The English Lord's Secret Son (12 page)

He bent to put his glass down on the coffee table between the two sofas, then he shouldered out of his jacket, placing it over one of six chairs set around a glass-topped table in the dining area. Another lovely arrangement of flowers sat on the coffee table; a low celadon-coloured bowl of perfect velvety white gardenias that spread their ravishing perfume. No doubt they would be replaced the following day as they wilted but for now the blooms were astonishingly beautiful. Cate resisted the impulse to stroke a velvety petal. She didn’t want to discolour it, though her own luminous skin looked just as stroke-able.

“You always did like white flowers,” he said, taking a seat opposite her. “The rose gardens at the hall are quite famous now. People come from all over to view them on open days. I seem to remember your favourites. Snow Queen was one. It’s one of the great roses, then there was the profusely flowering Iceberg—”

“And that wonderfully fragrant Bride,” she broke in, fancying she could almost smell the perfume of the beautiful large, pure white rose with its exquisite form.

“There’s a walled garden devoted entirely to white roses,” he told her. “My idea. No need to ask what had prompted it,” he said with some irony.

She looked up and their eyes locked. Always the quickening sensations in her body, the thrum of electricity. She
knew
the same electrical current was switched on in him. It was something neither of them seemed able to control. The very air was sexualised, exciting. “Cate,” he murmured, “tell me this didn’t happen. None of it happened.”

The regret in his voice was echoed in her own. “I wish I could. I told you, we’re star-crossed lovers.”

“No one could take your place.”

That cut to her heart, yet she said crisply, “And I bet there was no shortage of candidates. You’ll find an eligible woman, Ashe, close to your rank.”

His blue eyes burned. “Do stop talking rubbish. Prince William married his Kate. Prince Frederik married his Mary. Two great romances. My mother’s mindset was from another time.”

“God, Ashe, she was only in her mid-fifties then. Maybe she was channelling Queen Victoria?”

“Our present Queen had to marry a prince, or at the very least an earl. Ironic, isn’t it? How times change. Princess Margaret couldn’t marry her divorced airman. Hard to believe now but it happened and she suffered.”

“Your lot are still as stuffy,” she said.

He frowned, although he knew in many cases it was true. “There’s got to be a plausible explanation for Stella Radclyffe—your adopted mother, so you say—taking off for the other side of the world. She didn’t attend her own father’s funeral. Needless to say that was seized upon. Whereas Annabel, the supposed flighty one, was there. Decidedly odd. It wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to me to find out
Annabel
was your biological mother.” He looked surprised by his own observation.

Cate sprang to her feet. “That is so...so...”

“
Possible.
Sit down, Cate,” he said with crisp authority. “I will get the answers, although I believe I’ve got one now. How’s this for a hypothesis? Annabel fell pregnant. It would have created a great scandal at the time. She was unmarried, very young, pampered and adored. So what scheme did the sisters hatch?”

“I’m not following you at all.” Of course she was. She resumed her seat, but pointedly glanced at her watch. Her heart was racing.

“No, you’re not following me, you’re way ahead. Always something to hide. That’s you, isn’t it, Catrina? When did you find out?” The blunt question was like a lash.

Of a sudden Cate gave up the deceit, torn by rage and shame. She was sick of it all, half frightened too. “Annabel came to visit Stella to be with someone who loved her and there to die. She had burned herself out.”

“Sadly she did,” he agreed in a sympathetic tone.

“But before she died she made a deathbed confession. She needed to get on the right side of the Big Guy up there.
She
was my biological mother. She had begged Stella to save her and her reputation. Big sister Stella came to the rescue, sacrificing herself. My mother didn’t want me, you know,” she said and tried to smile. “A baby would have sabotaged her plans.”

Of course. That was it.

Ashe looked into her face, seeing a lifetime of tremendous hurt and pain of rejection. Pain of rejection gave credence to her story. Here was the mother of his child, living a large part of her life thinking herself an adopted child only to discover as a woman she had been deceived by someone who loved her, her own aunt, Stella. There would be long-reaching consequences of this.

“You must have been shocked, more at Stella than Annabel. Why didn’t Stella tell you at some point much earlier?”

Cate rested her blonde head back on the sofa. “To be honest, I don’t think she could get it out. I used to think I would never forgive her for not telling me.”

“And have you? I’d say you still haven’t forgiven her. Maybe you never will.”

A sad smile was etched on Cate’s face. “Bitterness taints, Ashe. I love Stella. She’s my aunt, and Jules’ great-aunt. She spent a lifetime looking out for her little sister and then looking after me.”

“Did Annabel never reveal who your father is?” He could see tears behind the sparkle in her eyes, veiled by her long lashes.

“Maybe she didn’t
know
.”
Her lovely mouth firmed into a disillusioned smile.

“Oh, she
knew
,” Ashe retorted. “It’s up to you now to find out.”

It was such an effort to keep her voice steady. “I don’t want to know either.”

“I don’t accept that. Your biological father may well have been in the same position as me.” Ashe’s tone hardened. “Have you ever considered Annabel mightn’t have told him?”

She felt a sudden chill as though Annabel’s shade were right behind her. “I have no idea. Both you and Stella have made the comment Rafe Stewart was madly in love with Annabel at the time. Do you recall anything your mother or father might have said?”

“Not in front of me or my sisters,” he said. “We were kids. Rafe is, as I said, a prominent politician.”

She stared at the area rug. “Is he married? I’m not saying there could be any connection, just asking the question.”

“He’s married, yes. To Helena Stewart, a lovely woman. She runs a very successful interior-decorating business.”

“Children?”

He didn’t answer. He appeared to be battling feelings of his own.

“Is that a no, then?” The room seemed very quiet now, as though the walls were listening.

“They had an only child, a son, Martin,” he said finally. “Martin was a bit of a playboy. He was very handsome, very charming, very droll. But he was always in some kind of trouble with Rafe having to bail him out. He went into rehabilitation a number of times. Everyone hoped he’d beat his addiction, but in the end he died of an overdose. It took both Rafe and Helena years to pull out of it. Somehow they did.”

Cate felt utter dismay. “How very, very tragic. What would have made a young man with everything in life become dependent on drugs?”

Ashe shrugged. “Once they start they can’t stop. It’s a tough world out there for young people these days. The availability, the peer pressure. Sometimes it must get so oppressive they feel driven to conform. Martin felt he lived very much in his father’s shadow. He had the morbid fear he could never measure up, never meet the high expectations he thought were expected of him. His own harsh judgment, I have to tell you. His parents loved him. He was sent down from Oxford. He and another one of his druggie pals. Rich kids. It was all downhill from there. His sense of self-esteem gave out.”

“It upset you, didn’t it?”

“It greatly upset everyone who knew him. Death is no victory, no way out. What it was, was a tragic waste of a young life.”

She could see he was still trying to grapple with Martin Stewart’s death. “What did he look like?” she asked after a long moment, because somehow it seemed right.

Ashe exhaled heavily. “The girls used to call him Adonis. He was very handsome, as I said, but he settled for looking
louche
.
That was the image he wanted to project.” He was speaking now as though under a spell. “Martin had thick blond hair that he wore quite long.” He touched his shoulders as an indicator. “He had lots of ‘friends’ but no close friends. The real friends were very worried about him. They tried to help him so he cut them out of his life. His so called ‘friends’ brought out the worst in him. But that was where he wanted to stay although it was a life sentence.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cate said. “I can only guess at the agony of his parents and his friends. Wasn’t it Aristotle who said: The gods had no greater torment than for a mother to lose her child?”

“He might have said
father
too,” Ashe answered for the fathers of the world.

“Maybe mothers have the edge in suffering? Not everyone has the strength to fight for life. To some, it must seem easier to throw it away.”

He nodded grimly, looked away.

“Tell me something, Ashe.” She felt compelled to forge ahead. “Do
I
resemble him at all?” Her question was calm enough but her heart was beating too fast for comfort.

“Sorry?” The sound of her voice brought him out of his reverie.

“Do
I
look like Martin? Straightforward question.”

“God, Catrina!” He found himself staring back at her as though looking for enlightenment from above. Realisation began to press in on him. He had thought he was beyond surprise. Hadn’t her colouring always struck him as familiar? She wasn’t a copy of Martin, but she certainly could have been his sister!

“Hello, Ashe!” She wanted to jolt him into speech. “At least it’s not a
hell no
!
”

“Catrina, this is all too strange.” The expression on his handsome face was both proud and moody. “If I said yes, I could be putting you on the wrong track entirely. Why don’t you discuss it with Stella? That woman knows the story. Maybe the
whole
story. She would never have laid eyes on Martin, but she did know Rafe and as far as I recall she went to school with Rafe’s sister, Penelope.”

The veiled attack on Stella wasn’t lost on her. “Stella has hardly said a blessed thing about either of them.”

“She is without doubt a very secretive woman.” Even a ruthless woman. Ashe’s gaze was intense and highly speculative.

“This is an odd conversation we’re having.” Cate too was feeling decidedly uneasy.

“Well, it is
odd
,
isn’t it? Stella migrating to Australia to save her younger sister’s reputation; refusing to acknowledge your true relationship, claiming she adopted you, presumably from an agency. Pretty hard to plead that down to a misdemeanour.”

The misdemeanours were beginning to pile up. “She’s very sorry for it now,” Cate said.

“Maybe she could purge her sorrow telling you the truth?” he suggested crisply.

“Maybe it’s too bad to tell—ever thought of that? I never questioned Stella, you know. I was always aware I looked
different
.
Both Stella and Annabel had dark hair and dark eyes. Things might have been different had I been a carbon copy of my biological mother. As I’m not, I must take after my father. Whoever he may be,” she said gravely. “You’ve experienced firsthand what deception can do, Ashe, your own mother forging a letter. People do it all the time. Letters, documents, anything where they have something to gain. Anyway—” she rose with determination to her feet “—I didn’t come here to rehash the past.”

“Then why
did
you come?” His blue eyes burned over her.

“You already know.
One
, you more or less compelled me.
Two
,
so I could fix a time for you to see Jules. In my company, of course.”

“Do you really think I’m going to jump on a plane with him?” he returned very dryly.

She made a mock face of apology.

“Actually I’d like to spend the whole day with him. Maybe this coming Sunday? We could go for a drive, have lunch somewhere. The Hunter Valley isn’t all that far away, is it? The Blue Mountains, boat trip on the Harbour? One could never tire of seeing it from the water. Or as a seven-year-old Julian might like a trip to Taronga Park Zoo. I understand the location is fantastic with the best vantage points on Sydney Harbour. Maybe we can leave it to Julian to choose.”

“We call him
Jules
,” she said. Julian seemed to mark him as Ashe’s son.

Ashe too was on his feet. He had moved too close to her, causing a swift reaction. Her heart was beating like a bird imprisoned in her chest.

“His
father
calls him Julian,” he said in a voice that would have crushed another woman. But not Cate. “We can introduce the Jules later as we get to know each other.” He had moved even nearer. The space between them was thrumming with heat. “So what time Sunday?”

“Ooh...” Something further was coming. “Nine suit you? I think Jules would like the zoo.”

“Then the zoo it is,” he said with just a touch of mockery.

She knew she mustn’t touch him. Or he touch her. She knew she was only kidding herself. “Goodnight, Ashe.”

“Goodnight, Catrina.” He caught her wrist, twisted his fingers around it. “I’ll come with you to your car.” His eyes were full of strange lights.

“No need.” Holding her hand, he had to register her whole body as drawn as taut as a wire. She felt as hot as if she were coming down with a fever.

“I’ve no intention of letting you go alone. A beautiful woman on her own is a target for unwanted attention.”

“I’ve never had any trouble.
Really
,
Ashe.” She was in far more trouble where she was.

“Why sound so edgy? As much as part of me hates to admit it, I want to keep you beside me for ever.”

“You sound like you’re in crisis,” she taunted. “You despise your own weakness.”

“Don’t you have the same problem?” he challenged, a note of cynicism creeping in.

“I’ve learned my lesson, Ashe. It wouldn’t work. Then or now.” She shifted away a fraction.