by Penny Jordan
Edgar Farrar shot to his feet, his arthritic knee forgotten. His eyes blazed. ‘How dare you?’
‘Sure,’ Rafe drawled, throwing his jacket over his shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and he was worth ten of me, but don’t say you didn’t know my sainted brother habitually cheated on poor Annabel.’ He laughed harshly as fresh colour suffused his grandfather’s already ruddy cheeks.
‘Sure you knew, but he cheated with such exquisite discretion and good taste you turned a blind eye.’
‘Where do you think you’re going, boy?’ Edgar yelled at the ramrod straight back of his only remaining grandson.
‘Do you think I’d have ignored a child of Alec’s if I knew he existed!’
The quaver in the old man’s voice made Rafe pause. He slowed and turned back. ‘Any heir would be preferable to me, is that right?’ He searched the old man’s face. ‘I thought so.’
‘Rafe!’
‘Shut up! If I don’t get to the hospital soon you won’t have an heir at all!’ he flung angrily over his shoulder.
It was the first time in his life that anyone had ever told Edgar Farrar to shut up. It took him several moments to recover from the shock, but recover he did.
‘You really can’t get up yet, Mr Farrar,’ a young nurse protested weakly as Rafe swung his long legs over the side of the narrow bed.
‘No, he can’t,’ the older and coolly imperious uniformed figure who had escorted Tess into the cubicle agreed. ‘I’ve no desire to spend my evening filling in accident forms in triplicate after you fall flat on your face.’
After a short pause Rafe, whose head had done some spectacular spinning as he’d sat up, complied with a rueful grin.
‘Right, I’ll send along a nice cup of tea and biscuits and you’ll feel yourself in no time,’ she said briskly, withdrawing with the younger nurse in her wake.
They just looked at one another. Tess knew she had to do something…say something…You couldn’t tell a man what she had told Rafe and leave it like that.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ Rafe drawled as Tess moved awkwardly forward. ‘Any more secrets stored within that delightful bosom?’ His eyes lifted from the heaving outline and he saw colour suffuse her face.
Tess sighed regretfully. ‘I’m sorry I hit you with it like that, but things were a bit urgent.’
‘How’s the boy?’
He sounded as if he cared…What am I thinking? If he didn’t care he wouldn’t be here, she chided herself. ‘He’s in the operating theatre,’ she explained huskily. ‘They’ll probably have to remove his spleen…’ she caught her lower lip savagely between her teeth and continued huskily ‘…but he should be all right; thanks to you.’
‘And the others?’
‘Chloe had a nasty bang on the head, but it’s only concussion. She should be able to go home in the morning. The driver of the lorry is suffering from shock, which isn’t surprising. It must be a nightmare having your brakes pack up on you like that.’
‘Sit here.’ Rafe rolled onto his side, lifted his head and patted the side of the narrow bed he lay on. ‘You look all in.’
Perhaps it was the trauma of the past hour or so, but the gentleness in his voice brought an emotional lump to Tess’s throat.
‘Did they take much…?’ She glanced warily at the plaster mark on his arm and took him up on his offer.
Actually she was glad to sit down. Her metabolic rate had been in a head-spinning, upward spiral ever since she’d received the phone call from a distraught Ian telling her about the accident. While she’d had something to do, namely get Rafe here to donate his all important blood, she’d been able to cope. Now all that was left was the waiting and she felt so tense a sharp word might be enough to make her crack wide open.
‘The odd armful or two. Do I look pale and interesting?’
Actually he looked so devastatingly handsome that her heart had almost leapt from her chest the instant she’d seen him lying there.
‘More pallid and pasty.’ Tess heard the tremulous quiver in her voice and decided she might leave the sparkling repartee until she was more than one step away from being a basket case. She raised a self-conscious hand to her cheek.
‘That probably makes two of us. It was lucky I remembered about your odd blood group.’
‘I prefer rare, actually.’
‘You had your blood frozen in case it was needed when you had that knee surgery a few years back, didn’t you?’
‘They do keep some in cold storage for me,’ Rafe agreed.
‘When they told me about Ben’s I realised straight away it must be the same one…’
‘Considering our close relationship,’ he put in quietly.
‘I knew you’d be mad with me.’ Worriedly she searched his face and discovered he was searching hers just as diligently.
‘For not mentioning in passing that I’m actually Ben’s uncle?’ The truth was he’d been planning on demanding an explanation from her, but one look at the wary, worried expression on her pale little face and his rancour had vanished leaving an urgent desire…no, actually, overwhelming came a lot closer to describing his desire to enfold her in a comforting embrace that would wipe the lines of worry from her brow.
‘I don’t know what I am with you, angel,’ he admitted abruptly. ‘I know I’m mad with Alec. Lucky for him he’s dead,’ he reflected, his eyes glowing with contempt as he thought about his late and unlamented brother. ‘He always was a randy sod, but I didn’t think even he would stoop that low…my mistake,’ he added drily as Tess rested her forehead against his.
With a sigh Tess slipped off her shoes and cuddled up properly beside him. It was a relief to her he had taken the accuracy of what she’d told him for granted. He could have got understandably irked if he’d just thought she was badmouthing a dead man who couldn’t defend himself. But then Rafe knew better than most that his brother had not been a nice man; in fact it was pretty obvious to her that she couldn’t despise Alec any more than Rafe obviously did.
Her perfume was a pleasant change from the antiseptic hospital smell. Rafe inhaled deeply; he wasn’t sure if she found it soothing to have her hair stroked, but he found it soothing doing the stroking.
‘There’s probably a rule about this sort of thing.’
‘Considering the overstretched state of the National Health Service, bed-sharing could well be the way forward.’
Tess smiled weakly and rubbed her cheek against the hand he’d lifted to brush her hair from her eyes. ‘Perhaps I’ll just lie here for a moment. I can’t actually do anything just now and they’ll tell me if…’
‘Sure they will,’ he agreed in a soothing voice.
‘I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.’ Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.
His hand went to the back of her head. Rafe took a deep breath. How were you meant to console someone who sounded pretty damned inconsolable?
‘I expect every parent thinks that when anything happens to their kid…and don’t start with that “I’m just a distant relative” routine!’
‘I just wish it was me lying…’ Her voice cracked, before she ruthlessly stilled her trembling lip. She saved the luxury of tears for later when Ben was well again.
‘I don’t!’
A vision of Tess lying crumpled and broken like a rag doll on some roadside flashed before Rafe’s eyes; he felt physically sick. He became conscious that some of his revulsion must have shown in his voice—Tess was staring at him oddly. He cleared his throat.
‘Exchange isn’t a solution in these cases,’ he informed her drily. ‘What the hell had Chloe seen in Alec anyhow? Silly question—the same as all the others did, I suppose.’
‘She was very young and you can’t deny he was extremely good-looking.’
‘God, not you too!’
Tess had always disliked intensely the elder Farrar for trying to belittle his younger brother on every possible occasion. Even back then Rafe had been remarkably s
elf-contained. It must have infuriated Alec that Rafe had risen above his sly jibes; it had also made him more vicious. Some people had seen the charm when they’d met Alec; Tess had seen that streak of viciousness.
‘I thought he was a first-class sleaze,’ she responded indignantly as she lifted her head from his shoulder. ‘And you have to take your share of the blame in this.’
‘Me!’
‘Well, Chloe only turned her attention to Alec when you didn’t co-operate. Don’t tell me you didn’t know she fancied you something rotten.’
‘I knew, all right,’ he conceded, looking uncomfortable as he recalled some of her attempts to gain his attention.
‘And I’d sooner—! Well, shall we just say she’s not my type?’
Tess couldn’t let this assertion pass without comment. ‘I’d have said she was exactly your type…tall, leggy and blonde.’ She suddenly felt acutely the lack of all these attributes.
‘You seem to have made an in-depth study of the subject,’ he mused, taking her chin in his fingers and turning her face up to him.
Tess didn’t want to expand further on that theme; she tugged her head away. ‘Actually, I’m pretty sure Chloe imagined he’d leave Annabel and marry her,’ she explained grimly.
‘At least his death spared her a very nasty wake-up call,’ Rafe rasped. A puzzled frown puckered his brow. ‘Knowing Chloe’s big romance with materialism, I’m just amazed she hasn’t been milking Grandfather for money.’
‘Chloe isn’t that avaricious,’ she protested stoutly.
‘If you say so.’
‘Actually,’ Tess admitted awkwardly, ‘she thinks she is…well, not milking exactly.’ She raised herself up on her elbow and tucked a hank of floppy hair behind her ears.
‘There’s an annuity for her from the capital she thinks your grandfather provided…’
‘And he didn’t…’
‘Gran never touched any of the money Mum and Dad left me for my education, and even after the taxman had his cut I did make quite a lot when I was working…’
‘No wonder you seem strapped for cash.’ Rafe shook his head in astonishment. ‘Why the hell, Tess…?’
‘My thought exactly. Run away, girl.’ They hadn’t noticed the two people enter the cubicle. The young nurse, even more overawed by the older generation of Farrar than she had been the younger, vanished like a worried rabbit. Edgar’s gimlet gaze fixed on Tess. ‘I assumed you were the mother…’
‘No…no, I…Chloe…’
‘Tess thought Alec was a sleaze,’ Rafe explained succinctly, coming to Tess’s rescue. ‘You’d better make it quick, Grandfather—that poor kid has probably gone for reinforcements,’ Rafe predicted, nodding after the retreating student nurse. Tess wondered how he could sound so calm. ‘Or maybe it’s just tea she’s gone for. They did promise me some, not to mention biscuits. Shall I ask for another cup, Grandfather?’
‘Spare me your savage wit, and don’t get up on my account,’ Edgar Farrar drawled as Tess, painfully conscious of how she must appear, tried to scramble off the bed. A strong and determined arm prevented her.
‘We won’t,’ Rafe promised, his eyes coldly derisive as they clashed with his grandfather’s.
‘Well, girl?’ the old man rapped.
‘She’s not a girl, she’s a woman…she’s my woman.’ Rafe made it sound as if it made all the difference in the world, and of course it did—at least to Tess’s world…or it would have if he’d meant it.
Tess knew Rafe’s retort had really been intended to wind up, aggravate and generally provoke his grandfather—he never could resist an opportunity. Despite this, his words hit Tess just as hard in their own way as the lorry had hit Ian’s car earlier that evening. The dramatic impact swept away the last wispy doubts she’d managed to retain; she wanted to be Rafe’s girl, his woman, his love.
She wanted it for real because she loved him just about as much as it was possible for a woman to love a man. Strange that, even though she had very little personal experience of such things, Tess knew in every cell of her body that this was the for ever sort of love…Or, in this case, the hopeless, unrequited sort of love, she reminded herself brutally.
His grandfather’s narrowed eyes moved over the two figures entwined on the bed. ‘I’m not blind, boy,’ he snapped. ‘And I don’t care who she is, I still demand to know what she thought she was about denying me my great-grandson. I won’t bother asking why you’re conniving with her…’ he drawled contemptuously.
His contempt made Tess’s face harden; she suddenly felt purposeful, not embarrassed. Rafe was worth a hundred of any Farrar alive or dead, and yet they all persisted in treating him appallingly! She touched the side of Rafe’s face; it felt different somehow to look at him and know she loved him and always would.
‘It’s fine,’ she murmured, wondering if she looked as different as she felt.
‘Sure?’
Tess nodded firmly. This time he allowed her to rise.
She faced the figure who even now was much feared and revered in financial circles with a militant light in her blazing eyes.
‘I didn’t tell you for several reasons. Firstly I liked Annabel.’ Alec’s wife had been a sweet woman who had obviously thought her husband had been perfect. Even before his death she’d been devastated by her inability to supply him an heir; to learn Chloe had been expecting his child would have been one blow too many for the grieving widow.
A lot of people apart from Annabel seemed to think Alec had been perfect, Tess reflected, glaring at Rafe’s grandfather as she angrily compared his attitude towards his two grandsons.
‘She was always nice to me and I didn’t want her to be hurt. Secondly—’ her voice shook as she glared contemptuously at Edgar Farrar ‘—I’d seen how unhappy your household had made one young boy…’ Her eyes softened momentarily as she looked back quickly over her shoulder at Rafe, before narrowing to emerald ice-chips again as she squared up to his grandfather. ‘I’d no reason to believe you’d do any better the second time around,’ she announced scornfully.
Rafe looked on in amazement as his grandfather flinched and looked away from those critical, unforgiving green eyes. He doubted Tess realised what a rare thing she was seeing.
‘Rafe was…is my son’s responsibility,’ he blustered uncomfortably. ‘It wasn’t my place to interfere with Guy.’ This statement lacked his habitual assurance and it seemed from his expression he was conscious of the fact.
‘Can I have that in writing?’ Rafe muttered. He wasn’t surprised when both combatants ignored him.
‘I don’t know who I despise more,’ Tess announced, her clear voice ringing with scorn. ‘Those people who beat children or those who know about it and do nothing!’ She thought maybe she’d gone too far when Edgar gasped and clutched at his chest. ‘Are you all right?’ she cried anxiously.
‘Sit down, Grandfather,’ Rafe instructed sharply, rising from his sickbed with an athletic bound and taking charge of the situation. ‘Shall I call a doctor?’
‘Don’t be stupid, I just need my pills!’ Edgar drew a bottle from his breast pocket with tremulous fingers. ‘That’s better,’ he breathed a few moments later.
Tess was relieved to see the blue discoloration had faded from his lips.
‘Your father is a weak fool,’ he wheezed. ‘When I found out what Guy was doing I told him if he ever laid a finger on you again I’d break every bone in his body.’
‘And they say violence breeds violence,’ Rafe remarked. Underneath the sarcasm Tess could see he was looking thoughtful.
‘You’ve brought up this boy alone, I take it.’ The shrewd old eyes moved momentarily towards Rafe. ‘There is no husband, live-in lover…’
Tess shook her head before he came up with another phrase to describe her solitary state. ‘So far there’s just been Ben and me,’ she confirmed cautiously. She wasn’t sure she liked the way Edgar Farrar’s thoughts were heading. ‘Shouldn’t you lie down?’ she fretted, watchin
g as Rafe began to pace about the tiny space like a caged animal. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood.’
‘I didn’t lose it, I gave it away.’
‘And I’ll never forget it!’ she told him, her eyes shining with gratitude.
He’d be finding out just how grateful later; Rafe felt ashamed of the thought. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t put up a fight when you want to get me into bed later,’ he promised. He grinned unrepentantly as heat flooded her indignant face, leaving it prettily pink. ‘Only just now I feel like being on my feet…’
Not if…when…The arrogance of the man was astounding. Almost as astounding as his scorching sex appeal. She made a last-ditch effort to tear her bemused eyes from his face.
‘There’s plenty of time for courting later, boy,’ his grandfather remonstrated, listening to this interchange with a critical frown. ‘Right now I’ve got more important matters to discuss than your love life…’
‘Talking about important matters.’ Tess gave a distracted frown and patted the pager they’d promised to activate when Ben was out of theatre. ‘It shouldn’t be long—perhaps I should go and wait upstairs…’ She turned with a frown to Rafe.
Edgar Farrar stared in startled disbelief at the slim young woman who had so summarily dismissed him.
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You should be resting, and you can’t leave your grandfather…’
‘I’m not an invalid, I don’t need a keeper!’ Edgar Farrar exploded. ‘And in point of fact I’m not your grandfather either!’
Rafe’s lip curled in a sneer. ‘Isn’t that taking wishful thinking too far?’ he asked, pointedly tapping his distinctive aquiline nose. An almost identical feature adorned his grandfather’s weather-worn features. ‘This sort of evidence is kind of hard to deny.’
‘I’m not trying to deny anything.’ The old man pulled himself to his feet with difficulty; his eyes didn’t leave the younger man’s scornful face for an instant. ‘I’m your father.’
Tess realised by a process of elimination that the startled gasp had emerged from her mouth; neither man had moved or made a sound. Rafe’s face looked as though it were carved from stone, except stone didn’t have a pulse and she could see one in his blue-veined temple pounding away like a piston as he stared fixedly back at the older man.
