Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes) (21 page)

In the kitchen behind them Venus clanked dishes as she loaded the dishwasher, and every so often Baz would glance that way while he was talking, but Wynne wasn’t jealous. Baz treated Venus like a student, besides, Wynne knew the girl was gay. In forays to clubs Wynne had met lesbians as well as bisexual girls, and she knew the difference. Pretty golden hair and sexy accent aside, Venus Dalrymple was one hundred percent predatory butch dyke if that
snuggling up beside her at the sink
episode was anything to go by, but she wasn’t about to let that distract her from Baz, so to keep herself from getting sidetracked, she slipped back into the conversation.

“… and this new particle accelerator program —”

“Might need a drinks break,” she cut in, and smiled prettily as she raised her tumbler.

Baz’s return smile was self–deprecating as he topped her up. “I did mention that I had a doctorate in Ramble.”

“Yes you did, and I’m impressed.”

He raised his glass in a toast. “To interesting conversation. Long may it rest in peace.”

“Amen to that,” Wynne said, and grinned as they clinked tumblers to the unmistakable bell–tone of fine crystal, closely followed by a crash in the kitchen. “Do you think Venus needs some help in there?” Wynne asked, feeling quite confident enough to tease Baz.

He blushed, which was so endearing, and said, “I’ll check. She’s new.”

“But she looks so
willing,
“ Wynne couldn’t help saying. “I’m sure she’ll be just the woman you were looking for, Baz, given time and some positive attention.” She managed to say all this and keep a straight face but it was hard, especially when Baz looked as if he was going to choke on that last part:
the woman you were looking for.

He blinked at her and clearly didn’t know what to say. At last he raised a finger and pointed at the kitchen. “I’ll… check on the dishes,” he said and rose awkwardly.

“Take your drink with you,” Wynne said. “I’ll have a browse around the garden. I love roses. Take your time.” She smiled to reassure him, then with drink in hand she headed blithely down the veranda steps, thinking
I’m so naughty!
The different bloom along the garden path smelt delicious and the last of the sun’s rays warmed her shoulders. After the unpleasant storm the previous day, this balmy weather seemed like God’s way of telling her things were looking up.

Of course, the fact that Baz was concerned that she might be jealous of Venus was all the proof Wynne needed that he was taking their relationship seriously — if a little desperately. But that was okay. Far better for him to be desperate than herself. And it was all so sweetly reassuring. .

She glanced up at the veranda and saw Baz with Venus framed in the kitchen window. Baz took that moment to look out onto the garden and Wynne waved at him then went back to the roses, pleased that he still seemed to be worried by what she thought of Venus. “Dear insecure, boy,” she said softly to herself.

“Pardon, Ma’am?”

Wynne glanced around in alarm and found herself confronted by the gentle giant she’d met at the back door that morning — a tall, thickset man who was altogether too huge, but not intimidating. Wynne stuck out her hand. “Carlos,” she said.

His large paw enclosed her little hand completely. “Miss Malone,” he said in his delightful Spanish accent. Far better than Dirk Bogarde’s, and she was just about to say how fascinating it was to know a
real
Spanish gardener when he let her hand go and Wynne’s came away with dirt. Her mouth formed a moue of distaste before she caught herself.

Carlos didn’t appear to have noticed. He went on to say, “You like the roses?”

“I love the roses,” she sighed. “Beautiful colors, and fragrances.” She waved a hand around, encompassing the garden, and spilt her drink across her shoes. Damn!

Carlos was polite enough to turn away and glance at his garden. She hoped he wouldn’t think she was drunk. “I look after them for twenty years,” he said.

Wynne flicked the liquid off one foot. “You’ve been with the Wilson’s for two decades?” she asked, trying to sound interested.

“Three,” he corrected.

“Oh. That is a long time.” Wynne mentally revising his age up towards fifty. He looked so fit she would have thought thirty, thirty–five max. “So who looked after them for the first ten years you were here,” she asked.

Carlos blinked and turned his head away slightly. The afternoon light shone off his short hair and closely cropped beard. She saw grey then and was just starting to wonder if he could be sixty when he said, “They were Mrs Wilson’s roses. She showed me how to care… for them.” His tone and the brief falter set Wynne’s radar off, but before she could dig deeper, he added, “She left twenty year ago Saturday.”

Twenty year ago Saturday?
Perhaps the Spanish structured their sentences differently to… “Oh! You mean the anniversary is this Saturday? Tomorrow?” Wynne wondered why the Wilson’s gardener would remember a date like that. “So Mr Wilson never remarried?” Perhaps Ted had a pity party each year about being abandoned. Carlos certainly looked sad. Wynne selfishly hoped Baz was over it. She didn’t want ancient heartbreaks impacting on her wonderful weekend.

Carlos shook his big bristled head. “Mrs Wilson was …
unico.
Irreplaceable,” he said and paused to glance away to the cliff–top, his expression pensive. “She was a beautiful woman,” he added and the words dripped wistfulness. “Inside and out.”

Wynne blinked and looked at Carlos afresh. Could the young gardener have had a crush on his employer’s wife? Oh
God!
Was that why she’d left? Before Wynne could stop herself she asked Carlos, “What was her first name?” because Wynne knew that if he’d loved her, it would be unmistakable in his voice. She’d read enough romance novels to know that was a certainty.

“I… never use her first name,” Carlos said. “She was Mrs Wilson to me.” Then he sighed. “I was only her gardener.”

Oh yeah.
Definitely a crush. Wynne was convinced, but frustrated at the same time because she had no one to talk to about it. Baz wouldn’t want to speculate about his mother having been the object of the gardener’s fantasies. It would gross him out.

Wynne, on the other hand, was indecently fascinated by it all, but she did try to keep the excitement out of her voice. “So Balthazar was eight when Mrs Wilson left Saltwood?” she asked, hoping Carlos would imagine her interest was in Baz and not himself.

Carlos kept looking at the clifftop and the question hung in the air for several awkward seconds. Then he sucked in a breath, as if realigning his thoughts, and he turned to say, “Enjoy your stay, Miss Malone,” and he shook her hand again in a decidedly final manner before lumbering back across the garden to the fruit orchards, leaving Wynne standing on the garden path amid the roses. She, too, glanced at the clifftop, wondering.

“Venus is all sorted out,” Baz said, coming up behind her, touching her shoulder to turn her, his hand warming her rapidly cooling flesh in a deliciously goose–bumpish way.

Wynne felt the sensation slither down her spine and tingle across her backside, warming her in all sorts of exciting places, so it was a struggle to catch her breath and calm her voice, “I knew you’d be good at
handling
her, Baz,” she said at last, smiling at him blandly.

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again, blushing. Finally he managed to crook his arm for her to take, and even came up with a smile and a Rhett Butler accent. “Walk you inside, Miss Malone?”

She took his arm and drawled right back, “Don’t mind if I do,” happy to stroll at his side and laugh at his stories of Carlos and the possessed pool filter which had apparently made the gardener’s life a misery.

Once back in her room, however, as she laid out her dress for dinner, Wynne’s imagination inevitably returned to the ever familiar fantasy of Baz as a wonderful doting husband.

Intrigue about his mother and Carlos didn’t get a look in.

Chapter Twenty–Five

A
fter dropping Wynne at her room, Baz made a beeline back to the kitchen, his nerves shot after spending the afternoon keeping Venus and Wynne apart He didn’t have a plan on what he wanted to say to Venus, but he just knew he couldn’t keep on with the way things were. On top of the Randolph Budjenski situation and his father’s increasing unpredictability, it was too much to cope with. Belatedly, he wanted his normal life back.

With Wynne in it.

But Venus wasn’t in the kitchen, so he headed for her suite where she’d gone after his father had been such a bastard to her at lunch, and she wasn’t there either. Baz stood in her bedroom looking at the stained carpet wondering where she could be and what other problems she was creating for him.

He had an hour to find her, if Wynne’s preparations last night were anything to go by, and he wanted to use that time to convince Venus that she would be better off staying anywhere but
Saltwood.
He’d tried in the kitchen while Wynne had been checking out the rose garden but the infuriating girl had simply told him that if he was kicking her out he needed to take her somewhere she could find a virile male to impregnate her, perhaps a nightclub, she’d be sure to get sex there.

Needless to say, Baz hadn’t been prepared to act on that, but he had to take her somewhere because if he didn’t he was likely to pop an artery!

Of course, first he had to find her, and after checking every room and assuring himself she wasn’t in the house, he headed outside to the garden where she didn’t seem to be either. Hell, had she walked off down the road on her own? Desperation was starting to turn into panic when Carlos came into view, striding away from the pool area, his large face brick red.

“Carlos!” Baz called ran over and only managed to stop the gardener with a hand on his arm. “What is it?”

Carlos turned to face him and swallowed several times before he could speak. “The girl from the kitchen,” he said, not quite able to meet Baz’s eyes. “I didn’t see her properly this morning. But now. It was a shock.”

Dear God, what has she done?

“I’m so sorry,” Baz said. “She’s the new housekeeper — “

Carlos sucked in a harsh breath and managed to look at Baz then. “H–h–housekeeper?” he asked.

“She’s only just started.” Baz had never heard Carlos stutter before.

The big Spaniard shook his head. “How long, Master Balthazar,” he asked. “How did she get here? Was she found? On the beach?”

Baz stared in amazement, then he nodded.

Carlos closed his eyes. “Not again,” he said softly, and pulled away from Baz, stumbling blindly down the path towards the house.

Baz stared after him.
What the hell?
Then he ran around the corner into the pool area and, sure enough, his little wanton was doing laps stark naked.

Shit!

He squatted at the pool’s edge. “It’s getting dark,” he hissed, not sure what that had to do with her state of undress. “Did you at least bring a towel?”

Venus glanced up at him, then headed for the side of the pool.

Baz looked around. No towels on the surrounding chairs. He strode over to the small thatched cabana and let himself in, snatching a fresh towel off the shelf below the hand basin. He caught his own reflection in the mirror above it as he straightened and realised he looked tired. Christ, who was he kidding? He looked positively haggard. More like middle–aged than twenty–something.

“Baz.”

Venus came into the reflection behind him, dripping wet. She closed the cabana door and then stood naked in front of it, looking like some kind of golden goddess but Baz was too infuriated to notice her gorgeousness. She was driving him nuts and he wished like hell that they were at school and he could just send her to the office for someone else to discipline! But he couldn’t, so he turned to face her, to tell her off, only she wasn’t looking at his face. Her eyes were lowered, staring at his crotch.

She moved in closer. “This room is private,” she said.

Baz grabbed her shoulders to hold her back. “This has to stop,” he said, wondering for the first time if he should just take her to the police and explain everything. Surely they’d protect her from herself and make sure she didn’t get pregnant. But before he could even work out if that was a sensible idea, he heard noise outside.

“
… was here ten minutes ago.
“ Carlos’s voice.

Baz glanced behind her to the door of the cabana. Shit! It wasn’t locked. If Wynne walked in on this –

“
I’ll sort this out. Thank you, Carlos.
“ His father’s voice sounded surprisingly lucid. Then more softly, “
We’re not having this again.”

Venus shuddered at the sound of Ted’s voice, and Baz let go of her shoulder to press a finger against her lips, hoping she’d stay silent. She nodded, so he grabbed her arms and moved her in stumbling steps behind the partition with the mirror, so if the door opened, no–one would see her. Then he padded back to the door which was still closed. Footsteps were shuffling towards it so without giving himself time to baulk, Baz stepped out of the gloomy interior of the cabana and closed the door behind himself.

The sun was setting and the pool glinted with pink and red reflections, momentarily dazzling Baz. Then he saw Ted several paces away, eying him suspiciously. “What were you doing in there?” the old man demanded, his head wobbling in agitation.

“Using the toilet,” Baz said with an
as if it’s any of your business
tone in his voice.

“I didn’t hear it flush.”

“Then maybe you should get your ears checked.”

“Did you wash your hands?”

“I’m twenty–eight, not ten.”

Ted said nothing, and Baz waited for him to talk about Venus, to say that Carlos had told him she was swimming naked, but instead his father said, “Where’s your lady friend?”

“Getting ready for dinner. I hope you’re not going to be rude in front of her again like you were at lunch.” Baz took a step away from the cabana, trying to draw his father with him back to the house. If he could brazen this out, the old man would talk himself dry then Baz could go back to Venus with some clothes and sneak her to her suite where he could lock her in until after dinner. Then when everyone was asleep he could drive her to the Bundaberg Police. He certainly wasn’t dealing with that local cop Liam Moore again, smarmy bastard.