‘Your Grace, I don’t think he’ll go away.’ Dudley sounded flustered.
‘You’re quite right,’ said a deep voice behind him. ‘I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked, Juliet.’
Daniel was standing in the doorway, his dark eyes glittering, his powerful presence filling the room.
Juliet’s heart contracted painfully, as if it was being squeezed by a strong fist, and for a moment her body seemed to hover, suspended between life and death, so that she thought she was going to pass out.
‘Daniel…?’ she croaked, her mouth dry. She felt paralysed with shock, unable to move. Her eyes were fixed on his face, hungrily taking in every feature while her mind was spinning… it can’t be… how can it be?
He strode forward, broad shouldered and strong, and dropped into a chair near where she was sitting. He was frowning anxiously now. ‘Are you all right?’
Juliet nodded, still unable to speak.
‘I saw Gaston yesterday,’ he said. ‘He told me you thought I was dead?’ he asked abruptly.
Her face was still ashen, and she looked fragile. Somehow she found her voice and she spoke bitterly. ‘So you and your girlfriend weren’t killed when your house was bombed? The Warden told me… he said they’d taken out a man and a woman, and there’d been nothing they could do for them.’ She felt queasy and jarred from the impact of his sudden appearance, and her head ached.
‘Oh, Juliet!’ Daniel sounded both angry and compassionate at the same time, as if he’d picked up a child who had stepped off the pavement and almost got knocked down by a car. ‘After we stopped seeing each other I rented the house to a friend of mine and his wife. Tragically, they were killed in the bombing. Not me. Didn’t you check with someone?’
Stung by his criticism, she rallied. ‘Like who? I could hardly telephone your wife to ask if you’d been killed, could I? And no, before you ask,’ she continued feeling strangely rattled, ‘I did not look for the announcement of your death in the newspapers, and I did not try to find out when your funeral was being held. I did what I had to do. Went back on duty and kept bloody going,’ she added, suddenly bursting into angry tears.
‘Oh, darling.’ He leaned forward and looked tenderly into her face. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s a bit late to be sorry now. You obviously didn’t want to have anything more to do with me,’ she dashed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘So why should I have wanted to go to your funeral? Why should I care what happened to you?’
‘That’s not what Gaston told me,’ he said softly, ‘and I don’t believe it’s true. I’ve always loved you, Juliet. Always wanted you. It was your choice to marry Cameron Kincardine.’
‘Because you were already married. And it was obvious you were so wrapped up in your family, you couldn’t even telephone me, or drop me a line,’ she retorted.
Daniel reached out for her hand, clasping it tightly, holding her fast. ‘It was true that I was moving my family away from Kent, but what I couldn’t tell you, and I can’t give you the details even now, is that I was in Norway, setting up a network for SOE, which Gaston also happens to work for. The difference is he gets dropped behind the enemy lines, while I sit at HQ thinking up codes. I’ve been with MI5 for years you see.’
Juliet’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘How did you get back from Norway – the war had already started?’
He shrugged. ‘Ways and means… sorry, my darling, Official Secrets Act and all that. You’ll just have to trust me. All I want now is to be with you. My wife left me for someone else four years ago and we’re divorced now.’
‘Daniel… why haven’t you got in touch before?’
‘Because I really didn’t think you’d want to see me. Whenever we bumped into each other, you were so cold, so distant.’
‘Oh! So I was supposed to fall at your feet, in adoration, was I? Even when I crawled out of the Guards’ Chapel, covered in other people’s blood? You could have said something then,’ she flashed with the old fire alight in her eyes.
‘Why do you have to put on this act of being an utter bitch?’ He sounded angry again. ‘Underneath all that brittle arrogance, you’re a sweet girl, you know. Why don’t you let that show? Why do you always end up trying to push people away? You do it every time. You’re doing it now.’
Juliet levelled her gaze at him. ‘To protect myself, of course. And the last thing I want is your pity.’
He looked mystified. ‘Why should I pity you, for God’s sake?’
There was a long pause before she answered. ‘I was pregnant with your baby, some years ago. Then I had a bad miscarriage. The baby was too premature to survive…’ her voice caught, and she fought for control, ‘… so she died,’ she added in a whisper.
Daniel looked appalled, his eyes stricken. ‘Why didn’t you tell me at the time?’
‘I wanted to tell you…’ she said fiercely. ‘I wanted to tell you more than anything, but I could never get hold of you.’
‘… You had a baby, all on your own? And she died?’ he asked, horrified.
‘Cameron was very kind, although we were getting divorced. He flew down from Scotland; he thought it was his child.’
‘And you didn’t disillusion him?’
‘What was the point? He can’t help being a homosexual and he seemed so thrilled to think he’d fathered a baby, even if it was a girl. I couldn’t take that away from him.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Daniel groaned, dropping his head into his hands. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were wet with tears. ‘Juliet, I’ve always loved you. It’s you I’ve always wanted. You’ve got to believe me. Don’t you love me any more?’
‘Would you have come to see me, if you hadn’t met Gaston?’ she challenged. ‘Are you only here, because he’d told you I’d been upset by your death?’
‘Yes, I would have done,’ he said firmly. ‘But first, I wanted to get my divorce over and done with, so that I’d be free to ask you to share your life with me, as my wife. Of course if you’re not interested…’
Juliet stared into his face. Not daring to believe his words. Wanting to show him she loved him, but frightened of being hurt, again. He was the other half of her, a soulmate, a lover, all she’d ever wanted and yet she felt scared. He was looking intently into her eyes, and his forceful personality was as magnetic as ever; would she be able to resist him?
Then she heard herself say, ‘I’ve been half dead myself, since I thought you’d been killed.’
‘So can I take that as a typical Juliet declaration of love?’ he mocked gently, his mouth tipping up at the corners.
Suddenly her face had lit up and she was glowing. Stretching her arms towards him she wound them around his neck as he pulled her close.
‘I suppose so,’ she whispered as if she only half believed this was happening.
Next in the The Granville Sisters Trilogy:
The Granville Legacy
A captivating post-war saga of love and betrayal, perfect for fans of Judith Lennox and Kate Williams.
Find out more
First published in Severn House Publishers LTD in 2005 by Great Britain
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Copyright © Una-Mary Parker, 2005
The moral right of Una-Mary Parker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800321007
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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