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June gave a laugh that sounded like water going down a partially blocked drain. ‘You think you’re so smart having married him, don’t you? But it won’t last, you know. I know all about Gerald’s will. It was because of my son Martin that he changed it.’
Hayley frowned in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Martin told the old man the truth about Jasper. The dirty little secret Jasper would give anything to keep quiet.’
Hayley waited for her to continue, her heart beginning to thud behind the wall of her chest. What dirty little secret? What on earth did she mean?
‘Jasper doesn’t want Martin to tell the truth,’ June continued. ‘It would destroy too many lives, he said. But do you think we care about that now? He’s been paying both of us to keep quiet, but I’m not going to keep quiet any more and neither is my son.’
‘Paying you?’ Hayley blinked at her in confusion. ‘But I thought you said the last time I saw you that Jasper wouldn’t provide for his son—for as long as I can remember you’ve always berated him for abandoning Miriam and Daniel financially.’
The older woman’s expression looked triumphant. ‘He hasn’t told you, has he?’ she asked.
‘T-told me what?’ Hayley’s voice sounded whisper-thin. ‘What hasn’t he told me?’
‘The dirty little secret he wants kept safe at all costs,’ June said. ‘Jasper isn’t Daniel’s father.’
Hayley’s mouth dropped open, her heart feeling as if it had hit the floor and bounced right up again to lodge in the wrong position in her chest. She couldn’t breathe properly; the air felt thick, like wet cotton wool as she tried to drag it into her lungs.
‘So Jasper has always known he wasn’t Daniel’s father?’ she asked when she could finally get her voice to work.
‘Yes.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why didn’t Miriam say so right from the start?’
‘Because she had someone she wanted to protect—they both did. When Martin married her he found out the truth. He wouldn’t have said anything except he’s angry at what Jasper accused him of. And I support him one hundred per cent. No one’s going to call my Martin a wife basher and get away with it.’
Hayley felt disgusted by the woman’s attitude. How could she and her appalling excuse for a son have used Jasper in such a despicable way?
And yet Jasper had stood by the little boy caught in the middle.
Hayley took a steadying breath. ‘So you and Martin are blackmailing Jasper.’
‘You don’t know that husband of yours very well if you think he can be blackmailed,’ Miriam said. ‘He drip-feeds us from time to time, but he’s become a little cagey of late. He’s made up some lies about Martin roughing up Daniel, but that boy needs a firm hand. The harder, the better, I say.’
Hayley felt like being sick. ‘You condone such violence?’
June lifted one shoulder dismissively. ‘He’s a surly brat. He needs pulling into line occasionally. Martin has tried his best to get through to him but he won’t budge. I told Miriam she should have had an abortion in the first place, then none of this would have happened, but apparently someone talked her out of it all those years ago.’
Hayley felt her belly clench painfully and her hand instinctively went down to press against it protectively. ‘Do you know who it was?’ she asked.
‘Jasper, of course.’
Hayley felt such shame and regret flood her being she was barely able to stand up. For most of her young adult life she had judged Jasper so harshly, so unfairly, and yet he had been the one person to show some measure of integrity in a mess that had had no easy answer. He had thought about the child, the tiny, defenceless child caught up in it all, and had acted in Daniel’s defence. Jasper had sacrificed his own reputation, his future and even his father’s respect to give a small child a father to call his own.
‘Who is Daniel’s real father?’ she asked.
‘That’s another thing I’m surprised you haven’t guessed,’ June said.
‘But you’re not going to tell me, are you?’ Hayley said.
‘I’m keeping that information up my sleeve as a bargaining tool.’
‘I won’t be blackmailed by you.’
June laughed her gurgling-drain laugh again. ‘You’re turning into a clone of that husband of yours,’ she said. ‘You’re a fool, Hayley. He’s using you just like he’s used everybody else in his life. He wants Crickglades, not you.’
‘I know that.’
