Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (50 page)

Jared frowned, impatient for another report. “Where can she be reached?”

“I think you should trust your mother, Jared, and wait for her to call you.”

“Tell me, Vikki,” he commanded curtly. “Don't come between us. This it too important to me.”

“It may be important to your mother, as well.”

“She is meeting with Santiso on my behalf,” he argued.

“I do not think entirely, Jared. Rafael Santiso is a very attractive man and you may not see it as her son, but your mother is still a woman with a lot of life to live.”

Jared's mind reeled over this new element. Never having met the man he had to give Vikki's judgment some credence on this point, but he found it extremely difficult to imagine his mother connecting to anyone after his father. He recoiled from the idea. Vikki had to be wrong. It might be a female pretence on his mother's part to fool Santiso into relaxing his guard with her. On the other hand, Christabel's conviction suddenly rang out loud and clear.

Santiso will persuade her. One way or another, he'll persuade all of you
…

“Where are they?” he demanded grimly.

Vikki sighed. “He invited your mother to dine with him in the Nolan Suite at the Cable Beach Resort.”

“She's gone with him to a private suite?” Even he could hear the edge of outrage in his voice.

“You have no right to judge what is right for your mother,” came the terse reproof. “I remind you she respected your choice of Christabel, knowing very little about her.”

“But we do know about Santiso, don't we?” he retorted angrily. “Christabel told us.”

“Trust your mother, Jared. She is not a fool.”

His own words to Christabel thrown back at him, yet his judgment of his mother was now severely shaken.
She does not know him as I do
, Christabel had replied, and those words burnt into his mind, building a belief that his mother
was
being fooled by a man who had no scruples in using anything to get what he wanted.

“I'll see what happens tomorrow,” he said, ending the call, his mind already occupied with Christabel's other predictions.

He activated Tommy's telephone number, determined on building a safety net. “Jared here,” he announced the moment Tommy answered.

“No news of movement yet,” came the instant report.

“He's with Mum. In the Nolan Suite at the Cable Beach Resort, no less. And get this, Tommy. She finds him attractive.”

“You're kidding.”

“Vikki Chan's judgment. Want to knock it?”

A shocked silence. Both of them were acutely aware of the old Chinese housekeeper's closeness to their mother, and her astute summing up of any situation.

“Christabel called Santiso a master manipulator,” Jared went on. “She expects him to persuade Mum to bring all three of our European visitors to King's Eden tomorrow. If that's in the wind, Tommy, I want you in Broome tomorrow morning to fly them out yourself. No charter pilot. You. We keep this in the family. Okay?”

“Right you are. I won't keep Sam out, though.”

“She's family.” Tommy's fiancée had been like a kid sister to Jared for most of his life. He'd trust her with anything. He was going to trust her with a vital part of his plan. “I have a job for Sam, too, Tommy,” he said, and outlined the responsibility he wanted her to take on.

“No problem,” his brother assured him. “Where do you expect this to end, Jared?”

“I don't know yet. I'm hoping to sort out the truth tomorrow. But the final outcome—I will not have the woman I intend to marry living in fear.”

“I'm with you, Jared.” Hard resolve in his voice.

“Thanks, Tommy.”

Satisfied he had countered whatever persuasion Rafael Santiso was working on his mother, Jared moved forward, heading for the home that had sheltered the King family for over a hundred years. He paused at the front gate, feeling the spirit of those who had built this place and the legendary memories it embodied, the hospitality that had always been extended and the rules implicit in that hospitality.

Let Santiso come, he thought grimly. If the Kruger trustee and his cronies demonstrated any poisonous fangs, they would be cast out of Eden and left in a wilderness, the like of which they would never have experienced before.

It wouldn't be the first time a transgressor learnt at first hand the rigours of survival in the outback, gradually acquiring a new respect for life and the lives of others. All the money in the world was futile and meaningless on that journey. Lachlan's law had always delivered a punishment to fit the crime—justice not only done but seen to be done.

Jared decided he would like very much to give Rafael Santiso a taste of fear, a taste of feeling there was no way out
for him
. A couple of years of that might very well revolutionise his thinking, give him a true appreciation of what Christabel had been put through. Though he had to be certain such a course was warranted before carrying it out.

His mother's apparent vulnerability to the man was another issue. It nagged at his sense of rightness as he proceeded past the gate and on to the house. Surely her sharply honed instincts wouldn't play her false. He had never once felt out of tune with his mother. Never. Could she be so deeply deceived by Santiso?

As he'd anticipated, Nathan and Miranda were waiting for him, sitting in the big room that housed generations of choices in furniture—antiques, Asian influences, modern comfort, exotic collector pieces. Somehow they all melded together into a fascinating blend of people's pleasure.

His mother always sat in the armchair upholstered in scarlet silk brocade. He wished it wasn't empty tonight. Nathan occupied the huge black leather armchair that accommodated the length and breadth of his formidable physique. Miranda, whom Jared had walked down the aisle to his brother because she had no known father or family, eyed him worriedly from the sofa she favoured.

Was Christabel bereft of any family, as Miranda had been before marrying Nathan? There was so much he still didn't know. What of her life in Brazil, before she'd met and married Laurens Kruger?

“Christabel came back alone,” Miranda remarked questioningly. “She asked about Alicia then took her leave of us for the night. She looked as though she'd been crying, Jared.”

He winced at the grief he'd unwittingly caused her in cutting short the comfort of loving by demanding answers to his need. Still, better that he had a fuller picture of what had to be fought. He turned to Nathan who waited patiently to be informed, his sharp blue eyes trained on his youngest brother, aware of the complexities of the situation and what Jared wanted from it.

“There's more,” Jared stated bluntly, and filled Nathan in on the latest developments, delivering a sharp summary as he paced around the room, too wrought up to sit down. “So how do you stand with this?” he finished, more belligerent in his demand than he meant to be.

“With you,” Nathan answered calmly, pushing up from the leather chair, his height and solidity automatically emanating authority as he moved to clasp Jared's shoulder in a gesture of unison. “We'll take whatever action is called for.”

Absolute support. Jared saw it in his eyes and felt his inner angst ease. They were one in this—all three brothers—as he had assumed they would be—their father's sons—but his strong sense of family unity had been rattled by his mother's apparent leaning towards the other side.

“What about Elizabeth?” Miranda asked anxiously, echoing Jared's own concern.

Nathan swung to answer her, his face expressing no inner conflict whatsoever. “We protect our own,” he stated decisively. “That means Mum, too. If her judgment is…awry, what happiness do you think she'd find with him?”

Miranda shook her head. “It's so hard to believe. Your mother is…”

“Lonely,” Nathan supplied. “Rafael Santiso heads and holds together a financial empire. It takes a certain type of character to achieve that.”

He turned back to Jared, an ironic gleam in his eyes as he added, “Whether she feels an echo of our father in him…or something else…who knows? There has been an empty place in her life for many years.”

For the first time an attraction made some sense to Jared…a man of unshakeable willpower, a man who challenged his mother…and he well understood
empty places
. He was grateful to Nathan for his perception. Human frailty he could accept.

“We tread carefully there, Jared,” his big brother asserted quietly but firmly. “Hold back any sense of humiliation if Mum has been deceived. We must leave her dignity intact. Did you make that clear to Tommy?”

“No. I was angry,” Jared had to confess. His eyes ironically acknowledged his own human frailty as he added, “I felt…betrayed.”

Nathan nodded his understanding. “You've been closest to her. In the end, she'll put you first. I have no doubt about that. I'll call Tommy and talk it over with him. Okay?”

Jared was reminded of all the times in his boyhood when Nathan had
fixed
things for his little brother. He smiled in wry appreciation. “I am grown up now.”

Nathan laughed, his eyes twinkling appreciation and acknowledgment of the fact. “Just saving you time, Jared.” He sobered and gestured to his wife. “Miranda's right. Christabel had been crying on her way back from her walk with you…”

“I had to take care of business, but I would be obliged if you'll talk to Tommy. And thanks, Nathan.” He reached up and clasped his brother's shoulder, a lump of deep emotion welling into his throat. “You never have let me down and it's good to know you're still here for me.”

“We're here for each other,” he answered gruffly. “Always.”

Jared found himself too choked up to speak. He lifted his hand in a salute to Miranda, spun on his heel and walked out of the room, carrying with him a multitude of feelings that made life all the more precious to him, feelings he wanted Christabel to experience when she joined her life to his.

When
, he thought fiercely. Not
if.

He strode down the hall to the bedroom wing where she and Alicia had adjoining rooms. He'd done all he could to cover contingencies. His brothers were on-side. King's Eden was King's Eden. Tomorrow would come, but first there was this night to get through and Christabel needed to be loved.

More than that.

He needed her to believe in his love.

And that took action, not words. Tomorrow he would show her how deep and enduring his love was, but tonight was for feeling it.

He knocked softly on her door, hoping Alicia was asleep in the next room and Christabel was not sitting with her. He waited for several long seconds. When there was no response, he knocked again.

Again no sound of movement. Was she cuddling her daughter for comfort, deliberately ignoring any intrusion on her privacy? He couldn't imagine she was asleep herself, though it was possible. He glanced at his watch. It was over an hour since she'd left him.

Then the door opened a crack. “Who is it?” came the husky whisper.

“Jared.”

He heard the shaky expulsion of a long breath. “There's no more to say tonight,” she said listlessly, the weary dullness of her voice transmitting the sense of everything being over, and her acceptance of it.

“I just want to be with you, Christabel,” he softly pressed.

The door was held at a mere crack. Jared sensed the conflict tearing at her—to open up or close—and pushed to end it.

The door swung open. No resistance. No welcome, either. She wasn't immediately visible. A lamp on the bedside table was switched on, spreading a soft glow of light around the room. The bed was mussed, the pillow dented, evidence that she had been lying down.

He found her sagged against the wall behind the door, as though she no longer cared about anything, letting him do what he willed because it really made no difference. Her head was lowered in a beaten expression, her cheeks streaked with tears, her long hair in a tangle of disarray. She wore the white nightgown Miranda had supplied, a sexy satin slip, but there was no sexual awareness in the slump of her shoulders, and her eyes were closed, shutting him out.

He closed the door and gathered her into his arms. She seemed too drained to fight anything any more, letting him draw her body to his, dropping her head limply on his shoulder. He held her, gently stroking her hair, rubbing her back, hoping he was imparting warmth and comfort, trying to wrap her in a blanket of love that would soothe her inner anguish.

Eventually her arms slid around his waist and her body heaved in a long, ragged sigh. “I'm sorry it is…how it is,” she said tiredly. “I never meant to drag you…or your family…into this.”

“I know,” Jared murmured. “I'm sorry you've had to bear so much alone.”

“I have Alicia,” she answered, resigned to the curse of the inheritance—the price of having the daughter she loved.

“Was there no other family of your own to help?” he gently probed.

She raised her head, looking at him with sad, washed-out eyes. “They did help…when I went back to Rio.”

She broke out of his embrace, shrugging off his solace as she turned away and walked towards the bed, her hands waving futile little gestures as she explained further.

“Through family contacts I managed to sell some of my jewellery to get untraceable money, passports in a different name. But I knew they couldn't shelter me for long. My family was known. I had to leave them.” She paused, half-turned, aiming a direct look at him. “Just as you must know… I have to leave you.”

He shook his head. “Not for my sake, Christabel. And not because I might endanger your life or Alicia's, because I won't do that.” He strolled towards her, holding her gaze with purposeful conviction. “Only if you want to, and I don't believe you do.”