Perhaps Love

  Perhaps Love

  Lindsay Armstrong

  She would never be immune to him

  Just when she thought she’d recovered from an adolescent crush on the handsome journalist Heath Townsend, Sasha found herself under his spell again.

  He was one of the most eligible bachelors in Australia, and that was all the more reason she should heed his warning, “I’m the kind of man who perhaps won’t ever be ready to be tied down to one woman.”

  Then the unexpected happened, and Heath needed Sasha. But he didn’t need, or want, the one thing she was longing to give most — her love!

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published 1983

  Australian copyright 1983

  Philippine copyright 1983

  This edition 1983

  © Lindsay Armstrong 1983

  ISBN 0 263 74278 4

  Set in Monophoto Times 10 on 10i pt.

  01-0783 - 57235

  Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sasha Derwent stuck her pen behind one ear and thought for a moment. Then she called out, ‘Try the top left dresser drawer! I’m sure I put them in there.’

  Or was it the right? she pondered. Oh well, it won’t hurt him to look in both.

  But she didn’t resume work immediately. Instead, she stared out through the french doors, over the paddocks and the river towards the mountains shrouded in a blue haze beyond. It was going to be a beautiful day, she thought with a faint tinge of longing. A day for swimming or riding.

  ‘Or fishing,’ she murmured out aloud. ‘I bet that’s what Dad’s planning to do. Or,’ she took her glasses off and polished them, ‘flying away in a jet to Tahiti!’

  She sighed suddenly as she replaced her glasses and wondered why she felt so restless.

  ‘I always knew you couldn’t tell your left from your right, Sasha.’ It was a muffled, disembodied voice that floated through to her to interrupt her thoughts. ‘But I thought by now you might have learnt to distinguish top from bottom. Hell!’

  Several thuds accompanied this, and Sasha closed her eyes and laughed silently as she pictured the rickety old dresser, which her employer insisted was an antique, performing its favourite trick and disgorging all its fiddly little drawers to the floor.

  She waited, and wasn’t disappointed. More clearly audible curses came, followed by an imperative demand. ‘Where the devil are you, anyway, Sasha? I also want to talk to you!’

  ‘Coming,’ she called “back resignedly, and schooled her face to seriousness.

  ‘Well, you’re taking your time about it,’ Heath Townsend said’ into her ear, making her start convulsively.

  ‘Oh! I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said, half-turning towards him. ‘What did you want?’

  ‘You,’ the man behind her said promptly. ‘Desperately.’

  ‘Oh?’ Sasha said mildly. ‘Have you cleared it with your mother?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I haven’t seen the old Gorgon this morning.’

  Heath Townsend removed his well-built frame and famous profile from behind her to lounge against the desk opposite her own in the beautifully appointed study-cum-boudoir that served his equally famous mother as an office.

  ‘Is she up?’ he enquired.

  ‘Been and gone,’ Sasha said laconically. ‘Hours ago,’ she added.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘All over the place,’ Sasha said truthfully as she drew a stack of papers towards her and pulled her pen from behind her ear. ‘But I could get a message to her if it’s important.’ She examined the papers, but unseeingly, and wondered what was coming, because with Heath one could never tell.

  She wasn’t to be disappointed.

  ‘Well, we don’t need her approval, then, do we?’ he said with a faint grin. ‘We could elope.’

  Sasha lifted her eyes involuntarily and immediately winced at the full impact of Heath Townsend. All six foot two of his lean, unobtrusively but nevertheless well-muscled frame, topped this morning by an unruly mass of thick, gold-streaked hair and almost navy-blue eyes in a clear, tanned complexion. He was wearing a blue track suit and he glowed with vibrant health and vitality.

  Really, she thought with a tiny inward sigh, it just wasn’t fair to have so much going for you. It wasn’t as if he was precisely good-looking in a conventional, even-featured, male model way. Not if you analysed him feature by feature. But it all added up to a devastating sum of subdued power, glinting humour, almost frightening intelligence and, above all, sheer masculinity. A dynamic combination to which few females were immune as she very well knew.

  ‘Er … did you say elope?’ she said, suddenly realising that the pause was beginning to stretch. She pretended to consider it with her eyebrows raised and her head to one side. ‘Well,’ she temporised, and then shrugged, ‘perhaps another day. I’m really awfully busy.’

  ‘Sweet Sasha,’ he murmured. ‘Always such a busy little bee.’ He straightened up and with a swift movement reached behind her to release the clasp that confined her hair so that the dark auburn strands tumbled down to her shoulders. ‘Have you ever slept with anyone, Sasha?’ he asked as he arranged the long tresses more to his liking.

  She grimaced wryly and and suffered his ministrations patiently, having learnt from long experience that this was the best way to deal with Heath.

  ‘No,’ she said after a small silence.

  ‘I thought not,’ he remarked, and stood back to study her. ‘You have that look.’

  ‘Do I?’ she answered with a rueful smile and an odd trip in her heartbeat as she wondered just how she looked to him. Probably the same as I look to myself in the mirror, she thought. Impossibly fair skin, grey eyes and some peculiar thing that keeps me looking like a sixteen year old even although I’m nineteen—almost.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, breaking in on her thoughts. He leant over and took her glasses off. ‘Why are you wearing these?’

  She rubbed her eyes. ‘My contact lenses seem to be irritating my eyes, so I thought I’d have a break from them.’

  Heath studied her naked eyes thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘Well, how about it? Should we take the world by storm and elope? I’m quite in the mood to do something unusual.’

  That’s strange, she thought, so am I …

  But she said rather hastily, ‘Really, not today, Heath. I …’

  ‘Does that mean, not with me?’ he interrupted as he carefully replaced her glasses, ‘or just that it isn’t a good day to elope?’

  She said wryly, ‘It means, Heath, that I know you’re teasing me. Because, I suspect the cupboard fell out all over the floor. Why don’t you go and work out some really teasing questions for the Leader of the Opposition, though? You are due to interview him tonight, you know.’

  He considered this with his arms folded across his chest and a glint in his eye. ‘I know. But do you know I�
��ve never offered to elope with anyone before, Sasha? And I’m quite deflated by your response.’

  ‘You are not!’ she said crossly but with a suspicion of a laugh in her voice. ‘And why would you offer to elope with them anyway? You can get it all without having to marry them!’

  He grinned wickedly. ‘True,’ he agreed, and she blinked at the glint of sheer devilry in his eyes. ‘On the other hand,’ he went on, ‘it looks as if you might be my first failure. Is there someone else? To whom do I owe this first taste of defeat?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said swiftly. ‘I wondered why I seemed to be falling over Mike Gibson so often these days. Everywhere I turn I’m tripping over our earnest young law student friend. So that’s it!’

  ‘It is not!’ she snapped, definitely cross this time.

  ‘Anyway, it’s none of your business, and I wish you’d go away and leave me alone!’

  ‘Aha,’ he said softly, and touched her faintly pink cheek. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much! So that’s the way the wind blows.’ He looked at her with the amusement replaced by something more sober. ‘I’m not sure if he’s the right one for you, though, Sasha.’

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘What’s wrong with Mike? Not that I’m … but anyway,’ she added in some confusion, ‘I …’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Mike per se,’ said Heath quite seriously. Tm just not sure if he’s right for you. He seems to take himself awfully seriously, and sometimes those kind of people can be rather painful in large doses. Also …’ He hesitated.

  ‘What?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Well, very young men like that can be … not the best teachers sometimes, for very young—for a very young and innocent girl like you. Especially if they’re a bit taken up with themselves—the young men, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not that young,’ she protested defensively, and added, ‘neither is he. He’s twenty-two and he’s very bright!’ She stopped suddenly and wondered why she was rushing to Mike’s defence. Was it because Heath had put his finger on something in Mike’s personality that had caught her awareness although she wouldn’t have been able to express it? ‘

  She shrugged. ‘Anyway, this is all academic. I wasn’t exactly planning to elope with him either. In fact I’ve only been out alone with him half a dozen times.’

  He grinned faintly. ‘I see. I wonder how he’d react if he knew you classified him as something academic?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said shortly, ‘but because you’re thirty-two and he’s only twenty-two—well, I think it’s unfair to be so critical.’

  Heath raised his eyebrows but said nothing, although the laughter was back in his eyes, which annoyed her for some strange reason, so that she said stiffly, ‘And besides that, I don’t think you, of all people, should be sermonising on … on that subject.’ She finished speaking hurriedly as he raised an impatient hand.

  ‘Now for God’s sake, don’t start lecturing me, Sasha,’ he said with the laughter firmly planted in his eyes. ‘My mother does enough of that.’

  The mention of his mother brought Sasha up with a jerk. ‘Yes. Well,’ she said a little acidly, ‘speaking of your mother, I do have a lot of work to do for her. So if you really wanted to see me about something and not just torment the life but of me, can we get on with it?’

  He considered for a moment. ‘There was something else,’ he said finally. ‘Could you—rather, would you— consent to by my companion for dinner tonight?’

  Sasha flinched. ‘I’d rather not,’ she said quietly after a moment.

  ‘Why not?’ he queried. ‘You’ve done it before.’

  ‘I know. But you must admit it’s a bit of a hassle, and besides, I … well, I feel a bit silly, if you know what I mean.’

  She glanced up at him and bit her lip at his look of bland ignorance, then said in sudden exasperation, ‘Yes, you do! You know very well what I mean! Anyway, what’s wrong with Veronica?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said idly, referring to his latest mistress. ‘Listen, if you’re trying to tell me you have nothing to wear—in a roundabout kind of a way—that’s a very minor consideration and one of which I’ve had considerable experience. In fact I could fix that in a tick.’ His blue eyes danced with amusement.

  She ground her teeth in frustration. ‘I’m not trying to tell you anything of the kind! I have a perfectly good dress …’

  ‘That blue one?’ he interrupted. ‘The one you wore when we went to the Logie Awards? I don’t know,’ he said very seriously. ‘It made you look like a twelve-year-old trying to be a thirty-year-old. Not quite your style. Besides, you need more delicate colours. Smoky greys, hyacinth, oyster, lilac—black might suit you, actually, in the right dress. It might make your skin look pearly …’

  ‘Don’t go on,’ Sasha said wearily. ‘I can’t imagine why you’re so persistent! A badly dressed virgin can’t possibly be what you really want to be seen about with. Surely you can find someone more suitable?’ ‘Sasha

  ‘Maybe someone less busy too?’ she entreated. ‘Your mother would be hopping mad with me!’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ he said definitely.

  ‘She will, Heath!’ Sasha said imploringly. ‘Look, I’m terribly fond of your mother, but you know what she’s like when things get behind. Why, she’d never let either of us forget it!’

  ‘Not this time, Sasha,’ he said smoothly. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have made the suggestion herself last night.’

  ‘She suggested it? But I don’t understand! Why didn’t you say so earlier?’ she demanded. ‘Why didn’t she say anything?’ She stared at him bewilderedly.

  ‘She must have forgotten. She doesn’t have the best memory in the world for some things, as you should know, of all people.’ He shrugged. ‘But I can assure you I have her permission to hi-jack her private secretary for the rest of the day.’ He turned away and then said over his shoulder. ‘Oh, by the way, we’ll be leaving a bit earlier than usual.’

  ‘Oh yes. Why?’ she asked ominously.

  ‘Because the channel rang me earlier to let me know the chopper is out of action this morning, so we’ll have to drive into town. Which gives you—forty-five minutes precisely, to get ready.’ He glanced at his watch as he spoke. ‘But that should be plenty of time, Sasha,’ he added with a grin. ‘Just bring yourself. We’ll paint the lily when we get to town.’

  He strolled out of the room without a backward glance, obviously unaware of how close he came to receiving a blunt object against the head.

  ‘I sometimes wonder why I put up with them!’ Sasha muttered to herself. She expelled a long, angry breath and snapped open a drawer.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she answered herself as she stacked her papers away and shut the drawer forcefully. ‘You know very well why!’

  She sat back and took her glasses off to rub her eyes. If she was honest, she had to admit she loved every minute of this job, which she had had since she was an impossibly shy seventeen-year-old. That was the year after Heath and his mother had bought this property and horse stud which ran down to the Hawkesbury adjacent to Sasha’s own home. The year after Sasha had left school and lost her mother all in a matter of weeks. Stephanie Townsend had been a godsend to both Sasha and her father—an unobtrusive neighbour who had somehow always managed to be there when they’d needed someone. And this had been no mean feat either, because as a successful politician, Heath’s mother was an extremely busy woman. But having been widowed herself, Stephanie well knew the special anguish of it.

  It had also been the year Sasha had suffered the devastating pangs of an adolescent crush on the not-so- oft-glimpsed Heath. A year of loneliness and introspection on both counts—for her mother and Heath.

  But the better she had got to know Heath, who’d treated her like a kid sister, the harder it had been to spend her life dying of unrequited love, and she had finally even managed to transfer most of her unspoken passion to a series of television stars.


  If Heath or Stephanie Townsend, or even her father, had ever divined her state of mind then, they had nobly refrained from ever mentioning it. And when Stephanie had, out of the blue, offered Sasha the post of resident private secretary, Sasha had been able to make a most happy transition to a job she loved which had the added bonus of being just across the fence from her beloved father.

  Although … she smiled ruefully and had to admit that on the odd occasion, like this morning, it was a bit like living with a personalised version of one’s favourite movie star. Not that Heath was home that much, though. And when he was, he was usually so nice and ordinary, it was like having an elder brother.

  ‘Well, almost,’ she conceded ruefully, and smiled suddenly. ‘But then I guess Heath’s a bit special to millions of people really.’

  Heath Townsend had first become a name to be reckoned with during the Vietnam war. He had spent six months fighting in the jungles of South-East Asia before being wounded and most honourably discharged from service. But once he had recovered from his wounds he had returned, this time as a journalist, and had fearlessly covered the remainder of the war at great personal risk. And written through every article he had ever presented had been the theme of the utter foolishness and wastefulness of war—particularly that one.

  And one way or another he had been covering wars ever since in the Middle East, South America, Iran, Kampuchea, Afghanistan. But now his interests had broadened to general current affairs and home politics, and his television programme was widely acclaimed for its high standard of journalism. As an interviewer he had the knack of seeing all sides, not being biased but being devastatingly acute at the same time, and had been known to drive many a politician, including his mother, to tearing out their hair with his hard-hitting questions and uncanny ability for exposing vague evasions for exactly what they were.

  He was also one of the most sought-after bachelors in the state and received sacks of fan-mail from lady admirers of all ages. But, so far, he had married no one, although the list of his affairs was long and much publicised in the gossip columns.

  Sasha rubbed her eyes again and thought of Veronica Gardiner.