After a restless, haunted night, Victoria slid out of bed and padded to the window. Opening it, she leaned out, desperate to breathe some fresh air after a night in this stuffy atmosphere.
A grey dawn lent a pearly luminescence to the grounds of Darkhaven. Oak, chestnut and ginkgo trees reared above the shawl of mist clinging to the earth.
She took a slow, deep breath and caught the distinctive smell of horses and stables sharp on the chilly air. She could hear stable boys exercising horses on a sand track, and the familiar sound brought back memories of home, and with it a pang of homesickness. Voices grew louder as riders swept close to the homestead at one point, the thunder of galloping hooves echoing eerily in the fog.
She sighed, a sound filled with longing.
God, I miss the horses.
Now that she lived in town and could no longer ride every day, the once familiar smells and sounds were akin to torture. Surely no-one would care if she went to the stables. She dressed in jeans soft with wearing, and sturdy sneakers that would serve as riding boots in a pinch. She pulled on a fleecy shirt of dusky rose before unbraiding her hair and giving it a vigorous brushing.
The soft brown curtain of her hair almost concealed her body, and with the deftness that comes with a lot of practice she rebraided it, the intricate plait reaching midway down her back. Somewhere a clock chimed six. It was too long to wait for breakfast so she slipped downstairs and went in search of the kitchen, only to find it already alive with activity.
‘Could I make a cup of tea?’ Victoria asked hopefully.
The housekeeper turned sharply, a hand clutching her ample breast. ‘My, but you gave me a fright. You’re up with the sparrows. Mr Keir’s having tea in the breakfast room. I’ll fetch another cup. He won’t mind if you join him.’
I wouldn’t bank on that.
Victoria followed the woman, and Keir, clearly startled by the interruption, stood as she entered the room.
‘You’re an early riser.’ His dark eyebrows climbed with surprise. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
‘If it won’t disturb you?’ She hesitated, not wanting to precipitate another clash.
‘Just being in the same house does that.’
Heat crept up her cheeks and for a moment she hovered on the brink of flight.
‘Sit down,’ he growled, pulling out a chair. When she sat down, he followed suit. ‘Milk?’
‘Please.’ She added sugar, and too aware of his scrutiny, concentrated on stirring her tea rather than meet his shrewd eyes.
‘Was your hair always that long?’
The unexpected question made her splutter and cast him a dark look. ‘You know it wasn’t. After my mother died I never had it cut, and then my hairdresser persuaded me to keep it long.’
‘A man of sense.’
‘What makes you so certain it was a man?’ His smug words irritated her.
‘A man understands how sensual a lover finds long hair on a woman.’ He chuckled when fiery colour flooded her cheeks. ‘Will you unbind it for me?’
‘No.’ She looked at him in chilling reproof. ‘Are you forgetting your fiancée again?’
His black brows descended and dark eyes glittered with irritation. Her breath lodged in her throat as she stared at him in horrified fascination.
Connor wore that exact expression when he was out of temper.
‘Why are you staring at me like that? I won’t harm you. What sort of animal do you think I am?’
There were no words to explain and she shook her head, eyes burning. Unless she confessed, he couldn’t understand. And while she was a guest here in his father’s house there was no way she would admit to being the mother of his child. There were already far too many baffling undercurrents swirling around the people who lived here.
‘I’ve never thought of you like that. Ever!’
His anger ebbed and his wide shoulders drooped. This fleeting glimpse of vulnerability left her uneasy.
He pushed away from the table. ‘I’m going for a walk. This house gives me claustrophobia. Do you want to come?’
So I’m not the only one who feels it.
Did she want to spend time with him? One part of her mind clamoured a fervent yes, but the cautious part remained wary and hesitant. What the hell—she looked at him and nodded.
‘It’s cold out, have you a warm jacket?’
She did, but it was upstairs and she was loath to break this moment, afraid he’d withdraw the tentative invitation. ‘I’ll be okay.’
‘There are plenty of jackets in the mud room, come with me and I’ll get you one.’
As she followed him she wondered if she’d completely lost her mind.
He pulled a jacket from the coat stand and held it for her to slip into. His hand brushed her neck as he settled the collar around her throat and flicked her braid outside the coat.
At his touch, a shiver goosestepped across her skin.
For one timeless moment he framed her face with big hands, and then with a muttered imprecation he stepped aside and opened the door for her to precede him.
She took a long, slow breath when she stepped out into the crisp winter dawn. The fluttering sensation in her belly was warning enough of quiescent hormones surging back to vibrant life.
I definitely do not need this reminder now.
Her pulse tripped, the sound of it thrumming in her ears and all but drowning out the sound of the gravel crunching beneath their feet. Their breaths formed steam wreaths above their heads in the chilly air, and from here the stables appeared merely as grotesque shapes in the mist.
Keir was first to break the silence. ‘Logan and Dad are down at the stables.’
Should she tell him she was up so early in the hope that she could finagle a ride? She glanced his way and decided instead to use this unexpected meeting to gain a clearer understanding of the man who was her son’s father. What sort of influence would Keir have on her son? Twice last night, Keir’s display of volatile emotions made her too aware that he wasn’t the man she once thought she knew. Was she right to be worried?
‘You get on well with Logan?’
‘We’ve always enjoyed a close friendship. If you’re imagining that because we’re stepbrothers it’s a given that we hate each other, forget it.’
Wow. Where did that come from? The fierce words left her shaken.
‘I’ve never once thought that, and whenever Logan’s mentioned you, it’s been with amused affection. Do you feel the same way about your sisters?’
He growled. There was no other way to describe the guttural sound he made. He grabbed her arm and swung her to face him. His dark eyes glittered with supressed emotion that caught her off guard.
‘What the hell do you know about my sisters?’
Bewildered, she shrugged, lifted her hands then let them fall. ‘Nothing, except that you have three of them.’
‘Half-sisters. Who told you about them? Logan wouldn’t, he’s too damn loyal.’
‘Your father told me.’
‘Dad told you?’ His eyes glittered with anger and betrayal.
Upset by his reaction and unsure as to the cause, she weighed her words carefully. ‘Your father mentioned in passing last night that you had sisters.’
‘Were you surprised?’
She nodded, unsure where this conversation was heading.
‘Then I guess you can imagine how I felt when I discovered I even had sisters.’
Victoria stopped abruptly and stared at him in horrified disbelief. ‘You’re kidding me? Right?’
‘Wrong.’ His stern lips twisted in a cynical smile. ‘I discovered that my mother, who supposedly died when I was a child, was not only very much alive, but she also had another family.’
Horrified, Victoria laced her fingers through his, not surprised by his reaction. ‘That’s just plain wicked! How could your parents do that to you?’
‘Very easily, it seems.’
Keir has an uncompromising honesty, a way of looking at you, judging you …
Sheesh! If Caine Donovan had kept a secret of this magnitude, it was small wonder he felt uncomfortable around his son. Something in Keir’s careful tone made her suspect that he’d not shared this with many people, and the wound was so obviously a painful one.
‘How old were you when you learned that your mother was alive?’
‘Seventeen.’
She winced. Life was difficult enough at that age, what with hormones racing around your body, and trying to find your feet in an adult world. Who needed to have the foundations of their life ripped out from under them as well? ‘Why did your mother leave, do you know?’
‘She ran off with another man, but at four I didn’t understand. I was told she’d died.’
‘And of course you believed it.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Keir’s flat, toneless words revealed far more than he realised. His grimace tore at Victoria’s heart. They continued walking, hands entwined, and a sideways glance through the screen of her lashes caught his unguarded expression. His raw vulnerability made the breath catch in her throat.
‘That’s just plain wrong on so many levels. No matter what happened between your parents, you had an inalienable right to know your mother.’
‘Yeah, well, nobody gave Dad or Muriel that memo.’
His venomous tone made Victoria sure that Keir’s regard for Logan didn’t extend to his stepmother … there’s nothing charming about Muriel; forget that at your peril.
So Keir’s warning was serious. It wasn’t at all comforting to know that her instincts about the woman weren’t too far off the mark.
‘That was an enormous lie.’ She paused, looking up at him. ‘Surely anyone would know such pretence could be blown out of the water at any time?’
‘You’d think so, but I suspect that to Dad and Muriel when they orchestrated that situation, it was very much out of sight, out of mind.’
Caine Donovan didn’t strike Victoria as stupid. Surely he must have known that such a lie carried a high risk of exposure. Did he never pause to anticipate Keir’s reaction?
Who am I to judge Caine? I’m keeping just as big a secret from Keir. His son.
‘I guess.’
Keir kicked a stone onto the grass verge. ‘Why should they be concerned about the rights of the child?’
Keir’s cold, hard words made her breath hitch in her chest. Did he suspect about Connor? Would he pick up on her guilty thoughts? ‘Regardless, it’s still wrong.’
Here’s my chance. Tell Keir about Connor.
Not while we’re guests under his father’s roof.
Coward!
As she debated, Keir edged her to the right of a huge plane tree and they veered down another path in the extensive gardens.
‘Intellectually, I know you’re right, but practically, given Muriel’s hatred of my mother, I can understand the lie.’
‘How can anyone justify such dishonesty?’
Listen to me, hypocrite that I am!
For one moment, Victoria was tempted to blurt out the truth, but fear of Keir’s reaction squelched the urge. Would their lives be different had Keir been honest with her that summer?
He looked at her, his expression wry. ‘You’re right, of course. Lies are usually found out.’
The abrupt change in the conversation, and their past, swerved toward them.
Victoria turned on him, pent up emotions finding relief in anger. ‘Tell me about it! Why did you let me think your name was Seth Donahue?’
He had the grace to look very uncomfortable. ‘At first, it was merely a ploy, one I’d been forced to use many times before, but in my defence, my mother did always call me Seth.’
My mother calls me Seth Donahue. That’s what he’d told her that long-ago summer. Only it was Donovan not Donahue.
‘Why would she call you by a different name? Why not Keir?’
They continued walking, her hand small and secure in his. Keir’s boots crunched on the gravel, the sound loud in the early morning quiet. It seemed to Victoria that even the birds were silent, awaiting his answer.
‘A major difference of opinion.’ He looked at her and shrugged. ‘My mother disliked the name Keir, and my father hated Seth.’
His matter-of-fact words left Victoria speechless. Whatever were his parents thinking, to put any child in the middle of such an awful tug-of-love? Didn’t they know how damaging such a stance would be to a young child?
‘That’s dreadful.’
‘By the time I met you I’d become adept at protecting my identity.’
‘Why would you need to do that?’
‘Donovan money garners attention, and not in a good way.’
‘You thought I was attracted to your money?’
‘After seeing that floozy of a cousin of yours—’
Heat flooded Victoria’s entire body in searing humiliation as another memory leaped out of the closet.
Mortified, she watched Susan cross the gravel in a skimpy bikini, just short of indecent.
Victoria cringed with shame. Her father would have a stroke if she wore anything as revealing as Susan’s outfit. A tiny square of cloth over her front and bottom was held by a narrow cord at the sides, and her top barely covered her nipples.
When Susan laid a hand on Seth’s arm, jealousy, hot and painful, sat like a lead ball in Victoria’s gut.
‘You gorgeous hunk,’ Susan’s shrill voice turned heads from every direction. ‘You have my country cousin panting with desire.’
When Seth looked in her direction, Victoria wished for nothing more than the ground to open up and swallow her.
Whole.
What could she say? Susan had acted the trollop, and suddenly Victoria fully understood Keir’s reticence. How could he know in the beginning that she was any different?
‘You’re not responsible for your cousin. What’s the voluptuous Susan doing now?’
‘She’s married with three pre-schoolers, is the perfect wife and mother, and a veritable paragon. I’m now the family pariah.’
This role reversal still jarred Victoria. It was Susan who’d acted the trollop, but it was Victoria who’d ended up pregnant. It was so very clichéd.
‘So what have you done to put you on the out with your family?’ he asked, his expression laser sharp.
Oops!
Too late, Victoria saw the trap. With a dismissive shrug, she turned away, her mind racing. Any conversation with Keir was filled with potholes. She was afraid she’d step in one, and when she did—
Keir caught her arm and gently turned her to face him. ‘What’s happened in your life?’
‘Apart from leaving home and starting my own business,’ she said, weighing her words carefully, ‘not a lot.’
If I don’t take into account raising this man’s son, alone.
‘You own Victorian Grace?’
‘My mother left me some money and I used it as seed money to start my business.’
‘Yet you had such big plans—a lucrative scholarship, university, get your degree in finance, and then you planned to travel overseas.’
She was embarrassed to be reminded about how she’d shot her mouth off. Big time.
Now, she needed to mentally sift the past and edit out any revealing details. Of one thing she was absolutely certain: Keir Donovan was no fool. The last thing she wanted to do was raise his suspicions about her life, hell, about anything.
Then why am I walking with him this early in the morning, hand in hand? Talk about sending mixed messages.
Guilt had her pulling her hand free of Keir’s and pushing both her hands deep in the pockets of the borrowed jacket. ‘Plans and people change. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Working with flowers gives me such joy.’
While not her first choice, floristry satisfied a creative urge that she didn’t know she possessed. It provided a home for her and Connor and enabled her to schedule her work around his care, but most of all it gave her the means to escape her father’s censure and domination.
She shivered. The fierce battle she’d waged with her father over Connor still held the power to wound. When he flat out demanded she give up her baby for adoption and resume her university scholarship, Andrew Scanlan had underestimated Victoria and her determination. Nothing and no-one could coerce her into relinquishing her child, but again, this wasn’t something she could explain to Keir.
‘Your plans changed too, Keir. You went to America. What happened to your ambition to take over the family firm?’
His glance roved across her face and Victoria felt heat seep into her cheeks.
‘I needed to escape,’ Keir said, an undercurrent of hostility in his voice. ‘The family pressure at Donovans was killing me. An overseas post and the chance of gaining wider experience was by far the easiest way out.’
‘And yet, here you are back at the helm of the family company.’
‘Yes, here I am, older and infinitely wiser.’
Startled by his harsh tone, Victoria glanced upwards and caught his expression. For a moment she saw on his face an emotion so raw it hurt to see and she averted her eyes.
In a moment of clear-sighted perception, Victoria knew that some shattering event had brought Keir back to New Zealand, and home to a family he clearly held in contempt. Something—or was it someone—had changed and hardened him. Was this why he was prepared to settle for marriage to a woman as cold as Davina Strathmore?
He looked so—she searched for the right word—alone.
A state of aloneness wasn’t usually associated with a man on the brink of marriage.
Loneliness was something with which she was well acquainted. Caring for her child without the support of a mate or her family was a very lonely task. She often thought that just living was the most difficult undertaking of all.
They continued walking, each engrossed in their own thoughts. Victoria was surprised at the ease with which they’d slipped back into the comfortable rhythm of conversation and easy silences. But the burgeoning sense of intimacy was enough to make her nervous.
From the moment Connor was born, Victoria had decided she was never going to lie to her son. Now, after listening to Keir, she was thankful that she’d refused to go along with her father’s suggestion that she tell Connor his father was dead.
Had I done so I’d look pretty silly right about now.
Victoria snorted and the sound caught Keir’s attention.
‘What is it?’ He tilted his head and looked at her, one eyebrow quirked.
She smiled and shook her head at this further trait he shared with his son. Had Logan guessed the connection? Was that why he’d badgered her into this weekend visit?
Uncomfortable under Keir’s scrutiny, she grasped at the thought uppermost in her mind. ‘Caine probably thought he was acting for the best.’
‘Whose best?’ He turned, catching her shoulder with one hand. ‘Certainly not the best for a grieving child.’
That was unanswerable.
‘How did you learn your mother was still alive?’ she asked, now very curious.
As he struggled to frame an answer, a thrush serenaded the morning from high in the treetops. Fingers of sunlight crept over the hills, turning the floating mist into a moving cottonwool shroud as they walked. The crunch of Keir’s boots on the gravel and rotting leaves was strangely soothing.
‘I met my mother quite by accident,’ he said at last.
Victoria sensed the words cost him an enormous effort. ‘Where?’
After one quick glance in her direction, he concentrated his attention on the path beneath their feet. ‘I was staying with a mate for the school holidays and one afternoon his girlfriend arrived at his place, accompanied by her mother.’
Victoria stopped and stared at him. ‘Your mother?’
He never answered, and when she looked up at him, she realised there was no need as his expression said it all.
‘How did you know the woman was your mother after all those years?’
Keir stopped. His black brows were drawn together in a heavy frown, his clenched fists bulging in his trouser pockets, but his eyes betrayed him.
Victoria grappled with the uncomfortable knowledge that this memory was still powerful enough to hurt, something she was sure Keir would deny with his dying breath. In a moment of clear insight, she understood that the lies he’d been fed as a child had undermined his ability to trust and explained his lack of faith in women. Victoria ached to cradle him in her arms and soothe away this long-ago hurt.
‘Would you believe I remembered the smell of her perfume, of all things?’ Keir gave a bark of scornful laughter.
She laid a soothing hand on his arm and felt his tension. ‘Not so strange. The sense of smell is one of the strongest triggers of memory. So what did she do?’
‘After I confronted her, she tried to explain.’
‘Explain?’ The word exploded from Victoria and she stopped, staring at him in stunned disbelief. ‘How could anyone even try to explain such a wicked lie?’
‘Precisely.’ He rocked back on his heels, looking down at her. ‘And believe me, I was not in any mood to listen, and to my everlasting regret, I took my anger out on my friend’s home.’
‘I’m sure they understood.’
Such a discovery would throw anyone, let alone a teen already chock-full of testosterone-ridden angst just waiting for someone to light the fuse, and this was one hell of a fuse to ignite.
She shook her head. ‘Do you visit your mother and sisters?’
‘My sisters, yes. My mother, Elizabeth, not if I can help it.’ His lips twisted in a humourless smile. ‘Elizabeth is wary of me and my temper, but my friend’s family, the Courtneys, forgave me a long time ago.’
‘You were staying with them at Orere that summer?’
Keir surprised her by laughing. ‘My sister Beth married Rafe Courtney.’
Victoria stopped and stared at him, her eyes wide and her heart suddenly hammering like a wild thing. ‘Beth Ellison is your sister?’
‘She’s Beth Courtney now.’ His smile was one of pure, wicked devilment. ‘She was highly amused at my fascination with a golden-eyed witch so tiny I could have carried her off to my lair in one hand.’
Victoria scuffed a sneaker in the gravel. His words eased an ache in her heart that she hadn’t even realised was there. Knowing she hadn’t been mistaken, and that the explosive attraction they generated hadn’t been all one-sided, brought her a small measure of comfort. ‘Why didn’t you say something last night?’
‘Mention my sisters here? You have to be joking. Muriel would throw a fit. As for Dad—’ He broke off and spread his hands.
‘You don’t get on with Caine?’
‘We do okay as long as we stick to our own interests.’
Victoria caught a disturbing undercurrent in Keir’s voice. Would she ever make sense of or understand the dynamics of this family, her son’s family? There were so many strange, contradictory vibes that she was thoroughly confused.
‘So why come back?’
He gave her a scorching look. ‘Unlike my father, I have some respect for tradition. Donovans has been a family concern for four generations and it was set to disappear. The CEO was stepping down and Dad wanted out.’
‘I get the impression he’d sooner have his horses.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ He aimed a kick at an inoffensive clump of grass. ‘And Donovans was no longer his cash cow.’
His hostility and bitterness was enough to worry Victoria. Would knowing this family damage Connor?
Keir looked up at her and gave a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you by dumping all that on you.’
‘You didn’t. I take it Caine has never run the family firm?’
‘He fell out with Grandpa early on. Until Grandpa’s death there was always a Donovan at the helm. I couldn’t stand by and watch my father destroy such a longstanding family heritage.’
‘And that mattered?’
‘More than I realised.’
It was a surprising admission. She’d never picked Keir as a man to be swayed by sentiment or family loyalty, but there was no way she could mistake this comment for anything else. ‘So you came home to save Donovans? The prodigal son.’
He glanced at her, and his brooding expression made Victoria suspect that something other than Donovans weighed heavily on Keir’s mind. ‘Why not? There was nothing holding me in the States. My marriage was over and I was tired of the madness that was New York.’
The words slipped between her ribs as sharp as any knife.
‘Married?’ Stunned, she stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. ‘You’ve been married?’
‘Why are you surprised?’ he asked with a decided bite. ‘I’m a normal heterosexual male.’
How could she answer? Jealousy and disillusionment fought for supremacy in her heart. While her life had become very circumscribed, Keir obviously had few qualms at getting on with his.
‘What happened? Why did your marriage end?’
His silence lasted so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He rocked back on his heels and looked at her. ‘It’s not important.’
And she knew he’d lied.
Again.