‘YOU know, if you can express yourself like this, I don’t understand why you’re getting such low marks in subjects that require essay-writing,’ said Anya, laying the handwritten page she had just read beside her on the dappled grass. She leaned back on her hands and studied the girl sprawled on her stomach in front of her. ‘Your grammar and punctuation are a bit sloppy but you seem to have bags of creativity.’
‘Too much, my teachers say. My ideas are too radical for them, though I don’t see why I shouldn’t liven up the facts when they get too boring,’ Petra replied cheerfully, in between bites at the apple which she had plucked off the tree above them and polished against her ubiquitous black top.
Scott had insisted that the tutoring take place under his own roof, but over the past three days Anya had discovered that the conventional use of table and chairs and structured lessons were not always conducive to Petra’s concentration. Sean had been conspicuous by his avoidance, but Samantha had gaggles of friends coming and going and Scott, too, was a powerfully distracting presence. Anya had found it more productive to find a peaceful spot amongst the orchard trees where the casual surroundings caused Petra to relax and open up rather than regard their discussions as a dismal chore.
Every now and then they would see Scott disappear off in his Jag, presumably for court appearances or meetings with clients, but for the most part he seemed to be working out of his study—or trying to.
‘It’s because of me,’ Petra had brashly confided on the second day. ‘Sam says she hardly used to see him before I came, because he was always at work, but he’s sorta trying to hang out around here for my sake. You know—be there for me. He bought this parenting book, for God’s sake—I saw it in his study: Bringing up a Teenager in the New Millennium or something equally dorky.’ The rolling of her eyes hadn’t quite concealed her sneaking satisfaction.
‘I don’t think I “thrive in a formal classroom setting”,’ said Petra now, rearing up to hurl her core accurately over the fence into the depths of a bank of low-growing shrubs.
Anya smiled wryly at the direct quotation from one of Petra’s report cards. She had said much the same thing to Liz Crawford when she had dropped by the school office to pick up a copy of Petra’s timetable and some texts and syllabus information.
‘She obviously has intelligence, she just doesn’t choose to focus it. Music is the only subject where she appears to score consistently high marks.’
Liz shook her dark curls as she handed over the requested photocopies. ‘You’re a glutton for punishment. First that camp and now this. I thought you were going to be selfish with the rest of your holiday…work on that essay of yours.’
‘I can do that in the mornings—I don’t go over to The Pines until after lunch. Anyway, I am being selfish. I’m doing this to allay people’s fears that I’m persona non grata with the board’s legal eagle and a bad influence on their kids. It’s starting to work, too. You’d be amazed at the number of parents I’ve run into, or acquaintances who ring me up, and happen to mention that they’ve heard I’m teaching Scott’s daughter—’
‘Hah! That’s only because they’re trying to pump you for information,’ was the cynical reply. ‘Scott Tyler turning out to have a fourteen-year-old daughter nobody’s ever heard of is big news around here. I hope she handles attention well, because she’s going to get quite a bit of it on her first few days of school…’
‘Oh, I think she’ll handle it,’ Anya had murmured and, looking at Petra now, she wondered whether ‘craves it’ might have been a more accurate description. The girl was certainly no shrinking violet.
She waved away a lazy fruit fly that was trying to land on her bare knee. The Indian summer was still rolling on and she had worn a sleeveless sundress to cope with the heat. ‘Maybe if you tried looking on essay-writing in the same way that you look on music—as containing a set of classical conventions that need to be followed in order for you to fully express your ideas in the medium, in a way that your audience can understand and appreciate—’
‘OK, OK, I get it,’ said Petra, selecting and buffing up another late-season windfall. ‘You think I’m paying too much attention to one subject. So does Mum. She knows what I want to be, but she keeps saying I can’t put all my eggs in one basket, that I’ll need qualifications to fall back on if I can’t make it as a musician.’ She shrugged her thin shoulders, tipping the apple from hand to hand—drawing attention to the wide span of her palms and long, flexible fingers. ‘She and Dad—my other Dad—think that if I cut down on my piano lessons I could put more energy into my other work, but it doesn’t work like that.’
She tossed the apple into Anya’s lap, amidst the pattern of dark red flowers which decorated her simple shift.
Bingo! thought Anya. Was this part of what had brought her winging across the Tasman Sea? ‘It is a very tough profession,’ she cautioned. ‘You need a lot of luck as well as loads of talent and a ton of ruthless ambition.’
‘I have talent. I’m ambitious.’
‘No kidding?’ Anya held up the shiny but misshapen and skin-blemished fruit. ‘You’re not trying to bribe the teacher into taking sides, are you?’
Petra grinned. ‘Would it work?’
Anya crunched into the sweet overripe flesh. ‘Not a chance.’
Petra’s eyes suddenly brightened and she sat up, then tried to look nonchalant as she waved a casual hand. ‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Mind if I join you, or am I interrupting the lesson at a critical juncture?’ Since Scott was already plunking himself down between them on the grass he considered the question already answered.
‘Nope. Miss Adams was just complimenting me on my terrific essay,’ said Petra, confident that Anya’s mouthful of apple would give her a few moments’ grace before the inevitable qualification.
Anya cupped her hand over the spurt of juice which chose just that moment to run down her chin. Unfortunately she had left her handbag in the house and she surreptitiously felt for a spare piece of paper to serve as a napkin.
‘Here, allow me.’ Scott produced a handkerchief, but instead of passing it to her to use he tilted up her chin with his knuckles, nudged her hand aside and mopped up the glistening moisture himself, paying particular attention to the primly tucked corners of her sticky pink mouth, his eyes sparkling with amusement at her chagrin.
Some of the juice ended up on his fingers and he licked at them unselfconsciously with a limber tongue.
‘Mmm, sweet yet tart…just the way I like it,’ he approved, his lazy-eyed look making Anya think of everything but apples. She mistrusted him in this kind of whimsical mood. She had earlier seen him in a grey suit, dictating to someone over the speaker phone in his study, but now he was in jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt—purpose-dressed for lounging out in the open. He hadn’t just wandered out here for a passing hello.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered grudgingly, as she swallowed the rest of her mouthful. She looked down at the apple in her hand, suddenly having lost her appetite.
‘Fair exchange.’ Scott laid his handkerchief over her sticky hand and took the apple, taking a slow bite from where she had left off. He stretched out on his side, propping his chin on his hand, and Anya hurriedly curled her bare legs the opposite way, tucking the hem of her dress securely around her knees. ‘So, what have you two been talking about?’ he asked, watching her smooth the dark green fabric down over her slender thighs.
Predictably, Petra chose not to talk about schoolwork. ‘Miss Adams has been telling me how she used to come here when she was little and this was her uncle’s farm. She got to feed pigs and see them get born, and milk cows with her hands and stuff like that.’
Scott didn’t demand to know what that had to do with the fourth-form syllabus. He grinned at Anya from behind his apple.
‘I see the sophisticated young Sydney-sider isn’t sure whether to be impressed or grossed-out.’ He squinted at her as he took another bite and she knew he was going to say something provocative. ‘So…you were a pink-cheeked milkmaid before you became a teacher…’
His smile mocked her with the clichéd traditional image of a plump, glowing-skinned young woman of earthy good humour and easy virtue.
‘I was only a child at the time, but actually I wouldn’t have minded being a farmer,’ she reproved him, sprinkling her tacky fingers with water from the bottle which she had lain in the shade of the tree-trunk, and wiping them dry with his handkerchief.
‘Or a farmer’s wife? Is that why you moved out here to the country, to improve your prospects with the local yeomanry?’
‘I don’t happen to see marriage as a valid method of achieving my career goals. I have more respect for the spirit of the institution than that,’ she told him, tilting her nose and for once having the luxury of being able to look down on him.
‘Huh?’ Petra’s gold-tipped fringe tickled her wrinkled brow.
‘Miss Adams holds to the romantic view—she wants to marry for love, not money,’ her father extrapolated. ‘Though I suspect, like most people, she might find mutual respect and liking a more durable prospect.’
‘That’s a very cynical view—’
‘As you’ve pointed out before, I’m a product of my experience—as you’re obviously a product of yours. I take it your parents still have a strong marriage…?’
‘As far as I’m aware, yes,’ she said firmly, wondering if he was going to pick on her privileged background again as he had at her interview. ‘They spend a lot of time apart because of the demands of their careers, but it doesn’t seem to have weakened their relationship.’
‘All that travelling and performing can’t have left much time for bringing up a child.’
‘Miss Adams had a nanny and tutors and music teachers from when she was a baby ’til she went to boarding school,’ supplied Petra eagerly.
‘Accelerated learning?’ murmured Scott, and Anya gave an involuntary laugh.
‘Not in my case. My parents realised pretty quickly that I was never going to set the world on fire with my genius.’
‘Did you want to?’
She shook her head. ‘No. No…funnily enough I never did. I was shy, and often sick when we were travelling. All the fuss and emotional drama that my parents created wherever they went made me happy to be left in the background. I was glad not to be trotted out to show off my budding accomplishments. The only thing I was any good at was reading, but, as I was telling Petra, if you love books then the world is your oyster.’
‘I used to read with a torch under the blankets,’ said Scott, and Anya slipped him a surprised smile of fellow-feeling.
‘My nannies always used to search my bed before they turned the lights out.’
‘You had more than one?’
‘Only one at a time. But, as I said, we moved about a lot, and my mother was always very…particular about personal staff. They had to have the right vibes. She always seemed to be in the throes of hiring or firing someone.’
‘But you didn’t bring a nanny whenever you came here?’ said Petra, waving at the house.
‘No, my aunt and uncle looked after me.’
‘And Cousin Kate…’ murmured Scott in a neutral voice that made her give him a wary look.
‘Cousin Kate soon worked out that I thought it was great fun to do the farm chores that she hated,’ she said lightly.
‘Don’t tell me…she had you whitewashing the picket fence.’ Scott surprised her with a rich chuckle, adding to his mystified daughter, ‘If you want to know what we’re talking about, I suggest you try reading some Mark Twain.’ He finished off the apple and tossed the core in the same direction that Petra had chosen, but to a considerably greater distance.
Anya watched with a poignant sense of wistful yearning as he and his daughter talked, fascinated by the mixture of boldness and tentativeness on both sides, the hunger and hesitation that tangled their lines of communication.
A little while later, encouraged by Scott’s relaxed responses into further reminiscences about life on the farm and how, a few years after her aunt and uncle’s death, she had been happy to come back to boarding school in Auckland while Kate had remained with her parents in New York to continue her intensive music studies, Anya suddenly realised that she had just been the victim of a very subtle form of cross-examination.
‘I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have let me run on like that,’ she said, reaching for a taste from the drink bottle, her dry throat telling her she had been doing far too much talking and too little listening.
‘So you and your cousin were sort of born to the wrong set of parents, and then you swapped lives, except that you never got to live at Riverview again until now,’ Petra worked out.
‘You obviously had a far greater sentimental attachment to the farm than Kate,’ said Scott quietly. ‘It must have been quite a wrench when she sold it, but at least you knew she still owned The Pines up until five years ago.’ He sat up to face her with a smooth tightening of his internal muscles, draping one long arm over a bent knee, his other leg still outstretched. ‘Did you ever consider the possibility of buying the house yourself when she told you she was putting it on the market?’ He watched her grey eyes skate away from his and performed one of the intuitive leaps that made him such a formidable lawyer. ‘Or didn’t she tell you until after the deed was done?’
Anya shrugged, her finger tracing one of the dark red flowers at the hem of her dress where it was drawn taut across her knees. ‘It wasn’t as if I could have afforded to pay what she was asking, she knew that—’
‘But she was family.’ Petra hit the nail on the head. ‘Wouldn’t she have sold it to you on the cheap or something, if you’d told her you wanted it?’
‘It would have saved her several thousand in real estate fees for a start,’ commented Scott. ‘Did you ever ask her to give you first refusal, or hold the mortgage for you, Anya?’
‘It was her inheritance from her parents. I couldn’t expect her to forfeit that. At the time she sold she was facing a hefty bill for back taxes; she needed the money up front—’
‘You offered what you could, but it wasn’t enough,’ he guessed shrewdly. ‘Wouldn’t your parents help you out? They must be loaded.’
‘The lifestyle they lead is also extremely expensive to maintain. I’ve been self-supporting since I left school and I like it that way. Of course they’ve paid for trips for me to visit them, and are generous with gifts, but my parents and I inhabit completely separate lives. Anyway, regardless of how much money they have, it’s appallingly bad manners to treat one’s parents as if they’re a bank—’ She missed the flash of discomfort on Petra’s face, preoccupied as she was with Scott’s infuriating expression of knowing sympathy.
‘So you asked, but the folks turned you down.’
‘Will you stop trying to turn me into Little Orphan Annie?’ she said in exasperation, stiffening at the slight hint of sympathy. ‘They would have given me the money towards an apartment in the city, but I didn’t want that. I’m perfectly happy in the house that I’ve got! The Pines would have been way too big for me, and I never could have afforded the renovations it obviously needed on top of everything else—’
‘So you don’t resent me for owning it?’
‘That would be as pointless as you resenting me for being related to the person who sold it to you.’
‘Touché.’ He saluted her with a finger to the centre of his broad temple.
‘When you used to stay here, which was your room?’ asked Petra, looking up at the wall from which the creeper had already been pruned ruthlessly back to first-floor level.
‘The upstairs has changed around since I was here—there were never any en suite bathrooms for a start—but Kate and I used to share a corner room where that gable looks out over the back, one with a trapdoor to the attic.’
‘Sam’s room,’ said Scott, saving her from the frisson it would have caused her to know that it was now his.
‘This house has an attic?’ Petra said. ‘Cool! What’s up there?’
Anya could feel the blood throb guiltily in her veins. She had tried to push Kate’s problem to the back of her mind, but every now and then it loomed oppressively large in her thoughts. Scott had provided her with both alibi and opportunity when he had invited her to tutor Petra, but the moment Anya moved to act on her cousin’s request she would be crossing an invisible line, violating a code of ethics that was integral to her self-respect.
‘A lot of dirt, cobwebs and boring old furniture, I expect,’ Scott replied. ‘That’s all that seemed to be up there when I did my first tour of inspection and I never bothered to have it cleaned out. I suppose the builders added a bit of extra debris of their own.’
A series of high-pitched squeals and boisterous splashing rose from the other side of the house and Petra heaved a huge, martyred sigh.
‘It sounds as if Sam and her friends are having a good time in the pool. Why don’t you go around and join them?’ suggested Scott.
She had leaped to her feet even before he’d finished his sentence, but then she hovered briefly, looking at Anya.
‘But what about Miss Adams?’
He smiled and a small shiver went up Anya’s spine. ‘I’ll look after Miss Adams.’
Petra’s pang of conscience evaporated on the instant. ‘OK. Thanks, Dad. See ya!’
‘See you tomorrow, Petra. And don’t forget to read that biology chapter!’ Anya called after her.
‘I won’t!’
‘Will she?’ asked Scott settling back. ‘Perhaps accidentally on purpose?’
Anya shook her head. ‘She’s been pretty good. Once she sets her mind to something she does it. She’s very quick on the uptake.’
Scott’s mouth adopted a wry twist. ‘I’ve noticed.’ He watched his daughter round the corner of the house. ‘She’s incredibly sophisticated in some ways and terrifyingly naive in others. I just don’t get why she needs all that defensive bravado—the black clothes, the hair, the ears, the nose, for God’s sake. I suppose I should be grateful that she isn’t sporting a tongue-stud and tattoo!’
He turned his head and glimpsed the tail end of Anya’s secret smile. ‘What?’
She shook her head, starting to gather up the books that were scattered on the grass. ‘Nothing.’
Her blatant nonchalance made his eyes narrow. ‘Yes, it is. You’re wearing that damned Mona Lisa look. You know something that I don’t. What is it?’
‘Mona Lisa?’ Anya murmured, her grey eyes wide.
His hand closed around her arm as she reached for a folder, his expression dangerously playful. She had learned to beware that devilish look. ‘That enigmatic smile that tiptoes around your mouth when you think you have me at a disadvantage. What aren’t you telling me that I ought to know?’
‘I really couldn’t say—’ she began demurely, and then squeaked as he tumbled her backwards onto the grass, pinning her wrists on either side of her head.
‘Are you ticklish, Miss Adams?’
A horrified giggle of nervous anticipation bubbled up in her throat as she looked up into his teasing face. ‘No!’
He had lowered his hard body to press against her side, and registered her ripple of tension at his question.
‘I think you’re lying,’ he murmured, his eyes insufferably smug. He slowly drew her wrists above her head, gathering them into one of his large hands. The other he allowed to trickle lightly down her ribs. ‘Shall we test my theory?’
Anya bit back another betraying giggle. ‘This is highly inappropriate behaviour,’ she said sternly, as he stilled her squirming by sliding a heavy calf across her ankles.
‘Inappropriate to what?’ The smell of crushed grass mingled with the spicy scent of warm male skin, overlaid with a tang of sweet apple as his face hovered sinfully close.
‘T-to our relationship,’ she quavered as his fingertips stirred against her ribs, and watched as a sultry spark began to smoulder in his blue eyes. Now it was his body that was invaded with tension, chasing out some of the playfulness.
‘And what exactly is our relationship?’ His words whispered across her lips. ‘Partners in a hostile deal? Coconspirators? Combatants? Friends?’
‘I—we—’ The stirring of his hips against her slender thigh brought her faltering to a stop, her smoky grey eyes filling with a fatal curiosity that was irresistibly alluring to the predatory male who held her captive.
‘Perhaps it’s time we found out…’
His hand contracted with deliberate intent, surprising a gasp of laughter from her that parted her lips for his sensuous pleasure and he immediately settled in to stake his claim, his hand stroking back up her body to cup the side of her face, guiding her deeper into the kiss, his chest crushing her breasts as he moved over her, slanting his head to seek greater access to her silken surrender.
Anya’s fingers curled helplessly into her leashed palms as her curiosity was stunningly satisfied, and then swiftly transmuted into a fierce craving that arched her trembling body against his dominating weight. She murmured under his mouth and he recognised the heated encouragement of a woman desirous of greater pleasures, his nostrils flaring at the piquant scent of her startled arousal, his tongue dipping further into the moist interior, delicately teasing the slick satin walls of her most sensitive inner surfaces, his hand relaxing on her captive wrists, sliding sensuously down her slender bare arms to fold them one by one around his powerful shoulders.
The sun shone through the leafy branches overhead, creating a dancing dazzle against her closed eyelids as Anya sank beneath rippling waves of ever-widening pleasure, utterly open to his demanding passion, her breasts aching as they rubbed against his chest. Her short, sensible nails dug desperately into the back of his polo shirt and he seemed to know instantly what she needed, his big hand seeking out the slight weight of her breast, cupping it through the thin fabric of her dress, his long thumb circling the hardened nipple, teasing at it until her breath sobbed in his mouth and he rewarded her eagerness with a gentle twist of thumb and forefinger that sent a gush of hot pleasure pooling between her thighs.
In spite of her enthralment she felt a tiny nudge of shock at the intensity of her feelings. For the first time in her life she appreciated the validity of the excuse ‘swept away by passion’. Her eyes flew open to glimpse his, brilliant with reckless male triumph and a slightly dazed wildness that made her heart melt.
‘Scott—’
His hard mouth curved against her lips. ‘Hush…I know…it feels good, doesn’t it…?’ She could taste his rising hunger, hear the husky rasp of his breath, feel the urgent thrust of his desire as he nipped and suckled at her lower lip, his hands moving down to shape her slim hips to his need, his fingers curving into her soft bottom.
It felt more than good. Anya pushed at his shoulders. ‘Stop…We can’t do this,’ she panted.
For a moment she feared that he wasn’t going to pay any attention to her protest, but then he rolled off her with a groan, lying flat on his back in the grass, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in a shallow, uneven rhythm.
Anya sat up, shakily rearranging her twisted dress and tidying her hair.
‘Why don’t you take it down?’ Scott had opened his eyes and was watching her with unblinking curiosity. ‘What’s the point of having long hair if you never wear it loose?’
‘It’s cooler like this,’ she said.
‘You mean more schoolmarmy. If you think you’re turning me off you’re mistaken. Or maybe you’re trying to remind me of my historical weakness for schoolteachers?’
His sly reference to Petra’s mother made her flush and his chuckle was low and taunting.
‘You don’t look in the least cool any more. You look deliciously hot and bothered.’
‘You shouldn’t have grabbed me like that—’
‘Why?’ He pushed himself up on his hands. ‘We both enjoyed it, didn’t we? Where’s the harm in a couple of adults having a little harmless frolic in the sun?’
Harmless? Anya felt faint.
‘You have impressionable teenagers around,’ she told him severely. ‘What would their parents say if some of them went home and told them that they’d seen you…that you….’
‘Were rolling in the grass with some brazen hussy?’
‘We’re trying to rehabilitate my reputation, not give people even more to gossip about,’ she reminded him.
He tilted his head. ‘Then you shouldn’t have kissed me back with such enthusiasm.’
She was stumped for a crushing answer. ‘I—you took me by surprise.’
He shouted with laughter. ‘I see, so when you’re prepared to be kissed, you don’t kiss back. That must make your dates with Mark Ransom pretty disappointing for the poor guy.’
How he would crow if he knew they had only got as far as a swift peck on the cheek! ‘What makes you think that he doesn’t surprise me?’
He ticked her a lopsided grin. ‘He’s the boy scout type—he’d make sure you knew what was coming. I bet, to Ransom, every woman’s a lady…’
‘Whereas to you…?’
‘Every lady is a tramp,’ he said with typical provocative-ness.
‘And you have the nerve to wonder that your daughter sets out to shock!’ she scoffed, beginning to gather up the books again. ‘I hope you weren’t including your mother in that crude remark.’
Her pointed barb missed its mark. ‘My mother would have laughed if I’d called her a lady,’ he told her. ‘She was a barmaid—frank and full of beans, always seeing the bright side of life and the best of people. We lived in a pretty tough part of west Auckland and she worked long hours at the pub, but she always managed to find something to laugh about. She brought us up rough but right.’
So that was where his strong sense of justice came from, and his preference for defending the underdog, for taking on cases that other lawyers considered to be lost causes.
‘Speaking of rough, are you going to tell me what you were smiling about, or do we get to have another torrid tussle on the grass?’ he said, scattering her empathetic thoughts.
Anya sighed, hugging the books defensively to her breast. ‘It’s fake.’
He looked bewildered. ‘What is?’
‘Petra’s nosering. It’s a clip-on.’
‘What? Are you sure?’
She took advantage of his stunned reaction to rise to her feet, flexing her cramped legs. ‘Trust me. I worked at a school where unauthorised body piercings were an expelling offence, whereas jewellery-wearing only merited confiscation. I had a drawerful of the things.’
‘The little devil!’ He stood up beside her, eyes gleaming with wry admiration. ‘She knew I was biting my tongue not to criticise it—or her mother for letting her have it done.’
‘She’s testing you.’
He bent to pick up her water bottle and fell into step beside her as she walked towards the house, intending to collect her handbag which was being looked after by the taciturn Mrs Lee.
‘I suppose I lose points for things like sending her to her room when she’s rude to Sean and making her take extra lessons.’
‘Actually, I think it makes her feel safe with you. She’s obviously used to discipline at home, because she has very good manners when she cares to display them, so when you demand a certain standard from her you’re indicating that you care about her future. She’s also secretly impressed that you’re making the effort to work from home so you can be with her.’ She slipped a sideways glance up at him and was startled and amused to see him blushing to the tips of his ears.
‘Yes, well…I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up,’ he gruffed in an attempt to hide his pleasure. ‘I can’t continue pushing cases off onto my partners, but I don’t want her to think that now the novelty of her arrival’s worn off I’m abandoning her.’
‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that. She’ll be starting school in a few days, and if she’s bussing with Sean and Samantha she won’t be home herself until half-past four.’
‘And then she’ll have a couple of hours under your supervision…’ he murmured, busily constructing himself a mental timetable. He saw her step falter and gave her a frowning look. ‘You agreed to the bargain. Even if everything works out for you as smoothly as I planned, I still expect you to continue with the tutoring. You’ve seen for yourself how much Petra benefits from individual guidance and you’ve already established a close rapport. She needs you.’
Petra wasn’t the only one. Over the next several days Scott continued to invite himself to join them, and although Anya took care not to be left alone with him again, she soon realised that she was being utilised by both father and daughter as a kind of emotional buffer, a neutral third party through whom they could filter their curiosity about each other without directly confronting their feelings.
On Saturday evening Mark rang Anya just as she was putting the finishing touches to her essay on the cultural impact of taste and consumerism, to tell her that the head of the Information Technology department had tracked down the hacker who had posted the party invitation on the bulletin board. It had turned out to be a student who was already on probation for serious misuse of the school’s computer system. A suspension had been handed down and the trouble-making parent’s threatening rumbles had been considerably dampened by her son’s identification as the purchaser of several bottles of hard liquor for his under-age friends.
Once back at college Anya found that she had to fend off intrusive remarks and irritating jokes from staff and suffer back-chat from more than the usual number of smart-mouthed kids, but by clinging to her usual good-humoured tolerance she rode out the initial flurry of interest and thereafter the fresh scandal of the hockey coach who was having a not-so-discreet affair with the wife of the caretaker took precedence in the collective imagination.
She and Petra adjusted their schedules and for two hours in the early evening, while Sean sweated on his uncle’s fitness machine in the pool-room to compensate for his lost rugby training and Samantha breezed through her own homework between phone calls, Anya went over any problems with that day’s lessons and helped Petra with her homework. The only thing that stumped Anya was the maths, but fortunately Samantha had an aptitude for the subject and proved willing to revisit some of her previous years’ work with her younger cousin. Just before the two hours were up there would be the throaty purr of the Jag in the driveway and Anya would shortly find herself sitting in the living room sipping dry sherry or a frosty lime-and-tonic while Scott nursed a vodka and Petra plied him for the lurid details of his latest case in between swigs of Coke.
Late Friday afternoon, as she was leaving school, Anya received an unexpected dinner invitation from Mark. Caught off guard, she instinctively demurred but he was flatteringly persistent and, remembering that Petra had said that her father was going out for the evening, Anya suddenly decided to set aside her recent disenchantment with Mark and defiantly enjoy their delayed date.
Deciding to get the day’s tutoring over early, so she had plenty of time to get ready, she called in at The Pines on the way home from school instead of popping home first, as she usually did.
Sean answered the door, no longer flinching at the sight of her, and saw her glance at the line of suitcases against the wall. She had forgotten that he and Samantha were due to return home today.
‘Mum and Dad flew back from LA last night,’ he confirmed. ‘Mum’s on her way over now, to pick us up.’ He wasn’t looking overly enthusiastic, probably anticipating his parents’ reaction to the reason for his not yet being back at rugby training.
She murmured an appropriate response and he jerked his head in the direction of the closed door along the hall in response to her enquiry about Petra.
‘She’s in there…banging away at the piano or listening to CDs, I guess. She spends ages shut in there by herself. Screams blue murder if you try to sneak in and listen to her playing,’ he groused.
Perhaps Anya’s knock was a little soft accidentally on purpose. The sound-proofing of the room was so good she could hear the music only by putting her head close to the panelled wood but when she quietly opened the door the sound of a Bach ‘Partita’ spilled into her ears in all its exquisite clarity. She stilled when she realised that the superb technical skill and luminous delicacy of emotion wasn’t flowing from any stereo speakers but from the young girl seated at the piano, her face intent on her flying fingers.
Anya stood by the partly open door, not moving until the vibrant humour of the final gigue faded into silence. She didn’t applaud; she was too full of admiration and anger. ‘You’re good.’
Petra quietly put down the lid of the piano. ‘I know.’
Anya moved to sit beside her on the edge of piano stool. ‘No, I’m mean you’re good.’ Her voice carried a gravity that extended beyond mere words. ‘I may not be able to carry a tune myself but I’ve lived amongst musicians; I’ve listened to greatness and I know pure, raw genius when I hear it.’ She took the girl’s restless hands in hers and looked down sternly into the piquant face. ‘Both of us know what it takes to play the way that you do. The dedication it takes, especially in one so young. So what are you doing here, Petra? And I don’t mean that stuff you gave your dad about wanting to know the other half of your heritage. What is it that you really want from him?’
Petra’s grip tightened to the point of pain, her blue eyes dangerously overbright. ‘Mum and Dad can’t afford for me to go overseas to study. They just haven’t got the money—not with Brian and David to provide for, too. Even if I win a scholarship, I’d still need extra money. I could work and save up, but I can’t wait that long. I need to go soon, Miss Adams. I don’t just want to be good, I want to be great. But I’m already fourteen; if I’m going to reach my full potential my teachers say I need to start intensive full-time study now.’
Petra’s face was pale but determined. ‘When I found out about my dad—my real dad—I thought he could help me. You know, if he got to know me first, and like me and everything…’
‘And then you’d spring a guilt trip on him that he owes you the money because he didn’t stick around when you were born,’ said Anya, aware that the child had been hoist by her own petard. She might have come looking for a financial backer for her talent, but she had found so much more. And now she was feeling thoroughly torn by her conflicting feelings.
Petra’s short nails dug into the backs of Anya’s hands. ‘I know he was just a kid back then, but he’s not any more. In spite of what Mum said, he wants to be my dad. He can afford to help me, and I know he would want me to be the best that ever I can be. I know he would!’
‘Yes, he would,’ sighed Anya. ‘But, please, for his sake, try and put it to him diplomatically.’
‘As soon as I found out that Kate Carlyle was your cousin I knew you’d understand!’ Petra burst out, bouncing to her feet. ‘You think he should give me the money, too, don’t you?’
‘For God’s sake, don’t tell your father that!’
‘Don’t tell me what?’
Scott, tall and intimidating in a dark pinstriped suit, had slipped in the door. The man had the most incredibly awful timing. He was always turning up when and where Anya least expected him.
Petra grinned, unable to hide her hyped-up state, and Anya knew she was going to blow the whole thing wide open.
‘That I came over here to ask you to cough up for me to study at the best music school that I can get to accept me as a student!’
Scott’s head whipped around to Anya, still sitting on the piano stool. ‘Is this your idea?’
Petra shook her head emphatically, intercepting his steely look. ‘Nah, she only listened to me play and realised how good I am.’ It was said completely without boastfulness or irony. ‘She didn’t want me to hurt your feelings—like, make you feel all twisted up that the only reason I wanted to meet you is so that I could screw money out of you.’
‘And was it?’
‘Well, yeah,’ she admitted, lifting her pointed chin. ‘But that was before I met you…’
‘God knows why, but I find myself understanding that incredible piece of contorted reasoning,’ he murmured. ‘Ambitious, aren’t you?’
Even though he wasn’t showing the glimmer of a smile, Petra heard the rueful pride in his voice and her cocky smile returned. ‘It’s in the genes.’
‘Like being cunning and conniving.’ He grinned back, and something inside Anya relaxed with a slithery sigh.
He was tough, both inside and out, and, most fortunate of all for Petra, he was a realist and a consummate game-player himself. Conniving and lying he could understand—even respect—if it had an honourable purpose; it was hypocrisy which he despised. And Petra had never pretended to be anything other than what she was—his bold, wilful and outrageously different daughter.
‘I only learned to play the piano as an adult, so it’s impossible to compare any genetic similarity there. Exactly how much of a prodigy are you?’ he quizzed. ‘Whenever I suggested you play for me you acted like you weren’t in the mood or were too shy…’ And he would have been too wary of alienating her to insist, thought Anya, and secretly hurt that his daughter didn’t appear to want to share with him the one area in which she was an achiever at school.
‘Because that would have given the game away,’ Anya told him. ‘You would have instantly realised that she was holding out on you. Her sort of talent would turn “Chopsticks” into a bravura performance.’
Petra immediately sat down and flipped up the keyboard, producing a sizzling set of variations on the simple, plunking rhythm that made them all laugh. She then segued into some Mozart, and her whole attitude changed, her head drooping, her face becoming tense and absorbed as she concentrated on the moving intensity of the difficult passage.
When she at last folded her hands in her lap, Scott turned to Anya with a dazed look that reflected her own feelings when she had first heard Petra play.
‘What do you think?’ he asked thickly.
He already knew. The room was lined with rows of bookcases filled with books, but also an eclectic collection of records, tapes and CDs from country and western to a large block of classical recordings. So either Kate had lied about Scott saying he didn’t like classical music…or he had lied to Kate.
‘I think you should be proud of her. You have an extremely gifted child.’ His blue eyes were glittering as he struggled against an upsurge of emotion, moved not only by the music but by an overflowing sense of paternal pride. ‘And I think you and your daughter should talk about what she intends to do with her gift. Alone.’
He and his daughter looked at each other and Anya held her breath. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly Scott and his daughter were hugging each other, and he was pressing a kiss on the top of her ruffled head, his eyes squeezed closed as his arms contracted around her skinny frame, burying her snuffling nose in his jacket. Anya swallowed a lump in her throat as she backed out of the door. This was no time for anything as mundane as schoolwork. It was the first time she had seen the pair of them spontaneously touch each other and knew that another important barrier had been breached—in the politically correct world it had become practically taboo for an older man to show physical affection towards an unrelated female child, and that was how they had both been acting. But now Scott and Petra were truly father and daughter, bonded in trust as well as in blood.
She was wiping the moisture away from the corner of her eyes as she reached the front door and almost cannoned into a big, chestnut-haired woman coming up the front steps.
She knew Joanna Monroe by sight from her volunteer work in the school’s tuck shop, but had got the impression she was a little stand-offish for all her air of bustling congeniality so she was taken aback when the woman lifted the sunglasses from her nose to reveal pale blue eyes and beamed her a wide, friendly smile.
‘Hello, Miss Adams. Or I suppose I should call you Anya now. Scott told me when I rang last week that you were helping him sort out his daughter’s problems. I must say, I was as mad as a wet hen when Gary insisted I go and play corporate wife on his conference trip just when Scott needed me! Of course, I knew he had a daughter, but none of us ever expected her to drop in unannounced like this, least of all Scott! I hope he’s not too shell-shocked, poor lamb, what with my two to look after as well. Not that they’re likely to give him much problem, and he does have Mrs Lee here six days a week—’ She had said it all with barely a pause for breath and as she hesitated to draw her second wind she noticed Anya’s repressed smile.
‘What? What did I say? Am I running on like an idiot?—sorry—I tend to do that. I’m sorry I never said hello to you before but I didn’t realise you and Scott were on such friendly terms.’ She gave Anya a disconcerting wink. ‘He did try and act close-mouthed on me but I can always winkle these things out of him, even though he got rather tangled up in his own tongue when he talked about you. He said you were infuriating but you made him laugh and I thought Oh, good, at last because it’s ages since he’s had any real fun in his life. In his job everything is so depressing and serious, and Scott has such a highly developed sense of humour—well, you’d know that, wouldn’t you? It’s just a pity you’re related to that wretched woman—sorry, she’s your cousin and I know I shouldn’t say that—’
‘You mean Kate Carlyle?’ interrupted Anya, in fear that Joanna Monroe was never going to run down.
‘Yes, and I know I shouldn’t say any more because Scott will kill me but—well, one minute she’s cuddling up to him all lovey-dovey, and rabbiting on about giving up her career for him and the next—bang! She’s gone without a single word. Not even a Dear John letter to tell him why she went, just a note from her agent about a concert booking. She dumped poor Scott two weeks later by e-mail—e-mail, can you believe it!’
Anya could, and she couldn’t.
There was a pain in her chest so intense she could hardly breathe. Scott and Kate had had an affair?
‘Are you saying that Scott was in love with Kate?’
‘Well, I don’t know about in love. Scott always plays his cards pretty close to his chest. But he must have been fairly deeply involved to be so devastated by her leaving. He virtually stopped dating for a whole year afterwards, and since then he’s never even come close to finding a suitable woman to marry. Sometimes I think he never will…’