Scandalous Secret, Defiant Bride, page 8
The shock that had blessedly anaesthetised her up until now began to dissipate and she realised that this was not a dream, nor a nightmare from which she might wake. This was real and she had to face it, acknowledge it. For the first time in her life she faced a crisis and was unable to rely on her parents or her brother or anyone else to shield her from the pain of it. But how could she survive this when her whole world had been torn apart?
It was the knowledge that the two people she loved most weren’t her true parents that hurt. They were everything to her. It was devastating to know this and that they had kept it a secret for all these years. She stared in silent astonishment, neither speaking nor moving for some seconds.
‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ she said at length, never having felt such wretchedness. Putting her hand to her head, she shook it dejectedly. ‘I need to think about it. Right now I can’t deal with it.’ Tears started to her eyes. ‘It—it’s so hard.’
‘We want what’s best for you, Christina. We always have.’
Christina stopped pacing the carpet and looked at her brother, who had remained silent since coming into the room. She could see that he had the best of both his parents, but there was a strength in his features that was lacking in theirs. For the first time in her life she realised how very different she was from her brother, not only in colouring but in temperament. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? But then she’d had no reason to, wrapped as she had been all her life in a beautiful, uninterrupted dream.
But all that had been wiped out in a moment and now, as she looked at her brother, with tears not far away Christina found herself feeling strangely isolated and different, as if she didn’t belong. From his expression it was plain that Peter was as anguished as she was, as bereft as she was.
‘Peter, I realise how difficult all this must be for you also. One minute you have a sister who has grown up with you, and the next—’
‘I still have a sister, Christina,’ Peter said fiercely, springing to his feet, close to tears himself. ‘Nothing has changed—and despite our differences I love you dearly. This is your home. It always has been and it always will be, and I will support you in whatever decisions you make regarding your future.’ Seeing the tears glistening on Christina’s lashes, he held out his hand. ‘Come, you are upset, and rightly so.’
Ignoring his hand, Christina straightened and flung her head from side to side. ‘Upset? Peter, you can’t possibly know how upset I am. I am devastated.’ Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she turned from them. She had to be alone. Another minute and her control would crack. ‘I’m going to my room. I must be by myself. I have to think.’
When she turned and darted for the door in a flurry of skirts, Peter was about to go after her until his father also rose and gripped his arm.
‘Let her go, Peter. You know what she’s like. Christina’s headstrong, impetuous nature has always given us cause for concern, but she is sensible and I know she will go away and think deeply about what she’s been told. Do as she says. Better that she is left alone for now. Later we will discuss the implications of her birth.’
Peter stared at him, bewilderment clouding his eyes. ‘Implications? You—you mean there is more?’
His father nodded gravely. ‘Oh, yes, there is, Peter—a great deal more; if you think her reaction to being told she is adopted is severe, then what we have to tell her is far worse and I fear how she will take it.’
Chapter Four
With her mind stumbling over itself and her head spinning, Christina rode her horse hard in an attempt to make sense of what she had just been told. Emotionally confused, she didn’t know how to deal with the enormity of what had transpired and she needed to be alone so she could keep a firm grip on herself the only way she knew how, for if she did not she would go completely to pieces. She couldn’t stand the pain of it, knowing the two people she loved and trusted most in the world were not her parents. The situation was not to be borne. The problem was insurmountable.
The countryside was drenched with the earlier rain and sparkled beneath the heat of the sun. Lazy white clouds in the blue sky were being carried along on a slight breeze. The ride helped and she began to feel better, but the hurt and pain in her heart was still sharp and she knew it would be a long time, if ever, before it would leave her. Slowing her horse to a trot, she found herself heading in the direction of Max’s house.
Max Lloyd had a strange and strong effect on her—he invaded her consciousness, and took over her mind. She found it hard to explain because it was something she had never experienced before. The way he had of looking at her, and the way he had kissed her, was a new and very powerful and profound thing. That something was happening against her will she knew, but with this new devastation she had ceased to think about Max Lloyd since her parents had arrived home.
Always one to be in control of her emotions, she fought her feelings, telling herself she didn’t want to see him, even going so far as to ride in the opposite direction from his house when she reached it, but there was some strange and mysterious pull drawing her back. When Lorenzo opened the door and let her in, when Max Lloyd gave her that knowing look of his and half-smiled at her, the resolve melted away.
They looked at one another across the hours that had gone by since they had parted—to Christina, after all that had transpired in the meantime, it seemed like an age. His dark hair was smoothly brushed back and he was freshly shaved. He smelled of cologne and, casually dressed, he looked immaculate.
Max studied her face, feeling a frisson of alarm as she looked up at him with a haunted, wild expression, and he sensed that tears weren’t very far away.
‘Come in, Christina. I am surprised. I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘How could you?’ she said, clutching her riding crop in her gloved hands. ‘I didn’t mean to come…’
He looked at her. ‘Then why did you seek me out, Christina?’
‘I—I don’t know—not really. I—like being with you, I suppose. You seem to know what I’m feeling. Perhaps that was why.’
Max noticed that she was measuring her words, and he began to realise that she had not come to him on a whim. ‘Thank you. That’s compliment indeed.’
‘There is something else. I—I have to talk to someone,’ she told him touchingly.
‘And you thought of me.’
‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind. I—know this is highly irregular, but I was desperate to get out of the house. Will—will you ride with me?’
‘I could do with some fresh air myself. Wait a minute while I saddle my horse.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Max sensed she wanted to be with him on common ground, adult ground. Something was wrong. He could sense the change in her.
‘Come,’ he said, mounting, having saddled his horse while she had quietly waited. ‘I like open spaces. We’ll ride away from here.’ Away from our thoughts and far too many emotions, he thought, all of them ungovernable while he was with Christina. He kicked the horse and cantered ahead of her along the path that led to the long sweep of open countryside beyond Tanglewood. There they gave their horses their heads, deriving tremendous satisfaction in the freedom of the ride.
‘Max, wait,’ Christina called when they had been riding for about fifteen minutes. ‘I find it difficult keeping up with you. My horse is more docile than your powerful stallion and I’ve already almost ridden her into the ground.’
Like a man in slow motion, when Max heard her call out he wrenched his horse round and waited for her to catch up, not realising he was so far in front.
When she drew up alongside him, Max gave her a worried look. ‘Christina, when are you going to tell me what is troubling you?’ He smiled wickedly. ‘It doesn’t by any chance have anything to do with what happened between us earlier, does it?’
She flushed and averted her eyes. ‘No, of course not, but—something has happened.’
‘Would you like to share it with me?’
Walking her horse on, she said slowly, ‘I suppose everyone will know soon.’ She looked at him directly, trying to hide the pain. He rode beside her, sitting easy in the saddle, as if resigned to a difficult discussion, but his gaze did not waver from hers as he waited for her to continue. ‘Max, have you ever lost someone—someone you loved very much?’
He nodded.
‘When?’
‘Once—when I was a child.’ His voice was very heavy suddenly. ‘It was a long time ago, but for a long time I thought about her every day. Contrary to popular opinion, I find that the passing of time and the dulling of grief have very little to do with one another.’
‘I’m sorry. You see, we have something in common. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me.’
‘I told you, I was a boy and I learnt to live with it, learnt what to do with the pain. Time does help, if not heal.’
‘Did the person die?’
He shook his head. ‘No, she was taken away.’
‘Then if you knew you were never going to meet again, that in itself must be like a bereavement.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was. But what is this, Christina? Have you lost someone close to you?’
‘In a way—you see, my parents have just told me that I am adopted, that I am not their daughter at all.’ She forced herself to sound calm and lucid, trying to keep a tight hold on her emotions.
Max’s eyes softened with understanding, and also something else that Christina couldn’t comprehend just then. ‘I see. I’m very sorry. I can understand how difficult it must be for you, knowing that.’
‘Do you really?’
‘Yes, but it shouldn’t change the way you feel about your parents.’
‘No, but knowing what they have done has hurt me terribly. I came to see you because you are the only person I could think of who has nothing to do with this—this unbelievable deceit that has been practised by my parents throughout my entire life.’
Apart from a tightening of his features, Max’s expression didn’t change, but inside he was feeling like the worst kind of fraud, for wasn’t he himself complicit in the deceit she spoke of? ‘Christina, would it not be better to discuss all this with your parents.’
‘No—not yet. I need to calm down first.’
‘Did they tell you anything else—apart from the fact that you are adopted?’
She looked at him sharply. ‘No. What else could there be? What could possibly be worse than that?’
He shrugged. ‘Why did they tell you now? Do they give a reason?’
‘No. All they said was that the circumstances had changed and I had to be told the truth.’
‘Then don’t you think you should have asked them what these circumstances are? Knowing you, Christina, you probably left with your rage flying high and with the story only half-told. For instance, did they tell you who your real parents were?’
She scowled darkly. ‘No. I don’t want to know.’
‘But you will have to—at some time. Better to get it over with, don’t you think? Once you have talked about it you can put it behind you and move on. Besides, have you given any thought to how your parents might be feeling now? Pretty wretched, I imagine.’ Watching her closely, he rode on in silence for a moment, letting his words sink in before he continued. ‘At this moment you are thinking only of yourself but, in fairness to your parents, I suspect they are blaming themselves for not telling you sooner. Giving you this dire news cannot have been easy for them, and I imagine they have been carrying a great burden of guilt with them for years.’
She felt herself drowning in remorse as the mere thought of what her parents might be suffering nearly broke Christina’s fragile grip on her control. ‘I never thought of it like that,’ she said bleakly.
A faint crooked smile curved his lips. ‘That’s understandable. It’s natural that you would have been in shock at the time. I feel that the sooner you speak to them in a reasonable frame of mind, the better.’
Feeling better for having talked to him, Christina sighed. ‘Thank you, Max. Listening to some common sense has helped. I feel better already.’
Max looked at her for a long time, then he smiled. ‘How wise you are, Christina, for one so young. Come, we will ride a little further and then I will escort you back to the house.’
Something in his expression was warmly intimate and made Christina feel alarmingly alive in a way James had never made her feel. That was when it occurred to her that for the past few hours she hadn’t given James a thought, and that it no longer mattered.
Dusk had faded into twilight when Christina next saw her parents. They didn’t come down to dinner, but sent a message telling Christina and Peter they would take coffee with them in the drawing room afterwards. The meal was a subdued affair between brother and sister—which was how they still thought of each other and always would. Nothing could change that.
When Christina’s parents joined them, immediately she crossed to them and hugged them both, full of remorse and desperately wanting to make amends for her behaviour earlier.
‘I’m so sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have left you like I did, but I was terribly shocked by what you told me. I could never have envisioned anything like this—how could I possibly?’
Overcome with emotion, her father patted her shoulder and led his wife to the sofa, where they sat side by side, ignoring the coffee the maid poured for them before leaving them alone.
‘It’s just that I found it hard coming to terms with the fact that you were not who I thought you were, without being told about my real parents—who they were or where they came from. I didn’t want to know—not ever. They gave me away, so they mean nothing to me.’
Her father nodded slowly. ‘They didn’t give you away, Christina, but I can understand your reluctance to think about the people who shaped your life before we stepped in. Now you’ve had time to digest what we told you, have you become curious to know about your roots?’
‘A little.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I shall have to know some time. But no matter where I came from or who my real parents were, I shall always look on you as my mother and father. Nothing will ever change that.’
‘Why did you adopt Christina?’ Peter asked, wanting to get everything out in the open in order to understand it. As yet he was unable to take in the enormity of all this and what it would mean for Christina and the future.
‘After being blessed with you, Peter, your mother found she was with child once more. Having promised ourselves a trip to Italy to visit Lydia, Audine’s sister, we decided to go before the baby was born. But your mother had an accident—she tripped, falling down some stairs.’
‘Were you very badly hurt?’ Christina asked, full of concern for her mother.
‘Yes, I was,’ she said quietly. ‘Unfortunately I went into labour before my time and I lost the child—a girl—and I had to come to terms with the fact that there would be no more children.’
‘Understandably your mother was devastated and quite inconsolable,’ her husband said, taking his wife’s hand and holding on to it tightly. ‘Her sister—your mother, Christina—had also given birth to you, but tragically she died soon afterwards. She died before Audine had the chance to see her.’
Christina felt her mother’s anguish as if it were her own. ‘I didn’t even know you had a sister, Mama.’
‘No, we never told you or Peter. We thought it would complicate matters and lead you to ask questions we would find difficult to answer.’
‘When my real mother died, what happened to my father? Was he Italian?’ Her father nodded. ‘So, I am half-Italian. I don’t think I look Italian.’ Christina looked down at herself, as if she might have changed somehow. ‘Why did I not remain with my real father?’
‘There were—complications. When your mother saw you and held you in her arms, she wanted to keep you—we both did. When we expressed a desire to bring you back to England there were no objections, but…we had to adhere to certain conditions—one of them being that your true identity must not be kept from you.’
‘We agreed to the conditions,’ Audine told her daughter, ‘but as time passed we could not bring ourselves to tell you. You were as much our child as if I had conceived you, and every day we have lived with the knowledge that one day something would happen—that—someone, would come to claim you—to take you away. But as time went by and nothing was heard—we began to hope. Please don’t be angry, Christina. Your father and I loved you from the beginning. We were devoted to you, and that devotion has never faltered.’
Christina frowned. Something they had said puzzled her. ‘Why were you afraid that I would be taken away? Who did you expect to claim me? Who were you afraid of?’
‘Christina,’ her father said, suddenly uneasy, ‘there is something else we have to tell you, but we are waiting for a visitor. There is one other person who should be here—someone who insisted on being present.’
Before Christina could voice a question the door opened and Max Lloyd entered the room. Christina’s eyes widened in surprise and she stared at him, bewildered and curious as to why he was present.
He inclined his head. ‘Lady Thornton, Lord Thornton. I apologise if I’ve kept you waiting.’ His gaze briefly settled on Christina where she sat beside her brother, the graceful folds of her simple dark blue dress falling about her. Her face was pale and lovely and her gleaming dark hair had been pulled back into a fat chignon, her skin held tightly against the beautiful bones of her face. With the absence of bright colours, the severity of her dress and hair gave her a grace and serenity he would never have thought her capable of when he had first seen her cavorting in the lake.
‘Mr Lloyd, earlier today Christina learned that she is our adopted daughter. My husband and I have also told her about her parentage—that her father was Italian. Since you expressed a wish to be present when we told her of her inheritance, we thought it best to wait. Thank you for coming at such short notice.’
