaven’s sake!—and ushered me into Vivian’s presence, it felt as though I’d stepped through the looking glass like Alice, and sooner or later something would snap me back to reality.”
He smiled.
Maggie happily beamed a smile right back at him, not noticing anything amiss in his. The circus hadn’t owned a tiger. She had never seen a live one. She had no point of comparison.
“What did you think of the nanny proposition?’ he prompted, still smiling.
She rolled her eyes. “Wild! But just the thought of living here was wild. It was all so impossibly wild I couldn’t resist giving it a try. After all, I could always walk away if I didn’t like it. But it just escalated into something more and more wonderful.”
He looked quizzically at her. “You didn’t ever feel the lack of...well...younger company?”
She might have, if Beau Prescott had come home before this. He was very acutely reminding her she was a young woman with a whole stack of unfulfilled needs, clamouring to be met. There seemed to be a simmering invitation in his eyes. It kicked her pulse into such rapid action it was difficult to concentrate on giving him an answer to his question. She blurted out the truth.
“I was too busy to think of it.”
“For two years?” he queried, his gaze wandering over her with a sizzling male appreciation that said more clearly than words she had been wasted in a limbo of nonsexuality.
Maggie’s skin started prickling. She gulped some more of her martini and shoved a crab boat into her mouth, desperate to stop the rise of heat. She crossed her legs, inadvertently drawing Beau Prescott’s attention to them, and wished she could uncross them again as she inwardly squirmed under his gaze. Afraid more leg action could only be seen as provocative, Maggie plunged into speech.
“I’d been in the company of heaps of young men before I came here. None of them were capable of giving me what Vivian did.”
His gaze flicked up and there wasn’t the slightest haze of warmth in his eyes. Two green shards of ice sliced into her, cold and deadly. “I don’t suppose any of them were millionaires.”
The comfort zone created by his earlier geniality was comprehensively shattered. Maggie felt a chill deep in her bones. He’d been putting on an act, drawing her out to get something bad on her.
“Apart from my salary, I never took any money from Vivian, Mr. Prescott,” she stated, a bitter defiance edging her voice.
He let her denial hang for several moments before drawling, “I wasn’t suggesting you did. But a lot of money was spent on you, Maggie. Your clothes...”
Her chin went up. “Yes and tickets to the opera, the theatre, concerts, balls...you name it, Mr. Prescott, and I certainly was given a free ride to all of them. No question. I’m guilty of going along with everything Vivian wanted. And I’m guilty of loving it, too. I’m sorry it sticks in your craw so much. Maybe you’d like to ask Sedgewick for another martini. Make it four for the day.”
She set her own glass on the table and stood up, bristling with angry disillusionment. “Shall I ring for him to come?”
He waved a dismissive hand and tried an appeasing smile. “I was merely remarking on the obvious. Why take offence?”
“You could have tried looking beyond the obvious, Mr. Prescott.”
The pretence of a smile twisted into a grimace. “You call my grandfather by his first name. Why not use mine?”
“Because I don’t assume familiarities. I never have. In my experience it’s asking to be slapped down if you do,” she answered tersely.
“Oh, come on! Not in Australia,” he protested. “It’s the most egalitarian society in the world.”
“That depends on where you’re coming from,” she mocked. “You’ve never lived an underprivileged life, have you? Never had to learn to be subservient. You have no idea what it’s like to live that kind of life.”
He frowned, unable to deny the charge.
Sick at heart, Maggie turned away from him and walked around the table, moving to stand where he had stood earlier, in front of the fireplace. She felt too agitated to sit down again. She glanced up at the painting of Cupid frolicking in a garden and a rueful smile curled her lips. The arrows being shot here tonight weren’t dipped in a love potion. More like poison.
When she swung around, Beau Prescott was keenly observing her, a perplexed V drawing his eyebrows together.
“I’ll tell you what Vivian gave me,” she shot at him. “Acceptance, approval, liking, respect. He took me in and made me one of his family. He transformed me into something more than I was and showed me what was possible. He educated me in so many ways—books, music, art—opening my mind to things I’d never known and would never have learnt without his guidance and tuition.”
She paused, showing her contempt for his shallow judgment of the situation. “I don’t know why your grandfather did it. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps he enjoyed playing Henry Higgins, turning me into ‘His Fair Lady.’ Perhaps he liked having an eager pupil. And I was certainly that. I was hungry for all he gave me and I did my best to live up to all he wanted for me.”
Her sense of rightness urged her to add, “I’m not ashamed of that, Mr. Prescott. I’m proud of it because I did Vivian proud. I loved your grandfather. I really did. And whether you like it or not, that’s the truth.”
He said nothing, retaining an intense air of listening as though waiting to hear more. She held his gaze in fierce challenge. The silence lengthened. The tension between them thickened.
Sedgewick stepped into the room and cleared his throat. “Dinner is ready, sir.”
It was so pedantic, such a ridiculous anticlimax, Maggie broke into a peal of laughter. “I do assure you, Mr. Prescott, our cook’s Beef Wellington will be much tastier than sinking your teeth into me. Best that we answer his call immediately.”
She set off for the dining room, not waiting for any response, savagely berating herself for being a gullible fool. Never again, she vowed. Beau Prescott might be capable of charming birds off trees, but this bird was going to keep her wings tightly folded against him.
BEAU forced his jaw to keep working, doggedly chewing up each mouthful of the Beef Wellington to the point where he could swallow it. At the other end of the table, Maggie Stowe was carving through her dinner with military precision, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her see she’d robbed him of his appetite. The woman had too much power as it was.
She tapped straight into every male hormone he had, setting them more abuzz than they’d ever been, regardless of the dictates of his brain. She messed with his mind, too, blurring what should be completely clear, straight-line logic. He couldn’t decide whether she was a superb actress or completely for real. If it wasn’t for the missing million, he’d be tempted—strongly tempted—to accept her story at face value.
At least he now had some facts to check. Sir Roland would be a reliable eyewitness to the first meeting in the restaurant and he wouldn’t mind Beau questioning him about it. Zabini’s Circus and the cattle station, Wilgilag, were items he could pass on to Lionel Armstrong. Any competent private investigator should be able to get some character references out of them. If she’d told the truth about her nanny background.
He glanced down the table. Her face was in shadow, frustrating his need to see past her polished facade. “Sedgewick, would you please switch on the overhead light and remove the candelabra? I can hardly see what I’m eating.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Beau could feel his irritation growing as Sedgewick complied with ponderous