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Blake’s heart ached as he caught the echo of her pain in her voice.
‘I know, I know… I didn’t want to hurt you, but…’
He released her slightly, holding her gently away from him, smoothing her hair back off her face as he looked down at her.
‘Believe me, my darling… hurting you was the very last thing I wanted to do.’
‘Then why did you?’ Philippa asked him simply.
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply, but then he started to speak, choosing his words carefully, hesitantly almost.
‘That last summer… the year you were eighteen… Robert told me that your father was… concerned about you and about the fact that you… about your feelings for me… He pointed out to me how young you were, how you had been brought up to expect a far different lifestyle from the one I could give you… He told me that your father wanted me to leave——’
Philippa had started to frown, and abruptly she interrupted him, demanding, ‘It was that afternoon, wasn’t it, the afternoon I came back from tennis? I thought then that you and Robert were quarrelling… but you denied it… you said you had to leave…
‘I had been so convinced that somehow things were going to change between us… that at last you were going to see me as a woman and not a child… that you were going to…’ She stopped speaking, swallowing painfully. ‘I loved you so much, Blake, and I thought that you…’
‘I know, I know,’ Blake groaned, taking her back in his arms, rocking her gently against his body, his voice muffled against her hair. ‘But I couldn’t stay, not after Robert had made it so plain that I wasn’t welcome…’
‘You could have written to me… telephoned…’
‘I wanted to, but everything that Robert had said kept coming back to me. I knew he was right, you see—I knew that I couldn’t provide you with the kind of lifestyle you were used to. I could barely manage to feed myself, never mind… I had to put my mother first, Pip… She was so ill…’
‘Yes, of course you did,’ Philippa agreed fiercely. ‘But surely you knew… must have known that you were far more important to me than material possessions?’
She saw his face and cried out in distress. ‘Oh, Blake. No… no… you must have known…’
‘Yes. Deep down inside I think I did, but at the same time… You were so very young, Pip,’ he reminded her gently. ‘So very vulnerable… so very dependent on your parents. I couldn’t——’
‘I made you think that, didn’t I?’ Philippa cut in painfully. ‘I only reinforced everything that Robert had said to you by not defying my father and going to university.’ She closed her eyes, trying not to think about how different things might have been if only she… ‘That’s why you were so angry with me, so harsh, when you claimed that if I’d really wanted to I could have worked to finance myself, wasn’t it…?’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh, Blake… Robert had no right to interfere,’ she began bitterly, ‘to tell you…’
‘He thought what he was doing was best for you,’ Blake told her gently.
‘No, he didn’t,’ Philippa denied sadly. ‘He knew he was doing the best thing for him, for him and for my father… Neither of them ever…’ She bit her lip and looked up at him.
‘Do you know, after Andrew’s death, Robert actually tried to pretend that he had never wanted me to marry him in the first place? Andrew was Robert’s friend, you know… They were at school together. Robert was very impressed by Andrew’s expectations.’ Her mouth curled derisively.
‘Poor Andrew; nothing in his life quite ever lived up to those expectations—not his marriage to me, not his work… and certainly not the reality of his great-aunt’s will.’
Briefly she explained to Blake what had happened and then added quietly, ‘I didn’t marry Andrew for his money, though…’
‘I know that,’ Blake told her quietly. She stopped speaking and waited. ‘When I first heard about you marrying Ryecart, I almost hated you,’ Blake admitted gruffly. ‘I went to America determined to show you, to show your family just what a mistake you’d all made, that if it was money and status you’d really wanted, then I could have given you so much more; that I could be more successful than your father; richer than your husband.’ He looked at her sombrely.
‘I was a fool and worse in those days, Pip, and it took Michael to bring me to my senses.
‘He came out to visit me one summer and he made it obvious that he was shocked at how much I’d changed, at what I was doing to myself. His honesty forced me to be equally honest, and I found myself admitting how I felt… and most especially how I felt about you… how bitter your marriage had made me.
‘He told me the truth about your marriage. That he didn’t think you loved your husband. That you’d married him because it was what your father wanted, not because it was what you wanted. He said that you’d married him so quickly that it was almost as though you’d been running away from something, or from someone.’
He paused, and Philippa admitted shakily, ‘Yes… I was running away from you and from myself… from the pain of loving you and being rejected by you… I was so immature, Blake,’ she admitted honestly. ‘I should never…’
‘No… your father is the one to blame, not you,’ Blake corrected her. ‘He should never have allowed you to marry him, never mind pushed you into it.
‘Michael told me that he didn’t believe you were happy, but that he felt you would stay with Andrew out of loyalty and because of the boys… I was so tempted to come back then, to see you and… but I’d already hurt you once, and very badly; I knew I couldn’t do so a second time, so I stayed away… told myself it was time to make a fresh start. I threw myself into my work, not this time out of my desire to make money or achieve status, but simply as a means of drowning out all the things I couldn’t bear to think about.
‘And then I went to Romania… That changed everything, including me. It finally enabled me to leave behind my bitterness, my resentment against your fat
her… to put down the chip I was carrying on my shoulder. But it didn’t stop me wishing that things could have been different…’
