by Margaret Way
Charlotte Prescott, a widow, was so beautiful—and so young to have a seven-year-old child to rear alone. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she and Mr Costello made a match of it? A grand house like Riverbend needed a lady like that. Apparently Mrs Prescott’s father had fallen on hard times and had had to sell the estate. If those two beautiful young people got married Charlotte Prescott would never have to leave her old home…
“Let’s eat in here,” Rohan said.
“Rohan?”
“No talk. I need to feed you first. Sit down before you fall down. I can get this.”
He pulled out a chair for her at the long granite-topped table before moving away, super-efficient in everything he did. She watched him walk over to some impressive-looking refrigerated wine-storage cabinets, the contents on full view through the glass doors. He pulled out a bottle of white wine, showing her the label.
“Fine. Fine…” She glanced at it, looked away. It was an award-winning Chardonnay. She was trying hard not to let the tension inside her break the surface. “Not much dinner for me, Rohan.” Under his smooth control, he too had to be fighting powerful feelings.
“When did you last eat?” He found glasses, then poured the perfectly chilled wine, passing a glass to her. “When did you?” she countered.
“Around seven this morning. I don’t often get a chance to stop for lunch, so at the moment I’m hungry. Charlotte, you didn’t answer my question.”
She stared up at him with troubled eyes. “I can’t seem to find the right answers to your questions.”
“That’s because you’re hiding so much.”
She was wearing a soft georgette top of pastel colours, with an ankle-length matching skirt. The top had a low oval neckline that allowed just a glimpse of cleavage. The fabric clung to her small high breasts and showed off her taut torso and tiny waist. She looked like a top model—especially with her long blonde mane loose. He didn’t think he could ever let her cut her hair. It was too beautiful.
“You don’t trust me,” she said sadly.
“I half trust you.” He softened it with a smile.
“Well, that’s better than nothing. But lack of trust ruins relationships, Rohan. Anyway, I made afternoon tea for my mother. I don’t remember eating anything, but I did have a cup of tea.”
“We won’t talk about your mother.” He was busy cutting slices of tender white chicken breast. “Not for the moment anyway.”
She had to be content with that.
As it turned out, he didn’t appear to have an appetite either—though they had no difficulty finishing the bottle of wine. Both ate little of what otherwise would have been a delicious meal.
“Well, we can’t disappoint Mrs Burch,” Rohan said later, eyeing the plum cake. The table was cleared, dishes rinsed and stacked in the dishwasher. “You’ll have to join me in a slice. It looks good.”
“She’s a good cook. Very good.”
“I wouldn’t have hired her otherwise. She’s rather passionate about food. I like that.” He cut a large slice and then, before Charlotte could voice any protest, cut it in two, giving Charlotte the narrow end, and pouring a little plum syrup over both sections. “All right. Eat that.”
“You’re ordering me about?”
“Yes,” he said crisply, then sat down again.
She took hold of her cake fork. “You want to talk to me, don’t you?”
“Charlotte, my love, I’ve tried talking to you.” The expression in his eyes was hard; a mocking smile curled his mouth.
“You must think I’m pathetic.”
He laughed without humour. “Would you like some cream?” He stood up.
“No, thank you.”
“Well, I’ll have some. I need sweetening up.” He went to the large stainless steel refrigerator standing side by side with a matching freezer. “Second thoughts—ice cream. Seriously—won’t you join me?”
“You’re enjoying this in a weird sort of way, aren’t you?”
“The hell I am! We’ve both had a shock. I’m trying my level best to be kind.” He pointed to her plate.
“Okay, okay.” She handed it up to him. It might even make her feel better.
He laid a nicely turned dessertspoonful of vanilla ice cream on it.
Charlotte made herself eat. Actually, it was lovely.
When they were finished he took the plates and cutlery from her, rinsed them, then put them in the dishwasher, turning it on. Finally he disposed of the empty wine bottle.
“You’re very useful in the kitchen.” She gave in to a wry little laugh.
“Just one of my many talents. I’m pretty useful in the bedroom as well. And you don’t hold back there, do you, Charlotte? Believe me, you’re the best of the best. The cool, cool, touch-me-not is an enormous turn-on. Charlotte hiding her passionate nature.”
The passionate nature only you unlocked, she thought. What a tremendous burden would be lifted from her if she could give voice to her heart!
You must help me, Rohan. I’m a damaged woman.
Seriously messed-up, too young, and with no one to turn to, to ease her out of it. It happened so much in life. She’d thought she didn’t have a choice. She’d taken the wrong direction. She had married the wrong man.
“Would you like coffee?”
Rohan was desperate to make some breakthrough.
He loved this woman. Nothing could change that. Not even the fact she had rejected him for Martyn Prescott, who’d been able to give her every material thing in life. Her decision had troubled her deeply. Unfortunately one always paid in the end for bad decisions. He still wanted Charlotte very badly, and wondered whatever had happened to something called pride. Maybe love and pride didn’t go together? He had been committed to Charlotte Marsdon from childhood. They were the legendary childhood sweethearts.
She stood up, her graceful body set in determined lines. “I should go.”
“In a little while. You might consider I won’t be able to rest until I hear what your mother had to say. What my son overheard.”
“He didn’t tell you?” She bent her shining head, almost as if in prayer.
“I didn’t like to question him. It was enough to have him safe. If you must know, I think Christopher is as confused as I am. That was the fool word I had to use with him. Confusion. Isn’t that a sick joke? There was confusion over who exactly was his father. Well, at least he knows now—and he seems pretty happy about it. So thank God for that! Let’s go back into the living room. You’re going to have to open up a little, Charlotte. If only for our son’s sake.”
He came around to her, taking her firmly by her upper arms.
For a split second she was elsewhere. A different time. A different place. A very different man. Bad memories surfaced, caught her up so strongly she visibly cringed. Then, realising what she had done—this was Rohan—she took a great gulp of air.
Rohan stared at her, astounded. “I can’t possibly be hurting you.” Nevertheless he slackened his grip. “For God’s sake, Charlotte, what’s that all about?”
She put her hand to her mouth. She was a mere heartbeat away from telling him the whole shocking story. Only then she would lose his respect. “You just cringed from me.” Rohan tried very hard to speak gently. “Surely you didn’t think I was about to hit you?”
“Of course not.” She cursed herself for her involuntary action. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Charlotte, I wouldn’t dream of hurting you.”
“Rohan, I know that.” She gave a desperate little moan, spent with emotion, letting her head fall forward against his chest.
“What am I going to do with you?” He began to rock her light body as if she were an inconsolable child. He’d used to think it quite possible to die of love for Charlotte. He still did. “You can’t put me off, Charlotte.” He lifted her chin, seeing his reflection in her eyes. “Tell me exactly what Christopher heard. Only then will I take you home. It’s up to you. I need to be
able to combat the fears my son has. We can’t keep our history under wraps for much longer. Your father might have had blinkers on, but anyone with a sharp pair of eyes in their head will recognise me in Christopher. We both know that. It’s all going to come out.”
“I know.” There was absolute certainty in her voice.
“You say that like you’re in despair.” He was grappling with the sexual hunger that had started to roar through him. “Don’t you want the world to know Christopher is my son?”
She pressed her fingers against his mouth. “Rohan, the news will shock so many people. I don’t really count my ex-in-laws among them—” she laughed raggedly “—but I must tell you I’m elated Chrissie has taken the revelation you’re his real father in his stride. It has to be some deep primal recognition. But he must be wondering how it all happened. How I married Martyn. How we are Prescotts. And there’s Martyn’s tragic accident. Sooner or later someone is going to tell him there was a young woman in the car with the man he thought was his father. God, I can’t handle it all. How can he? He’s seven years old.”
“Well, he’s doing fine so far,” Rohan pointed out tersely. “Come into the living room. We can work it out together, Charlotte. Life is full of revelations. People have to live with them every day. Betrayed people. I want to marry you. I’m going to marry you. Christopher should never be parted from his mother, and he’s my son. We can’t go our separate ways. That’s not possible. I want to look after you both. Maybe it isn’t happening the way I always planned, but it is happening. And soon.”
He didn’t say a word until she had finished telling him of her mother’s visit. “She couldn’t have been more unpleasant—”
“Vicious, don’t you mean?” His fire-blue eyes blazed.
“She didn’t know Christopher was at home.” Of all things, she was now defending her indefensible mother. “The one day he misses school, my mother turns up.”
“Christopher said he ran off before he heard the lot.”
“He heard more than enough,” she said painfully. “He heard my mother say I had sex with you and Martyn.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you?” he challenged bleakly. “Does he know what ‘having sex’ means?”
She was so upset she averted her face. “The things he knows amaze me. I don’t know if he’s got right down to the ‘hows’. Dad is very involved in his education. They do a lot together. But Dad would never get into that particular area. He would regard Chrissie as far too young. It’s all history, geography, the moon, the stars, the earth—things like that.”
“Oh, Charlotte!” He felt close to defeat. “What happened to us?”
A great swath of her hair fell forward against her cheek. “I’m not proud of myself, Rohan. But I have to ask you to take pity on me. I can’t take any more tonight. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Okay. I’ll take you home. I have to go back to Sydney in the morning. I have an important meeting I had to cancel today. You’ll be all right? I’ll come back as soon as I can. We have to decide what’s best to do. Your father has had a big shock too.”
Charlotte gave a little sob. “There’s no accounting for reactions. He did get a shock, but he’s over it already. My mother’s performance guaranteed that. You know, he’s wasted years pining for her.”
His mouth twisted at the irony. “Well, now he’s seen her true colours. Your father is a handsome, virile man. He should remarry.”
“Maybe he might now. Lord knows there are several very attractive eligible women in the Valley who would jump at the chance of becoming the second Mrs Marsdon. The years that one wastes!” She lifted her eyes to his. They were full of tears.
“Charlie, don’t do this,” he groaned, his voice deepening with emotion. “I hunger and thirst for you. I want to keep you here, but I can’t. Don’t cry. Please. You cry, and I warn you my feelings will get the better of me.”
“So take me home,” she burst out wildly, and yet she surged towards him.
He caught her as she all but threw herself at him, trying to suppress the raging fire of desire before it got totally out of hand.
“Rohan, I’m so afraid!”
“Of what? Tell me.” He felt overwhelmingly protective.
“Of the things that might happen.”
“So we’ve got a fair bit of explaining to do?” He thought that was what she meant. Gently he smoothed damp strands of her hair from her face. “We’ll do it together. We speak to the Prescotts together. You clearly think they’ve had suspicions for some time. Did you love Martyn? Just a little? It’s okay to tell me.”
Once she’d had a good deal of affection for Martyn. As had he. Martyn Prescott had been an integral part of their daily lives.
“Who said anything about my loving Martyn?”
She’d shocked him with her throbbing answer. The sob in her voice. The sheer force of repugnance in her face. The stormy expression that swept into her lustrous green eyes took him totally unawares.
He stared down at her. “You blamed him for all the women? Martyn wasn’t really a womaniser. He was obsessed with you. Perhaps he went after comfort elsewhere when you couldn’t give him what he wanted?’
“Don’t think I didn’t try!” Her response was fiery. “I married him. I told you—I thought my unborn child was his. I thought I had a duty to marry him. You were thousands of miles away, on the other side of the continent. Four months can be an eternity. You thought money was important to me. It wasn’t. You were. You have the mind-set of a man who thinks his main job in life is to offer the woman he loves security.”
“Well, isn’t it?” He caught her beautiful face in his two hands, her hair a golden cloud around her face. “No—no!”
He’d had enough. More than enough. Heart hammering, he stopped her mouth with his own, taking a firm and desperate hold on her as though he would never let her get away. Only she returned his deep, passionate kiss, pressing her body ever closer against his, her own hunger, longing, love, hot and fierce.
“Charlotte!” At the fervour of her response, his hand moved to her breast. He knew the flimsy top would come off easily. Next the skirt. He belonged to this woman and no one else. She belonged to him.
Both of them had caught fire. Their mouths remained locked until they had to draw apart just to catch breath. There was no question of stopping. No question of saying no to the ecstasy on offer. They only had to come together for the fires of desire to crackle, burn, and then within moments turn into a raging inferno.
He drew her down onto the rug where they stood.
CHAPTER TEN
CHRISTOPHER, surprisingly none the worse for the traumatic events of the day before, insisted on going to school.
“I have to tell everyone I must have been delirious to do anything so stupid.” He had worked out his explanation in advance. “I did have a high temperature, didn’t I. Mummy?”
“Well, it didn’t get to the scalding stage, but, yes, your temperature was higher than normal for some hours.”
“Then that will have to do.” He could never tell anyone the things his dreadful grandmother had screeched. He was still trying to figure them out.
“I’ll come into school with you,” Charlotte said. “Your headmaster turned out to search for you. So did the other teachers. I won’t ever forget that.”
Christopher looked more mortified than gratified. “I never knew people were going to search for me,” he said unhappily. “I’ll never do anything so stupid again.”
She had to see the very calmness of his reaction had a great deal to do with his extraordinary emotional bond with Rohan. Rohan had come for him. Rohan had found him when no one else could. Rohan was now established as his real father, and that greatly reinforced Christopher’s support base. Whatever the shock waves, they clearly hadn’t overwhelmed their son. Christopher, a male child, saw Rohan as supremely strong and capable. A father he could look up to. Two parents clearly were better than one. She agreed with that at every level.
The big dilemma actually centred around her. She had to go to her ex-in-laws and tell them exactly how it had been. She would not expose Martyn. She had no wish to bring extra pain on the Prescotts who, apart from Gordon, had never really treated her as “family”. Every one in the Valley knew of the intense bond between her and the young Rohan Costello. Martyn came in second best. It didn’t sit well with Mrs Prescott or Nicole, who had grown up unwavering in her jealousy of the young woman who became her sister-in-law. Charlotte always had the feeling Nicole would have been hostile towards her even if there had been no Rohan. Perhaps she had made Nicole feel wanting in the femininity stakes.
Mrs Ellory, the Prescotts’ long-time housekeeper, greeted her at the door, remarkably pleased at seeing Charlotte again. She had been told when Charlotte was due to arrive, as Charlotte had rung ahead to ask if it would be convenient if she called in.
The answer from Mrs Prescott couldn’t have been more direct. “Yes,” she’d said, and hung up.
“And Christopher? He’s all right this morning?”
Charlotte smiled, remembering how kind Mrs Ellory had been to her little boy. “Insisted on going to school.”
“Amazing what children get up to,” Mrs Ellroy said. “But all’s well that ends well. Mrs Prescott and Nicole are waiting for you in the Garden Room, Charlotte. Go through. I’ll be bringing morning tea directly. Lovely to see you, Charlotte. I’ve missed you and young Christopher.”
“We’ve missed you too, Mrs Ellory.” It was perfectly true. Sometimes she had thought “Ellie”, as Christopher had called her, was her only real friend in the house.
When Charlotte walked into the Garden Room, with its beautiful display of plants and hanging baskets, neither her ex-mother-in-law nor Nicole spoke.
So that was the way it was going to be.
It was extremely unnerving, but she had to steel her resolve. If she and Rohan were to marry in a few months’ time there were facts all of them had to contend with. No matter how badly she wanted to be away from here, she had no option but to pay the Prescotts the courtesy of letting them know of her plans. Though nothing had been said, Charlotte felt in her bones Mrs Prescott had come to realise Christopher wasn’t her grandson. But at the beginning Martyn had been so obsessive about her. It had been as though she was the only girl in the world who could make him happy. And what Martyn wanted, Martyn got.
