Accidental Mistress, page 13
Peter gave her a strained look. ‘Oh, no, she was adopted by a New Zealand couple.’
Seeming to suddenly need something to relieve his tension, he picked up a piece of the crunchy, low-calorie chocolate slice Emily had made to have with their coffee and began nibbling at it as he told her the story his investigators had put together.
There had been a huge cyclone and terrible floods, and the whole region had been in chaos when Carol had given birth. She had been hiding at a refugee camp under another name, having fled her drug-dealing friends, afraid of what they’d been planning to do to her baby. She’d had infected wounds from a beating and had begged for help from the two idealistic young Kiwi aid workers who had been with her for the difficult birth, a man and wife who, when they had later found her delirious and dying, had ended up smuggling her daughter out of the country as their own. Carol had only ever told them her first name, and that she had no family, perhaps in the hope that would more incline them to keep whatever promises they had made to the dying girl.
Emily listened to the tale with a puzzled air, until he mentioned the date of his granddaughter’s birth. She drank from her rapidly cooling coffee, trying to ignore the strange ringing in her ears. She had a horrible feeling that Peter’s strange looks were now explained, and that his benevolence had not been a simple case of friendly concern. ‘What a coincidence—that’s when I was born,’ she said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘And my parents were in Indonesia on flood relief work, too…’
‘It wasn’t a coincidence, Emily.’ Peter had obviously decided it was time to stop beating about the bush. ‘Your parents were the ones who adopted Carol’s baby. You’re my granddaughter.’
‘But I can’t be!’ she said firmly, looking at him with deep compassion for his mistake. Oh, God—Ethan had been right all along to insist that there was a lot more to Peter’s kindness than met the eye. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. It’s not me. It can’t be—I’m not adopted.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, taking another bite of his comfort food, using the grinding motion of his jaw to conceal his trembling mouth. ‘Because I have reports—’ He gave a little cough.
‘Oh, dear—I just assumed your parents would have told you—’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she cut in. ‘I’ve seen my birth certificate. And you’re right, they would have told me.’
And if Peter had been her grandfather, that would mean that James Quest hadn’t been—and yet he had constantly talked of the continuation of his skilled trade through the family line, of his satisfaction at being able to pass on his heritage to his son’s child. She didn’t believe he would have put the same emphasis on their relationship if she had been adopted.
‘Unless they felt they had a compelling reason not to—’
Like a promise to a dying woman?
He was growing increasingly agitated, but she couldn’t let him go on believing something that wasn’t true just because she didn’t want to upset him.
An hour later her emotions were still in a gigantic knot as Ethan burst through the lounge doors and strode over to his uncle, lying propped up by cushions on the couch, a light mohair blanket over his lap.
‘What in hell happened? Are you all right?’ He glared at the doctor. ‘Was it a heart attack, Mike? Why isn’t he in hospital?’
Emily stared at him as he wrenched impatiently at his black tie, stripping it off and shedding his close-fitting jacket onto a side chair as the doctor placed his blood-pressure monitor back into his large bag, and soothingly explained that there was no need for hospitalisation, that it had been a simple case of choking, and Mr Nash’s lungs were now perfectly clear.
‘If it was so simple, what are you doing here?’ Ethan demanded sharply. ‘And why am I missing the last Act?’
Emily whirled and looked accusingly at Dylan, who expressed helplessness with his hands. ‘You called the doctor,’ he murmured. ‘I had to do something, so I sent a text to Ethan. He would have eaten me alive if I hadn’t let him know something was up.’
Ethan’s head had swung round as he heard Dylan’s voice. ‘“Uncle had turn. Doctor on way,’’’ he quoted angrily. ‘Do you think I was going to sit there and enjoy the rest of the ballet after reading that?’
‘You left your phone switched on at the ballet?’ commented the doctor with the ease of familiarity. ‘You’re a brave man, that’s all I can say.’
Ethan speared him with a look. ‘I had it on vibrate. I tried to call, but I kept getting an engaged signal and you weren’t answering your cell,’ he accused Dylan.
‘I must have left it in the other room, and maybe the land-line receiver wasn’t put back properly after the phone call to Mike. There was a bit of a panic on,’ Dylan defended himself, and Emily too. ‘You know what Uncle Peter’s like, he was insisting he was OK, but Emily was concerned that there might be something else wrong—he did look rather grey and his chest was pretty wheezy. Emily had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, she says, and she was worried she might have broken a rib…’
‘So you weren’t here when it happened?’ Ethan’s gaze switched to Emily, who was sure she looked a picture of guilt. Ethan had driven all the way back from town in his current state of anxiety? He could have had an accident, she thought wretchedly. Why had Dylan done it? He had been the one telling Emily she was overreacting!
‘I was in my room, making a few calls—’ Dylan said, as Peter interrupted croakily.
‘For goodness’ sake, Ethan, calm down and let poor Mike get back to his family.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Doc, don’t forget to send us the bill,’ grinned Dylan, and the doctor eased himself past Ethan, patting him on his stiff shoulder.
‘He’s perfectly fine for his age and condition, Ethan, but it was good for me to come and check him out, just to make sure. Honey and lemon will help his sore throat, and he should try not to talk too much for a day or two. He just gave himself a bit of a fright.’
‘He apparently gave us all one,’ said Ethan.
‘Yes, well…it’s you who’ll be in danger of a heart attack if you don’t learn to control that type-A personality of yours. Maybe you should take up yoga.’
‘Are you going to bill us for that little piece of medical insight, too?’ said Ethan, sending him sarcastically on his way before looking back down at his uncle.
‘Exactly what did he choke on?’ When Peter opened his mouth he held up a warning finger. ‘No, not you, you’re not supposed to talk. I was asking Emily.’
Peter subsided gratefully, and Emily moved over by the couch to admit: ‘It was a bit of chocolate slice.’
She was trying to act normal but she was acutely aware of the need to step around the invisible elephant in the room, the subject that she and Peter had barely begun discussing when he had suddenly started choking.
‘Chocolate?’ The word was redolent with criticism.
‘He’s allowed treats. It was low-fat and I used sugar substitute, and it had almonds for his heart,’ Emily said, pressing her lips together as she became conscious that she was gushing.
A flash of sequins caught her eye and she noticed for the first time the woman who had followed Ethan into the room. Or perhaps glided would be more apt because she seemed to float rather than walk. To Emily’s chagrin, she was even more beautiful than her advance publicity had implied. Tall and ultra-thin, her blonde hair caught up into a smooth chignon, she wore a full-length dress of dark green silk organza, with sweeping skirts, the see-through bodice strategically beaded and lace-embroidered because there was obviously no need for a supportive bra.
Emily immediately felt like beggar-maid in her print shirtdress and espadrilles. Her nose was probably shiny, too, and her hair still standing on end.
Ethan noticed that she was trying not to stare and made a barely civil introduction, obviously impatient to get back to the matter in hand.
‘Carly Foster, this is Emily Quest—you may remember I told you about her…’
They had talked about her? Emily’s skin crawled as she suffered the fleeting touch of an ethereal hand and managed a brief smile in answer to a polite greeting. In the interests of fairness, Carly should have had a voice like Donald Duck, but fate proved unkind and her tone was as flawlessly smooth as her beautifully tanned skin, her dark brown eyes disturbingly resentful.
‘And, of course, Dylan you know,’ Ethan added in a voice so dry it crackled, waving at his brother, lounging against one of the room’s decorative pillars.
‘All too well,’ murmured Carly sweetly, but Emily supposed it was a measure of Dylan’s dislike that for once he didn’t bother with a teasing comeback, merely shrugging in a silent ‘whatever’.
‘So you were just sitting here eating quietly and he suddenly choked.’ Ethan had returned like a dog to his meaty bone. ‘That doesn’t sound like Uncle Peter. He doesn’t bolt his food; he’s usually a very fastidious eater.’
‘Not here, we were at the table in the dining room, talking and looking at photos—’
‘Photos of what?’
‘You on a bearskin rug, probably,’ chimed in Dylan. ‘You know, the ones showing those cute dimples on your—’
‘Dylan, shut up,’ growled Ethan for the second time that day.
‘Of people. Family. You know, just old photos…’ Emily trailed off, looking at Peter out of the corner of her eye, but he was lying limply back against the cushions, making the most of his indisposition. They had left the photographs on the table when she had leapt up to Peter, suddenly realising what his watering eyes and soundless gagging meant. Would Ethan notice that one, anonymous photo amongst many or see the resemblance that Emily had yet to convince Peter was only coincidental?
If Emily had been the ethereal type she could have put a hand to her forehead and feigned a swoon, but she was regrettably solid and didn’t think Ethan would buy it for a moment.
‘And what did you say you were talking about?’ He followed her sneaking glance and frowned. ‘Was he upset about something? Were you having some kind of an argument that set him off?’
Emily felt the invisible elephant’s hot breath on the back of her neck. ‘We weren’t arguing…’ But her equivocation cost her dearly, for he squared off in front of her, his shoulders blocking out everything but himself and the focused intensity of his gaze.
‘But you were having a disagreement about something, weren’t you?’ he rapped out. ‘What was it?’
Faced with a direct question, Emily quailed, unable to bring herself to utter an outright lie. She had thought she was done with damaging secrets. If she started lying to him now, she would lose all the ground she had gained with him this morning, and more…She would be tangling herself ever deeper in a family problem where she had no right to be.
Her hesitation stretched for an eternity, although it was probably only a few seconds. Suddenly she felt Peter’s icy fingers groping for her hand and squeezing it lightly, and shifted to see the open plea in his brown eyes. He was begging her not to expose his shameful secret to his family before he was ready to do so, not to humiliate him in front of Ethan and his lovely, sharp-eyed guest. He had only told Emily his story in the belief that she was his granddaughter. She had no right to betray knowledge gained through a false confidence.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you,’ she said quietly, squeezing Peter’s cold hand back in silent reassurance before tucking it under the folds of the lap blanket. ‘It’s something private, between Peter and I.’
Ethan had watched the brief clasp of hands with baffled annoyance; now he wrapped his fingers around Emily’s elbow.
‘Will you all please excuse us for a few minutes?’ he demanded pleasantly, whisking her out of the room and across the hall into the games room, where he backed her up against the side of the billiard table.
‘All right—what’s really going on?’
She looked at him in disbelief, her hands gripping the polished edge of the table behind her. ‘I just told you—I can’t talk about it.’
His dark brows drew down over his eyes, his granite jaw jutting as he moved closer, almost blinding her with the dazzling white of his broad shirt-front. ‘He can’t hear you from here,’ he said in a lowered voice, tacitly inviting her to lean on his strong shoulder. ‘Whatever you tell me, I won’t let it get back to him—’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ she said staunchly, seeing his tactic for what it was, an attempt to suborn her allegiance. She still couldn’t get her head around the disturbing set of coincidences and longed for an unbiased view, but she wouldn’t get that from Ethan. ‘It’s no good badgering me, I’m not going to tell you.’ Let Peter have that painful duty himself.
She made the mistake of looking straight up into the icy blue eyes and her foolish heart softened at the storming conflict she saw there. How could she condemn him for loving his uncle and caring deeply for his health and welfare? She knew all too well what it was like to be held at arm’s length by an old man’s pride. ‘He’s not gravely ill or dying, Ethan, if that’s what you’re worried about. He just has some…’ she hesitated ‘…some issues—about the past.’ she straightened her shoulders. ‘And that’s as much as you’ll get from me. If you have any more questions, you’ll have to address them to your uncle. But if I were you I’d let him do it in his own time.’
‘Oh, I see—you’re the family expert now, are you?’
She flinched and turned her head away, but he brought it back, his hand firm on her chin, tilting it so she couldn’t avoid his arrested look.
‘What? What did I say?’
‘Nothing.’ The chill that had invaded her when she’d thought Peter was having a heart attack had been replaced by a pervasive heat. Her heart quickened. She was supposed to be resisting him with every fibre of her being, she reminded herself, not aching to turn her cheek against his controlling hand.
He shook his head, chiding her for the blushing untruth. ‘Oh, Emily, you’re so—’
‘So what?’ she said, bracing for another attack.
‘Damned stubborn,’ he said, but it wasn’t an insult. His hand fell away but he still stood disturbingly close. ‘And loyal. To a fault. First your grandfather, now Uncle Peter.’ If only he knew the irony of his words. ‘When do I get my turn?’
His sudden gentleness was even more dangerous to her defences than his sharp perception. Her fingers dug into the wood behind her back. As he said, trust worked two ways.
‘Hadn’t we better be getting back to the others? Carly must be getting impatient—’
‘Carly can look after herself,’ he said, not budging.
‘That’s not very gallant,’ she said, trying to sound reproachful.
‘She’s not dating me for my gallantry.’
The sweet thrill in her veins soured. ‘How passive that sounds. I thought you were dating each other.’
‘We have a long-standing arrangement—’
‘Oh, so now it’s not a date, it’s an arrangement,’ she cut him off in a voice that dripped sarcasm, her blue eyes huge with disdain. ‘I suppose we could stand here arguing semantics all night, but I wouldn’t want you to miss your backstage party.’
‘It’s not my party. Carly’s a patron of the company—’
‘How wonderful for her.’ She tried to dodge past him but he placed his hands on the table on either side of her hips.
‘Emily, you don’t have to worry about Carly—’
‘It’s not tomorrow yet,’ she gritted at him, standing rigidly within the frame of his arms, her senses flaring at the proximity of his heated body. How could he dismiss the other woman so lightly when she was right there across the hall? ‘I still have a few hours of avoidance to go, and if you don’t mind I’d like to be free to enjoy them.’
He vibrated with a frustrated tension that gave her a furious charge, and she half expected him to kiss the scornful words off her lips and show her exactly what he knew she’d enjoy.
Instead he mastered his unruly impulses with an impressive display of self-control.
‘What do you really want from me, Emily?’ He asked the unanswerable question, and turned away without waiting for her response.
An angry little bomb exploded in her heart.
‘And, by the way, Emily,’ she said, putting on a deep, sarcastic voice: ‘I forgot to say this in my rush to find you guilty of neglect, but thank you for saving my uncle’s life tonight.’
He turned back with startling swiftness, yanked her close, and planted a short, hard kiss on her complaining mouth.
‘Thank you. You’re a heroine.’ His genuine gratitude took the furious wind out of her sails. ‘I wish I’d been here to see you in action.’
She wished it, too. If he’d been with them, she would still be living in comfortable ignorance.
She took a steadying breath. ‘What? And missed the men in tights?’
‘You’re spending too much time with Dylan. You’re even beginning to sound like him,’ he murmured, hustling her back to the lounge. ‘But I might have a remedy for that.’
When they walked into the room, Peter was looking apprehensively towards the door, while Dylan and Carly were off to one side holding a stiff conversation, their body language suggesting a mutual reluctance.
Emily threw a quick smile and shake of her head at Peter, which he interpreted with smothered relief, quickly throwing off his blanket and announcing that he was off to bed, testily fending off all offers of help.
‘I’ll just duck my head in once or twice in the night to make sure you’re still all right,’ Emily heard Ethan say. So he wasn’t planning on staying at Carly’s when he took her home, she thought with a pang of relief.
Ethan watched Peter limp away, then walked over to the other two protagonists. ‘I’m sorry, Carly, this has been a bit of a disaster, hasn’t it?’ he said, smiling wryly into her beautiful face. ‘You should have taken up my suggestion and stayed on without me.’
She looked at the glittering diamond bracelet on her wrist that Emily realised was a watch and began huskily, ‘Well, we could still make the after-party—but no…’ she shook her head, and not a strand of blonde hair escaped the perfect chignon. ‘Naturally, you won’t want to go out again—just in case. As a patron, though, I think I should go back to the theatre—so why don’t I just call a taxi, to save you a trip?’
