The Blackmail Bargain. Robyn Donald

rice plantation there. He seemed intrigued…’

      The words trailed away as Curt said quietly, ‘Gilly, be reasonable. I can’t just move him on without some proof that it’s necessary. He’s doing a good job on Tanekaha; he’s hauled the station into profit under budget, and he’s a skilful manager of staff.’

      Tears welled in her eyes, but even as he found his handkerchief she fought them back with a flare of anger. ‘Oh, see for yourself! I hate showing you these—I’m ashamed I even looked at them!—but if you want proof, here it is.’

      She groped in her bag, hauled out a couple of photographs and hurled one onto the big desk. ‘Now tell me I’ve got nothing to worry about!’

      Curt picked up the photograph. His brother-in-law stood facing a woman, a hand lifting to her face.

      ‘Check out this one too,’ Gillian said savagely, plonking another down on the desk.

      If he’d had any doubt at all, the second shot banished it. This time both the people in the picture had turned towards an out-of-focus blur that might have been a bird swooping low, and the guilt stamped on Ian’s face would have convinced anyone.

      Frowning, he examined the woman’s features. Certainly no beauty, but deep in his gut something stirred, a primal appetite that hardened his voice. ‘Who took the shots?’

      ‘Hannah Sillitoe—Mandy’s daughter. She got a digital camera in her Christmas stocking. Mandy dropped in to see us on their way back to Auckland after the holidays, and of course Hannah spent every moment outside taking photos of anything that would stay still long enough.’

      Curt dropped the shiny images onto his desk. ‘How did she get these?’

      ‘She thought she saw a native pigeon fly into the big puriri tree by the stockyards. She’s an adventurous kid so she climbed the tree, but she couldn’t see any sign of the bird. She was on her way down when Ian and Peta came out of the old barn and stopped to talk.’ Her hands clenched by her sides. ‘Hannah was intrigued by the way the sun caught Peta’s hair, so she snapped them. The flash must have startled the pigeon because it swooped from the tree and flew towards them.’

      Curt nodded. ‘Go on.’

      She indicated the second photograph and finished in a voice brittle with humiliation, ‘They both swivelled around. Hannah tried to get a picture of the bird, but got that instead. When Mandy saw them she thought I should know what was going on.’

      Curt asked brusquely, ‘What happened then?’

      ‘Hannah said they went off in different directions.’

      He examined the photographs again, reluctantly admitting they were pretty damning evidence. Everything about the two figures shrieked intimacy—their closeness, the way they inclined subtly towards each other, their unconscious mimicry of stance and posture.

      And being a man, he could understand what Ian saw in Peta Grey. The faded T-shirt moulded breasts voluptuous enough to stir a eunuch’s blood, and beneath the faded jeans her legs were long and lithe. Her coolly enigmatic face challenged the camera, and her mouth was sultry enough to tempt a saint; what would it take to shatter that air of control and release the passion beneath?

      Of course, you might find nothing but naked self-interest there.

      Anger smouldered to life inside him. ‘Does Ian know you’ve got these?’

      ‘No, and I’m not going to tell him,’ Gillian returned with spirit. ‘I’m not that stupid.’

      Curt noted the way the sun shone on Peta Grey’s hair. The elemental fire in the pit of his stomach burned hotter, transmuting into something more complex than anger. When Gillian spoke he had to yank his gaze from the photograph to focus on her.

      ‘Curt, why don’t you come up and see for yourself? Believe me, if I’m wrong I’d be so relieved and grateful.’

      Her voice broke on the final word and the smile she’d summoned wavered, then tightened into a grimace as she fought back tears. ‘I’m sorry to lump you with this, but there’s no one else I trust enough. And no one I can talk to.’

      Which was his fault; Gilly had supported him when he needed her, and her love and faith had been punished. Neither of them had spoken to their parents for ten years.

      Curt slung an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him. She sniffed valiantly, but eventually surrendered to harsh, difficult sobs, clutching his shirt with desperate hands as she gave up the fight for control. Like him, she’d been conditioned to hide her emotions, so she was terrified at this threat to her marriage.

      ‘All right,’ he said quietly when her tears began to ease. ‘I can come up next week.’

      He’d planned a tryst in Tahiti with his current lover, but this was more important.

      Mouth quivering, she reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said soberly. She stepped back and grimaced at his shirt. ‘I’ve made you all wet—and streaked with lipstick. Have you got a spare shirt here?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter, but yes, I have.’ He lifted her chin and met her eyes. ‘If I think you’re wrong, what will you do?’

      ‘Find a counsellor, I suppose,’ she said drearily. ‘I’ll need it, because…oh, because things have been going wrong since before Ian noticed Peta Grey.’

      ‘What things?’

      Gillian paused. ‘Oh, you might as well know everything. Since we found out that the reason I can’t get pregnant is an infection I caught in my wild youth. I never pretended to be a virgin when we met, but as long as I didn’t rub his face in my love affairs Ian didn’t seem to mind. Discovering why I couldn’t conceive is rubbing his face in it with a vengeance, Curt.’

      ‘I don’t imagine he was a virgin either when he married,’ Curt said forcefully.

      ‘No, but he wasn’t careless enough to let himself be made sterile. Ian wants children, and once we got the results he started pulling away.’ She dragged in a deep breath. ‘He blames me, of course. And like all you men, he’s possessive.’

      ‘I don’t consider myself possessive,’ Curt said brusquely. ‘I don’t share, but that’s not possessiveness.’

      ‘You’ve never loved anyone enough to be possessive.’ His sister gave him a trembling smile. ‘Ian might even still love me, but he wants a family, and he—he might be looking for someone who can give him one.’ She pulled away and finished steadily, ‘Someone who isn’t infertile because she slept around.’

      Astonished, Curt asked, ‘Are you telling me that this Peta Grey is a virgin? How do you know?’

      ‘I don’t. There has been gossip, but apparently her father was a very controlling man—he didn’t let her go out with boys. Her mother was delicate so Peta left school the day she turned sixteen, and acted as nurse, housekeeper and farmhand until her parents were killed in a car accident a few years later.’

      ‘You seem to have been gossiping to a purpose.’ Curt’s distaste sharpened his voice.

      Gillian shrugged. ‘I heard you say once, Know your enemy. In a way I feel sorry for the girl. She’s spent her life on that little farm working all hours of the day and night to survive.’ She looked up, entreaty plain in her lovely face. ‘I don’t wish her any ill; I just don’t want her to wreck my marriage.’

      ‘Has it occurred to you that if Ian wants her, you’ll be better off without him?’ Curt knew it had to be said, even though his bluntness drove the colour from her face. ‘He made vows. If he breaks them, will you ever trust him again?’

      Trust Curt to voice her worst fear. Gillian had to stop her hands from twisting together in futile terror. ‘I need time,’ she told him intensely. ‘I love him, and if there’s any chance that he still loves me I’ll fight this—this fling. He’s a sophisticated