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Caroline’s brow furrowed. Had her father really loved that obsessively? Then she remembered the letters she’d found in the attic and knew that he had. He’d loved her mother as single-mindedly and deeply as he’d disliked his only child.
Her eyes misting, she said quietly, her voice barely audible, ‘And she died when I was very small.’ That much she did know. Her father had never talked to her about her mother, apart from angrily stating that bald fact when she’d pressed him for details. Truth to tell, he’d rarely spoken to her at all, except to issue curt instructions and even curter reprimands.
‘She died an hour after you were born,’ Dorothy supplied, shaking her head. ‘It was the talk of the area at the time, a terrible tragedy. You came three weeks early, at the beginning of November.
‘There’d been a surprise heavy snowstorm overnight. Appalling drifts—your dad couldn’t get your mum out and no one could get through. You came quickly and your mum haemorrhaged badly, and by the time the emergency helicopter and paramedics arrived it was already too late—all this came out at the inquest.
‘When I got the job as housekeeper I saw how your dad treated you and it’s my guess he bitterly resented the fact that you had lived and his wife had died.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘You grew up to be the living image of her, but you weren’t her.’
‘So he couldn’t bear to have me around,’ Caroline said huskily. ‘He blamed me.’
‘I thought the world of him. Well, you know that, but I wasn’t afraid to let him know he was treating you wrong—even if he did tell me to mind my own damn business,’ Dorothy conceded. ‘It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t ask to be born. I did tell him that, more than once. And later, he started to soften up a bit. But by then it was too late. You’d grown prickly and defiant. A terrible shame, really.’ She got slowly to her feet. ‘I really should go now, but I’m glad we talked.’
‘I’ll drive you.’
Even as Ben made the offer Caroline was conscious of his smouldering gaze; it burned her where it touched. When they’d been together all those years ago he had known she and her father didn’t get along but had been unaware of how deep the rift was. She hadn’t wanted to talk about her unhappy home life, only about the future they’d planned together.
‘No need,’ Dorothy stated. ‘I came in my old rattle-trap.’
‘Then, I’ll see you out.’
Caroline smothered a groan. Right now she didn’t want Ben’s sympathy or his company. She needed time to herself to come to terms with the mess she and her father had made of their relationship, to mourn that final interview when she had screamed at him, vowing she’d rather die than do what he wanted and marry Jeremy, telling him she didn’t care if he carried out his threat to throw her out because she never wanted anything more to do with him.
Seventeen going on eighteen, her heart broken and bleeding because of her lover’s betrayal, she’d been in no mood for conciliatory words, to soberly tell him that she could never marry the Curtis wealth because she didn’t, and never would, love Jeremy Curtis. In too much pain herself to consider her father’s possible hurt when she’d declared that she hated him and always had.
It was too late now to retract the bitter words, to tell him she forgave him for not having been able to love her as a father should have because, at last, she understood the reason for his resentment of her.
Her shoulders shook as she buried her head in her hands, her sobs overwhelming her. Only when she felt the light touch of Ben’s hand on the top of her head did she make a determined but not too successful effort to pull herself together.
‘Don’t,’ he said softly as he cupped her elbows and pulled her to her feet, his arms holding her close. ‘Tonight you learned something you hadn’t known before and naturally enough it’s upset you. But your father treated you abominably, Caro. His memory doesn’t deserve this amount of grief.’
He framed her tear-stained face with long-fingered hands, his thumbs stroking back tendrils of raven-dark hair. ‘He was a man obsessed by the memory of his one great love and I can understand that, but not his treatment of an innocent child. If the two of you were estranged for the last years of his life it wasn’t your fault.’
Caroline shook her head mutely, her breath shaking in her lungs, her fingers clutching his shoulders convulsively, as if she could take strength from the warm solidity of muscle and bone. The compassion and caring in his beautiful eyes, in the tender set of that sensual mouth, made
her tremble, taking her back through the years to the place she had been when he’d not only been her first and devastatingly exciting lover but her very best friend, a rock she could have clung to in any storm.
Her soft lips parting, she managed a shaky, ‘No.’ Then, more steadily, she confessed sadly, ‘When I was little I wanted him to love me more than anything in the world. But I knew he didn’t. Sometimes I saw him looking at me as if he hated me. I thought it was my fault, that there was something horrible about me.’
She shook her head, silencing him when he gave a growl of repudiation deep in his throat. ‘Dorothy was right on two counts. At one time he did try to build bridges, to take an interest when I was home for school holidays, asking about the friends I’d made, what books I was reading.’
She scooped in a shaky breath. ‘But it was too late. I was a defiant fifteen by then, used to being pushed away, ignored. I shrugged away any overture he tried to make, stuck my nose in the air and walked away, letting him know I didn’t need him, didn’t need anyone.’ She gave a shaky sigh. ‘That was the end of any hope of any harmony in our spiky relationship. I bitterly regret it now.’
His body tensed against hers and there was the shadow of a catch in his voice as he told her, ‘That reaction would have been entirely natural, given the circumstances. You truly don’t have to regret it. The only thing you should regret is the fact that his treatment of you made you wary of—or incapable of—committing to a permanent relationship. I understand that.’
He didn’t understand at all, she thought wearily. She would have committed the rest of her life to Ben if things hadn’t gone so badly wrong, if he hadn’t deceived her. But right now she was too drained to put him straight on that score, and her head fell forward, resting against the solid expanse of his chest.
All she wanted was the oblivion of sleep, to rid her tired brain of aching regrets, of the confusion of her heart and body wanting and needing this one man with something approaching ferocity and her brain telling her in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t to be trusted.
So when he murmured, ‘You’re emotionally drained, sweetheart. We’ll talk again in the morning. Right now you need sleep,’ she could only nod in thankful agreement and push away the admonitory voice in her brain that told her to object when he scooped her into his arms and carried her up to his room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HIS bedroom. His bed. The covers still rumpled from this afternoon’s wild love-making. Something electric quivered all the way through her.
Why had he brought her here instead of taking her to her own room? Silly question. He aimed to take advantage of her while she was stricken…
A low, self-denigrating moan escaped her as he slid her down the length of his body and set her on her feet. Who was she trying to fool? There was a fatal weakness in her where he was concerned, a deep craving that banished sanity and pride. And if he stayed this close to her one moment longer it would be she who would be taking advantage of him!
