by Shirley Wine
And Keir looked far from happy as he extended a hand and lifted her chin forcing her meet his eyes. "This will die down if we give them no ammunition. The essential thing to remember is that here at Dunstan, and at the hospital, both you and Connor are safe."
"You think we’re in danger?" It came out as a squeak.
"Not exactly in danger," he conceded grimly. "But after today, you and Conner are no longer anonymous."
Her trepidation grew.
He glanced at his watch again, gave her another grim smile. "Mrs. Teague will make you breakfast when you’re ready. You can trust her, implicitly. But don’t answer the phone, your cell or step outside the gates without an escort. I've provided you with a bodyguard and she'll escort you when you’re away from Dunstan. Okay."
That wasn’t at all encouraging. "What about my business?"
"We’ll discuss that later. I have to go, but I want your promise, Victoria."
He was so serious, she knew she had to co-operate. "I promise."
"Thank you. I may see you later when I visit Connor." With a nod and another of those grim smiles, he left.
Alone with her roiling thoughts, Victoria wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, under the bedclothes and hide out from the whole world until this storm blew itself out.
Hiding out was pointless.
She was an adult, a mother, and it was time to face up to the damage her secrecy and Logan’s manipulation had created.
Going downstairs, she paused for a moment looking around the spacious hallway, absorbing the ambiance.
Sunshine streamed in through the wide windows and made the polished wooden floor gleam. A jewel colored Persian rug set off the pale surface of the wood.
The whole atmosphere was one of airiness and welcome.
On a majestic wrought iron and glass table one side of the stained glass front door, stood a huge beaten silver bowl of roses, their perfume heavy on the warm air.
The last roses of summer, there was nothing fake about these flowers. A few petals had fallen on the glass table top, adding to their charm.
Above the table, a stunning abstract painting commanded her attention. All huge, pale salmon, dusky pink and sage to moss green, swirling petals, it was intriguing and unlike any other work she'd ever seen.
Had Keir bought Dunstan furnished or had he chosen these beautiful pieces?
The wrought iron table had a timeless appeal, as did the abstract art work.
As she stepped closer to study it, a movement beyond the windows caught her attention. Looking outside she saw a stooped, gnarled old man, leaning heavily on a walking stick, directing a much younger man at work in the expansive rose garden.
She glanced back at the flower arrangement, nodding her approval. Keir obviously intended the flowers be used in the house as well as the garden.
Victoria, only human, was curious about Keir's home and the people he employed.
But more importantly it's now your home and my son's too.
A shiver shook her.
Last night she'd been too tired and wrung out to fully comprehend the threat contained in his words.
Now, they formed an ominous echo.
While this house held none of the oppressive atmosphere of Darkhaven, Victoria held few illusions.
This was Keir's home and she was here on sufferance.
A plump, grey haired woman bustled into the hallway to greet her. "Ms. Scanlan, Mr. Keir said you'd be ready for breakfast."
"Mrs. Teague?"
"Indeed," she smiled and extended a hand shaking Victoria's firmly. "What do you usually have for breakfast?
"Tea and whole wheat toast, thanks."
"English Breakfast, Earl Grey or do you prefer herbal tea?"
"English Breakfast."
"Marmalade on your toast?"
"Yes, please."
She bustled ahead of Victoria, opening the door into a sunny room that opened out onto a terrace. "You make yourself comfortable while I fetch your breakfast."
"Where's the Sunday paper?" Victoria asked filled with trepidation.
"Why not have breakfast first." Her plump, homely face was creased with concern.
"That bad?"
"Scurrilous." Mrs. Teague's broad Canadian drawl gave that one word a stinging emphasis. "The fiends need whipping."
The sick sensation in Victoria's belly, intensified.
She'd never been a coward and wasn't about to turn into one now. After a few moments mental debate, she straightened her shoulders.
"I’ll have breakfast and the paper," she said with decision. "I need to know what I’m up against."
The housekeeper gave her a measuring look, and then nodded. She bustled away returning a few minutes later with a tea tray, folded newspapers on the side.
She put the papers face down, and poured a cup of tea. "Drink this first, Ms. Scanlan," she said laying a hand on her shoulder. "You’ll need it."
"Please, Mrs. Teague. Call me Victoria, I prefer it." Heart thudding, palms slick, she turned the paper over.
The banner headline screamed: Donovan Love Child Derails Society Wedding.
A photo of her and her father glaring at each other across the table in the rooftop garden of the hospital cafeteria made her gasp.
Stunned, she stared at it in disbelief.
She'd not seen a photographer.
Did someone overhear our heated exchange?
Her hands shook so much the paper rattled as she swiftly scanned the text. When she found no incriminating comments of her fierce argument with her father, a relieved sigh escaped.
Another photo of Keir holding her hand across the same table filled the page. Whoever had taken these photos had not been close enough to hear their conversation.
Suddenly Keir's words of caution made appalling sense.
Victoria winced.
She’d been warned, but shock still shimmied through her. Beneath the main headline, in a smaller box, but no less prominent: Board Demands Answers to Latest Donovan Scandal.
Davina’s portrayal of a woman betrayed made Victoria realize the blonde had missed her calling. The woman should have been an actress, her comments about Keir, little short of stomach-churning.
Victoria's guilt and remorse deepened knowing she'd precipitated this furor by going to Keir’s bed.
If I didn’t, he’d have bedded Davina?
But would he?
In the clear light of day, Victoria knew with a sick, sinking certainty that she'd misjudged Keir.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, he would never have made love to Davina, fiancée or not, while he was so explosively attracted to another woman.
Why didn't I trust his integrity, his honor? Why did I listen to Logan or Pippa?
Hand clenched, she stared at Sunday Inquirer, its pages blurring in front of her.
Keir had to hate this. Small wonder he’d looked at her with cold dislike.
But as she read further, her fury smoldered. Where and how had these lowlife scumbags dredged up such intimate details of her life?
Photos of her shop were blazoned across the paper. Nor had Logan escaped their net, portrayed as one of her many supposed lovers.
Holy bejeebers! Sex once on six years, now I've suddenly become a nymphomaniac.
If it wasn’t so humiliating, it could almost be funny.
But as she turned to the full page spread on the inside pages, cold crept through her in chilling increments.
It wasn’t that she didn’t recognize these photos.
She did. After all, she’d taken many of them. The one of Connor on his fifth birthday, face smeared with chocolate cake, his gap-toothed grin a mile wide.
She loved that photo.
But these photos were culled from her personal photo album. How had the Donovan scandal machine obtained them? Clamminess shivered across her skin and the tea soured in her belly. Someone had to have broken into her flat to get them.
Nausea threatened to overwhelm her
.
Don’t answer the phone, your cell or step outside the gates without an escort.
Keir’s warning assumed a decidedly ominous tone.
She moaned in distress.
"What is it?"
She looked up at Mrs. Teague and pointed a shaky finger at the photos. "These are my photos. Someone has been in my house and taken my photo album."
The older woman shook her head. "Do you want me to contact Mr. Keir?"
Victoria shook her head. She’d caused Keir enough grief without hauling him out of what could prove to be a very tense meeting. "It can wait."
She turned back to the paper and discovered she wasn’t the only person to come under the Strathmore’s crucifying spotlight.
Her father and Daphne came in for their fair share of attention. But the next photo hit Victoria like a punch in the gut.
"Oh my God." The whimper escaped past the clenched fist she held over her mouth.
"What is it?" Mrs. Teague gripped her shoulder.
"That's my mother. How can they stoop so low as to malign a dead woman?"
"They're a pack of sick bastards."
Grief and rage mingled. Victoria felt sick to the pit of her stomach. Her father would not like this!
Thank God the Strathmore machine hadn’t learned of that punch her father had thrown at Keir.
But it was Caine and Elizabeth’s divorce that hogged center stage. The Sunday Inquirer printed a complete rehash of the scandal and custody case of what must have been a very nasty, high profile divorce in its day
The latest Donovan scandal took on a new meaning.
Was this why Donovans were so twitchy about any breath of scandal?
As Victoria read, she shook her head in disbelief.
His mother was a child abuser?
Suddenly, she remembered the beautiful, gregarious Beth of that long ago summer. She’d radiated joy, contagious fun and humor.
An abused child? Never in a month of Sundays!
Without one shred of concrete evidence, Victoria knew the case brought against Keir’s mother was built on carefully fabricated lies.
The lie Keir had been fed about her death was proof enough for Victoria.
His mother hadn’t escaped the Strathmore net either; her marriage to Garth Ellison came in for intense scrutiny.
Studying the photo of Elizabeth Ellison, even in the grainy newsprint it showed a beautiful, serene woman.
A soft sigh leaked from Victoria.
Who could have imagined the ripples from one impulsive action would create a tidal wave big enough to engulf so many innocent bystanders.
Chapter Sixteen
"I wanna go home," Connor whined rubbing a hand across his eyes.
"You can’t, sweetie," Victoria caressed his other hand lying limply on the sheet. "At least until the doctor says so, okay?"
Anxious, she watched him eagle eyed. He was fractious today. Nothing suited him.
He didn't want her to read to him. Nothing she said or did appeased him. He whined, grizzled and tried his best to get out of bed.
"My head hurts."
She plucked a lavender soaked wipe from the container on the bedside locker and laid it against his forehead. "Does this help?"
"No! Don’t want it!" He struck at it, flinging it onto the floor.
As Victoria bent to pick it up, she inhaled a shaky breath. She was at her wits end trying to keep him happy. He’d been in this contrary mood ever since she’d arrived this morning. "Would you like me to read to you?"
"No! I wanna go home. Now." Two fat tears rolled down his cheeks, his usual sunny smile nowhere in evidence.
She struggled with tears. Seeing her little boy hurting was more than she could bear. The accumulated stress of the past week threatened to overwhelm her.
"Having problems?"
She looked up through her tears and saw Caine. "He’s cranky and fed up with everything."
Caine gripped her shoulder, his hand warm and supportive. "Why don’t you take a break, Victoria? Go and have a cuppa and take a walk in the rooftop garden. I’ll sit with him?"
"Poppa!"
Victoria stood up, her chuckle watery when Connor’s grizzles stopped as if someone had pressed an off switch. Relief was instantaneous.
Pleasure at this evidence her son was bonding with his newly discovered grandfather eased her heartache.
She too, was comforted by Caine’s daily visits, no longer left with the sensation she was battling alone. He had a winning way with the little boy.
Of Keir, she saw very little. He visited Connor every evening, always timing his visits after she'd returned to Dunstan and not returning home until she was in bed.
Keir was a ghost in his own home.
"Want me to read you a story, tiger?" Caine pulled a book from his carry bag along with a tiny bag of jellybeans.
"Cupboard love," she teased.
"Hey all kids needs their Poppa to spoil them a bit," Caine winked at her. "Buzz your keeper and take a break while I entertain this little tyke."
She sighed and with real reluctance, obeyed. She still found it an intrusion on her privacy to have a bodyguard. But Keir insisted on it while Connor was in hospital.
Too many people you don’t know are now privy to your identity. This is not a normal situation.
She shivered, his words as chilling now as when she'd first heard them.
Holly Bannister walked through the door, eyebrow raised in question?
"Victoria needs a break, Holly." Caine pre-empted her. "And a spell in the gardens wouldn’t go amiss."
"I’ll be back soon, Connor. Okay?" She kissed her son but he was too engrossed in the jelly beans to notice her departure.
With fatalistic acceptance she walked out with the cheerful woman.
"Where to first?" Holly asked as they exited the room.
"Fresh air."
"The rooftop gardens?"
Victoria nodded and in silence they walked to the lifts. Holly waited for an empty car, and then punched the override button that took them directly to their destination without stopping.
As they stepped out into the bracing air and autumn sunshine Victoria inhaled one shaky breath and then another deeper one. The urge to run almost overwhelmed her. She wanted to run as far and as fast as she could.
No matter how fast I run, I'll never escape myself. And wasn’t that the truth.
"Do you want to run?" Holly asked amused.
"That obvious, huh?"
"I recognize the signs." She grinned expressively. "Once this brouhaha blows over you’ll be able to reassess the situation."
"This is getting down and dirty." Victoria shook her head. "I had no idea."
"Any leads on who broke into your flat and got those photos?"
"The police are following it up but Strathmore Press is claiming a confidential source." She made a frustrated gesture. "As nothing is missing, the police can’t do much."
To Victoria's relief, her photograph album had been found intact. After seeing those photos she'd feared she'd lost this precious memento.
She acceded to Keir's suggestion that as soon as Connor was out of hospital, she would supervise the packing and storage of the contents of her apartment.
"I’ll bet your man doesn’t like that!"
Was Keir her man? For the first time Victoria had real doubts.
The distance between them was so vast as to be painful.
As she walked with Holley around the manicured gardens¸ Victoria paused and gripped the railings. Below them, Lilliputian people were going purposefully about their business. Last week she would have been inconspicuous among them.
Now she would never blend in with a crowd.
Keir warned her she would no longer be anonymous but she hadn’t grasped the reality.
A sound brought her spinning around to be confronted by a camera wielding man shooting off film at the rate of knots.
Holly, moving in a blur of speed, had him on the ground
and the camera wrenched free before Victoria had time to gasp.
"Hey, that’s my camera." The red faced man spluttered as he scrambled to his feet and lunged for the camera.
With one deft move, Holly flipped the man over her shoulder and he landed on the concrete. With one foot firmly on his chest Holly grinned, expertly flipped open the back of the camera yanked out the film.
"You can have your camera, bozo. Just not photos of my client."
She handed him back his camera then hustled Victoria back inside.
"How did you do that?"
"Training." Holly gave her a conspiratorial grin. "And lots of it. Men hate being flipped. They’re so macho and think superior strength means they can lord it over the weaker sex."
Victoria spluttered with laughter at the way she made those last two words sound like some bad, communicable disease.
"I’ll have to learn some of those moves."
Holly looked at her head on one side. "Self-defense lessons wouldn’t be a bad idea. For your own safety."
*****
Victoria was jerked awake by the overhead light snapping on. When she saw Keir in the doorway, his expression so grim her heart raced.
"What’s wrong?" She glanced at the bedside clock it was two o'clock.
"It’s not Connor," he reassured her. "The police have just called. Someone has broken into your flat. They want us both there ASAP."
Before she had a chance to throw back the covers, he’d gone.
Sick with apprehension, she slid out of bed and dressed. They could both do without this further aggravation.
Her thoughts raced a mile a minute as she pulled on jeans and a warm jersey. It was cold and dark and rain beat against the windows of Keir’s fortress.
She was fed up with being held hostage by the press.
This last week had been so bad. Worse even than her scariest nightmare.
At breakfast this morning, scratch that she thought with an acid glance at the bedside clock, yesterday morning she thought she’d hit rock bottom.
The memory made her burn.
"Do you want to close Victorian Grace?" Keir asked as he spread marmalade on his toast.
"Close my business? Are you out of your mind?" The shocking question had Victoria almost choking on her toast. "Do you know how much effort I've put into building that business? Am I suggesting you stop working because of a few salacious scandalmongers?"
