Love in the Valley Read online

  Was he simply incapable of love?

  Top New Zealand lawyer Hugh Walton was one of the coldest men Julia had ever met.

  She was prepared to love him, but she couldn't break down the final emotional barrier.

  And Hugh made it clear he preferred the company of the icily beautiful Ann Farrow, who would never challenge him to reveal any human warmth, or offer him the kind of passion Julia yearned to give…

  Love is of the valley, come thou down

  And find him.

  Tennyson

  CHAPTER ONE

  JULIA FRY stood back and regarded her latest creation with a certain humorous resignation. Her Cordon Bleu tutors in Paris would throw up their hands in horror at the sight of such unabashed vulgarity, but fortunately she no longer had to worry about their opinions.

  ‘My God, what on earth is it?’

  Julia turned to grin at the tall blond man who pushed through the swing doors from the hall.

  ‘It’s for tonight,’ she obliged. ‘My pièce de resistance.’

  ‘What’s it trying to resist, good taste?’ As far as Phillip Randolph was concerned, lack of taste was the ultimate sin.

  ‘Bite your tongue, Phillip,’ Julia mock-scolded. ‘You told me to create something special for Marcia’s birthday, so I did. It’ll suit her perfectly, don’t you think?’

  He didn’t answer and they both knew why. His cousin was a shade too voluptuous, too aggressive, too just about anything to qualify in the lady stakes. Poor Phillip, Julia smiled to herself as she watched an immaculately manicured finger pass over the intricately iced patterns of flowers and leaves, she doubted that he would ever find the woman to suit his fastidious needs.

  ‘Do you really think …’ the finger halted and pointed stiffly, ‘… that the caterpillar is necessary?’

  ‘How on earth did he get there!’ exclaimed Julia in tones of wonderment. Brown eyes rose patiently to meet her bright, brimming blue ones and Julia sighed.

  ‘OK.’ She carefully picked the little yellow-and-green iced object off a curling green leaf. ‘I thought you might have overlooked him. He’s rather cute, don’t you think?’

  ‘No,’ replied her employer bluntly. ‘You haven’t hidden a spider anywhere too, have you? Amongst the foliage?’

  ‘I was tempted, but I resisted,’ Julia giggled into his suspicious face.

  ‘You amaze me,’ replied Phillip drily, straightening up and flicking a non-existent speck from the sleeve of his beautifully tailored suit.

  That about summed up their relationship, mused Julia as she watched him preen. She was constantly having to resist the urge to puncture his self-conscious dignity, while on his part he found her sense of humour and frankness disconcerting to say the least.

  ‘You still haven’t told me exactly what it is.’ He stroked his well-clipped moustache absently.

  ‘It’s a bombe. A very spectacular bombe,’ said Julia modestly.

  ‘What does it do—go off in our mouths?’

  ‘Something like that,’ agreed Julia. ‘There’s enough brandy in there to stun an elephant … or at least to slow Marcia’s mouth down from seventy-eight to thirty-three-and-a-third.’

  ‘Jealous?’ jeered Phillip slyly.

  ‘Rabidly,’ was the cheerfully insincere reply. Rich, still single in his mid-thirties and a prominent member of New Zealand’s business and social community, Phillip was used to being regarded in a flattering light, particularly by women. Julia saw it almost as a duty to try and stop the rot.

  ‘Half the time I never know whether you’re joking or not,’ Phillip complained as Julia placed the platter holding the bombe into the double-doored refrigerator. ‘Don’t you fancy me at all?’

  ‘What a vulgar turn of phrase,’ said Julia mischievously. And at his pained look: ‘Well of course I fancy you, you’re very fanciable. But you’re not my type.’

  ‘What is your type?’

  Julia considered it briefly. ‘Someone who laughs a lot, who can make me laugh. Dark, handsome … and, of course, short!’ At five foot and half an inch, height was a tender subject with Julia.

  ‘In other words, a Latin hysteric,’ said Phillip sourly and Julia giggled.

  ‘Right! And while you’re away I’ll have some time to look around for him.’ Phillip was off on yet another of his overseas business trips.

  ‘Haven’t you got any work lined up?’ Phillip asked.

  ‘Not yet. But there’s plenty of time. You don’t leave until next month.’ When he was away for longer than four weeks Phillip usually paid her a retainer so that she was free to find outside work temporarily if she wished. With her reputation she could pick and choose her jobs.

  ‘July twenty-first, he confirmed. ‘But I have heard of something for you, if you’re interested.’

  ‘What?’ asked Julia, without much hope.

  ‘The Marlows,’ he said, sounding insufferably smug.

  Julia let out a whoop of delight as she turned on him. ‘I don’t believe it! Where? When?’

  ‘At Craemar, in August, for a month. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘How did you come to hear?’

  ‘I met Constance last week at the theatre and happened to mention I was going away.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ Julia hoped no one else had got the job in the interim.

  ‘I forgot,’ admitted Phillip with irritating calmness. He could be selfishly casual when his own well-being wasn’t involved. ‘She wants you to ring her about it.’ He shot back a pristine cuff. ‘I must go. No lunch today, Julia, but there’ll be six tomorrow.’ He often entertained during the day as well as in the evenings, so Julia never lacked for variety of challenge.

  She turned back to the cluttered bench as he left, wondering about the Marlows. They usually went down to their holiday home on the Coromandel Peninsula at Christmas, not in the dead of winter. Julia had worked for them once before at Craemar, two Christmasses ago, helping their resident cook/housekeeper to cater for an extended family reunion. It had been hard work, but fun.

  Constance Marlow was one of New Zealand’s best-loved actresses and her husband, Michael, a leading stage director and playwright. Their children were almost all involved in the arts in one field or another, making a name for themselves in their own rights.

  Her curiosity growing by the minute, Julia washed her hands and used the yellow kitchen phone to call Constance and make an appointment to see her the next day. That done she dedicated herself to preparing an elegant birthday dinner to precede the bombe.

  The next morning, success confirmed by Phillip’s unqualified approval over breakfast, Julia drove her battered little VW the few miles to the Marlows’ Remuera town house. Getting no answer from the front door, she strolled around the back to find Constance sitting in the weak autumn sunshine beside the pool, studying the typed pages of a script. Julia had not seen her at close quarters for a year, although she had been to several of her plays, but Constance looked as slim, as vital as she did on stage, the glorious red hair swept up into a knot of fire, the green eyes sparkling with life.

  ‘Julia!’ Lovely to see you again,’ she cried, in liquid tones. ‘Sit down on one of these loungers and enjoy the sun. We’re not going to have it for long by the look of those clouds. I’m glad you’ve arrived, this thing was beginning to drive me mad with boredom.’ She threw the offending pages on to the manicured grass.

  ‘A new play, Mrs Marlow?’ asked Julia, smilingly taking a seat.

  ‘TV script, and do call me Connie—I told you that last time. Otherwise I shall start feeling really decrepit.’

  ‘You’re looking as young as ever,’ responded Julia, instantly put at her ease.

  ‘Thanks, I needed that,’ Connie laug
hed with the confidence of one who knew it was the truth. ‘Forty-nine I was last week, and do you know what that wretch Richard offered me for my birthday—a facelift!’

  Julia watched in amusement as Connie described the gifts she had received from her family with extravagant gestures of the graceful hands. It was incredible to think, looking at Connie’s willowy grace, that she was the mother of six children, including two sets of twins. Incredible too, that one so volatile and apparently disorganised could be the lynch pin of the family, but matriarch was a role Connie enjoyed playing to the full, when she got the chance.

  ‘Well, are you coming down to Craemar with us? We really need you and it won’t be too onerous. There’ll only be us, this time, not all the aunts and cousins. Not Hugh, of course,’ she added as an afterthought. Julia had never met the mysterious Hugh. He was the eldest son, older than Julia, a lawyer who seemed to steer well clear of the rest of the family’s flamboyancy.

  ‘Aren’t you going down at Christmas?’ asked Julia curiously.

  Connie sighed. ‘I’m afraid tradition has to give way to expediency this year, we’ll all be scattered to the winds at Christmas.’ She began counting off her fingers. ‘Michael will be directing me in a play at Downstage in Wellington—one of his own incidentally, he’ll be working on it at Craemar so bear with him won’t you? Richard has a part in a film that’s going on location to Easter Island. Steven is scheduled to tour Japan. Rosalind is going to try her luck on the London stage, God help her! Olivia is still wrapped up in that artists’ commune and they’re having an exhibition and Charles, Charles wants to go and stay with a friend at Taupo. My baby—wants to be away at Christmas!’

  Julia hid a smile. Charley, Charles only to Connie, was the extreme tail-ender of the family. Only fourteen and still at boarding school he was the only Marlow child who didn’t have red hair. He was a solemn but likeable boy, rather quiet, and Connie was at a bit of a loss with him. She loved him as much as she loved the others, but she felt she didn’t understand him. ‘Generation gap yawning at me,’ she had once said to Julia.

  ‘I suppose it won’t be the same as having Christmas, or are you going to have presents and a tree?’ Julia grinned.

  ‘It’ll be bloody cold for a start,’ Connie said forcefully. ‘But we can have lots of fires—I love fires, don’t you? Central heating’s so soulless. And I refuse to be done out of the little time we have every year to be together as a real family. I had to brow-beat the lot of them; threaten to kidnap Steven but I refuse to be deprived. Charles is getting out of school a week early and we’ll have an entire month. Could you stand us for that long?’

  ‘I’d love it,’ said Julia warmly. ‘But surely Mrs Brabbage could cope if it’s just family.’

  ‘Housekeeping’s her limit at the moment,’ Connie’s voice softened in affection. ‘She finally persuaded that stubborn husband of hers to have his hip operation. He’s out of the hospital but still not very mobile, and won’t be for a while yet. Jean will come in every day to do a bit of cleaning—”to take her out of herself” as she puts it—but she won’t be able to cook for us. Hence you!’

  ‘Thanks for thinking of me,’ said Julia, feeling sorry for Jack Brabbage. He was a tiny, wiry man, in contrast to his massive wife, and the sort who would jibe at a long period of inactivity. ‘Or wasn’t I first choice?’

  Connie gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence, then laughed, the clear, joyous sound that was her trademark. ‘Actually I hadn’t anyone in mind until I saw Phillip on opening night. When he told me he was going away it was like a sign from the gods.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t ring you straight away, but he didn’t tell me about the offer until yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Connie shrugged her apology away, ‘I know how these businessmen are. And don’t worry that you might get snowed under with work, I’ve issued dire threats to anyone who turns up with hangers-on. And I’ve told everyone to keep their mouths shut, a necessity these days I’m afraid.’ She displayed a gamine grin. ‘Richard and Ros have collected quite a fan club over these television series of theirs, and Steven is constantly pursued by weirdos— pink hair and safety pins, and that’s only the boys!’ The last was said on a rising note of outrage but the green eyes glittered like jewels in amusement. Connie had the broadmindedness of her profession and in her case this extended to a patient and generous tolerance of all except the most unrepentantly evil people.

  ‘Pursuit is an occupational hazard for rock stars,’ Julia replied in the same vein. ‘I seem to remember you with safety pins and pink hair at one time.’

  ‘That was acting darling, these people are real life. Anyway, you agree then, do you?’ Connie named a very fair figure and Julia nodded. ‘Believe me, darling, you’ll earn every penny, the family is bigger and hungrier than ever. You should see Charles now, he’s getting on for six foot! He was in the school play this term, you know. Has the makings of a fine actor. I thought I might see if Michael can pull some strings while we’re down in Wellington and get him an audition at the Drama School.’ This was all said on one breath but it was Julia, not Connie, who was left gasping.

  They discussed terms and Julia agreed to travel down to Craemar a few days ahead of the family to prepare for their arrival. The nearest store was quite a distance from the bush-clad valley in which Craemar nestled so there would be no nipping out to the shops if she ran out of anything essential.

  ‘Now business is settled, why don’t we go inside and get a cup of coffee?’ suggested Connie, looking up at the lowering sky. ‘I think it’s going to rain at any moment.’

  They reached the french doors of the lounge just as the torrent began and Julia brushed off the heavy drops before settling comfortably on the sagging grey couch. While Connie fetched the coffee Julia looked around the slightly shabby room. It was a very much lived-in room, the kind that Julia felt at home in.

  ‘Julia Fry, by all that’s holy! Light of my life, where have you been hiding these last few months?’

  ‘Hello, Richard,’ Julia jumped up to offer a light kiss, and receive an enthusiastic one in exchange from the tall, handsome, red-headed young man who had materialised before her. He dropped beside her on the couch and threw an arm over her shoulder.

  ‘You’re looking ravishing, sweetheart. Coming to slave for us are you?’

  ‘I couldn’t resist the chance to be close to my favourite TV star,’ Julia batted her eyelashes at him and they grinned at each other. She had known Richard on and off since they had met in London, Julia working as a cook at the New Zealand embassy and Richard going to RADA. They had the kind of friendship that survived gaps of months, even years, in which they never saw each other. ‘I hear you’ve made it to the big time. Which crowd scene are you going to be in? Or have you actually got a speaking part in this movie?’

  ‘Wretch!’ howled Richard. ‘It’s the lead, as well you know. And what about my Festival coup, aren’t you going to congratulate me on that?’

  ‘I think you’ll make a fantastic Romeo,’ she said sincerely, having read about it in the papers.

  ‘With Dad directing I couldn’t really miss, could I,’ said Richard modestly. Both of them knew that Michael Marlow was ruthless as a director; nepotism didn’t get a look in. On the other hand he didn’t give a damn about rumours of favouritism, if his son was the best for the part, it was his.

  ‘And Connie’s playing the nurse. How come Ros wasn’t picked for Juliet?’

  ‘That would have been a bit too incestuous.’ He winked, ‘Besides, Dad’s discovered this perfect gem of a sixteen-year-old. Gorgeous little thing, and madly in love with me, of course,’ he hammed outrageously.

  ‘Aren’t we all.’ Richard’s ridiculous megastar act never failed to bring Julia out in the giggles.

  ‘I thought I heard sounds of violent over-acting.’ Connie entered carrying a tray with three cups on it. ‘Don’t you have a rehearsal this morning, young man?’ Richard was currently on stage,
doing readings of seventeenth-century poetry.

  ‘They let me off for good behaviour. I’m free to autograph a fan or two.’ He ruffled Julia’s blonde, shoulder-length curls and leered wickedly at her.

  Julia sipped her coffee and listened to the by-play between mother and son, wondering why she had never fallen in love with Richard. She had certainly had the time and opportunity, and he was extremely attractive. Lack of challenge, perhaps? Or the conviction that a sudden, tempestuous love awaited her somewhere?

  ‘Why didn’t you come backstage and see me!’ cried Richard, on learning that Julia had seen his current production.

  ‘Couldn’t be bothered fighting my way through the panting hordes at the stage door,’ said Julia mildly.

  ‘Isn’t it incredible,’ agreed his mother. ‘If only they knew what a moody, slovenly, emotionally immature beast he was, they’d be fighting to get away.’

  ‘They fill the seats, Mama, they fill the seats. Now, why don’t you go back to that turgid drama you’re angling for a part in, and I’ll see if I can persuade Julia to eat with me.’

  ‘Sorry, other plans,’ Julia said coolly and Connie laughed.

  ‘Keep it up, darling. Having you around for a month is going to be handy in controlling that puff-ball ego of his.’ She rose and gathered up her script, ordering imperiously. ‘You may see to the cups, Richard, it might give your hands something else to do.’

  A little later, having helped Richard with the few dishes, Julia peered out the window.

  ‘Has it stopped raining yet? I really must be going.’

  She was whirled into a close embrace. ‘Don’t run away, my darling! Don’t try and fight this thing between us. Come back to my flat and have a jug of wine and a loaf of bread with me.’

  ‘No thanks, I’ve meals to cook … and this thing between us is a damp towel. Let me go, Richard, I can’t breathe!’ Richard wasn’t broad but he was tall and Julia’s face was buried in his chest.