Читать книгу The Nanny and the Millionaire: Promoted: Nanny to Wife / The Italian Tycoon and the Nanny / The Millionaire's Nanny Arrangement - Rebecca Winters - Страница 12

BY THE end of a week Marissa had established a workable routine. It hadn’t been entirely plain sailing. Georgy still gave in to the odd moment when she had to get a good lusty shout out of her system, but there were no screams, no tantrums. Instead day by day she blossomed into a bright happy co-operative child.

‘It’s your gentle, understanding hand, Marissa, my dear,’ Catherine told her. ‘You must make lessons interesting, too. I always knew Georgy was highly intelligent, but no one could have called her an apt pupil. The last governess was at her wit’s end.’

To Marissa’s mind, Riley pointed out the probable answer. ‘I must be like one of those quiet little ponies trainers use to keep their thoroughbreds calm before the races.’ He gave his infectious laugh, causing Georgy, who was most interested in the theory, to join in.

‘Well, I know about that, but how do you?’ Marissa asked, constantly surprised by Riley’s fund of general knowledge.

Riley’s response was instant. ‘Daddy told me.’ For the first time he didn’t sound distressed when he mentioned their father. ‘He even took me to the country races once. We had a great time. Do they have country races here?’ He turned to Georgy with a look of happy expectancy.

‘We have better!’ she pronounced, jumping up from her desk and waving her arms expansively. ‘We have polo matches. Holt is a beaut player! My mother used to call him The Conqueror. I think that means he used to hit other players on the conk with his mallet, but he didn’t. Last year it was Wungalla’s turn to host the final. We had the Polo Ball in the Great Hall. I didn’t get to go on account of being small, but my aunties came. They’re really nice to me. Aunty Alex was Holt’s hostess seeing I don’t have a mum. She did a great job. Aunty Lois came, as well. She’s head over heels in love with Holt but he won’t commit.’

Marissa stared at the little girl intently. ‘Who did you hear say that, Georgy?’

Georgy’s face settled into a wicked grin. ‘How do you know I didn’t say it myself?’

‘They’re the words of an adult,’ Marissa replied, ‘and they really shouldn’t be repeated. They can only cause embarrassment. Do you know what embarrassment means?’

Georgy shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘It’d make Aunty Lois mad of course. Ack-shally, it was Aunt Lois’s friend, Tiffany. The one she brought with her from Sydney. Are we ever going to see Aunt Lois again?’ She directed that question at Marissa who responded warmly.

‘Well, of course you are! Aunt Lois is family. I understand she’ll be here at Christmas.’

‘Just so long as you two guys are!’ said Georgy. ‘Riley can marry me when we grow up.’

Riley gulped.

‘You can sit down now, Georgy,’ Marissa said. ‘For now, we have to get cracking on your sums.’

‘Can Riley help me?’ Georgy returned obediently to her desk.

Most late afternoons Marissa and Riley enjoyed a swim. Georgy had begun by sitting on one of the recliners, gradually moving closer to the pool, until finally she chose to sit on the top step at the shallow end dangling her feet in the water.

‘Why don’t you come in?’ Riley called, his eyes the brightest blue in his glowing face. ‘It’s great! I’ll look after you.’

‘Don’t pressure her, Riley.’ Marissa swam up behind him speaking very quietly.

‘I don’t have a swimsuit,’ Georgy called. It didn’t sound like an excuse, rather regret.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get one,’ Marissa called back. ‘Something really smart. Your father will be home Sunday.’

‘Are you going to tell him I’m cured?’ The expression on Georgy’s small face was one of hope.

‘Cured of what?’ Riley lifted himself out of the water to sit on the step beside her.

‘Cured of being frightened of the water,’ she told him simply. ‘My mother was always trying to throw me in the pool. She was really mean, like your mum.’

Marissa’s heart lurched. The children were growing close. They spent quite a lot of time talking to one another. From the sound of it Riley had been confiding in his new friend. She had to consider it as therapy. At least Georgy had accepted she wasn’t Riley’s mother.

‘After you teach me how to swim, you have to teach me how to sit on a horse,’ Georgy further astounded them by saying.

‘And you have to teach me to draw pictures as good as yours,’ Riley said.

‘You like my pictures?’ Georgy looked at him in amazement, her cheeks going quite pink.

‘Very, very much!’ said Riley.

Georgy started cracking her knuckles. ‘Well, Aunty Lois said she should show them to a psy … psy …’

‘Psychiatrist,’ Riley sweetly supplied. ‘Maybe you have way too much imagination for her?’

Georgy kissed him. ‘After tea I’m going to sing for you. You and Marissa. You’re my great friends. I have a really good voice but only Zoltan ever heard it.’

‘What songs do you know then?’ Riley eyed her with admiration.

Georgy jumped up so she could hand Marissa her towel. ‘Wait and see.’

If they were expecting nursery ditties, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Click Go the Shears, Boy, Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son and the like, Georgy’s performance brought the house down. She had graciously consented to give her impromptu concert in her great-grandmother’s sitting room.

The pint-size performer began by introducing the first of two songs from her repertoire before she sang them.

Nothing like ‘Danny Boy’ to bring on the tears, especially when sung in a pure sweet pipe. Then to end the concert on an upbeat note, one of her favourites from The Sound of Music complete with a really good natural yodel.

‘Julie Andrews couldn’t have done it any better,’ Olly pronounced, admitting later it had never crossed her mind Georgy could sing. Shriek, yes, sing like a lark, no.

Catherine gave the child a lovely smile. ‘That was absolutely beautiful, Georgy. Thank you so much.’

‘I’m going to be a singer when I grow up,’ Georgy told her charmed audience. ‘I think singing to people would be great!’

Holt arrived home to a contented household. After some harrowing moments with Lois, whose undying, let it be said, unrequited, love for him, had been wrung out of her, it was the peaceful homecoming he needed. Why was it that some women insisted on falling in love with the one man they couldn’t have? Of course he had long known about Lois’s feelings for him. How could he not? Tara had been very cruel in the way she had privately ridiculed her sister. Even when he had objected quite strongly she had invariably replied, ‘It just makes me laugh, darling, that’s all! You’re mine, so just don’t forget it!’

But it was Tara who had broken their marriage vows. With a minor rock star of all people! A good-looking young guy, years younger than she who had been part of a band hired to play at a friend’s wedding reception in Sydney. He and his father had been out of the country at the time, as members of a trade commission. Had he been home it would never have happened. But Tara when she was in the mood, just had to have sex. The big problem was the rock star hadn’t been using a condom and the one thing Tara hadn’t figured on happening, happened. She had fallen pregnant with Georgia.

The truly extraordinary part was she hadn’t considered herself unfaithful. She hadn’t felt in the least guilty about what other people called adultery. It might well have been an out-of-body experience, something over which she had little control.

‘He meant nothing! Less than nothing, darling. Just a good-looking kid in skintight jeans. I was drunk, darling! It was a wild, wild night! He must have slipped me something when I wasn’t noticing.’

The marriage hadn’t come to an end right then. Not in name anyway, although he’d never touched her again. The truth was he had discovered very early in their marriage Tara wasn’t the young woman he’d so stupidly thought she was. Tara, his beautiful, charming fiancée had been playing a part, like an actress in a movie. She’d been so good at it she had fooled his entire family, except maybe for Gran, who had once tried to warn him by saying, ‘Tara is lovely, Holt, but not quite believable!’

Tara’s parents knew all about their very difficult elder daughter and her wildly fluctuating moods. So did Lois, but none of them had been interested in telling him. Tara was unstable in more ways than one. It was this instability that had caused him much worry about Georgia. It seemed very much as if she’d inherited her mother’s nature. But he had only been home a few days to find Georgia was behaving like a normal happy child. It gladdened his heart that she had been spared.

Marissa had told him about Georgia’s amazing talent for singing, clearly expecting him to demand to hear her that very moment. When he had declined saying it would have to wait until he had a little more time, he had caught the flash of disappointment and yes, censure, in her beautiful eyes. Clearly she thought he wasn’t much of a father. He didn’t much like it. But then, she was a young woman who was trying to deal with a lot of hangups of her own. Both of them had one thing in common. They had chosen faithless partners.

What was he supposed to say anyway? ‘I’m doing my level best, Ms Devlin—a deliberate plot to try to keep her at a distance?—I’m very fond of Georgy. I support her in every way I can, but I’m only human. Georgia’s not mine!’

He had spent a lot of time wondering whether the rock star should at least be told he had a daughter. He knew he would want to know if somewhere in the world a child of his existed. He would owe that child, his own flesh and blood. The one and only time he had spoken to Tara about it had set off a near psychotic episode. She had become hysterical, smashing things, valuable things. No one was to ever know. She had taken it completely for granted he would do the best for Georgia as he had supported her right through her pregnancy.

But no way was he going to remain married to her.

That had precipitated another crisis but he had been adamant. He wanted a divorce.

The upshot was Tara had left Wungalla in a blind fury. She had left him with her child. I don’t want the ugly little thing! I never wanted her. She was an appalling accident. You keep her you’re so bloody sanctimonious!

Tara had left, feeling utterly secure in her belief he would remain silent on the issue of Georgia’s paternity. In many ways it was a dilemma. He didn’t believe he should live a lie. He didn’t believe Georgia should be denied the truth. But at what stage should he tell her?

A dilemma indeed, with the blue-eyed, so innocent looking Ms Devlin looking at him with naked reproach in her eyes when he was a man long used to respect.

Holt surprised them one afternoon by coming back with Dusty, saying he was going to take them all to the Blue Lotus lagoon, a permanent water hole on the station where the sacred water lilies were out in all their glory. Dusty, back in his element as a working dog, got very excited around Marissa and the children. Holt allowed them to play for a few moments then he brought Dusty to heel with a firm, ‘Sit, boy!’

Dusty did, thumping his tail good-naturedly, a grin all over his face.

‘Oh, this is such fun!’ Georgy trilled, clapping her hands together. ‘Isn’t Dusty beautiful? I always wanted a dog. Riley is going to teach me to swim, Dad, when you get me some propers swimmers. Marissa said you would.’

‘And she was absolutely right.’ Holt opened the doors of the 4WD, his heart breaking a little at the sound of that ‘Dad.’ Georgy rarely called him Dad and he had to admit he hadn’t encouraged it. ‘Okay, pile in.’

Marissa who adored the bush and had made a few early morning forays on her own when the children were still asleep, found the Blue Lotus lagoon a place of magic right in the heart of the red plains country. It was sheltered from the desert winds by towering river gums and an under canopy of feathery acacias their branches interlacing. The large lagoon was a shining dark green with great patches of the lavender-blue water lilies holding their long exquisite heads above the surface of the water and their glossy pads. It was a wonderfully cool green world in great contrast to the sun scorched plains.

Marissa hovered at the top of the grassy slope while the children accompanied by a romping Dusty took off for the sandy banks that surrounded the long near moon-shaped lagoon.

Holt, standing midway, turned back to her, unwilling to reveal how the sight of her, the sound of her, was a source of great pleasure to him. He had missed seeing her all the time he’d been away. Which just served to show what a sterile thing his life had become when really his working life had a lot of drama.

Face it. He wanted a wife. Not a stepmother for Georgy. He wanted a woman for him. This young woman, Marissa, was living, eating, sleeping, working, breathing, under his roof. He had become used to seeing her every day. His grandmother was deriving comfort and pleasure from her company. Georgy was a different child. Olly sang her praises, saying she was going to develop into a ‘great little cook.’ That was the top of the ladder for Olly and fine by him. The atmosphere at the homestead these days was one of joyous ease. He could scarcely believe it. Surely something had to go wrong!

‘Are you coming down?’

Under his brilliant gaze Marissa felt momentarily paralysed. Ever since he had come home she had been fighting down the wild bouts of excitement that flared up whenever he appeared. He was forever lurking in her mind, even when she was asleep. She couldn’t talk about her dreams, either. If they weren’t precisely erotic, they were certainly desire driven. She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had two romances she had thought serious at the time. Both young men had been kind and funny and sexy, professional young men, good catches or so her girlfriends told her. Neither had made her feel remotely like this, and just with a look!

She pulled herself together, moving down the bank, rather hoping yet fearful she would go for a slide and finish up in his arms. ‘This is such a beautiful place!’ she said in a hushed voice.

‘I knew you’d like it.’ He spoke casually when he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss that lovely soft mouth again and again. Was it his imagination or was she faintly trembling? It was hard to tell unless he touched her. Touched that flawless white skin that glowed. She was dressed simply in a ribbed tank top the same colour as her eyes and a pair of cream shorts that could never be called skimpy but nevertheless managed to draw attention to her beautiful slender legs. He never knew snowy flesh could look so good. He was used to women with tans. Even Tara who had spent a fortune on skin products had sported a golden tan.

‘What did you really think of Georgy’s singing?’ she now asked, transferring her gaze from him to the children romping happily around the banks picking up pretty shells Dusty was busy sniffing up for them. ‘You smiled but you didn’t say much.’

‘Here, sit down,’ he said, not making the mistake of touching her but indicating a sandy ledge. He waited until she moved around him to sit down, ankles and knees together like a proper young lady. He had caught himself making mental lists of the things about her that pleased him. It was a measure of her dazzling effect on him so far he had failed to find a single thing that didn’t.

‘On the contrary, I distinctly remember telling Georgia how talented she is,’ he pointed out, joining her on the ledge.

‘Of course you did!’ she said as though she had just remembered. ‘I just had the feeling you were sort of fending off that particular talent. You wouldn’t want her to be a performer when she grows up?’ She tilted her head towards him, feeding on the crackling energy that was flowing her way.

Holt glanced into her eyes—quite calmly he hoped—then across the lagoon to the opposite bank where a dozen or more parrots were pillaging the bright red berries of a native bush. He had tasted them himself and found them quite tangy. ‘I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if she made singing her career,’ he said. Why not add, after all her father is supposed to be a darn good pop singer and an excellent musician?

‘That’s all right then,’ she said more happily. ‘I thought you might have a different career in mind?’

‘Did you always want to be a teacher?’ he asked, shifting the questions to her.

Little yellow wild flowers their shoes had bruised were sending up a delicious citrusy scent all around them. Now it was Marissa’s turn to look away. The multicolours and the markings on the parrots were simply brilliant. ‘I actually wanted to become a child psychologist. I always wanted to work with children.’

‘Damaged little children?’

‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I was like a doctor in waiting. I wanted to help.’

‘And you were a damaged child. I expect that had a considerable bearing on your choosing such a profession. Why didn’t you go on with it?’

Why remain a mystery to him? ‘Something truly amazing happened—devastating at first—I found out I had a brother, a little half brother.’

‘Keep going,’ he said, giving thanks for her impulse to confide except she turned on him.

‘Why do you want to know so much?’ Those blue eyes flashed.

‘You started it.’ He didn’t suppress the urge to capture her wrist, feeling the tension in her. ‘Just relax. I’m your friend, not your enemy. As a matter of fact I’m your boss, but no one would ever know that. You’re so astoundingly challenging I can’t believe you’re the governess.’

Her voice lightly shook. ‘I deserved that. I’m sorry.’

‘Then I forgive you, for a wonder! But I’m still waiting.’

‘I don’t know that I can forgive you for not believing me,’ she retorted, with a shaky laugh. ‘You’ve regarded Riley as my big indiscretion from day one.’

He nearly put her palm to his mouth. ‘If I haven’t believed you, Marissa, it’s because you’re to blame, in part anyway.’ Slowly he released her. ‘Was what happened to you so cruel you can’t speak of it?’

She blinked her lashes rapidly, determined not to dissolve into tears. ‘My father was a brilliant man, strikingly handsome. I was so proud of him. When we were all together as a family, my mother, father and me, he always said he was the happiest man in the world. He adored us, especially my mother.’

‘Do you look like her?’ If so her mother had to be unforgettable.

She shook her head. ‘Riley and I take after our father. We have his colouring, his blue eyes. My mother was blond. After she was killed in the car crash with my father at the wheel he went to pieces. He was a man destroyed.’

‘I can understand that,’ he said, his own feelings solidifying into a powerful desire to keep her here with him on Wungalla.

Then she did something extraordinary. She put out her hand and lay a finger briefly against his cheek turning his face directly towards her.

‘Are you sure you can?’

Wasn’t she aware he was holding his emotions on the tightest possible rein? If the children hadn’t been around he would have given into his feelings and hauled her into his arms. ‘Trust me, Marissa,’ he said. ‘I really know what you mean. Why would you suggest otherwise? There’s a hell of a lot you don’t know about me.’

‘Maybe some time you’ll tell me,’ she said very quietly. ‘The reason I never let anyone in, is because I’m afraid they will judge him. He was a wonderful man. Know that. I’m certain he tried and tried, but he so loved her. He was desperately lonely for her. He lost all interest in life. The great wonder is he formed a relationship with Riley’s mother, someone half his age. Maybe she was the one who latched on to him. That wouldn’t have been totally strange. As I told you, he was a striking looking man.’

‘So that was how it was?’ He stared directly into her eyes, eyes what were windows opening onto her soul.

‘That was how it was,’ she said, letting him look his fill.

All his doubts melted away like ice under heat. ‘And Riley’s mother abandoned him? When did all this happen?’

Marissa picked up her story.

By the time she was finished, she was deeply upset.

Only iron discipline prevented him from lifting her right into his arms. Once he did that of course he would be damned near impossible to stop. ‘You’ll have to hide those tears, Marissa,’ he cautioned, the warning as much for himself as her. If he had never believed there was a Fate, he believed it now. ‘The children will be coming back soon.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She used the back of her hand to flick away fallen teardrops. ‘I understand now what Catholics feel when they go to confession.’

Only he was no priest. A hard ball of tension was knotting in his stomach. ‘Why don’t you stop Riley from calling you Ma?’

Her blue eyes fired.

God, he wanted to grasp a handful of her hair, pull her head back.

‘Because it’s not as simple as that, Holt!’ she declared. ‘It’s in the nature of every child to want a mother. Instead of being a sister I fitted into Riley’s idea of a mother figure. We’re very close.’

‘An obvious statement,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re going to call me Holt from now on?’

‘I won’t if you don’t want me to. Holt just slipped out.’ Why wouldn’t it? That was the way she thought of him.

‘No, that’s okay. Just checking,’ he said, his smile throwing her further off balance. ‘Riley is to start calling you Marissa. You have to cut this cord. You know that. If you don’t, you can’t blame people for getting the wrong idea. Would you like me to speak to him? It might carry a little more weight coming from me. Riley and I get along well together.’

She knew that to be true. Holt McMaster was fast turning into Riley’s hero figure. ‘No, I’ll tell him,’ she said. ‘Your sister-in-law.’

‘My ex sister-in-law,’ he corrected, tersely.

‘Never even gave me a hearing. I don’t understand that.’

‘Lois didn’t want to give you a hearing,’ he said. ‘Rest assured I’ll make the relationship perfectly plain. Are you ashamed of your father’s descent into alcoholism?’

A small silence fell. ‘I don’t like to say it but I must have been, if only because Aunt Allison never let up on him and his problem. The drinking wasn’t his problem. It was a symptom. I see now part of her problem was the fact Uncle Bryan was secretly in love with my mother. It was her way of getting even.’

‘On a child? How is such a thing possible?’ Yet such things happened. He should know.

‘She didn’t really want me, you know. I was sort of forced on her.’ She turned her face to him. ‘Has my telling you made any difference to the way you feel about me?’