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‘To do what?’
‘To ask me a question. I know that telling me that can’t have been easy for you, Ianthe. It only seems fair that you get to ask me something in return.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘We’re having a pleasant afternoon.’ She pulled away from him gently. ‘I don’t want to spoil it.’
‘Am I that moody?’ He felt mildly aggrieved. ‘What if I promise that it won’t?’
‘No.’ She tilted her chin up stubbornly. ‘I don’t want to pry. Why don’t you just tell me something I don’t know?’
‘All right.’ He wandered down towards the water’s edge. ‘Most people want to know about my father.’ He bent down and picked up a stone, turning it over in his hand. ‘You know who he was?’
‘Yes, my aunt told me.’
‘Ah. I always knew who he was. Even as a boy, I was used to the gossip, but my mother never spoke of him, not once in twenty-one years.’
‘Didn’t you ever ask her about him?’
‘No. I thought the stories about my father upset her. Whenever she spoke of the past she looked so unhappy. I didn’t want to make her look like that so I never asked.’ He flung his hand back and then quickly forward again, flicking the stone across the water, watching as it bounced five, six, seven times. ‘Then after she died I got a letter from him saying he wanted to meet. I thought that perhaps he cared for me after all, that he’d been watching and waiting all those years, keeping away out of respect for her. I thought that I must have proved myself—that he wanted to acknowledge me.’
He stooped to pick up another stone and then changed his mind, sitting down on the sand instead. Why was he telling her all this—bringing up the pain of the past as if it would change anything? And yet, oddly enough, it did change things. Even if he didn’t feel better, he felt strangely relieved. After only a few days in her company, he’d told her more than he’d ever told anyone else, as if he’d known her for years.
He turned in surprise as she sat down beside him.
‘What about your dress?’
‘It’s just a bit of sand.’
‘People will wonder what we’ve been doing.’
He gave a sly smile, but she ignored the comment. ‘Will you tell me what happened with your father?’
‘I thought you weren’t going to ask any questions?’
‘I changed my mind.’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘It’s a common enough story. You can probably guess the rest. He wanted money.’
‘Money?’ She gave an audible gasp.
‘He was a gambler and he had debts. He thought it might be convenient to have a businessman in the family. He thought that I’d pay just for the honour of calling him my father.’
‘Did you?’
‘I gave him a choice between me or the money. Guess which he chose.’
‘Oh, Robert.’ She let out a soft sigh. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I. A year later he contacted me again, though this time he didn’t bother with the pretence of a reconciliation. I tore his letter up.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘I do. If it had been a business decision then I could have lived with it, but it wasn’t. I made the decision in anger. He died a few months later.’
‘I still
