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Groaning under her breath, Dee suddenly realised that she was almost in danger of overtaking a car which was in the outside lane of the motorway whilst she was on the inside one, and quickly she took her foot off the accelerator.
She shouldn’t be thinking about Hugo. By rights what she ought to be concentrating on was the problems Peter’s continuing ill health could cause her professionally. Perhaps now was the time to tactfully find a way of persuading him to relinquish his role on the committee, but there was no way she would want to broach such a subject with him if it was going to adversely affect his health. Just exactly what was wrong with him she would have to find out, but she suspected that the only way she was going to be able to do that was through Hugo.
It galled her pride to even think of having to ask for Hugo’s assistance, but the work of the charity was far too important for her to let her own pride stand in its way—for her father’s sake.
Her father. Dee could feel her eyes start to sting with tears, hot and acid, too painful to be allowed to fall.
‘Oh, Dad,’ she whispered under her breath.
‘Accidental death,’ the coroner had pronounced gravely at the inquest, and even then Dee had not cried. She had wanted to...needed to...but she had been too afraid to do so, afraid that even now someone
might still stand up and say the word she had so dreaded to hear—‘suicide.’ No one had said it openly to her, or even hinted at it in her presence, but she had heard it nonetheless in her nightmares, whispered malevolently on the fetid breath of envy that could so easily have destroyed her father’s reputation and everything he had worked so proudly for.
Suicide. The taking of his own life because he had been too afraid...too ashamed...
Suicide. But it had not been. He had not taken his own life...he had not destroyed his own reputation even if Julian Cox had. Julian Cox...
The floodgates were open now, and the memories could not be held back any longer. Impatiently Dee drove up the slip road and off the motorway, anxious to be safely at home before she was swept under in their powerful undertow.
Julian Cox, her father, and most of all Hugo; those were the ghosts who inhabited her past, the ghosts she had fought so strenuously to hold at bay. Julian Cox, her father, Hugo...and the saddest and most forlorn ghost of them all: the ghost of the love she and Hugo had once shared.
She could feel her tears now, as sharp and painful as splintered shards of glass, burning her eyes, but she must not let them fall yet, not until she was safely in the privacy of her own home.
Hugo... Hugo... Why...why had he come back...?
The sun was still shining, its evening rays casting a warm mellow golden glow over her driveway and home as Dee brought her car to a halt in front of the house where she had been brought up. But she was oblivious to the tranquil serenity of her surroundings as she got out of the car and headed for the house.
Once inside, she hurried into the elegant drawing room which she only really used when she was entertaining, tugging open the doors to the drinks cabinet and searching inside it for something—anything—that would help to blot out the emotional pain she was feeling. Something—anything—that would act as a protective buffer between her and the thoughts she did not want, the feelings she did not want, the past she didn’t want.
Her fingers curled round the cool glass of a bottle. Whisky. It had been her father’s favourite but very rare bedtime treat.
Through the tears still blurring her eyes Dee looked at the bottle, and then very carefully and very slowly she replaced it in the cabinet and closed the doors. Squaring her shoulders, she walked firmly out of the room and headed for the kitchen.
As she shrugged off her coat and reached for the kettle she closed her eyes. Her father had been a man of such strong principles and such great pride, and in no area of his life had he had more pride than in his love for his daughter. He had been a quiet, gentle man, reserved in many ways, but Dee had never, ever doubted that he loved her.
After the death of her mother, when she had been so very young, he had brought her up on his own, declining to take the advice of his many female relatives and either hire someone to look after her or, once she was old enough, send her away to boarding-school. Perhaps the way he had brought her up had been a little old fashioned, perhaps she had, as one of her aunts had once criticised, become a small adult whilst she was still a child, perhaps she had, through her father, developed too strong a sense of duty and too weak a capacity to have fun, but she had been a happy child, a much loved child; she had never doubted that.
Yes, there had been times when she had longed almost passionately for her mother, when she had wondered, especially as she had matured, just how different she might have been had she had the benefit of a maternal womanly influence. And, yes, there had perhaps been times when she had felt that her father’s standards were almost impossibly high, when she had felt that he was a little too remote, when she had longed a little rebelliously for her life to possess more fun and less responsibility, less duty.
The kettle was boiling. Dee made herself a cup of coffee, carrying the mug with her as she walked from the kitchen into her study.
On her desk were the notes she had made on the scheme she was hoping to persuade Peter to lend his support to. It was ambitious; she knew that. Foolhardy, she knew others might say, although she preferred to use the words ‘innovative’ and ‘adventurous.’
Whilst, technically, she and Peter had charge of the finances of the foundation her father had established before his death, morally she felt obliged to take into account the views of the other committee members, especially since part of the charity’s income came from public donations.
What Dee really wanted to do with the money was to establish workshops where local youngsters could learn a proper trade. She couldn’t lay claim to her idea being original. Anna’s husband, the millionaire philanthropist Ward Hunter, had already done something similar in the northern town where he had been brought up.
There had been a time when Ward and Dee had been at loggerheads, due to a misunderstanding between them, but now they got on extremely well together, respecting one another’s financial acumen and moral strengths.
Ward had already promised to give Dee all the help she needed in setting up her workshops, but, of course, Ward could not convince the foundation’s committee to support her.
She had already found an almost perfect site for her venture: a large, empty late-Victorian villa on the outskirts of the town, with plenty of land and, even better, a large range of outbuildings.
Ward’s apprentices learned their trades in a similar environment, but Dee, her maternal streak coming to the fore, also wanted to convert rooms in the main house into small bedsits for her young trainees.
It was, she knew, a very ambitious scheme, and to show her own belief in it she had decided that she would make a large—a very large—private financial contribution towards it.
Once it was finished it would bear her father’s name—a further tribute to him—a personal tribute from her to him.
