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‘Should I? Now?’
‘Si.’
‘May I know what you’re talking about?’ Marcus’s keen eyes encompassed them both as he waved aside the water Elvira held out to him. Rosie took a deep breath. She had the floor and didn’t feel over the moon about it. Huge understatement!
But Sebastian was right. After he’d called out her mother’s name in shock there could be no more prevarication. Besides, she tried to reassure herself, she needn’t worry too much.
Healthy colour had come back into his face and he looked strong as an ox. Far stronger than she felt!
Grateful for Sebastian’s supportive hand on her waist, Rosie gathered her courage and said gently, before her father could explode with impatience, ‘I remind you of my mother. Molly Lambert.’
The sternly sculpted mouth was suddenly unsteady. A spasm of emotion tightened his features before they relaxed into a semblance of a smile. ‘Molly. Of course. Molly’s child; you look exactly as I remember her.’ A muscle jerked in his throat. ‘I’m afraid I lost touch with her many years ago. How is she?’
Rosie swallowed. Hard. Didn’t he make the connection? His adultery had led to a pregnancy. He hadn’t wanted to know.
Couldn’t he guess who she really was? Or was he firmly into denial?
‘My mother died a few months ago.’ Her voice was flat. ‘That’s why I wanted to find you. Mum never told me who my father was, but before she died she gave me a pendant, given to her by my father—’
‘We have rock-solid reasons to believe that Rosie is your daughter, Marcus,’ Sebastian cut in with the voice of a man swiping through too much waffle.
Rosie’s breath snagged as the colour washed out of her father’s face. A film of tears dampening his eyes as he sank back into his chair, he said thickly, ‘I’m so sorry Molly’s gone. Too young.’
Casting Sebastian a fulminating look for jumping in with two left feet where she had meant to tread so carefully, she pulled a chair close to Marcus and took both his hands in hers.
Elvira murmured, ‘Oh, my dear!’ and Rosie didn’t know if she had directed the remark to Marcus or to her. At the moment she didn’t care. All her attention was given to the troubled man who was her long lost father.
‘Please don’t upset yourself,’ she said softly. ‘I promise I’m not here to cause trouble. As Sebastian said, there are reasons, but it’s a long story and it will wait until morning.’
‘Oh, pur-leese! Just get on with it!’ Terrina’s voice, suddenly harsh, sliced through the moment of fraught silence and, as if that had been a wake-up call, Marcus rallied, his spine straightening, his strong fingers tightening around Rosie’s.
‘I want you to tell me all you can about Molly,’ he said urgently.
‘She disappeared all those years ago. Her parents clammed up and refused point-blank to tell me where she was or why she’d gone. Even after all these years I need to know! If—if you really are my daughter—’ Rosie’s fingers were in danger of being crushed by the pressure he was exerting ‘—I have to know everything—’
Agitation couldn’t be good for him, Rosie decided, and told him as gently as she could, ‘Mum left her home, the village, and dropped out of college because she was pregnant with me. She wouldn’t tell me who my father was, but she did tell me he was married. I guess she felt that telling you she was pregnant would cause you a whole heap of trouble, so she took the decision to disappear. But I do know,’ she added quickly as a terrible spasm of pain crossed his face, ‘that she loved you always. She never looked at another man. She was pretty, and she did have offers, but she just wasn’t interested.’
If his eyes could still fill with moisture over a lover he’d lost almost twenty-one years ago, then his love must have been sincere and strong. Just as her mother’s had been. Ready tears welled up in Rosie’s eyes. It was a horribly sad story.
Marcus said heavily, his voice cracking with emotion, ‘She should have told me. She needn’t have had to cope on her own. We both knew I could never leave my wife, but I would have cared for Molly and my child. I would have loved you both. So much love. Gone to waste.’
‘So you admit to having an adulterous affair.’ Sebastian’s tone was icy. He walked into Rosie’s line of vision. He looked intimidating and Rosie’s heart sank, landing up somewhere beneath the soles of her shoes. From what she’d been able to gather Sebastian had adored his aunt Lucia, and her husband had betrayed her in the worst possible way. If she’d kept her nose out of it, refused to follow her need-to-know instincts, then this rift would never have been created.
She felt absolutely dreadful. She had messed up, big time!
‘I must alter the dinner arrangements,’ Elvira said briskly.
‘Trays, I think. Later. Please excuse me. Are you coming, Terrina?’
‘No, I’m staying right where I am.’ Rosie caught the look of scorn in the other woman’s eyes and felt totally withered.
Unlike Elvira, a tactful withdrawal obviously didn’t come high on her list of priorities. ‘If I’m to be landed with a grown up stepdaughter when I marry I need to be in on this.’
‘Terrina—leave us!’ Marcus ordered firmly, and Rosie felt sick.
She was causing problems all round and right now she didn’t like herself very much. Pulling her hands from Marcus’s grip, she wrapped her arms around her body and hoped with all her might that Sebastian could eventually find it in his heart to forgive his godfather, even if he never for-gave her for being the catalyst.
Not even Terrina could ignore that forceful command, and when the three of them were alone Marcus stood facing his godson, who was also his nephew by marriage, the close bond this implied seemingly on the point of shattering, judging by the coldly distant set of Sebastian’s strong features, the proud angle of his dark head.
