Читать книгу The Rebel and the Heiress - Michelle Douglas - Страница 11

EVERY INSTINCT RICK had urged him to leap up and leave the room, to race out of this house and away from this rotten city and to never return.

He wanted away from Nell and her polished blonde perfection and her effortless nose-in-the-air superiority that was so at odds with the girl he remembered.

Fairy tales, that was what those memories were. He’d teased them out into full-blown fantasies in an effort to dispel some of the grim reality that had surrounded him. He’d known at the time that was what he’d been doing, but he’d wanted to hold up the promise of something better to come—a chance for a better future.

Of course, all of those dreams had shattered the moment he’d set foot inside a prison cell.

Still…

The letter in Nell’s outstretched hand started to shake. ‘Aren’t you going to take it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

She sat.

‘I have no idea what this John Cox could have to say to me.’ Did she know what was in the letter? He deliberately loosened his shoulders, slouched back in his chair and pasted on a smirk. ‘Do you think he’s going to accuse me of stealing the family silver?’

She flinched and just for a moment he remembered wild eyes as she ordered, ‘Run!’

He wanted her to tell him to run now.

‘After all, I didn’t disappoint either his or your father’s expectations.’

Those incredible eyes of hers flashed green fire and he wondered what she’d do next. Would she frogmarch him off the premises with his ear between her thumb and forefinger. And if she tried it would he let her? Or would he kiss her?

He shifted on the chair, ran a hand down his T-shirt. He wasn’t kissing the Princess.

‘If memory serves me correctly—’ she bit each word out ‘—you went to jail on drug charges, not robbery. And if the rumours buzzing about town are anything to go by, those charges are in the process of being dropped and your name cleared.’

Did she think that made up for fifteen months behind bars?

A sudden heaviness threatened to fell him. One stupid party had led to…

He dragged a hand down his face. Cheryl, at seventeen, hadn’t known what she’d been doing, hadn’t known the trouble that the marijuana she’d bought could get her into—could get them all into. She’d been searching for escape—escape from a sexually abusive father. He understood that, sympathised. The fear that had flashed into her eyes, though, when the police had burst in, her desperation—the desperation of someone who’d been betrayed again and again by people who were supposed to love her—it still plagued his nightmares.

His chest cramped. Little Cheryl who he’d known since she’d started kindergarten. Little Cheryl who he’d done his best to protect…and, when that hadn’t been enough, who he’d tried to comfort. He hadn’t known it then, but there wasn’t enough comfort in the world to help heal her. It hadn’t been her fault.

So he’d taken the blame for her. He’d been a much more likely candidate for the drugs anyway. At the age of eighteen he’d gone to jail for fifteen months. He pulled in a breath. In the end, though, none of it had made any difference. That was what really galled him.

Nell thrust out her chin. ‘So drop the attitude and stop playing the criminal with me.’

It snapped him out of his memories and he couldn’t have said why, but he suddenly wanted to smile.

‘The only way to find out what John has to say is to open the letter.’

He folded his arms. ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’

‘I made a promise to a dying man.’

‘And now you’ve kept it.’

She leaned across, picked up his hand and slapped the letter into it. She smelled sweet, like cupcakes. ‘Now I’ve kept it.’

A pulse pounded inside him. Nell moved back. She moved right across to the other side of the kitchen and refilled their mugs from the pot kept warm by the percolator hotplate. But her sugar-sweet scent remained to swirl around him. He swallowed. He blinked until his vision cleared and he could read his name in black-inked capitals on the envelope. For some reason, those capitals struck him as ominous.

For heaven’s sake, just open the damn thing and be done with it. It’d just be one more righteous citizen telling him the exact moment he’d gone off the rails, listing a litany of perceived injuries received—both imagined and in some cases real—and then a biting critique of what the rest of his life would hold if he didn’t mend his ways.

The entire thing would take him less than a minute to read and then he could draw a line under this whole stupid episode. With a half-smothered curse he made deliberately unintelligible in honour of the Princess’s upper class ears, he tore open the envelope.

Heaving out a breath, he unfolded the enclosed sheet of paper. The letter wasn’t long. At least he wouldn’t have to endure a detailed rant. He registered when Nell placed another mug of coffee in front of him that she even added milk and sugar to it.

He opened his mouth to thank her, but…

The words on the page were in the same odd style of all capitals as the envelope. All in the same black ink. He read the words but couldn’t make sense of them to begin with.

They began to dance on the page and then each word rose up and hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. He flinched. He clenched the letter so hard it tore. He swore—loud and rude and blue—as black dots danced before his eyes.

Nell jumped. He expected her to run away. He told himself he hoped she would.

‘Rick!’ Her voice and its shrillness dive-bombed him like a magpie hostile with nesting instinct. ‘Stick your head between your knees. Now!’

And then she was there, pushing his head between his knees and ordering him to breathe, telling him how to do it. He followed her instructions—pulling air into his lungs, holding it there and releasing it—but as soon as the dizziness left him he surged upright again.

He spun to her and waved the balled-up letter beneath her nose. ‘Do you know what this says? Do you know what the—’

He pulled back the ugly language that clawed at his throat. ‘Do you know what this says?’ he repeated.

She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t there when he wrote it. It was already sealed when he gave it to me. He never confided in me about its contents and I never asked.’ She gave one of those shrugs. ‘I’ll admit to a passing curiosity.’ She drew herself up, all haughty blonde sleekness in her crazy, beautiful Hawaiian dress. ‘But I would never open someone else’s mail. So, no, I haven’t read its contents.’

He wasn’t sure he believed her.

She moved back around the table, sat and brought her mug to her lips. It was so normal it eased some of the raging beast inside him.

She glanced up, her eyes clouded. ‘I do hope he hasn’t accused you of something ridiculous like stealing my grandmother’s pearls.’

He sat too. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘Good, because I know for a fact that was my father.’

He choked. Father. The word echoed through his mind. Father. Father. Father. In ugly black capitals.

‘And I’m sorry I’ve not tracked you down sooner to give that letter to you, but John died and then my father’s business fell apart and…and I wasn’t sure where to look for you.’

He could see now that she hadn’t wanted to approach Tash to ask how she might find him.

He wasn’t sorry. Not one little bit.

‘But when I heard you were home…’

He dragged a hand down his face before gulping half his coffee in one go. ‘Did he say anything else to you when he gave you this?’ The letter was still balled in his hand.

She reached out as if to swipe her finger through the frosting of one of the cupcakes, but she pulled her hand back at the last moment. ‘He said you might have some questions you’d like to ask me and that he’d appreciate it if I did my best to answer them.’

He coughed back a hysterical laugh. Some questions? All he had were questions.

Her forehead creased. ‘This isn’t about that nonsense when we were ten-year-olds, is it?’

He didn’t understand why she twisted her hands together. She wasn’t the one who’d been hauled to the police station.

‘I tried to tell my parents and the police that I gave the locket to you of my own free will and that you hadn’t taken it. That I gave it to you as a present.’

She stared down into her coffee and something in her face twisted his gut.

‘I thought it was mine to give.’ She said the words so softly he had to strain to catch them. He thought about how she’d handed her apartment, her car and her trust fund all over to her father without a murmur. So why refuse to hand over Whittaker House?

She straightened and tossed back her hair. ‘That was the moment when I realised my possessions weren’t my own.’

But for some reason she felt that Whittaker House was hers?

‘I told them how I wanted to give you something because you’d given me your toy aeroplane.’

It was the only thing he’d had to give her.

‘Which, mind you, I absolutely refused to hand over when they demanded me to.’

That made him laugh.

She met his gaze squarely and there wasn’t an ounce of haughtiness in her face. He sobered. ‘I’ve never had the chance to say it before but, Rick, I’m sorry. My mother and father were so angry. And then the policeman frightened me so much I…I eventually just told them what they wanted to hear. It was cowardly of me and I’m truly sorry if that episode caused a lot of trouble for you.’

It’d caused trouble all right. It was the first time he’d come to the police’s attention. It hadn’t been the last time he’d been labelled a thief, liar and troublemaker by them, though.

They’d just been two kids exchanging treasures and trying to forge a connection. Her father, the police and his background had all conspired to blow it out of proportion.

But none of it had been Nell’s fault and he’d always known that. ‘Don’t sweat it, Princess.’ He used the nickname to remind himself of all the differences between them, to reinforce them.

She sat back, her chin tilted at that unconsciously noble angle that made him want to smile. ‘Don’t worry. I was let off with a caution, but I didn’t know the police had questioned you too.’ The poor kid had probably been terrified. He had been.

She nodded to the letter balled in his hand. ‘But John hasn’t hassled you about any of that?’

He shook his head and her shoulders slumped in relief. She straightened again a moment later. ‘So…do you have any questions?’

She looked as puzzled and bewildered as he felt. He wondered if she was counting down the minutes until this interview ended. Did she find it awkward and wrong for him to be sitting across the table from her? Or did it feel weirdly comfortable?

He shook off the thought and set the crumpled letter on the table and did what he could to smooth it out.

‘I won’t beat around the bush,’ he read, ‘but you might as well know that I’m your father.’

Nell’s mug wobbled back to the table. She stared at him. Her mouth opened and closed. ‘But he chased you away.’ And then her eyes filled.

Rick knew then that she’d had no notion of what John’s letter contained.

He glanced back at the letter and continued reading. ‘I may be better served taking this knowledge to the grave as it’s brought me no joy. I don’t expect it to bring you any either.’

Nell’s intake of breath reverberated in the silence.

‘I have no faith in you.’

Her hands slapped to the table.

‘But you might as well know you have a sibling.’

She practically leapt out of her chair. ‘Who?’ she demanded, and then forced herself back down into her seat. ‘Really?’ She frowned. ‘Older or younger?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not going to tell you who it is. If it matters to you then you’ll have to prove it.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘But that’s… How…how can he be so hard and cold? He’s supposed to have looked after you and…’ She swallowed and sat back again. ‘Sorry.’ She smiled, a weak thing that did nothing to hide her turmoil. She made a zipping motion across her mouth.

Rick shrugged. ‘He ends by simply signing it John Cox.’

She shook herself, frowned. ‘I know the questions belong to you, but, Rick, I have no idea how to answer any of them. I haven’t a clue who your sibling could be. I had no idea John was your father. I’ve never seen him with either a woman or a child. I—’

He handed the letter to her. He watched her face as she read the remaining lines. It darkened, which gladdened his heart.

And then it went blank. Rick eased back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Nell ignored the first lines John addressed to her in the letter. Miss Nell, if you think Rick is in any way redeemable and you can find it in yourself to help him… She snorted. What kind of nonsense was that? What kind of father just turned his back on his child? She thought about her own father with all of his demands and bit back a sigh.

‘You’ll find a clue where the marigolds grow.’ She turned the letter over, but there was nothing written on the back.

‘Any idea what that might mean?’ Rick asked, slouching back in his chair as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather.

She opened her mouth. She closed it again and scratched her head. ‘My best guess is that, as he was a gardener and this is where he gardened, it refers to a garden bed somewhere on the estate, a garden bed where he grew marigolds, but…’

‘But?’

Rick sounded bored. She glanced at him, tried to read his face, but couldn’t. She lifted one shoulder. ‘The thing is, I don’t recall John ever growing marigolds. Apparently my mother didn’t like them.’

She stabbed a finger into the Passion Fruit Delight cupcake, glowering at it. ‘Why couldn’t he have just told you who your sibling is?’ She stabbed it again. ‘Why couldn’t he have told you the truth from the start and been a proper father to you?’ Stab. Stab. ‘I’d never have guessed any of this in a million years and—’

She pulled herself up and collected herself. None of this was helping. She wiped her finger on a napkin. ‘Okay, so what else could marigold mean?’

Rick picked up the Strawberries and Cream cupcake and pushed nearly half of it into his mouth. She watched, mesmerised, at the way his lips closed around it, at the appreciation that lit his eyes and the way his mouth worked, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed…the way his tongue flicked out to seize a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

She wrenched her gaze back. ‘It could be a girl’s name.’ Her voice came out strangled.

‘Do you know a Marigold or two?’

The words came out lazy and barely interested. Didn’t he care? She tried to focus on the question he asked rather than the ones pounding through her. She frowned, thought hard and eventually shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t even think I know any Marys.’ She leapt up, seized her address book from the sideboard drawer and flicked through it…and then searched the list of contacts in her mobile phone. Nothing.

She stood. ‘Okay, maybe there’s marigold wallpaper somewhere in the house or…or moulding in the shape of a marigold…or an ornament or a painting or—’

‘Princess, you’ve lived here your whole life. Do you really need to go through this mausoleum room by room to know whether it has marigold wallpaper?’

No, of course not. She sat. She knew every room intimately. She could remember what it looked like ten years ago as if it were only yesterday. There hadn’t been any marigold paintings on any of the walls. There’d been no marigold wallpaper or bedspreads or curtains. No marigolds. Anywhere.

She glanced at Rick again. She could deal with his devil-may-care teasing and that tough-guy swagger. In fact, those things gave her a bit of a thrill. Considering she didn’t get too many thrills, she’d take them where she could. She could even deal with the cold, hard wall he retreated behind. She could relate to it, even if she did feel he was judging her behind it and finding her lacking. But this… This nothingness hidden behind mockery and indifference. She was having no part of it.

She folded her arms. ‘Don’t you care?’

‘Why should I?’ He licked his fingers clean.

‘Because…’

‘What did he ever do for me?’

‘Not about John!’ She could understand his indifference and resentment of the other man. On that head it was John’s stance that baffled her. She leaned across the table until its edges dug into her ribs. ‘Don’t you care that you have a brother or sister somewhere in the wide world?’

One shoulder lifted. He reached for the last unmangled cupcake. A dark lick of hair fell across his forehead. Nell pushed away from the table to stare, unseeing, out of the kitchen window, determined not to watch him demolish it with those delectable lips, determined not to watch him demolish it the way he seemed hell-bent on destroying this chance, this gift, he’d been given.

She pressed her hands to her chest. To have a sibling…

She stilled. She glanced back behind her for a second and then spun back. Rick hadn’t left. He hadn’t read John’s letter and then stormed out. He had shared the letter with her. Rick could feign indifference and couldn’t-care-less disregard all he wanted, but if he really didn’t care he’d have left by now.

Her cupcakes were good, but they weren’t that good.

She sat again. ‘I wish I had a brother or sister.’

‘And whose image would you most like them cast in?’ He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. ‘Your mother’s or your father’s?’

She flinched. He blinked and for a moment she thought he might reach across the table to touch her. He didn’t. She forced herself to laugh. ‘I guess there is always that. A sibling may have provided further proof that I was the cuckoo in the nest.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

The hell he hadn’t. ‘It’s okay.’ She made her voice wry. ‘You’ve had a shock, so it’s okay to say hurtful things to other people.’

He scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be hurtful. I’m sorry. I just refuse to turn this into a “they-all-lived-happily-ever-after” fairy tale like you seem so set on doing.’

He didn’t want to get his hopes up. She couldn’t blame him for that.

He rose. ‘I believe I’ve long outstayed my welcome.’

Nell shot to her feet too. ‘But…but we haven’t figured out what marigolds mean yet or—’

‘I’m not sure I care, Princess.’

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head and the expression on his face had her shutting it again. ‘Good girl,’ he said.

Her chin shot up. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

He grinned a grin that made her blood heat and her knees weak and she suddenly wanted him gone. Now. ‘You know where to find me if you decide to investigate this issue further.’ And then she swung away to dump the used coffee grounds into the kitchen tidy. When she turned back he was gone. She sat, her heart pounding as if she’d run a race.

Rick let himself into Tash’s house, his head whirling and his temples throbbing. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

What do you want to do?

He wanted to run away.

But…

He pulled up short, dragged in a breath and searched for his customary indifference, but he couldn’t find it. Too many thoughts pounded at him. And one hard, implacable truth—he might not be able to do anything with the information John Cox had belatedly decided to impart. Marigolds might remain unsolved forever.

In which case he could jump in his car—now—and head north without a backward glance, without a single regret. Except…

What if Nell does work out what it means?

He had a brother or a sister. He rested his hands against his knees and tried to breathe through the fist that tightened around his chest.

‘That you, Rick?’

Tash’s voice hauled him upright. ‘Yep, just me,’ he called back, shoving aside the worst of his anger and confusion. Tash might be his best friend, but he wasn’t sharing this news with anyone.

He just hoped the Princess would keep her mouth shut too.

He forced his feet down the hallway and into Tash’s living room—still full of sun and summer, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep. One glance at him and Tash’s eyes narrowed. ‘What did Nell want?’

He swung away to peer into the fridge. ‘Soda?’

‘No, thanks.’

He grabbed a soda and then sauntered over to plant himself in an armchair.

Tash folded her arms. ‘She’s obviously pushed your buttons.’

‘Nah, not really.’ He shrugged. ‘She wanted to know if I had the time and the inclination to do some work on Whittaker House.’

‘Oh, Lord, you’re going to make the Princess your next project?’

He stretched out a leg. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ He took a long drink. The cold liquid helped ease the burning in his throat. ‘Mind you, the place is going to rack and ruin.’

‘It’s a shame. It’s such a nice old place. Gossip has it that she only moved back in this week so she’s not wasting any time getting things shipshape again.’ Tash sent him one of her looks. ‘Rumour has it that she’s far from cash-happy at the moment.’

‘I kinda got that impression. What else does rumour say?’

Tash managed a local pub—The Royal Oak. Lots of workers from the glass factory drank there. What Tash didn’t know about local happenings wasn’t worth knowing.

‘Well, apparently there’s no love lost between Nell and her father.’

She could say that again.

‘Old Mrs Smythe-Whittaker left the house to Nell and I’m not sure how these things work, but it was left in trust for her father to manage until Nell turned twenty-five.’ Tash’s lips twisted. ‘Nell turned twenty-five earlier in the week. She moved in and…’

‘Her father moved out?’

‘Bingo.’

Before he could ask any more, Mitch came striding into the room. ‘Hey, gorgeous.’

‘Hey, doll,’ Rick murmured back, but neither Tash nor Mitch paid him the slightest attention.

Tash flew out of her chair to launch herself at the big blond detective. ‘Catch any bad guys today?’

Mitch thrust out his chest and pounded on it with one hand. ‘Loads.’

For a moment it made Rick grin. Mitch the shrewd detective and Tash the take-no-prisoners barmaid in love and flirting. A miracle of miracles.

He rose and set off back down the hallway for the front door. ‘I’m eating out tonight,’ he tossed over his shoulder.

He needed time to think.

He pushed out of the front door, his hand clenching into a fist. This whole thing could be an elaborate hoax, a nasty trick.

Or you could have a brother or a sister.

Could he really walk away from this?

He lengthened his stride but the thoughts and confusion continued to bombard him. Damn it all to hell! Why did this have to involve the Princess? She’d been trouble fifteen years ago and hard-won wisdom warned him she’d be trouble now.

There was something about her that set his teeth on edge too.

Somewhere inside him a maniacal laugh started up.

The next afternoon, Nell swiped a forearm across her brow and stared at the mountain of dishes that needed washing.

Staring at them won’t get them done. If she were going to take a half-day on Mondays then she needed to use that time productively. She started to move towards them when a knock sounded on the back door.

She spun around and then swallowed. Rick. In worn jeans and another tight black T-shirt. And with that bad-boy insolence wrapped tightly around him. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or something altogether different—like apprehensive.

She wiped her hands down her shorts. Instinct warned her that the less time she spent in Rick’s company the better. Better for her peace of mind and better for her health if the stupid way her heart leapt and surged was anything to go by. She tried to swallow back her misgivings. Her family had done this man no favours. She owed him for that.

With a sigh she waved him inside, kissing goodbye to the notion of a clean kitchen followed by a soak in a hot tub with a good book. ‘Good afternoon.’

He just nodded as he took the same seat at the table as he had the previous day.

‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No, thanks.’

Neither of them spoke and the silence grew heavy. Nell moistened her lips. ‘I…’ She couldn’t think of anything to say.

Rick’s gaze speared to hers. ‘Shall I tell you what occurred to me overnight?’

Her mouth dried though she couldn’t have explained why. She gave a please continue shrug.

‘I wondered if there was the slightest possibility that by staying here it meant John Cox had the chance to remain close to his other child?’

It took a moment for that inference to sink in. In a twisted way, she could see how he could make that leap. Without a word she went to her important documents drawer and pulled out a folder. She opened her mouth to try and explain its contents only to snap it shut. She shoved the folder at Rick instead. The contents could speak for themselves.

He stared at her for a moment and then riffled through the enclosed sheaf of papers. A frown lowered over his face even as his chin lifted. For a moment he looked like a devil. One who’d cajole with dark temptations that could only end in destruction and ruin. Her heart kicked in her chest.

She swallowed and looked away.

‘This is a paternity test your father had done…twelve years ago.’

‘That’s correct. He arranged for that test when he and my mother divorced. As he said at the time, he had no intention of being financially responsible for a child that wasn’t his.’ Only the tests had shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his daughter.

And that he was her father.

Rick slammed the folder shut. ‘God, Nell, that man’s a nightmare of a father!’

She turned back and raised an eyebrow. ‘Snap.’

He rocked back and then a grin crept across those fascinating lips of his and a light twinkled in those dark eyes and some of the awkwardness between them seeped away. ‘Okay, you got me there. I’ll pay that.’

And then he laughed, and the laugh completely transformed him. It tempered the hard, insolent edges and made him look young and carefree. It made him breathtakingly attractive too, in a dangerous, thrilling way that had her blood surging and her pulse pounding.

She swallowed. ‘On that head, though…’ She nodded at the folder. ‘I can’t say I blame him. My mother isn’t the kind of woman who has ever let the truth get in the way of a…good opportunity.’

Her mother was in the Mediterranean with husband number four the last she’d heard, which was about three times a year. Oh, yes, her family—they were the Brady Bunch all right.

Rick clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back. She wondered if he knew precisely how enticing that pose was to a woman—the broad shoulders on display, those biceps and the hard chiselled chest flagrantly defined in the tight black T-shirt angling down to a hard flat abdomen…and all in that deceptively open, easy, inviting posture.

She bet he did.

Even with all of that masculine vigour on display, it was his eyes that held her. He surveyed her until she had to fight the urge to fidget. She reached for another shrug—a pray tell, what on earth do you think you’re staring at? shrug. She was pretty certain she pulled it off with aplomb, but it didn’t stop him staring at her. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. ‘I’m starting to get the hang of those.’

She squinted at him—a what on earth are you talking about? squint. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’

He lowered his arms. ‘For all of these years, here I was thinking you had the best of everything.’

She flicked her hair over her shoulders. ‘Of course I did. I had the best education money could buy. I had designer clothes, piano lessons and overseas holidays. I had—’

‘Parents who were as good at parenting as mine.’

She swallowed. ‘One shouldn’t be greedy.’ Or self-pitying. ‘Besides, they were merely products of their own upbringing…and they had their good points.’

‘Name one.’

‘We’ve already uncovered one. They didn’t betray each other so badly that I was the cuckoo they thought I might be. I’m not John’s secret love child and therefore I’m not your mystery sibling.’

‘Just thought I’d ask.’

She hesitated. ‘I did wonder…’

‘What?’

‘Would your mother be able to tell you anything that might be of use?’

She didn’t like to ask about Rick’s mother—she’d been a prostitute. Nell had a lot of bones to pick with her parents, but she’d never had to watch her mother sell her body. She’d always known where her next meal was coming from. She’d had a warm bed to retreat to. She’d been safe. She gripped her hands together. She was very grateful for those things.

Rick shook his head. ‘She developed dementia a few years ago. It’s advanced rapidly. Nine times out of ten, she doesn’t recognise me these days.’

Oh. Her heart burned for him. ‘I’m sorry.’

He merely shrugged. ‘What are you going to do?’ He said it in that casual, offhand way, which only made her heart burn more fiercely.

She clapped her hands together in an attempt to brisk the both of them up. ‘Well, I had another thought too. We should go and check out John’s cottage. It’s been empty since he went into hospital. I mean, I know it was cleaned, but maybe it’ll contain some clue.’

‘It could all be a hoax, you know?’

‘For what purpose?’ She didn’t believe it was a hoax. Not for a moment. And when she made for the door, Rick rose and followed.

They picked their way through the overgrown garden—across the terrace to the lawn and then towards the far end of the block. Whittaker House had been built on generous lines in more generous times. The house and grounds sprawled over the best part of a city block. No wonder her father wanted her to sell it.

She wasn’t selling! But it all needed so much attention. She bit back a sigh. It was all she could do not to let her heart slump with every step they took. It had all been so beautiful once upon a time.

‘Hell, Princess, this looks more like years rather than months of neglect.’

‘John was sick for a long time before he had to go into the hospice. He had a young chap in to help him, but…’ She shrugged and glanced around. Her father hadn’t maintained any of it. ‘There are a lot of vigorous-growing perennials here that have self-seeded and gone wild. It looks worse than it is.’ She crossed her fingers.

‘Do you see any self-seeding marigolds?’

He’d adopted that tone again. ‘I’m afraid marigolds are annuals not perennials. They need to be replanted each year.’

‘Why go to all that bother?’

‘For the colour and spectacular blooms. For the scents and the crazy beauty of it all. Because—’

She slammed to a halt and Rick slammed right into the back of her. ‘What on earth—’

He grabbed her shoulders to steady her, but she didn’t need steadying. She spun around and gripped his forearms. ‘You’ll find a clue where the marigolds grow.’

His face lost some of its cockiness. And a lot of its colour. She couldn’t concentrate when he stared at her so intently. She sat on the edge of the nearest raised bed and rubbed her temples. ‘When did I find out my mother didn’t like marigolds? John told me when I wanted to plant some of my own.’

Rick sat beside her, crushing part of a rampant rosemary bush. The aroma drifted up around them.

‘And why did I want to plant marigolds?’ Oh, but… ‘He couldn’t have known, could he?’

‘Couldn’t have known what?’

She turned to him. ‘After he chased you away that day he gave me my very own garden bed to tend.’

‘And you grew marigolds?’

She shook her head. ‘I wanted to, but I didn’t. You see I had this old chocolate box tin and it had pictures of marigolds on it and I showed it to John and told him that’s what I wanted to grow.’

Beside her, Rick stiffened. ‘A tin?’

She nodded.

‘What happened to the tin, Nell?’

‘I put all of my treasures in it and…’ But it had been a secret. John couldn’t have known. Could he?

‘What did you do with them?’

‘I buried them here in the garden. After the policeman left. I snuck out in the middle of the night and buried them when nobody could see what I was up to.’ She turned to meet his chocolate-dark eyes. ‘And I never dug it back up.’

He swallowed. ‘Okay, so all we have to do is try to find where you buried it.’ He leaned back on his hands as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but she’d seen beneath the façade now. ‘I bet you’ve long forgotten that?’

No. She remembered. Perfectly.

She leaned back on her hands too, crushing more rosemary until the air was thick with its scent. She drew a breath of it into her lungs. ‘Doesn’t that remind you of a Sunday roast?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘What are you afraid of?’ She asked the question she had no right to ask. She asked because he kept calling her Princess and it unnerved her and she wanted to unnerve him back.

‘Where I come from, Nell, Sunday roasts weren’t just a rarity; they were non-existent.’

He said her name in a way that made her wish he’d called her Princess instead.

He leaned in towards her. ‘And what am I afraid of? I’m afraid this isn’t some hoax your gardener has decided to play and that everything he’s said is true. I’m afraid I have a thirteen-year-old brother somewhere out there growing up by the scruff of his neck the way I did and with no one to give him a hand.’

Her stomach churned.

‘I’m afraid he’s going to end up in trouble. Or, worse, as a damn statistic.’

She pressed a hand to her stomach and her mouth went so dry she couldn’t swallow.

‘Is that good enough for you?’

It wasn’t good. It was horrible. Her parents might not have been all that interested in her, but she hadn’t been allowed to roam the streets unchecked or at risk of being taken advantage of. Her parents might not have been interested in her, but she had been protected.

‘I remember exactly where I buried it, Rick.’

He stared and then he half laughed. ‘You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?’

She leapt up and dusted off her shorts. ‘We’d better hope John put it back in exactly the same spot or we’re going to be spending a lot of time digging.’

She led the way to the garden shed. She grabbed a spade, secateurs and a couple of trowels. And gloves. Rick merely scoffed when she asked if he’d like a pair too. ‘On your own head be it,’ she warned. ‘We’re heading for the most overgrown part of the garden.’

He took the spade and secateurs before sweeping an elegant bow. ‘Lead the way, Princess.’

It was crazy, but it made her feel like a princess. Not a princess on a pedestal, but a flesh and blood one.

She led him across to the far side of the garden. ‘I’ll trade you a trowel for the secateurs.’ He handed them to her and she cut back canes from a wisteria vine gone mad. ‘That’s going to be a nightmare whenever I find the time to deal with it,’ she grumbled. She cut some more so he had room to move in beside her. ‘Believe it or not, there’s a garden bed there.’

She trimmed the undergrowth around it, found the corners. It wasn’t as big as she remembered, but that still didn’t make it small.

She moved into the centre of it, stomping impatiens and tea roses. She closed her eyes and shuffled three steps to the right. She took a dolly step forward and drew an X on the ground. ‘X marks the spot,’ she whispered.