Claiming His Shock Heir

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Where are you going?’ Scott was frowning, pushing irritated fingers into his hair, his legs bare beneath the robe he had pulled on.

  ‘To wake Simon up and tell him that we’re leaving,’ Philippa managed to respond evenly. She couldn’t meet his eyes. If she did he was bound to read her feelings there. ‘That was the arrangement wasn’t it, Scott?’ pride impelled her to ask. ‘You did agree that we could leave once you had the contract? In fact we… celebrated my departure last night.’

  ‘Last night.’ His voice was harsh. ‘And this morning you were going to sneak away without.…’ He had closed the distance between them and Philippa knew without conscious thought that if he reached out and touched her there was no way she could conceal her love. Instinctively she tensed, arching away from him, forgetting the stairs behind her.

  ‘Philippa.’

  Scott’s sharp warning came too late. She had already stepped back, the sensation of emptiness under her foot disorientating her, Scott’s fingers biting into her arm. She raised her free hand automatically, driven by an emotion more powerful than her fear of falling and in that instant saw Simon poised on the stairs above them, his scowl mirroring Scott’s as he ran towards them.

  ‘Let go of my mother, you’re hurting her.’

  She opened her mouth to tell Simon that he had totally misread the situation, but it was too late. ‘I hate you,’ he stormed childishly at Scott, who still maintained his grip on her arm. ‘I wish I’d never found out that.…’ Some sixth sense warned Philippa of what was to come. She cried out his name, but it was too late to stop him, and her senses whirled in a mixture of anguish and mortification, Simon’s voice shrill where it had been hoarse, as he concluded ‘… you are my father.… I hate you… I hate you.…’

  ‘Simon.…’ Simon rushed towards her just as Scott released her wrist, his face pale with disbelief, his eyes demanding an answer to the question she knew he was going to ask, but suddenly the landing seemed to move giddily around her. She stepped backwards, forgetting the stairs, and the last thing she remembered was the sound of Simon’s voice, frightened and full of pain as he screamed out, ‘You’ve killed my mother.…’

  * * *

  ‘Ah… you’ve come round at last.’ Philippa opened her eyes. She had been having the most unpleasant dream, but what was Eve doing in her room? She glanced towards the window and saw that the sun was high, and apprehension trickled coldly down her spine. ‘It wasn’t a dream was it?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘I really did fall down the stairs, and Simon.…’

  Eve avoided her eyes and got up from the chair, moving restlessly around the room. ‘I must go and find Scott, dear. He told me to fetch him when you came round. There’s nothing wrong. You didn’t break anything, but Doctor Forbes thought it best to give you a tranquillising shot. He said he thought you’d had a bad shock, and of course poor Simon was practically hysterical.

  ‘Simon!’ She tried to sit up, wincing as her bruised spine protested.

  ‘He’s all right now. He’s with Scott.’

  Scott! Simon had said he hated him!

  ‘I’d better go and get him.’

  ‘No, please.…’ Philippa reached out to touch the other woman’s arm. ‘Please, I don’t want to see him yet.…’

  ‘I’m afraid you don’t have much choice.’

  She glanced towards the communicating door and tensed as she saw Scott framed in it. He was wearing black jeans and a soft white silk shirt open at the neck. He looked tired and drawn, but his eyes when he looked at her held an implacable purpose that warned her that he was not going to allow her to escape.

  ‘Simon’s in the kitchen, Mother, why don’t you go down and have lunch with him?’

  Philippa thought that Eve gave her a vaguely sympathetic look as she left the room, but her senses were too acutely attuned to Scott for her to be aware of anything else.

  He came towards her, pulling up a chair and dropping into it, leaning back, the soft silk of his shirt pulling tautly across his chest.

  ‘Now,’ he said softly, ‘you and I have some talking to do, and before you start lying to me, Philippa, Simon and Mother have already told me most of it.’ He got up and walked over to the window, his back to her, his hands in his pockets, moving restlessly, pacing the floor, suddenly turning to face her, the dark anger in his eyes taking her breath away as he said harshly, ‘My son! You deprived me of my son. For God’s sake, Philippa, why? You knew I wanted to marry you. You knew that Simon was mine, and yet you deliberately let me think that.…’ A tiny muscle twitched against his jaw, his body tensing as he moved, and came and sat down again. ‘Why?’

  ‘Didn’t your mother explain?’

  ‘She gave me some cock-and-bull story about my grandfather telling you he wanted me to marry Mary Tatlow but I can’t believe you fell for that. You knew I loved you.’

  ‘You loved Garston as well,’ she said quietly. ‘I was seventeen, Scott, very deeply in love with you and very naively idealistic. Can’t you see?’ she said bitterly, ‘I wanted what was best for you? I couldn’t endure the thought that one day you might regret our marriage; that you might resent the fact that you had to give up Garston for me. I didn’t know about Simon then, and then when I did.…’ she bit her lip. ‘You didn’t argue when I told you I couldn’t marry you.… You never tried to persuade me to change my mind.’

  ‘You told me you had another lover, damn you.’ He stood up, towering above her, his face dark where it had been pale, his eyes glittering with an intensity of emotion that was mirrored in the high flush of colour along his cheekbones and in the taut rigidity of his muscles. ‘And I did try to persuade you. I even offered to marry you believing you were carrying someone else’s child, if I remember correctly. You weren’t the only one who was idealistic and naive.’

  Suddenly it hurt to swallow. She didn’t want to be reminded of the people they had been. Somewhere along the way they had lost it all; the love; the naiveté; the unselfishness. ‘Was he ever your lover?’

  He wasn’t looking at her, and it could hardly matter now. He had made it more than plain how he thought about her. ‘No,’ she said tiredly. ‘Never … but it was the only thing I could think of that would make you believe that it was all over between us.…’

  ‘Effective, certainly. Didn’t it ever occur to you though that there might have been a cleaner way? It was like slow poison, making me die slowly, and the only thing that kept me from succumbing completely was my need to survive to show you that you’d chosen the wrong man.’

  ‘It’s all a long time ago now.’ She felt so tired that all she wanted to do was to close her eyes and sleep. ‘Perhaps now you understand why I was so anxious to get Simon away. I had no idea until we came here that he knew the identity of his father.’

  ‘He told me that you said it wasn’t my fault that I’ve never been there for him. He said you told him that he was conceived in love and that he musn’t blame me because we weren’t married.’

  ‘I didn’t want him to think badly of you; to feel that you rejected him.’

  ‘Very gracious of you.’ The angry snarl caught her off guard, and she stared up uncomprehendingly into his dark face. ‘I hope now you’ll understand why he was so… so jealous of Cara.…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think now that the sooner we leave.…’

  ‘Leave? His voice was dangerously soft. ‘Oh, you’re not leaving, Philippa, at least not unless you want to leave without my son. Simon and I have had a long talk this morning, once I’d managed to calm his hysterics. He wants to stay here.’ He saw the colour drain out of her face and laughed harshly, ‘He wants to stay with me, Philippa.…’

  ‘But.…’

  ‘But what? You’ll be very gracious again and allow him to spend part of his holidays with me? Is that what you were going to say?’

  He had stolen the words from her lips and she could only stare up at him with growing apprehension. ‘Not good enough,’ he drawled softly, ‘Simo
n is my son, and I want him with me. My mother wants him too. He is her grandson after all.…’

  ‘But you can’t do that… Simon’s place is with me.’

  ‘With both of us.’

  Her mouth went dry. ‘Scott, I don’t know what you’re suggesting but.…’

  ‘What I’m suggesting is we do what we ought to have done eleven years ago. We’re getting married, Philippa, and we’re going to give our son the unity of a proper family circle; something I think we both owe him, don’t you? We both know what it’s like growing up without both parents, so don’t try telling me that he’s happy. He wants and needs me, Philippa, and he wants and needs you as well.’

  ‘And you’re suggesting we get married because of that?’

  ‘Can you think of a better reason?’ His voice was taut with barely suppressed exhaustion. ‘Don’t you think we owe it to him? Don’t you think he has the right to a little happiness; a little security? I could fight you for custody in the courts I suppose, but I have no intention of subjecting Simon to the trauma of a court battle between his parents.’

  ‘This morning you didn’t even know he existed and now.…’

  ‘If I had known he existed, we’d never be in this situation now. If I’d known you were carrying my child we’d have been married eleven years ago, no matter what protests you made. Damn you, Philippa, did you honestly believe I’d let my grandfather dictate my life to me? Did you honestly think I would marry someone else when you knew how I felt about you…?’

  ‘You’ve changed so much, Scott.’ She shivered. ‘I don’t think I can marry you, not even for Simon’s sake.… There’s nothing left of the Scott I once loved.…’

  ‘There’s nothing left of him because you destroyed him,’ he said savagely. ‘You took my heart and you ripped it apart. Do you think anyone suffers an ordeal like that and remains as they were? You either give up or you get tough.…’

  ‘I can’t marry you.’

  ‘You can and you will. As a matter of fact, I’ve already told Sir Nigel of our plans. He most definitely approves.’

  He turned his back on her. ‘I’m not going to argue with you about it, Philippa, either you marry me and give our son the kind of stable home life he needs and deserves, or I fight you in the courts to take him away from you. I can give him much more than you ever could,’ he warned her, ‘and he wants to be with me. I’ll leave you to think about it.’

  ‘I want to see Simon.’

  ‘He’s been upset enough for one day. You can see him later. Doctor Forbes said you had to rest.…’

  Rest? How could she rest after the bombshell Scott had just dropped. Of all the outcomes she had dreaded should he ever discover about Simon, marriage had been the last to cross her mind. She didn’t want to marry him; in many ways he was a stranger to her, and yet he was Simon’s father, and it was true that Simon loved and wanted him. It was a dilemma to which there was no easy solution, and she gave in mindlessly to the drug Dr Forbes had given, letting sleep suck her down into a merciful state of limbo.

  The next time she opened her eyes it was dusk. Eve was sitting with her again, and she smiled warmly as Philippa opened her eyes. ‘You must be hungry. I’ll get Mrs Robinson to prepare you a tray.’

  ‘No, please, I… I’d like to talk. Scott wants us to get married,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Yes I know. He came to see me this morning after he talked to Simon. He had a terrible shock, Philippa, and he’s justifiably angry.… I know you acted for what you thought was the best, my dear, but Scott suffered terribly when he thought you’d preferred another man. The discovery that you’d deprived him of his child… well.…’

  ‘I can’t understand why he wants Simon so much. If he’d wanted children he could have married long before now.…’

  ‘Perhaps he never met the right person,’ Eve said quietly, adding, ‘Surely my dear you must have guessed that he would want Simon.…’

  ‘To the extent of threatening to take him from me legally if I don’t marry him?’

  Eve sighed. ‘Philippa, my dear, Scott changed dramatically after you left him and his grandfather disinherited him, and he’s been carrying the burden of your rejection for too many years to lay it down lightly now. Oh, I know outwardly he seems to have changed, but inwardly.… He was in his twenties when he met you, and very immature, you hurt him badly you know. You told me when you came here that you still loved him, surely.…’ She broke off and looked at Philippa expectantly. ‘Simon is my grandson after all, the only grandchild I’m likely to have.’

  How could she tell Eve the truth? That her son had changed out of all recognition? That he simply didn’t love her any more and that for her—loving him as she did—marriage to him would be the very worst form of torture?

  But in the end it was Simon who decided her. His needs, which had to be placed above her own. Her bruises were more painful the day after the accident than they had been when they were caused, and on Dr Forbes’ instructions she had to remain in bed. Simon came to see her just after breakfast, looking pale and just a little defiant. Her heart sank when she saw the wary way he was watching her.

  ‘Are you going to get married then?’ he asked her without preamble.

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes.’ He bent his head and refused to look at her, and then added on an excited burst. ‘We could stay here for ever then with Sc… with Dad.…’

  His cheeks were flushed. ‘Oh, Mum, can we? Can we stay?’

  What could she do? Scott knew how vulnerable she was where Simon was concerned and he would not hesitate to use that as a weapon against her, but she would have to make it clear to Scott that any marriage between them would be a purely business arrangement and nothing more, there would be no more nights when he took her in his arms and used the mastery of his body to wring from her an admission of how much she wanted him. Not ever, ever again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY were married a week later. In the end there had been no need for Philippa to advise Scott of her conditions for marrying him. He had informed her that they would retain their separate rooms and that their marriage would be strictly platonic. His cool assumption of the role she had intended for herself still smarted. What had he feared? That she might have read too much into that last evening they had spent together? He had been so withdrawn ever since that it might not have occurred, and only by preserving the utmost distance between them was she going to be able to prevent him from discovering the truth.

  Simon was over the moon, attaching himself to Scott at every opportunity he got. The sight of their two dark heads bent over something, Simon listening while Scott talked, pierced her with a sharp loneliness that almost bordered on envy of her son. He and Scott had formed a tight exclusive circle she would never be invited to join.

  Eve too was pleased, and had confessed herself glad to hand over the reins of the house to Philippa. Scott had told her that she could change whatever she liked in their wing, and she had already made one or two tentative plans. She had expected to find time weighing heavily on her hands with no job to occupy her, but instead she found her days were easily filled.

  For one thing there was the garden, which she was coming to enjoy, and for another Scott had asked her to arrange a series of business lunches, which needed careful menu planning and a good deal of ancillary work. They were asked out to dinner a fortnight after the wedding by Geoff and Mary Rivers, who extended the invitation to include Eve.

  She declined, eyeing Philippa with a brief smile. ‘You two go alone,’ she suggested, ‘I’ll spend the evening with Simon, he’s teaching me to play draughts.’

  Philippa heard the door to Scott’s room open as she was applying her make-up. Scott gave her a generous allowance and she had been to York shopping for the sort of clothes she would need to wear as his wife and hostess. Even though she had entered the marriage reluctantly, having done so, she was prepared to do all she could to make it successful, in the business sense. The
y were married and for Simon’s sake, they must be seen to get along well together in public at least.

  Tonight she was wearing a new Jean Muir dress, in soft lavender with a dropped waistline and soft flowing pleats. It suited her fair colouring, and she Was able to disguise the faint shadows under her eyes with a discreet use of cosmetics. She had lost a little weight since their marriage, and frowned over the narrowness of her waist. If she lost any more people might start asking questions. Happy brides tended to grow slightly plump rather than skinny. She was ready when she heard Scott’s brief tap on the communicating door. He too had changed and was wearing a dark, formal suit, and a white silk shirt. He looked tired, lines of strain etched into his skin, and it occurred to her that this marriage which was no marriage was perhaps difficult for him as well.

  ‘Ready?’

  His eyebrow arched when she nodded her confirmation. ‘I thought you might like to wear these.’ He handed her a small velvet box, and she opened it slowly, surprise darkening her eyes as she saw the diamond stud earrings inside it. ‘I noticed you don’t have any, and I thought these would make a suitable gift—I didn’t buy you anything when we got married.’

  ‘They’re lovely.’ Even to her own ears her voice sounded stilted, but surely that wasn’t really disappointment and pain she saw in his eyes? He had bought the gift because he thought it was expected of him. As his wife she would be expected to possess a certain amount of jewellery.

  They drove in silence to the Rivers house, which Philippa remembered from the time she had worked there. Their hosts greeted them warmly, Geoff producing a magnum of champagne with which he laughingly toasted the newlyweds. ‘Of course, we weren’t entirely surprised,’ he confided over dinner. ‘After all it was obvious that Simon was Scott’s son.’

  Philippa felt herself blush, and was unexpectedly grateful for the warmth of Scott’s fingers curling round her own. ‘We would have married eleven years ago, if it hadn’t been for the interference of my grandfather.…’