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But he never would.
‘Apparently your mother’s desire for you to take over was widely known.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Well, my father knew her well, Jack was around seven and your mother was very involved with the residents.’
‘I am aware of that.’
‘Well, we were talking...’ If one could call their conversation talking in that sense. She flicked a tongue out over parched lips. ‘Conversation got around to your mother’s death and...basically he said she didn’t take her own life. That it was an accident.’
He raked his hand through his hair. In that moment it seemed floppier and more playboyish than ever. It also made him seem more vulnerable than ever and her heart twisted and knotted.
‘Yes. Your father would think that. They told everyone it was an accident.’
‘No.’ She was explaining this badly. ‘I mean, I know that. What I mean is, it really was an accident.’
He stared at her, fir
st in disbelief, then in exasperation.
‘They covered it up, I told you that. It was the only decent thing my father ever did for her.’
‘You’re wrong. He didn’t cover anything up. That is...he did, but not your mother’s suicide. It really was an accident. My father was there. He saw exactly what happened.’
Cold fingers inched over her body. She hated the way he looked at her, as though she was lying, deliberately trying to hurt him. How could he think that?
‘I saw the photographs, Alex,’ he bit out coldly. ‘The evidence. Or the lack of it. I know there was a cover-up.’
‘There was. But not how you think.’
She touched his arm but he pulled away, unable to bear the contact. Something inside her shrivelled up even smaller. But she couldn’t stop now, she had to tell him what she knew.
‘Louis, your mother died trying to save someone’s life.’
He froze, waiting for her to go on.
‘There was a single mother, twenty-three, and her six-year-old daughter. The daughter was severely disabled and the young mother had borderline learning difficulties herself. That particular day it all got too much for her. She went to the child’s room and smothered her in her sleep. She was in the process of taking her own life when your mother went past the room and spotted them. Celine hit the alarm and then ran in to try to save the woman by hoisting her up, but her body was convulsing and your mother got knocked over.’
‘My mother fell?’ It didn’t even sound like his voice.
‘She hit her head on the metal corner of the bed as she went down. By the time the ambulance crew got to her, she was already gone.’
‘It was an accident?’
‘Yes. My father was there. He’d heard her in the refectory barely a few hours before, talking about you as usual, he said.’ She reached a tentative hand out to hold his arm again.
This time he didn’t move away or throw her off, he simply stared at it. Seeing but not seeing. She doubted he could feel anything at all. She could only imagine he felt numb.
‘She always talked about you, apparently,’ Alex continued softly. ‘She told people you were her whole world. Her petit prince.’
He actually staggered back. Him, Louis Delaroche. And in that moment Alex knew if she could have taken his pain on in his stead, she would have.
She loved him. And that would cause her far more pain than her father had ever caused her.
* * *
Anguish ripped through Louis, like something yanking him in a million different directions at once. He’d forgotten that, her affectionate nickname for him. She’d called him her prince and he’d told her she was more beautiful than even the Princess of England who she had always so loved.
