I’ve also realised I don’t want to take off any of my clothes again in front of anyone but the man I love, she thought with sudden anguish.
‘Just don’t be too hasty.’ Daisy put a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Because it won’t always be like that. This Donna Winston rubbish will soon be forgotten.’
‘Not,’ Rhianna said bitterly, ‘by me. Or by many other people while she’s on every daytime TV chat show, banging on about her fight for love and the safety of her unborn child. Making me into the real-life villainess of the piece.’
‘Whereas, of course, the actual villain has got off scot-free.’ Daisy wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘According to one story I read, he’s vanished to South Africa—and good riddance.’ She hesitated. ‘Have you managed to contact your friend in Cornwall yet?’
‘No,’ Rhianna admitted dejectedly. ‘I’ve tried phoning the house, but they won’t let me speak to her.’ She stared into her cup. ‘And last time, when her mother answered, she called me a treacherous bitch.’
‘And why wouldn’t she?’ Daisy said robustly. ‘You’ve said yourself she’s always hated you. She needs someone to blame, that’s all.’
‘She and a million others,’ Rhianna said unhappily. ‘I feel I’m a step away from being stoned in the streets. I came here this morning in a wig and a pair of sunglasses so no one on the Tube would recognise me. And though the Jessops have been wonderful, as always, letting me stay with them while the press are camped out at my flat, it can’t be a permanent arrangement.’
She sighed. ‘I feel I need to go and hide somewhere that no one will ever find me.’
‘As long as you come out of hiding in six months’ time,’ Daisy said agreeably. ‘Because you’re going to be wanted as a godmother.’
‘A godmother?’ Rhianna sat up sharply, her own woes temporarily on hold. ‘Truly? Oh, Daisy, my love, that’s so wonderful.’ She hesitated. ‘Is that why Rob…?’
‘Went into panic mode and ran?’ Daisy supplied, brows raised. ‘Absolutely. My beloved idiot suddenly saw a future where all the work had dried up and he had a wife and child he couldn’t support. He got all the way to his parents in Norfolk, realised he was insane, and came back.’
She began to smile. ‘Now he’s given up the idea of being theatrical knight and his lady in favour of being a patriarch, with his family and their golden retriever in the garden of their palatial country home.’
There was a silence, then Rhianna collapsed in the first fit of genuine laughter she’d experienced since her return from Spain over a week before. Daisy joined her.
‘God bless our boy,’ Rhianna managed weakly at last, wiping her eyes. ‘Incorrigible, or what?’
She was still smiling to herself as she made her way back to the quiet road where the Jessops lived.
Mrs Jessop met her in the hall, her kind face concerned. ‘You’ve got a visitor, dear. A lady. She’s in the front room.’
Carrie, Rhianna thought as she pushed open the door and went in. Oh, please, let it be Carrie.
Instead, she saw a tall woman with silvered blonde hair, dressed in immaculate grey trousers, with a matching silk blouse, and a coral linen jacket hanging from her shoulders.
For the first startled instant, as her visitor turned from the window to face her, Rhianna thought that it was Moira Seymour, and braced herself for the inevitable onslaught. But this woman was smiling at her. Diffidently, perhaps, but quite definitely smiling.
‘So.’ It was a soft, clear voice. ‘Grace’s daughter. We meet at last.’
Oh, God, thought Rhianna, panic tightening her throat as she recognised the face from the portrait. It’s Diaz’s mother.
She said uncertainly, ‘Mrs—Penvarnon? I—I wasn’t expecting this. What are you doing here—and how did you find me? I don’t understand.’
‘To be frank, I hoped you’d never be obliged to,’ the older woman returned wryly. ‘But when Diaz sent me the photographs he’d found in your room and demanded an explanation, I knew I no longer had a choice.’
‘The photographs?’ Rhianna stared at her. As soon as she’d got back to London she’d realised they’d gone. That they’d somehow been missing from her bedside table when she cleared her room. ‘You mean Diaz had them?’ She added with constraint, ‘But why would he send them to you when they were mainly shots of his father?’
‘Mostly,’ Esther Penvarnon corrected her quietly. ‘But not all. There were—others.’
‘Well, yes,’ Rhianna agreed, still puzzled. ‘There were several of Mrs Seymour, plus a few taken with her husband. But I don’t see…’
‘No,’ the older woman said. ‘It wasn’t Moira with her husband. Those photographs were of me—with my lover.’
‘You?’ Rhianna looked at her, stunned. ‘You were having an affair?’
‘Yes.’ The reply was steady. ‘An affair with my brother-in-law, Francis Seymour. He and Moira had come to live at Penvarnon when I’d first become ill, to provide me with company and run things when Ben was away. He used to sit with me in the evenings and read to me, or we’d listen to the radio together. Gradually our relationship—changed.
‘It wasn’t a trivial thing,’ she added with emphasis. ‘We were both unhappily married and we fell deeply in love. Although I realise that is no excuse for the damage that was done.’
‘But you were in a wheelchair,’ Rhianna protested.
‘I had been, certainly,’ Esther Penvarnon returned. ‘But my health had been slowly improving for many months. However, I chose for my own reasons to maintain the fiction that I was helpless.’ She paused. ‘May we sit down? It might make what I have to say a little easier for me.’
Rhianna drew a deep breath. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’
Esther Penvarnon seated herself in the armchair on one side of the fireplace, and Rhianna occupied the opposite one.
‘Firstly,’ Mrs Penvarnon began, ‘my husband did not leave me because of some illicit passion for your mother. Grace Trewint was only ever resident housekeeper at his London flat—and a much needed friend. Ben told me so in a letter he wrote to me not long before his death, and I believe him. He left Cornwall, and the home he loved, because he too had been shown photographs, far more damaging ones than those Diaz saw, proving that I was being unfaithful to him, and he was devastated.
‘Your mother wasn’t dismissed because of any wrongdoing, either. She’d left of her own accord weeks before, because she suspected the truth and wouldn’t lend herself to such gross deception of a good man. And Ben Penvarnon was a good man, Miss Carlow. He was also very rich, dynamic, and extremely handsome, and he attracted women like wasps round honey. He was just—not for me.
‘I’d always been the quiet one, you see, living in my sister’s shadow. So I was flattered—dazzled—when Ben fell in love with me, not her, and I somehow managed to convince myself that I must love him too.’ She stared into space, as if she was contemplating an image too terrible to bear. ‘However, the realities of married life soon taught me differently. I felt—nothing for him. Eventually I became sick with dread whenever he came near me.’
Rhianna moved restively. ‘Mrs Penvarnon, I don’t think you should be telling me these things. They can’t matter any more.’
‘Ah, but they do. Because they’re my sole excuse for the continued pretence that I was ill. I was cheating the kind, considerate, generous husband who loved me for a long time before Francis and I became involved. And I think that was what he could not forgive—the lengths I went to in order to avoid being a wife to him.
‘Once he’d gone, the three of us that were left went to even greater lengths to make sure the truth didn’t get out. Moira was too fond of being lady of the manor to contemplate divorce. And I—I was shattered, and wanted only to get away. So when Kezia Trewint began to spread her tissue of lies we denied nothing.’
‘But she took the photographs,’ Rhianna said slowly. ‘Took them, then showed them to your husband. Why did she turn on him?’
‘And I let her,’ she added sombrely. ‘Even after Ben’s letter I said nothing. I told myself there was nothing to be gained by the truth. That Moira and Francis had patched up their marriage, and by this time even had a child. Best, I told myself, to let sleeping dogs lie. To go along with the myth of the betrayed wife.’
Esther Penvarnon paused. ‘But none of us bargained for you—Grace’s double—reawakening all the old resentment and all the guilt.’ She added quietly, ‘And I didn’t allow for the possibility, my dear, that my son might love you so much that he would insist the record be set straight and your faith in your mother vindicated at last.
‘So I’m here to ask if you can forgive me. If some good can finally come out of the sorrow and bitterness of the past, and there can be healing.’
There was a silence, then Rhianna said slowly, ‘Perhaps—if it was just the past. But it isn’t.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’m grateful that my belief in my mother has been justified, but I can’t go any further than that. You see, Mrs Penvarnon, nothing’s changed for me. My whole life is a mess. A disaster. I was drawn against my will into a totally unacceptable situation where I was also forced to keep other people’s secrets. As a result I’ve been vilified in the tabloids and on television.’
She got to her feet, her legs shaking under her. ‘My career, such as it was, is finished. My attempt to protect the happiness of my best friend has been a disaster. Her life is ruined, and she’ll probably never speak to me again. And my relationship with Diaz, which began for all the wrong reasons anyway, has been dragged through the gutter press and distorted beyond recognition. You’ve seen the papers. How could he ever want to know me again—even if his sense of honour has demanded that the truth must be told?’
She drew a trembling breath. ‘I got everything so terribly wrong—even with the best possible motives. All in all, I’ve caused more trouble than my Aunt Kezia ever dreamed of. Yes, I can forgive what happened in the past, if that’s what you want to hear. That’s the easy part. After all, the people most affected by it are no longer with us to be hurt any more. But this is the present, and I’ve had my own conspiracy of silence to contend against, and lost.
‘I’m alive, Mrs Penvarnon, but who is there in this entire world who will ever forgive me? And how can I possibly bear it?’
From the doorway, Diaz said gently, ‘With me beside you, my dearest love. We’ll get through it together.’
Rhianna swung round, staring across the room at him with a kind of anguish. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘I’ve always known,’ he said. ‘Did you really think I’d let you leave Penvarnon five years ago without reassuring myself that you were safe and being cared for? When I found the press camped outside your flat, I guessed where you’d be.’
‘But you can’t stay here. You have to go—go now.’ And she turned away, covering her face with trembling fingers.
In the silence that followed she heard the door close, and for a moment she thought he had really left her. Then his hands descended firmly on her shoulders, pulling her round to face him, and she realised that it was Esther Penvarnon who had departed, leaving them alone together.
He said quietly, ‘Darling, without you, I’m going nowhere. You’re the other half of me, and I refuse to live without you. So get used to the idea.’
‘How can I?’ She looked up at him with desperation, her clenched fists pushing at his chest. ‘If the reporters trace you here, they’ll crucify you all over again.’
‘For what? Another drink-crazed orgy?’ He grinned at her. ‘It sounded terrific. I only wish I could remember it. Could you arrange an action replay some time?’
‘It’s not funny.’ Her voice was almost a wail. ‘I told that revolting Tully man that we’d just had a brief fling to try and get rid of him. He was threatening to talk to your mother—to tell her about us—and I couldn’t let him do that.’
‘It would have got him nowhere. She already knew.’
She stared up at him. ‘She did? But how?’
‘I told her myself, much earlier that same day. Not long after I woke up and found myself in bed alone, and realised I might be doing that for evermore unless I took positive action. I’d spent the better part of my life avoiding my family’s no-go areas, but with my entire future happiness in jeopardy it was time to call a halt.
‘So I rang my mother, told her we were lovers, and that I intended to bring you down to St Jean de Luz that day on Windhover to meet her. I was half expecting tears, accusations and hysterics, but instead there was the oddest silence, before she said very calmly that it might be best, as there were things that must be said, and that she would see us later.
‘I went to your room to tell you, but you were deeply asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you. However, I saw the photographs beside your bed and decided to have a look at them. And then I was the one to be disturbed,’ he added drily. ‘All this time I’d just accepted what I’d been told about my parents’ marriage. I never questioned it—even when I knew I was falling in love with you. Suddenly my whole perspective underwent a radical change, and I realised what my mother might be waiting to say. So I sent the photographs to her via my computer, and gradually the whole miserable story came out.’
Rhianna shook her head. She said in a low voice, ‘It must have cost her a great deal to tell you—and to come here today.’
‘She says it’s been a relief to speak the truth at last, and not have all that deception hanging over her any longer. She admitted she was always terrified that if I found out I might not be able to forgive her. After all, my father wasn’t the only one to be kept at a distance by her supposed ill-health. But I think she’s been punished enough.
‘So, I told her that I was more concerned with how the whole sorry story had affected you. That I couldn’t forget the lonely, unhappy child who’d come to Penvarnon to live under her mother’s supposed shadow. Or that, with the exception of Carrie, we’d all treated you pretty badly. And I was one of the worst,’ he added sombrely. ‘Especially when I realised what I’d begun to feel for you and tried to end it.
‘Only I never could, Rhianna. In all those five years I couldn’t put you out of my mind, no matter how I tried.’ He grimaced. ‘And I did try. I didn’t want to be torn apart between my need for you and my family’s potential outrage. I still believed, you see, that my mother was too emotionally fragile to cope with the notion of my spending my life with you. My aunt Moira hinted that any nervous strain could lead to another breakdown.
‘When you’d gone, I tried to tell myself I was suffering from a simple case of sexual frustration. That if I’d taken you to bed I’d have got you out of my system. However, eventually watching you as Lady Ariadne didn’t help one bit. And when I saw you again I knew that wanting you physically was only part of what I felt for you. That somehow you were still the scared, isolated girl I yearned to love and protect for ever.
‘And I was going to tell you so—only finding you with Rawlins stopped me in my tracks. The night I spent outside your flat, imagining you with him, was the lowest point in my whole existence. Yet even then I still ached for you. So when I learned you were defying me and coming to the wedding I made my plans accordingly. I tried to tell myself that I was taking you away for Carrie’s sake, but that was sheer hypocrisy.
‘Only then I found myself in bed—not with the practised seductress I’d expected, but the innocent girl I’d longed for and believed I’d lost for ever.’ He gave an unsteady laugh. ‘Dear God, I didn’t know whether to turn a cartwheel or slash my wrists. What I had to do—and quickly—was rethink all my assumptions and win you round to the idea of b
eing my wife. And no past scandals could be allowed to interfere.’
‘But we still have the present ones to contend with,’ Rhianna reminded him unhappily. ‘And it’s Carrie we have to think of now.’ She bent her head. ‘I was trying to protect her, and I’ve made everything a thousand times worse. And Donna Winston keeps adding fuel to the flames every day.’
‘Well, the inventive Miss Winston’s fire is about to go out,’ Diaz said with distaste. ‘It seems, my darling, that Rawlins wasn’t the only one to give her money for the proposed termination. A guy she’d been seeing in Ipswich also paid for the same privilege. He kept quiet when the story first broke, because he was trying to salvage his marriage, but his wife has now left him so he’s spilled the beans. The news will be in all the tabloids tomorrow. I think a lot of attitudes will change very quickly.’
‘But that won’t make things any better for Carrie.’ Rhianna tried unavailingly to release herself from his arms. ‘And how can I let myself begin to think of being with you when she’s so wretched—and hating me? The Seymours are your family, Diaz, and we can’t pretend they don’t matter. That they won’t do everything they can to stop us being together. You didn’t hear how Carrie’s mother spoke to me.’
‘I can imagine,’ Diaz said calmly. ‘But I’d be surprised if that had much to do with her daughter’s feelings. She’s far more concerned about the past resurfacing so inconveniently, and losing her status as mistress of Penvarnon House to you, sweetheart. It seems she married Uncle Francis mainly so that she could stay in Cornwall and live at Penvarnon, maybe making my father realise, at the same time, that he’d chosen the wrong sister.’
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