The Accidental Bride (36 page)

Lizzie allowed herself to be guided to the settee opposite, where John took his place at her side. They exchanged the most fleeting of glances, intel passing between them, and as it did, Lizzie recalled certain conversations. Neither the Marquess or the Marchioness really knew quite how Clara and John had parted, that first time, when he’d been to prison. John had shouldered the blame, and given people
to believe that the split had been mutually agreed, and any fault was his, in his fall from grace. Lizzie wasn’t sure if his parents knew that he and Clara had been together again later; but even if they did, they didn’t know details. John would have been chivalrous, yet again, taking on the black mark of being seen to be in the wrong.

For a few moments, there was a bit of breathing space, a welcome to and fro over teacups and milk and sugar that gave Lizzie time to regroup. Time to observe John, beside her, as well as the woman he’d once loved.

Although he smiled, and seemed easy and urbane, Lizzie could see clues. A faint tension in John’s jaw; a pinch at the corner of his eyes. He wasn’t comfortable, although he too was putting on a bravura performance, projecting a relaxed aura. An aura for her, she sensed, and for his mother, who Lizzie suspected was also masterfully controlling a state of anxiety.

The only person who seemed serenely unruffled was Clara, who chatted as if she visited Montcalm every day, praising the home-made biscuits and cake, admiring a painting on the wall that had been apparently newly acquired, and waxing lyrical over how wonderful the garden was looking, in late summer bloom.

But into a lull in the conversation, John suddenly said:

‘So, Clara, were you just passing today? It seems odd that you should arrive at Montcalm on the very day that Lizzie and I are here. Especially as I’m not exactly what you’d call a regular visitor.’

There was a beat of silence. Was that a slight pucker of a frown on Clara’s smooth, white brow?

‘Actually, I’m here because you’re here, Jonathan. I’m travelling around a bit now I’m back home for good, calling
on a few friends with Charlie, before his new term starts. I was planning to drop in and visit you at Dalethwaite Manor, but when I rang up, the fabulous Thursgood told me you were here.’

‘Really?’

Lizzie couldn’t help herself. Out of Clara’s sight-line, she touched John’s hand. The tension in him was more palpable now. She knew he could control it – a poker face was second nature to him when negotiating, and it was what made him so formidable a businessman – but it hurt her to know that he was so troubled. Clara did still get to him, and Lizzie did not really want to dissect the reason why.

‘Yes, it’s all worked out beautifully, hasn’t it?’ Clara smiled, unfazed. Or apparently so. She was either the coolest of cool customers, or a world-class actress. Lizzie tried to control her own surging resentment, and smiled back.

‘Yes, indeed,’ she said.

‘Especially on such an auspicious day.’ The other woman’s clear grey eyes flicked to Lizzie’s left hand. ‘I’ve always admired that ring and it looks wonderful on you, Elizabeth.’

Fucking hell! The bitch, she’s rattled me so much I’d almost forgotten why John and I are here!

‘Congratulations, Elizabeth … and Jonathan, dear. I hope you’ll be very happy.’ Clara went on, turning to Jane and still smiling: ‘Such wonderful news. Both you and the Marquess must be absolutely thrilled.’

‘Yes … Oh yes,’ said the Marchioness, with a good deal of feeling. Lizzie could see that the older woman’s fingers were tight in the handle of her teacup, and she feared for the pretty porcelain. ‘Augustus is delighted. Perfectly delighted.’

Lizzie had always thought the expression ‘you could cut the atmosphere with a knife’ was an exaggeration, but now, she wasn’t so sure. The air in the lofty, spacious room suddenly seemed thick and oppressive, laden with the weight of questions, relationships and personal histories bearing down on them. What had passed between this beautiful, aristocratic woman and John was such a tangle, not only because of the tortuous on and off and on again love affairs they’d shared, but with the added bizarre ness of John being married, at one time, to Clara’s mother. To Caroline, who was Jane Wyngarde Smith’s great friend.

Fighting to find some innocuous, happy, non-contentious remark to make, when there were probably none to be found, Lizzie almost welcomed the sound of hurrying feet along the gallery above them. Someone young was running along the magnificent Aubusson carpet runner that John had probably paid handsomely to be restored; someone was heading their way.

It could only be Charlie, Clara’s son. Obviously he and his mother had been invited to stay over too, and the lad had been up in his room.

But, as the newcomer descended the grand staircase, two steps at a time, the air that had been oppressive seemed to turn to ice around them – and a cold claw of a hand gripped at Lizzie’s heart.

‘Oh … hi!’ said Charlie, rushing across to the grouped settees with a grin on his face, and a look of eager interest in the two people who’d appeared in his absence.

‘Hi,’ said Lizzie, mustering her own smile, even though her face felt paralysed. As if in slow motion, she turned to John, and saw the identical shock writ large on his beloved
features. For the second time in an hour, he actually looked thunder-struck, completely taken aback, his poker face undone.

Charlie was a sunny, handsome youngster, not tall, but lithe and lean and wiry in his baggy jeans and equally baggy white T-shirt. Lizzie wasn’t good at guessing ages, especially of children, but she judged that he could be about eleven, or twelve, or thereabouts.

What she did know was that one day, this boy would be a breath-taking stunner, and set female hearts racing wherever he went. His smile was a wonder and he had brilliant flashing eyes. Familiar eyes.

Eyes just as blue and jewel-like as the stricken man sitting at Lizzie’s side, coupled with the very same angel’s halo of curly blond hair.

Oh no …

‘He could be mine. I don’t know.’

John sat cross-legged on Lizzie’s bed, in open shirt and old jeans and barefoot. It was about eleven o’clock, and even though they’d nominally turned in early, each to the separate rooms his mother had assigned them, he’d knocked on her door just a few minutes ago.

Lizzie had never been more glad to see him. Even though it was a council of war he’d arrived for, rather than passionate lovemaking.

‘Is he the right age? I mean … could he have been conceived when you and she were together the second time?’ It all seemed to be about timing.

‘If he’s twelve, yes, it’s possible. But we used condoms.’ John ran his hand through his hair, making it look even more like Charlie’s flaxen curls than ever. He was still in a
kind of shock, more perplexed than she’d ever seen him, yet trying to keep it together. For her sake, bless him.

Their conversation after the folly came back to her. ‘Could there have been an exploding one?’ The night was quite warm, and she wore pyjamas and a robe, but she still shivered.

A spasm of pain crossed John’s face. It was as if there were words he didn’t want to utter. ‘It’s … It’s possible. We had a lot of sex at that time. A helluva lot. We fucked like rabbits. There might have been a torn condom I never noticed.’ Eyes like broken blue stars, he reached for her hand. ‘I’m so sorry, love.’

His skin actually felt cold, and Lizzie raised his hand to her lips, kissing it as if they might warm him. ‘You don’t have to apologise to me. You loved her. You thought you were going to be together. You didn’t even know I existed then. And even if you had done, I’d only have been a kid at the time.’ She kissed his hand again. ‘What I can’t understand is, why, if she was pregnant and she knew it was your child, did she still go ahead and marry Robson Hertingstall? If she’d cared at all for you, she should have married you.’

John’s face twisted. Bitterness, a hotter emotion this time, but again, almost visibly, he quelled it and shrugged. ‘At the time, he was the better prospect, and who knows, she may have cared for him just as much. Perhaps more. And to keep him she had to pretend the child was his.’

‘Oh, this’s such a mess,’ Lizzie blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. John was having the crappiest time of it already. But still, this was crappy for her too. Too crappy to keep inside and play the martyr.

The evening had made martyrs of the pair of them. Dinner had been a nightmare papered over with polite
sociability. The only bright spot had been Charlie himself. Whatever his parentage, and his complications, he seemed uncomplicated, a sweet and amiable personality. Miraculously, given his mother’s history, he was a golden child: funny, but with good manners, and smart. Remarkably grounded for his young age, he seemed unscarred by his mother’s flighty procession of men and marriages.

He’s probably turned out well because he’s John’s. He’s got his father’s strength; it’s in the genes.

That thought had pretty much extinguished Lizzie’s appetite, and she was sure that everyone around the table, with the possible exception of Clara, had been grateful for Charlie’s engaging chatter about his summer spent at Robson Hertingstall’s English racing and thoroughbred breeding stables.

His mother seemed to be enjoying a quiet, understated satisfaction from the hand grenade she’d thrown into everybody’s weekend.

Clara’s unwitting bombshell, the boy who could be John’s son, obviously loved the outdoor life, and horses. He’d been spending a lot of time at the establishment near Newmarket during the holidays, rather than in South America with his mother, or visiting his ‘father’ in the States, or even seeing his grandmother, Caroline. To Lizzie, it seemed a slightly strange carry-on, but it didn’t appear to have done Charlie any harm. Clearly, he’d been well looked after by the stable manager and trainer there, Arthur Something or other, and the housekeeper who took care of him.

In fact, it was all Arthur this, and Arthur that, and very little mention of the man he believed to be his real father. And no mention of the Conde Sanchez de la Villareal, his step-father.

Charlie’s cheerful enthusiasm for horses – and Arthur – coupled with his unabashed opinions on television, music and computer games had just about made the meal bearable. Things might have been better if Tom and Brent had joined them, but the duo were no doubt blissfully unaware of what was going on, and under the impression that John and Lizzie would be having a lovely ‘wedding’ talk over dinner with the Marchioness.

As for the Marquess, Lizzie had a shrewd feeling that he hadn’t even been told that Clara was at Montcalm. She’d heard John and his mother talking in hushed tones, and she wondered if they’d decided not to upset the old man with potentially disruptive news.

‘Yes, it is a mess, alas,’ said John, softly. ‘I don’t know what her object is in bringing him here, but I have an awful feeling it’s to use him as leverage, goddamn her. To get me back, now that she’s made a mess of things with her Argentine count.’ He sighed, a low, plangent sound that seemed to come from the very pit of his soul. ‘If he is my son, she probably believes he’s her trump card.’

Lizzie wanted to shout and scream and break things, but that was no answer. She drew in her own deep breaths, scrabbling for calm, and to stop her mind running in circles.

But the truth was, she could see things with crystal clarity.

Clara
did
want John back. He was the good prospect now. Probably richer than either of her husbands, and … well … he was John, so beautiful, urbane and sexy. Was Clara playing on the horrible possibility, the suspicion that Lizzie kept squashing and squashing, but which could not be dealt with swiftly and cleanly like that sticking plaster?

The possibility that, despite everything, John had never
completely been able to expunge his feelings for his first love.

He’s my perfect man, you bitch. But I suppose you think you can sweep in and take him … because you’re the mother of his son.

Despite her attempts to hold it together, Lizzie’s eyes misted. John’s glance shot to her face when she dashed at the gathering tears and sat up straight, her spine stiff.

With a growl, he lunged forward and grabbed her in his arms. ‘I love you, Lizzie. I love you completely. And whatever she has to say, I’m yours now. That’s set in stone. It can’t change.’ His blue gaze seemed to bore into her like a laser. ‘I have no feelings whatsoever any more for Clara. Nothing. Nada.’

‘But what about Charlie?’ muttered Lizzie into his shoulder. Agonised, she thought of her own parents and the rough patch they’d once gone through; marriage rocks that as the eldest, she’d been aware of and experienced keenly.

But her mother and father had got back together again, even though it had been touch and go. Her mother had told her later that the reunion had been solely for the benefit of her sisters and herself at first, although later, the Aitchisons had found a way to love each other again, and were a happy and devoted couple now.

That could happen with you and Clara, my love. If you got married for Charlie’s sake. You loved her once …

Her heart screamed, but she kept it inside. John seemed to hear it, though, because he made her look at him.

‘Set in stone, love. Don’t ever forget that. Nothing she says can change that, and I will work something out, if he’s mine.’ He shrugged again, rolling his shoulders as if trying to release real physical tension. ‘But I’m not so sure he is.
I do like the lad. He’s a good, bright kid, but I don’t feel a connection.’

‘But that might be because you barely knew he existed until now.’

John looked as if she’d slapped him. As if what she’d said was possible.

‘Well, I can’t begin to know what’s what until I’ve talked to her. I must go down. I don’t want to, but I have to face my demon.’ He laughed, a wry, harsh sound.

‘Yes, it’s no use us stewing up here, while she’s down there, gloating and spinning her webs like Spider-woman or something.’

Clara had drawn John aside, after dinner, asking him to meet her in the Red Salon, later. It’d been a discreet move, but Lizzie suspected that Clara had intended her to hear.