Their Engagement is Announced

by Carole Mortimer

  She could feel the hot colour in her cheeks. No one, other than her parents, had ever seen her unicorns, or even knew that she collected them. Until Griffin…

  ‘I will leave, Dora,’ Griffin continued softly. ‘But if you ever see Izzy, will you tell her I would love to see her again?’

  She breathed shakily. ‘Griffin—’

  ‘I hope you’ll be happy, Dora.’ He clasped the tops of her arms, his gaze intent on the pallor of her face. ‘Whatever, or whoever, is your choice for the future.’

  ‘I— But where will you go?’ Now that he was actually on the point of leaving she was filled with another sort of pain.

  Because this time she knew he would never come back. There was only Dora here for him now, and he didn’t particularly like her. Perhaps she was putting that a little too strongly, but Dora was too timid, too scared to take any risks in her life, to interest a man like Griffin.

  ‘I’ll manage.’ He dryly quoted her own word back at her. ‘One thing you can be sure of, though— I won’t be going anywhere near my mother!’ he added. ‘But to more practical matters—how are you going to get the work done at the shop?’

  ‘I spoke to the carpenter today, and he says he can complete all the work for me,’ she assured him dismissively.

  Griffin smiled. ‘No one is indispensable, hmm?’ he murmured ironically, giving her arms a light squeeze before releasing her. ‘I’ll send someone round for my car as soon as it can be arranged.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ she assured him huskily, bereft at the loss of his touch.

  ‘Oh, I think there is.’ He nodded slowly. ‘And I’m really sorry if I messed things up for you with the doctor, Dora.’ He turned to pick up his crutches, missing the look of desperation that suddenly appeared on her face as she realised he was leaving. ‘Maybe the two of you were suited, after all,’ he added sadly.

  There was no mockery in his tone this time, only sadness. Which made Dora feel like crying. In fact, she had felt like crying for the last few minutes. Ever since Griffin had accepted that he did have to leave.

  And he was wrong; she and Sam weren’t suited. Any more than she and Charles had been—

  What was she thinking? She had loved Charles, been engaged to marry him, would have been married to him by now but for the car accident that had taken him away from her.

  Wouldn’t she…?

  She looked up at Griffin with stricken eyes, tears blurring her vision. She loved this man, in fact she realised she had fallen in love with him two years ago. What would have happened to her marriage to Charles when she had finally realised that?

  ‘Give the doctor a call, Dora,’ Griffin advised harshly, totally misunderstanding the reason for her tears. ‘I’m sure he’ll listen to what you have to say.’

  Dora couldn’t move as Griffin left the kitchen, and was still standing in the same spot when she heard the front door close a couple of minutes later. She had told Griffin to go. And he had.

  Her tears now fell hotly against her cheeks. Griffin had gone. And she knew she would never see him again…

  ‘Absolutely wonderful idea, my dear,’ the woman told her gushingly as she left the bookshop. Dora locked the door behind her. It was five-thirty on a Saturday evening; time to go home. And that was something Dora delayed nowadays for as long as she possibly could. While she was at the shop she could keep herself busy—the changes she had made before the re-opening three weeks ago had been such a success that she’d taken on a full-time worker to help her out this last week. It was only when she was at home, in the otherwise empty house, that the futility of it all crowded in on her.

  As she’d predicted, she hadn’t seen Griffin again since the night she’d told him to leave. She’d told him she didn’t want to see him again, and he had kept her to that. As promised, he had even had his car picked up from the back of the shop. Dora had found it gone when she’d gone into work one morning. Yes, Griffin had well and truly gone from her life.

  And how she missed him!

  Izzy, too.

  Griffin was the only person who had ever realised there was an Izzy, and without him there to tease and cajole her, Izzy was slowly ceasing to exist at all…

  ‘Dora!’

  She turned from locking the shop door on her way out, a smile of genuine pleasure lightening her features as she saw Charlotte hurrying along the pavement towards her. A Charlotte who, newly returned from her honeymoon, looked radiantly happy…

  ‘I’m so glad I managed to catch you,’ the other woman gasped breathlessly as she reached Dora’s side. ‘My goodness, Dora.’ She grinned. ‘I know I asked you to keep an eye on Griffin—but I had no idea you would actually become engaged to him!’ She beamed her pleasure at the development.

  Dora’s smile faded as she stared at the other woman. ‘Who told you that…?’ she said warily.

  She hadn’t seen Griffin for the last three weeks, but she had assumed he would have informed his family by now that their engagement was a bogus one. Charlotte’s greeting seemed to imply otherwise…

  ‘My mother, of course.’ Charlotte grimaced, instantly dispelling Dora’s assumption that it was Griffin the other woman had been talking to. ‘And Griffin too, of course, once my mother had told me the good news.’

  Dora swallowed hard. ‘I don’t believe your mother thought of it in quite that way!’ Exactly what had Griffin told his sister of their ‘engagement’?

  Charlotte gave a throaty chuckle. ‘I’m not about to repeat what my mother said about it! And anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about my mother,’ she added briskly. ‘Stuart and I are having our leaving dinner tomorrow evening at Stuart’s apartment, and of course we want you and Griffin to be there.’

  Dora was pleased to see the other woman, of course she was, but there was no way she could have dinner with Charlotte and her husband—and Griffin! ‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘Neither was Griffin. Which was why he told me to ask you.’ Charlotte nodded. ‘He explained that he’s away tonight, but he’ll be back in time for dinner tomorrow. He said that if it’s okay with you it’s okay with him. Oh, do say the two of you don’t have any other plans,’ she pleaded, clasping Dora’s hands. ‘Stuart and I go to New York on Monday, and it would be lovely if we could all spend tomorrow evening together before we go.’

  Griffin had told Charlotte to ask her…?

  What was she supposed to say to that? Why couldn’t he have just told Charlotte the truth, that their engagement was purely a fiction of his own mind, a ploy to keep his mother’s machinations at bay? As it was, he had left the decision for accepting or refusing the invitation to her—at the same time ensuring she couldn’t even contact him to see what was going on!

  She looked up undecidedly at Charlotte. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to see Griffin again. She had missed him these last three weeks, and even the obvious success of the shop hadn’t helped fill the empty space he had left behind him. Besides, he obviously hadn’t told Charlotte the truth, so why should she? And Griffin had left the decision about dinner with Charlotte and Stuart tomorrow evening to her…

  ‘Okay, Charlotte,’ she accepted firmly before she could have second thoughts. Those would come later! All she could think of at the moment was that she would see Griffin again tomorrow evening…

  ‘Wonderful!’ Charlotte beamed her pleasure. ‘Stuart will come and pick you up.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’ Dora shook her head.

  ‘Of course there is.’ Charlotte gave her hands another squeeze before releasing them. ‘Griffin is going to be late back, so he’s coming straight to Stuart’s apartment, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to drive into town; the champagne is going to be flowing pretty freely!’

  And the way Dora felt at the moment, she might drink rather a lot of it!

  ‘Are you sure Stuart won’t mind?’ She frowned her concern.

  ‘He suggested it.’ Charlotte smiled. ‘It’s probably his way of getti
ng out of helping me with the last-minute arrangements! What he doesn’t realise is I’ll be glad of a few minutes’ peace and quiet to do those things without anyone under my feet! Is seven o’clock okay for you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Dora accepted evenly. Her weekend wasn’t exactly brimming over with things to do! In fact, she was going to have to make an effort to keep herself busy until tomorrow night—otherwise she might just ‘chicken out’, as Griffin had once put it, and not go at all!

  ‘Lovely!’ Charlotte looked very pleased with herself. ‘I’ll let you get off now; I’m sure you have lots to do!’

  Not exactly. In fact, the silence of her home closed in on her as soon as she got in half an hour later and closed the door behind her.

  Pull yourself together, Dora, she told herself firmly. She was going to see Griffin again tomorrow evening; that was a lot more than she had had an hour ago. Besides, she did have things to do here to keep her busy; she still had her father’s things to sort out. And it was time she did it.

  Charlotte had said Griffin was away. Who with? Was he seeing Amanda Adams again—?

  Stop!

  She had to stop thinking about Griffin. If she didn’t she would go quietly insane.

  Although finally making the decision to go through her father’s bedroom, to sort through his clothes and papers, wasn’t guaranteed to keep her sane, either!

  But, after trying unsuccessfully on Saturday evening to keep thoughts of Griffin at bay, going through her father’s room was exactly what she decided to do on Sunday morning. In a few more hours she would see Griffin again, and she had to keep herself busy until then.

  Besides, it was time.

  Past time.

  Two hours later Dora sat on the floor of her father’s bedroom, one of the drawers from his dressing table on the floor in front of her, a totally dazed look on her face. For at the back of this particular drawer had been a large brown envelope marked ‘Private’, and after several minutes of wondering if she should look inside she had finally decided she would have to. There was no one else to do it, after all…

  There had been two envelopes inside, and at first Dora had thought they might be letters from her mother to her father. There had been few separations between the married couple, but that didn’t mean they had never written to each other. In which case Dora would have been loath to read them. Her father had been an emotionally distant man, her mother had been youthfully exuberant, but somehow their marriage had worked, and the two of them had been very much in love. Dora didn’t want to intrude on that relationship by reading their letters to each other.

  But the postmarks on both letters assured her they couldn’t possibly have been from her mother; both of them were dated several years after her death.

  It was the biggest shock of Dora’s life to discover, on opening them and simply looking at the signature on the bottom of both, that that signature was ‘Griffin Sinclair’!

  She again looked at the postmarks on both letters; the first one was dated only two months after she and Griffin had met at Dungelly Court, the second was dated six months later.

  She had never known anything about Griffin writing to her father once, let alone twice!

  What did it mean?

  The only way she would discover the answer to that was to read the two letters. And, with trembling hands, that was exactly what she did…

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘HELLO, Griffin,’ Dora greeted him huskily.

  Stuart had hurried off to the kitchen to see Charlotte after showing Dora into the sitting room where Griffin stood. Alone.

  She felt so nervous. She wanted to see him, needed to see him, but she would rather it weren’t under these circumstances. She needed to talk to him privately, and there was no way she could do that when they were here to have dinner with his sister and her husband!

  Griffin looked wary, obviously unsure of her reaction at being railroaded into coming here for dinner, as his fiancée, when the two of them hadn’t so much as spoken for three weeks!

  But that wasn’t all he looked. If Dora had found the last three weeks a strain to get through—her short black dress slightly looser now than it should be—then Griffin didn’t look as if he had fared much better. His face was thinner, gaunt almost, and he no longer looked healthy and tanned. His dinner suit seemed to hang on him; the shirt looked slightly too big around the collar.

  His eyes had no spark of humour in them, either, as if he found very little to laugh about nowadays. In fact, tonight Griffin looked every one of his thirty-four years!

  ‘Dora,’ he greeted distantly, not a hint of a limp in his movements, no crutches in sight, either.

  ‘Your ankle is better, I see?’ she observed brightly, trying not to show the pain she felt at his use of the name Dora.

  ‘Yes—thank you,’ Griffin replied stiltedly, eyeing her warily, neither of them making any move to sit down. ‘So if you’re worried about the possibility of my suing you for damages—’

  ‘I’m not in the least worried about that, Griffin,’ she protested.

  There was so much she needed to say to him! She still found it difficult to take in the significance of those letters he’d written to her father.

  And could she really blame Griffin for feeling the way he obviously did? First her father, and then Dora herself. Both of them had told Griffin, at some stage, to get out of her life. She’d been stunned, then elated by what was written in the letters she had brought with her in her handbag. But both those letters had been written some time ago; maybe Griffin no longer meant what he had said…

  She looked at him searchingly now, trying to read his emotions in the harsh severity of his face, in the cold, unfathomable depths of his eyes. There was nothing there but bleak bitterness, the latter an emotion she had never seen in Griffin before today.

  ‘Griffin—’

  ‘Here we are,’ Charlotte announced, as she came in with a tray of hot canapés, effectively putting an end to what Dora had wanted to say to Griffin. ‘Stuart is just bringing in the champagne. To toast your engagement!’ she told Dora and Griffin excitedly. ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that the two of you have got together at last!’

  Dora gave Griffin a look from beneath lowered lashes; they hardly looked like an ecstatic newly engaged couple!

  But Charlotte, still enchanted by her own happiness, seemed unaware of any friction. ‘To both of you!’ she toasted when they all had a glass of champagne. ‘I had thought of inviting Mother here tonight,’ she said derisively once they had all dutifully sipped their champagne. ‘But I didn’t see why she should ruin all our fun!’ she added mischievously.

  Dora felt a shiver down her spine just at the mention of Margaret Sinclair. Griffin had been right—her father and his mother had been so alike; neither of them had been content to let their children find love in their own way, both had had other ambitions and plans for them…!

  The evening was an ordeal for Dora to get through. Griffin barely spoke, in fact he hardly looked at her, either, and her hopes that they might be able to talk things out—hopes that Griffin’s letters had given her—faded rapidly as the evening progressed. Although Griffin had been instrumental in including her in this evening, he now seemed to be bitterly regretting it.

  ‘Let us know as soon as you decide when the wedding is to be,’ Stuart told them both warmly when it came time to leave. ‘Charlotte and I will obviously fly home.’

  ‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Charlotte added excitedly, her arm linked through her husband’s as they walked Dora and Griffin to the door.

  Wedding…! The chances of her and Griffin marrying each other were virtually nil. Dora groaned inwardly, barely aware of returning the newly married couple’s hugs goodbye before preceding Griffin out through the door.

  The two of them went down in the lift in complete silence.

  Charlotte and Stuart had assumed Dora would be going home with Griffin, and after the miserable evening Dora had just s
pent she hadn’t had the heart to say otherwise. No doubt she would be able to find a taxi once she was outside; it was a sure fact Griffin wouldn’t want to drive her home!

  But first she had to at least try to talk to Griffin, to let him know she’d never known of his visit to her father, or the letters he had sent him…

  Standing downstairs in the foyer, she couldn’t even look at him. This new Griffin seemed totally unapproachable. Something she had never, ever found him before…

  ‘I’m sorry about all that up there.’ He was finally the one to speak. ‘Charlotte telephoned me yesterday just as I was leaving on a business trip, and I really didn’t have the time to go into details with her.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t tell her the truth and save yourself the bother of having to go through any more time pretending to be my fiancée.’ he added harshly.

  ‘I needed to see you, Griffin.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I found these in my father’s bedroom; I believe they belong to you.’ She was searching through her handbag, finally finding and holding out the two letters towards Griffin.

  He glanced down at them, obviously recognising them by the way his mouth tightened, but he made no effort to take them from her. ‘I don’t think so,’ he dismissed gruffly. ‘Letters belong to the person they are addressed to, not the person who wrote them.’ He continued to ignore the two letters she held out to him, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets now.

  Her own hand dropped back down to her side. ‘Griffin…’ She moistened her lips. ‘I had no idea— My father didn’t tell me—’ She swallowed hard. ‘I never knew you tried to find me again after we left Dungelly Court.’

  Griffin’s first letter to her father told her that he had. It also said that he was in love with her…

  She hadn’t been able to believe it this morning when she’d read those two letters. Griffin had been in love with her two years ago. He had come in search of her so that he could tell her of that love. And instead he had met her father. And been lied to… No wonder he had disliked her father so much!