Grateful for Sebastian’s supportive hand on her waist, Rosie gathered her courage and said gently, before her father could explode with impatience, ‘I remind you of my mother. Molly Lambert.’
The sternly sculpted mouth was suddenly unsteady. A spasm of emotion tightened his features before they relaxed into a semblance of a smile. ‘Molly. Of course. Molly’s child; you look exactly as I remember her.’ A muscle jerked in his throat. ‘I’m afraid I lost touch with her many years ago. How is she?’
Rosie swallowed. Hard. Didn’t he make the connection? His adultery had led to a pregnancy. He hadn’t wanted to know.
Couldn’t he guess who she really was? Or was he firmly into denial?
‘My mother died a few months ago.’ Her voice was flat. ‘That’s why I wanted to find you. Mum never told me who my father was, but before she died she gave me a pendant, given to her by my father—’
‘We have rock-solid reasons to believe that Rosie is your daughter, Marcus,’ Sebastian cut in with the voice of a man swiping through too much waffle.
Rosie’s breath snagged as the colour washed out of her father’s face. A film of tears dampening his eyes as he sank back into his chair, he said thickly, ‘I’m so sorry Molly’s gone. Too young.’
Casting Sebastian a fulminating look for jumping in with two left feet where she had meant to tread so carefully, she pulled a chair close to Marcus and took both his hands in hers.
Elvira murmured, ‘Oh, my dear!’ and Rosie didn’t know if she had directed the remark to Marcus or to her. At the moment she didn’t care. All her attention was given to the troubled man who was her long lost father.
‘Please don’t upset yourself,’ she said softly. ‘I promise I’m not here to cause trouble. As Sebastian said, there are reasons, but it’s a long story and it will wait until morning.’
‘Oh, pur-leese! Just get on with it!’ Terrina’s voice, suddenly harsh, sliced through the moment of fraught silence and, as if that had been a wake-up call, Marcus rallied, his spine straightening, his strong fingers tightening around Rosie’s.
‘I want you to tell me all you can about Molly,’ he said urgently.
‘She disappeared all those years ago. Her parents clammed up and refused point-blank to tell me where she was or why she’d gone. Even after all these years I need to know! If—if you really are my daughter—’ Rosie’s fingers were in danger of being crushed by the pressure he was exerting ‘—I have to know everything—’
Agitation couldn’t be good for him, Rosie decided, and told him as gently as she could, ‘Mum left her home, the village, and dropped out of college because she was pregnant with me. She wouldn’t tell me who my father was, but she did tell me he was married. I guess she felt that telling you she was pregnant would cause you a whole heap of trouble, so she took the decision to disappear. But I do know,’ she added quickly as a terrible spasm of pain crossed his face, ‘that she loved you always. She never looked at another man. She was pretty, and she did have offers, but she just wasn’t interested.’
If his eyes could still fill with moisture over a lover he’d lost almost twenty-one years ago, then his love must have been sincere and strong. Just as her mother’s had been. Ready tears welled up in Rosie’s eyes. It was a horribly sad story.
Marcus said heavily, his voice cracking with emotion, ‘She should have told me. She needn’t have had to cope on her own. We both knew I could never leave my wife, but I would have cared for Molly and my child. I would have loved you both. So much love. Gone to waste.’
‘So you admit to having an adulterous affair.’ Sebastian’s tone was icy. He walked into Rosie’s line of vision. He looked intimidating and Rosie’s heart sank, landing up somewhere beneath the soles of her shoes. From what she’d been able to gather Sebastian had adored his aunt Lucia, and her husband had betrayed her in the worst possible way. If she’d kept her nose out of it, refused to follow her need-to-know instincts, then this rift would never have been created.
She felt absolutely dreadful. She had messed up, big time!
‘I must alter the dinner arrangements,’ Elvira said briskly.
‘Trays, I think. Later. Please excuse me. Are you coming, Terrina?’
‘No, I’m staying right where I am.’ Rosie caught the look of scorn in the other woman’s eyes and felt totally withered.
Unlike Elvira, a tactful withdrawal obviously didn’t come high on her list of priorities. ‘If I’m to be landed with a grown up stepdaughter when I marry I need to be in on this.’
‘Terrina—leave us!’ Marcus ordered firmly, and Rosie felt sick.
She was causing problems all round and right now she didn’t like herself very much. Pulling her hands from Marcus’s grip, she wrapped her arms around her body and hoped with all her might that Sebastian could eventually find it in his heart to forgive his godfather, even if he never for-gave her for being the catalyst.
Not even Terrina could ignore that forceful command, and when the three of them were alone Marcus stood facing his godson, who was also his nephew by marriage, the close bond this implied seemingly on the point of shattering, judging by the coldly distant set of Sebastian’s strong features, the proud angle of his dark head.
‘Try not to despise me, Seb.’ It was an order, not a plea.
Miserably, her heart in her mouth, Rosie watched what promised to be a clash of two Titan characters. ‘I loved Lucia. I would never have hurt her. But because of her condition my feelings for her of necessity became more like the love of a father for a sick child.’
‘So you looked for relief, right there, practically under Lucia’s nose,’ Sebastian said darkly, his eyes stony.
‘It happened!’ Marcus shot straight back. ‘Seb—I was a normal, healthy male, with normal, healthy needs. But I never even considered looking elsewhere. Until that summer when I first met Molly. Oh—’ he shrugged impatiently ‘—I knew the Lamberts had a daughter, must have seen her about the place from time to time. But that summer, when she worked with us, it was as if I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. It just happened. We couldn’t help ourselves. We tried, by God we both tried!’
Again the impatient shrug, as if he couldn’t expect anyone who hadn’t experienced something similar to understand. ‘We were careful—Lucia never even guessed.’ He heaved a heavy sigh.
‘Molly knew, and understood, that I would never leave Lucia for her. Your aunt relied on me too much, not only to arrange and oversee the twenty-four-hour nursing care she had begun to need by then, but for company, for the knowledge that someone really cared enough about her to stay with her, helping her in her fight against her cruel disease.’
‘So you sacrificed your mistress and your unborn child just to keep your reputation sweet,’ Sebastian injected coldly.
‘Dammit, man! Haven’t you been listening?’
Marcus was clearly losing his cool. Rosie wondered dizzily if she should intervene. But neither of them seemed aware of her existence any longer. She would have liked nothing better than to creep quietly away and hide somewhere but she couldn’t do that.
And Marcus was grinding out, his skin reddening, ‘I didn’t know Molly was pregnant. Had I done I would have been over the moon about it. I always wanted a child. Molly’s child—’ Words seemed to fail him there, but after a moment his voice strengthened. ‘Had I known, I would have settled her somewhere on the other side of the country—a cottage with a garden; she was mad about growing things—I would have supported her and our child. Something would have been discreetly arranged. But Molly vanished. At the time I believed she’d found the strength I didn’t have, the strength to break the spell between us. But I had no idea of the truth. So how could I have helped? Answer me that!’
Even though Rosie’s vision was blurred with tears she could see the way Sebastian’s hard shoulders suddenly relaxed, see Marcus turn to her. ‘But Molly gave me a daughter.’ He held out a hand but Rosie ignored it. She was trying to read Sebastian’s expression, t
o see if he understood that love could be devastating, take precedence over everything else.
She did. Since falling in love with him she understood it only too well, and could forgive both her parents for what had happened. But if Sebastian had never experienced the wild passion of that kind of love, didn’t know what it could do to a person, how it could sweep normal moral considerations aside, then he would never forgive the older man.
Her wide eyes still seeking his, he swept her a long, level glance before turning to the door. His voice stiffly polite, he observed, ‘I misjudged you, Marcus. I doubted your honour. Forgive me for that. As you were unaware of your lover’s pregnancy you can’t be blamed for doing nothing to help.
‘Now…’ he paused at the great carved doors ‘…you need privacy to get to know each other. I’ll leave you, and make sure you’re not disturbed.’
Rosie’s heart seemed to swell to twice its normal size as she gazed at the spot where he had been. So that was why he’d been so simmeringly angry. Nothing to do with her at all, or only indirectly. He—as evidenced by his determination to keep her where he could see her until they knew whether or not she was pregnant—would never shirk his duty. He’d been coldly angry because he’d believed Marcus had.
At least the rift she’d caused between them had been healed, she thought thankfully, her eyes misting.
‘Rosie—’
Dimly, through a haze of emotional tears, she watched Marcus walk towards her. He took her hands and drew her to her feet.
‘Molly’s child, my daughter,’ he said brokenly. ‘Such a precious gift.’
The dimly lit corridor stretched endlessly in front of her. Was this the way to her room, or wasn’t it? Rosie felt wrung out with exhaustion. She wished Sebastian would appear. She needed him. Not to talk—she was all talked out—but just to be close, and if that was weak, well, she couldn’t help it. Her father had wanted to know all there was to know about her life and her mother’s. She’d told him everything, skating rapidly over the bad bits so as not to add to the guilt he was obviously and wrongly feeling.
Touching on the pendant, she’d promised to return it to him in the morning, but he’d said, ‘It’s been in the family for decades. It’s yours now, as of right. One of the greatest sadnesses of my life has been the lack of an heir, and now I have you.’
‘Oh, no!’ Rosie reddened with mortification. ‘I don’t want anything! I didn’t try to find you for what I could get out of you! All I wanted to do was get to know you a little. Mum and I didn’t have any relatives, not since my grandparents died.’ And even they had turned their backs on them. ‘Then, when Mum—went, I just wanted to feel I did sort of belong to someone.’
She was just thankful that her father was a decent man and not the callous philanderer she’d half believed he must be. That was all that really mattered to her. And Marcus had given her the most wonderful smile.
‘Don’t you think I don’t know that? You are your mother’s daughter, not a grasping bone in your body. And if you’re as sensitive to others’ needs as she was, you’ll agree to spend some time with me, back at Troone. We can really get to know each other while you decide what you want to do with your future. For the moment, that’s all I ask of you.’
All in all, it had been an emotionally exhausting two or three hours, and now it was late and, stupidly, she’d got herself lost in this huge building.
There was another corridor branching off the one she’d found herself in. Perhaps that was the one that would lead to her room? Trouble was, the house was built around a series of courtyards. She could be wandering around all night!
She forced herself on. Then, her eyes widening, she heard Terrina’s voice coming from a partly open door. Saying something about preferring the cheque to be made out in US dollars. Sounding fairly stroppy about it.
Never mind that—she was saved! Terrina would know how to find her room! Lurching forward on a burst of adrenalin—fuelled energy, she stumbled to a halt when she heard Sebastian’s voice answering, ‘If that’s what you want.’ A tiny pause, then, ‘Take it and think yourself lucky. It should be enough to keep you in nail polish and perfume until you find another rich sucker to attach yourself to. It’s nowhere near what you’d have had access to as Marcus Troone’s wife, of course, but the alternative is having him throwing you out with nothing at all, should he get to hear what I could tell him. Be packed and ready to leave in the morning.’
Rosie’s eyes closed in pain. She shivered in shocked disbelief.
She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping but she couldn’t move.
Sebastian was blackmailing her father’s fiancee! Making her break off the engagement! Because he would stop at nothing— as Terrina had as good as confided—to prevent Marcus remarrying, thus diverting his property away from him!
And Terrina’s acid drawl hammered the awful fact hard into her cringing brain. ‘Congratulations! You’ve stopped me coming between you and your inheritance. But you’re not home and dry yet. You’d better get your skates on and slap a wedding ring on his new-found daughter’s finger, hadn’t you? It’s the only way to make sure of your future inheritance.’
‘Believe me—’ Sebastian’s voice carried a smile— ‘I intend to.’
The sound of a chair’s legs being scraped across the floor.
Both hands over her mouth, Rosie fled. She’d stumbled into the blackest of black nightmares! She might have found her father, but her heart was utterly and hopelessly shattered.
It all fell into place now. Sebastian wouldn’t let anyone stand in the way of his future inheritance. He’d prevented his godfather’s remarriage and now all he had to do was marry the new heir and, bingo! He’d get what he wanted.
Chillingly, she recalled his immediate reaction when she’d told him who she was. His greedy instincts had come to the fore when he’d accused her of trying to get his godfather’s money.
When she’d put the proof of her identity into his hands he’d back-tracked a little, added all that stuff about not being able to believe the older man could have betrayed his wife, the aunt Sebastian had professed to have loved so much. And later, when he’d actually seen the proof and had had time to think, he’d asked a few more questions and had been nice to her again.
Deciding that she, and not he, would be likely to inherit Marcus’s wealth, he’d known he’d have to sweeten her up all over again, get her ready for the marriage proposal he’d admitted to Terrina he was going to make.
Louse!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE last thing Rosie wanted to do was face the new day. She’d finally sobbed herself to sleep, and when Paquita had woken her at ten with a breakfast tray she’d wanted nothing more than to bury her face in the pillow and tell her to go away.
But, remembering her manners, she’d thanked her anyway, ignored the tray which had been left on a small table beneath one of the long windows, and hauled herself to the adjoining bathroom, where the sight of her puffy red eyes and swollen nose hadn’t done a single thing to alleviate her misery.
The discovery that she wasn’t pregnant was the final blow.
Though it should be one enormous relief, she sniped at herself, as she opened the doors to the hanging cupboard and dispiritedly wondered what to wear.
Was she really such a love—torn idiot as to actually want to be carrying Sebastian’s baby? She should be calling for champagne to celebrate the fact that she wasn’t to be the unmarried mother of a child who bore a slimy, manipulative blackmailer’s genes!
Covering up was the order of the day, she decided. She felt as if she was in mourning. For a baby who hadn’t been there in the first place? For the loss of love?
Oh, snap out of it!
What she’d overheard had been a blessing in disguise—well, hadn’t it? She might have spent the rest of her days mooning uselessly over a worthless, mercenary skunk, remembering…
She didn’t want to remember. It made her cringe all over to even think of him! A
nd she had found her father, and he was a good man. And that should make up for everything. Well, shouldn’t it?
Stylish cotton trousers in a pale smoky blue with a matching short-sleeved jacket over a deeper blue vest was as sober as she could get, given the choice of garments she’d stuffed into her suitcase.
She would much rather be pulling on her own scuffed jeans and one of her plain, well washed T-shirts. Wearing the clothes Sebastian had bought her now made her feel kind of creepy, like the sort of woman who accepted gifts for services rendered.
She was listlessly brushing her hair when Dona Elvira entered the room. She smiled warmly. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’
‘Shell shocked,’ Rosie admitted, laying down the brush and turning to face the other woman. That elegant lady looked sympathetic but mightily pleased at the same time. If she thought her admission had to do with at last meeting her father, and nothing to do with finding out what kind of man Sebastian was, then that was fine by Rosie.
‘It must have been a deeply emotional meeting,’ Dona Elvira sympathised, verifying Rosie’s assumption. She probably didn’t know what kind of man her precious son was, either, and Rosie wasn’t about to take the blinkers off her eyes. She could keep her illusions, and welcome!
‘But a happy one, yes?’ the older woman insisted.
‘I breakfasted with Marcus and he gave me the background details. He is like—how do you say it?—a dog with two heads!’
‘Tails,’ Rosie corrected automatically, and tried to smile because she knew it was expected of her.
It turned into a sigh when Sebastian’s mother scolded, ‘You haven’t touched your breakfast. You must eat. The coffee will be cold. I will send for fresh.’
‘No, really—the juice will be fine; I never touch much for breakfast.’ A whopping fib—in normal circumstances she ate like a horse—and Rosie condemned herself as she resignedly obeyed the imperious gesture inviting her to sit at the small table.
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