Diamonds are for Marriage: The Australian's Society Bride. Margaret Way
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“Come back to the study. What’s it about? Leo has already had a big promotion. One step at a time now, Leo.” He wagged a finger at her. “You’re only twenty-three, aren’t you?”
“Twenty-four, Rupert,” Leona said, marvelling that her voice sounded so composed.
“You’re not going to tell me you’re thinking of getting engaged?” He swung round to beam at her. “Young Peter, is it?” he asked conspiratorially.
“Young Boyd,” Boyd corrected very dryly, making the position manifestly clear.
Rupert stopped dead, just outside the open study door. “Is this some sort of joke?” His black brows rose and before Leona’s very eyes he turned into Geraldine’s tyrannosaurus.
“Why don’t we go inside?” Boyd suggested, clearly unimpressed by his father’s shape shifting. But the strain was showing on Leona. She was trembling. Rupert broke people. He was ruthless when crossed. Everyone in and outside the business world knew that. What about her father’s job? Rupert could sack her father on some pretext. Being a billionaire with vast holdings both at home and abroad would give any human being way too much power.
In brooding silence Rupert took a seat behind his massive partner’s desk. He kept his handsome head down. He didn’t look up. His blood pressure must have shot up because his face was very flushed.
Boyd saw Leona seated in a leather armchair, then he took the one beside her. “I can’t believe it’s such a shock to you, Dad. You don’t miss much. I know you and the Comptons have foolishly set your hearts on an alliance between our families, the thinking being that one family fortune is great, two is even better. Just like the Middle Ages. Chloe is a nice girl. I’m fond of her. She’ll make someone an excellent wife, but that someone surely isn’t me.”
That statement appeared to anger Rupert beyond words. He stuck out his bottom lip with the utmost belligerence. “What are you telling me?” He stared balefully at his son.
“It would be better for all if you could learn to accept that I make my own decisions, Dad,” Boyd said quietly. “Leona is the woman for me.”
Rupert stared back almost wildly. “She’s not a woman. She’s a girl. She’s your cousin. She’s family. I tell you, I simply won’t have it.”
“Rupert, please!” Leona’s voice begged for calm.
“You stay out of this, Leo,” Rupert thundered, shooting an intimidating glance at her.
“I was only going to say you shouldn’t allow yourself to get so angry,” Leona spoke up bravely. “You’ve gone very red in the face.”
“It’s a wonder I’m not purple!” Rupert bellowed. “I thought you were different, but you’re like every other god-dammed female.”
“That’s enough, Dad,” Boyd said, rising to his feet. “I consider myself honoured that Leona has consented to marry me. And, I have to tell you, she needed persuading.”
Rupert swore violently.
“Okay, that’s it! We’re done here!” Boyd put out a hand to Leona. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going.”
She took Boyd’s hand. “What have you got against me, Rupert?” she asked as Boyd started to draw her away. “Is there something I should know about? You may be disappointed that Boyd won’t fall in with your plans, but you’re much more than disappointed, aren’t you? You find the idea intolerable. What is the real reason you’re so angry? There has to be one.”
“Don’t do it,” Rupert said, looking fiercely into her eyes. “And that’s an order.” His voice was harsh with authority. “If you know what’s good for you, your father and that upstart Robbie, you’ll do as I say.” As he spoke the blood was draining from his face, leaving a marked pallor. He looked far from a well man. Indeed, he looked as if he was suffering a psychotic episode.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Boyd demanded, brilliant blue eyes narrowing to slits.
For answer, Rupert lifted his heavy head, laughing darkly. “You’ll be waiting a long time before you’ll take the reins from me, my son!”
Arrogance, but the arrogance of achievement, settled on Boyd like a cloak. “I’ve as good as taken over the reins now, might I remind you, Dad? How could you threaten Leo and her family in such a way? I can tell you now you’ll have me to deal with if you try to hurt them in any way. You may be put out by our decision—you’ve spent a lifetime imposing your will on us all—but this time you won’t get anyone to back you. The family is very happy with me in the driver’s seat. So are the shareholders. So were you, for that matter. Leona is, by anyone’s standards, a beautiful, gifted, cultivated young woman. You’ve always treated her most kindly. What’s the huge problem now?”
“It’s not a good thing for you two to marry,” Rupert said rigidly, adopting his familiar autocratic tone.
Boyd tightened his hold on Leona’s trembling hand. “Stop talking rubbish. You know what you’re saying is ridiculous. There’s no impediment whatever—legally, morally or socially—to Leona and me marrying. We’re not even full second cousins. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Leona, mind racing, broke in, her green eyes fixed on Rupert’s face. “If you think there is some impediment, Rupert, you should speak out.” She could hear the fear in her own voice. Rupert’s violent reaction could be carrying them into dangerous waters.
There was a long silence, during which Rupert’s eyes drifted to the picture of Serena, which had hung on his wall since her death.
Leona heard the mounting anger and the challenge in Boyd’s voice. “So what are you going to come up with now, Dad?” he asked with icy contempt. “Guess what, Leo’s your half-sister? I wouldn’t put anything past you. You’d defame Leo’s dead mother. You’d defame my own beautiful mother, who had to tolerate so much from you. Only it won’t wash. There was no affair between you and Serena, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest. God, you disgust me!”
Abruptly, life for Leona had moved beyond challenging. Her breath was locked in her chest. “This isn’t happening, is it?” She looked to Boyd for confirmation. It came to her that he appeared much the more formidable of the two men.
“Sit down again, Leo,” Boyd said, putting gentle pressure on her shoulder and easing her into her chair. “Don’t let this upset you. This is only Dad playing his rotten games. He wanted Serena. My mother knew that. She told me years later that Dad had developed a real yen for Serena—the unobtainable—but Serena was an innocent. She didn’t even know about your secret infatuation, did she, Dad? She was a young wife and mother and she and my mother were very close. Serena would never have betrayed her husband, her child or her close friend even if she had known of your aberrant feelings.”
Leona’s voice was little above a whisper. “No, she wouldn’t have,” she said. She might have been only eight, but she remembered her mother vividly—her vital presence, her wonderful sense of fun, her endless grace, her capacity for loving, their secure family unit. These attributes had informed her life. “Is that why you’ve been so kind to me all these years, Rupert? Because I remind you of my mother?”
“The one woman he couldn’t have,” Boyd said, with no sympathy at all for his father. In fact, he was staring at him with open disgust on his face. “It follows, as it does with men like Dad who spend their lives in competition with their sons, I couldn’t be allowed to have you. My father is paranoid about losing. He lost my mother’s love very early on. Didn’t you, Dad? It took a while but then she began to see through you.”
“Shut up, Boyd!” Rupert gritted, his handsome features cold and set.
“Is that it, Rupert?” Leona appealed to Boyd’s father, sounding desolate. “You wanted to deny your own son?”
Difficult as it was to comprehend, there