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Celeste's heart contracted. Should she tell her the truth? Was there anything to be gained by giving her more shocks? Not only that, did she dare bring in another party, who might try to take from her what she had only just found?
'Who's Ma?’ she asked, stalling for time as she pondered this dilemma.
'An old lady neighbor of mine at Lightning Ridge. Everyone calls her Ma. She was very kind to me.'
'Lightning Ridge again,' Celeste muttered to herself. 'And this Ma thought you had none of your father in you?'
'Not a scrap.'
Celeste made up her mind. She couldn't let this lovely girl go through life thinking that bastard was her father. Maybe if Gemma had loved Stefan then she would not have said a word. But she deserved better than that.
'That's because he wasn't your father,' she said tautly, and held her breath.
Did those big brown eyes light up with shock, or relief?
'Then who?' Gemma asked. 'W ... who was my father?'
Celeste gulped in a deep breath, aware that her heart was racing madly. Much as she felt Byron had been greatly at fault in their own relationship, he was a father to be proud of.
Lifting her chin, she spoke with a quiet dignity. 'Byron Whitmore.'
Gemma took a staggering step backwards. 'B-Byron? Byron is my father?'
Celeste nodded. 'Perhaps you should sit down this time, darling,' she suggested softly, 'and I'll tell you all about it.'
She guided the stunned child over to the chesterfield and settled her down. 'Perhaps a little drink would be in order as well? Coffee perhaps, or something stronger?'
Gemma grabbed her hands to stop her from walking away, drawing her down beside her. 'No, nothing. I'm all right. It .. .it just took my breath away for a moment.'
Celeste's smile was gently wry. 'Your father has always done the same to me. Taken my breath away .. .'
'You ... you loved him, then?'
'I've never loved any other man.'
'And does he know about me?'
She shook her head. 'No. He doesn't even know we had a child together.'
'You have to tell him, Celeste,' she urged.
'Let me tell you first. I want you to know it all, so that you can understand ... '
Celeste hesitated, knowing that she didn't have to tell Gemma the basic background details of the man she'd believed was her father all these years. It was well documented in the report that his real name was Stefan Bergman, and he'd come to Australia from Sweden in the Seventies to go prospecting in the opal fields of Coober Pedy in South Australia.
When he'd struck it rich there, he'd come to Sydney to sell his finds and live it up big. It was also in the report that he'd started dating the pretty daughter of Stewart Campbell and several weeks later they'd both caught a plane for Europe, choosing to stay in Spain once it became obvious she was having a baby.
What the report didn't include was why Celeste had chosen to go with him in the first place. God, but it was hard to tell her own daughter that she'd committed adultery with her own half-sister's husband and become pregnant by him, and that she'd run off with Stefan on the rebound.
It sounded so appalling in the telling. Yet there was nothing but sympathy for her in her daughter's soft brown eyes when she at last found the courage to look at her.
'You really loved Byron, didn't you?' Gemma murmured.
Celeste nodded. 'Madly. We'd been lovers briefly when I was only seventeen. I thought he was in love with me too but he broke it off, saying it was only a sexual thing. I was devastated when he married Irene a few months later.'
'I've heard some terrible things about her,' Gemma said, frowning. 'Why did Byron marry her? Surely he couldn't have been in love with her.'
'I don't think he was, but she was very beautiful and madly in love with him. People always said he married her to get his hands on Campbell
Jewels but my father left total control of the company in my mother's hands. Whatever, the marriage was not a happy one. To be honest, I think Byron might have married me if Irene hadn't told him some rather damning lies about me. She made Byron believe I was a little tramp who slept with anything in trousers. Which wasn't true, I assure you. Byron had been my only lover at that stage.'
Gemma was shaking her head. 'Why was she so mean?'
Celeste shrugged. 'I don't really know. She always resented my mother, even though her own mother died soon after she was born. My mother tried to be nice to her but truly I can't remember a time when Irene wasn't very difficult to live with.'
