Free When Only Diamonds Will Do by Lindsay Armstrong Page A

for her, other than in monetary terms.
    Her dress was cream and silky and long. It looked sleek when she stood still but when she moved it revealed yards of material in the skirt. With it she wore high nude platform shoes. But, beautiful as the dress was, as well as fashionable, it provoked one regret in him—it hid her legs and that was a pity; she had sensational legs.
    In fact there was no doubt, so far as looks and an innate sort of classiness went, that she would be an assetto any man. In lots of ways she was to him but there was one downside—she hated him.
    She blamed him for profiting from her family’s misfortunes, she considered that she’d been manipulated into marrying him to stem some of the worst of those misfortunes. She despised his occupation, she’d accused him of having a questionable modus operandi—but in all other respects, bar one, she was a superb wife as, indeed, she’d promised to be.
    She ran their homes perfectly, although she’d refused point-blank to live at Clover Hill. Out of necessity, he had moved in to Saldanha, though he was rarely there. She was an accomplished hostess so their social lives ran like clockwork and she was good with his motherless son.
    And they all lived, like the old lady in the shoe, he thought with a wry twist of his lips, in Western Australia, south of Perth and towards the Margaret River district.
    None of the Theron family, however, had approved of the Balthazar winery or the Saldanha estate straying out of the family, least of all his wife.
    However, as he had once pointed out to her, she’d come with it and she
was
family. He’d also pointed out to her that, without his intervention, her parents—her father had recovered well from a heart bypass operation—would not now be settled in a fashionable unit overlooking the beach and bay, with its iconic dolphins, at Bunbury, enjoying a leisurely retirement. In fact they would have been much closer to a bedsit and Meals on Wheels. Nor would they have been able to afford theluxury cruise he had paid for, which had contributed significantly to Frank Theron’s recovery from open-heart surgery.
    She’d tossed her red-gold hair at him and her eyes had glinted sapphire fire but as he’d waited politely she’d clamped her mouth shut and stalked off.
    Strangely, he’d taken himself to task for that encounter. How galling must it be to have things like that thrown into your face on a regular basis? he’d asked himself. Not that he did it often because, truth be told, he admired her fiery resolve not to forgive him for the proposition he’d put to her—marry me and I’ll save your parents from bankruptcy.
    Well, he amended to himself, he had admired that fiery resolve but he was starting to lose patience. Two months had passed since he’d married her.
    ‘What are you thinking, Reith?’
    Kim’s voice broke into his thoughts. He grimaced as he saw the puzzled frown in her eyes, and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘That you look lovely; that you’ve been an accomplished wife and it’s just a pity that you hate me. Let’s see.’ He pulled a hand out of his pocket, rubbed his jaw and looked out over the gardens of Saldanha in the slanting rays of the setting sun. ‘What else was I thinking? I do appreciate how you’ve coped with Darcy; I do actually admire your hostility—well, I did—I’m starting to lose patience with it now.’
    ‘What…what do you mean?’ She frowned.
    They were standing on the front doorstep. There was a gleaming gun-metal four-wheel drive parked on the driveway below them and they were about to go to aneighbouring property for dinner. Sunny Bob sat beside the car, ever hopeful that he’d get taken for a ride.
    ‘This was never meant to be a marriage in name only, Kim,’ he said, bringing his dark gaze back to rest on her.
    Fresh colour stained her cheeks. ‘I thought…I thought …’ She stopped.
    ‘You thought?’
    ‘You promised me time,’ she said more