Keeping Luke's Secret

by Carole Mortimer

  He looked as robust as usual, though, his brushed-back hair a thick iron-grey, his over-six-feet frame still as wiry as ever, the tweed jacket and brown trousers he had on for gardening having previously been what he’d worn during his university lecturing days, a post he had stepped down from over ten years ago to retire to his beloved Devon. Unfortunately, as he had said, her grandmother had died the previous year, leaving him very much on his own…

  He frowned vaguely. ‘I hope I have something that I can give you for lunch…’

  ‘Cheese melted on toast will do me just fine,’ she assured him, tucking her arm into the crook of his as they went out into the garden to sit beneath the apple tree, where Leonie had placed the tray of tea things she had prepared on her way through the house. ‘You really should lock the cottage door,’ she told her grandfather ruefully as he looked at the laden tray. ‘Anyone could just walk in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call you just anyone, my darling,’ he teased as he watched her pour the tea. ‘Besides, anyone could get in anyway, if they were determined enough, Leonie, locked door or no,’ he defended lightly as she shot him a reproving look.

  He was right, of course. But that didn’t mean she didn’t worry about him down here in Devon all on his own. Although she knew he wouldn’t thank her for fussing.

  A noted historian in his own right, he had continued to lecture until he was well into his sixties, had always been a voice of authority that was listened to, by his students and colleagues alike.

  Luke Richmond had asked her what she was trying to prove by becoming a historian like her grandfather. She wasn’t trying to prove anything; she just respected and loved her grandfather very much. The fact that she had also known her choice of career would please him immensely had come into it, of course, but it wasn’t the whole story…

  ’So, to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’ he prompted once they both had a cup of tea. “’Just passing” won’t pass muster, I’m afraid,’ he added dryly.

  Obviously not, but by driving to Rachel Richmond’s house in Hampshire earlier this morning she had already been almost halfway here; it had seemed only logical to make the rest of the drive to her grandfather’s home in Devon. Besides, for the past week she had wanted to ask him about something…

  ‘It’s so relaxing here.’ She sighed happily, resting back in her garden chair, birds singing in the trees, the wild flowers already in abundance in the well-cared-for cottage garden that was her grandfather’s pride and joy.

  ‘It is.’ He too looked around them with satisfaction. ‘How’s your young man?’ he prompted interestedly.

  Leonie smiled at the description; at thirty-two Jeremy could hardly be called that. Although, probably to her grandfather, in his eightieth year, that did seem young!

  ‘Fine,’ she answered dismissively. ‘He’s away on some computer course or other this weekend,’ she added helpfully.

  ‘Ah. At a bit of a loose end, are you?’ Her grandfather nodded understandingly, blue eyes twinkling teasingly beneath bushy iron-grey brows.

  ‘Grandfather!’ Leonie chided laughingly. ‘You make it sound as if I only came to see you because I have nothing better to do this weekend!’

  ‘That’s how it should be with old fogies like me,’ he assured her seriously. ‘Enjoy your life, Leonie, with people your own age. That’s the way it should be. Despite what your mother may tell you to the contrary,’ he added dryly.

  They shared a conspiratorial smile; as an only child, Leonie was expected, by her mother at least, to telephone her parents at least once a week, and to visit them in Cornwall once a month. Thank heavens her grandfather was just pleased to see her, no matter how long it had been since her last visit.

  ‘Actually, I was in Hampshire earlier this morning,’ she began slowly, still not quite sure how to broach this subject when her grandfather had never mentioned it himself. ‘I believe I met an old acquaintance of yours there…? At least, he seemed convinced the two of you had met.’

  ‘Really?’ her grandfather prompted interestedly before taking a sip of his tea.

  ‘Yes. You didn’t tell me your social life now involved screenwriters,’ she added lightly, grey eyes glowing teasingly.

  He gave a perplexed frown. ‘I’m not sure…’

  ‘Luke Richmond,’ Leonie told him questioningly; she had far from forgotten the fact that the other man had claimed to have spoken to her grandfather concerning his biography.

  Her grandfather looked blank for a moment, and then his brow cleared. ‘Ah—Luke Richmond!’ he repeated knowingly. ‘A rather dour young man as I recall…’ He nodded. ‘How on earth did you come to meet him, darling? Or has your own social life now moved into the world of the movies?’ he added teasingly.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t, Grandfather!’ Leonie dismissed laughingly—although she couldn’t say she disagreed with his summing up of Luke Richmond’s nature! ‘I know exactly what you’re doing,’ she assured him wryly, ‘and I’m not going to be distracted. Why didn’t you tell any of us that you had been approached with the suggestion of writing the screenplay of your life?’

  He grimaced. ‘Can you imagine your mother’s reaction to that?’ he scorned.

  Leonie had no illusions about her mother, knew she was a complete snob—and she had not been at all happy the previous year when Leonie’s book on her father-in-law had come into print.

  ‘I can,’ she acknowledged dryly. ‘But even so… You could have told me, Grandfather,’ she admonished, giving him a playfully reproachful glance.

  Her grandfather grinned, suddenly looking quite boyish. ‘What on earth were you doing in Hampshire this morning with Luke Richmond?’

  Leonie looked at him searchingly, trying to gauge his reaction, but her grandfather was turned slightly away from her, making this difficult.

  ‘I wasn’t exactly with him,’ she said slowly. ‘I—he was a guest at the home of the person I was visiting.’

  For some reason, after coming all this way to see her grandfather, Leonie now found herself reluctant to discuss Rachel Richmond with him. Or the fact that she had been stupid enough to be tricked into writing the other woman’s memoirs.

  Her grandfather nodded. ‘He seemed like a very capable young man when I met him.’

  ‘If a little dour,’ she reminded dryly.

  Her grandfather shrugged. ‘Only to be expected, I suppose. It can’t have been much of a life for him,’ he added softly. ‘Living in his mother’s shadow, I mean,’ he added at Leonie’s continued silence, turning to give her a rueful grimace.

  No, it can’t have been easy for Luke all these years, Leonie acknowledged heavily. By agreeing to write Rachel’s book, she was about to make Luke’s lot in life all the harder to bear!

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘I THOUGHT you were paid to come here and work, not sit dreaming your time away under the apple blossom!’

  Leonie didn’t need to turn to know the identity of her accuser—if the words weren’t condescending enough, the sarcasm of Luke Richmond’s voice was all too recognisable!

  ‘Actually, Mr Richmond,’ she drawled evenly, slowly turning to look at him as he stood behind the garden chair she sat in under the apple blossom, ‘I’m not being paid at all,’ she told him dryly. ‘And your mother suggested I might like to look through these photograph albums, with a view to the possibility of using some of them in the book, while she took her afternoon rest.’ She looked pointedly at the pile of albums on the wooden table in front of her.

  Actually, it was a glorious day, the mid-May sunshine dappling through the apple blossom, she had enjoyed lunch with Rachel, and she was feeling rather sleepy herself. Certainly too relaxed and comfortable to feel like engaging in verbal warfare with Luke!

  She grinned up at him. ‘I must say, you were gorgeous as a baby,’ she drawled mockingly.

  There was no answering smile in the grimness of Luke’s features as he moved to settle himself in the nearest vacant chair to her own. ‘And now?’
he challenged tauntingly.

  Now, if she was absolutely honest, he was more than gorgeous—he was breathtakingly handsome. His hair, in the sunlight, had red tints amongst the darkness, those chiselled features seeming to have a year-round tan, his sheer masculinity also in no doubt in the dark brown tee shirt and black denims. That was if she were to be absolutely honest—which probably wasn’t a good idea around a man whose only feelings towards her were wariness and suspicion.

  She hadn’t seen or heard from him in the three weeks since she’d last been here, but if his attitude now was anything to go by his feelings towards her didn’t seem to have changed.

  Leonie shrugged dismissively. ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what you can already see for yourself in the mirror every morning when you shave.’

  His mouth twisted derisively at her obviously evasive answer. ‘I thought all babies were gorgeous? To women, at least,’ he added with a challenging lift of those dark brows.

  ‘Spoiling for a fight’ came to mind!

  Relaxed as she was, Leonie was in no mood to give him that satisfaction. ‘Perhaps they are,’ she replied noncommittally. ‘Your mother didn’t mention you were coming down this weekend,’ she murmured sleepily.

  ‘Didn’t she?’ he returned unhelpfully, his hooded gaze fixed penetratingly on Leonie’s face. ‘What do you mean, you aren’t getting paid?’ He frowned. ‘I’m sure you can’t be giving up your weekends just for the fun of it!’ he added disparagingly.

  Leonie shrugged again; it really was too lovely a day for a fight. Even with Luke Richmond. ‘I advised your mother that it would be better to wait until the book is written before we talk about remuneration.’

  Luke’s gaze narrowed. ‘Why?’

  She gave him a considering look before answering. ‘My work may not be what your mother wants. One successful biography, on someone I’m very close to, does not mean I will have the same success writing your mother’s story,’ she dismissed.

  Luke was silent after this statement, as if mulling over the truth of what she had said. Maybe he was; at this moment, Leonie felt too soporific to care what he thought.

  ‘You don’t look much like your grandfather, do you?’ Luke suddenly bit out abruptly.

  Giving Leonie a sharp reminder that it wasn’t a good idea to become too relaxed when around this man!

  She straightened in her chair, the green tee shirt she wore, with black fitted trousers, a perfect foil for her fair colouring. ‘That’s probably as well—considering he’s an eighty-year-old man, and I’m a woman fifty years younger!’ she returned facetiously, no longer feeling quite so sleepy. In fact, she felt under attack!

  Luke gave an unappreciative grimace. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,’ he rasped.

  ‘Do I?’ she returned, her own gaze coolly challenging.

  Luke stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll take you for a walk round the grounds.’

  No ‘would you like to?’, or even a ‘shall we?’—just an ‘I’ll take you’! This man’s arrogance could prove extremely irritating if she were exposed to it for too long. Besides, she had little interest in accompanying him on a walk round the grounds. In accompanying him anywhere!

  ‘Janet offered me some home-made lemonade earlier,’ she said vaguely.

  He nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll get you some later. Come on, Leonie,’ he taunted mockingly as she still made no effort to move out of her chair. ‘I can’t believe you find those old photographs that interesting!’

  Actually, she had been looking through the albums backwards, from the present day to, as she had said, Luke’s babyhood. To her way of thinking she might just be getting to the interesting ones: the time just before Luke’s birth.

  ‘It will give you a chance to work up an appetite for dinner,’ he added persuasively. ‘I presume you’ve been invited to spend the weekend…?’

  ‘Yes…’ she confirmed warily, expecting yet more sarcasm from this man.

  She had been shown her guest bedroom earlier by Janet, finding the opulence of the room overwhelming, as she had the perfume of the vases of fresh flowers that stood on the dressing-table and bureau. And that was only the guest bedroom!

  Luke nodded. ‘Rachel has invited a few friends over for dinner this evening. People who will probably call you “darling” all night because they’re too damned self-absorbed to remember your name!’ he added scornfully.

  This man really was a cynic! Although Leonie wasn’t sure she wanted to be included in the Richmonds’ social scene…

  She stood up. ‘Perhaps I will come for that walk, after all.’ She grimaced. ‘Then you can tell me a little more about these guests your mother is expecting!’

  ‘Gladly,’ he taunted, setting off at a brisk stride across the smoothness of the huge lawn towards a cluster of trees some distance away.

  Leonie had no trouble keeping up with that long stride, having become a fast walker herself after years of hurrying about the university in order to attend, or in later years give, lectures.

  ‘Well, Rachel informed me when I spoke to her on the telephone yesterday—yes, she did know I was to be here this weekend,’ he dryly answered the question Leonie hadn’t yet asked, mouth twisting ruefully as he saw the tell-tale colour that appeared in her cheeks. ‘As you get to know my mother better—which, in the circumstances, you obviously will’ he added hardly, ‘you will come to realise that her motives aren’t always as straightforward as they at first appear.’

  Leonie had already witnessed that firsthand—it was the reason she found herself committed to coming here in the first place! It seemed—from what Luke was now saying—that Rachel had deliberately omitted to mention to Leonie that her son would be here again this weekend. Probably because the older woman had already realised that the antagonism between Leonie and Luke worked both ways!

  For herself, Leonie was aware of everything about the man as they strode across the well-kept lawn, of dark hair gently lifted by the breeze, those green eyes narrowed in the glare of the sun, of the elusive smell of his aftershave, his movements smooth and sure.

  She gave a guilty start, her own stride faltering slightly, as he suddenly turned and looked at her, dark brows lifted in a question.

  A question she didn’t have an answer to. Except the unacceptable answer that she was aware of his masculinity to the point that her nerve-endings tingled with the knowledge!

  Leonie clasped her hands together to stop their shaking, suddenly wishing herself as far away from here as she could possibly be. This reaction to Luke Richmond was not only inexplicable, it was disloyal to her relationship with Jeremy.

  Jeremy had been such a dear about her involvement in Rachel’s biography, totally supportive, assuring her that they could meet on Monday and Friday evenings until the book was complete.

  Her thanks for that appeared to be her attraction to another man! A man she didn’t even like!

  ‘What is it?’ she snapped when she could stand Luke’s unblinking gaze no longer.

  He shrugged. ‘I was just wondering why a woman like you isn’t married. Or are you too dedicated to your life as a historian to bother with such things?’ he added derisively.

  ‘Just because I’m not married doesn’t mean that I—’ She broke off abruptly as she became wincingly aware, from Luke’s grin of satisfaction, that she was being deliberately goaded by him. ‘What do you mean a woman like me?’ she attacked, the only defence, she was quickly learning where this man was concerned.

  Luke had slowed his stride down slightly, strolling towards the woody copse now. ‘Late twenties, beautiful in a gamine sort of way, highly educated, obviously able to more than hold your own in conversation—and you aren’t repulsed by babies,’ he dryly mocked her earlier comment about his own pictures as a baby. ‘I’m surprised some lucky man didn’t snap you up years ago.’

  Leonie gave him a scathing glance for his obvious sarcasm. ‘Maybe I didn’t want to be snapped up,’ she drawled dryly.

&nbs
p; ‘Obviously not.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Surely the same can be said of you?’ Leonie did some challenging of her own.

  He looked thoughtful. ‘Late twenties? No. Beautiful? I doubt it. Highly educated? So my private-school fees assured my mother. Able to hold my own in conversation? I would hope so. As for babies—’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it!’ Leonie cut in frustratedly. ‘I was referring to the fact that you’re obviously very much an eligible bachelor,’ she added impatiently.

  ‘With a mother anxious to become a grandmother.’ He nodded, his expression rueful now. ‘A desire that will remain thwarted, I’m afraid,’ he added hardly.

  ‘Why?’ Leonie frowned.

  His gaze had become suddenly glacial, no hint of his previous banter left in the harshness of his closed expression. ‘I have my reasons,’ he rasped harshly.

  Reasons he obviously didn’t intend discussing with her! Not that she could altogether blame him; they were strangers to each other, and likely to remain that way.

  ‘You were going to tell me about the dinner guests?’ she prompted lightly.

  His brow cleared. ‘So I was.’ He nodded. ‘Well, there should be nine of them, four women and five males.’

  To give an even number of twelve, Leonie realised. Well, she hoped the man Rachel had chosen as her dining companion didn’t prove too socially difficult; Leonie had never particularly liked being forced into evenings with people who were not familiar to her.

  ‘Most of them are in show business, in one form or another, of course,’ Luke continued dryly. ‘Hopefully you won’t find it too boring.’

  ‘I’m sure I won’t,’ she answered politely, not sure of any such thing.

  ’After all, I shall be there,’ Luke murmured tauntingly, dark brows mocking.

  Leonie gave him a rueful glance. Was that fact supposed to reassure her? No…she realised as she saw the humour glinting in those pale green eyes.