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Peter’s chin lifted. ‘It would have been fifty years, if she hadn’t gone and died on me. And I never strayed before or since—only that one time.’
‘But—there was a child?’ Emily’s mind reeled from the appalling ramifications as she looked down at the photograph lying on the table. Was Peter about to confess he had been supporting a secret second family? She didn’t think she could bear it. ‘Are you sure the baby was yours?’ she ventured delicately.
If anything, he looked even more ashamed. ‘It was Maria’s first time. She was nearly forty—ten years older than me; it never occurred to me that she might get pregnant…’
Emily locked her jaw to stop it dropping, although she supposed it was better than the idea of Peter preying on a vulnerable young employee.
‘Anyway,’ said Peter, ‘I didn’t know anything about a baby. Maria never told me she was pregnant. She just quit and disappeared. Then, twenty years later, I got a letter from her, posted after her death. She told me about Carol—my daughter—her wild-child, she called her, and sent that photo. Said she was sorry, but she hadn’t wanted to wreck m
y marriage, or risk any chance of me trying to take the baby for Rose.’
‘So, what’s she like?’ asked Emily warily. ‘Your grown-up, wild-child daughter?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding very old and bitter. ‘That’s the only photo I have. She didn’t get the chance to really grow up. She was dead herself at nineteen. Got mixed up with some drug-running crowd and died in rather murky circumstances in Indonesia while she was living there with her boyfriend.’
‘Oh, God…Peter! So you never even got to meet her?’ Emily realised in horror. ‘This is all you have left of her—a photograph and a letter?’ No wonder he was bitter.
‘I know a lot more than I did. I had my lawyers investigate, but I couldn’t act on any of the information while Rose was alive—that would have been like my being unfaithful all over again. I couldn’t let her know how badly I’d let her down. And knowing that there’d been a baby…well, that would have tormented Rose even more than it does me.’ Peter’s thin voice faltered, then strengthened. ‘But now she’s dead I can at least try to make some amends. You see, Carol was pregnant when she went to Indonesia. She died not long after she had the baby…’
The light dawned as she recognised the emotion he was trying to suppress. ‘You have a grandchild!’
Peter nodded, his voice thickening. ‘A granddaughter. One who makes me very proud.’
Emily’s own throat tightened. ‘That’s wonderful. I’m glad for you. So something good has come out of all the turmoil.’
‘Of course, no one knows yet, except you—and the lawyers, of course,’ he continued shakily. ‘I—I wouldn’t know how to tell the boys. They thought the world of their aunt Rose.’
‘Of course, I understand,’ she murmured, not quite certain he was right, although she could well understand his reluctance. She suspected that Ethan would resent being deliberately kept in the dark as much, if not more, than he would be angered or shocked by the revelation of a forty-five-year-old indiscretion. ‘So your granddaughter—she lives in Indonesia?’
Peter gave her a strained look. ‘Oh, no, she was adopted by a New Zealand couple.’
Seeming to suddenly need something to relieve his tension, he picked up a piece of the crunchy, low-calorie chocolate slice Emily had made to have with their coffee and began nibbling at it as he told her the story his investigators had put together.
There had been a huge cyclone and terrible floods, and the whole region had been in chaos when Carol had given birth. She had been hiding at a refugee camp under another name, having fled her drug-dealing friends, afraid of what they’d been planning to do to her baby. She’d had infected wounds from a beating and had begged for help from the two idealistic young Kiwi aid workers who had been with her for the difficult birth, a man and wife who, when they had later found her delirious and dying, had ended up smuggling her daughter out of the country as their own. Carol had only ever told them her first name, and that she had no family, perhaps in the hope that would more incline them to keep whatever promises they had made to the dying girl.
Emily listened to the tale with a puzzled air, until he mentioned the date of his granddaughter’s birth. She drank from her rapidly cooling coffee, trying to ignore the strange ringing in her ears. She had a horrible feeling that Peter’s strange looks were now explained, and that his benevolence had not been a simple case of friendly concern. ‘What a coincidence—that’s when I was born,’ she said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘And my parents were in Indonesia on flood relief work, too…’
‘It wasn’t a coincidence, Emily.’ Peter had obviously decided it was time to stop beating about the bush. ‘Your parents were the ones who adopted Carol’s baby. You’re my granddaughter.’
‘But I can’t be!’ she said firmly, looking at him with deep compassion for his mistake. Oh, God—Ethan had been right all along to insist that there was a lot more to Peter’s kindness than met the eye. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. It’s not me. It can’t be—I’m not adopted.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, taking another bite of his comfort food, using the grinding motion of his jaw to conceal his trembling mouth. ‘Because I have reports—’ He gave a little cough.
‘Oh, dear—I just assumed your parents would have told you—’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she cut in. ‘I’ve seen my birth certificate. And you’re right, they would have told me.’
And if Peter had been her grandfather, that would mean that James Quest hadn’t been—and yet he had constantly talked of the continuation of his skilled trade through the family line, of his satisfaction at being able to pass on his heritage to his son’s child. She didn’t believe he would have put the same emphasis on their relationship if she had been adopted.
‘Unless they felt they had a compelling reason not to—’
Like a promise to a dying woman?
He was growing increasingly agitated, but she couldn’t let him go on believing something that wasn’t true just because she didn’t want to upset him.
An hour later her emotions were still in a gigantic knot as Ethan burst through the lounge doors and strode over to his uncle, lying propped up by cushions on the couch, a light mohair blanket over his lap.
‘What in hell happened? Are you all right?’ He glared at the doctor. ‘Was it a heart attack, Mike? Why isn’t he in hospital?’
