AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Around the same time, I was doing a great deal of work with John, your father. As you know, he was such a talented photographer—at the peak of his career. He was the top pick for all the glossies… so we did many shoots together. And our relationship was…more than professional, shall we say. I knew he doted on me.”
Rowena pauses and takes a sip of her drink.
“By the time I found out I was pregnant, the musician had disappeared. When I finally tracked him down, he told me that the child was my problem. And that was that.
“It was…” She frowns. “It was too late for me to…well… Your father took pity on me. He was good and kind like that. We married. He embraced Kit as his own. And it became our secret.
“Cameron guessed, of course.” She glances at Alessia. “That’s John’s brother, Maxim’s uncle. He was furious.” She turns to Maryanne. “But your father loved me…” Her voice fades, and her eyes grow more luminous, and she stares into the fire. The crackle of the flames and the tick of the old Georgian clock accentuate the rapt silence.
She shakes her head as if erasing the memory. “Anyway, Kit’s father moved to the U.S. and became a hugely successful entrepreneur, and very publicly gay, which probably explains his dismissal of me and my child. I never heard from him again, and I pushed him to the back of my mind. Until he died last year. It was on the news, and that’s when I learned of his genetic condition.” She pauses and takes a sip of wine. “That was a dark day.
“It coincided with Kit seeking help for his recurring headaches. So I encouraged him to find medical help without informing him about his biological father. Just after the new year, Kit told me he had an issue, and he wanted to tell you two.” She glances at me and then at Maryanne. “And that’s when I confessed to him.” Her lower lip quivers, but she swallows and maintains her composure. “He was furious, of course. And afterwards, he went out on his motorbike—” Her voice cracks, and from inside her sleeve, she produces a cotton handkerchief.
“Well, we know the rest,” I mutter gently.
“Our argument was the last exchange he had with anyone,” she whispers. “He was so angry with me…” She sounds almost childlike.
The room falls silent again, the quiet only disrupted by the clock striking the half hour, startling Alessia. The sound galvanizes Caroline, who rises and comes to sit beside my mother, taking the other armchair and reaching for her hand. “He wasn’t just angry with you. We both let him down,” she murmurs, and I think only I can hear them.
Rowena casts her a sympathetic look. “I know,” she says quietly.
“He told you?”
Rowena nods. “I am in no position to judge, darling. Kit could be… difficult.”
Difficult? Kit?
Caroline glances at me and promptly averts her eyes.
What the hell is that about?
What other secrets has my family been keeping from me?
“It’s time to give him a proper goodbye, Mama. For all our sakes,” Maryanne pipes up.
“Yes,” Caro and I say in unison.
“You’re right,” Rowena concedes and dabs the corners of each eye with her dainty handkerchief.
“Good,” Caroline says. “We’ll go ahead with his memorial service as planned.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Blake enters. “Dinner is served,” he announces, seemingly oblivious as ever to the bombshells that have been dropped in this room. But I’m pleased to see him. All these secrets are making me hungry.
“You okay?” I ask Alessia.
“Yes. You?”
“I’m fine. Much better, in fact. You were right.” I reach for her hand and we follow Caro out of the drawing room. “I needed to hear her story.”
“You…um…reconciled before you heard her story.”
“A wise young woman reminded me that Rowena’s my one remaining parent.”
Alessia’s cheeks flush a lovely shade of pink, and she smiles at my compliment as we head downstairs into the dining room that has been lavishly set for dinner.
* * *
The grand mahogany table is a spectacle, laid with delicate white-and-gold china with matching gold cutlery and candelabras. Alessia gasps when she sees it. But she also spies the Yamaha ebony upright piano at one end of the room.
Caroline insists that Maxim sit at the head of the table. On either side of him, Caroline and his mother take their seats, with Maryanne beside Caro and Alessia sitting beside Rowena. Alessia is pleased not to be fazed by the layout of the impressive cutlery, and once again, she’s grateful for the etiquette course.
Dinner is a convivial affair. It’s like everyone has taken a deep breath and exhaled. Maxim is charming and inclusive. He talks at length to his mother about his plans for Cornwall: The distillery. Regenerative farming. And Maryanne and Rowena plague him with questions, and Maxim answers them with informed ease.
