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At least I got that right, thought Dana, as she received an unsmiling nod from Aunt Joss, who was following close behind.
She swallowed, her hands clenching into fists at her sides, her eyes fixed almost painfully on the sunlit doorway as she waited for Zac.
Her first thought was that he looked bone-weary, his dark eyes brooding as if his body might be here but his thoughts were miles away.
Darling, she thought. Oh, my darling.
And, conquering the impulse to run to him, to hold him close and pour out her heart, she walked slowly forward, wearing a smile that might have been nailed there.
‘Dana mia.’ He kissed her hand and then her cheek, his lips barely brushing her skin.
‘Welcome home.’ She kept smiling. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘A successful one.’ He took her hand and led her over to Serafina. ‘May I present your new cousin, cara mia?’
‘She is hardly a stranger,’ the older woman said drily, shaking hands briefly and formally. ‘We will talk later, no doubt, but the journey has tired me a little and I would like to go to my room.’
‘Of course.’ Dana hesitated. ‘Perhaps you would also prefer to have tea upstairs rather than in the drawing room. Lapsang Souchong, isn’t it?’
‘Why, yes,’ Mrs Latimer acknowledged with faint surprise. ‘You have a good memory.’
As Dana watched Janet escort the two women upstairs, Zac said quietly, ‘I would prefer coffee in the book room, if you please. I have some work—a few loose ends from the trip—to complete. Perhaps you will excuse me to our guests and say I will see them at dinner.’
A heading under which she was presumably included, thought Dana, turning away.
When everyone had been served with the food and drink of their choice in the preferred location, she slipped away upstairs and knocked on her aunt’s door.
‘So you won in the end’ was Miss Grantham’s uncompromising welcome. ‘I suppose I should congratulate you, although I thought Mr Belisandro would have had more sense.’
‘Because he got me sent away seven years ago?’ Dana queried tautly. ‘I suppose everyone’s entitled to second thoughts.’ However short-lived...
Aunt Joss stared at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘My terrible teenage faux pas.’ Dana lifted her chin. ‘The disgraceful pass he alleged I made at him.’
‘But that wasn’t Zac.’ Her aunt frowned. ‘The complaint came from Mr Adam.’ She shook her head. ‘Not that it matters. It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ Dana said dazedly. ‘A very long time ago.’ And every day of it, she thought, I’ve blamed Zac for something he didn’t do.
She took a long, shaky breath. ‘But I’m not actually here for that. Did you know my mother was married?’
It was Aunt Joss’s turn to look pole-axed. ‘Married? To whom, for heaven’s sake? Some Spaniard?’
‘To Bob Harvey, her former boss at the Royal Oak,’ Dana returned levelly. ‘Accordingly, I now know that Jack Latimer could never have been my father and why, and that neither Linda nor I have ever had any legal right to any part of the Mannion estate. That it’s always been a bag of moonshine.’
‘Linda admitted that?’
‘Only to her husband. Perhaps you could tell Mrs Latimer on my behalf, and assure her that I intend to—adjust the situation.’ She paused. ‘I—we’ll talk again later—if you want.’
The door to the book room was closed, and Zac’s voice was impatient when he called ‘Entrare’ in reply to her knock.
His expression as he looked at her across the paper-strewn desk was not encouraging. ‘Dana—unless this is important...’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. Very important.’
His eyes narrowed, then he put down his pen and rose slowly. He came round the desk, leaning back against it as if he was bracing himself.
He said quietly, ‘Have you come to tell me that you may be expecting our child?’
Child...
She repeated the word silently, every inch of her suddenly burning as anguish twisted inside her. Asking herself what would happen if she was to tell a lie. If she pretended there was a baby coming from that solitary night in his arms. Telling herself with a kind of desperation that, if it persuaded him to stay with her, she would make it the truth.
If...
Because there was no guarantee that he would do any such thing. That he might simply promise child support—and still walk away.
