Margaret Way - Secrets Of The Outback

“So Skinner is definitely mixed up in it?”

Jewel sighed in disbelief. “I haven’t the vaguest idea what you mean. I came with very good references and recommendations. Let’s get that straight.”

“By all means,” he said tersely.

“I hope you’re discreet, Ms. Bishop?” Lady Copeland suddenly appealed to her.

Jewel frowned. “Lady Copeland, what do I have to be discreet about? Do you think people will gossip if they notice our strong resemblance?”

Keefe Connellan exhaled loudly. “You bet your life they will. It’s impossible to miss.”

“Do you think so? They’d have to be looking for a hidden mystery then,” Jewel said. “However, it hardly matters, since I don’t move in Lady Copeland’s circles.”

“No doubt Skinner hoped to change that?” He spoke so sharply his words gave Jewel a twinge of fear.

They stared at each other like combatants, neither yielding, both tense. “No need to investigate Blair Skinner,” Jewel said firmly. “He never puts a foot wrong.”

“You mean so far,” Connellan returned curtly. “Playing us for fools would guarantee disaster.” He moved then, touching Lady Copeland’s delicate shoulder. “I think we should go, Davina. Jacob will take you home and drop me on the way. I have an appointment with Drew Westaway uptown. I’d break it, but it’s critical.” He glanced at Jewel, brilliant black eyes narrowed. “You can inform your boss we’re leaving,” he said, his face taut.

“If that’s what you want. Let me say again that I deeply regret any upset I may unwittingly have caused you, Lady Copeland. I’ll speak of it to no one.”

Connellan laughed—an attractive if discordant sound. “That’s a bit rich. Skinner can’t wait to discuss this.”

“What do you expect, given your attack on me? Naturally I have to say something.”

“Of course. Is your mother in on this, too?”

Nothing so far had prepared Jewel for that. She went white. “My mother is a very sick woman, so watch it, Mr. Connellan. I’d just love to slap you again.”

“Only this time, I’ll deal with it,” he promised, gently propelling Lady Copeland to the door.

Nearing it, Lady Copeland paused. “If I asked you to come and visit me, would you consider it, Eugenie?” Her still-beautiful face revealed a strange longing.

Jewel found herself nodding, lured somehow by the use of her Christian name. “I think I want that, too, Lady Copeland, just so long as Mr. Connellan is nowhere nearby.”

“Are you sure about that, Davina?” Connellan shot a questioning look at her.

“Quite sure, my dear.” She smiled at him and patted his arm. “I need to learn more about Eugenie. You see that, don’t you?”

He turned, studying Jewel’s resolute stance. “I do, in a strange sort of way,” he admitted. “Just bear in mind that Ms. Bishop, for all her beauty and avowed brightness, could pry us all apart.”

Shaking inside but using her characteristic self-confidence as camouflage, Jewel went in search of Blair Skinner, finding him in the boardroom frowning over a coffee.

“Well?” He looked distressed, and was without his usual bold quip. “Can I go back into my office?”

“They’re gone, Blair.” Jewel resisted a groan. “Connellan had an appointment.”

“Mr. Connellan to you,” Skinner reminded her stonily and stood up. “I don’t understand this. They left without speaking to me?”

“I’m sure Mr. Connellan will be remedying that,” Jewel answered abruptly, bringing a chill to Skinner’s eyes.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Beats the hell out of me, Blair.” She gave a brittle laugh. “It’ll be mentioned, so I’m not betraying a confidence. It seems that both of them—Lady Copeland and Mr. Connellan—figure we’re playing some kind of game with them. I’m quoting Mr. Connellan himself.”

Skinner actually blanched. “My God, Eugenia, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious,” she said.

He looked at her with a grim expression. “You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you,” he accused. “I suspected it right from the beginning.”

“Nevertheless you hired me. Why?” The why was starting to worry her.

“Because I thought there was something special about you,” he answered testily. “Don’t act like a dolt. It doesn’t suit you. What caused Lady Copeland to faint? Keefe looked at me quite murderously. It was all about you, wasn’t it. And your father. What on earth did he do? If you tell me he made off with Copeland money, I promise I won’t scream. God knows, old Sir Julius broke a few laws. But then, he had us legal eagles to get him out of trouble. What does hurt is the fact that you’ve never seen fit to confide in me, Eugenie.”

“I never thought I had much to confide.”

“Sit down,” Skinner advised briskly. “I know you well enough to realize beneath that brazen exterior you’re falling to pieces.”

Jewel took a seat. “I think you’re right. What about getting me a cup of coffee—to show you care?”

This was received with a scowl. “You’re really something. You know that?” He disappeared, then returned a moment later with two steaming china mugs. “Give it to me straight. Any lies, and I promise you’ll be out of here just like that!” He snapped his fingers.

“You and me both.” Jewel took a tentative sip. Too hot. At least the coffee was good. “Blair, I’m going to ask you something.” She switched her eyes from the mug to him. “And I’d appreciate the truth. Have you been aware of the resemblance between Lady Copeland and me?”

Skinner’s jaw dropped in amazement. Either he was a wonderful actor or he had just suffered a severe shock. “What are you saying, Eugenie?”

“Have—you—ever—noticed?” She leaned closer to him, deliberately spacing her words.

“Sweet, sweet Lord! What a fool I am.”

“Welcome to the club. I take it you haven’t. However, the cat is out of the bag. Whatever cat it might happen to be.” Jewel had just enough left in her to speak flippantly. It was her way of overcoming her own tremendous shock. “Lady Copeland told me she thought I was the image of herself when young.”

Skinner put his knuckles in his mouth. He rose to his feet shouting, “That’s right!” then fell back, lowering his head and holding it in his hands. “And they think the two of us set up a meeting!” he muttered despairingly.

“I think they saw themselves as two blackmail victims.”

“If I’ve made enemies of those two, I’ll have to move abroad. Oh, my God!” he cried. “I could weep.”

“Ordinarily I’d enjoy that, but bear with me,” Jewel said, taking another gulp of the strong coffee. “I told them you’d never, ever remarked on even a passing resemblance. You are a man of great integrity. I kept assuring them of that. I told them you respected Lady Copeland far too much to ever want to upset her. I explained that I’d never laid eyes on her in my entire life. The whole thing was one monumental coincidence.”

“My dear, my mother taught me to be very suspicious of monumental coincidences,” Skinner said. “This is not the end,” he predicted. “So, how can we make sense of this? Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I can see you’re a dead ringer for Davina. I knew there was something familiar about you, right from the beginning. I even ran through a few film stars. The young Lana Turner with blue, blue eyes. That kind of look. Soft, sexy yet challenging.”

Jewel gazed at him in astonishment. “You thought all this, Blair? Shame on you. I’ve always seen you as a good, solid father figure.” A dreadful lie.

He shook his head. “Just an objective judgment. I have eyes. Or so I believed.” He stared at her directly. “What would you advise?”

“You mean, you’re going to listen?” This all felt like a strange dream, except that she was actually hurting.

“What I’m saying is you were there the whole time. How did it all end?”

“In Lady Copeland inviting me to visit her.”

Skinner made a whistling sound through his mouth. It could have been admiration. “And Keefe?”

“What a gorgon!” Jewel said with a shudder.

“A gorgon, my dear, was one of three snake-haired sisters in Greek mythology. Of course, you didn’t have a classical education.”

“All right, make that a bastard.”

Skinner snorted. “Don’t get on the wrong side of Keefe Connellan,” he warned her. “He loves Davina. They love each other. I could almost feel sorry for Travis. At one time, his father was threatening to disinherit him. Damn, I’m talking too much. Should I ring him?”

“Who, Connellan? I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction,” Jewel said disgustedly. “But expect a phone call…”

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to concentrate on anything for the rest of the afternoon. There seemed no rational explanation for what had happened in Blair Skinner’s office, but it all had to do with the striking resemblance between her and Lady Copeland and the fact that her father had once worked for the family. Jewel was outraged by the way Keefe Connellan had treated her. Outraged by everything about the man. Being with him was like being in an emotional and intellectual combat zone. He acted as though she was cruelly impersonating someone closely linked to Lady Copeland’s life. Someone Lady Copeland really needed or cared about. A daughter, a granddaughter who’d died? Jewel couldn’t figure it out.

More than anything, she wanted to call her mother to see if Thea could offer an explanation. A couple of times she’d even picked up the phone but knew there was little point in it. Her mother, even if she came to the phone, would be made highly anxious by any kind of questioning. Thea experienced bouts of severe anxiety, and talking to her would do no good at all. In fact, it might make a difficult situation worse. Her mother lived in a permanent state of depression, a kind of helplessness, even worthlessness, that Jewel often found overwhelming.

“Thank God you never took after your mother. I’d go crazy.”

That was what Aunt Judith always said. A single woman with a crackling persona, sometimes cyclonic, far from unattractive—she’d once had a fiancé who had simply “vanished,” a calamity at the time. It had been two weeks before the wedding and the theory was that he’d been taken by a crocodile on one of his nighttime fishing trips. Judith was thin, terribly thin, but always on the go, impatient, trying to do her best but totally unequipped by nature to deal with a sister who had “emotional problems.” In all fairness Aunt Judith had tried to cope with Thea’s physical and mental inertia, but her initial sympathy had passed quickly, mainly because she, like Jewel, was a person who was anything but stationary.

Her aunt Judith. Jewel owed her a great deal.

They’d gone to live with Judith after her father’s death. Her mother had little money, but she still retained a half-share in the family home, a marvelous spooky old colonial Queenslander some miles out of town. Jewel would never forget her first sight of it. She was an imaginative child, and it had seemed to her the house of a witch. Set in a great blossoming forest with gem-colored birds and enormous blue butterflies circling the riotous overgrown gardens, it was filled with towering palms and soaring ferns and great mango trees whose fruit littered the ground. And there was Aunt Judith confirming her childish suspicions, standing on the deep shadowy front veranda overhung by a scarlet bougainvillea that had woven itself through the length of the white wrought-iron banisters and threatened to bring down the huge pillars that supported the luminous green roof. She stood there, thin arms outstretched, a wild mane of curly dark hair cascading down her back, her clothes like clothes Jewel had never seen before. Long and loose and floating with big stars all over them, like a magician’s. She soon learned that outfit was called a caftan and Aunt Judith had painted the stars herself. After the harshness and the terra-cotta colors of her Outback home, it was like being invited into the Garden of Eden—where there were plenty of snakes. It was and remained a magical house, the place her mother and Aunt Judith had been born and where her mother now hid.