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Claire nodded. ‘She left my father and me when I was still a baby.’
Raif frowned.
‘It’s not as bad as it sounds,’ Claire proclaimed defensively on her mother’s behalf. ‘I grew up being told what a wicked woman she was. I was about four when my stepmother told me that my mother was a bad person and that I had to be careful not to grow up to be like her.’
‘That must have been challenging,’ Raif remarked, utterly enchanted by her honesty and the less than perfect background that she was revealing. People literallynevermade him the recipient of such revelations. He was as hooked on her outspokenness as someone exposed for the first time to fresh air. He had often felt that he was the only person he knew who had grown up with a dysfunctional background. His brothers had been teenagers when he was a baby and had grown into adults as pampered, indulged princes in a royal household, barely missing the mother forced to leave them behind with their father. None of their experiences had mirrored Raif’s and their pity for him when they had later learned of the former Queen’s alcoholism and fondness for young men had only lashed his pride, accentuated the differences between them and ensured that the brothers remained politely distant with each other.
‘I have to make supper,’ Claire told him.
Raif observed the standoffish cat and ignored it. He knew that, unlike dogs, cats didn’t like to be courted. He took a seat and within a few minutes the cat made its approach. It paraded in front of him, showing off its sleek black elegance, big measuring green eyes locked to him. It folded into a relaxed repose at his feet. He let a careful fingertip drift down to stroke along its spine in a fleeting caress until it arched. A moment later, it had leapt onto his lap, the better to receive his admiration, and he smiled.
‘Circe!’ Claire called in reproof from the doorway.
‘It’s okay. I’m used to felines. My mother kept Siamese cats.’ Interrupted, the cat sprang down from him and leapt back up onto the window seat.
‘My mother took her in as a kitten and I want to take her with me when I leave the island. It’s a link, well, she’s really theonlylink I have,’ she admitted ruefully.
Raif rose lazily upright, every movement fluid, attracting her gaze. ‘When did you lose your mother?’
‘Last week. But it wasn’t a surprise. She was terminally ill when I got here,’ Claire explained in a troubled rush. ‘Every day we had together was incredibly precious.’
‘That’s a very recent loss,’ Raif murmured from the doorway as she returned to the vegetables she appeared to be chopping. He watched in some astonishment as she wielded a very sharp knife with the speed and efficiency of a professional.
‘But just think, I mightn’t have met her and got to know her at all,’ Claire pointed out with a grimace at that concept. ‘I was lucky. I’m so grateful I grabbed the chance to get to know her and didn’t listen to everyone trying to stop me coming out here.’
‘Who’s everyone?’
‘My boss, my stepmother, my boyfriend. Nobody wanted me to come here. But it was my one and only chance,’ she admitted, big blue eyes wide. ‘I had to take the chance...didn’t I?’
‘I agree. But what did it cost you?’
‘The boyfriend and the job,’ she confided wryly. ‘But I would make the same choice again. It was worth it...shewas worth it.’
Raif smiled slowly, his attention fully locked to the animation so vividly etched in her heart-shaped face. ‘I’m glad of that for your sake. But how on earth did you forgive her for leaving you in the first place?’
Claire stiffened and paused to heap the diced vegetables into a bowl. ‘If you had asked me that question a few years back, I would’ve said Icouldn’tforgive her,’ she confided. ‘But then my father passed away and my stepmother asked me to clear out my father’s desk. She and my half-brother had to move, because it was a clergy house and it was needed for my father’s replacement.’
‘You didn’t live with them?’
‘No. I moved out as soon as I could afford a flat-share,’ Claire admitted ruefully. ‘My stepmother and I never jelled.’
Raif watched her move about the kitchen with surprising competence. She whipped out plates and reached for the bowl to carry them into the sitting room and lay the small table by the window. ‘Take a seat,’ she told him.
She trekked back into the kitchen and returned with a basket of bread, a bottle of water and two glasses. ‘This is a very casual meal,’ she warned him.
‘You didn’t have to feed me,’ he told her gently.
‘Iwas starving,’ she replied.
‘You mentioned clearing out your father’s desk,’ he reminded her. ‘What did that have to do with anything?’
‘I found all these letters my mother had sent over the years pleading for permission to see me,’ Claire confided in a pained undertone. ‘I was stunned. I was only told that she had met another man and run off with him. Nobody ever admitted that she had tried really hard to see me again. When my father agreed to the divorce, she let him have full custody because she felt guilty. She didn’t appreciate that that meant that he could refuse to let her see me again and...she didn’t have the money to take him to court.’
Raif helped himself to a portion of the salad and some bread. ‘Your father must’ve been very bitter.’
‘Yes. He never forgave her for leaving him even though he remarried very soon after the divorce.’ She leant forward, her face troubled. ‘My mother, though, was only eighteen when she married him, and she gave birth to me within the year. Way too young to be married to a man fifteen years older and a mother,’ she opined.
‘Obviously she won your sympathy, but I feel some sympathy for your father,’ Raif admitted. ‘Fidelity in marriage is an expectation for most people. She was his wife and she betrayed his trust.’
