Saving Katy Gray (When Paths Meet Book 3)

by Sheila Claydon

  Knowing better than to touch her, Emlyn nevertheless moved into her field of vision, determined to at least make her pause. “Look I know you don’t think much of me right now, and I don’t blame you, but I’m not giving up. One day you’ll let yourself remember our picnic by the riverbank, and all the things I said to you, and you’ll begin to wonder if you should have given me a chance to explain myself, and when you do I’ll be waiting.”

  “You’re going to have a very long wait then.” Katy didn’t give an inch as she pushed a mug of coffee across the counter towards him.

  With a sigh he picked it up. “Have it your own way, just don’t forget what I said. Now what are we going to do about finding my father?”

  Glad that she could now concentrate on the real reason for his visit instead of wondering how much longer she could hold herself together while he talked about everything she was trying to forget, Katy joined him at the table and opened the folder she had put there earlier.

  “Because my computer is broken I haven’t been able to do any online searches but I do have a few telephone numbers I can try. First though, you need to give me the name of your father’s doctor.”

  He shook his head. “No luck there I’m afraid. I called him before I came here and he knows nothing about it. My guess is that Dad is paying for private medical care somewhere away from Corley.”

  She stared at him. “In that case finding him is going to be almost impossible. You could ask Dorothy to contact all the private hospitals in the area, think of somewhere he has friends perhaps, or where you know he has business contacts, but if he’s chosen to be completely anonymous then it’s going to be difficult. First of all though, you need to get his personal medical ID from his doctor because without that we have no means of tracing him at all.”

  Pulling the letter detailing his father’s illness from his pocket, Emlyn scrutinized it without much hope. He already knew it was the second page of a letter so there was no letterhead and the signature at the bottom of the page was indecipherable. Why his father had left it behind he didn’t know, not when he was so obviously trying to cover his tracks. Maybe it was to assuage his conscience, to prove to Emlyn and the rest of the family that he had abandoned their mother for what he considered to be honorable reasons, or maybe he had just dropped it.

  Watching a feeling of resignation slowly settle onto his face Katy searched around for a better idea. “What about your brother? Maybe your father asked him to help find somewhere but swore him to secrecy or something.”

  With a slight smile at her choice of words, Emlyn shook his head. “Not his style I’m afraid. Contacting my brother is a good idea though, and my sister too. They both need to know he’s ill and there’s just an outside chance they’ll see something I’ve missed because I’m too close to it.”

  “Will you do that now, while I go check on your mother?”

  “Not my sister because it’s still the middle of the night in Australia. I’ll try my brother though because his phone is always on unless he’s mid air, and even then I can leave a message.”

  * * *

  Emlyn was just concluding a conversation when Katy returned to the kitchen, this time carrying a bottle of wine she had collected from the cellar. He acknowledged it with an appreciative nod and then, after listening to the person at the other end of the phone for another minute or so, cut the call.

  “That was my brother. He’s en route to London from Paris. I caught him in the transit lounge waiting for his flight. He said he’ll get his Personal Assistants onto the case as soon as he can.”

  “Personal Assistants?”

  He gave her a tired smile. “I told you he was a big shot. He’s got at least two assistants, possibly more, whereas I’ve just got Dorothy who would leave me like a shot if she wasn’t so close to retirement.”

  Reminding herself that she still didn’t know why Dorothy had called to see her, Katy shook her head. “I don’t think that’s true at all. She seems very protective.”

  “You mean she feels sorry for me.” There was a bitter note in his voice as he remembered what his life had once been like and compared it with the here and now.

  Unwilling to prolong what was in danger of becoming a personal conversation, Katy shrugged as she opened a drawer in search of a corkscrew. She refused to join the queue of people who felt sorry for Emlyn, however difficult his life was, so giving in over the wine was not a sign that she felt anything for him at all. It was merely because he was her employer and, as such, had certain rights in his mother’s house.

  * * *

  The rest of the evening passed amicably enough. After they’d finished the wine, Emlyn sat with his mother and tried to engage her in a conversation about his father while Katy prepared a bedtime drink for her. After only a minute or two, however, he was quite sure she knew nothing at all about his father’s illness. It was also clear that she was slowly beginning to forget him. The anger she had always shown when she had talked about him previously, was missing, and she didn’t bother to answer some of his questions. Instead she talked about the gardens at Corley Hall and the plans she had for them. With an inward smile he wondered if Jack knew what he’d unleashed.

  Katy, coming into the room at the tail end of the conversation, joined in. “We’re going to visit Corley Hall tomorrow,” she told him. “Izzie rang earlier today to ask why we hadn’t been back yet, and she made me promise to take your mother tomorrow. Apparently the gardeners will be preparing the parterre at the back of the Hall for a new planting and they need an extra pair of hands.”

  Knowing full well that his mother’s input would make very little difference to the professional gardeners Jack employed, Emlyn felt doubly grateful that he had such caring friends. He said as much to Katy after his mother had gone to bed.

  The bitter look she gave him was a surprise. What had he said now? He couldn’t think of anything that might have upset her unless she felt he had compromised her own burgeoning friendship with Izzie. He started to say something about it but then changed his mind. Until Katy was prepared to listen to the truth about Lucy there was nothing he could do, so it would be better if he kept out of it and left whatever was bugging her for Izzie to resolve.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mrs. Brooks was up early the following morning, for once her mind entirely clear as she made plans for the day ahead. Katy only listened with half an ear. She had tossed and turned all night as she tried, without success, to forget the effect Emlyn’s visit had had on her, and now she was feeling distinctly under the weather; something not helped by the fact she had drunk more wine than she usually did in an attempt to keep her demons at bay.

  Now though, in the cold light of early morning, she was forced to face them. Taking her coffee out into the garden where Mrs. Brooks was busy checking on her own flowers before they set out for Corley Hall, she listed them in her head. First there was Emlyn, and however much she tried to deny it, she knew she still wanted him. She knew, too, that she hadn’t been fair to him. She had let her quick temper get the better of her instead of listening to what he had to say. Not that she could do anything about it now, even if she wanted to, because she had dug herself in far too deep for any sort of reconciliation between them. She didn’t have time for a womanizer in her life anyway, and that’s what he was. He had even admitted it by telling her about his past girlfriends, and his reputation, so there was no point in believing all the things he had said to her on the riverbank. Nothing was going to change him. As soon as his life was back on track, he would revert to type.

  Then there was Izzie. Although she had accepted from the first that Izzie’s overtures of friendship had everything to do with Emlyn’s predicament and nothing to do with her, she had still been flattered by the other woman’s warmth. In Izzie she had glimpsed what her life might have been like if she’d had an older sister, or even an extended family. Now though, Emlyn’s betrayal had killed the possibility of a proper friendship between her and Izzie with a stroke.
From the moment she found another job and left Corley she’d be nothing more than a fading memory, another employee who had tried and failed to stitch Emlyn’s life back together by taking care of his mother.

  The thought of leaving Corley clutched at her heart. In the short time since she arrived she had begun to let herself believe that she had found something closer to a home than anything she’d had for a very long time. As well as Izzie there was William, and Jack, and Mrs. Tomlins too. She liked Dorothy as well, and some of the other villagers who had begun to say hello whenever they saw her, and then there was Tony at the Corley Arms, and his wife Connie. Angrily she shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. She had been on her own before so she could do it again. She could start again too if she had to. She just needed to find another live-in job.

  Mrs. Brooks interrupted her thoughts with a series of questions so it wasn’t until the car arrived and her charge was ensconced in the front seat next to a man who introduced himself as Bob Mickelson, and whose father, Mrs. Brooks told her, had once been Head Gardener at Corley Hall, that Katy could be alone with her thoughts again, and this time they were even more bitter.

  Recalling the shock of finding her adoption papers amongst her father’s belongings after he died, Katy wondered how she had managed to retain her sanity. With her whole world collapsing about her, she had held onto one thing: her parents’ deep love for her. Discovering that everything she had believed about them, and about herself, was a lie, had broken her heart.

  Staring unseeingly out of the window she wondered anew at the secret her parents had hidden from her all her life. Why hadn’t they told her she was adopted? Were they afraid she would love them less or was there something about her background they didn’t want her to know? Had they even known anything about her birth parents or had they been as much in the dark as she was? She wished she knew. She wished, too, that she could stop feeling so angry with them…angry that they had died without telling her the truth…angry that she couldn’t ask them questions…angry that she had no idea who she really was. She was angry, too, that because her life was so chaotic, she didn’t even have the mental strength to begin to think about whether she really wanted to find her birth family or not.

  On good days she was rational about it, sure she would eventually contact the necessary agencies and try to unravel her past. In the dead of night, however, when darker thoughts took over, she knew she didn’t want to try to find the parents who had given her away, because what was the point of searching for people who had already discarded her?

  Scowling she tried to push away the memories of how everyone had let her down; her adoptive parents by hiding her past, and her father by tying her into a financial situation that she couldn’t control, and then by dying too soon and leaving her to cope alone. Most of her friends had let her down as well by running scared when it was obvious that she was struggling, and even the few who had stuck by her had been visibly relieved when she told them she was moving away to make a new life for herself; and now there was Emlyn. Somehow his betrayal was the worst of all. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she had trusted him enough to give him her heart despite all the things that had happened to her.

  She straightened her back as the car drove through the gates of Corley Hall. It was just one more lesson and she’d learned it well. She was never going to trust anyone ever again.

  * * *

  Izzie came running out into the courtyard to greet her as soon as the car stopped. A chocolate colored Labrador frisked around her heels waiting for someone to pat her.

  “That’s Cora,” Izzie told her with a smile. “She usually spends the day out on the estate with Jack, or sitting under his desk when he’s knee-deep in paperwork. Today, though, he’s planting out, so she has to put up with William and me.”

  Banishing her gloomy thoughts Katy gave an answering smile. It was impossible to resist Izzie. “She’s lovely. How old is she?”

  “Seven, which is far too old for her to behave like that. Stop it Cora! Katy doesn’t want to give you a biscuit, and nor does Penny.” She came forward and greeted Mrs. Brooks with a kiss.

  “Jack is waiting for you down by the greenhouses. I think he wants your advice about color schemes. Katy and I will come and find you later when we’ve had coffee.”

  Watching Mrs. Brooks follow Bob Mickelson down through the private garden to the gate that led through to the barns and the greenhouses, Katy refused to think about the last time she’d visited. Instead she turned to Izzie. “It’s so kind of you and Jack to take so much trouble. I’m sure he has enough to do on the estate without having to cope with Mrs. Brooks as well."

  “He won’t be coping with her Katy. Penny Brooks helped him with his first parterre and he has a great deal of respect for her sense of form and color. She’ll be an asset not a hindrance, believe me. Now are you coming in for a coffee and one of William’s biscuits?”

  She chuckled at the expression on Katy’s face. “He spent the day with Tommy yesterday. When he does that, he cooks. This time they made lemon drops. Last time it was gingerbread men.”

  Remembering everything Mrs. Tomlins had told her about her life, and about how she considered Jack’s family to be her own, Katy smiled. “I’d love to. If Mrs. Tomlins helped him make them then they’re bound to be delicious.”

  Still talking they made their way to the kitchen where William was perched on a stool. He was in deep conversation with a handsome woman who wore her silver gray hair piled onto the top of her head, and whose dark eyes were full of laughter.

  “William and I have been exchanging recipes,” she said with a smile that widened to include Katy when she saw her.

  Izzie laughed. “I hope you’ve put your name down for his first cookbook. Apparently it’s going to be illustrated and signed, so it will be in great demand.”

  “What’s demand?” asked William.

  “It means everyone will want one,” said his mother, dropping a kiss onto the top of his head. Then she turned to Katy. “I don’t think you’ve met Margaret, my mother-in-law. She lives in the Dower House beyond of the barns although I don’t think we walked that far when you last visited.”

  Greeting her, Katy was intrigued. Hadn’t Izzie, or maybe it was Mrs. Tomlins, told her that Jack had had an unhappy childhood? They hadn’t mentioned a stepmother though, or if they had she’d forgotten it, and anyway the woman who was greeting her so warmly looked very far from the wicked stepmother of fairytales. Although her face was sculpted by the lines of late middle age, she was still beautiful, and full of life too. Health and energy seemed to radiate from her, the same as it did from Izzie. With an inward sigh she wondered if that was what Corley did to people. Well if it was then she would never know because she wouldn’t be staying long enough to find out.

  Izzie was thoughtful as she handed her a mug of coffee. Although Katy looked the same, her smile hadn’t reached her eyes when she greeted Izzie, and she looked tired. Was Penny Brooks proving to be too much for her? After all it couldn’t be much fun cooped up 24/7 with someone whose thought processes were as erratic as they were bizarre.

  Emlyn had looked distinctly ropey, too, when she bumped into him in the village yesterday. He’d looked, in fact, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Remembering the fun they’d all had the last time Katy visited Corley Hall, when she and Emlyn and his mother had stayed for supper, she frowned. Something was wrong and she was going to find out what it was whether Jack wanted her to or not, because without any sort of proof whatsoever, she was quite sure something had happened between Katy and Emlyn that had nothing to do with Penny Brooks at all.

  * * *

  Jack heard her out in silence when he returned at the end of the afternoon, then he shook his head. “Leave well enough alone Izzie. I already told you that Katy and Emlyn are a complete mismatch. Besides, Tony told me he was in The Corley Arms the other day with Lucy.”

  She stared
at him. “You mean the blonde who was taking him for every penny she could, and who gave him up the minute he told her he was moving back to Corley?”

  He nodded. “According to Tony she’s changed her mind, although apparently Emlyn is playing it cool. You know how he is with women. It’s all easy come and easy go. They had a row or some sort of disagreement in the restaurant and he left her sitting on her own until someone else took pity on her and invited her to join him."

  “I’ll bet,” shaking her head at the naivety of men when it came to duplicitous blondes, while carefully choosing to forget that her own locks were naturally corn-colored thanks to a Swedish ancestry on her father’s side, she changed the subject. It wasn’t worth pursuing it with Jack because, supportive as he was of Emlyn, he would never question him about his love life. It was a man thing, and while she respected it, she didn’t hold with it. Nor she suspected, would Connie, so the first chance she got she was going to ask her what had really happened the night Emlyn had dinner with his ex.

  * * *

  Emlyn, meanwhile, was stumped. He was at a total loss as far as his father’s whereabouts was concerned, and was inclined to agree with Katy that he had probably registered with a private doctor under an anonymous name.

  “If he’s being treated somewhere under his own name it should be possible for you to check for his medical ID with a whole lot of hospitals,” she’d told him when he had phoned her with an update. “The fact that Dorothy hasn’t been able to find out anything at all despite numerous phone calls to all the hospitals in the area probably means he has no intention of being found.”

  “Surely you don’t mean he’s forged an ID?”

  “Of course not. He’s just come up with some cock and bull story about losing his medical records. And even if the doctor is suspicious, money talks, and anyway your father is very ill, so no doctor, however ethical, is going to let a little thing like a lost record stop him from treating him.”