Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: February 2018 Books 1 - 4 - Ким Лоренс, Lynne Graham - Страница 18

CHAPTER NINE

‘MRS VALTINOS INSISTED that she had to make an immediate departure from the airport,’ Angel’s driver repeated uneasily. ‘I did tell her that you were expecting her to join you for lunch before she left London but she said—’

‘That she didn’t have time,’ Angel slotted in flatly.

‘I took her to Foxcote Hall at two and then an hour later dropped her off at her aunt’s house. She said she’d call when she needed to be picked up again,’ the older man completed.

Angel breathed in slow and deep. Something was wrong. His wife had flown back to London with their daughter and mounds of luggage even though she had only been expecting to remain in the UK for forty-eight hours at most. She had blown him off for lunch. She wasn’t answering his calls or his texts. Such behaviour was unlike her. Merry wasn’t moody or facetious and she didn’t play games. If something had annoyed her, she was more likely to speak up straight away. His growing bewilderment was starting to give way to righteous anger and an amount of unfamiliar apprehension that only enraged him more.

What could possibly have happened between his departure and her arrival in London? Why the mounds of luggage? Wasn’t she planning to return to Greece? Was it possible that she was leaving him and taking their daughter with her? But why would she do that? He had checked with the staff on Palos. Merry had had only one visitor and that was Roula, and when he had phoned Roula she had insisted that Merry had been perfectly friendly and relaxed with her. His lean brown hands knotting into fists, his tension pronounced, Angel resolved to be waiting at Foxcote when Merry got back.

* * *

Merry emerged from the rambling country house that she had not until that day known that Angel owned and climbed into the waiting limousine. She had left Elyssa with Sally, deeming it unlikely that her mother was likely to be champing at the bit to meet her first grandchild because Natalie had never had much time for babies. Furthermore, if Natalie was likely to be chastising her daughter and creating one of her emotionally exhausting scenes it was better to keep Elyssa well away from the display because Merry always lost patience with the older woman. What did it matter after all these years anyway? Natalie hadn’t even made the effort to attend her daughter’s wedding. But then she hadn’t made the effort to attend Merry’s graduation or, indeed, any of the significant events that had marked her daughter’s life.

Obsessed with the recollection of Roula’s sleazy allegations, Merry was simply not in the mood to deal with her mother. Landing in London to discover that Angel had arranged to meet her for lunch had been unsettling. Merry was determined to confront him but only in her own time and only when she had decided exactly what she intended to say to him. Not yet at that point, she had ducked lunch and ignored his calls and texts. Let him fester for a while as she had had to fester while she’d run over Roula’s claims until her head had ached and her stomach had been queasy and she had wept herself empty of tears.

Angel hadn’t asked her to love him, she reminded herself as the limo drew up outside Sybil’s house. But he had asked her to trust him and she had. Now that trust was broken and she was so wounded she felt as though she had been torn apart. She had trailed all her belongings and her daughter’s back from Greece but she still didn’t know what she would be doing next or even where she would be living. While she had been getting married, life had moved on. The cottage now had another tenant and she didn’t want to move in with her aunt again. Nor did she want to feel like a sad, silly failure with Angel again.

‘So glad you made the time to come,’ Sybil gabbled almost nervously as Merry walked through the front door into the open-plan lounge where her mother rose stiffly upright to face her. Natalie bore little resemblance to her daughter, being small, blonde and rather plump, but she looked remarkably young for her forty odd years.

‘Natalie,’ Merry acknowledged, forcing herself forward to press an awkward kiss to her mother’s cheek. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, don’t be all polite and nice as if we’re strangers. That just makes me feel worse,’ her mother immediately complained. ‘Sybil has something to tell you. You had better sit down. It’s going to come as a shock.’

Her brow furrowing in receipt of that warning, Merry sank down into an armchair and focused on her aunt. Sybil remained standing and she was very pale.

‘We have a big secret in this family, which we have always covered up,’ Sybil stated agitatedly. ‘I didn’t see much point in telling you about it so long after the event.’

‘No, you never did like to tell anything that could make you look bad,’ Natalie sniped. ‘But you promised me that you would tell her.’

Sybil compressed her lips. ‘When I was fifteen I got pregnant by a boy I was at school with. My parents were horrified. They sent me to live with a cousin up north and then they adopted my baby. It was all hushed up. I had to promise my mother that I would never tell my daughter the truth.’

Merry was bemused. ‘I—’

‘I was that adopted baby,’ Natalie interposed thinly. ‘I’m not Sybil’s younger sister, I’m her daughter but I didn’t find that out until I was eighteen.’

Losing colour, Merry flinched and focused on Sybil in disbelief. ‘Your daughter?’

‘Yes. Then my mother died and I felt that Natalie had the right to know who I really was. She was already talking about trying to trace her birth mother, so it seemed sensible to speak up before she tried doing that,’ Sybil explained hesitantly.

‘And overnight, when that truth came out, Sybil went from being my very exciting famous big sister, who gave me wonderful gifts, to being a liar, who had deceived me all my life,’ Merry’s mother condemned with a bitterness that shook Merry.

‘So, you’re actually my grandmother, not my aunt,’ Merry registered shakily as she studied Sybil and struggled to disentangle the family relationships she had innocently taken for granted.

‘It wasn’t my secret to share after the adoption. I gave up my rights but when I came clean about who I really was, it sent your mother off the rails.’

‘Lies...the gift that keeps on giving,’ Natalie breathed tersely. ‘That’s part of the reason I fell pregnant with you, Merry. When I had that stupid affair with your father, I was all over the place emotionally. I had lost my adoptive mother and then discovered that the sister I loved and admired was in fact my mother...and I didn’t like her very much.’

‘Natalie couldn’t forgive me for putting my career first but it enabled me to give my parents enough money to live a very comfortable life while they raised my daughter,’ Sybil argued in her own defence. ‘I was grateful for their care of her. I wasn’t ready to be a mother.’

‘At least, not until you were born, Merry,’ Natalie slotted in with perceptible scorn. ‘Then Sybil interfered and stole you away from me.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ Sybil protested. ‘You needed help.’

Merry’s mother settled strained eyes on Merry’s troubled face and said starkly, ‘What do you think it was like for me to see my birth mother lavishing all the love and care she had denied me on my daughter instead?’

Merry breathed in deep and slow, struggling to put her thoughts in order. In reality she was still too upset about Roula’s allegations to fully concentrate her brain on what the two women were telling her. Sybil was her grandmother, not her aunt and Merry had never been told that Natalie was an adopted child. She abhorred the fact that she had not been given the full truth about her background sooner.

‘The way Sybil treated you, the fuss she made of you, made me resent you,’ Merry’s mother confessed guiltily. ‘It wrecked our relationship. She came between us.’

‘That was never my intention,’ Sybil declared loftily.

‘But that’s how it was...’ Natalie complained stonily.

Merry lowered her head, recognising that she saw points on both sides of the argument. Sybil had only been fifteen when she gave Natalie up to her parents for adoption and she had been barred from admitting that she was Natalie’s birth mum. Merry refused to condemn Sybil for that choice but she also saw how devastating that pretence and the lies must’ve been for her own mother and how finding out that truth years afterwards had distressed her.

‘You say you want a closer relationship with me and yet you still had no interest in coming to my wedding or in meeting my daughter,’ Merry heard herself fire back at her mother.

‘I couldn’t afford the plane fare!’ Natalie snapped defensively. ‘Who do you think paid for this visit?’

‘How do you feel about this?’ Sybil pressed anxiously.

‘Confused,’ Merry admitted tightly. ‘Hurt that the two of you didn’t tell me the truth years ago. And I hate lies, Sybil, and now I discover that you’ve pretty much been lying to me my whole life.’

In actuality, Merry felt as if the solid floor under her feet had fallen away, leaving her to stage a difficult balancing act. Her grandmother and her mother were both regarding her expectantly and she didn’t know what she was supposed to say to satisfy either of them. The sad reality was that she had always had more in common with Sybil than with Natalie and that, no matter how hard she tried, she would probably never be able to replicate that close relationship with her mother.

‘All I ever wanted to do was try to help you still have a life as a single parent,’ Sybil told her daughter unhappily. ‘You were so young. I never wanted to come between you and Merry.’

‘I’d like to meet Elyssa,’ Natalie declared. ‘Sybil’s shown me photos. She is very cute.’

And Merry realised then that she had been guilty of holding her own unstable childhood against her mother right into adulthood instead of accepting that Natalie might have changed and matured. ‘I will bring her over for a visit,’ she promised stiffly. ‘How long are you staying for?’

‘Two weeks,’ Natalie told her. ‘But now that Keith’s gone and we’ve split up, I’m thinking of moving back to the UK again. I’d like to meet your husband while I’m here as well.’

Tears suddenly stinging her hot eyes, Merry nodded jerkily, not trusting herself to speak. She understood why her mother had wanted the story told but wasn’t at all sure that she could give the older woman the warmer relationship she was clearly hoping for. But then too many of her emotions were bound up in the bombshell that had blown her marriage apart, she conceded guiltily. Roula’s confession had devastated her and at that moment having to turn her back on the man she loved and her marriage was still all she could really think about. It was the thought, the terrifying awareness, of what she might have to do next that left room for nothing else and paralysed her.

She shared photos of the wedding and Elyssa with both women, glossed over Sybil’s comment that she seemed very pale and quiet and returned to Foxcote Hall as soon as she decently could, having promised to bring Elyssa back for a visit within a few days. The limo travelled at a stately pace back up to the elegant country house that had the stunning architecture of an oversized Georgian dolls’ house. Informal gardens shaded by clusters of mature trees spread out from the house and slowly changed into a landscape of green fields and lush stretches of woodland. Foxcote was a magnificent estate and yet Angel had not even mentioned that he owned a property near her aunt’s home.

She had originally planned to go to a hotel from the airport, but when she had yet even to see and speak to Angel such a statement of separation had seemed a tad premature. Walking into the airy hall with its tall windows and tiled floor, she heard Elyssa chuckling and stringing together strings of nonsense words and she followed the sounds.

Several steps into the drawing room, she stopped dead because Angel was down on the floor with Elyssa, letting his daughter clamber over him and finally wrap her chubby arms round his neck and plant a triumphant noisy kiss on his face. He grinned, delighting in the baby’s easy trusting affection, but his smile fell away the instant he glimpsed Merry. Suddenly his lean, darkly handsome features were sober and unsmiling, his beautiful dark eyes wary and intent.

‘You never mentioned that you owned a house near Sybil’s,’ Merry remarked in a brittle voice as he vaulted lithely upright with Elyssa clasped to his chest.

‘My father bought the estate when he was going through a hunting, shooting, fishing phase but he soon got bored. Angelina used it for a while when she was socialising with the heir to a local dukedom. It should really be sold now,’ Angel contended, crossing the room to lift the phone and summon their nanny to take charge of their daughter.

A current of pained resentment bit into Merry when Elyssa complained bitterly about being separated from her father. That connection, that bond had formed much sooner than she had expected. Elyssa had taken to Angel like a duck to water, revelling in his more physical play and more boisterous personality. If her father was to disappear from her daily life, their daughter would miss him and be hurt by his absence. But then whose fault would that be? Merry asked herself angrily. It certainly wouldn’t be her fault, she told herself piously. She had played by the rules. If their marriage broke down, it would be entirely Angel’s responsibility.

‘So, what’s going on?’ Angel enquired, taking up a faintly combative stance as Sally closed the door in her wake, his long powerful legs braced, shoulders thrown back, aggressive jaw line at an angle. ‘You blew me off at lunch and all day you’ve been ignoring my calls and texts...why?’

Merry sucked in a steadying breath. ‘I’m leaving you...well, in the process of it,’ she qualified stiffly, her face pale and set.

‘Why would you suddenly decide to leave me?’ Angel demanded, striding forward, all brooding intimidation, dark eyes glittering like fireworks in the night sky. ‘That makes no sense.’

Anger laced the atmosphere, tensing every defensive muscle in her body, and she cursed the reality that she was not mentally prepared for the confrontation about to take place.

‘Roula told me everything.’

Angel looked bemused. ‘Everything about...what?’ he demanded with curt emphasis.

‘That she’s been your mistress for years, that you always go back to her eventually.’

‘I don’t have a mistress. I’ve never had one. Before you, I’ve never wanted repeat encounters with the same woman,’ Angel told her almost conversationally, dark golden eyes locked to her strained face. ‘You must’ve misunderstood something Roula said. There’s no way that she told you that we were lovers.’

‘There was no misunderstanding,’ Merry framed stiffly. ‘She was very frank about your relationship and about the fact that she expected it to continue even though you were married.’

‘But it’s not true. I don’t know what she’s playing at but her claims are nonsense,’ Angel declared with harsh emphasis. ‘Is this all we’ve got, Merry? Some woman only has to say I sleep with her and you swallow the story whole?’

Merry clasped her trembling hands together and tilted her chin, her spine rigid. ‘She was very convincing. I believed her.’

‘Diavolos! You just judge me out of hand? You believe her rather than me?’ Angel raked at her in a burst of incredulous anger, black curls tumbling across his brow as he shook his head in evident disbelief. ‘You take her word over mine?’

‘She’s your friend. Why would she lie about such a thing?’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’ Angel shot back at her. ‘But she is lying!’

‘She said you’d been lovers for years but that you’ve always had other women,’ Merry recounted flatly. ‘I will not accept you being with other women!’

Angel settled volatile eyes on her and she backed away a step at the sheer heat she met there.

‘Then try not to drive me into being with them!’ he slammed back. ‘I have not been unfaithful to you.’

‘She did say that you hadn’t been with her since you got married but that eventually you would return to her because apparently you always do.’

‘You are the only woman I have ever returned to!’ Angel proclaimed rawly. ‘I can’t believe we’re even having this stupid conversation—’

‘It’s not a conversation, it’s an argument,’ she interrupted.

‘I promised you that there would be no other women,’ Angel reminded her darkly. ‘Didn’t you listen? Obviously, you didn’t believe—’

‘Your reputation goes before you,’ Merry flung back at him bitterly.

‘I will not apologise for my past. I openly acknowledge it but I have never cheated on any woman I have been with!’ Angel intoned in a driven undertone. ‘I grew up with a mother who cheated on all her lovers and I lived with the consequences of that kind of behaviour. I know better. I’m honest and I move on when I get bored.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t want to hang around waiting for you to get bored with me and move on!’ Merry fired back with ringing scorn. ‘Maybe I think I’m worth more than that and deserve more respect. That’s why I’m calling time on us now before things get messy!’

‘You’re not calling time on us. That’s not your decision to make,’ Angel delivered with lethal derision. ‘We got married to make a home for our daughter and if we have to work at achieving that happy outcome, then we work at it.’

A cold, forlorn hollow spread like poison inside Merry’s tight chest as she recognised how foolish and naïve she had been to dream that Angel could eventually come to care for her. He had only married her for Elyssa’s sake. She would never be important to him in her own right, never be that one special woman in his eyes, never be anything other than second best to him. He could have had any woman, and a woman like Roula Paulides, who shared his background and nationality as well as a long friendship with him, would have had infinitely more to offer him. He wouldn’t have had to talk about having to work at being married to anyone else. In fact her mind boggled at the concept of Angel being prepared to do anything as dully conventional and sensible as work at a relationship.

‘I don’t want to work at it,’ she heard herself say, and it was truthfully what she felt at that moment because her pride could not bear the idea of him having to suppress his natural instincts before he could accept being married to her and staying faithful.

‘You don’t get a choice,’ Angel spelled out grimly. ‘We’ll fly back to Palos in the morning—’

‘No!’ she interrupted. ‘I’m not returning to Greece with you!’

‘You’re my wife and you’re not leaving me,’ Angel asserted harshly. ‘That isn’t negotiable.’

Merry tossed her head, dark hair rippling back from her flushed cheeks, pale blue eyes icy with fury. ‘I’m not even trying to negotiate with you... I already know what a slippery slope that can be. Our marriage is over and I’m staying in the UK,’ she declared fiercely. ‘I’ll move out of here as soon as I decide where I’m going to be living.’

Angel stared back at her, his hard bone structure prominent below his bronzed skin, his eyes very dark and hard. ‘You would just throw everything we’ve got away?’ he breathed in a tone of suppressed savagery that made her flinch. ‘And what about our daughter?’

Merry swallowed with difficulty, sickly envisioning the likely battle ahead and cringing from the prospect. ‘I’ll fight you for custody of our daughter here in the UK,’ she told him squarely, shocked at what she was saying but needing to convince him that she would not be softened or sidelined by threats.

Angel froze almost as if she had struck him, black lashes lifting on grim dark eyes without the smallest shade of gold, his lean, strong face rigid with tension. ‘You would separate us? That I will not forgive you for,’ he told her with fierce finality.

Ten seconds later, Merry was alone in the room, listening numbly to the roar of a helicopter taking off somewhere nearby and presumably ferrying Angel back to London. And she was in shock, her head threatening to explode with the sheer unbearable pressure that had built up inside it, her stomach churning sickly. Tears surged in a hot stinging tide into her eyes and she blinked furiously but the tears kept on coming, dripping down her face.

Their marriage was over. Hadn’t she always feared that their marriage wouldn’t last? Why was she so shocked? Yes, he had denied that Roula Paulides was his mistress but she hadn’t believed him, had she? When she had packed her bags on the island she had known she wasn’t coming back and certainly not to a marriage with a husband who had to work at being married to her!