Читать книгу Tall, Dark... Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 31

‘ANDREW SOUTHERN?’ Nick enquired, as neither Hebe nor the man staring at her with a dazed look seemed able to speak.

‘Yes,’ the artist confirmed in a strangulated voice, not taking his gaze from Hebe for a moment.

Nick knew how the other man felt—he didn’t want to stop looking at Hebe either!

But he knew the other man’s fascination with Hebe was for quite another reason than his own…

He recognised Andrew Southern from photographs he had seen, although he was older now, of course, the dark hair heavily peppered with grey, his handsome face weathered and lined, his eyes a deep, piercing grey.

Hebe’s father. Or not.

It didn’t really matter at that moment; the other man had cared enough, after receiving Hebe’s letter, to come to London in person rather than just writing back or telephoning.

Hebe couldn’t be unaware of the relevance of that either.

Hebe swallowed hard, unable to move or stop looking at the man who might be her real father. The two of them simply stared at each other.

Andrew Southern was the first to recover, shaking his head ruefully. ‘Of course you aren’t Claudia,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘You’re far too young to be her. But the likeness…the likeness—’ He stopped as his voice broke emotionally.

‘Uncanny, isn’t it?’ Nick said bitterly.

Hebe knew it was this likeness that had resulted in him making such a mistake where she was concerned—and Nick wasn’t a man who liked to make mistakes.

‘My name is Hebe,’ she told the older man huskily. ‘You received my letter?’

‘Yes,’ he breathed, and Hebe looked at him again. He was a man aged in his early fifties, tall and handsome, with grey eyes that seemed to see into the soul.

An artist’s eyes, Hebe decided. Eyes that saw beyond the outer shell of a person into the very heart of them. As he had once seen beyond Claudia’s youthful recklessness…?

‘Would you like to come inside?’ she invited shyly as she pushed the flat door open, aware of Nick standing back until the older man had entered, and then following behind carrying the portrait.

The portrait…!

Nick anticipated Hebe’s request, placing the portrait on the table before removing the covering, then turning to look at the older man as he propped the portrait against the wall.

Andrew Southern went even paler, seemingly possessed by the same stupor as first Hebe and then her parents had been on seeing the portrait.

The difference was that this man had actually painted the picture, already knew every loving brushstroke, every soft nuance and shading of Claudia’s beautiful face and body.

‘I never thought I would see this portrait again,’Andrew Southern murmured as he gazed at it in wonder. ‘How did you get it?’ he breathed raggedly.

Nick was the one to answer him. ‘I bought it from Jacob Gardner’s great-nephew after he died.’

‘Claudia!’Andrew’s voice broke emotionally. ‘I tried to buy it back from Jacob Gardner myself after—after Claudia left. But he refused to sell it to me.’

‘He never married,’ Nick told him quietly.

‘No.’ Andrew sighed. ‘How could any man after Claudia? My darling Claudia…!’ He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.

This man, Nick knew with startling clarity, had loved Claudia with the same depth, the same deep need, with which he now loved Hebe.

But for some as yet unexplained reason Andrew had lost his Claudia.

Was Nick really going to allow the same thing to happen to him where Hebe was concerned?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Hebe murmured, and she moved forward to put a hand on Andrew Southern’s shaking shoulders.

The artist looked up with a tear-ravaged face. ‘You’re sorry?’ he choked self-derisively. ‘I let this wonderful creature slip through my fingers like molten gold, and you’re sorry?’ He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘I should have acted sooner than I did. Should never—’ He broke off. ‘I’ve spent the last twenty-six years aching for just another glimpse of her, just to see her smile in that mischievous way of hers, to be able to hold her one more time!’

No! Nick cried inwardly. He was not going to live his own life in that way—give Hebe up without even telling her how he felt about her. And if he tried hard enough he just might—might!—be able to convince her into caring for him with even a little of the deep love he felt for her.

‘Claudia is the reason you stopped appearing in public?’ Hebe prompted softly. ‘The reason you stopped painting portraits, too?’ she realized, with sudden insight.

‘Losing Claudia is the reason I gave up those things, yes,’ Andrew Southern confirmed gruffly. ‘I changed my life completely after what I had done!’

Hebe looked at him quizzically. ‘What did you do?’

He shook his head. ‘Claudia was engaged to marry Jacob Gardner when he commissioned me to paint her portrait, and I was married—if not happily—but it made no difference. We—we took one look at each other and neither Jacob nor my wife seemed to matter any more.’

At last Hebe had a possible explanation as to why Claudia, after breaking off her engagement to Jacob Gardner, had left alone rather than with Andrew Southern. Because he’d already had a wife…

‘But why, if you loved each other, did you let her go off alone like that to have her baby?’ She frowned. ‘Or didn’t you love her enough to leave your wife, is that it?’

All of this was starting to have a familiar ring to it as far as Hebe was concerned. History repeating itself. Well, not quite, she corrected herself. Nick didn’t love her, but he was leaving her to have her baby alone and going back to his ex-wife.

‘Of course I loved her enough to leave my wife!’ His eyes glittered emotionally. ‘But we argued. Claudia—she didn’t believe me when I said I would end my marriage to be with her. But I did end it. And I went to see her the same day to tell her I had, that I only wanted to be with her, wanted her to come and live with me. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant!’Andrew groaned fiercely. ‘She had been there the day before, but when I went back the next day to tell her I couldn’t live without her, that I loved her, she—she had gone. I never saw her again.’ He closed his eyes as if to shut out the pain.

Except Nick knew that the older man couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t either. The image of Andrew’s Claudia, and Hebe for him, couldn’t be shut out. It was etched into the brain for all time.

Claudia and Hebe were women the men in their lives loved for a lifetime.

Jacob Gardner had continued to love Claudia even after she had betrayed and then left him. The portrait in his bedroom after all those years was evidence of that. And Andrew Southern’s pain at losing his Claudia was unmistakable. Nick knew without doubt that he loved Hebe in that same all-consuming way.

‘I—’ Hebe paused, moistening suddenly dry lips. ‘You realise I’m Claudia’s baby?’ she asked Andrew Southern warily.

He gave a choked laugh as he looked at her. ‘You couldn’t be anyone else!’ He reached up a shaking hand to touch her cheek lightly. ‘You are so like her,’ he breathed softly. ‘So very, very like her.’

Hebe shot Nick a rueful glance. ‘Yes.’

A glance he returned with a glittering determination she didn’t understand. But then, she never had understood Nick, so why should that change now, when he was shortly going to go out of her life for good?

She turned back to Andrew Southern. ‘The question is—’ she grimaced ‘—am I your daughter or Jacob Gardner’s?’

‘Mine, of course!’ the artist claimed frowningly. ‘Claudia—your mother—didn’t have that sort of relationship with Jacob Gardner. In fact she had never had that sort of relationship with anyone before me,’ he admitted gruffly.

Hebe blinked. ‘But—’

‘There was no one else before me, Hebe,’ he told her firmly. ‘Claudia liked to give the impression that she was wild and untamed, that she was worldly-wise, even. But in reality she was a sweet, enchanting young woman who had never been with a man before me. I felt a complete heel when I realised that the first time we made love.’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘I wasn’t happily married, but that was no excuse for seducing an innocent!’

Hebe didn’t really care about that. She just felt happier knowing that her parents’ love and care for Claudia hadn’t been misplaced at all, and that she really had just been the rebellious teenager Hebe had told Nick she’d been.

Andrew Southern’s gaze was pained. ‘I tried to find her. I really tried, Hebe.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘But she had just disappeared.’

Hebe gave a tearful smile. ‘I don’t think she intended you to find her—or anyone else, in fact.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t know when I wrote to you on Friday, but—but Claudia’s parents only learnt of her whereabouts when the hospital called them as next of kin. She died giving birth to me,’ she explained as gently as she could. ‘They brought me up, and have been the only parents I’ve never known.’

Andrew gave another choked sob. ‘All these years…I never knew what had happened to her, Hebe. Why she left so suddenly,’ he explained as she looked puzzled. ‘Until I received your letter this morning and saw that photograph of you I never knew that she was expecting my child. And it never—it never even occurred to me that she might have been dead all these years.’ He gave a disbelieving shake of his head, as if he still couldn’t take it all in.

Nick looked at the other man admiringly, not sure he would be staying even this much together if he had just learnt that Hebe was dead.

‘Or that you had a daughter?’ Hebe put in softly.

Andrew Southern’s face lit up as he looked at her, but the sorrow remained etched beside his eyes and mouth. ‘Or that I have the gift of a daughter. A very beautiful daughter,’ he added gruffly.

‘Who, in seven months’ time, is going to make you a grandfather,’ Nick added gently, and he stepped forward to place his arm possessively about Hebe’s shoulders.

She gave him a surprised look. What was Nick doing? Andrew Southern—her father—didn’t need to know about the baby she was expecting. It served no purpose at this moment, and would surely make it more difficult for Nick to just walk away, as he intended doing.

Andrew Southern looked at the younger man with sharply assessing eyes. ‘And am I going to have to get my shotgun oiled and ready…?’he finally murmured derisively.

‘No,’ Nick answered firmly. ‘Hebe and I are getting married. If she’ll have me…?’ He turned to look down at her uncertainly.

She swallowed hard, shaking her head, not understanding this at all.

‘Looks like you have some persuading to do there, Nick.’ Andrew had misinterpreted that dazed shake of her head as a refusal. ‘Feel free to take her off somewhere private. I’m quite happy sitting here looking at Claudia’s portrait for an hour or six—or a lifetime,’ he added, and he sat down in the armchair beside the painting, already seeming to have forgotten their existence as his eyes misted tearfully and the tears began to fall for the woman he had loved and would never see again.

Hebe took Nick into the room that had used to be her bedroom, bare now of everything that marked it as being hers, not understanding what was going on at all.

‘Do you think he’s going to be all right?’ She frowned with concern.

‘I think that he’s probably had twenty-six years to come to terms with losing Claudia, so her death makes it no more final,’ Nick answered carefully. ‘With your agreement, I would like to give him the portrait of Claudia? It belongs with him, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, slightly breathlessly, appreciating his understanding. ‘Oh, yes! But I—I thought we had agreed to cancel the wedding.’ She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘I told you, I’m not going to be difficult—’

‘I am,’ he cut in grimly, his dark blue gaze fixed firmly on hers. ‘Hebe, I don’t intend ending up like Andrew—in love with a woman for the rest of my life but not with her.’

‘I realise that,’ she acknowledged softly. ‘That’s why I agreed to end the engagement, and forget our marriage. I know you and Sally want to be reconciled—’

‘Sally?’ Nick cut in sharply. ‘What the hell does Sally have to do with any of this?’

Hebe looked confused. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I overheard you talking to her on the telephone yesterday evening.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I know she’s the reason you no longer want a marriage of convenience with me—that the two of you want to be together and that you’re going to talk things over when you go back to New York.’

Nick looked at her incredulously. That was why, after the two of them had made love so beautifully, so thoroughly, Hebe had gone to the spare room to sleep last night! The reason she had been so ready to call off the engagement and cancel the wedding. Because she thought he was still in love with Sally!

‘Hebe.’ He breathed deeply. ‘Sally remarried a year ago, very happily. Last night she called to tell me—she was so happy she had to share it with me—that she had just given birth to a little girl.’ He watched Hebe closely for her reaction. ‘I probably should have told you about it, but you had gone from my bedroom when I got back, and in the morning—Well, you know what it was like between us this morning.’

Hebe stared at him incredulously. ‘Sally’s had a baby…?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded, hope starting to blossom and grow.

‘Hebe, I know you might find this hard to believe after the way I’ve behaved—’ he shook his head self-disgustedly ‘—but the only woman I want to be with, the only woman I love, will ever love, is you!’

Hebe’s incredulity turned to wonder. ‘You do…?’

‘I do,’ he assured her grimly. ‘I think I fell in love with you six weeks ago. These last two years, when I’ve been—involved with a woman, I’ve just forgotten about her once I’ve walked away,’he admitted ruefully. ‘But you—you were different. I thought about nothing but you for five weeks—six if you count the week after I bought the portrait. I knew even then that I would have to see you again once I returned to London, that somehow you had got under my skin.’

Hebe moistened her dry lips, hardly able to believe Nick was saying these things to her. ‘But the portrait changed all that…?’

He nodded, sighing. ‘Because I’m an idiot. Because I didn’t believe you when you told me you weren’t the woman in the portrait. It looked like you!’ he groaned. ‘The you I had seen the night we spent together. The you who had been like a living flame in my arms. The you who had been haunting my days and invading my nights.’ He shook his head. ‘Seeing that portrait, imagining the man who had painted it looking at you and seeing exactly what I had seen, touching you in the way I had touched you—I was so angry I think I was blind with rage the next time we met,’ he admitted.

Nick was saying these things to her!

‘And now?’ she prompted breathlessly. ‘Now that you know the truth? You released me from our engagement and agreed to cancel the wedding,’ she reminded him huskily.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘I was trying to do the honourable thing. I realised that I had bullied you into both those things because of my mistaken belief that you were trying to trap me into marriage by getting pregnant on purpose. And I was mistaken, Hebe. I know now that you were just as surprised by your pregnancy as I was. Worse, you were probably terrified. And I’ve behaved like a complete bastard to you,’ he murmured self-disgustedly.

‘But now?’ she prompted again.

‘Now, after listening to Andrew, hearing him describe how much he loved Claudia and the hell his life has been for him since he lost her, I’ve decided—unless I want to go quietly insane—that I have to forget being honourable,’ he said determinedly. ‘I don’t want to be another Jacob or Andrew, my life barren and loveless because I’ve let the woman I love walk away from me without even trying to show her how much I love her and want to be with her. If it takes me months, or even years, I’m going to woo you, Hebe Johnson.’ He reached out to grasp her arms. ‘I’m going to woo you and win you. I love you too much, need you too much, to ever be able to let you just walk away from me. Will you allow me to do that, Hebe?’ he pressed fiercely. ‘Will you give me a chance to court you, care for you, love you?’

Hebe almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that question—she already loved him so much that parting from him today had been like a nightmare she couldn’t awaken from!

‘No, I don’t think so, Nick,’ she told him emotionally. ‘No, I don’t mean it like that!’ she hastened to assure him as he went deathly pale. ‘You see, I already love you.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve loved you for months—before you even spoke to me the first time,’ she admitted joyously. ‘And if it’s all right with you, I would like to go ahead with our wedding!’

‘Hebe…?’ He looked at her in disbelief..

‘I love you, Nick!’ It felt so good to be able to say those words at last—to let her love for this man shine in her eyes and light up her face. ‘I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you!’

Nick stared down at her as he drew in a shaky breath. ‘For eternity.’ He spoke forcefully. ‘I’m not willing to settle for anything less!’

‘Eternity,’ she echoed with a happy laugh. ‘I’m not willing to settle for anything less either!’

‘I swear to you that we’re going to be happy together, Hebe,’ Nick assured her firmly. ‘So very, very happy.’

She believed him.

And when their son and daughter, Andrew Henry and Claudia Luka, were born seven months later, mother and babies all healthy, Hebe knew she had been right to trust and believe in Nick—that their love for each other just grew stronger each and every day they were together.

As it would for eternity.