Chapter Four
She couldn’t wait to exit the Hartmann bumblebee, a Bell helicopter painted yellow and black with a white stripe. In one way, the flight was thrilling. This was the land of legend to city dwellers like her. The land of endless mirage and far horizons; of parallel lines of blood-red sand dunes that made up the Simpson Desert, fourth largest in the world, and the fearful desolation of the great Sturt Stony Desert, covered in gibbers that blinded the eyes with their silvery glitter.
The vastness of it all affected Isabelle deeply. The antiquity! The white man had inhabited this ancient land for a mere two hundred years, the aboriginal people for some fifty thousand, living in harmony with the land they identified with so strongly. It was said when the aboriginal tribe living on Botany Bay’s headlands saw the first fleet arriving in the January of 1788, they turned their backs in fright, not having any understanding of what they were looking at. They had been looking at the end of their way of life. Witnessing the beginning of the white man’s Australia.
She wasn’t airsick, but from time to time her heart and her stomach threatened to come right into her throat. Then she had clutched at Bruno, who had settled her jitters by holding firmly onto her hand. Now she stared in fascination as a table-topped escarpment, glowing fiery red, loomed up before them. She had a feeling the station pilot was showing off for her benefit. She knew the signs. For a few heart-rocking moments they hovered over the eroded monolith so low she could clearly see the dark golden cloak of vegetation. Then they were flying on, making their descent into the Hartmann ancestral home, Eaglehawk Downs.
Thank God!
After hours in the air she needed to stand on her land legs.
From the air, Eaglehawk Station looked like a small town one might encounter on planet Mars, such was the fiery red landscape. Thousands upon thousands of square miles of empty open plains stretched to the horizons, the land heavily dotted with dark golden mounds of spinifex.
The isolation, the loneliness of it all, had Isabelle thinking of all the incredibly brave Outback women who had gone with their husbands to pioneer this savage, strangely beautiful land thousands of miles from medical help. The landscape was so flat, the ancient escarpment aside, it was possible to see how a phenomenal area could be flooded by the big three rivers, the Diamantina, the mighty Cooper Creek and the Thomson.
The town was, in fact, the Hartmanns’ sprawling homestead, surrounded by its many satellite buildings, including the giant silver hangar with the name of the station and its logo painted on top.
They had taken a domestic flight to Longreach, an Outback town that sat on the Tropic of Capricorn and one of the far western towns associated with the national carrier, Qantas—Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services—and the Royal Flying Doctor Service, founded in 1928 to give vital medical help to everyone living in or passing through the remote Outback. The Hartmann helicopter, a Bell used for mustering, had been waiting for them at the aptly named Longreach, as Bruno had been advised.
“You’re safe now, Bella.” Bruno tightened a hand on hers as they stood on the all-weather tarmac.
The shimmering heat bounded up at Isabelle, hitting her in the face. Bruno, with his golden skin and Mediterranean heritage, looked quite at home, but she thought she might melt. The Big Sky Country was a cloudless intense blue, in startling contrast to the bright rust red of the desert fringe soil. Isabelle could feel the dry heat off the tarmac lancing into her body. She could never stand in this Outback sun for long without a wide-brimmed hat. She had brought two straw hats with her and a ton of sunscreen.
“It was no Black Hawk, was it!” she pointed out wryly.
Inside the hangar, she could see a handsome twin-engined light aircraft, white with three narrow different-coloured stripes along the fuselage.
“Beech Baron,” Bruno told her, following her gaze. “Let’s move,” he said. “It’s too hot for you here.”
“It’s a very long way from Sydney.”
“We won’t stay a moment longer than we have to,” Bruno promised.
Shielding her eyes from the blazing sun, Isabelle looked up at him. “Why do I feel guilty about something when I’m perfectly innocent?”
“If there is a guilty party, Bella, it’s not you,” Bruno said. “Brace yourself. Here comes the welcoming party.”
“Surely he doesn’t intend crashing into us?” Isabelle asked in faint alarm. A jeep was coming down a long winding track at high speed. On a city highway, he would have been pulled over, breathalysed and then arrested.
There was a sardonic glitter in Bruno’s dark eyes. “Face it, Bella. Men tend to show off when you’re around.”
“I know, and it’s a real pain.”
The jeep came to a screeching halt at the corner of the hangar. A young man, dressed in immaculate riding clothes, made quite a production out of swinging nonchalantly from the vehicle, striding towards them with, of all things, a riding crop in hand.
“Think of King Solomon’s Mines,” Bruno suggested below his breath.
“Maybe he’s just anxious to meet us.”
“Anxious might be the right word.”
The young man’s clean-cut appearance, his dress and his confident stride, alerted them this was one of the Hartmann family. Not a redhead. His hair was golden blond, straight, sleeked back. He was good-looking, tanned, fit, an inch or so below six feet.
“Good trip?” he called as he strode towards them. “I’m Kurt, by the way,” he said, much as Prince Charles, dedicated to egalitarianism, might say, “I’m Charles.”
Bruno held out his hand. “Bruno McKendrick and this is—”
“Don’t tell me. The girl who claims to be one of us.” He was staring at Isabelle with extraordinary intensity, all the while flicking the whip against his leg.
“Isabelle.” Isabelle had to polish up a smile. She wasn’t taking to this handsome young man. Woman’s intuition again. Only she had to remember that honey caught more flies than vinegar. She extended her hand. “Please set your mind at rest. I’m not here to claim anything at all. Just a visit.”
“Good. Good.” It sounded like gut, gut. “English?”
“I studied in London for four years.” She no longer felt she could claim English parents.
“Studied what?”
“The cello,” Isabelle said.
“Which adds up to what?” he asked, with what could have been a derisive snort.
“A musical career,” Bruno intervened, his tall figure looming. “Isabelle is very gifted. She has a Master’s degree from the Royal College in London.”
“Classical music doesn’t move me,” Kurt said, still on the disdainful side.
“When the Hartmann family boasted some fine musicians?” Bruno’s face tightened.
Kurt swallowed back a rejoinder. “I’ve got it!” he said, tearing his ice-blue gaze off Isabelle and turning it towards Bruno. “You’re that investigator’s son.”
“Indeed I am,” Bruno said with just a touch of steel in his voice. “Ross McKendrick was my father. Your great-grandfather, Konrad, hired him to find your aunt Helena, who I believe was an excellent pianist. There’s a portrait of her seated at a grand piano at the house.”
“Oh, that one!” Kurt said vaguely. “It’s long been shifted from the drawing room in the main house. My father had it hung in the East Wing. I can’t imagine why anyone was surprised when she ran off. No one talks about Helena anymore.”
“Maybe it was convenient to forget her,” Bruno said.
Even in the heat, the temperature dropped. “Come with me,” Kurt said after a fraught pause. “I’ll drive you up to the house. My great-uncle is waiting.”
“It’s very good of him to allow us this visit,” Bruno said. He felt strong irritation at the way Hartmann couldn’t tear his ice-blue gaze off Isabelle. In fairness, he couldn’t blame him. Isabelle was born to get attention. Only more significantly, Kurt Hartmann would have been living with Isabelle’s image all his life, despite what he said. He trusted his instincts. His instincts told him not to trust Kurt Hartmann. What manner of friendliness Kurt had shown, Bruno thought it feigned. He looked more like a young man who thought his secure world might be in jeopardy.
“My father is out on a muster,” Kurt informed them, once they were on their way. “A lot of it is still done on horseback, though we have two helicopters involved in the big musters.”
Bruno sat up front beside the driver. Isabelle had the back to herself, charmed by the way Bruno’s glossy crow-black hair was curling up at the temples and the nape in the heat.
“Rounding up clean skins. Know what they are?” Kurt asked as though they couldn’t possibly guess.
“Obviously unbranded cattle,” said Bruno, just beating Isabelle to it.
Kurt shrugged. “He won’t be back until late tomorrow. If then. My mother and my sister, Kimberley, live in Adelaide. I dare say you know my parents are divorced. People just love to know all about us Hartmanns. I guess you could say we’re Outback royalty. My mother hated the isolation of station life. She hated the heat. When we aren’t in drought, we’re in flood. My mother was a social butterfly when my father met and married her six months later.”
Not a marriage made in heaven then, Isabelle thought.
“There’s just Uncle Konrad and me and the household staff and of course we travel a lot. I get on very well with my great-uncle. I don’t get on nearly so well with my father. He’s a workaholic. Expects me to be. Dare I say I’m a big disappointment to my father? He’d be perfectly happy sleeping in his swag beneath the stars for the rest of his life. I’m not cut out to live a stockman’s life. It’s dirty, dangerous, back breaking work for the stockmen, for the horses. My father thinks his horse is his best mate. They all do. Uncle Erik doesn’t mind I’m not a bushman. I’m a big help to him, though. I’m his heir.”
“Sounds like your father manages the station alone?” Bruno said, turning his head to study the young man at the wheel.
“He does no such thing!” Kurt bridled at this. “Uncle Erik runs everything from his desk. Uncle Erik is the cattle baron. He doesn’t have to go out with the men. He delegates.”
“Lucky for him,” said Bruno.
Eaglehawk homestead boasted a very impressive exterior; a central double-story structure with single-story wings to either side. All three buildings were washed a golden ochre. On the down side, it didn’t appear welcoming. To Isabelle’s eye, it badly needed a woman’s touch. She suspected the departure of the Hartmann women had precipitated the decline. She could see there had once been numerous garden beds. Now date palms with their enormous cascading heads dominated the huge area the homestead sat in. Date palms and grevilleas, waterfalls of brilliant bougainvillea pink and tangerine, all suited to the dry conditions. A magnificent three-tier stone fountain stood in the centre of the circular drive. Rearing horses held up the largest basin. It looked as if it hadn’t played in a long time.
“‘Honour the date palm for it is your mother,’” she said, aloud.
Bruno gave her a smile. “Mahomet?”
Isabelle nodded, pleased he had picked up on the quote. “Mahomet, the great prophet. In all the desert fringes of the world the date palm is life. I really like dates.”
“I’ll get you some when we get back,” Bruno promised.
“Might I suggest you learn how to make a scrumptious date cake?”
“What are you two on about?” Kurt all but snapped.
“Just a private joke.” Bruno shrugged the question off.
Kurt was trying hard to shrug off their guests’ easy camaraderie. It seemed to him inappropriate. Wasn’t the big guy supposed to be Isabelle’s legal advisor? He had the look of success and all that came with it. A don’t-mess-with-me aura that could be extremely useful. And intimidating. Kurt didn’t like him.
The girl, Isabelle, was something else again. She was the living image of Aunt Helena. She was very beautiful, younger than he by a couple of years. The big guy, the macho Italian, was years older, maybe seven or eight. He didn’t see that they were sexually involved, for all the guy’s powerful charisma. The two presented as would-be claimant and highly protective hotshot advisor. Going on the extraordinary resemblance, there was no way the girl didn’t have some family connection. She had the flaming, riotously curling mane and the green eyes Great-Uncle Erik’s wife, Myra, the bitch who had betrayed him and met with her comeuppance, had brought into the family. Why had Uncle Erik allowed them to come here? It could only mean trouble. Worst case scenario, she could be Helena’s daughter. Helena was Uncle Erik’s only child. If she were alive, she would be his legal heir. If she were dead—and he had already started praying she was—the girl had a legitimate claim.
* * *
“Do you ride?” Bruno bent to whisper into Isabelle’s ear.
“Like the wind,” she whispered back. “No, really, I haven’t been in the saddle for ages. A friend used to ask me to stay for weekends at her parents’ lovely country home. We used to ride there.”
“You’ll go nowhere unless I’m with you,” Bruno said, thinking he would check their saddles first.
She leaned into him conspiratorially. “There’s a killer out there?”
“No joke,” said Bruno.
They were stepping into the splendid entrance hall, parqueted floor, partially covered by a glowing Persian rug. The walls were painted a pleasing apple green, hung with huge paintings in ornate gilded frames. All landscapes. No tempestuous Turneresque seascape. She was a great lover of the arts. She had haunted all the major London galleries during her student days. The homestead was an imposing colonial residence, more European than English. One could see fine examples of colonial architecture in any of the major capital cities, but the Hartmann mansion looked totally bizarre set down in the remote Outback.
Archways led to the main reception rooms to left and right. A grand central staircase with barley sugar twist balusters swept up to a landing with a ceiling-high stained-glass window set into the exterior wall high above it. The light streamed through the stained glass, sending down multicoloured rays: blue, violet, red, green and gold. It should have been a marvellous feature, yet it seemed more like a heavy curtain.
The staircase divided at the landing into two to access the upper level, the gallery. It didn’t look unlike the entrance hall of her English girlfriend’s country home, except there were no lovely flowers on the fine console table, and the welcoming atmosphere was sadly lacking. It felt like a house where untoward things could take place, Isabelle thought with a suppressed shiver.
This was her last-ditch attempt to find out whether she was a Hartmann. She felt in her bones this trip wasn’t going to be any harmless adventure. A deeply unsettling force had entered her life. She would have to ask the questions the two people she had believed to be her parents had spent a lifetime avoiding. She would never have come here without Bruno, who was looking around him with great interest. His father would have described to him Eaglehawk Station’s homestead, and now he could see it for himself. He moved closer to murmur, “This isn’t the house for you.”
She couldn’t hold back the comment. “Nor Helena.”
A woman suddenly made her entrance. She began moving from the gallery down the left side of the staircase, coming to a halt on the landing with the multicoloured lights from the stained-glass window splashing all over her. A tall, slim woman, dressed in what could be a dark-coloured uniform? It was hard to tell her age. Isabelle was a great reader, so Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper in Daphne du Maurier’s famous novel Rebecca, immediately sprang to mind. The image grew the longer the woman stood there. What was she waiting for, a summons?
“Ah, there you are, Mrs. Saunders,” Kurt called, his voice so loud it bounced off the walls.
Not Mrs. Danvers, then. A look-alike.
“Our guests have arrived. Perhaps you can show them to their rooms.”
“Certainly, sir.” At last the woman was free to get mobile.
No friendly Christian names, then. Clearly this wasn’t an everyday establishment, Isabelle thought.
“Mrs. Saunders has been with us since before I was born,” Kurt chose to inform them. “She runs the domestic side of things. She’s our housekeeper.”
First impression: scary.
The woman came down the flight of stairs, not looking down as an older woman might in case she tripped, but head held high. All the while she was subjecting Isabelle to a piercing scrutiny.
Those eyes had seen Isabella’s like, was Bruno’s thought as he stood, a keen observer.
“This is Isabelle Martin,” Kurt made the introductions. “And her advisor, Bruno McKendrick.”
“I remember your father well.” The woman turned her head towards Bruno. “Although it’s many long years since he was here. If you’ll come this way?”
“Uncle Erik is expecting you both to join us for predinner drinks. Say seven o’clock?” Kurt was already moving away, most probably to report to his great-uncle.
“Fine,” Bruno answered for both of them. Isabelle felt too dumbfounded to reply. She half-expected a form of dress to be nominated, but no such request was made. She had brought with her two dresses suitable for evening. She hoped they measured up.
“I’ve put you in the Chinese Room, Ms. Martin,” Mrs. Saunders, midfifties, said. For a woman who lived her life in the blazing Outback sun, she had a remarkably unlined olive skin, suggesting it was not often exposed to the elements. Possibly she didn’t get much time off, but she did carry a decided air of clout. “Mr. McKendrick, you’ll be on the other side of the gallery,” she announced, staring off to the right of the gallery. “The rooms are kept aired. They’re big and comfortable. If you want for anything, you have only to let me or one of the house girls know.”
Bruno’s answer was perfectly calm and courteous. “If I understand you correctly, Mrs. Saunders, our rooms are a good distance apart. This is a very large house.”
“Indeed it is,” she said, as though the homestead was on a par with one of the great houses of England. “There are twelve bedrooms.”
“Then may I request one on Isabella’s side of the gallery?” he asked. “I do hope that’s no bother?” He smiled down on this deeply reserved woman with wings of silver in her copious raven hair. “My job is to keep watch on Isabella.” Which was something of a fib. “I wouldn’t want her to be nervous in such a huge, strange house.” Now there was the softest taunt to his words.
Mrs. Saunders appeared to pick up on it. “Really, Mr. McKendrick, the rooms have been made up. The wall sconces are left on should anyone get up for something in the night.”
“I would be grateful if you would indulge me, Mrs. Saunders,” Bruno pressed the point. “With twelve bedrooms, it shouldn’t be a problem for me to choose another?”
The muscles in the housekeeper’s throat locked rigid. She was a handsome woman, striking in appearance. Probably, in her youth, she had been a beauty. Isabelle was happy to leave the negotiating to Bruno. The truly bizarre thing was, Mrs. Saunders put Isabelle in mind of Hilary. The same rigid discipline. The same air of being enclosed in barbed wire. Bruno might have been smiling, but he looked, quite simply, a formidable man.
“Please come this way,” Mrs. Saunders said, keeping her hard composure. “I dare say something can be arranged.”
“I’d be so grateful.”
Isabelle risked a look at Bruno. Pulled a little face. There was a devil inside Bruno. But a good devil, if there was such a thing.
* * *
Mrs. Saunders paused outside a heavy mahogany door halfway down a wide, thickly carpeted corridor lined with more paintings and antique chairs set at intervals. She opened the door and then stood back, like a soldier at attention, waiting for them to enter.
Bruno was the first to speak. “To put it into words, this is a room fit for an Asian princess.”
“Is it ever!” Fascinated, Isabelle moved farther into the large room, studying the chinoiserie furnishings. A white marble mantelpiece, the pilasters of winged female figures, above it an enormous painting of two white herons standing in jade-coloured water beneath some tall green plant with exquisite white flowers. On the walls was an antique wallpaper featuring peonies, with colourful little birds in green branches. A lovely red-lacquered desk and chair at the end wall. But what dominated the space was an extraordinary Chinese four-poster bed. It stood on carved legs, with fretwork on three sides, the canopy intricately carved. It was fully made up, with a beautiful embroidered green silk coverlet.
“Beautiful as it is, I could sleep badly in that,” Isabelle murmured, thinking she would dream of the young woman who had lived here, slept in that extraordinary bed and then felt forced to leave.
“I assure you it is most comfortable,” said Mrs. Saunders in a stiff voice.
“Perhaps this was Helena’s room?” Bruno looked down at the woman to ask.
The charge in the atmosphere turned up. For a moment, it looked as though the housekeeper didn’t intend to answer, then she said, unsmilingly, “It was.”
Isabelle glanced over at Bruno. One question at a time.
“It’s the most beautiful bedroom in the house,” Mrs. Saunders said, her voice implying they would have little knowledge of such splendid things. “It has an en suite—Mr. Konrad had it put in for her, although it took quite a slice out of the adjoining bedroom. Whatever Miss Helena wanted, she got.”
That sounded so sour, it prompted Isabelle to find a question of her own. “If she were so indulged, why did she leave?”
The housekeeper swept her a cold look. “It is not for me to say, miss.”
“Didn’t you want to know?”
Mrs. Saunders pursed her lips. “I’m not family. I’m the housekeeper. I know my place. If you want to come with me, Mr. McKendrick, you can choose another bedroom, although you will have to use the bathroom at the end of the corridor.”
“No problem,” said Bruno obligingly. “Care to come along, Bella?” He held out his hand.
Such was his natural magnetism, Isabelle went to him, making a grab for his warm, strong hand. In all her years, she couldn’t recall ever once making such a grab for the hand of the man she had called Father. “Certainly,” she answered now. “I like to be helpful.”
“May I ask where the family sleep?” Bruno asked, when they were once more in the corridor.
The housekeeper appeared disconcerted by the question. “Mr. Hartmann has the West Wing,” she replied stiffly. “Mr. Stefan and Mr. Kurt occupy the East Wing. My rooms are on the ground floor. Staircases connect the wings to the main house. You’ll be joining Mr. Hartmann in the drawing room downstairs. You won’t have any difficulty finding it. The drawing room is to the right as you go down the staircase. The dining room is to the left.”
* * *
Bruno made his choice of a large room on the opposite side of the corridor. The Turkish Room. Isabelle wondered why this room hadn’t been made available for Bruno in the first place. It suited his exotic air. Mrs. Saunders had been in the process of directing them farther away from Helena’s bedroom. It was Bruno who had made his own choice, asking to see the bedrooms closer to Isabelle’s.
The Turkish Room won hands down.
“I’ll need to send one of the girls up to air this room and make the bed.” Mrs. Saunders’s expression, if not her actual words, conveyed this was an imposition. “Believe me, this room can get very dusty with all those hangings, the Kurdish rugs and all those cushions lying about. I have been told not to shift anything. Merely dust and vacuum. This is exactly as it was left.”
By whom? What family member?
Evidently Mrs. Saunders didn’t like the exotic furnishings or the rich clutter. There were books everywhere. On the floor, on the desk, piled up on a collection of inlaid brass bound travelling boxes. Cushions covered in beautiful Turkish fabrics were scattered all over the place. The room had been painted a shade of dark red, the colour picked up in the rugs with their beautiful central medallions and glowing dark sapphire or ruby fields. The mahogany bed was huge, made for a big man.
Who? was the burning question.
Mrs. Saunders supplied the answer. “The old gentleman, Mr. Konrad’s second son, Christian, brought it all back from a trip to Istanbul. This was his room.” She could barely keep a quiver of distaste from her voice. “Towels will be put in the bathroom at the end of the hall for your use, Mr. McKendrick.”
“Perhaps your house girl can do what she has to do when we’re at dinner,” Bruno suggested.
Mrs. Saunders’s mouth puckered, as if she’d sucked on a lemon. “As you wish. Your luggage is being sent up. It will be here shortly.”
“Many thanks, Mrs. Saunders,” Isabelle said, cool and calm. “Perhaps you are able to tell me, do you think I resemble Helena? You’ve been studying me closely.”
For the first time the woman showed a degree of torment. “The answer, miss,” she said, a fine tremor rippling beneath her smooth, unlined skin, “is in your mirror. You will see her image there.”
“Did you love her?” Isabelle asked very gently.
The tremor under the woman’s excellent skin intensified. “Love is hardly an appropriate word, miss,” she retorted. “Miss Helena Hartmann hardly knew I existed.”
“I see,” Isabelle said gently. What else was there to say?
“I’ll be off, then. I have much to attend to.”
“We wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your duties, Mrs. Saunders,” said Bruno with the merest suggestion of an ironic bow.
“You’re a devil, aren’t you?” Isabelle accused him when Mrs. Saunders had left. Bruno had gone to the door, checking on her progress down the staircase.
“I’m one of the good guys, Bella.” He came back into the room. “In order to be a step ahead, one has to know the enemy.”
“Mrs. Saunders is the enemy? Tell me quickly.”
Bruno’s strikingly handsome face grew serious. “You do realize she’s going to protect ‘the Master’ with her life?”
“What?” Isabelle nearly laughed but reined it in. In truth, the Hartmann mansion itself was freaking her out without throwing in the inmates.
“I’m asking you to pay attention now.”
“I am paying attention, thank you,” she said tartly. “What I’m asking you, Bruno McKendrick, is how in the world did you figure that out? I’m assuming ‘the Master’ is Erik.”
All at once Bruno laughed.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed too, rattled or not.
“Mr. Hartmann of course. If you took that woman out of her dreary gear, slapped a bit of makeup on her, she’d be a striking-looking woman.”
“She is now,” Isabelle said.
“But a shadow of what she could be.”
“Agreed. I can’t comment on her sexuality, but I see you’ve cast her as the sex interest, if not the love interest?”
“Erik Hartmann doesn’t strike me as the loving type,” Bruno said. “Controlled as Mrs. Saunders appears, she’s passionate about something. Clearly she hated Helena.”
Isabelle felt her once-settled world had been blasted away. “Hated?”
“You bet! She wouldn’t have mourned Helena’s departure.”
“What do you intend to do, write a book?” Isabelle asked facetiously.
“There’s a story here, Bella. Stories. These people live so close to one another, they must hear the others breathe. This is real isolation. There are no weekly, monthly dinner parties for friends, no weekend outings, no trips to department stores and the supermarket. No cinema. No theatre. No opera. No ballet. Only interaction with one another.”
“Hang on,” Isabelle protested, “I need to get a handle on this. Are you implying incest is rampant in the Outback?”
“Incest is fairly rampant everywhere, but I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying lives can become too entwined. I don’t imagine the Master and his heir make pals of the station staff and invite them up for dinner. Kurt thinks he’s an aristocrat, so much nonsense has been fed him. Okay, the family is rich, but they’re living like they’re in another age.”
“Even another country. This is the twenty-first century. Maybe that’s why the women took off: male domination.”
“We’ll know more after we’ve had the honour of meeting the Master. The house girls would be aboriginal or part-aboriginal girls, women; wives or daughters of station employees. Aboriginal men have been the mainstay of the cattle industry in the Outback. They’re wonderful bushmen, horsemen, trackers. In a way, this is a closed community. Living in such isolation makes for dependence on one another. The extreme isolation of our continent made for legendary mateship. The reliance on one another to survive began from the first day of settlement.”
“I understand that. Kurt does give off an arrogant air. You don’t. Not when you’re with me anyway.” She couldn’t resist the little jibe.
“Arrogant? Why would I be?”
“Well, a man who looks like you and is as successful as you could easily be.”
“So what do I look like?” He suddenly caught her arm, turning her towards him and pinning her eyes.
For seconds, she went into free-fall. Seconds more before she recovered enough to manage lightly, “I’ll leave that to your girlfriends to tell you. I guess the Hartmanns and the likes of Mrs. Saunders are given over to keeping up appearances. Mrs. Saunders was born a century too late.”
“What’s the betting she worships the ground Mr. Hartmann walks upon?” Bruno asked, releasing her.
“I don’t have money to bet.”
“All right, a titian curl from your head?” He reached out and tweaked one, wrapping it around his finger.
She knew it wasn’t possible, but she felt her heart flip over. “You can’t be serious?”
“I really am. A symbol of trust. It’s not as though you can’t spare one.”
“You really should confess you enjoy teasing me.”
“To be fair, I haven’t missed your little jabs, either.” There was a mocking expression on his face, but his tone was almost tender.
“Okay, we’re even,” she said shakily.
“And the lock of hair?”
“I have no idea why you want it, but it’s a done deal.”
“Great! I’ll have to buy one of those Victorian lockets.”
Such was his blazing masculinity, he could even get away with it. “You’re not planning on wearing it around your neck?”
“I’ll keep mine in my breast pocket.”
So he wasn’t exempt from trying to seduce her, even if it were only with his voice and eyes. “Don’t practise your charms on me, Bruno McKendrick,” she warned.
He placed one hand over his heart. “Bella, I had no idea you find me charming.”
“Well, you do have enough going for you, which doesn’t mean, however, I fancy you. We’re colleagues. Colleagues hunting down a possible crime.”
“As if I could forget.”
“We can’t afford to.” She looked around at all the exotic appointments. “Gosh, this is some place. Some people would even call it a madhouse. This beautiful Kurdish prayer rug I’m obliged to stand on would look wonderful hanging on a wall.” She stared across at Bruno, who was examining a piece of militaria, a scary-looking war ax. “There’s a ghost in this room,” she said. “Don’t you feel it?”
Bruno put the war ax down. He too was experiencing the odd sensation. “There are ghosts all over this house.”
“There you go again. We’re in the homestead family mansion, Bruno, not the family cemetery.”
“Which must be somewhere on the station.” Bruno picked up a weighty leather-bound tome. He flicked through it, then put it down again on the travelling box. “I’ll make a good search of this room. I could very well find something interesting. Something that will tell us what we need to know, or at least point us in the right direction.”
Isabelle gave him a long, measured look. “I could help you, even if we choke on the dust. People who’ve lost their lives violently leave something behind, don’t you think? There was Erik’s wife, Myra, the adulteress, if that’s to be believed, and Christian, who managed to get himself shot.”
“Out of stupidity, inexperience or perhaps because he broke the rules?” Bruno pondered. “How do we know if Christian wasn’t having an affair with his ravishing sister-in-law?”
“Once removed?” Isabelle reminded him. “Erik and Christian were half brothers. I’m sure the much-maligned Myra had good in her. Perhaps whoever took that photograph of her was her lover? It had that look about it, seductiveness shimmering out of her. She looked very sexy. Women can get into a lot of trouble being sexy.”
“You’re telling me!” Bruno exclaimed, giving an expressive shrug of one shoulder. “They get us guys into a lot of trouble as well.”
“Wasn’t some girl running around town telling everyone you and she were on the brink of announcing your engagement?”
“And I didn’t give her an inch of encouragement.” Bruno suddenly held a finger to his lips. “Someone coming.”
“Gosh, you’ve got good ears.” She had heard nothing. Why would she? She’d been too busy following Bruno’s every word.
“A lot of practise,” he explained.
“Practise! Oh come on, you don’t—” She broke off when she realized he was having her on.
A moment more and they saw a tall, whipcord-thin figure in khaki working gear put Bruno’s luggage down and then pop Isabelle’s two pieces inside her room. “Time for us to step out.”
Bruno had his suitcase in hand when the houseman reappeared.
If he had been a woman, Isabelle was certain he would have screamed. As it was, he said on a hoarse gasp, “Gawd, you startled me!”
Not only did he look astonished, he looked fearful, as if he were seeing a ghost.
“Sorry,” Bruno apologized. “We were taking a look at my consigned bedroom.”
“No one goes in there,” the man said, looking furtively past Bruno’s tall figure.
“It’s the room I’ve picked,” Bruno said. “Is it supposed to be haunted?”
“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised.” The man swallowed hard.
Bruno held out his hand. “I’m Bruno McKendrick and this is Isabelle Martin. Thank you for bringing up our luggage.”
“No trouble, mate.” The man took a deep, shaky breath and then shook Bruno’s hand. “Liam O’Connor. I’m the handyman.” He shifted his disturbed glance from Bruno to Isabelle. “S’truth, young lady, I just can’t believe my eyes. It’s like Miss Helena has come back.”
Nailed it in one, Bruno thought.
“You knew her?” Isabelle asked the man, before he could get away.
“Well, not exactly knew her. She always said hello to all of us, but of course she wasn’t one of us. She was family. I was a young apprentice stockman in them days, but I remember her. She was beautiful like you, miss. All them red curls, the white skin and green eyes. She was tallish and very slim like you too. No one ever recovered after she ran off.”
“Hard to credit she would,” Bruno said.
“Mind you—” Liam inclined his head, obviously about to say more, when he appeared to come to his senses.
“Mind you?” Isabelle prompted.
“Pays to keep one’s mouth shut around here, miss,” Liam said. “Anyways, pleased to meet yah both,” he mumbled. He then turned on his high-heeled boots and moved off as though a hand would reach out to prevent him.
“We get affirmation all the time,” Bruno said. “Miss Helena has come back. I have to speak to that guy.” He rubbed a hand over his chiselled chin.
“Could be a bad move.”
“I can and I will,” said Bruno. “Mind you, what? That’s the question. Someone in the family was a monster?”
Isabelle’s green eyes went wide. “Wouldn’t your dad have sussed that out?”
“My dad was never able to speak to anyone on the station outside the family. Very convenient, these musters. They go on for weeks at a time.”
“You heard what he said. Am I a Hartmann? Am I?”
Bruno met her eyes. “There’s a possibility, I suppose, you could be Helena’s child.”
“Which has to mean Hilary is well and truly in the frame for snatching me. Or Helena handed me over. Helena’s child, but by whom?”
“At this point, we don’t know,” said Bruno. “Look, why don’t we take a look around your room?”
Isabelle turned away. “Good idea!”
The time for truth was at hand. Both of them were determined to find out as much as they could about the family and the family secrets. Both were convinced Isabelle was part of the family. Had she been born out of wedlock? Had Helena’s mother, Myra, been pregnant with her lover’s child, not her husband’s? There was much to discover. Much to understand.