His Australian Heiress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

His Australian Heiress

Margaret Way

LYRICAL SHINE

Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

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LYRICAL SHINE BOOKS are published by

 

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Copyright © 2016 by Margaret Way

 

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Lyrical Shine and Lyrical Shine logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

 

First Electronic Edition: September 2016

ISBN: 978-1-6018-3766-0

eISBN-10: 1-60183-766-6

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-767-7
ISBN-10: 1-60183-767-4

T
he distinguished principal of Asherton School for Girls, Dr. Vivienne Granger herself, came to the door of the Great Hall to deliver an urgent message to one of her students. For the Head to do such a thing was unheard of. There were lesser mortals to whom she could delegate such tasks, but this was a very serious matter. It needed discretion from the very top, and no one topped the benevolent, on occasion fearsome, Dr. Vivienne Granger.

A rehearsal of
The Merchant of Venice
was in progress. Charlotte Mansfield, Head Girl, handpicked by Dr. Granger on merit, not on her illustrious name, was halfway into Portia's famous speech, “The quality of mercy is not strained.” Charlotte had reached, “Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings . . . ,” making a brilliant job of it according to the college's speech and drama teacher, Dr. Phillipa Redding, when Dr. Granger lifted a long, black-clad arm and began waggling imperious fingers in Charlotte's direction. It was a clear indication Charlotte was to break off and join her.

The message popped instantly into Charlotte's head. It came from someone, maybe God, but she had no clear belief that was so. She had given up wondering where her sixth sense came from. Perhaps everyone was born with such a sense but made the decision not to cultivate it because it made them nervous. And rightly so. It was scary. The message she received was crystal clear and unequivocal.

She felt the flow of blood in her veins turn to ice. For the past five years as a boarder at Asherton, life had grown quiet around her. Quiet, even pleasantly serene. The terrible grief, the sense of loss, the melancholy, had gradually given way to her natural urge to live her life, to succeed. She was a Mansfield. Success was expected of her. Mansfields were very serious folk. Under the leadership of her grandfather, real results in life were expected to be achieved, even if one was told at age twelve one's parents had been killed.

Charlotte already knew about that dollop, but
made
? What sort of a promise was that? How conducive to a peaceful life? She remembered her darling father once saying some days it was all he could do to get out of bed. She had adored her father. Her beautiful mother, Alyssa, too, but her mother had not brought good news to the family.

“Charlotte, dear, fix your hair.” Dr. Granger's voice brought her out of her sad reverie. Dr. Granger was determined for Charlotte to look well cared for, even cherished, which she had been. Everyone in the school, even the inclined-to-be-nasty girls, something she as Head Girl had worked hard to stamp out of them, had rallied around the twelve-year-old Charlotte Mansfield, who had lost both mother and father in a horrific car crash. It had occurred while Charlotte's father, Christopher Mansfield, accompanied by his beautiful society wife, was driving down a steep incline not far from the Mansfields' magnificent country house, Clouds, in the Blue Mountains. There had been a lot of gossip at the time that the couple could well have been arguing. The marriage, according to a “close friend,” who remained steadfastly nameless and faceless, had been a “bumpy ride.” The bumpy ride had come to a tragic dead end.

There was a long, long waiting list for would-be pupils to get into Asherton. Many were entered at birth. Even Dr. Granger couldn't keep track of the numbers. Charlotte, who had never had a female relative so she had no role model, as a pupil of the school had arrived in a chauffeur-driven Rolls. It had been reported like something out of the movies, which in many ways it had been. The girl's beauty, her manner, her clothes, the aura she gave off of being looked after by a whole team of uniformed servants, set onlookers agog. Since that advantageous day, Mansfield money kept the ball rolling for Asherton. Mansfield largesse had provided many of the splendid amenities, including the total overhauling and cataloguing of their fine library.

“If you'd just tell me, Dr. Granger,” Charlotte now said in a perfectly courteous voice, making short work of turning her long, riotously curly blond hair into an elegant knot.

“Mr. Macmillan,
young
Mr. Macmillan that is, will tell you all you need to know, Charlotte,” said Dr. Granger.

“Someone up there was already determined to beat him to it,” Charlotte spoke in her disconcertingly adult way. “My grandfather is dead.”

Dr. Granger, who had started to shake her head, stopped. “My dear, young Mr. Macmillan is here. He's waiting for you in the Visitors' Room. Tea and coffee have been arranged.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Charlotte returned gravely.

Charlotte always managed to make her feel like royalty, Dr. Granger thought with a surge of gratification. “I'm here for you, Charlotte,” she said, with genuine concern. She well-remembered the bereft child Charlotte Mansfield had been, packed off to boarding school at age twelve. Dr. Granger had the greatest respect and affection for her student. Charlotte was a survivor. On the other hand, she would have been hard-pressed to find a kind word for Sir Reginald Mansfield, co-founder of the blue chip law firm Mansfield-Macmillan. However brilliant Sir Reginald had been, he was a tyrant of a man with a tongue that lashed out at just about everyone in sight. Indeed, there had been a positive scarcity of people, her included, who had had the temerity to stand up to him and his glacier-green eyes. There was even the rumour his insiders called him Attila the Hun.

The upside, however, was that Sir Reginald had earned a well-deserved reputation not only as a brilliant legal mind, but as one of the country's outstanding philanthropists. Now that his life was done, Dr. Granger had the un-Christian-like thought, the devil might well lead Sir Reginald on his merry way. Possibly in handcuffs.

* * *

The Visitors' Room, where parents of boarders took tea, coffee, and conversation with their female offspring, was a large, beautiful, welcoming room, with first-class furnishings, prized paintings by leading Australian artists—two of whom had their names on Asherton's Honour Board—dove-grey velvet upholstered sofas on opposite sides of a venerable Chinese chest that served as a coffee table, the light coming from a pair of tall leaded windows. At that time in the afternoon, sunshine was streaming a rainbow gold into the room.

Brendon Macmillan, grandson of Sir Hugo Macmillan, had been looking out of the graceful arched windows at the splendid school grounds. He turned at their approach. His eyes fell immediately on Charlotte in her truly dreary school uniform: white blouse, green tie, and green checked skirt worn to the knee. Somehow Charlotte made that impossible outfit look almost smart. One either had style or one didn't. He stood a moment longer, taking in her body language and her expression, which actually gave nothing away. Charlotte was a Mansfield. He could never forget that, but she was far and away the pick of the bunch.

“I've brought Charlotte, as you can see, Mr. Macmillan,” Dr Granger said in her cultured contralto. “Afternoon tea will be served in fifteen minutes.”

“How kind of you, Dr. Granger.” Brendon executed a suave bow. It was a gesture that came naturally to him; consequently it was utterly charming. So much so, the single Dr. Granger pinked and then withdrew with a smile that made her look ten years younger.

“So they sent you, Bren, to tell me,” Charlotte said by way of greeting. “That's a relief.”

“You've guessed, or rather intuited?” Of course she knew. Charlotte Mansfield was an uncanny young creature. He gestured towards a sofa, waiting for her to be seated before taking the one opposite.

“Too much for you to accept female intuition illuminates?” she asked, large emerald-green eyes glittering like jewels in a clear, un-made-up face. Not that it mattered. Charlotte had no need of artifice. It was almost with a sense of shock that he realized Charlotte was on the cusp of turning into a beautiful, strong, and charismatic woman.

“Not with you, Charlie,” he said dryly.

“Besides, it's not as though I get many visitors,” she added, on a fine caustic note. She did sarcasm well. “Apart from you and your welcome visits, the rest of you decided to leave me in peace.”

It was so true, he felt a pang of regret and genuine empathy. “You've made a damned good job hacking it alone,” he said. Charlotte, though she had had every right to be, had never become an overemotional, extremely needy child. He admired that immensely.

“Well, it's not as though I give a blankety-blank for anyone anyway,” she replied coolly. “Apart from Poppa, who hadn't planned on dying, and you, I've been all too easy to ignore.”

He laughed despite himself. “Calling your grandfather ‘Poppa' is as incongruous as calling the pope ‘Frank.' ”

“Poppa dearly loved me, hard as it is to believe. We didn't wear our hearts on our sleeves. Poppa told me if I survived the deaths of my parents I'd be made. I guess as I'm doing well here, I must be, don't you think?”

“You're a bit of a phenomenon all on your own, Charlie,” he said. “You're beautiful, or you will be when you can shake off that dreadful uniform. You're clever, and, I have to concede, a chip or two off the old block.”

“Okay, or not okay,” she said. “I'm going to take that as a compliment anyway. I'm tough, Bren. I'm glad you've accepted that. It might make life easier for both of us now that my whole life is about to change. No matter what the public thinks happens behind the scenes, the Mansfields and the Macmillans hate one another's guts.”

“Charlotte, Charlotte,” he sighed.

She cut him off with a swish of her hand. “Please . . . don't bother to deny it.”

A shadow crossed his handsome face. “There are reasons.”

“So you have access to truths I don't have?” she challenged. “Or are they secrets? I have heard just about all of the ugly rumours.”

His lips tightened. “Are you talking about your parents' marriage or what?”

“Rumours became part of my everyday life, Bren. Think about that. Part of your life, too?”

“As far as I'm concerned, the rumours about your mother and my father are unspeakable,” he said grimly.

“They're
spoken
, regardless, Bren,” she pointed out. “One part of me wants to know everything about it. Another part warns me to leave well enough alone. Let it lie. No wonder your mother hates me.”

He didn't answer for a while. “Charlie, my mother doesn't hate you at all,” he said in a perturbed voice. “No one does. You've been the victim in this. The trauma went back much further to our grandfathers. My grandfather was never as ruthless as yours, not that I wish to speak ill of the dead.”

“So you're toning it down? You think now there's a possibility I might join forces with the enemy now that my grandfather is gone? He has gone, hasn't he? Am I right?” she asked, fixing him with her beautiful, highly intelligent eyes.

He nodded. “Of course you're right. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you, you knew why I'm here. Forget my family for a moment.”

“How can I? It's not just you and me, Bren. It's me and them. All families are mysterious. Ours are more mysterious than most. More money. More betrayals. More secrets, most of them hidden. You're asking me to forget the unhappiness of it all. The troubling thing is that unhappiness vibrates in the memory.” She paused for a moment, and then suddenly revealed, “I have memories that flash in and out of my consciousness. I can't snatch them back. Repressed memories. Floods of feelings I've had to lock away so they've become as good as inaccessible.”

“That's your survival mechanism, Charlie,” he said, understanding perfectly. He had his own set of repressed memories.

“Yours, too, I bet,” Charlotte said, confirming her sharp intuitions.

“Don't
I
get any credit at all for being your friend?”

“Well . . . I agree that our friendship is too important to mess with,” she said, as though the thought had just struck her. “You've been the light at the end of the dark tunnel. You've always been kind to me, despite your full program and all your lady friends. What are you, again? Australia's most eligible bachelor?”

Irritation engulfed him. “Charlie, don't bother me with that idiotic guff. Not my idea at all. I pray for a quiet life. I can't help what labels the media stick on me.”

“Bren, you're a dream!” Charlotte threw back her head theatrically, closing her eyes. “You even on occasion behave like one.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“The thinking woman's fantasy,” she continued.

“I told you to stop,” Brendon said, warningly.

“And so I shall.” She didn't want Bren to go away. “It's payback, I guess. I haven't seen much of you lately.”

His handsome mouth compressed. “Which would indicate I've been extremely busy.”

“Of course.”

In his midtwenties, Brendon Macmillan was tall, rangy, more handsome than any man had need to be. He had also earned the reputation for having a splendid mind. She had known Bren all her life. She had grown up with his treating her as his young cousin. He was infinitely kinder than the rest of the Macmillans. A cold-blooded lot, she had always thought. It wasn't an overstatement. It was a description that matched them perfectly. Except Bren.

“I'm here to keep you on track, Bren,” she said.

“You do a good job of it, too, but this is a very serious occasion. We wanted you to know before the story breaks. You can bet it will be today.”