Diamonds are for Marriage: The Australian's Society Bride

MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium-trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing, initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining alfresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft—from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, so she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over a hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

“LEO, YOU KNOW they don’t want me, but they feel obliged to ask me,” Robbie, her stepbrother said. As usual, he was making himself comfortable, lolling back on her brand-new sofa, dark head on a cushion, his long legs slung languidly over the other end.

This was a familiar theme between them, causing Leona, always the peacemaker, to answer automatically, “You know that’s not true.” Sadly, it was true. “You’re good company, Robbie. You’re an asset to any house party. Besides, you’re on Boyd’s polo team, which counts for a lot, and you’re a darn good tennis player—my best doubles partner. We can and do beat the rest of them.” The rest of them being the close-knit Blanchard clan, many of whom would be attending the weekend house party.

“Except Boyd,” Robbie chipped in. “Now, Boyd is a man to marvel over—a business dynamo, IQ off the charts, superb athlete, a serious heartthrob with the women. What more could a man hope for? They could have cast him as the new James Bond.”

“Forget Boyd,” said Leona. “I rather like the new guy.” As always, she was masking the deep feelings she had for Boyd—feelings she thought she would never get past—as she chucked a cushion at Robbie. “Though I will concede they don’t come any more perfect than Boyd.” This was said very dryly.

Robbie laughed, deftly fielding the silk cushion and depositing it on the floor. “Sure you don’t actually love him?” He lifted his head to flash her a bright challenging look. Robbie was teeming with intuition and he frequently caught her out.

“Now, that would be a turn-up, wouldn’t it?” she answered, hoping her white skin wasn’t showing tell-tale bright flags of colour. “He is my second cousin.”

“Well, not strictly speaking. You’d have to give or take a few ‘steps’,” Robbie reminded her. “There’ve been so many deaths, divorces and remarriages in the Blanchard family.”

That was certainly true. Triumph and tragedy aplenty. She and Boyd, for instance, had both lost their mothers. She when she was eight. His beautiful mother, Alexa, had become Leona’s honorary aunt after that until she’d died when Boyd was in his mid-twenties. Boyd’s father, Rupert, Chairman of Blanchards, had remarried two years later, not to a nice sensible woman somewhere near his own age, as the family had dared to hope, but to a flamboyant divorcee, the daughter of one of Rupert’s old cronies who sat on the Board of Blanchards. She was just a handful of years older than Rupert’s only son and heir, Boyd.

The family had been reduced to a state of shock at the speed of the new alliance. Robbie privately referred to the newcomer as the Bride of Frankenstein. And he wasn’t the only one in the family to gloat. Most expected the marriage would end in a ferocious court battle and a huge settlement. All had the great good sense to keep their opinions to themselves, except Geraldine, Rupert’s older unmarried sister who didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, as befitted her position. Despite that, Rupert had married his Jinty—short for Virginia—regardless. Rupert Blanchard was a law unto himself. And so, as it had transpired, was Jinty.

“Anyway, we’re not talking about Boyd, we’re talking about you,” Leona picked up the conversation. “Why you keep writing yourself off, I don’t know.”

“Ah, but you do know, Leo.” Robbie sighed. “Low self-esteem.” The unhappy, rebellious six-year-old he had been when Leona had first laid eyes on him fourteen years before glittered out of his dark eyes. “The problem is, I don’t know who I am. Carlo didn’t want any part of me. Didn’t even bother to toss a coin for me. ‘Heads me, tails your mother’. Your dad, my stepfather, is a good man, a gentleman of the old school, but he still doesn’t know what to make of me. Just hopes things don’t get any worse. Mother dearest has never loved me. No need to ask why. I don’t make her proud and I don’t look a scrap like her. I keep reminding her of Carlo and their failed marriage. To top it off, I’m