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Leigh felt a very definite punch to the heart. His smile seemed to link her to him, as though they were co-conspirators in complete tune with each other. Leigh instantly rejected the idea, but she still felt shaken by it. Richard Seymour was not the man she’d wanted him to be and she wasn’t about to be tricked into thinking differently.
He ran appreciative eyes over her as he headed down the steps. “You’re looking good, Leigh.”
“Thank you.” She dragged out the memory of the last time he’d commented on her appearance, instinctively defending herself against the flattering power of his compliment. “As opposed to looking anorexic, I presume.”
He’d accused her of it after one of Lawrence’s ritual Sunday lunches, which she’d been unable to eat, her stomach too screwed up to accept anything. Although she had been dieting, her non-consumption of that meal had nothing to do with losing weight.
Richard shrugged. “Believe it or not, I was worried about you at the time. You were far too thin.”
“And you put it so kindly. Anorexia might be a way of taking control of your body but it won’t give you control over anything else,” she quoted.
His eyes locked onto hers again as he reached her side at the foot of the steps. “I thought you needed a jolt,” he explained without apology.
He was giving her a jolt right now with his perverse interest in her, with the clarity of a memory that surely held no significance to him. She’d been seventeen, fighting what she then saw as an unfair weight problem, trying to look more like her model-slim sisters. Impossible task.
She’d been born with a different bone structure and no matter how thin she got, the natural curves of her body denied her a boyish figure. Away from the repressive influences of her family, she’d grown into the woman she was always going to be, voluptuously curved, but not grossly so for her height. She was taller than average, though even in high heels, she found herself half a head shorter than Richard Seymour, looking up to him, which she suddenly resented.
“Well, Richard,” she drawled, turning away to start down the path to the ornamental pond, “let me tell you I don’t need your approval for who or what I am. In fact, your opinion—good or bad—is irrelevant to me.” Which put him in his place in her world.
He laughed as he fell into step with her.
Leigh found herself clenching her hands at his amusement. She sliced him a totally unamused look, wishing he would take his disturbing presence elsewhere.
He grinned. “I have missed the black blaze of those incredibly expressive eyes.”
Missed? Had she really made such a strong impression on him all those years ago? Or was he attempting to flirt with her, now that she “looked good”?
She frowned over the questions as he walked on with her. The black suit she’d bought for the funeral was figure-hugging. She didn’t favour layers of shapeless clothes that made her look fat. Apparently Richard liked her current shape. As for her eyes, Leigh simply accepted them as part and parcel of her coloring—matching the blackness of her hair and toning with her olive skin. She had a slightly long nose and a wide, very full-lipped mouth, and she’d come to accept them, too. Since her face had filled out, the features she’d despaired over looked more right somehow, in keeping with the rest of her.
Certainly she no longer felt like the ugly duckling she’d always been in the Durant household, though she could never be counted as a blonde beauty like her older sisters. Ruefully she remembered her one desperate attempt to dye her hair blonde. Total disaster. Like everything else she had attempted in her teens in her hopeless need to fit some acceptable mould. She hadn’t known then she was a cuckoo in the nest and cuckoos couldn’t turn into anything else.
“I have no doubt you have no need of my approval, Leigh,” Richard picked up, apparently determined on teasing her out of her silence. As she glanced at him he added, “There wouldn’t be one red-blooded male who didn’t approve of you.”
Sex! Leigh wrenched her gaze from his and walked faster, inwardly fuming over this shallow view of her. She was more than just a lush body that a lot of men fancied. But then men like Richard Seymour probably didn’t want a woman with a mind or a heart. Taking sex as needed was probably his style.
In all the publicity and media speculation sparked by Lawrence Durant’s fatal heart attack, the newspapers had made much of the fact Richard Seymour was not married—one of the most eligible bachelors in Australia—and Leigh wondered if he was as much a womaniser as Lawrence Durant had been, behind the respectable facade of his marriage. With his looks, Richard certainly wouldn’t lack choice.
Was he now thinking the same of her? He was wrong, if he did. She hadn’t even cared to sample the chances that had come her way. Somehow an internal barrier went up the moment any man started getting too close to her. As for desiring them…she’d often wondered if desire was linked to trust and that was why she couldn’t feel it. Maybe one day she would meet someone she could really trust to love her as she wanted to be loved.
“Are you happy in the life you’ve made for yourself?”
The apparently artless question snapped Leigh out of her private reverie. Danger signals flared in her mind. Give anything away to a man like Richard Seymour and somehow he’d use it against her. She’d had too much experience of that process in the Durant household to be offering any information about herself.
Keeping her expressive eyes fixed on the path ahead she answered, “Reasonably,” in an even tone, then turned the question back on him. “What about you? Are you happy with what you’ve made of yourself?”
He laughed again, though there was more irony than amusement in the sound this time. “You know, no-one’s ever asked me that question.”
Of course. Brilliant success didn’t exactly invite any such doubt. “Perhaps you should ask it of yourself?” she drily remarked.
“Perhaps I should,” he agreed even more drily. “Though I can’t say it’s ever been on my list of priorities. I’ve always thought happiness an elusive thing, not easily captured and even more difficult to hold.”
Unlike wealth and power.
“Then why ask me about it?”
“Oh, I guess I was really asking if you’ve found a relationship you find satisfying.”
He dropped the question so casually, the impact came in slow motion. Leigh’s first reaction was it was none of his business. Then his previous comment about the approval of “red-blooded men” started to rattle her. Did he fancy a quick fling with her while she was in Sydney? Was this why he’d followed her out here…to ascertain availability and charm his way into her bed? Did he see her as old enough for him now?
The idea was outrageous, yet oddly tantalising. Leigh was tempted to play him along, just to see if it was true. “No, I haven’t. At least, not as satisfying as I would wish,” she answered honestly, then slid him an assessing look as she added, “But I didn’t come home for you, Richard.”
It was a mistake to look at him. He instantly locked onto it with a piercing intensity that pinned her eyes to his. “Am I not one of the ghosts you wish to lay to rest?”
“Why would you think so?” she retaliated, disturbed by the wild quickening of her pulse.
“Because you hated me so much.”
He was raising the ghosts, deliberately and too evocatively for Leigh’s comfort. “Wouldn’t you, in my place?” she snapped.
“Yes. But there was nothing I could do to change your place, Leigh. You had to do it yourself. Which you did. Yet I wonder if all those negative feelings towards me—the bitter resentment and the black contempt—still linger on?”
He was getting to her, digging around in her head and heart, and she didn’t want him to. Realising she’d paused to counter this attack on her feelings, Leigh got her legs moving again, chiding herself for falling into the trap of letting him focus the conversation on her. She tried to switch it back on him.
“I can’t imagine it matters to you.”
“It does. Very much.”
“Why?” she demanded, inwardly refusing to believe him. She would not—not—allow herself to be vulnerable to what Richard Seymour thought or felt about her. She’d been down that painful track, wanting him to shine for her, but he hadn’t.
“I wasn’t your enemy,” he answered simply. “Your hatred was blind, Leigh. As much as I could be, I was your friend.”
Hardly a friend, she thought with a violence that startled her. Let it go, she berated herself furiously. Just let it go and set him aside, right out of your life.
“I don’t view you as an enemy, Richard,” she said as dispassionately as she could. “I don’t think I did then, either. Not personally. If you hadn’t been the favoured protégé, someone else would have won that place, and been used in the same way to show off my father’s dissatisfaction with me.”
“I didn’t enjoy my place in that particular game, Leigh.”
She couldn’t stop herself from seething over how he had conducted himself, even though he might not have enjoyed it. “You didn’t walk away from it,” she tersely remarked.
“As you say, it wouldn’t have changed anything,” he answered easily. “Lawrence would have found someone else. Someone who might have joined in the game with him, making it worse for you.”
In all fairness, she couldn’t accuse Richard of aiding or abetting the cruel baiting that had gone on during the mandatory-attendance Sunday luncheons in the Durant mansion. She remembered him diverting the conversation into other topics, taking the focus off her, but she’d hated him for that, too, feeling he pitied her.
She’d wanted him—willed him—to stand up and fight for her, though Lawrence would never have tolerated that from him. With an older, wiser head on her shoulders, she could see that now, but at the time…
She took a deep breath, trying to clear herself of the burning turmoil Richard Seymour could still stir. Applying cold hard reason, it was possible to agree with his point of view. He may well have meant to be a friend to her, as much as he could, within the parameters of retaining his position.
“Well, thank you for thinking of my feelings,” she said, trying to be fair and wanting this highly unwelcome contretemps finished with. “As it happens, I don’t hate you any more, and you’re not a ghost I need to lay to rest.”
“Good!” He sounded relieved.
His response nagged at Leigh. Why did he care what she felt? Unless, of course, he did want to bed her, and ghosts wouldn’t be good in that scenario. But was that really likely? She was no longer sure what was likely with him. He kept on walking with her, seemingly deep in thought, and she couldn’t shake the feeling all his thoughts were focused on her.
They reached the ornamental pond. Wanting to reduce any sense of gathering intimacy with a man she could have nothing in common with beyond the memories of imprisoned hours together in the long-ago past, she sat down on the wide sandstone blocks which formed a flat platform on top of the pond’s circular enclosure and trailed her fingers through the water, making the fish dart into flashing movement, their luminous colours catching the light.
So beautiful, Leigh thought. Did they know they were prisoners, bought by the wealth of Lawrence Durant for his casual pleasure? Would freedom mean anything to these fish, or would they be lost in a world beyond this confinement? They were well fed, but being well fed wasn’t everything. It was good to feel free. Yet even away from this place and all it represented, Leigh knew she was still emotionally tied to it, which was why she’d come back, hoping for…what?
It looked like she was only messing herself up again.
“I’m glad you came back, Leigh.”
The soft intonation made the comment sound very, very personal. Leigh instantly steeled herself against its warming effect. If she started wanting too much from Richard Seymour, bitter disillusionment would surely follow. Any closeness with him had to be dangerous. As it was, she was acutely aware of him standing barely a metre away. That distance didn’t feel far enough.
“I needed to be here today,” she answered flatly, still watching the fish. “The funeral made Lawrence’s death real…the coffin…the cremation…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He doesn’t have the power to hurt me any more.” And I won’t let you do it, either, she added resolutely.
“Your mother and sisters…from what I saw, none of them ever stood up for you. Do you expect that to be different now?” he asked, the soft tone projecting a caring she wouldn’t let herself believe.
He hadn’t stood up, either, though Leigh had to concede he had done more than the others to stop Lawrence’s games. On the other hand, as an outsider, he hadn’t been personally subjected to them. She wasn’t the only one in the family who’d suffered verbal abuse. It had a repressive effect on all of them.
“I don’t know if it will be different,” she answered honestly. Suddenly and fiercely wishing for some open honesty from him, she lifted her gaze for direct confrontation. “Lawrence pulled the strings then. It looks like you pull them now. So what do you want, Richard? What is this conversation about? You’ll do much better with me if you don’t play games.”
He cocked his head slightly, assessing the strength of that statement. His eyes held no warmth whatsoever. They were coldly calculating and Leigh sensed a ruthless gathering of purpose. When he spoke, there was no preamble, no dressing up with persuasive intent, just the bare bones of what he’d been leading to from the very beginning of this encounter.
“I want to marry you, Leigh.”
CHAPTER THREE
LEIGH stared at Richard Seymour, too stunned to really believe her ears, but her eyes didn’t pick up any messages that changed what she’d thought she’d heard.
He was watching her with intense concentration, waiting to weigh her reaction. His body looked relaxed but she could feel tension emanating from him. More than tension. Will-power was beaming out of those compelling blue eyes, asserting absolutely serious intent and firming up the wobbly ground inside her mind.
There was only one question to ask so she asked it. “Why? Of all the women you could choose to marry, why me?”
His mouth curved into a half-smile. “I could give you many reasons, Leigh, but since they’re mostly from my point of view, I doubt you’d see them as valid.”
Valid!
She laughed. Couldn’t help herself. The situation was so wildly improbable, a sense of sheer hysteria bubbled out of her. King Richard wanting Cinderella as his wife? It might be understandable if he was madly in love with her, but that idea was as far-fetched as his proposition.
Leigh couldn’t resist pursuing it, her eyes dancing a challenge as she asked, “Just give me one of those reasons, Richard. One I might be able to believe in.”
His eyes seemed to twinkle knowingly at her as he said, “We’re fellow travellers on a road that started a long time ago. Who else will understand what went into the journey?”
A straight stab to the heart, killing any urge to laugh and instantly evoking a sober and vehement reply. “I got off that road.”
“Did you?” he softly challenged. “Not quite, Leigh, or you would never have come back.”
“I’ve explained why.”
He nodded. “I listened, and what I heard is it’s not finished for you. You’re still seeking…” He paused a moment, his eyes boring into hers. “…justice.”
He was crawling into her mind, plucking on heartstrings that did yearn for what had never been given.
“What better justice can there be now than to balance the scales…with you taking all that was taken from you?” he suggested with a terrible, insidious appeal to the darkness deep inside her. “I can give it to you, Leigh.”
She wanted to look away, to escape this awful intrusion into her private soul, yet if she did, he would know he had hit truly and the vulnerability was there to be played upon. The darkness was not good. She’d tried to escape it, hating how it blighted her life. She realised now she had come back to confront it, make it go away. But how could marrying him turn it around? Wouldn’t it be more of the same?
She’d been right about not giving him information to use against her. He was too clever at reading it. He wouldn’t have succeeded Lawrence Durant if he wasn’t both diabolically clever and ruthless. And she hadn’t forgotten how the game was played. Hiding the hurt defeated the victory. She kept her gaze firmly on his and turned the darkness back onto him.
“Let’s cut to the real point, Richard. I don’t believe you want to marry me, so marriage to me has to have a purpose. What advantage is there in it for you?”
He laughed, completely disarming her for a moment, and his eyes danced at her in open admiration, disarming her even further. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I love you,” he tossed at her, moving closer to the sandstone rim of the pond, then lifting a foot onto it, leaning forward, resting his arms on the bent knee.
The pose brought him effectively closer to her, setting up an intimate togetherness while still respecting her personal space. And suddenly there was a sizzle in his eyes that set all her nerve ends twitching.
“But don’t think I don’t want you, Leigh,” he said in a low purring voice, stirring even more havoc inside her. “There’s nothing about you I don’t want, including your blazing directness, which I find more refreshing than you could ever begin to believe.”
Her heart was pumping so hard she couldn’t think of a word to say. Her mind was jammed with sexual signals. And the terrible part was she couldn’t push them out. There was a dreadful fascination in this crazy physical response to Richard Seymour. She remembered how his presence had always tied her in knots when she was a teenager. She hadn’t recognised it then as sexual attraction. But now…
Did he know?
Did he feel it?
Sheer panic kept her silent.
He was not the least bit perturbed by her lack of response. He went on talking with easy confidence, knowing that she understood what he was spelling out. “You were supposed to be the son to carry on Lawrence’s name and dynasty. And you paid one hell of a price for not being that son. What you don’t know—yet—is he never lost the obsession of having his own flesh and blood carry on from him.”
“But that’s impossible now,” Leigh murmured, struggling out of her distraction.
“No, it’s not impossible…if he has a grandson with the right capabilities. And Lawrence thought of that before he died. Thought of it and planned it.”
A grandson! It was sickening. An innocent little baby boy created for Lawrence Durant’s massive ego, life and goals all rigidly mapped out before he even started living. As hers would have been if she had been the right sex and the right material for moulding into the right monument to a man who didn’t deserve any kind of monument.
“Did he pick out the name, too?” she asked in savage disgust. “Mine was supposed to be Leigh Jason. The Jason part was dropped when I turned out to be a girl.”
“Lawrence,” came the dry reply.
“Of course. One Lawrence gone. Another coming up.”
Something infinitely dangerous and determined flashed through the clear blue of his eyes. “He can’t reach that far from the grave, Leigh, and his purpose can be defeated.”
She was tantalised by the brief glimpse of something she didn’t know—a force driving him that went beyond her previous judgement of his character. “Go on,” she urged.
“I was the one who took your designated role, insofar as I met the expectations he would have had for his son. My much publicised position as his successor is not ironclad. It is provisional to my fulfilling the terms of his will.”
“Which are?” she prompted when he paused, although she could guess what was coming, and another painful emptiness yawned inside her.
His mouth curled into a mirthless smile. “If I marry one of his daughters and produce a son, I get the necessary percentage of company shares which will make my position as his successor unassailable.”
