by Anne Mather
Jordan touched his cheek. ‘And the drinking?’
‘Some,’ he conceded honestly. ‘But I’m grateful to Rosa for overstating my case.’
Jordan’s lips twitched. ‘Oh, darling, I do love you!’
‘And I love you,’ he assured her roughly, his possessive exploration finding the slim curve of her hip. ‘But you still didn’t tell me about Chas.’
Jordan frowned. ‘What about Chas?’
Rhys rolled over imprisoning her beneath him. ‘When did you speak to him?’ he asked softly.
Jordan’s frown deepened. ‘You know when. Tonight—last night,’ she amended, realising belatedly what time it was. ‘While you were visiting Lucy.’ She paused, then added honestly, ‘He told me about the blood test you took to prove Lucy’s parentage. I hope you don’t mind!’
‘Oh, Jordan!’ Rhys pressed his face between her breasts and she felt him shake his head. ‘So you really didn’t know whether Lucy was my daughter or not when you left Eleutha?’
‘No.’ Jordan sounded puzzled. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Only to me,’ Rhys assured her unevenly. ‘You really would have come back to me, even knowing that I might have been lying?’
Jordan cradled his face between her two hands. ‘I discovered I didn’t care any more,’ she admitted emotionally. ‘And when Chas told me about—well, I felt terrible.’
‘I was a fool,’ said Rhys harshly. ‘As soon as I had proof, I should have come back and told you. But pride can be a damned uncomfortable thing.’
‘For me, too,’ murmured Jordan, nodding. ‘If only Rosa hadn’t said Lucy looked like you!’
Rhys’s foot stroked her leg. ‘Rosa has a lot to answer for,’ he agreed, without rancour. ‘And Lucy does have eyes like mine.’ He paused. ‘But so did Jack Costa.’
‘Jack Costa? He’s Lucy’s real father?’
‘Was,’ said Rhys flatly. ‘He was a seaman. He was drowned in a fishing accident some years ago.’
‘And Lucy never knew him?’
‘I doubt if she remembers him.’ Rhys shook his head. ‘We don’t talk about it. So far as Lucy is concerned, I’m her father. I didn’t want her to experience the same lack of identity I’d once suffered. That’s why I took responsibility for her. It didn’t seem fair that a kid of six should be made to pay for her parents’ mistakes. I adopted her, you know. Just to make everything legal. Of course, she doesn’t know that.’
‘Oh, Rhys!’ Jordan pulled him down to her. ‘Do you think she’ll ever accept me?’
‘As her stepmother, you mean?’ asked Rhys huskily. ‘I think so. She asked me if I was in love with you, you know. She’s not entirely without perception.’
Jordan caught her breath. ‘So Rosa wasn’t lying about that.’
‘She told you?’
‘Yes.’ Jordan coloured. ‘She said you didn’t deny it.’
‘How could I?’ Rhys breathed against her cheek. ‘I’ve always been in love with you, and now I’ll never let you go.’
The shrill peal of the telephone beside the bed interrupted the intimate possession of his mouth, and dragging himself away from her, Rhys stretched out a hand to answer it.
‘It’s the hospital,’ he mouthed, as Jordan propped herself up on her elbows, wide-eyed and anxious. Then: ‘She has? Oh, that’s great! We’ll come over right away.’
She waited, and after he had replaced the receiver, she looked expectantly at him. ‘Lucy’s recovered consciousness,’ he said, pausing a moment to bestow a lingering kiss on her parted lips. ‘Come on, get your clothes on. We’re going to see her.’
‘Me, too?’ Jordan gazed at him.
‘From now on, we’re going everywhere together,’ declared Rhys huskily. ‘Now, cover yourself, woman, before I start something we don’t have time to finish!’
Four months later, Jordan drove out to Heathrow Airport to meet her stepdaughter on her return from Eleutha. Lucy had been spending a prolonged holiday with Karen at the hotel she was now running—with Neil’s assistance—and Jordan was looking forward to seeing her stepdaughter again, and hearing how her sister was managing to cope with her new responsibilities.
Jordan herself looked much different from the hollow-eyed girl who had gone looking for Rhys in New York four months ago. Being married to Rhys for almost the whole of that time had returned the bloom of youth to her warm features, and their month-long honeymoon in the Seychelles had left her with the confident air of a woman who knows she is loved.
‘Jordan!’ Lucy came rushing out of the Customs hall into her arms, and the two girls hugged one another warmly. ‘I’ve missed you,’ Lucy declared, drawing back to look at her. ‘But I’m not going to believe that you’ve missed me. You look fantastic! Is that mink?’
‘It’s sable, actually,’ admitted Jordan ruefully, as the porter wheeling Lucy’s luggage caught up with them. ‘Do you think it’s too extravagant? I told your father I didn’t need another fur coat, but he insisted. What do you think?’
‘I think you look beautiful,’ said Lucy sincerely, looking down at her own fur-trimmed sheepskin without envy. ‘It wouldn’t look half as good on me. You’re so tall and slim and elegant.’ She paused. ‘But gaining weight, if I’m not mistaken.’
Jordan felt the warm colour flood her cheeks as she directed the porter to follow them to the exit. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she murmured in a low tone, watching Lucy’s expression anxiously. ‘I wanted to tell you, before anyone else.’
‘Except Daddy,’ amended Lucy drily, and Jordan smiled.
‘Except him,’ she conceded. ‘Well? Do you mind?’
Lucy preceded her through the automatic doors and grimaced humorously when she saw her stepmother’s Mercedes parked on the double yellow lines. ‘Why should I mind?’ she asked, settling herself into the front seat and waiting for Jordan to slide in beside her. ‘It’s time you two had a family,’ she added, as her stepmother paid the porter for stowing their luggage. ‘You’re not as young as you used to be, you know.’
Jordan gave a gurgling laugh and started the engine. ‘Well, that’s certainly true as far as I’m concerned,’ she agreed, pulling the car out into the stream of traffic leaving London’s busiest airport. ‘And I think your father’s rather pleased. He’d like more children.’
‘You mean he’d like a child of his own,’ remarked Lucy carelessly, as they turned west towards Oxford. ‘By the way, Karen’s coping really well with the hotel. And did she tell you—she and Neil have become quite close?’
Jordan blinked. She couldn’t take her eyes from the road for more than a second, but Lucy’s comments could not be ignored, and stepping on the brake, she pulled into the slow-moving lane of the motorway. ‘What did you say?’
‘Karen’s managing to run——’
‘Not about Karen,’ said Jordan sharply. ‘About your father liking a child of his own. He has you. This child I’m carrying will be your half-brother or sister.’
Lucy bent her head. ‘It won’t,’ she said succinctly. ‘I know I’m not really Da—Rhys’s daughter. I’ve known about it for ages. Don’t look so shocked. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Jordan took the next exit from the motorway, and as soon as she could, she pulled the car off the road. Then she turned to look at her stepdaughter, and Lucy leant forward to press an impulsive kiss against her cheek.
‘Don’t look like that,’ she said. ‘Daddy—Rhys—doesn’t know. Oh, I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t know how. I mean, how do you tell someone that you’re not really their daughter? Particularly when that person has expended so much time and money and love upon you!’
‘Oh, Lucy!’ Jordan gazed at her helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything.’ Lucy bent her head. ‘Just tell me you don’t think Daddy will hate me for it. Could you tell him? I mean, you’d do it so much better than I could, and perhaps now he won’t be too—disappointed.’
Jordan shook her head. ‘Darling, your father
won’t be too disappointed at all.’
‘Don’t you think so?’ Lucy looked more hopeful.
‘No.’ Jordan sought about for the right words. ‘And he is your father, you know. He adopted you—quite legally.’
Lucy was nodding with evident relief, when the import of what her stepmother had said seemed to strike her. ‘He—adopted me? But why did he do that?’
Jordan took Lucy’s hands between her own. ‘Can’t you guess?’
Lucy stared at her, comprehension dawning in her eyes. ‘He knows?’
‘He knows,’ agreed Jordan softly. ‘But what he’ll want to know is, how do you?’
Lucy swallowed convulsively. ‘He really knows? He’s known all these years?’
‘Yes.’ Jordan hesitated. ‘He and your mother were separated at the time you were conceived. He knew you couldn’t be his daughter.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘But why did he——’
‘He loved you,’ said Jordan simply. ‘He cared about you, and he didn’t want you to be hurt by what had happened to your mother.’
‘Oh, isn’t he wonderful!’ breathed Lucy, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Then she sniffed. ‘But will he forgive me for not being honest with him?’
Jordan sighed. ‘I think so. But you still haven’t told me how you found out.’ She paused. ‘You weren’t old enough to understand.’
Lucy lifted her shoulders. ‘Not then, no. But later I was.’
Jordan frowned. ‘Someone told you?’
‘No.’ Lucy shook her head. Then she went on: ‘When Daddy came to see me in the hospital—after the plane crash, you know?—he brought Mummy’s suitcase with him. It had survived the crash, I don’t know how. Like me, I suppose. Anyway, there were things in it, things that had been Mummy’s, which he thought I might like to keep. Among them was a photograph of me, when I was a baby. In a frame.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well——’ Lucy wetted her lips, ‘I didn’t touch the photograph at first. When Daddy took me to live with him, it was all so strange at first, and I was still upset about Mummy. Oh, he—Daddy, that is—he helped me a lot. But she was my mother, after all, and I was only six.’ She shook her head reminiscently. ‘It wasn’t until I was about nine or ten that I discovered what was in the back of the photograph.’
‘What was it?’ asked Jordan doubtfully. ‘A letter?’
‘No. My birth certificate,’ admitted Lucy unhappily. ‘Mummy must have put it there and forgotten about it. Anyway, my father’s name was given as Jack Costa—Uncle Jack, that is. We used to live with him before we started looking for—for Rhys. Maybe my mother thought that by putting Uncle Jack’s name on the certificate she’d have some hold on him afterwards, but it didn’t work that way. I still remember the rows there were before he left. Then one day he didn’t come back.’
‘Oh, Lucy!’
I tore it up,’ said Lucy, with a sudden shiver. ‘The birth certificate, I mean. I didn’t want Daddy—Rhys—to send me back to Uncle Jack, so I burnt the pieces. It was silly, I realise that now, but I thought if I destroyed the evidence …’ She broke off. ‘I was only nine years old. I never dreamed Daddy might know the truth.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, you had no need to worry.’ With a shake of her head, Jordan gathered the girl into her arms and hugged her. ‘Come on, let’s go home. Your father will be wondering where we are—not to mention Mrs Settle! I may be the new mistress of your father’s house, but you’re still the apple of her eye.’
‘… and that’s what she’s been hiding all these years,’ finished Jordan huskily, snuggling down on Rhys’s knee. ‘Poor Lucy. She didn’t have to tell me, but—she felt she had to.’
‘She wanted to,’ essayed Rhys, depositing a warm kiss at the corner of her mouth. ‘I guess she cares more about you than you realised.’
‘And you’re not angry, are you?’ Jordan ventured softly. ‘I mean, I promised her you wouldn’t be.’
‘Did you?’ Rhys looked down at his wife’s reclining form with disturbing eyes, ‘Is that why you chose to wear this revealing negligee? To prove that if I was angry, you were prepared to suffer the inevitable consequences?’
‘Promises, promises,’ breathed Jordan, the sleeves of her gown falling back as she wound her arms around his neck. ‘No, seriously, darling——’
‘Seriously, I want to make love to you,’ he told her firmly, and Jordan submitted to the searching pressure of his lips without objection.
‘But do you mind about Lucy?’ she whispered a few moments later, and he groaned and rested his face in the hollow of her neck.
‘I hope she appreciates what a staunch ally she has in you,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll talk to Lucy tomorrow. And I promise to be gentle. Does that satisfy you?’ He paused. ‘Now, do you want to help me to undress, hmm?’
Jordan’s cheeks dimpled. ‘At your service, oh Lord and Master!’ Diligently she unfastened all the buttons on his shirt, and slid her hands inside next to his warm skin. ‘Hmm, you always smell so nice …’
‘So do you,’ retorted Rhys, his hands invading the neckline of the revealing negligee. ‘You know, I’ve missed you today. The sooner that sound studio on Eleutha is completed, the better I shall like it.’
Jordan pressed her lips to his throat. ‘You’re lazy,’ she breathed, and Rhys chuckled.
‘Only jealous of every minute you’re out of my sight,’ he told her thickly. ‘I don’t think the Settles will see much of us once I can work on the island.’
‘But we’ll still keep this place, won’t we?’ she asked, looking round the lemon and gold luxury of their bedroom. Rhys’s house, set in the Oxfordshire countryside, had been their first real home together, and she didn’t want to lose it. ‘We’ve been so happy here.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ Rhys conceded, propelling her to her feet. ‘And Lucy’s getting older. She may prefer to work in England.’
‘Somehow I think Lucy sees certain advantages to living on Eleutha,’ said Jordan happily, sliding Rhys’s shirt off his shoulders. ‘Steve’s going to help his father in running the importing company next year when he leaves school. Lucy told me as we drove back from the airport.’
‘Seems like Lucy told you a lot of things,’ remarked Rhys drily, stepping out of his trousers.
‘Well, I am her stepmother,’ Jordan reminded him huskily, and Rhys pulled her urgently to him.
‘And my child’s mother,’ he added, his hands seeking and finding the distinct swell of her abdomen.
‘You do understand about Lucy, don’t you?’ she asked anxiously. ‘After the way she took our relationship, I wouldn’t want to hurt her.’
‘My love, Lucy could see no fun in living with me without you. From the minute I saw you again, I became quite intolerable.’
‘Even so——’
‘Even so, I won’t hurt her feelings, I promise. Poor kid, she must have been scared stiff.’
‘When she found out? Yes, I think she was. She was so afraid you might send her back to Jack Costa.’
‘I’d never have done that.’
‘Then tell her,’ said Jordan huskily. ‘That’s all she wants to hear.’
‘Hmm.’ Rhys touched her mouth with his fingers. ‘She has a lot to thank you for.’
‘And you,’ said Jordan breathily, as he tugged the cord of her robe free and gazed with evident approval at the honeyed beauty of her rounded body.
‘We’ve got so much,’ he muttered unsteadily, pulling her towards him. ‘And this time I don’t intend to let it go …’
ISBN: 978-1-472-09724-8
MOONDRIFT
© 1984 Anne Mather
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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