Emma's Secret

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Rising, Paula walked across the room, paused at the large chest of drawers to look in the mirror which hung above it. But she did so absently, her thoughts still focused on her vindictive and treacherous cousin who had been her sworn enemy for so long.

  As she half turned away, lost in her reflections, her glance fell on the casket which sat atop the commode, and automatically she smoothed her hand across its lid as she had done so many times in the past, and just as her grandmother had done before her.

  It was a beautifully made antique box of highly polished fruitwood, the colour of aged cognac, intricately chased with silver scrolls and interlocking circles. In the centre of the lid there was a silver heart with the initials E.H. engraved upon it. It had been sitting on this chest for as long as she could remember, from the time she had been a young girl visiting her grandmother here at Pennistone Royal.

  The box was locked, and there was no key. Seemingly Emma had lost it long ago, but since it was empty she had not bothered to have the box prised open for fear of damaging it. Because it had been thus for fifty years or more, Paula had never seen a reason to tamper with it.

  Turning away, Paula walked on into the upstairs parlour which adjoined the bedroom, crossed to the fireplace and stood with her back to it, warming herself.

  A few moments later, when she felt less chilled, Paula turned around and looked up at the portrait of her grandfather, Paul McGill, which hung above the fireplace. He wore an officer’s uniform; it had been painted in the middle of the First World War when he was in the Australia Corps.

  As she stared at the portrait she couldn’t help thinking how dashing and debonair he looked. Very handsome with his black hair and bright blue eyes. She had inherited his colouring, his eyes, and also the cleft in his chin and his dimples. There was no mistaking who she was descended from. In the picture he was smiling, and Paula knew that this painting had been her grandmother’s favourite…perhaps because he had looked exactly like this when they had first met and fallen immediately and madly in love. Her grandmother had once told her that he had been irresistible, and Paula could well imagine that he had been.

  He had had the world at his feet, or so he believed, Paula now thought. But he hadn’t really, because he had not been able to marry Emma Harte, the love of his life. And so, after years of living with Emma in London, he had returned to Sydney to ask his wife Constance for a divorce, determined to legitimize his daughter Daisy by Emma, her mother. By some terrible misfortune he had been in a head-on crash with a lorry on a wet stormy night, and when the lorry driver had managed to extract his mangled body from the wreckage, he was paralysed from the waist down, his handsome face badly scarred, one side ruined beyond recognition.

  Paula sighed under her breath, thinking of those awful events long ago. Because there was no way to treat paraplegics in 1939, he knew he would not live very long, that he would inevitably die from kidney failure. And so he had taken his own life. And Emma had never seen him again.

  Paula knew from her mother that Emma had almost been broken by Paul’s death, and that it had taken her a long time to recover from her terrible grief. But eventually she had managed to pick herself up and go on, for Daisy’s sake, hiding her sorrow behind a brave front, finding comfort in her daughter by Paul.

  Grandy had taught her that life was hard, and that it always had been, and that the important thing was to keep going no matter what, to fight back, to win in the end, and to triumph over adversity.

  She had not had a lot of adversity in her own life, just those horrible problems with the venomous Jonathan Ainsley, and a truly bad marriage to Jim Fairley. For the most part, she had had a relatively easy ride as far as trouble was concerned, and of late things had been running fairly smoothly, both in the business and the family. There had been that great disappointment last autumn when Linnet had made the decision to ‘cool it with Julian’, as she put it. But now they were back together and all was well between them.

  Her daughter Tessa worried her. There was something amiss in her marriage, Paula was quite certain of that; she was also rather curious about the bruised arm and shoulder. She had believed Tessa when she had said she had fallen at home. But how had that happened? Had she been pushed? Or had she and Mark been in a fight? Of course, most accidents did usually occur in the home, and were not always of a sinister nature. On the other hand, Mark Longden had long caused her worry. There was something about him that didn’t sit quite right with her, and she found him altogether too obsequious by far. As Emily put it, he was ‘a bit of a Uriah Heep’.

  That Jonathan had unexpectedly returned and had been seen with Sarah was really upsetting. They had always plotted together, ever since their childhood; their sudden presence in London did not bode well for her, she was sure. Taking Uncle Ronnie’s advice she had hired a private detective to investigate him, but the man had turned up nothing. Seemingly her cousin led a blameless life, and Sarah only visited London occasionally.

  I wish Jack Figg were around, Paula suddenly thought, remembering how talented and fearless the former head of security for the stores had been. But Jack had retired, more or less, and was enjoying his new home in Cornwall, where he sailed, fished and in general led a happy life by the seashore. She sighed to herself, and went and sat on the window seat, picked up their newspaper, The Yorkshire Morning Gazette, and casually leafed through the pages.

  A door slamming somewhere in the distance made her sit up with a start, and she listened attentively, wondering if Shane had arrived. He was driving up from London this morning, and he had told her he would arrive in time for lunch. She looked at her watch…it was almost noon.

  A look of expectancy settled on her face as she sat staring at the door, but when Shane did not appear she went back to the newspaper and began to read it again.

  Quite soon thoughts of Jonathan Ainsley began to infiltrate her mind; she discovered she could not concentrate, and so she laid the paper on the padded cushion of the seat and gazed out of the window, looking towards the moors.

  It was still a brilliantly sunny morning, the arc of the sky the colour of speedwells, those tiny blue flowers she loved so much. It was such a pretty spring day outside, and yet she began to shiver involuntarily when an unexpected sense of foreboding swept through her, taking her by surprise.

  Paula jumped to her feet, hating this feeling, and hurried over to the fireplace; she stood warming her hands over the flames flying up the chimney back, still shivering and chilled to the bone.

  Deep within herself she was convinced that Jonathan’s return signified trouble; she was always just that little bit apprehensive when he was around. But he can’t do anything, not really, she told herself, and then thought, but I do have five children and a grandchild, and a husband, not to mention many other family members I am close to…accidents could be arranged, couldn’t they? She had long been aware that he would stop at nothing to wreak his revenge on her for twice bringing him to his knees…

  Years ago her grandmother had said that there was a dazzle to Shane O’Neill, an intense glamour, adding that this sprang not so much from his extraordinary good looks as from his character and personality. Paula remembered Emma’s words now as Shane came rushing into the room. He had a bright smile on his face as he walked towards her.

  Paula watched him as he travelled the length of the floor, thinking that Grandy’s pronouncement, made when he was about twenty-seven years old, still held today. And next month he would be celebrating his sixtieth birthday. What a wonder he was, unbowed by time, hardly aged, tall, broad shouldered, with a barrel chest; a fine figure of a man, as his father was wont to say. Shane’s jet-black hair was tinged with grey these days, and there were a few lines around his eyes and his mouth, but otherwise he looked much the same as he had when he was that dashing young man her grandmother had so admired. And he still had that dazzle, the intense glamour.

  Even though he was wearing his Saturday casual clothes, he was, nevertheless, still impeccably dres
sed. Well-tailored grey gabardine slacks were teamed with a red cashmere turtleneck and a black blazer. He looked as smart as ever, right down to his highly polished brown loafers.

  His presence filled the room, and she felt that sudden rush of excitement she always experienced when she had not seen him for a while. She stood up and went to meet him, full of genuine pleasure at the sight of him, wanting to touch him, to hold him close. A wide smile enlivened her normally serious face, and he smiled back at her lovingly as he swept her into his arms and brought her closer to him.

  After a moment, he held her away, kissed her lightly on the lips, and said, ‘Sorry I’m late, darling. Heavy traffic on the way up from London.’

  She nodded. ‘But you’re here now, and it’s just wonderful to see you, to have you home at last. I do so hate it when you’re in London and I’m not.’

  He glanced down at her, a small, puzzled frown pulling his dark brows together in a jagged line. ‘I’ve only been gone a few days. And somebody has to run O’Neill Hotels International, you know.’

  ‘But I always miss you so much, Shane. It seems to get more acute the older I get.’

  He chuckled as he walked with her to the sofa where they sat down. ‘I would have thought that by now you’d have had enough of me…all these years we’ve been together.’

  ‘All these years indeed! Thirty years married, and the time that went before when we were growing up.’

  He smiled and took her hand in his, looked into those unique violet eyes and murmured, ‘You sound a little tremulous, Paula darling. Is something bothering you?’

  She was not at all startled by his perception; he knew her far too well, and she realized there was no point in denying it. ‘I had an awful premonition of trouble brewing a while ago, to do with Jonathan Ainsley,’ she admitted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Shane O’Neill listened attentively to every word Paula was saying. He always paid attention to his wife; he both admired and respected her, and he knew she never made rash statements, nor did she exaggerate.

  But, nonetheless, he was alarmed by what she was saying, and when she finally sat back on the sofa and gave him a questioning look, he exclaimed, ‘But Paula darling, Jonathan Ainsley wouldn’t be stupid enough to hurt any of us physically. He’d be in serious trouble with the law if he did.’

  ‘I know, but he could hire somebody to do it.’

  ‘He’d still be in trouble, as an accessory to the crime. No, I really don’t think you have to worry about any of us being harmed, I really don’t.’

  ‘He’s capable of anything!’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, I know that only too well. I remember when he hit Winston over the head with a cricket bat when we were little. He could have killed him actually. He was a nasty little bugger then, and I suppose a leopard doesn’t change its spots.’

  ‘Only too true, Shane.’ Paula shifted slightly on the sofa, and looked across at her husband, gave him a hard stare, and said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to try and relax–about Jonathan, I mean. Maybe I’m being overly imaginative because of the past.’

  ‘Perhaps you are, sweetheart.’ He reached out, touched her face tenderly. ‘Jonathan may be vengeful and devious, but he’s by no means stupid, we all know that. He wouldn’t do anything to put himself in any kind of jeopardy with the law. And personally I think he came back because he wanted to come home to England, to be close to Uncle Robin, amongst other things.’

  Paula shook her head and said quietly, ‘I don’t agree. He doesn’t have a decent bone in his body, not even when it comes to his father. But looking at it objectively, as you are doing, I’m sure he would be careful.’ She went on, ‘Did you see Philip when you arrived? Was he anywhere around?’

  Shane shook his head. ‘But when I spoke to him the other night he said he wanted to go riding on the moors this morning. That’s why he decided to come to Yorkshire last night, and—’

  ‘But I didn’t see him,’ Paula cut in. She went on to explain, ‘I felt very tired, and I also thought I was coming down with a cold. By ten, when he hadn’t arrived, I left him a note and went to bed. And I haven’t seen him this morning. So perhaps he did go riding. Margaret said she took a cup of tea up to his room but that he didn’t come down for breakfast. She thought she saw him crossing the yard a couple of hours ago. I bet he went up to the moors.’

  ‘I think so. But come on, darling, your baby brother will show up eventually, and I think you and I should go for a walk. It’ll do you good, and it’s such a lovely day.’

  Half an hour later, Philip McGill Harte Amory walked into the Great Hall, his riding boots making a loud clatter against the stone floor.

  He made straight for the huge stone fireplace and stood warming himself, trying to thaw out. Whilst it was a beautiful morning–sunny with a blue sky–there was a cold wind blowing across the moors. Even though he had been warmly dressed, with a Barbour over his riding jacket and sweater, he had felt the chill up there under the high fells.

  The ride had done him good, and he was feeling better, more refreshed than he had since he had arrived from Sydney at the beginning of the week. Back home in Australia he was on the move a lot, between the city and Dunoon, the family sheep station in Coonamble. There he rode every day and spent a lot of time outdoors on the land.

  He loved Dunoon more than any place on earth; it was his true home where he felt the most comfortable and at peace. Perhaps this was because there were many wonderful memories of his beloved Maddy there, although he had also made it his safe haven when he was a boy; had become unusually attached to it early in his life.

  The other place where he felt totally at ease and relaxed was this house. Pennistone Royal had been the centre of gravity for Paula, himself and all of their cousins when they were growing up, and they had congregated here around their grandmother. He, in particular, had spent a lot of time with Emma, learning everything there was to learn about the great McGill empire which he and Paula had inherited and he now ran from Sydney. ‘I learned at the knee of the master,’ he would tell anyone who asked him about his business training, and would then go on to sing the virtues of the renowned Emma Harte.

  Tall, slender, dark haired, with the most startlingly blue eyes, Philip was the spitting image of his grandfather Paul McGill. And whilst he had inherited many of Paul’s traits, he was also very much a grandson of Emma Harte, and he was exceptionally proud of this. His adored Grandy had been his mentor as well as his very exacting teacher until the day she died. His life was lived on the principles she had taught him.

  Moving away from the fireplace, Philip walked over to the table set against one of the end walls. Here Margaret had earlier put out a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket, a jug of tomato juice, a bottle of vodka and a variety of other soft drinks. Philip poured himself a glass of tomato juice and went and sat down on the sofa next to the fire, his thoughts veering to his daughter Fiona, who was an undergraduate at Oxford. She was the light of his life, and now, at nineteen, she had become a unique young woman, in his opinion. Bright, intelligent and mature beyond her years, she made him very proud. He always came to England in the spring to see her, and had done so since she had gone to boarding school.

  Fiona had been brought up by him, and she had spent a lot of time with adults, which was probably why she was more sophisticated than most other girls her age, wise beyond her years.

  She had his dark colouring, his bright blue eyes, but it was Maddy’s face that looked out at him…his wonderful, darling Maddy. His true love, who had suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage just before Fiona’s birth…his exquisite Maddy who had never regained consciousness and had died, leaving him alone. Except for Fiona. Nineteen years ago; it seemed like only yesterday sometimes. He had never remarried. No other woman had matched up to Maddy. Fiona was his only child and heiress to a good part of the McGill empire, which she had been brought up to run one day when he retired. And she would run it well, he knew that. He had instilled Emma’s rules in
her from childhood.

  At the sound of footsteps, Philip looked towards the front door and rose from the sofa, smiling at his sister as she hurried to him, looking anxious.

  ‘There you are, Pip!’ Paula exclaimed, rushing to embrace him. ‘We wondered where you were.’

  After hugging her and shaking Shane’s outstretched hand, he told them, ‘I went riding. There’s nothing like a good gallop across the moors to blow the cobwebs away. It was great, but a bit chilly, I’ve got to tell you. Now, can I pour you a glass of wine or make you a Bloody Mary?’ He glanced from Shane to Paula.

  ‘I’ll have an orange juice, please,’ Paula said, and went and sat down on one of the straight-backed chairs.

  ‘Are you having a Bloody Mary?’ Shane asked, eyeing Philip’s drink.

  ‘No, it’s just plain old tomato juice.’

  ‘I’ll have the same, thanks. I don’t feel like drinking today. Well, maybe a glass of red wine at lunch.’ Shane walked across to the sofa.

  Philip poured their drinks and carried them over to the fireplace where they were sitting, retrieved his own glass, then joined them. They spoke about a few inconsequential things, and then Philip turned to his sister and said, ‘I’d like to discuss something with you…something that’s troubling me, Paula.’

  ‘Oh dear, Pip, is there something wrong? It’s not Fiona, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s Evan Hughes.’

  As he spoke the name, Paula knew at once that he had heard the current gossip, and was put out by it. She didn’t blame him, she herself was annoyed. She wished she knew who had started the unfortunate and galling story in the first place. Taking a deep breath, Paula said, ‘I know, I know. The story is that she’s somehow related to us, that she’s a long-lost McGill, and that she’s after something. I wish I knew who’d started this: I’d make mincemeat out of them. I believe this came about because some people actually think she looks like me.’