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With Luke she could be gregarious and playful or silent and moody or broody and restless and he would simply be...Luke. He taught her to drink vodka without choking and she taught him to dance. He showed her how to tone her body with weights and she taught him how to abuse his with wickedly licentious desserts. He taught her astronomy while she quoted Shakespearian sonnets beneath the stars.
And they talked, not of important things but of the vital trivialities that bound people in intimacy—the foods they liked and music they preferred, the places they had been to and the books they had read as children. Emotions, like the immediate past and future, were a taboo subject, but Rosalind never doubted that, like her, Luke was discovering a part of himself that he hadn’t hitherto realised existed.
Once they came upon some young island children playing on an isolated beach and, as Rosalind stood there wondering what Olivia’s children would look like, she felt Luke’s hand slip warmly into hers and squeeze. She hadn’t been conscious of her melancholy expression and she banished it by flinging herself into the children’s chasing game, making them giggle and Luke laugh at her mad antics.
She had thought she had finally come to terms with her sterility long ago, but now she knew what her doctor of the time had meant when he’d talked warningly about cycles of acceptance. Loving Luke had made her aware that, no matter how full and contented a life she created for herself, a secret sorrow would always lurk in some hidden corner of her heart. Any man who loved her enough to be faithful would forfeit his only chance of immortality. She could offer him everything... everything but a child born out of their love.
The days slipped past with ever greater speed but the end of Rosalind’s holiday was still a small eternity away when the bubble of wonderful unreality abruptly burst.
Rosalind had breezed into Luke’s chalet, laden with new clothes that she had picked out for him from the hideously expensive hotel boutique, to find him on the telephone. He had been going through some of his electronic mail when she had left, as he did most afternoons, and he was still seated in front of his laptop at the small dining table, his reading glasses dangling from his hand as he pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, uttering brief, monosyllabic replies to whoever was on the other end.
Rosalind put down her packages quietly and as Luke looked up sharply at the crackle of the carrier bags she was shocked by the greyness of his face. His hand clenched on the receive and she hesitantly mimed herself going out again but he shook his head abruptly, his attention snapping back to the last few words of his call. After hanging up he sat for a moment, staring into nothingness, his cheeks hollowed with strain.
‘Luke? What’s happened? Is something wrong?’
He stood up jerkily, looking at her but not seeing her, tossing his glasses down on the table with unaccustomed contempt for the lenses. ‘That was my father.’
‘Oh,’ she said, taken aback by his harshness. Had they had an argument? ‘What did he want?’
She wondered whether the elder Mr James was anything like his adopted son. Had Luke still been young and impressionable enough to be moulded in his new father’s image?
‘Sit down.’ She blinked at the order, a little trickle of coldness running down her spine. ‘I’ve never told you much about my parents, have I?’
She shook her head as she perched uneasily on the edge of the couch, watching him prowl round the room tidying things that didn’t need to be tidied. He hadn’t told her anything but the bare fact of his adoption. Thinking it must be an ultra-sensitive subject, she had respected his silence.
‘Actually, my adoptive father is related to me, but only by marriage. My mother was his stepsister.’
Rosalind opened her mouth to protest that he had told her he had been orphaned without a family but snapped it shut again as he continued flatly, ‘My parents left a hell of a lot of debts when they died—my father had just mortgaged everything to go into business. His only legacy to me was his name; that was why I kept it when my aunt and uncle adopted me. They couldn’t have any children themselves and I’ve always felt I disappointed them by not taking on their name, but I just couldn’t bring myself to reject my last link with Mum and Dad.
‘They certainly loved me as if I was their own and I never lacked security, financial or otherwise, and although they demanded strict standards of behaviour of me I knew it was no more than they expected of themselves. When I was at school they never missed a sports day or a play, and they always welcomed my friends. They bought me the best education money could buy and gave me all the support I ever needed in my studies...’
Rosalind sat there listening to him describe how wonderful his adoptive parents were and how much he owed them, gradually feeling colder and colder unt
il her core was solid ice—numb and blessedly unfeeling. He still hadn’t mentioned any names, but as he rambled jerkily on she knew...she knew...with a black fatalism that made her wonder if she’d always known...
‘It’s Peggy, isn’t it?’ she uttered through white lips, when she could stand the torture no longer. ‘Donald and Peggy Staines are your uncle and aunt...’
He swung around, knocking one of her packages over, and out spilled a green silk shirt she had bought him because it was the colour of her eyes and she’d thought it would remind him of her when she wasn’t around.
‘She regained consciousness yesterday morning. Don didn’t ring me until now because her condition hadn’t stabilised, but now they’ve had time to make an assessment... The stroke has affected the movement down her left side and distorted her speech but she can make herself understood.’
Peggy was awake and starting to communicate! Rosalind could hardly take it in. She felt as if she was having a heart attack, the squeezing in her chest almost too much to bear. She looked up at the towering figure...at the adoptive half-brother of Peter Noble. Poor Peggy—she had had two sons and neither bore her name! She had been forced to give up her first-born child for adoption, who, it had turned out, was destined to be her only born, and then through a tragedy she had gained another son, whom she herself had adopted. Luke’s love and respect for Peggy bordered on reverence. What would it do to him to learn that she had been too ashamed to appeal to him for help?
‘It wasn’t just an incredible coincidence that you were on that Tioman flight, was it?’ she whispered. ‘Somehow you found out and you were following me.’
‘Don begged me to find out what kind of trouble Peggy was in. He wanted to know if he ought to resign before the scandal breaks. He’s that kind of man—painfully honourable,’ Luke said grimly. ‘He couldn’t remember anything of what you’d said at the hospital, only that you’d been vague and evasive, and you’d disappeared pretty sharply. He couldn’t leave Peggy so I said I’d track you down and find out what he needed to know.
‘Don’s police connections were of the opinion that you were certainly hiding something, but they had nothing to work on and they suspected you would bolt at the first sign of pressure, so I put some feelers out at Pendragon before I flew up to Auckland and, thanks to my security rating, I found out about Jordan’s extremely confidential travel booking...non-tax deductable.’ The typically meticulous addition was made totally without humour. ‘I knew the best chance I had to persuade you to help me was to be on that plane.’
Rosalind massaged her aching chest. ‘But—I can’t believe that Jordan—’
He cut her off with an impatient shrug. ‘Our friendship was largely confined to the Pendragon offices; he has no idea who my parents are. Seeing him at the airport—now that was pure coincidence. And a profound piece of luck for me. But unfortunately he couldn’t tell me anything more than the police, so I knew then that if you weren’t even talking to the people you trusted most you certainly weren’t going to open up to me. Given what you were being accused of, I didn’t think compassion would be one of your strong points. I was wrong about that, wasn’t I?’
His sober question threw her off balance for a moment but she quickly regained it. ‘Did you think you might have a better chance conning me into some pillow talk?’ she flung at him bitterly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘It occurred to me—especially considering your royal reputation for reckless behaviour.’
She went white, leaping to her feet, her hand itching to hit him. ‘You bastard!’
