The Ultimate Choice

Emma Darcy

The Ultimate Choice

© 1989

CHAPTER ONE

The moment he heard of Henry Lloyd's death, Justin St John knew that he would buy Marian Park.

He had always admired quality. And if ever any place held the true and lasting essence of quality it was Marian Park.

He didn't need the estate agent to show him over the property-to tell him that it was one of the finest merino sheep stud-farms in Australia-to lead him around the magnificent gardens which had been pla

He paused in the beautifully proportioned drawing-room and stared at the portrait above the fireplace. The pain of loss was still as sharp as if it had happened yesterday.

The agent interpreted Justin's fixed look as one of curious interest.

'Noni Lloyd, the old man's granddaughter,' he explained. 'Painted after her eighteenth birthday. She died a year later. Fell from a horse. I understand she was a very promising rider in show- jumping circles. Beautiful girl.'

'Yes,' Justin murmured, the word only just husking over the welling lump in his throat. He swallowed hard. She was so vividly alive on that canvas…the only woman he had ever loved. No one else before or since had ever matched up to Noni Lloyd. Justin no longer believed that anyone ever would. And he knew he would never settle for second best.

'The portrait would fetch a good price if you wanted to sell it,' the agent prattled on.

'No. It belongs there,' Justin said curtly, and forced himself to turn away rather than suffer any more unwelcome comments. His grey eyes were bleak and steely as he met the look of speculative enquiry on the agent's face. 'I would want everything to remain exactly as it is,' he stated in a flat monotone.

Noni would have hated Marian Park passing into the hands of strangers. If she had not died that day, they would have married, had children… and the family tradition would have gone on. It was something he could do for her: see that it was all kept intact… as she would have done… as they would have done together.

Justin was barely conscious of where they walked after the agent steered him out of the house. Memories kept flooding through his mind, and it took most of his concentrated will-power to drive them out and keep them at bay until he could be alone again.

They emerged from the pine forest that sheltered the gardens and there were the stables, straight ahead. The stables where he had last kissed Noni before she had started out on that fatal ride…

His step faltered for a moment, his left leg stiffening as if in conscious protest. Justin pushed himself on. If he intended to live here, he had to learn to live with everything. Perhaps there might come a day when he could put the nightmare to rest.

He deliberately forced himself to look down at Noni's practice field where it had happened. The sense of time reeling backwards shook his mind and heart when he saw the woman rider urging her horse over the jumps Noni had used: the gate, the combination, the single rail, the triple…

Noni… wheeling the big black stallion short to gain time, trying to set him into stride. The horse barely skimming the first jump, knocking the rail on the second, balking at the last moment… crashing into the third, throwing Noni… its leg broken… panicking… dangerous…

Justin had run with fear in his mouth and desperation driving his legs like pistons. And he would have reached Noni, would have been able to protect her, save her, but for that last split-second decision. Even now he didn't understand-would never understand-what made him choose the way he had.

'Mr St John, are you all right?'

A hand clutched his shoulder. Justin swayed slightly, his skin clammy, his bad leg almost giving way under him. He recollected himself with difficulty, and turned to the agent who was staring anxiously at him.

'A momentary indisposition.' He tried to stretch his mouth into a reassuring smile. 'I'm ready to continue.'

The agent frowned. 'Sure you don't want to return to the house?'

'Certain.'

He completed the inspection that the agent directed, but his leg was giving him hell and his face was pinched with the pain of it when they finally returned to their cars in the driveway. Justin didn't know why he had forced himself to go through with the whole tour. A sense of duty? Respect? Guilt that he had never come back to visit Noni's grandfather?

He wished he hadn't seen the woman rider.

Henry Lloyd had never attached any blame to him for Noni's death. The old man had visited him in the hospital, insisted that Justin had only done what anyone would have done in the circumstances. But Noni was dead… and the choice he had made still haunted him.

He turned decisively to the estate agent. 'Tell the executors I'll buy the place. Settlement to be completed as soon as possible…' He laid down the terms he wanted.

'That's the best decision you've ever made!' the agent crowed, unable to contain his satisfaction. 'At twenty-two million, you're almost stealing it.'

Justin sliced him with a grim smile. 'At twenty-two million, I expect to get precisely what I want. To the letter.'

He was prepared to pay for quality. It wasn't all that easy to come by. A woman like Noni, a place like Marian Park-they were rare things. And Justin St John knew that, when the chance came along to acquire something of rare quality, even the most minute hesitation could lose it for you. He was not about to lose Marian Park.

But there was one last thing he needed to know. It had to be settled before he took up residence here. 'The woman rider we saw practising jumps… who is she? Someone belonging to the estate?'

'A local lass,' the agent replied. 'She had an arrangement with Henry Lloyd to ride his horses. She doesn't work here.'

Justin's mouth set in grim satisfaction.

The matter did not require any diplomacy. It was clear cut. The woman would have to find some other sponsor.

There would be no more show-jumping at Marian Park. And no horse he owned would ever be ridden for that purpose again. Perhaps Henry Lloyd had wanted a living reminder of his granddaughter around him. Justin St John didn't.

And down on the practice field that Henry Lloyd had set up for his granddaughter so many years ago, Kelly Hanrahan urged the big black stallion on to the next jump, unaware that a decision had been made that would inexorably alter the course of her life from that time onwards.