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Tomorrow her father was to be buried, but Hugo was more interested in the farming methods of people he didn’t even know than in her father’s death and her own pain. Her father had been right to question Hugo’s love for her. And even if he did love her as much as he had always claimed to...as much as she loved him...there was no future for them together now, Dee recognised. How could there be? Her place was here, in Rye. It had to be. She owed it to her father.
Dee closed her eyes. Right now she couldn’t think about where Hugo’s life and future lay. Right now all she could think about was that Julian Cox had destroyed her father...taken his life...and that it was down to her to ensure that nothing else was taken from him, that his reputation remained intact—and not just intact but revered and honoured.
* * *
Hugo tried to talk her out of her decision, of course, but she had remained obdurate. Her refusal to answer the phone had caused him to come straight back to Lexminster, but by then Dee’s resolve had hardened. All that she allowed herself to remember of their relationship was that Hugo had never loved her father and how important his ambition was to him—far more important than her.
‘But, Dee, we love each other,’ he pleaded with her, white-faced and patently unable to take in what she was telling him.
‘No,’ she announced, averting her face from his. ‘I don’t love you any more, Hugo,’ she lied. ‘My father was right; it would never have worked between us.’
She couldn’t tell him why she had to stay. He wouldn’t have understood.
A part of her ached for him to tell her that there was no way he was going to accept her decision, that there was no way he was going to let anything come between them even if it meant giving up all his own plans, but she knew, of course, that he would never do so. His plans meant too much to him—as much as her father meant to her.
‘Dee, let someone else take over your father’s business affairs,’ Hugo pleaded with her.
‘I can’t,’ Dee told him sharply.
‘Why...what’s so damned important about making a few more hundred thousand pounds?’ he challenged her angrily.
Dee shook her head. She could have told him that it wasn’t the money she needed to protect, it was her father’s reputation—but how could she tell him that her father had taken his own life? That he had been on the brink of being branded a cheat and perhaps even worse?
It wasn’t so very long ago that Hugo had been telling her just how important it was that his own reputation was above reproach. How would he feel at the thought of potentially being contaminated by the slur on her father’s reputation via her? And if she was not there to protect him there was no saying what damage Julian Cox might do to the memory and the name of her father. He hadn’t gone for good, Dee knew that instinctively. He would be back, and who knew what malicious rumours he might choose to spread when he did return?
‘Dee...I don’t understand,’ Hugo was saying helplessly. ‘Is there someone else? I know your father...’
‘Don’t talk to me about my father.’ Dee responded fiercely. ‘It’s over, Hugo. It’s over. If you can’t accept that then I’m sorry... I have to go now,’ she told him stiffly, standing up.
‘You have to go now... Just like that... Just as though we’re two mere acquaintances instead of—’ he began savagely. ‘You and I are lovers, Dee...we planned to marry, to raise a family. You wanted to have my child, my children,’ he reminded her grimly, ‘and now you’re acting—’
‘Acting!’
Dee’s body quivered. Hugo mustn’t suspect the truth, mustn’t ever know just what it was costing her to do this, to send him away, but she had to do it. She had to do it both for her father’s sake and his own.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she told him.
He reached for her then, and she read the purpose in his eyes even before his mouth crushed down on hers. She stood motionless in his embrace until he lifted his head, and then she told him in a dry, whispery voice, ‘If you do, now, Hugo, it will be rape...’
He let her go immediately of course. She had known he would. He stormed out of the house, his face white with bitterness and anger.
She didn’t cry then, and she didn’t cry the following day either, when she buried her father.
She remained at the graveside for over an hour after the other mourners had gone, and when she eventually turned to leave she saw Hugo, watching her from several yards away.
He made to come over to her, but she shook her head and walked quickly in the opposite direction, balling her hands into fists in the pockets of her coat, her body stiff with a mixture of fear and rejection. She didn’t dare let him see how vulnerable she felt, or how much she longed for him, how much she wanted him...how much, already, she ached for him and missed him.
It simply couldn’t be. How could it? Her place wasn’t with him any longer.
* * *
At Dr Livesey’s insistence, after the funeral she went to stay with her father’s aunt in Northumberland for several weeks. When she returned there were several notes in her post from Hugo, begging her to get in touch with him. She burned them all. And then, six weeks after her father’s death, she woke up one morning like someone coming out of an anaesthetic or a long paralysis, the pain of her returning un-numbed emotions so intense that the agony of them almost made her scream.
Hugo!
Hugo! What had she done? Not only had she lost her father, she had sent away the man she loved, the only man she would ever love.
Hugo!
