Маргарет Уэй – It Happened in Sydney: In the Australian Billionaire's Arms / Three Times A Bridesmaid... / Expecting Miracle Twins (страница 8)

“All right if I bring Paula?” he asked. “I know you’re not fussed on her.”

“Protection, dearest, is that it?”

He grimaced to himself. “I don’t want to be seen to be using Paula. She’d actually love to be invited.”

“Doesn’t answer the question, dear.”

“Marcus is madly in love with her, Rowena,” he said firmly. “I was at the house this afternoon. Sonya was there, putting flowers all around the place.”

“I bet they looked wonderful,” Rowena’s cultured voice fluted down the phone.

“She does have the genius touch. Did you know about this recent development?”

“Matter of fact I did. Sonia had some marvellous bromeliad stems for me. Wonderful to see with just a large green leaf hanging over the side.”

“Rowena dear, I’m sure the bromeliads looked inspirational,” he said edgily, “but what I most want to talk about is this. What is Sonya up to? She knows Marcus is in love with her. Can you really say with any degree of confidence a marriage between them might work, given the thirty-year leap? She could divorce him and get a hefty settlement. Break Marcus’s heart. That’s a huge worry.”

“It’s possible, my darling, but who is able to predict a marriage?”

“Now there’s a cop out if ever there was one,” he exclaimed. “She’s won you over as well. You and Rolly had a great marriage. So do Mum and Dad.”

“Ah, then, your mother had a great deal of money. So did I. No one could ever have accused us of being fortune hunters. Makes things a lot easier.”

“Mum is four years younger than Dad,” he pointed out.

“My lovely Rolly was twelve years older than me.”

“The perfect gentleman.”

“He was indeed.”

“You all brought a great deal to one another,” he said. “What is Sonya going to bring to Marcus?”

Rowena chuckled. Over-long.

“Okay, okay, but is she in it for short term gain, Rowena? I’d love to look on the positive side, but I couldn’t bear to see Marcus humiliated. She doesn’t love him. That’s the pity. But she does have him wrapped around her little finger. He’s happy at the moment. Really happy. I have to say it’s lovely to see.”

Rowena abruptly sobered. “I’m as concerned as you are, David. For both of them. You know, dear, I’ve come to the conclusion Sonya is carrying a burden she can’t lay down. Despite that poise of hers, the high-born air, she seems to me a little lost.”

“Lost?” For a moment he thought he might lose it entirely. “She’s as switched on as they come.”

“Lighten up, love,” Rowena advised. “I know how much you love Marcus. You’ve always looked up to him. You have heart. You’re also very perceptive. I do realize the developing situation had to be taken very seriously. I’m with you there. Marcus, up until he met Sonya, has acted as though all happiness had passed him by.”

“It’s a dilemma, isn’t it?” he said. “Marcus is the one who stands to be hurt. Even if a marriage did take place, marriages end. A beautiful young woman with a large settlement could move on. Marcus would not. We both know that.”

“Yes indeed,” Rowena quietly agreed.

“We can expect fireworks from Dad and Mum. Dad especially. He loves his brother. Dad will want Sonya thoroughly checked out. Even then he wouldn’t approve. Neither would Mum. You know what they’re like. You know what the family is like. They’ll condemn her right off as a fortune hunter and a fake.”

“Well, she’s not faking the patrician air,” Rowena said in strong defence of the young woman she had come to like and admire.

“She’s a mystery woman indeed,” David answered, very, very dryly.

“There’s a story there, my darling. But not a happy one, I’m sure.”

“It makes a lot of women happy marrying a millionaire,” he pointed out.

“In a lot of cases it doesn’t work out marrying for love,” she countered. “I hear the Grantleys are divorcing. How long ago was it we were at the wedding?”

“Not long enough for them to open the wedding presents,” he said. “So, see you Sunday.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Problems. Problems. Problems, Rowena thought as she hung up.

Was it possible beautiful young Sonya was in some way flawed? Had she a plan in mind? Marcus could offer her the good life, but would she be content for long with that? And what did Sonya think of David? She felt deeply troubled now. David was a marvellous young man. She couldn’t count the number of women young and old who had succumbed to David’s extraordinary charm. David had everything going for him. Sonya would be a rare woman if she didn’t feel his attraction. So what did Sonya think of David? On Sunday she would make it her business to find out.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT am I doing? Where am I going with my life? I was coping well enough. Now I feel utter confusion.

She often got caught up in conversations with herself. Sonya sat in front of her mirror while she put in her earrings. These days all she could seem to focus on was David Wainwright and the mounting tensions and difficulties springing up between them. She wanted to stop thinking about him, but his image was so compelling he broke again and again into her consciousness, no matter how hard she tried to keep up the barricades. She had the dismal feeling her past life with its tragedies had damaged her. Well, she was damaged, she admitted, but for ever? That was a frightening prognosis.

Maintain the distance. Maintain the emotional barriers. You need no more complications in life.

There was no getting away from the voice in her head. Everyone had one, but, her being so much alone in life since the tender age of sixteen, her inner voice only got stronger. David Wainwright’s mental image was so persistent, so vivid, for the first time in her life she understood how dangerous powerful sexual attraction could be. It played havoc with one’s control. And he was coming to Lady Palmerston’s buffet lunch!

You’ll be seeing him again! Oh, sweet Lord! Forget the man.

Only her senses were exquisitely, excruciatingly sharpened. She realized to her dismay it was affecting her normal behaviour. Only how did one stop the mix of excitement and panic that stormed through her? She needed to block both emotions. A woman’s weakness only gave a man power. She didn’t want any man to dominate her thoughts, let alone her life. She wanted peace, peace, peace. A mature man, who had suffered himself, could give her that. Peace was important, a sense of being protected. God knew she’d had little of it in her fraught life. At twenty-five, she was still in recovery. At least that was how she thought of it.

Recovery.

Her history was a tragic one. But no one must know it. Not yet. When it came down to it meeting the Wainwrights had only complicated her life. She had to decide what she needed to do next. In less than half an hour, Marcus would be picking her up in his chauffeured Bentley. Marcus was a true gentleman, noble of character, much as her father had been. It would be a sin to lead Marcus on yet she knew she could have a real life with Marcus. No dramas. No concealing her true identity. She would have security. The age difference didn’t really bother her. Or it hadn’t until she had met Marcus’s nephew, David. Waves of emotion started to wash over her …

God, if you’re up there, you have to help me! I’ve no one else to call on.

Her parents had died very tragically in a car crash, ten years before. Only the crash had been engineered. She knew by whom. He would never do it himself. He would never be brought to justice. He lived in far-off America. But he had the power, the connections and the money to organize a hit even across continents. There would never be a mention of his name in connection with the tragic event. Laszlo had many friends in high places, even if he had many more enemies. But they couldn’t get to him. Like the Wainwrights, Laszlo was a billionaire with huge international interests in oil and steel.

And she had something he wanted very badly. The Andrassy Madonna. A precious icon that had been in the family since the seventeenth century. Up until recent times Laszlo had believed the Madonna, fashioned by medieval craftsmen—her robes and headpiece studded with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and seed pearls—had disappeared into the hands of the invading Russians when the estate was pillaged at the end of the Second World War. Laszlo’s father, Karoly, had done the wise thing gathering up his family and what he could of his fortune and fleeing Europe for the United States and safety. There, he became enormously rich again.

Her great-grandfather had stayed to the death. His eldest son, Matthias, the heir, had elected to stay with his father, resisting all pleas to make his escape. It was her grandmother, Katalin, who, as a little girl, had been the one to escape with the help of a loyal family servant. Her greatgrandfather and her great-uncle had been taken prisoners and never seen or heard of again. It was a tragic story repeated all over war-torn Europe and Russia.

But the Madonna believed to be lost for ever was in her possession. Proof of her identity. It gave her power, but offered no immunity against Laszlo. Rather the reverse. Possession put her in danger. After the Berlin Wall came down the estate had been returned to the Andrassy-Von Neumann family, albeit in ruins. Laszlo claimed to be the rightful heir and gained possession of the estate, when she was the rightful heir. Only she would never make her claim. Never be in a position to make it. Laszlo would get rid of her before he allowed her to take anything he considered belonged to him. She would be just another young woman to go missing never to be seen again. Laszlo was a powerful man with all the money and a team of lawyers. She had neither. She had long since learned Might was Right. Not the other way around. Laszlo had been pumping a great deal of money into the country of his birth, buying influence and friends in high places. Many of the valuable stolen paintings and artifacts had been returned to him, but the thing Laszlo most wanted was the Andrassy Madonna.