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‘Actually...he was very nice.’
‘Goodness, Fiona, your past seems peppered with very nice men. How is it, then, that down deep you’re a man-hater?’
Fiona was startled for a moment, then defensive. ‘That’s a bit harsh, Owen, and not true at all. I love you, and you’re a man.’
‘I’m not talking about me, Fiona. I’m talking about the men you’ve dated, then discarded without so much as a backward glance. They thought you really cared for them but the truth is you just used them. That’s not very nice, you know.’
Fiona stiffened for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Sorry you think that, Owen, but they all knew the score. As for really caring for me, I doubt that very much. After an initial burst of pique at having their egos dented, they moved on to the next female swirftly enough. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand, which is that Kathryn Forsythe won’t recognise me. Philip will be the only one who might. Though I stress the word might. Still, it’s the mother who matters, isn’t it? She’s the one I’m meeting. Believe me when I assure you she won’t know me from Adam.’
Owen stared at his partner and his friend and felt terribly sorry for her, because she was nice. Underneath all that delusionary and self-destructive bitterness, she was a genuine person, decent and kind, hard-working and generous. She cared about her clients and their worries. She always remembered everyone’s birthday in the office, and was the softest touch when it came to charities. She never walked past one of those people selling useless badges and biros in the street, always stopping with a smile and a donation.
Goodness knows what had happened in those marriages of hers to make her hard where men were concerned, because she wasn’t hard in any other department of her life. Determined, yes. And ambitious. But that was different. That was business.
Which reminded him. He had a business to protect here. He could not allow Fiona to carelessly endanger what they’d taken years to build together.
‘We can’t rely on Mrs Forsythe not recognising you, Fiona,’ Owen said firmly. ‘If you don’t reveal who you are up front and it comes out later, then she’s going to be furious and your name will be mud. Which means our name will be mud. I see no other solution than for you to keep the appointment I made for you, confess your identity with tact and diplomacy, then offer her my services once again. At least that way, even if she decides against using Five-Star Weddings, she won’t be inclined to blacken our name.’
Fiona leant back even further in her chair and mulled over Owen’s suggestion. It made sound business sense, she supposed. And she would still have the satisfaction of seeing Kathryn Forsythe’s face when she revealed her true identity.
In a way, it would be better than tricking her, showing the hateful woman in person that the one-time object of her snobbish scorn was no longer as ignorant as sin and as common as muck. Philip’s derided and despised first wife could pass muster in the best of circles these days!
Fiona now knew how to dress, how to talk and how to act on whatever occasion was thrown at her. She owned a half-share in a blossoming business, a beautiful flat overlooking Lavender Bay, and a wardrobe full of designer clothes. She had a vast knowledge of food and wine. She had an appreciation of art and music of all kinds. She could even ski!
But, best of all, she could have just about any man she wanted, if and when she wanted them, for as little or as long as she wanted them.
For a moment Fiona wondered ruefully what would happen if she ran into Philip again. Would he recognise her? If he did, what would he think of Fiona as compared to Noni? Would he want Fiona as he’d once wanted Noni?
It was an intriguing speculation.
As much as she was over her love for Philip at long last, she still felt an understandable curiosity about the man. What did he look like now? And what was the woman like he’d finally decided to marry?
‘Very well, Owen,’ she agreed, and snapped forward in her chair. ‘I’ll go and throw myself on Mrs Forsythe’s mercy. But first, do tell. Why is it Kathryn’s job to organise her son’s wedding? Doesn’t the lucky bnde have a mother?’
Owen shrugged. ‘Apparently not.’
‘So who is this undoubtedly beautiful and well-brought-up creature who’s to be welcomed into the bosom of the Forsythe family?’
‘I have no idea. We didn’t get that far.’
‘So when’s the appointment for?’
‘Tomorrow morning at ten.’
‘On a Saturday? You know I never see anyone on a Saturday! For pity’s sake, Owen, I have a wedding on tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Rebecca can handle it.’
‘No,’ Fiona said sharply. ‘She’s not ready.’
‘Yes, she is. You’ve trained her very well, Fiona. You just don’t like delegating. Much as I admire your dedication and perfectionism, the time has come to give Rebecca some added responsibility.’
‘Maybe,’ Fiona said, ‘but not this time. The bride’s mother is expecting me. I refuse to let her down on such an important day.’
‘Maybe you could do both,’ Owen suggested hopefully. ‘The appointment and the wedding.’
‘I doubt it, not if Mrs Forsythe still lives way out at Kenthurst, which by the look on your face she does. That’s a good hour’s drive through traffic from my place, and far too far from tomorrow’s wedding down at Cronulla. You’ll have to ring back and change the appointment to Sunday, Owen. Make it for eleven. I’m not getting up early on a Sunday morning for the likes of her.’
‘But...but...’
‘Just do it, Owen. Tell the woman the truth: that Fiona has a wedding to organise tomorrow and can’t make it. She’ll probably admire my...what was it you said?...my dedication and perfectionism?’
Owen groaned. ‘You’re a hard woman.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m as soft as butter.’
‘Yeah, straight out of the freezer.’
‘Trust me, Owen, I know what I’m doing. The Forsythes of this world have more respect for people who don’t chase or grovel. Be polite, but firm. I’ll bet it works a charm.’
It did, to Owen’s surprise. ‘She was only too accommodating about it all,’ he relayed ten minutes later, still startled. ‘And she wants you to stay for Sunday lunch. Fortunately for us, her son and his bride-to-be can’t make it that day. Thank heavens for that, I say. And thank heavens the groom doesn’t live at home.’
Fiona already knew Philip didn’t live at home. The phone book had been very informative of his whereabouts over the years. There weren’t too many P. Z. Forsythes in this world, and only one in Sydney. Fifteen months after they’d broken up—around the time he would have finished his law degree—he’d bobbed up at an address in Paddington, only a hop, step and a jump from the city.
The following year he’d moved further out to Bondi. More recently he’d moved again, to an even more salubrious address at Balmoral Beach, which, though over the bridge on the north side, still wasn’t far from town.
Back in his Paddington days, Fiona had used to regularly ring him, just so she could hear his voice, hanging up after he answered. Once, not long after his move to Bondi, she’d rung him on a Saturday night and pretended to be wanting someone called Niger, just so she could extend the conversation for a few seconds, then had got the shock of her life when Philip called out to some Nigel person.
‘He’ll be with you in a sec, honey,’ Philip had said, before putting the phone down. The sounds of a party in the background had been crushingly clear. Laughter. Music. Gaiety.
Fiona had hurriedly hung up and vowed never to do that again.
And she hadn’t. She had, however, never got out of the habit of checking Philip’s address every time a new phone directory arrived, which was how she knew about his move to Balmoral.
Fiona glanced up from her thoughts to find her partner frowning down at her. She smiled up at him. A rather sardonic smile, but a smile all the same. ‘Stop looking so worried, Owen.’
‘I want to know how you’re going to handle telling Mrs Forsythe the truth about yourself.’
‘With kid gloves, I assure you. I can be tactful and diplomatic, you know. I can even be sweet and charming when I want to be. Don’t I always have the mother of the bride eating out of my hand?’
‘Yeah. But Mrs Forsythe isn’t the mother of the bride. She’s the mother of the groom, and you’re the groom’s first wife!’
CHAPTER TWO
FIONA pulled over to the kerb and consulted the street directory one more time to make sure she knew the way to Kenthurst She’d gone there only twice, after all, ten years before.
Kenthurst was not a suburb one passed through by accident, or on the way to somewhere. It was more of an ‘invitation only’ address.
A semi-rural and increasingly exclusive area on the northern outskirts of Sydney, Kenthurst boasted PICTURESQUE countryside with lots of trees, undulating hills and fresh air. The perfect setting for secluded properties owned by privileged people who liked peace and privacy.
Wealthy Sydney businessmen had once built summer houses up in the Blue Mountains or down in the southern highlands to escape the heat and the rat-race of the city. Now they were more inclined to build air-conditioned palaces on five to twenty-five acres out Kenthurst or Dural way, and live there most of the time.
Philip’s father had done just that, though he’d also owned a huge Double Bay apartment where he’d stayed overnight when business kept him late in town, or when he’d taken his wife to the theatre or the opera. It was an enormous place, covering the whole floor of a solid pre-war three-storeyed building, lavishly furnished with antiques, and with a four-poster bed in the main bedroom which had belonged to a French countess. Fiona knew this for a fact because she’d slept in it.
Well... not exactly slept.
She wondered if Philip had ever ‘slept’ with his bride-to-be in that same bed, if he’d taken her to the same mindless raptures he’d taken her own silly self.
Now, now, don’t go getting all bitter and twisted, she lectured herself sharply. Waste of time, honey. Concentrate on the job at hand, which is getting to Kathryn’s house by eleven.
Fiona didn’t want to be late. She didn’t want to give the woman the slightest excuse for looking down her nose at her again.
Gritting her teeth, Fiona bent her head to concentrate on the directory. Once the various street turnings were memorised, she angled her freshly washed and polished Audi away from the kerb and back onto the highway.
A small wry smile lifted the corner of her mouth as she drove on. The car wasn’t the only thing that had been washed and polished to perfection that morning, mocking her claim that she would not get up early on a Sunday for the likes of Kathryn Forsythe.
Pride had had her up at six. By nine there hadn’t been an inch of her body which wasn’t attended to, from the top of her sleekly groomed head to her perfectly pedicured toenails. Fiona had told herself that even if there was only the remotest chance of having to remove her shoes and stockings—or any other part of her clothing—she was going to be as perfect underneath as she was on the surface.
Oddly enough, it had been the surface clothes which had ended up causing her the most trouble. Downright perverse, in Fiona’s opinion, when she had a wardrobe chock-full of the best clothes money could buy.
The fact that it was winter should have made the choice of outfit easier. But it hadn’t. The black suits she favoured for work had seemed too funereal, her grey outfits a little washed out, now that her summer tan had long faded. Chocolate-brown and camel were last year’s colours. She certainly wasn’t going to show up in them! Which had left cream or taupe. Fiona never wore loud colours. Or white.
Certainly not white, had come the bitter thought.
She had dithered till a decision had simply had to be made. Time was beginning to run out.
In desperation, she’d settled on a three-piece trouser-suit in a lightweight cream wool. It had straightleg trousers, a V-necked waistcoat and a long-sleeved lapelled jacket. The buttons on the waistcoat were covered, but rimmed in gold, so a necklace would have been overdone for daytime.
But she had slipped eighteen carat gold earrings into her pierced ears and a classically styled gold watch onto her wrist—both gifts from one-time admirers. Her shoes and bag were tan, and made of the softest leather. They’d cost a small fortune. Make-up had been kept to a minimum, her mouth and nails a subtle brown. Her perfume was another gift from an admirer, who’d said it was as exotic and sensual as she was.
Finally, she’d been fairly satisfied with her appearance, and just before ten had left her flat, ready to face the woman who’d almost destroyed her.
‘But I rose again, Kathryn,’ Fiona said aloud as she turned off the highway and headed for Kenthurst. ‘Just like the phoenix.’
Fiona laughed, well aware that the likes of Noni w ould not even have known what the phoenix was. ‘You’ve come a long way, honey,’ she complimented herself. ‘A long, long way. Worth a few nerves to show Philip’s darling mama just how far!’
The sun broke through the clouds at that point, bouncing off the shiny polished surfaces of the silver car and into her eyes. Fiona reached for the designer sunglasses which she kept tucked in the car door pocket, slipped them on, and smiled.
Fifteen minutes later she was driving slowly past the Forsythe place, her confident smile long replaced by a puzzled frown.
It had changed in ten years. And she wasn’t talking about the high brick wall which now surrounded the property. Somehow, it looked smaller than she remembered, and less intimidating. Yet it was still a mansion; still very stately, with its imitation Georgian facade; still perched up on a hill high enough to have an uninterrupted three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the surrounding countryside.
Fiona stopped the car, stared hard at the house, then slowly nodded up and down. Of course! How silly of her! It wasn’t the house which had changed but herself, and her perceptions. After all, she was no stranger to mansions these days, and no longer overawed by the evidence of wealth.
Her confident smile restored, Fiona swung the Audi around and returned to the driveway, where the iron gates were already open, despite the security camera on top of the gatepost and an intercom system built into the cement postbox.
It seemed careless to leave the gates open, but perhaps Kathryn had opened them in readiness for her arrival. Her watch did show two minutes to eleven. Fiona drove on through, a glance in the rear-vision mirror revealing that the gates remained open behind her.
Oh, well. She shrugged. Kathryn Forsythe’s security wasn’t her problem, but it seemed silly to go to the trouble and expense of having all that put in without using it. Such rich remote properties would be a target for break-ins and burglaries. Maybe even kidnappings. You couldn’t be too careful these days.
Admittedly, Philip’s branch of the family wasn’t as high-profile as his two uncles’. His uncle Harold was a captain of industry, owning several food and manufacturing companies as well as a string of racehorses, whilst his uncle Arnold was a major player in the media and hotels, along with expensive hobbies such as polo and wine.
Philip’s father, Malcolm, had been the youngest of the three Forsythe boys and had gone into corporate law, the law firm he’d established handling all the legal transactions for his older brothers’ business dealings. Philip had once told her that his father was probably richer than his two brothers, because he didn’t waste money on gambling and other women.
All three Forsythe brothers had married beautiful girls from well-to-do society families, thereby increasing their wealth and securing a good gene pool for their children. Harold had sired a mixed brood of five children, and Arnold three strapping sons. Malcolm had only had the one child, Philip.
Surprisingly, none of the brothers had ever divorced, despite rumours of serious philandering by Harold and Arnold. All three Forsythe wives were regularly photographed by the Sunday papers and gossip magazines, showing off their tooth-capped smiles along with their latest face-lifts. They seemed to spend half their lives at fashion shows, charity balls and racing carnivals.
Fiona had once been impressed by it all.
Not any more, however.
Her brown eyes were cool as they swept over the groomed lawns and perfectly positioned trees, her pulse not beating one jot faster as she drew closer to the house. A little different from the first time she’d come up this driveway, her heart pounding like a jackhammer, her stomach in sickening knots. Back then she’d been as nervous as the heroine in Rebecca, driving up to Manderley with her wealthy new husband at her side.
Fiona could well understand that poor young bride’s feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. She’d felt exactly the same way back then. Ironic that on her unexpected return to Manderley she was now the first wife.
The house grew larger on approach. But of course it was large. Wide, white and two-storeyed, with a huge pitched grey slate roof and long, tall, symmetrically placed windows. It looked English in design, and somewhat in setting, with its clumps of English trees and ordered gardens. Nothing, however, could disguise the Australian-ness of the bright clear blue sky, or the mountains in the distance, also blue with the haze from the millions of eucalypti which covered them.
The tarred and winding driveway finally gave way to a more formal circular section, with a red gravel surface and a Versailles-like fountain in the middle. The Audi crunched to a halt in front of the white-columned portico and almost immediately the front door opened and the lady of the house stepped out into the sunshine.
Fiona frowned as she stared over at Philip’s mother.
Kathryn was still as superbly groomed as she remembered. And just as elegant, in a royal blue woollen dress, with pearls at her throat and not a blonde hair out of place.
But she looked older. Much older. Probably even around her real age.
She had to be coming up for sixty, Fiona supposed. Ten years ago she’d been in her late forties, though she’d looked no more than thirty-five.
She appeared frail as well now, as though the stuffing had been knocked out of her. There was a slight stoop about her shoulders and a sadness in her face which struck an annoyingly sympathetic chord in Fiona.
Her whole insides revolted at this unlikely response. Sympathy for Kathryn Forsythe? Never!
Steeling herself against such a heresy, Fiona pulled the keys out of the ignition, practically threw them in her handbag, climbed out and swung the door shut. Sweeping off her sunglasses, she turned to face her one-time enemy, waiting coolly to be appraised and not recognised.
Kathryn’s lovely but faded blue eyes did sweep slowly over her from head to toe, but, as Fiona had predicted to Owen, there was not a hint of recognition, let alone rejection. Nothing but acceptance and approval. One could even go so far as to say...admiration.
Oddly, this did not give Fiona the satisfaction she’d hoped for. She didn’t feel triumphant at all. Suddenly, she felt mean and underhand.
‘You must be Fiona,’ Kathryn said in a softly gentle voice, smiling warmly as she came forward and held out a welcoming hand.
Fiona found herself totally disarmed, smiling stiffly back and taking the offered hand while her mind fairly whirled. She’s only being nice to you because you look the way you do, she warned herself. Don’t ever think this woman has really changed, not down deep, where it matters. She’s still a terrible snob. If she ever found out who you really were, she’d cut you dead, and, yes, she’d be furious. Make no mistake about that. So put on a good act here, darling heart, make your abject apologies and get the hell out of Manderley!
‘And you must be Mrs Forsythe,’ she returned in her now well-educated voice, a far cry from the rough Aussie drawl she’d once used, with slang and the odd swear-word thrown in for good measure.
‘Not to you, my dear. You must call me Kathryn.’ Philip’s mother actually linked arms with her, gathering her to her side and giving her a little squeeze.
Fiona froze. The Kathryn Forsythe of ten years before would never have done such a thing, not even to her friends and relatives. Philip’s mother had been a reserved and distant woman with an aversion to touching.
‘After all,’ Kathryn went on, before Fiona could recover from her shock to form a single word, ‘we’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks, aren’t we?’
