‘I felt it—didn’t you?’

He shrugged philosophically. ‘I’m older and probably tougher. It was also out of the mouths of babes, so to speak.’

‘Isn’t that a euphemism for an uncanny ability to see the truth? I told you she was no fool.’

‘Obviously not,’ he said dryly.

‘You mustn’t be cross with her,’ Nicola responded swiftly. ‘She doesn’t understand the implications of what she said. It’s simply something she noticed and found strange.’

‘I’m not cross with her. Or only for inheriting her mother’s ability to lack any sense of tact or diplomacy.’

Nicola found her lips twisting involuntarily. ‘It’s the kind of situation Marietta would enjoy. By the way, when’s she due home?’

‘When she suffers some pangs of maternal longing, probably,’ he said cynically.

Nicola said nothing for a time. Marietta swooped in and out of her children’s lives like a brilliant bird of paradise. And, unnatural as it might seem, they adored her when she was around and appeared to accept her absence with equanimity. She had a unit in town, where they went to stay with her to be shamelessly indulged, but they cast it all off like a second skin when they came back to their father.

That they’d only been two and one when the breakup of the marriage had occurred might account for it, Nicola sometimes thought. But it was hard to see why Marietta had bothered to have children, unless Brett had insisted...

Yet, so long as she didn’t have to be tied down by them, she was genuinely fond of them. She wrote to them often, rang them from strange places and brought home marvellous exotic gifts for them.

But that’s Marietta for you, she thought as she accepted another drink from Richard Holloway. Kim and Rod did not return, so, while the men started discussing politics this time, she was able to think her own thoughts.

She remembered her father’s bemusement at Brett’s decision to marry Marietta Otway, daughter of his best friend. Brett had been twenty-five, Marietta the same age; Nicola herself had been thirteen.

‘Why?’ she’d asked her father.

‘Well, it’s obvious why. She’s talented, spirited and very beautiful,’ he’d said with some irritation.

‘So why don’t you approve?’

He’d shrugged uneasily. ‘You know her. She was babysitting you for pocket money from the time she was sixteen. She’s—obsessive, wouldn’t you agree?‘

‘About her music, yes.’ Nicola had smiled reminiscently. ‘She gave me my first piano lesson when I was four. But—’

‘And now she’s obsessive about Brett. But I just can’t help wondering how marriage is going to fit in with her main obsession—her music.’

Nicola had said slowly, and with no acrimony, ‘You look upon Brett as the son you never had, don’t you, Dad?’

Her father had ruffled her hair. ‘I’m very fond of him and very proud of him. When you think how he had to battle his way through school, let alone law school, despite the Rotary Scholarship—’

‘Which you were responsible for.’

‘Yes, well, I’d never encountered such a sharp mind before, such a determination to succeed. When his father was lost in a yachting accident at sea he was only twelve, and the oldest of five children, but the support he gave his mother and his younger brothers and sisters was amazing. He was picking mangoes and avocados in his spare time, sorting prawns and so on—but I have only one child dear to my heart, and that’s you.’

Two weeks later they’d gone to Brett and Marietta’s wedding. At the reception, at a smart restaurant, Nicola had found herself observing the bride and groom with her father’s misgivings in mind.

Marietta had been married in a lime-green figure-hugging Thai silk suit that had set off her glorious red hair admirably. She’d glowed, obviously radiantly happy, but, Nicola had noticed, she and Brett had almost steered clear of each other, and Nicola had wondered why.

Then, when they had come together to cut the cake, they’d looked into each other’s eyes, and to her teenage eyes it had been as if something white-hot existed between them in that brief glance, something almost dangerous that couldn’t be allowed to be exposed in public.

Not long after the wedding Nicola had been sent to boarding school in Brisbane, a thousand miles away, and her dealings with Brett and Marietta had been limited. But she had noticed, when Sasha was born, that Marietta seemed to be obsessive about motherhood in her unique way. Then Chris had arrived, only twelve months later, and after another twelve months had come the bombshell that Brett and Marietta were separating.

‘I knew it,’ her father had said exasperatedly.

‘But Chris is only a baby! How can she?’

‘They’ve come to an agreement. The children will spend the bulk of their time with Brett, allowing her the licence to get her career back on track,’ he’d said sardonically.

‘But I thought she liked having children.’

‘It was a novelty, that’s all.’

Nicola had thought deeply. By then seventeen, she’d had more of an understanding of that strange, searing little look she’d intercepted between Brett and Marietta on their wedding day, but she’d found herself understanding this turn of events even less. ‘So don’t they love each other any more?’

Her father had sighed. ‘They may do, but she’s determined to have it on her terms or not at all, and Brett...Well, he didn’t get where he is without his own kind of iron determination.’

By this time Brett had been made a partner in her father’s law firm. Indeed, he was the active partner, whose expertise had brought some big and prestigious clients to act for, and her father was coming to rely on him more and more as his health failed.

At eighteen Nicola had left boarding school, and, because of her father’s poor health, she insisted on spending the last six months of his life as his constant companion, instead of starting a Bachelor of Arts degree as she’d planned. This had brought her into close contact with Brett and his children—Brett had been marvellous, right up to the end and beyond.

And she often thought it was during those sad months that she’d fallen in love with Brett Harcourt. But it was on the understanding that what was between him and Marietta was not resolved, and that somehow things would be patched up.

She’d spent a lot of time with his children, though, during the restless months after her father’s death, often staying with them rather than rattling around home alone. She had done this not only on his account, but the children’s, and Marietta’s too. It had been like having two waning members of her own family around, both of whom she loved.

She couldn’t forget all the years she’d known Marietta. Could never forget how Marietta had flown home for her father’s funeral to play some of his favourite pieces. They had brought him so vividly to mind, yet in the way they’d been played—so exquisitely and gently—had laid him to rest in her heart, even though she still suffered, and had no idea what she wanted to do with her suddenly empty life.

Brett had suggested university again, but she hadn’t wanted to commit herself. She wasn’t even sure whether she’d agreed to a Bachelor of Arts in the first place only to please her father. She’d suggested an overseas trip, but Brett had vetoed it, saying she was too young to go on her own. That was when she’d first discovered that she might love Brett Harcourt, but it didn’t prevent her from being in discord with him...

Indeed, that was what she’d thrown at him after she’d drifted into company with a fast set of so-called friends—another cause for disagreement between them—and, without quite understanding how, had got herself so embarrassingly compromised by a man of whom, ever since, the mere thought made her shudder.

It had all been so trite and sordid.

A party of them had been going up to the Tablelands for a long weekend, or so she’d been led to think. But no one else had turned up, and she’d found herself alone, in a remote cabin, fending off the distinctly amorous and then frighteningly violent attentions of a man who called her a rich, spoilt little bitch and speculated that she was Brett Harcourt’s mistress—she certainly spent enough time at his house, and it was already the subject of some comment around town, wasn’t it?