Unexpected Blessings

  India jumped up, saying, ‘I’m going to call it a day, too. Do you have your car, or can I give you a lift to your mother’s house?’

  ‘I was going to walk, but that’d be great, India, thanks.’

  Within minutes the cousins were strolling to the carpark not far from the store. As they turned into the small parking lot, Tessa said, ‘I’m surprised you still use this place, after what happened to Evan, the way she was mugged around here in June.’

  ‘It’s all right in the summer months,’ India explained, ‘when it’s still light. I’ll have to make other arrangements in winter, probably use a car service, or a driver, like you do.’

  ‘I think that would be extremely wise on your part,’ Tessa remarked as they came to a stop next to India’s Aston Martin. ‘It’s so dangerous in London lately…even in daylight.’

  On the way to Paula’s house in Belgrave Square, India spoke for a few minutes about Dusty and the portrait he was painting of her, and then she suddenly asked, ‘How long are you going to live with your mother and father, Tessa?’

  Glancing at her swiftly, Tessa replied, ‘Until the divorce is final and everything’s settled with Mark.

  Then I’ll find a flat. I don’t want to live at the Hampstead house, even though it’s actually mine. I can’t bear the place, Mark turned it into something so ugly, cold and grim. He can have it and he’s welcome.’

  ‘I know he wants a lot.’

  ‘He does. My mother seems to have some sort of plan, but I won’t know about it until she gets back at the beginning of September. In the meantime, the Belgrave house is rather large, and there’s the downstairs flat, Paul McGill’s old quarters. I have a bit of privacy down there, if I need it.’

  As they turned into Belgrave Square, India said, ‘Can I pop in for a minute? I’d love to see Adele, give her a hug.’

  ‘Of course. Oh, my God, India! That’s Mark on the doorstep, ringing the bell. Oh God, what does he want?’

  India said firmly, ‘Don’t panic. We can deal with him,’ and a moment later she brought the car to a standstill outside the house, pulled on the brake. ‘Keep calm,’ she murmured as Tessa made to get out of the Aston Martin.

  ‘I will.’ Alighting, Tessa hurried across the pavement, exclaiming, ‘Mark, what do you want?’

  He swung around on hearing her voice. ‘I want to see my daughter, that’s what. You’re keeping her from me and that’s not fair,’ he said in a belligerent voice, his face turning red, filled with anger.

  ‘You know you’re supposed to make an appointment, you can’t just show up like this,’ Tessa cried, drawing to a stop at the bottom of the steps, staring up at him, trying to hold her emotions in check.

  ‘Well, here I am, Mrs Longden. It’s my right to see Adele, she’s my child. I love her and she loves me.’

  ‘You forfeited the right to see her the day you abducted her,’ Tessa told him.

  ‘I didn’t abduct her, I just took her out for a drive and lunch. I brought her back unharmed, I would never harm her, whatever you might think, and I have said so to your solicitors. You’re unconscionable, the way you’ve badmouthed me.’

  ‘You cannot see her until we have an iron-clad agreement,’ Tessa announced coldly, glaring at him. ‘You’re the one slowing it down.’

  ‘You’re such a bitch, and–’

  At this moment the door flew open and Harriet, the housekeeper, stood on the threshold, having just responded to the ringing doorbell.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Tessa,’ she said, and waited for instructions, since, like the rest of the staff, she knew the situation.

  India hurried to join Tessa and took hold of her arm. ‘I think it might be better if we let him come in for tea. You can’t stand here, having a shouting match, it’ll be much easier in the end.’

  Tessa walked up the steps with India at her side, and said to him in a lowered voice, ‘Come in then, Mark. We’ll have tea with Adele.’

  Harriet was hesitant for a split second, and then opened the door wider for Tessa. ‘It’s all right,’ Tessa murmured. ‘There’s no problem, Harriet. Is Ben here?’

  ‘Yes, thank God,’ Harriet muttered, relieved that her husband was in the house watching TV.

  Once they were inside the hall, Tessa turned to Mark and said in a voice dripping ice, ‘Just this once I’ll overlook the rules you agreed to last week. But this is it until we have the settlement worked out. Do you understand?’

  He nodded, and quietly followed her up the stairs to the playroom which had been used by the rest of the family when they were young. Now it was Adele’s favourite place, her haven.

  When they walked inside and Adele saw her father she smiled and waved, but it was Tessa to whom she ran, crying, ‘Mumma, Mumma, I’m glad you’re home.’

  Tessa bent down, caught the running child, hugged her to her, kissed her cheek, and hugged her again. Then straightening, she said, ‘Here’s Daddy and Aunt India. We’re going to have a tea party. With you, Elvira and your dolls.’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely, Mumma. And Reggi has just put the kettle on,’ she said inventively, in her usual imaginative way, pointing to the favoured rag doll.

  ‘Well then, let’s all sit down and wait for Harriet to make the tea,’ Tessa murmured lovingly.

  An hour and a half later Tessa escorted Mark down the stairs to the marble entrance foyer. ‘Thanks,’ he said softly, and before she could stop him he had pulled her into his arms, began to kiss her face, stroke her silver-blonde hair. She struggled with him, finally managed to push him away, and exclaimed, ‘Don’t ever do that again! Ever, do you hear me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grab you so hard.’

  ‘Just don’t ever touch me. Not ever,’ she cried, her voice shrill.

  ‘Tessa, I’m sorry. I know I surprised you, I surprised myself. Look, I love you. Let’s try again, let’s start over, forget this divorce. Let’s be a family again. The three of us.’

  Tessa stood in the middle of the hall gaping at him in fury, finding it hard to believe what she was hearing. The gall of him. He was preposterous. Suddenly, something in her snapped, and she cried, ‘Start again! You’ve got to be out of your mind. After all you’ve done to me–humiliated me, abused me, mentally and physically, stolen Adele. You’re insane to think I’d even consider it!’

  ‘Tessa, please, you’re exaggerating as usual.’

  ‘Please leave,’ she said, her tone icier than ever; she walked over to the front door and opened it. ‘Leave, Mark. Now.’

  He threw her a sour look and left without uttering another word, the set of his mouth mean and ugly, his eyes filled with anger.

  She slammed the door behind him and slid the bolt, then turned and ran upstairs. She was shaking inside, and still furious, but she managed to push the bland expression onto her face before she went back into the playroom.

  India rose when she saw her, and hurried across the floor. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, knowing there was. Her eyes gave her away.

  ‘He just suggested we get back together. Can you believe that bastard? He tried to pretend he didn’t do anything to ruin our marriage.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Gideon Harte stood in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel waiting for Evan. Glancing at the clock above the revolving door, he saw that it was ten minutes to one, and he knew that she would come rushing in at any moment. Evan was punctual. It was another characteristic they had in common, and it was one which pleased him.

  He wished they were having lunch alone. The idea of meeting her parents had suddenly lost its appeal, perhaps because it had assumed such enormous proportions in the past few days. In fact, he wished they hadn’t come to London at all. Their presence was making her nervous and distracted; she hadn’t been herself since their arrival, and she was growing more ambivalent about telling her father the truth about Robin Ainsley.

  Initially he had said whatever decision she made about that was all right with him. But he had come t
o realize how much the truth really mattered. He felt it was important her father knew he was part Harte, as she herself was.

  This train of thought dissipated as she came whirling through the revolving door, a smile illuminating her face when she saw him. He thought how pretty she looked in a loose, rather floaty frock made of pale-blue cotton. She had on very high-heeled blue sandals, which made her appear even more willowy; there were smokey-blue beads at her neck and on her ears and these echoed the colour of her large, wide-set eyes.

  ‘I’m not late, Gid, am I?’ she asked, her smile wide and warm.

  He shook his head. ‘Early, in fact. But where are your parents?’

  ‘I told them to meet us here at one-fifteen. I just wanted a few minutes alone with you. I haven’t seen you since Thursday night and I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Me too, you.’ Taking her arm he went on, ‘Let’s go and sit over there on the sofa, shall we?’

  ‘I told Mom that we’d be in the Grill, so we might as well go in.’

  After being seated at Gideon’s favourite table in a corner, he ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and then sat back and looked at her, a smile on his face. ‘You look wonderful, Evan,’ he began, and then stopped abruptly. The smile slipped. ‘You’re not wearing your ring,’ he said, staring at her left hand.

  She stared back at him, her face suddenly colouring a bright pink.

  ‘Evan, you haven’t told them, have you?’

  ‘Look, Gideon, please don’t be angry, but I just didn’t dare say anything on Friday night. I hadn’t seen them for months, and Dad was definitely in a peculiar mood, to say the least, and I didn’t want to hit them with that straight away. I wanted to wait until after they met you.’

  ‘Oh, and does that make a difference to you? What they think of me? Will you change your mind about me if they don’t approve?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course I won’t,’ she said in a low voice, leaning closer to him. ‘You know I love you, that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But my father’s always been a bit…well, possessive of me, and he’s got to adjust to the fact that I’m not going home, that I’m going to be living in London. He’ll have to come to terms with that.’

  ‘Yes, he certainly will.’ His green eyes narrowed darkly.

  ‘Please try and see it from my point of view, Gideon. Please, darling.’

  He sighed. ‘I suppose I understand…well, a little bit. And what about Robin? Have you told him about Robin Ainsley, have you told your father he’s actually a Harte, a member of the family he loves to hate?’

  She bit her lip. ‘No, I haven’t. I just felt it was better, kinder, not to bring up all of this stuff when he’d just seen me for the first time in eight months. Mom was great, of course, and I had lunch with her yesterday. She knows how much I care for you. I know she’s expecting me to marry you, Gid, and she gives us her blessing. She said so.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ he muttered, the tension in his shoulders relaxing. ‘I’m not being difficult, Evan, I simply want them to know about our engagement so that I can tell my parents before someone else does. After all, the cousins are in on our secret which of course isn’t one anymore.’

  Always cued in to his moods, she was sorry his voice wasn’t calmer. ‘I promise I’ll tell them soon, and that I’ll talk to my father about Robin as well–’

  The arrival of a waiter with the champagne interrupted this conversation, and once it had been poured and they had clinked glasses, taken a sip, she said, ‘I hope he understands about Glynnis and Robin…I hope he won’t be terribly upset.’

  ‘I suppose it will be a shock,’ Gideon murmured a little grudgingly, and then he deftly changed the subject when he started to talk about the newspapers he ran, and his plans for the next few months.

  Gideon was surprised. Owen and Marietta Hughes were pleasant, and certainly her father didn’t seem to be quite the curmudgeon Evan had made him out to be.

  Gideon had done a double-take when they had first arrived at the table and Evan was introducing them. Her father was the spitting image of Gideon’s great-uncle, Robin Ainsley, and it was something of a shock to see the strong family resemblance. It was much more pronounced in her father than it was in Evan. There was no doubt that Owen Hughes was actually a Harte. Tall, slender, good-looking, he had Robin’s aquiline features and dark hair flecked with grey. It took Gideon only a moment to recognize that he had a very strong likeness to his own great-grandfather, Winston Harte the first, the brother of Emma.

  Her mother was a bit of a surprise, too. A pretty woman in a soft and feminine way, she looked very young, and there was no hint of the manic depressive about her. In fact, she was full of smiles and genial good humour. That was the medication kicking in, no doubt about that, Gideon decided.

  After the waiter had served them champagne, and they had all toasted each other, there was a bit of small talk about the weather and such, which suddenly seemed endless to him.

  Eventually Gideon managed to get all of that out of the way, and he said, ‘I had hoped to take you out to the Waterside Inn at Bray for lunch, but unfortunately, I’m working today. I have to get back to the papers fairly early, and it’s a bit of a drive there and back. But another time perhaps, I know how much you like the water and sailing, Mr Hughes.’

  ‘I do, yes,’ Owen Hughes said, ‘and it would’ve been great on a hot day like this. On the other hand, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Grill here at the Dorchester. My mother brought me here when I was a little boy.’

  ‘Did she really!’ Gideon exclaimed, and threw a pointed look at Evan, who glanced away, not wanting to have prolonged eye contact. Also, she was truly startled. She hadn’t known her father had come back to London as a child; what else didn’t she know, she wondered.

  ‘I came to England with her several times in the fifties,’ her father was telling Gideon, and Evan pricked up her ears alertly; her mother, who was staring at her intently, gave her a knowing look.

  Evan ignored this, and said, ‘I was telling Gideon you were planning a trip to France, Dad, and he wondered if you were intending to go to the south at all?’

  ‘Probably. I’d like to take your mother to Monte Carlo, she’s never been there.’

  ‘It’s very built-up these days,’ Gideon murmured, ‘a pile of concrete, to be exact. But if you do go, perhaps Evan and I could join you for a couple of days.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Owen responded, in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. It was obvious he was taken aback by Gideon’s suggestion.

  ‘It would be absolutely lovely,’ Marietta jumped in, smiling hugely. ‘We haven’t had a vacation together for years, have we, Evan?’

  ‘No, Mom.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t get away from work,’ her father said, his eyes on her.

  ‘I can’t, at least not when you’re planning to be in Paris, when you’re touring around, visiting Normandy and such. But later on I think I can swing a long weekend.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ her father answered in a clipped fashion.

  Gideon said, ‘Shall we order? I’m not rushing you, but I do like to have a leisurely lunch on Sunday, don’t you, Mrs Hughes?’

  ‘I certainly do, Gideon, and please call me Marietta.’

  ‘I will, thank you very much.’

  ‘I know this is one of your favourite places, Gideon, Evan told me that. So what do you recommend?’ Marietta asked, looking at her daughter’s boyfriend, liking him a lot, liking his clean-cut good looks, his direct approach, his straightforwardness. She prayed Owen wouldn’t spoil things today by being grumpy and grudging with Evan, because she intuitively knew that these two were very much a couple, and that the relationship was extremely serious. But had Owen picked that up? She wasn’t sure.

  Gideon, studying the menu, looked up and smiled at Marietta. ‘I tend to have the same things all the time,’ he explained. ‘Usually smoked salmon or potted shrimps, something like that to start with, and then I?
??m afraid I always fall for what’s on the trolley, either roast lamb or roast beef.’

  ‘And Yorkshire pudding,’ Evan interjected. ‘However, Gideon says there’s only one place where they make real Yorkshire pudding and that’s Yorkshire.’

  Gideon laughed. ‘I’m prejudiced, I’m afraid, being a Yorkshireman born and bred. They do a sort of popover here and it’s very good, really it’s very good.’

  ‘I think I’ll have the roast beef,’ Evan said. ‘What about you, Mom? And Dad?’

  ‘The same,’ her mother answered.

  Owen nodded. ‘That’s my choice, too, and I’ll start with the Morecambe Bay potted shrimps.’ Looking at Marietta he murmured, ‘Why don’t you try them, dear?’

  ‘Thanks, Owen, but I’d prefer the asparagus. Cold with vinaigrette.’

  Once all of the orders had been taken, Gideon said, ‘Talking about Yorkshire pudding, I do hope you’ll come up to stay with my parents at Allington Hall, or perhaps at Pennistone Royal with my aunt, Paula O’Neill and her husband Shane. I know they’d love it.’ When there was no response from anyone, Gideon pressed on undeterred. ‘It’s such beautiful country, most especially the Dales where we all live. Have you ever been to Yorkshire?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Owen said without thinking, startling himself as well as everyone else. In order to cover his embarrassment at blurting this out, and wanting to cut off any further discussions about Yorkshire, he swiftly added, ‘I did quite a lot of touring around with my mother when I was a little boy. She wanted me to know her country. And so she took me up to Scotland, and also to Wales. She was Welsh, you know.’

  ‘So I’d heard,’ Gideon murmured, and gave Evan a sly look.

  Evan ignored Gideon; she was almost afraid to look at him in case she began to laugh. So instead she said to her father, ‘Fancy that, Dad, you are secretive! You never told me you’d toured the length and breadth of Great Britain. Did he tell you, Mom?’