by Sara Craven
At Mannion, the decorators were putting the finishing touches to the bedroom Aunt Joss would occupy, bringing that part of the refurbishment to an end.
Dana’s feelings about seeing Miss Grantham again were still mixed. She wished so much that she was the kind of aunt who’d encourage her to sob out her bewilderment and heartbreak in her lap, instead of treating her with the chilly disapproval which was the more likely reaction.
Nor had she heard a word from Linda—not even an acknowledgement of her letter—so a trip to Spain might be on the cards after all.
And maybe a break would do her good. She still wasn’t sleeping well, her dreams filled with great empty houses where she wandered from one deserted room to another, searching—always searching, yet finding nothing.
As she reached the house, she saw a strange car was parked on the other side of the main entrance and, for a moment, her heart leapt in swift painful hope, until common sense reminded her that Zac’s car was different from this other one in size, colour, make and probably every other respect.
Mrs Harris was waiting for her in the hall. ‘There’s a visitor for you, madam. A Mr Harvey and quite insistent about seeing you. I’ve put him in the drawing room.’
‘Harvey?’ Dana repeated slowly. ‘That’s vaguely familiar.’
Mrs Harris looked austere. ‘He seems a bit rough and ready to me.’
Dana smiled at her. ‘Well, let’s smooth the edges with some coffee, please, Janet.’
Mr Harvey, rising politely to his feet at Dana’s entrance, was a stockily built man, middle-aged, bald and deeply tanned, with a round cheerful face, currently unsmiling. He was wearing well-cut grey slacks, a florid shirt, and an expensive-looking linen jacket.
He said, ‘So you’re Dana.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed coolly. ‘And you are...?’
‘I’m Bob Harvey,’ he said. ‘Your stepfather.’
‘Stepfather,’ Dana echoed, feeling dazed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s simple enough,’ he said. ‘Your mother and I got married eight months ago. I knew her from years back when she worked for me at the Royal Oak, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked into this bar I was thinking of buying in Altamejo, and found her there serving the drinks. It was the best thing that’s happened to me in years.’
‘I—I see.’ Dana sat down on the opposite sofa. ‘Well, congratulations. I hope you’ll be very happy.’
‘We’re getting there,’ he said. ‘But it would be easier if you’d stop writing to her about—all this.’ He waved a disparaging hand at his surroundings.
‘I’m sure you mean well,’ he went on. ‘But your letters just remind Linda of things best forgotten, and do her no good at all, so I want them to stop.’
Dana sat up very straight. ‘Mr Harvey,’ she said, ‘I also have my mother’s best interests at heart. And I want her to know that she is welcome to come back to Mannion and take the rightful place she’s always been denied.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, love,’ he said. ‘Because rightful doesn’t enter into it. That’s been the trouble all along.’
There was a tap at the door and Janet Harris came in with a tray of coffee and homemade biscuits, forcing Dana to dam back her flood of angry questions.
‘You think Jack Latimer was your father,’ Mr Harvey said as soon as the housekeeper had gone. ‘But he wasn’t. Linda lied about it—and to people who mattered and who knew better. And then, like a damned fool, she went on lying until there was no way back from the disgrace she’d made for herself.’
Dana set the coffee pot down with a bang. ‘How dare you say these things? I was with my mother. I saw the terrible effect that Mrs Latimer’s rejection had on her. How she grieved for my father.’
He looked at her squarely. ‘And I suppose you think I’m lying too.’ He shook his head. ‘Not so. Because I’m the only person on earth who does know the truth, which I heard from my Linda’s own lips before we were married.’
‘But why should she have lied?’ Dana demanded.
‘Do you have to ask?’ Another derisive wave of the hand. ‘Just look round you. She wanted all this. She wanted to be someone, instead of a struggling single mother, and Jack Latimer was her chance at the good life’ He paused. ‘And because he was no longer around to argue, poor lad, she took it.’
Dana sat for a long moment with her face in her hands.
Eventually she said huskily, ‘You mean there was never a relationship between them?’
‘Oh, there was that,’ he said soberly. ‘For a while. Just—no baby. He couldn’t, you see. He’d caught mumps just at the wrong time, and it had made him sterile. His family knew it, but Linda didn’t.’
‘But she was so sure. So bitter about the way she’d been treated.’
‘So guilty about what she’d done,’ he said.
‘You don’t know what it was like to be there—to live with it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘And she’s still ashamed of what it did to you. Too ashamed to face you yet as well. But it will happen—maybe when she finds she’s going to be a grandmother.’
For a stricken moment, Dana felt what it must have been like to be Linda. To have made such a terrible mistake and realise there was no way back. To have to live with her punishment...
She said quietly, hopelessly, ‘But I believed all she ever wanted was Mannion.’
‘So did she,’ he said. He smiled suddenly. ‘But she knows better now. And so do you, my dear, being a newlywed yourself.’
He got to his feet. ‘Just give her a bit more time, and everything will work out for the best. You’ll see.’
He looked at his watch. ‘And I must be on my way. My sister’s expecting me.’
Dana rose too. ‘Mr Harvey—I have to know. Is it—are you my father?’
He sighed. ‘I wish I could say yes, but it would be just another lie. It’s one thing your mother hasn’t told me but perhaps, one day, she’ll tell you.’
He added quietly, ‘And you mustn’t worry about her, love. I’ll make sure she’s all right. And I’ll see myself out.’
Alone, Dana sat, staring into space, her mind whirling until Janet Harris arrived to remove the tray. ‘But you haven’t touched your coffee,’ she exclaimed.
Dana looked up, a small bleak smile twisting her lips. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We didn’t. Do you know, Janet, I think I’m going to have a very large whisky instead.’
* * *
‘It’s just beautiful,’ Nicola said wistfully. ‘Exactly like Mannion should be again. Bringing back all sorts of happy memories as well.’ She sighed, then perked up. ‘And I can’t believe how much you’ve done in the time.’
Dana smiled, at the same time giving her a thoughtful glance. ‘Thank Bella Dixon and her troops, not me. And not everyone’s so admiring,’ she added wryly. ‘Your Aunt Mimi took one look at her room and said all that cream made her feel as if she’d be sleeping in a dairy.’
Nicola pulled a face. ‘Aunt Mimi will never change. She’s already told my father that Mannion would have been his if he’d only stayed in England, and that Zac drove Adam out.’
Dana gasped. ‘What did he say?’
‘He didn’t,’ Nicola returned with faint grimness. ‘The terrible Sadie cut in and informed her that it was none of her damned business, and for all the use Adam was in Australia, Mannion could have him back and welcome.’
For the first time in several days, Dana laughed out loud. ‘Good for Sadie,’ she said. ‘She’s my type of woman.’
‘I’ll gift-wrap her for you,’ said Nicola. She paused. ‘Is everything all right? I thought you’d be bouncing off the walls at the prospect of being with Zac again. Regarding which,’ she went on cheerfully. ‘If the pair of you want to snatch a couple of hours alone together for
a real reunion, I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.’
Dana’s face warmed. ‘What and give Aunt Mimi more ammunition?’ she said with forced lightness. ‘No, I intend to be the perfect hostess.’
Adding silently, For the first and last time.
She had time to practise her role. There was still an hour or more before Zac would arrive, according to the message he’d left with Janet, bringing Serafina and Aunt Joss with him.
Time to ensure she’d be able to greet him with calm composure and conduct their subsequent business meeting in the same way.
She’d dressed carefully too, choosing a slim-fitting knee-length linen dress, the colour of a briar rose, which gave a tinge of warmth to her pallor.
And chatting to the Marchwoods, who told her how pretty she looked, helped, of course, reminding Dana how blessed Nicola was in her in-laws.
But being cornered by Jo and Emily, both bursting with curiosity about her hasty marriage, was very different and far more difficult.
‘You’re a slyboots,’ Emily teased. ‘I didn’t think you and the gorgeous Mr Belisandro were even remotely involved. In fact, I thought...’ She checked. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter. So, tell all. How did you get together?’
‘I’ve known him nearly all my life,’ said Dana.
Except I didn’t truly know him, she thought. Or myself. And now it’s too late.
When Janet told her the car was coming up the drive, she hung back, making sure that Nicola and Eddie were heading the welcome party, telling herself they were the ones Serafina would want to see. And that her self-effacement was not because her mouth was dry and her stomach churning in a maelstrom of excitement and panic as she realised that, at any moment, she would see Zac again, even if it was only for another twenty-four hours.
Serafina was the first to enter the house, still upright in spite of her stick, her silver hair arranged in the same elegant coronet, her face lighting up with the old charm when she saw Nicola.
At least I got that right, thought Dana, as she received an unsmiling nod from Aunt Joss, who was following close behind.
She swallowed, her hands clenching into fists at her sides, her eyes fixed almost painfully on the sunlit doorway as she waited for Zac.
Her first thought was that he looked bone-weary, his dark eyes brooding as if his body might be here but his thoughts were miles away.
Darling, she thought. Oh, my darling.
And, conquering the impulse to run to him, to hold him close and pour out her heart, she walked slowly forward, wearing a smile that might have been nailed there.
‘Dana mia.’ He kissed her hand and then her cheek, his lips barely brushing her skin.
‘Welcome home.’ She kept smiling. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘A successful one.’ He took her hand and led her over to Serafina. ‘May I present your new cousin, cara mia?’
‘She is hardly a stranger,’ the older woman said drily, shaking hands briefly and formally. ‘We will talk later, no doubt, but the journey has tired me a little and I would like to go to my room.’
‘Of course.’ Dana hesitated. ‘Perhaps you would also prefer to have tea upstairs rather than in the drawing room. Lapsang Souchong, isn’t it?’
‘Why, yes,’ Mrs Latimer acknowledged with faint surprise. ‘You have a good memory.’
As Dana watched Janet escort the two women upstairs, Zac said quietly, ‘I would prefer coffee in the book room, if you please. I have some work—a few loose ends from the trip—to complete. Perhaps you will excuse me to our guests and say I will see them at dinner.’
A heading under which she was presumably included, thought Dana, turning away.
When everyone had been served with the food and drink of their choice in the preferred location, she slipped away upstairs and knocked on her aunt’s door.
‘So you won in the end’ was Miss Grantham’s uncompromising welcome. ‘I suppose I should congratulate you, although I thought Mr Belisandro would have had more sense.’
‘Because he got me sent away seven years ago?’ Dana queried tautly. ‘I suppose everyone’s entitled to second thoughts.’ However short-lived...
Aunt Joss stared at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘My terrible teenage faux pas.’ Dana lifted her chin. ‘The disgraceful pass he alleged I made at him.’
‘But that wasn’t Zac.’ Her aunt frowned. ‘The complaint came from Mr Adam.’ She shook her head. ‘Not that it matters. It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ Dana said dazedly. ‘A very long time ago.’ And every day of it, she thought, I’ve blamed Zac for something he didn’t do.
She took a long, shaky breath. ‘But I’m not actually here for that. Did you know my mother was married?’
It was Aunt Joss’s turn to look pole-axed. ‘Married? To whom, for heaven’s sake? Some Spaniard?’
‘To Bob Harvey, her former boss at the Royal Oak,’ Dana returned levelly. ‘Accordingly, I now know that Jack Latimer could never have been my father and why, and that neither Linda nor I have ever had any legal right to any part of the Mannion estate. That it’s always been a bag of moonshine.’
‘Linda admitted that?’
‘Only to her husband. Perhaps you could tell Mrs Latimer on my behalf, and assure her that I intend to—adjust the situation.’ She paused. ‘I—we’ll talk again later—if you want.’
The door to the book room was closed, and Zac’s voice was impatient when he called ‘Entrare’ in reply to her knock.
His expression as he looked at her across the paper-strewn desk was not encouraging. ‘Dana—unless this is important...’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. Very important.’
His eyes narrowed, then he put down his pen and rose slowly. He came round the desk, leaning back against it as if he was bracing himself.
He said quietly, ‘Have you come to tell me that you may be expecting our child?’
Child...
She repeated the word silently, every inch of her suddenly burning as anguish twisted inside her. Asking herself what would happen if she was to tell a lie. If she pretended there was a baby coming from that solitary night in his arms. Telling herself with a kind of desperation that, if it persuaded him to stay with her, she would make it the truth.
If...
Because there was no guarantee that he would do any such thing. That he might simply promise child support—and still walk away.
I’d be no better than my mother, she thought. A gambler who lost everything. And worse.
She clenched her hands at her sides to hide the fact that they were trembling. ‘No, it—it isn’t that.’
Face expressionless, Zac looked down at the floor. ‘I see. What then?’
She swallowed. ‘It’s about the house.’
‘Santa Madonna.’ The words seemed ground out of him. ‘Sì, naturalmente. It would have to be the house. What else has it ever been? You need more money? Take it. You wish to pull it down and begin again? Do so. It is no longer my concern. Only yours. Or did I fail to make that clear?’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ she said. ‘I came to say that I want to sell it.’
‘To sell—Mannion?’ There was an odd note in his voice.
‘Yes,’ she returned baldly, adding, ‘I—I thought you would wish to know.’
‘Why? Do you want my advice? I am sure your former employers are better placed to assist you. Or do you need me to recommend a lawyer, perhaps?’ He shrugged. ‘Contact our legal department. Any of them will be glad to help.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they would.’ Glad to help rid you of your unwanted encumbrances. To set you free again.
She could feel misery knotting in her chest. Tears threatening that she could not—would
not allow to fall.
She said huskily, ‘I can make my own arrangements, thank you. I’ve said all I came to say and please forgive me for interrupting you.’
As she turned to leave, Zac said abruptly, ‘Un momento. Wait.’
‘Are you worried I’ll sell at a loss?’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t.’
‘I wish to know why you are selling at all.’
‘Because I no longer wish to live here.’
‘After all these years when you thought of nothing else—wanted nothing else?’ he asked harshly. ‘I cannot accept that.’
‘I’ve always believed that if Jack Latimer hadn’t been killed, he’d have married my mother and, as his daughter, I’d have had a legal right to his estate. I now know that isn’t true. That even if he did have an affair with my mother, there could never have been a child because of the illness he suffered in adolescence. That my mother’s entire story was a tissue of lies.’ She shrugged. ‘And I can’t live with that.’
‘You do not have to,’ he said swiftly. ‘Mannion has come to you as my gift to my wife.’
‘Wife!’ She almost choked on the word. ‘And how much longer will I continue to be your wife? And when it’s over, how many years will I have to spend here without you—in Serafina’s empty shell?’
Her laugh was a sob. ‘Surviving in this heap of stones in the middle of nowhere, wandering from room to room, pretending that being alone is just a bad dream, and that somewhere I’ll find you waiting for me.’
She flung back her head. ‘Well, no, thanks. I can’t stay here. There are just too many memories and I won’t be able to bear them, so I’ll cut my losses right now, if it’s all the same to you.’
Her voice broke and she turned, fumbling for the door handle, and heard him say, in little more than a whisper, ‘Dana, my love, my wife, mi adorata—don’t leave me. Don’t go.’
The words she had said in her heart so many times.
She looked back and saw his face, as never before, pleading, vulnerable, haggard with yearning and something close to despair.