LITMIR.BIZ

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me, you will pay—even if I have to use all of my father’s despised resources to achieve it. Now get out of my way,’ she ordered.

      But he laughed softly, and then really took her breath way. ‘It’s no crime to look. Why don’t you come for a swim with me? Perhaps I could send you away from Bramble not entirely—frustrated.’

      And he moved around her, dropped his trousers carelessly to the sand and strode into the water.

      

      Francesca had barely reached the safety of her room and started to toss clothes into her bags when she heard, through her window, Sarah say delightedly, ‘Why, Raefe! When did you get home? How did you get home? Gosh, you’re all wet!’

      Francesca clenched her fists then moved to the window so that she could see out of it but was hidden by the yellow sherbet coloured curtain. She was just in time to see Raefe bestow a light kiss on his sister’s brow. He’d put his trousers on but his fair hair was plastered to his head and dripping and his tanned, magnificent shoulders glistened with droplets of water in the early sun.

      She heard him say, ‘I’ve only just arrived. I drove down because all the choppers are out. For the last fifty miles all I’ve been thinking of is a swim.’

      Sarah laughed. ‘Good thinking! No one’s up yet. Raefe, you wouldn’t believe how lucky we are with the new governess! She’s even got Jess to sleep in—and she cooks too!’

      ‘Does she, now?’ Raefe Stevensen said on a distinctly dry note, but his sister seemed not to notice.

      ‘I’m just hoping and praying she’ll stay with us. But I do wonder...’

      ‘What do you wonder, beloved?’

      ‘Well, she’s—I’m sure she’s capable of doing much more with her life, somehow. She’s very well educated, and from the odd thing she’s let slip she’s well travelled and so on... By the way, did I mention she’s absolutely lovely as well?’ Was there a touch of ingenuousness in the way Sarah said that? Francesca wondered.

      ‘You did not—I can’t wait to meet this paragon. Why, if it isn’t Miss Jessica Stevensen!’ he added, and fielded a joyful, flying, fair-haired missile, sweeping her up into his arms. ‘How are you today, poppet?’

      ‘I’m fine, Daddy,’ Jess replied excitedly. ‘Guess what? I’ve got a new governess. She says I can call her Chessie and she’s teaching me to do long division.’

      ‘Goodness me—won’t be long before I’ll be able to hand the books over to you, but—’

      ‘I really like Chessie,’ Jess went on. ‘She’s also teaching me to swim—’

      ‘You can swim,’ her father objected.

      ‘But I’m learning to do backstroke now,’ Jess said proudly.

      ‘I see.’ Raefe put her down but kept her by his side as his long fingers played with her fair curls. ‘Uh—would you tell this Chessie I’d like to see her in my study in half an hour, please?’

      ‘She’ll be starting breakfast by now—why don’t you see her in the kitchen, Raefe?’ Sarah suggested. ‘By the way, don’t forget I have to get to Cairns somehow tomorrow for an X-ray to see how my wrist is healing.

      ‘You know, I thought, seeing as you’re not so busy now, and seeing as Fran—or Chessie—is here and coping so admirably, I might just take a bit of a break. I haven’t been to Brisbane for a while.’ Sarah stopped, and it was as if a cloud had gone over the landscape of her expression for a moment. ‘But I really should go,’ she added quietly. ‘What do you think?’

      Francesca moved away from the window with a suddenly thoughtful frown.

      

      ‘We meet again, Miss Valentine.’

      ‘So we do, Mr Stevensen.’

      ‘Sit down.’

      It was about an hour later. Francesca had made and served breakfast, although not to Raefe, who had not appeared in the kitchen but sent a message to keep his hot. She had also packed her bags and was dressed in her cream trousers and cream and green checked shirt. Sarah had taken Jess for a walk, fortuitously, so the house was empty, and Francesca had taken the bull by the horns and walked into Raefe’s study. She sank into a chair.

      They eyed each other until he said casually, ‘I thought you’d have shaken the dust of Bramble from your shoes by now, Chessie. I presume that brand-new four-wheel-drive vehicle is yours?’

      ‘It is—I had no intention of being at your mercy again over the matter of transport,’ she replied crisply, then added abruptly, ‘How do you want to do this?’

      ‘Do what?’ He’d changed into navy shorts and a white T-shirt, and the task of driving two hundred miles overnight appeared not to have made any impact on him as he lounged behind the beautiful mahogany table that served as a desk.

      ‘As if you didn’t know—arrange my departure,’ she said scornfully. ‘Because I refuse to simply disappear. I don’t do that to children, or people I happen to like.’

      He sat up and clasped his hands on the desk. ‘What do you suggest, Chessie?’

      Francesca reined in her anger at the insulting way he used her name. Everything was insulting to her, including the way his grey gaze lingered on the front of her checked blouse, as if he was seeing beneath it. ‘I could claim to have had a call to go home for some urgent reason. That way I can say goodbye properly.’

      He appeared to reflect for a moment, then said, ‘We still haven’t got to the bottom of why you did this—want to tell me?’

      ‘Oh, I thought we had,’ she replied innocently. ‘You seem to have worked it out down to the last dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s!’

      ‘I gather you have another version, though.’ There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

      ‘Ah, but why waste my time, since you’re so determined to disbelieve anything I say?’ she murmured with irony, and added, ‘Look, let’s get this sorted out, shall we? I’d like to get back to Cairns by tonight.’

      ‘Chessie...’ He frowned, then sat back. ‘What would you believe of a girl who is frequently seen on the social pages in revealing gowns and with renta-crowd escorts? Whose twenty-first birthday party was a three-day event on Hayman Island? Who was given a Porsche for her eighteenth birthday? Whose name has been linked romantically with a lot of men and who, apparently, was banished up to this neck of the woods by her father because of an involvement with a married man?’

      Francesca blinked. ‘Who told you that?’

      ‘It’s not true?’ he countered coolly.

      ‘No, it’s not! Not in that sense—I wasn’t banished. If you think my father can afford to moralise to me—’ She stopped abruptly.

      ‘Go on—so there was no married man?’ Francesca stared at him, then said wearily, ‘Yes, there was, but, believe me, it was he who was making a nuisance of himself, not the other way around.’

      Their gazes locked and held, and Francesca’s deep blue eyes did not waver. Nor did they hide her sense of outrage.

      This caused Raefe Stevensen to smile briefly and say, ‘So why did you do this?’

      ‘For the sheer pleasure of proving to you that I am not useless,’ she said proudly.

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘I must have hit quite a nerve.’

      ‘And I presume it would be too much to expect for you to admit that you may have made a mistake about me, but it doesn’t matter,’ she said swiftly, and stood up. ‘As they say in Asia, I hope you have an interesting life, Mr Stevensen. Your brand of arrogance certainly deserves it!’

      But he only laughed softly. ‘Chessie,’

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