Wealthy Australian, Secret Son

by Margaret Way

  Charlotte felt her stomach lurch. Who had this remarkably insensitive young woman spoken to? Someone she’d met in the village? Nicole, Martyn’s younger sister? Nicole had always resented her. If Ms Rodgers’s informant had been Nicole she would have learned a lot—most of it laced with vitriol.

  A moment passed. “I’m sure you heard about that too, Ms Rodgers,” Charlotte said quietly. “Now, you must excuse me. I have things to do. Preparations for dinner, for one.”

  “Just your father and your son, I’m told?”

  It was more or less a taunt, and it bewildered Charlotte. Why the aggression? The expression on Ms Rodgers’s face was hardly compassionate. Charlotte felt a wave of anger flow over her. “I must go in, Ms Rodgers.” She folded her secateurs, then placed them in the white wicker basket at her feet. “Do please remember in future the Lodge is off-limits.”

  Diane Rodgers had intended to sound coolly amused, but she couldn’t for the life of her disguise her resentment—which happened to be extreme. Who was this Charlotte Prescott to be so hoity-toity? She had well and truly fallen off her pedestal. At least that was the word. “Suit yourself!” she clipped, making too swift an about turn. She staggered, and had to throw a balancing arm aloft, making for the safety of solid ground.

  Everyone appeared to be dressed to the nines for the Open Day. Filmy pastel dresses and pretty wide-brimmed hats were all the rage. Women had learned to take shelter from the blazing Australian sun. Sunscreen. Hats. Charlotte recalled how her mother had always looked after her skin, making sure her daughter did the same. Early days. These days her mother didn’t talk to her often. Her mother didn’t talk to anyone from the old days. Certainly not her ex-husband. Her parents had divorced two years after the Tragedy. Her mother had remarried a few years after that, and lived in some splendour in Melbourne’s elite Toorak. If she had ever hoped her mother would find solace in her beautiful grandson, Christopher, she had been doomed to bitter disappointment. There had only been one boy in her mother’s life: her pride and joy, her son Matthew.

  “Mummy, can I please go off with Peter?” Christopher jolted her out of her sad thoughts. Peter Stafford was Christopher’s best friend from day one at pre-school. He stood at Christopher’s shoulder with a big grin planted on his engaging little face.

  “I don’t see why not.” Charlotte smiled back. “Hello there, Peter. You’re looking very smart.” She touched a hand to his checked-cotton clad shoulder.

  “Am I?” Peter blushed with pleasure, looking down at his new clothes. Christopher had told him in advance he was wearing long trousers, so Peter had insisted his mother buy him a pair. His first. He felt very grown-up.

  Christopher hit him mildly in the ribs. “You know Mummy’s only being nice.”

  “I mean it, Peter.” Charlotte glanced over Peter’s head. “Mum and Dad are here?”

  Peter nodded. “Angie too.” Angie was his older sister. “We had to wait ages for Angie to change her dress. I liked the first dress better. Then she had to fix her hair again. She was making Mum really angry.”

  “Well, I’m sure everyone has settled down,” Charlotte offered soothingly. She knew Angela Stafford—as difficult a child as Peter was trouble-free. “We’re all here to enjoy ourselves, and it’s a beautiful day.” Charlotte placed a loving hand on top of her son’s head. “Check in with me from time to time, sweetheart?”

  “Of course.” He smiled up at her, searching her face in a near-adult way. “If you prefer, Pete and I can stay with you.”

  “Don’t be silly!” she scoffed. “Off you go.” Christopher—her little man!

  The boys had begun to move away when Peter turned back. “I’m very sorry Riverbend is going out of the family, Mrs Prescott,” he said, his brown eyes sweetly sympathetic. “Sorry for you and Mr Marsdon. Riverbend would have come to Chris.”

  Charlotte almost burst into tears. “Well, you know what they say, Peter,” she managed lightly. “All good things must come to an end. But thank you. You’re a good boy. A credit to your family.”

  “If he is, so am I!” Christopher crowed, impatiently brushing his thick floppy golden hair off his forehead. It was a gesture Charlotte knew well.

  She turned her head away. She had to keep her spirits up. Her father was deeply involved in a conversation with the rotund, flush-faced Mayor. The Mayor appeared to be paying careful attention. The Marsdon name still carried a lot of clout. She walked on, waving a hand to those in the crowd who had stuck by her and her father.

  Her parents’ separation, and subsequent divorce, had split the Valley. Her beautiful, very dignified mother had chaired most of the Valley’s charity functions, opening up the grounds of Riverbend for events much like today’s. She had been well respected. Her father had never approached that high level of Valley approval, though he was supremely unaware of it such was his unshakeable self-confidence.

  The Tragedy had torn her mother to pieces. Her father, grief-stricken, had managed to survive.

  What exactly had happened to her? She had grown up knowing her mother loved her, but that Matthew, her older brother, the firstborn, was the apple of their mother’s eye—her favourite. Her mother was the sort of woman who doted on a son. Charlotte hadn’t minded at all. She had adored her brother too. Matthew had been a miraculously happy boy. A child of light. And he’d always had Rohan for his best friend. Rohan had been the young son of a single mother in the Valley—Mary Rose Costello.

  Mary Rose, orphaned at an early age, had been “raised right” by her maternal grandmother, a strict woman of modest means, who had sent her very pretty granddaughter to the district’s excellent convent school. Mary Rose Costello, with the Celt’s white skin and red hair, had been regarded by the whole community as a “good girl”. One who didn’t “play around”. Yet Mary Rose Costello, too young to be wise, had blotted her copybook by falling pregnant. Horror of horrors out of wedlock or even an engagement. The odd thing was, in that closely knit Valley, no one had been able to come up with the identity of Rohan’s father. Lord knew they had all speculated, long and hard.

  Mary Rose had never confided in anyone—including her bitterly shocked and disappointed grandmother. Mary Rose had never spoken the name of her child’s father, but everyone was in agreement that he must have been a stunningly handsome man. And clever. Rohan Costello, born on the wrong side of the blanket, was far and away the handsomest, cleverest boy in the Valley. When Mary Rose’s grandmother had died, she’d had the heart to leave her granddaughter and her little son the cottage. Mary Rose had then worked as a domestic in both the Marsdon and Prescott residences. She’d also done dressmaking. She had, in fact, been a very fine dressmaker, with natural skills. It was Charlotte’s mother who had encouraged Mary Rose to take in orders, spreading the word to her friends across the Valley. So the Costellos had survived, given her mother’s continuing patronage.

  Up until the Tragedy.

  People were milling about on the lush open lawn that stretched a goodly distance to all points of the compass, or taking shelter from the sun beneath the magnolia trees, heavy with plate-sized waxy cream flowers. Children were playing hide and seek amid the hedges; others romped on the grass. The naughty ones were running under the spray from the playing fountain until some adult stopped them before they got soaked. Everyone looked delighted to have been invited. A huge white marquee had been erected, serving delicious little crustless sandwiches, an amazing variety of beautifully decorated cupcakes, and lashings of strawberries and cream. White wine, a selection of fruit juices and the ubiquitous colas and soft drinks were also provided. No one would be allowed to get sozzled on alcohol that afternoon.

  Charlotte had a few pleasant words with dozens of people as she threaded her way through the crowd. Her smile was starting to feel like a glaze on her face. It wasn’t easy, appearing relaxed and composed, given the melancholy depths of her feelings, but she’d had plenty of practice. Years of containing her grief had taught control, if nothing else. Years of
going down to breakfast with the Prescotts, a smile glued to her face, after another fierce encounter with Martyn. At such times he had hit her. Lashed out. Nowhere it would show. That would have caused an uproar. Though spoilt rotten by his mother and sister, his father would swiftly have taken him to account. Domestic violence was totally unacceptable. A man never hit a woman. It was unthinkable. Cowardly.

  Only Martyn, who had turned out to be a bully, had desperately wanted what she could never give him. Her undivided love. He had even been jealous of Christopher. Had he ever dared lift a hand to her son she would have left him. But as it was, pride had held her in place. It wasn’t as though she could have rung home and said, I’m up to the neck with this marriage. I want out. I’m coming home.

  Her mother had been endeavouring to make a new life for herself elsewhere. Her father at that stage would have told her to “pull her socks up” and make her marriage work. It was only after Martyn had been killed and the scandalous circumstances were on public record that her father had welcomed her back—lonely, and totally unused to running a house. That was women’s work. He’d detested the cleaning ladies who came in from time to time. His daughter would take over and cook him some decent meals. Such was his Lord of the Manor mentality. Besides, he loved his little grandson. “Chip off the old block!” he used to say, when Christopher unquestionably wasn’t.

  He took it for granted that Charlotte would stay, when she knew she could not. But when would the right time arrive? Christopher was now seven. No longer a small child.

  Everyone was agog to meet the new mystery owner. So far he hadn’t appeared, but an hour into the afternoon a helicopter suddenly flew overhead, disappearing over the roof of the mansion to land on the great spread of lawn at the rear of the house. Ten minutes later there was a little fanfare that got everyone’s attention. A tall man, immaculately tailored with a red rosebud in his lapel, followed by no less a personage than Ms Diane Rodgers in full garden party regalia, came through the front door.

  Even at a distance one could see this was someone quite out of the ordinary. He moved with lithe grace across the colonnaded verandah, coming to stand at the top of the short flight of stone stairs that led to the garden. His eyes surveyed the smiling crowd as he lifted a hand.

  Immediately, enthusiastic clapping broke out. Here was their host at last! And didn’t he look the part! They were just so thrilled—especially the children, who had stared up in wonderment at the big silver helicopter with its loud whirring rotors.

  How is Dad going to handle this? Charlotte thought.

  Her father revealed his class. He strolled out of the crowd, perhaps with a certain swagger, to greet the CEO of the company that had bought the ancestral home. “Come along, Charlotte,” he commanded, as he drew alongside her. “It’s just you and me now. Time to greet the new owner. I very much suspect he’s more than just a CEO.”

  Unfailingly, Charlotte supported her father.

  “My, he is a handsome man.” Her father pitched his voice low. “And a whole lot younger than I would have expected,” he tacked on in some surprise. “I fully anticipated someone in their late forties at least. Hang on—don’t I know him?”

  Charlotte couldn’t say whether he did or he didn’t. Even with the broad brim of her picture hat the slanting sun was in her eyes. But she did manage to put a lovely welcoming smile on her face. They were on show. Anyone who was anyone in the Valley was ranged behind them—every last man, woman and child keen observers of this meeting. This was an historic day. The Marsdons, for so long lords and ladies of the Valley, now displaced, were expected to act with grace and aplomb.

  Except it didn’t happen that way.

  “Good God, Costello—it can’t be you?” Vivian Randall bellowed like an enraged bull.

  He came to such an abrupt halt Charlotte, slightly behind him, all but slammed into him, clutching at his arm to steady herself. She saw the blood draining out of her father’s face. A hard man to surprise, he looked utterly pole-axed.

  She, herself, had felt no portent of disaster. No inkling that another great turning point in her life had arrived. She couldn’t change direction. She was stuck in place, with such a tangle of emotions knotted inside her they could never be untied.

  There wasn’t a flicker of answering emotion on the man’s striking, highly intelligent face. “Good afternoon, Mr Marsdon,” he said suavely, coming down the stone steps to greet them. Effortless charm. An overlay of natural command. His voice was cultured, the timbre dark. An extremely attractive voice. One people would always listen to. “Charlotte.” He turned his head to look at her. Blazing blue eyes consumed her, the electric blueness in startling contrast to his colouring—crow-black hair and brows, olive skin that was tanned to a polished bronze. The searing gaze remained fixed on her.

  She was swamped by an overwhelming sense of unreality.

  Rohan!

  The intervening years were as nothing—carried away as if by a king tide. The day of reckoning had come. Hadn’t she always known it would? Her heart was pumping double time. The shock was devastating—too excruciating to be borne. She had thought she had built up many protective layers. Now she was blown away by her own emotional fragility. She tried to get her breath, slow her palpitating heart. She felt as weak as a kitten. She raised one trembling hand to her temple as a great stillness started to descend on her. She was vaguely aware she was slipping sideways…

  No, no—don’t give way! Hold up!

  “Rohan!” she breathed.

  He was as familiar to her as she was to herself. Yet he had never given a hint of warning—right up until this very day. It was cruel. Rohan had never been cruel. But it was abundantly clear he wanted to shock her far more than he wanted to shock her father. He wanted to stun her to her very soul. She read it in his dynamic face. Revenge, smoothly masked. But not to her. She knew him too well. So long as there was memory, the past lived on. One might long to forget, but memory wouldn’t allow it.

  Her pride broke.

  “You do this to me, Rohan?” She knew she sounded pitiful. The immediate world had turned from radiant sunshine to a swirling grey fog. It smothered her like a thick blanket. Her ears seemed stuffed with cotton wool. She was moving beyond complete awareness, deeper into the fog, oblivious to the strong arms that shot out with alacrity to gather her up.

  A little golden-haired boy ran out of the crowd, crying over and over in a panic, “Mummy…Mummy…Mummy!”

  His grandfather, beside himself with sick rage, tried to catch him. The boy broke away, intent on only one thing: following the tall stranger who was carrying his beautiful mother back into the house.

  This was the new owner of Riverbend! By now everyone was saying his name, turning one to the other, themselves in a state of shock.

  Rohan Costello.

  Fate had a way of catching up with everyone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Silver Valley, summer fourteen years ago

  IT WAS one of those endless afternoons of high summer—glorious months of the school vacation, when the heat sent them racing from the turquoise swimming pool in the mansion’s grounds into the river. It meandered through the valley and lay in a broad glittering curve at Riverbend’s feet. They knew they were supposed to keep to the pool that afternoon, but it wasn’t as though they weren’t allowed to take frequent dips in the river. After all, their father had had a carpenter erect a diving dock for their pleasure. Prior to that they had used a rope and an old tyre, fixed to stout branches of a river gum to swing from.

  She was twelve, and very much part of the Pack of Four, as they had become known throughout the Valley. She didn’t feel honoured to be allowed to tag along with the boys. She was one of them. All three boys were inseparable friends: her older brother Mattie, Rohan—Mrs Costello’s son—a courtesy title insisted on by their mother, because Mrs Costello was really a miss, but who cared?—and Martyn Prescott, young son of the neighbouring estate, High Grove. Charlotte was their muse.
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br />   Although she would have died rather than say it aloud, Rohan was her shining white knight. She loved him. She loved the burning blue looks he bent on her. But these days a kind of humming tension had cut into their easy affection. Once or twice she’d had the crazy desire to kiss him. Proof, if any were needed, that she was fast growing up.

  Rohan easily beat them into the water that day, striking out into the middle of the stream, the ripples on the dark green surface edged with sparkles the sunlight had cast on the river. “What’s keeping you?” he yelled, throwing a long tanned arm above water. “Come on, Charlie. You can beat the both of them!”

  He was absolutely splendid, Rohan! Even as a boy he had a glamour about him. As her mother had once commented, “Rohan’s an extraordinary boy—a born leader, and so good for my darling Mattie!” In those early days their mother had been very protective of her only son.

  “Won’t do him a bit of good, wrapping him in cotton wool.” That irritated comment always came from their father, who was sure such mollycoddling was holding his son back.

  Perhaps he was right? But their mother took no notice. Unlike her young daughter, who enjoyed splendid health, Matthew had suffered from asthma since infancy. Mattie’s paediatrician had told their anxiety-ridden mother he would most likely grow out of it by age fourteen. It was that kind of asthma.

  That fatal day Charlotte remembered running to the diving dock, her long, silver-blonde hair flying around her face. It was Martyn who had pulled her hair out of its thick plait. It was something he loved to do. Most of the time she rounded on him—“How stupid, Martyn!” was her usual protest as she began to re-plait it.

  “You look better that way, Charlie. One day you’re going to be an absolute knockout. Mum and Dad say that. Not Nicole, of course. She’s as jealous as hell. One day we’re going to get married. Mum says that too.”

  “Dream on!” she always scoffed. Get married, indeed! Some husband Martyn would make.