be allowed. That was the reason she kept that side of her hidden. Now alarm bells were going off in her head. How easy it was to slip into a dream. But it wouldn’t do at all. Boyd was so far above her she couldn’t begin to calculate the distance. Resolutely she squared her shoulders. “D’you want a race? Let’s say to the old ruin?” she challenged him. The old ruin was what they called an extraordinary rocky outcrop on a wilder part of the estate.
“Flower Face, you couldn’t beat me,” he answered, slowly coming out of his elegant slouch.
“Then I’m going to have a darn good try.” Abruptly she turned the mare, spurring her into action. They were tearing up the fairly sharp incline, vanishing down the other side while startled magpies croaked their high displeasure and wild doves shot up into the blue, blue air.
He was giving her a start. She knew that, not sure if in plunging away she wasn’t revealing what an emotional coward she was. What made her so emotionally insecure? Was it because she had lost her mother at such a tender age? In many ways she had lost her father to his grief. Lord knew Delia hadn’t turned out to be a mother substitute. She couldn’t even mother her own son. Galloping wasn’t half as dangerous as getting into an intimate conversation with Boyd.
She travelled so fast towards the ruins that an old time Western movie posse might have been giving chase. She wondered excitedly when he was going to close in on her.
To her left was a thick copse of cottonwoods, the golden poplars whose foliage put on such a wonderful brilliant yellow display in the autumn; to her right Chinese elms covered in spring’s delicate whiteish-green samaras. Beyond that an indigenous forest of eucalypts in a country where the gum tree was king.
Did anyone who didn’t ride realise the wonderful exhilaration of being in the saddle? Her breasts beneath her cream silk shirt rose and fell with her exertions. The balls of her feet, encased in expensive riding boots felt weightless in the stirrups. Compared to the order of the rest of the estate, she was heading into near virgin country as she veered off to take the short cut to the ruins.
She sucked in her breath as the remaining section of an ancient weathered wall threw up a challenge. The wall was covered in an apple-green vine with a beautiful mauve trumpet flower. It would be a very small risk taking the wall. The mare was a good jumper; she rarely stumbled, never baulked. Leona felt completely safe. She had taken far higher obstacles than this. Taking obstacles had claimed her mother’s life, but everyone had agreed it was a freak accident, not a miscalculation on her mother’s part. Leona trusted to her own judgement.
They literally sailed over the wall. She gave a great shout of triumph, even though her breath had shortened and her breasts were heaving. The old ruins were dead ahead. They looked for all the world like tumbled stone masonry and pillars. She knew she could beat him. What a thrill! She absolutely revelled in the thought.
When Boyd realised she was about to jump the old weathered wall his heart gave a great leap like a salmon making upstream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he shouted, “No!” In an instant he was back in time, caught up in a terrible moment of déjà vu. Reining the bay in sharply, he sat stock still in the saddle, back erect, but driven into shutting his eyes. Nothing ever really healed. For a moment he was a boy of fourteen again, waiting for Serena to return so they could all go swimming. He didn’t think he could bear to suffer a worse loss. He had a vision of Serena’s body, brought back to the house on a stretcher. The sorrow he had seen. His mother, Alexa, her beautiful face distorted by grief; the pulverising shock and grief of the others. Leona’s father had been unable to speak, totally gutted. Rupert had taken charge of everything, as was his way, his strong autocratic features set in stone.
He opened his eyes again as he heard Leona’s shout of victory. She was galloping hell for leather towards the ruins. Like her mother, she brimmed over with life. He was over his fear now, but for several moments he sat on his quivering horse, trying to quell the sudden upsurge of anger that swept in to take the place of his enormous relief.
“Sorry, Boyd, dear, I beat you!” She waved an arm high above her head and, not content with that, pulled off her wide brimmed hat and threw it rapturously in the air, bringing home her victory.
“Goodness, you’re not mad, are you?” she asked in the very next second, catching sight of the bright sharp anger in his face. He had dismounted, too, and was stalking towards her.
“Why do you take risks?” he gritted with what she took to be hostility.
“I don’t. I never do.” Hurriedly she tried to defend herself. “Risks? Don’t be absurd.” This was Boyd. How could she be afraid of him? Boyd would never hurt her. “You’re upset,” she said as she quickly comprehended. “There’s no need to be. I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
His eyes burned with the blue intensity of sapphires. “Your mother didn’t do anything stupid.”
Now both of them were confronting the past. She remembered the horror everyone had felt on that tragic day. The utter disbelief that life, as they had known it, was for ever changed. Her father had been near catatonic. The tears had poured out of Aunt Alexa’s eyes. Geraldine had had her arms around her, trying to comfort a loved child. A Blanchard uncle was there with a second wife. That marriage hadn’t lasted either. She remembered the way she had afterwards clung to Boyd like some little monkey too scared to let go.
Now she tried desperately to offer conciliation. “We’ve had a lovely ride. Please don’t spoil it.”
“Spoil it?” He knew he was losing control, something that never happened. “What you had to do was not tackle that damned wall. It could have cost you your neck.”
Would anything go as she hoped? Temper flashed. “What I did,” she told him defiantly, “was jump a fairly low obstacle. I’ve jumped a lot higher than that.”
“Not on that little mare you haven’t,” he said with a vigorous jerk of his head towards the pure bred Arabian.
She stared back at him in disbelief, forgetting all caution, missing the fear behind his grimness. “So she isn’t the tallest horse in the stable, but I love her. In any case she’s sure-footed. Who the devil do you think you are, telling me what I can and cannot do?” she demanded. “Who are you to rule my life? No wonder I resent you. No wonder I’ve fought you for years. No wonder—”
She was on such a roll she was completely unprepared for his explosive reaction. Sparks seemed to be flowing from him like tiny glittering stars. While the blood rushed in her ears, he pulled her to him in a kind of fury, locking one steely arm around her, his left hand thrusting up her chin. “Oh, shut up bleating about your resentments and irritations,” he bit off with unfamiliar violence. “You irritate the hell out of me.”
He had confirmed it at long last. She let out a cry of pain. “I was wondering when you’d get around to admitting it,” she said, small white teeth clenched. They were standing so close together all her senses were reeling. Her blood ran blisteringly hot in her veins. To her distress she knew she couldn’t handle this. She was shaking with the effort to hold herself together. Dazzling sunlight spun around them like an impenetrable golden web.
“Let me go, you savage!” Even as the words left her lips she was shocked that she had said it. Boyd, a savage! Why couldn’t she shout, I love you? Why did she for ever have to hold it in? It was agony. There was no hope of getting free unless he released her.
“Count yourself lucky I’m not!” He laughed, but that didn’t lessen the bright anger on his face. “I’m not going to let you go, Leona, until I’ve taught you a necessary lesson. No point in struggling. I’ve been far too indulgent with you, taking all the little taunts you throw at me on a regular basis. Just how long do I have to wait before you call a ceasefire?”
How could she possibly demolish the defensive structure she had so painstakingly built up in a matter of moments? “For ever!” she shouted fiercely, not fully realising how wildly provocative she had become.
And that sealed her fate.
With