Читать книгу Joined By Marriage - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 10

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU really shouldn’t have gone there alone, Brianna.’ Her father spoke across the dinner table to her. ‘I thought we agreed before you left for work this morning that you weren’t going to do anything until we had another chance to talk this evening?’

‘Don’t worry, Dad.’ Brianna leant across the table and squeezed his hand reassuringly. ‘For all the good it did me, I might as well not have bothered! I feel as if I just made a complete fool of myself.’ And Nathan Landris had helped her to do it!

She had thought on and off during the afternoon about her conversation with him; the more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became, both with him and herself. Who had been trying to glean information from whom?

‘I think it’s ace,’ her brother piped up. ‘Perhaps you’ll find out you’re the daughter of a rich Arab sheik, and that you’ve been left millions in his will!’ Gary grinned expectantly.

As a family, they had never made any secret of Brianna’s adoption, and, because they were all so close, it had never mattered to any of them—Gary was Brianna’s brother, and her father was exactly that.

She grimaced now. ‘With this colouring? Knowing my luck, it’s more likely I’m the daughter of a debtor—and I owe millions!’

Her brother grinned, she noticed, but her father still looked far from happy with the situation. ‘Dad—’ She broke off as the telephone rang out in the hallway. ‘You aren’t on call tonight, are you?’ She frowned.

‘No, I’m not. But when has that ever stopped patients calling me?’

Her father specialised in obstetrics, and as such was always on call!

‘I’ll get it,’ Gary offered, getting up from the table.

‘It’s probably for you, anyway,’ Brianna said; her brother seemed to have a veritable stream of girlfriends.

‘Or the rich Arab sheik for you!’ he called out cheekily before leaving the room.

‘Not if he’s dead!’ she returned lightly.

‘We’re all so normal.’ Her father slowly shook his head. ‘Just a normal happy family. And yet I have this strong feeling of impending doom, like a heavy weight hanging over us all. I—’

‘It’s for you, sis.’ Gary breezed back into the room. ‘A Mr Landris.’

‘You see.’ Her father sat back heavily, looking every inch his fifty-three years at that moment.

Nathan Landris! What on earth was he telephoning her for, at home, at seven o’clock in the evening? Unless he was a workaholic, it was way out of office hours. Come to think of it, he probably was a workaholic! But she didn’t have any business with him; it was his father she wanted to see. Surely this wasn’t a social call? Superman hadn’t burst out of Clark Kent’s clothing, had he, with Nathan Landris actually behaving like a man rather than a lawyer? No, it was the Incredible Hulk who burst out of his clothes, not Superman—

‘I don’t think he’s going to hang on all evening, Bri,’ Gary urged. ‘He sounded a bit pompous to me.’

Nathan Landris, the Ice Man, Brianna decided ruefully as she stood up, lightly touching her father on the shoulder as she passed him. ‘It will be okay, Dad,’ she assured him huskily. ‘You’ll see.’

‘I hope so.’ He still looked haggard. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Brianna.’

‘You won’t,’ she told him firmly, before going out into the hallway to take the call, picking up the telephone receiver. ‘Nathan,’ she greeted coolly. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’ She started the conversation in the way she meant it to continue!

There was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line before an answer came. ‘It is a pleasure to speak to you, Miss Gibson, but I’m afraid this isn’t Nathan,’ said a male voice she didn’t recognise. ‘My name is Peter Landris. I’m Nathan’s father.’

She had realised it wasn’t Nathan the moment he spoke. Oh, the accent was just as refined, the voice almost as deep, but it certainly wasn’t Nathan. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Landris.’ She gave an inward grimace at her faux pas. ‘I—’

‘Please don’t be,’ he returned smoothly. ‘It was a natural mistake for you to have made, in the circumstances.’

What circumstances? She was even more stunned now that she knew her caller was Landris Senior!

‘I understand that you spoke with my son earlier today,’ Peter Landris continued lightly, as if aware of her confusion and giving her time to recover.

Those circumstances. ‘Yes, I did.’ Now she couldn’t help wondering exactly what his son had said about their meeting! ‘He explained you were unavailable,’ she added pointedly; he obviously wasn’t unavailable this evening!

‘That’s the reason I’m calling, actually,’ he came back calmly. ‘I realise you have made an appointment to see me next week, but I find I have a window in my schedule tomorrow, at one o’clock, and wondered if you would like to come in and see me then instead?’

If she took a late lunch, and wasn’t gone too long... ‘Could you make it one-fifteen?’ She wasn’t sure how wide this window was!

‘I’m sure I can,’ he accepted briskly. ‘One-fifteen tomorrow, then, Miss Gibson.’ He abruptly ended the call.

Brianna quickly put down her own receiver. Not quite the Ice Man, but it was obvious where Nathan had learnt his terseness; the reason for the call was concluded, and so was the call itself!

What a strange family the Landrises were, Brianna decided, shaking her head ruefully. But she had an appointment to see Peter Landris, and it wasn’t for next week, either. Now all she had to do was go back to the dining-room and reassure her father...

Brianna sat across from Peter Landris, his desk between them. He was the man who had been walking down the corridor yesterday, as she was leaving, the man Nathan had asked to wait for him in his office—the man she had assumed was Nathan’s two o’clock appointment.

Peter Landris was the man whom Nathan had known she’d come here to see yesterday—and to whom she was sure he had deliberately chosen not to introduce her!

Her eyes sparkled deeply blue as she looked across the desk at the elder Landris. As she knew from yesterday, he was slightly shorter than his son, although he probably still reached six feet, and with the knowledge of their relationship she was now able to see the similarities between the two men. Both were dark-haired, although Peter Landris’s hair was liberally peppered with grey, and they both had those strongly hewn faces, dominated by cold, pale blue eyes. In fact, Peter Landris was looking at her very much as his son had done yesterday!

Brianna bristled resentfully. The Landris family, with their initial letter sent to her father three months ago, and the one sent directly to her yesterday, had already wreaked havoc in her previously harmonious life; she was the one who should be angry. And she was!

‘You wanted to see me, Mr Landris?’ she prompted. ‘This is my lunch hour and I really don’t have a lot of time.’

To her surprise, he smiled, and, as with his son, it changed his whole demeanour, giving warmth to his eyes and a boyish charm to those hard features. Brianna decided at that moment that she wouldn’t like to face either father or son in a court-room—their charm would be totally disconcerting, before the coldness ripped you to shreds!

‘It’s my lunchbreak too,’ he told her softly. ‘Perhaps I should order us some coffee and sandwiches?’

Her expression deepened. ‘Am I going to be here long enough to eat them?’ She had imagined this meeting wouldn’t take long at all!

His smile broadened as he picked up the telephone. ‘Nathan told me you’re extremely direct,’ he murmured, before talking briskly into the receiver. ‘Hazel—coffee and sandwiches for Miss Gibson and myself. Thank you.’ He ended the call as abruptly as he had with Brianna the evening before.

‘I can’t see the point of being any other way.’ Brianna answered his previous statement—although she could imagine all too well what Nathan had told his father about her. But, unlike poor Hazel, she had no reason to be in awe of either man. And she wasn’t. ‘I dislike mysteries, Mr Landris, and this has certainly become one.’

She no longer believed a mistake had been made concerning her identity; this man didn’t make those kind of mistakes! And if it wasn’t an error, then she wanted to know as quickly as possible what it was all about.

‘I’m sorry if you feel that way,’ Peter Landris returned politely. ‘It certainly wasn’t meant to be.’

‘Exactly what is “it”, Mr Landris?’ Brianna prompted impatiently.

‘There are certain formalities to get through before I—Ah, Hazel.’ He turned to the receptionist as she came in with a laden tray, moving several papers aside on his desk to make room for the woman to put it down. ‘Would you like to pour?’ he invited Brianna, once the receptionist had departed.

‘No, I do not want to pour!’ Brianna burst out irritably; they were never going to get to the point of the meeting at this rate! ‘Mr Landris—Oh good grief!’ she snapped, as there was a brief knock on the outer door before Nathan walked into the room. ‘This is worse than Piccadilly Circus in the rush hour!’ she muttered.

Although if she was annoyed at yet another interruption, then Nathan looked absolutely stunned to see her sitting in his father’s office. Which meant he couldn’t have known of his father’s telephone call to her last night...

‘Nathan,’ his father greeted without warmth. ‘As you can see, I’m busy,’ he added pointedly.

The younger man didn’t move. ‘You didn’t tell me you intended seeing Brianna today.’

His father reacted to what sounded like an accusation. ‘I don’t believe it’s something I have to inform you of, Nathan,’ he rasped.

‘And I don’t believe you introduced me to your father yesterday, either, Nathan,’ Brianna interrupted. Father and son seemed to be locked in a silent battle with each other, so much so that she, the apparent reason for the tension between them, was briefly forgotten.

Nathan glanced at her momentarily before turning to his father. ‘Perhaps we could talk in private for a few minutes,’ he bit out harshly. ‘In my office,’ he added determinedly.

His father didn’t so much as move a muscle. ‘I don’t think so, Nathan.’

‘Father, I really think—’

‘I told you, no, Nathan,’ his father said glacially. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’m in the middle of a confidential meeting with my client.’

Brianna turned to him sharply. Client? She most certainly was not a client of his. For one thing, clients deliberately sought out the services of lawyers, something she most certainly had not done where Peter Landris and his son were concerned. And, for another, she could never have afforded the prices of a prestigious firm like this one, so if either of them had the least idea of presenting her with a bill for these two meetings, they could just think again...!

She stood up, picking up her handbag. ‘I’ll leave the two of you to sort out your differences. And then, when you have, perhaps you would like to send me a letter stating exactly what all this is about, Mr Landris,’ she suggested to the older man. After all, he was the one who had just claimed she was a client! ‘I really don’t have any more time to waste today,’ she added.

‘You were right, Nathan.’ Peter Landris spoke quietly as she crossed the room. ‘Brianna is as wilful as her mother.’

Brianna stopped, feeling the colour drain from her cheeks as she slowly turned to face him. ‘My mother?’ she repeated slowly, her lips suddenly feeling so stiff she could barely speak. ‘You know my mother?’

‘Yes. Nathan, help Brianna back to her chair before she falls down,’ Peter Landris added calmly, as she swayed on her feet.

She was barely aware of the arm about her waist, of being guided back to the chair she had so recently vacated, of sitting down. She could only stare at Peter Landris with suddenly very dark blue eyes. ‘You’re talking about my biological mother?’ she asked weakly. Having her father suspect that this was the reason for the letters was one thing; it was quite another for it to turn out to be true!

‘Of course,’ Peter Landris answered briskly, taking a file out of the top drawer of his desk. ‘I would—’

‘Father!’ Nathan barked tensely. ‘There are papers to see first, to be verified—’

‘Nathan, I will not tell you again!’ his father returned forcefully, eyes glacially blue. ‘Do not attempt to tell me how to do my job. I am well aware of what has to be done. But Rebecca was my client, and now that makes Brianna so.’

‘Rebecca is my mother?’ Brianna wasn’t in the least interested in the argument between father and son; in fact the more she heard the less sure she was that she wanted to know about any of it. Her mother had been Jean Gibson—she was the person who had cared for Brianna as a helpless baby, who had cuddled her when she hurt herself, who had wept for her on the day she began school, helped to ease the pain of her first broken love affair, sat and talked to her in the night when she panicked about her exams, had been pleased for her when she secured the job she wanted. Jean was her mother. She didn’t even want to know that this other woman’s name was Rebecca—suddenly felt as if the life she had always known was being invaded, violated...

‘She was,’ Peter Landris confirmed in a gentle voice.

Brianna swallowed hard. Was...? ‘She’s dead?’

‘I’m afraid so, my dear,’ he said. ‘Rebecca—’

‘I don’t want to know!’ she cut in emotionally. And she didn’t. She had wanted this meeting, the reason for it, out of the way, so that she could forget about it and get on with her life. But now she had a feeling that once she had heard the truth her life would be changed for ever. She didn’t want that.

‘I don’t want to know,’ she repeated flatly as the two men looked at her. ‘Whoever this woman Rebecca was, whatever she was, she most certainly was not my mother.’ She felt no loss at knowing of Rebecca’s death. How could she? She had never known the lady. And now that Rebecca was dead, there was no reason for her to know that, either. ‘Whatever this is about,’ she told Peter tersely, ‘I want no part of it.’

‘It isn’t as easy at that, Brianna—’

‘It most certainly is,’ she interrupted the older man firmly. ‘My mother abandoned me, gave me up; I now have the right to do the same where she’s concerned.’ She looked at him challengingly.

‘You’re oversimplifying things, Brianna—’

‘I most certainly am not,’ she replied strongly, feeling her self-determination returning rapidly. She had been thrown for a few minutes, but now she was in control again. ‘If a parent can choose to abandon a child, then that child can choose to abandon the parent.’

‘Nathan, will you either come into the room or get out of it.’ Peter Landris spoke sharply to his son as a young woman walked by along the corridor outside. ‘This is an intensely personal matter; I do not want all and sundry to hear about it!’

‘I’m well aware of how private it is,’ Nathan told him icily, moving further into the room and shutting the door firmly behind him.

His father looked at him intently. ‘Exactly what do you mean by that remark?’

The younger man gave him a scathing glance. ‘Exactly what I said,’ he snapped back, before turning his attention to Brianna. ‘I think you should listen to my father, Brianna,’ he told her harshly. ‘You stand to be a very wealthy woman at the end of this conversation!’

She gave him a pitying look. He was neither Clark Kent nor Superman; he couldn’t even see that wealth didn’t interest her in the least. Maybe it was because he obviously came from such a well-off family himself that he just couldn’t imagine anyone being happy without money!

‘I’m not interested,’ she told the elder Landris firmly. ‘I have a family already; I don’t need to know of another one.’

He raised dark brows; she was clearly adamant. ‘I understand your adoptive mother is dead.’

‘What does that have to do with this?’ Brianna bristled indignantly, eyes sparkling angrily, not even interested as to how he knew of Jean’s death. ‘It appears that both my adoptive mother and my biological mother are dead—I can assure you I know which one I mourn! This other woman—Rebecca—means nothing to me. And neither does any money she may have left me. She didn’t care about me enough over the last twenty-one years to seek me out, so I have no intention of her recent death intruding on my life now!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.

‘But your mother didn’t die recently, Brianna,’ Peter Landris told her quietly. ‘She died twenty-one years ago.’

Brianna blinked at him, totally speechless. She had never really thought of her real mother as she grew up, had been totally secure in the love of her adoptive parents. Even once she had reached adulthood it had never occurred to her to seek out the woman who had given birth to her. She had accepted that the woman probably had—probably still had—a life that wouldn’t welcome the daughter she had given birth to years ago. Somehow she had never imagined that her biological mother might have died so long ago...

She moistened her lips. ‘How did she die?’

‘The cause of death on the death certificate?’ Peter Landris returned hardly.

She frowned at him, at the way he had voiced the question. She knew all about death certificates—as a doctor, sadly her father had occasionally had to sign them—but from the way Peter Landris spoke there was clearly some doubt about her mother’s—Rebecca’s...

‘It’s usually pretty accurate,’ she said flatly.

‘Not in this case,’ Peter Landris countered. ‘The last I heard, they didn’t list a broken heart as the cause of death,’ he added bitterly.

‘Father, you’re too close to this,’ Nathan put in, stepping forward. ‘Too involved. Worse than that, you’re alarming Brianna.’

She wasn’t alarmed; she was confused. Just exactly when had her mother died twenty-one years ago? Obviously some time soon after Brianna’s arrival. But if she had died because of the birth of her baby, why hadn’t Brianna been taken in by relatives rather than put up for adoption. Who were her real family?

Peter Landris drew in a deeply controlling breath. ‘I’m sorry, Brianna. I just—It’s the waste!’ He shook his head, his face pale. ‘I was never able to accept the ending of that beautiful life. The utter futility of it all. You’re right, Nathan, I thought I could deal with this, but I—’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘Seeing Brianna has brought it all back to me.’ He looked across the desk at her. ‘You look so much like—God, it’s unnerving!’

She looked like her mother... Like Rebecca...? And, from this man’s behaviour now, he had known her real mother very well...

Her mouth tightened. ‘Who was my father?’

Peter Landris grimaced. ‘Your mother refused to name your father.’

Brianna shook her head. ‘I find it hard to believe that no one knew.’

‘You wouldn’t if you’d known Giles,’ Peter Landris rasped with feeling.

‘Who was Giles?’ She sighed her impatience with this disjointed conversation. This was becoming more and more complicated by the moment!

‘Your grandfather. Rebecca’s father,’ Nathan told her without hesitation. ‘Rebecca was terrified of him.’

Brianna turned to him with shadowed blue eyes. ‘You knew my mother too?’ Twenty-one years ago Nathan would only have been fourteen!

‘I did,’ he confirmed curtly. ‘She was four years older than me, but—’

‘My mother—Rebecca,’ she corrected herself, ‘was only eighteen when she gave birth to me?’ No more than a child herself! ‘And when she died...’ Brianna realised dazedly. She had been far too young to die. And yet Rebecca had loved, and apparently lost, and had given birth to Brianna in those brief eighteen years...

‘I’m afraid this interview isn’t being carried out very professionally.’ Nathan gave his father a reproving look. ‘Ordinarily, in these circumstances, we would ask you for documentary proof of who you are. And then—’

‘She’s Rebecca’s daughter.’ Peter Landris was staring at her now as if he was seeing a ghost. ‘Without a shadow of a doubt!’

‘I agree with you,’ Nathan concurred. ‘I knew that the moment I saw her in Reception yesterday.’

‘You could have told me!’ Brianna snapped angrily. ‘Instead of which you carried out some sort of elaborate delaying charade. This all happened twenty-one years ago, isn’t that delay enough?’ she bit out accusingly, looking from one man to the other to emphasise the point that she was tired of this further prevarication. She wanted the facts, and she wanted them now. There would be time later, once she was alone, to sit and brood over the significance—or otherwise!—of them to her life now. ‘Nathan?’ she pressed. ‘You seem to know all about this, so you tell me what happened all those years ago!’ The need to return to work was right at the bottom of her priorities now!

‘Rebecca was my client—’

‘Rebecca is dead,’ Brianna coldly cut into Peter Landris’s protest. ‘I appear to be your client now—and I would rather hear this from Nathan.’ He, at least, appeared able to talk about all of this unemotionally.

‘Father?’ Nathan glanced at the older man.

‘Go ahead,’ his father invited dully. ‘I—Seeing Brianna, the likeness to—It’s been a shock...’

‘Have a cup of cold coffee and a rapidly curling sandwich.’ Brianna poured the coffee for him, before turning back to the younger man. ‘Nathan?’ she pressed again, his father forgotten.

Nathan sighed, pulling up another chair and sitting down on the same side of the desk as Brianna, his pale blue eyes strangely compassionate. ‘We have to start with your grandparents—’

‘Rebecca’s mother and father?’

‘This will be much quicker if you don’t interrupt after every statement,’ Nathan told her sharply.

Much quicker. Although she had pushed the need to return to work firmly to the back of her mind, time was still passing rapidly. ‘Sorry,’ she ventured.

He acknowledged her apology with an arrogant nod of his head. ‘Your grandparents—Joanne and Giles. Joanne was the daughter of a very rich man; Giles was a local farmer. But, nevertheless, the two of them apparently fell in love and married. A year into the marriage Joanne gave birth to Rebecca. There were to be no more children.’

This was much better, much easier for Brianna to deal with emotionally.

‘Despite its apparently romantic beginning—’ Nathan couldn’t seem to help the cynical twist to his lips that accompanied this statement ‘—it wasn’t a particularly happy marriage. Giles came to quickly resent the fact that it was his wife who held the purse-strings, and he didn’t care for his daughter, or the pull she had on her mother’s time and love.’

‘It should have read “broken heart” on Joanne’s death certificate too,’ Peter Landris muttered harshly.

Nathan glared his father into silence. ‘At the age of eight, Rebecca was sent away to boarding-school,’ he continued evenly. ‘Her mother, it seems, never got over the loss.’

‘But there must have been holidays—’

‘Giles always made sure they were out of the country for those.’ It was Peter Landris who answered her. ‘Leaving Rebecca in the care of a housekeeper when she was at home. Joanne rarely saw her daughter during the next three years.’

‘I—But that’s inhuman!’ Brianna protested. ‘How could anyone be so cruel?’

‘If I could just continue?’ Nathan cut in icily, his brows raised as he waited for Brianna’s attention to return to him.

‘But this is all so—it’s like something out of a Victorian novel.’ Brianna shook her head dazedly. ‘I can’t believe anyone could get away with treating his wife and daughter in that way less than forty years ago!’

‘Can’t you?’ Nathan said bleakly. ‘Then perhaps you should see some of the cases that come to court nowadays!’

She had seen some of the battered wives and children that were brought into the hospital. ‘But Joanne was the one with the money.’ She frowned. ‘Surely that gave her a certain amount of—freedom?’

‘Giles was Rebecca’s father—a fact he never let Joanne forget,’ Peter Landris put in baldly. ‘I can assure you, Joanne was by no means a weak woman, but she did have a weakness. And that weakness was her child.’

Not physical cruelty, Brianna realised, but emotional blackmail—who could say which was worse?

‘Go on,’ she invited gruffly, wondering what other horrors she was going to hear about her family; perhaps Rebecca had done her the biggest favour of all by keeping her well away from them!

‘When Rebecca was thirteen, her mother died.’ Nathan was now the one to continue. He shot his father another censorious look as he added, ‘In a car accident. But her death left Rebecca with only her father.’

‘He didn’t take her out of boarding-school?’ Brianna said worriedly, beginning to care about Rebecca in spite of herself. Her own childhood had been such a happy one, with parents and a brother who loved her, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of the loneliness Rebecca must have endured as she was growing up.

‘No, he didn’t do that.’ Nathan gave the ghost of a smile in reassurance. ‘Rebecca continued to stay at the boarding-school; her father continued to be absent when she came home for the holidays. But there were no letters or telephone calls from her mother to sustain her. As was to be expected, Rebecca became desperate for love, for someone to care about her. As she got older there were—relationships. The majority of them with totally unsuitable men. But in this Giles had no say. What could he have threatened Rebecca with?’ Nathan stated frankly. ‘He had never given her anything he could possibly take away from her.’

Brianna was watching Nathan closely, questioningly. ‘You liked my mother,’ she said slowly, realising there was a warmth in his voice as he spoke of her.

Emotion flashed briefly in those pale blue eyes behind the glasses, and then it was gone, replaced by that mask of professionalism she was used to. ‘Rebecca, despite her unorthodox upbringing, was impossible not to like. She was full of life, and laughter, and beauty. Perhaps too much of the latter,’ he added wistfully. ‘It left her prey to the—attentions of men.’

Brianna frowned. ‘Are you saying my mother was promiscuous?’

‘Certainly not,’ he snapped, his mouth a thin line. ‘I’m saying she didn’t always love wisely.’

‘As she didn’t where my father was concerned. Did he happen to be married to someone else?’ Brianna guessed shrewdly.

‘We don’t know,’ Nathan said flatly. ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Perhaps her letter to you will explain all that to you,’ he added gruffly, glancing briefly at his father.

Brianna looked at him sharply, disbelievingly. She had learnt so much of Rebecca’s background in the last few minutes. Her father, she believed, had been a despot who denied his wife and daughter their love for each other. Rebecca had been the emotionally deprived child of that union, a child who had grown to young womanhood craving love, and not always finding it in the places that she should have.

Brianna had listened to all of this, had felt pity for her grandmother and her mother in an abstract way, even a little for the grandfather who must have been a very insecure man to have ruled his family in the way that he had. She had listened and had felt sorrow for such unhappiness, but it was a story of someone else’s life—a life unrelated to her own.

But a letter... A letter written to her by her mother was so much more...

She didn’t want it.

Didn’t want it.

Couldn’t read it...