Reasons Of the Heart Read online

  'I'm flattered you bothered to remember what I said,' Fran murmured stiffly, unnerved by the thought that his memories might be just as vivid as hers. 'What a pity you obviously didn't take it to heart.'

  'What makes you think that?'

  'Well,' she floundered, trying to come up with a reason for her reasonless conviction. 'You were just as much a hell-raiser as ever when I left, and I didn't see your name listed in the Bursary examination results...'

  'Keeping tabs on me, Princess?' he needled softly.

  'Nothing of the kind,' she denied, pink-faced. 'I just happened to notice.'

  'I got by without.' Surprisingly he didn't pursue the blush, but he didn't hide his humorous satisfaction either. 'I decided to exploit my natural talent with women...and guided by your advice I decided not to stifle my skills by restricting myself to only one...'

  'No wonder you don't dare live at home!' She drew in her mouth primly, unable to help responding to the provocation, even though she knew it was deliberate.

  Her antagonism towards the man seemed inbuilt, and

  drove her into uncharacteristic over-reaction. 'If you

  think I'm going to let you use my cabin to—'

  'Rest—I told you I was after some peace. Even gigolos need holidays.' His mouth quirked as she bridled. 'Don't worry, Princess, I won't ask you for money. I doubt that, even with your inheritance, you could afford my rates!'

  He was that good? Fran found herself thinking wryly, then was horrified at herself. Ross was grinning openly at her now and she didn't know whether to believe him or not. He was so damned sexy it was easy to believe that he could flatter women into paying for the privilege of his company.

  'I'm not as gullible as all that, Ross,' she said, to con­vince herself. 'You're not going to scare me off with those tactics. I don't care what kind of low-life you are, I'm not backing down. Were you ever this "honest" with Grandpa?'

  'I respected the old man too much to upset him by flaunting the differences in our philosophies in his face, but I never lied to him. At least I was there for him to talk to. He was pretty stubborn and opinionated, and set in his ways, but interesting for all that. A pity you never showed any interest. Not very dutiful of you, Fran...'

  Duty. How that word stung. 'I wrote—'

  His sound of disgust cut her off. She wanted to shout at him to leave her alone, and yet she knew she couldn't just walk away from his accusations. Something about him compelled her to stand up to him. She had the feeling that if she let him have any kind of victory over her, no matter how small, he might glimpse how really vulner­able and uncertain she was. Her life was already in the midst of a state of flux and she didn't know if she could handle any more complications right now.

  'A few letters may have salved your conscience, but what that old man needed was you. You never came much, apparently, even when Agatha was alive. Were you ashamed of them? Too good for the people who took you into their home and brought you up? God, the way Ian talked it was as though you were some sort of saint! He was so proud of you... of how well you were doing and how busy you were, even if it meant you were too damned busy to take an occasional weekend off to visit an old man.'

  'He didn't want my company. He never did!' Fran defended herself fiercely. 'Maybe, towards the end, he did need it, maybe I should have come, but for what? He never talked to me and I didn't know how to talk to him. I don't even know if I liked him. He certainly never tried to like me.' When she saw the protest form in the blue eyes she went on, doggedly, 'Oh yes, he and Agatha were proud, but not of me, personally. They didn't know what kind of person I was, they never wanted to know, they just wanted a shiny image to show the world. As long as I did what I was told and didn't disgrace myself, as long as I was dutiful, they never asked for more. Do you wonder I didn't like coming back here? This was never really home to me. Home is where the heart is, and there was no heart in my relationship with my grandparents, only duty.' She laughed bitterly into his suddenly still face. So he thought he knew it all! 'They were such pillars of the community. Everyone thought they were so wonderful for taking in their illegitimate granddaughter and bringing her up, but their pride gave them no choice. They had to take me in. And I was a constant reminder of how they had failed in bringing up their own child. I suppose they decided they had been too lenient with my mother, because they obviously couldn't trust themselves to control the taint in my veins. They handed me over to strangers to bring up through my formative years. I was six when they packed me off to that school. Six! The nuns were kind, of course, but they had their vows. Their love was detached, it couldn't be squandered on individuals...

  Her voice hoarsened in an echo of the lost bewilder­ment she had felt in those early years. 'It didn't take me long to realise that my grandparents were proudest of me when I wasn't there. They even encouraged me to take my holidays with schoolfriends, rather than come back home. I'd be lonely, they said.' She laughed again, but this time it was ironic. 'Maybe they were afraid I'd contaminate you, rather than the other way around.'

  'They were victims of their own upbringing, too.' Ross's voice was deep and slow, and full of a com­passionate understanding that she didn't want to believe he was capable of. 'It can't have been easy when your mother was killed and they suddenly found themselves with a baby on their hands, just when they were looking forward to their retirement years. They did their best...'

  'Best for whom?' Fran asked wearily. 'I could have been adopted by a couple who did want me, been able to feel part of a family instead of never being able to shake off the feeling I was here on sufferance.' She threw her head back and challenged him. 'I happen to think that they owed me more than duty, they owed me love. More than that, they owed it to me to accept my love, but shows of affection were very much discouraged. They expected the worst of me, even when I gave them the best. They never trusted me, and as a consequence I never really trusted them. I'm sorry Grandpa's dead, but I can't say I shed many tears, except for what might have been. I am what they taught me to be.' She faced him proudly, showing him that although she had explained, she wasn't apologising.

  Ross shifted his uncomfortably intent gaze to the sea and the silence began to stretch. Fran felt her nerves stretch with it. She had probably sounded like a self-pitying idiot, throwing all those old resentments at him. She had never opened up like that with anyone before, not even in a temper, so why now, to him?

  'If I offered to withdraw any claim to the cabin, would you move out and let me stay out my lease?'

  Fran's eyes snapped to his face. It was totally without expression, as if he was carefully repressing his thoughts. He hadn't shaved this morning and the rough stubble along the hard jaw and untidy hair gave him a heightened air of masculinity. Fran was appalled at her sudden desire to trust him, to give in to his strength.

  'No,' she said flatly, daring him to try and talk her into it.

  'Surely we can reach some sort of compromise—'

  'No!' Fran had been compromising her needs and emotions all her life. She was tired of deferring to other people, of doing what they wanted her to do. She was putting her foot down, now. 'You started this, Ross Tarrant, but I'm going to finish it. If anyone compro­mises, it'll be you. I'm staying in my cabin!'

  'For God's sake, I don't want the damned thing... I never did!' he exploded at her.

  Fran went rigid with disbelief. 'You're lying... you

  just want me out of the way so that you can—'

  'Look, Francesca—' his voice was gritty with con-

  straint '—yes, your grandfather said I could have the

  place when he died, and yes, I'm interested in buying.

  But I had no intention of contesting any claim until you

  walked in with your lady-of-the-manor act. All I knew

  was that you let the old man down when he needed you, and now you were strolling in to rake up the goodies. I still don't like the idea of your selling to anyone but a local, but what the hell—' he shrugg
ed impatiently'—I'm not a local any more myself. So why don't you go back to wherever you came from and let Simpson expedite the estate for you, and just leave me in peace?'

  Instead of soothing her, his curt explanation infuri­ated Fran even more. In the midst of a strenuous battle with the enemy she found herself punching air. How dared he think he could upset her like he had and then shrug off his deliberate obstruction as a misunder­standing! And he was actually putting some of the blame on her!

  'You should have thought about the consequences before you started slinging threats around,' she took pleasure in telling him. 'But then you never worried overmuch about the future, did you, Ross? Only about the pleasures of the moment. Well...tough. For once you're going to have to live with the consequences: namely—me!'

  She felt good as she began to scramble back over the rocks. Ross Tarrant was a symbol of the negative aspects of her life, the things she could never have, could never be. Now for the first time she felt that she was dealing with the sense of inadequacy he raised, and which she tried to hide by professing to despise everything about him, on an adult level. She wanted to hold on to this heady feeling of triumph for as long as she could.

  Her confidence in having the upper hand was re­inforced by having him trail, muttering, after her. When they reached the smooth sand again she noticed from a brief flick of her head that he was still limping. The nurse in her rose up.

  'You'd better let me take a look at that leg of yours when we get back. You might have pulled a muscle or something.'

  His rude rejoinder didn't put her off.

  'Don't be silly, a person who's perfectly fit doesn't limp for no reason.'

  'I fell coming down the cliff,' he snarled sullenly at her, bringing her to a dead stop, her hands automati­cally settling on her waist.

  'The cliff? The short-cut was down that cliff?' Her eyes flickered closed as she visualised for an instant that apparently smooth clay face. 'You must be mad!'

  His glare was pronounced, his face stiff with what she recognised was offended male pride. He had always had too much of it. 'I haven't got one foot in the grave yet, Princess. I've been rock-climbing half my life...and jogging, and scuba-diving, and sky-diving. I'm not one of your city-soft coronary-candidates sliding into middle age. I can take care of my body myself, thank you.'

  'No wonder you don't work, you're too busy working out. Once a jock, always a jock, huh, Ross?' she mocked. 'And I suppose it isn't macho to admit that enough is enough. People who over-exercise have coronaries, too, you know.'

  This time it was Fran who trotted behind while Ross strode on, and she took the time to professionally study the swing of his leg. By the look of him it was his left hip as well as his ankle that was bothering him.

  'I don't "exercise",' he threw over his shoulder. 'I set myself physical challenges.'

  'You call plunging down a cliff a challenge? I would say it was stupidity.'

  'Yes, I suppose you would. You don't trust yourself any more than you trust other people, do you? You like things to be nice and safe. You wouldn't understand how much pleasure the element of risk adds to an activity. I don't suppose you ever took a risk on anything in your life.'

  Francesca began to laugh, and Ross stopped and stared at her. She was genuinely amused, grey eyes dancing with slivers of blue light, her thick caramel curls flowing over her shoulders as she tilted her face to the sky. A month ago his words might have been true, but at the moment her entire life was one big risk. Was it a pleasurable one? No, but she couldn't honestly say that she wasn't en­joying parts of it. Parts that didn't include Ross, of course, she told herself, biting off her laughter as she caught the lancing puzzlement of his gaze.

  'What's so funny?' he asked, with the slightly sulky tones of someone who hasn't understood a joke that everyone else finds hilarious.

  Fran had no intention of telling him. It gave her a much-needed sense of security, knowing that he couldn't read her half as well as he thought he could.

  'Are you going to "risk" showing me that leg?' She grinned smugly at him.

  A tiny flame flickered in the deep blue eyes. 'I'll let you play nurse if you let me play doctor,' he said slyly, his grin replacing hers.

  Smugness and compassion died a rapid death. Let him suffer then! She sniffed and stalked into the cabin. He would have to beg before she'd lift a finger to help him!

  They lunched separately, Fran reading a gardening manual at the table, Ross taking a repulsively large sandwich out on to the deck. He propped his leg up on a stool, she noticed, steaming lightly at the bull-headedness of some people. After she had eaten her dainty triangles she soothed herself by spending the afternoon emphasising her presence: arranging her plants around the cabin, finding the best position for each, and watering and chatting encouragingly to them.

  'If you're so hard up for company, Princess, why don't you come out here? I guess I can endure some conver­sation. I'm certainly not getting any peace with you burbling about in the background.' Ross lowered his book to watch her admonish a Boston fern for being reluctant to grow.

  'You can always leave,' she said loftily, brushing a curl away from the corner of her mouth and casting a brief look of scorn at the lurid cover of his paperback. 'I think the conversation I get in here is much more in­telligent than any I might get from you.'

  'Still the intellectual snob?' He was irritatingly un-crushed. 'Look, Frankie, living with someone who's a friend, or family, is hard enough. Living with an enemy would be hell on wheels. Pull in your horns, Sister Lewis, I'm through arguing with you for today.'

  He took his book and went out and lay in the tall, yellowing grass that waved on the little hillocks that pre­saged the hills behind the cabin, his head resting against the upturned, aluminium-hulled dinghy that Ian Lewis had hardly ever used, preferring to fish from the rocks.

  Time hung heavily on Fran's hands. She wasn't used to having any spare time, and the quietness was almost too intense. The sea, like rippling grass, barely whis­pered on the shore and the only other sounds were from the gulls and shags and terns that shared nesting places in the clifftop trees.

  She took her leisure getting ready for her dinner with Neville, lingering in the shower and making-up with slow precision. It was a long time since she had gone out with a man she didn't know... a long time since she had gone out with anyone other than Brian. The hand applying eye-shadow paused as she thought of the horrendous row they'd had before she had left for Whaler's Bay. They had said bitter things to each other, but in Fran's case it had been a bitterness tinged with relief. Brian had been part of the life that had been closing in on her, and an indivisible part, judging from the comments he had made about her resignation. He didn't approve, had even ac­cused her of going through an early mid-life crisis, and Fran had discovered that she really didn't care what he thought. Scarcely the basis of a good relationship!

  She finger-dried her hair, glad to see some of the high­lights returning after the lank lifelessness of the last few weeks, and fluffed out the perm to give her a carefully tousled look. The mouth that she had always thought was too narrow looked wider and fuller in the fined-down version of her normally rounded face, and the plum-coloured lipstick emphasised the difference.

  She was wearing the one 'good' dress she had packed for unexpected eventualities just like this: a blue wool crepe with a modestly plunging neckline and a skirt that warmly followed the contours of her hips and thighs. It was slightly loose on her, but Fran hadn't wanted to invest in a whole new wardrobe when she knew that she would soon be back to her old size. She looked at herself in the mirror screwed to the bedroom wall and was pleased. This would show Ross that she wasn't a starchy Sister, or a snobby Princess. She was a woman, too, and even though she wasn't beautiful, at least she didn't have to pay a man to go out with her!

  Ross had opened a can of tomato soup for his dinner and was drinking it out of a thick mug when she walked into the lounge. He set the mug on the table, thought­full
y dunking a slice of toast into the wide mouth and chewing on it unhurriedly as he looked her over.

  'All this for Neville?' he murmured at last, hiding the gleam in his eyes under lazy lids. 'Go easy on him, won't you, Princess? He's only a country boy like me; he might not know the right protocol to follow.'

  Against her will Fran felt herself flush with pleasure at the oblique compliment and tore her eyes away from his handsome face to stare at the hand which held the toast. The back was covered with dark hair which ran up under the folded cuff of his sweater. She guessed that his arms and legs, like his chest, would be thickly furred. She blinked as her eyes settled on his expensive-looking watch. A 'gift' from one of his 'clients'?

  'For goodness' sake, he's a grown man! He doesn't need you to run interference for him,' she said tartly.

  'Even grown men have trouble figuring out women sometimes. Why are you going out with him, anyway? I wouldn't have thought he was your type.'

  'And what is my type?' she was unable to resist asking.

  His eyebrows rose mockingly. 'Don't you know? Dear me, Frankie, it sounds as if your love-life to date has been sadly lacking.'

  'My love-life has been entirely satisfactory,' she fibbed.

  'Damned with faint praise, huh?' he grinned taunt­ingly. 'Seems us country boys might be able to teach your sophisticated city slickers a thing or two, after all.'

  'You can cut out the "down home" accent, Ross.' Her eyes sparkled with temper. 'You said you didn't live around here any more, and I scarcely think that there'd be much call for your kind of services in quiet rural backwaters!'