Penelope stared at her husband as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Graeme accused me of setting him up and working with the opposition to get him ousted from office,’ she said slowly. ‘He was furious. I told him it wasn’t true, but he didn’t believe me. And it was all because of you,’ she exclaimed. ‘How could you, Archie? You didn’t even know me!’
‘I loved you, Pen.’ Archie’s eyes met hers. ‘I can’t explain it, but I loved you from the second I laid eyes on you. I won’t apologize for what I did. I’d do it again.’
Longworth set his glass down. ‘I’m sorry, Penelope. I should’ve known you’d never have done something like that to me. But Archie made such a compelling case against you, I believed him.’
‘And so you made it plain to my mother that you wanted no part of her, or me,’ Colm finished evenly, his eyes fixed on Longworth. ‘And then she went away, and gave me up for adoption.’
‘Yes.’ Pen’s voice was a thread. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly.’
‘How did you end up here?’ Archie asked. ‘How did you track your mother down?’
‘Six months ago,’ Colm answered, ‘purely by chance, I saw an advert for a groundskeeper at Draemar.’ He lifted his gaze to Pen. ‘It was the perfect opportunity. I decided to apply for the post. With my beard and my scruffy clothes, I knew I’d not be recognized.’
‘Why didn’t you just knock on the door and tell me who you were?’ Pen asked. ‘Why the secrecy?’
‘Would you have believed me?’ he retorted. ‘Would you have thrown your door open to a complete stranger who looked like a street vagrant, claiming to be your long-lost son?’
Pen bit her lip. ‘Probably not,’ she admitted.
‘Initially it was about the money,’ he added, and shrugged. ‘I was bitter. I knew the Campbell family was wealthy. I wanted what I’d been denied all my life – a share of my rightful inheritance. I felt you owed me that much.’
‘Oh, Colm,’ she said, her expression indescribably sad. ‘I owe you so much more than what you got.’
‘But as I got to know my half-brother Tarquin, and Wren, and Archie... I began to feel like I belonged, for the first time since,’ he flicked a glance at Helen and away again, ‘for the first time in a very long while.’
‘What about you, Graeme?’ Pen asked suddenly, and turned back to her ex-lover, silently nursing his whisky. ‘Why did you leave London and come here with Archie? You couldn’t have known that Colm was living here at Draemar.’
‘Another, Longworth?’ Archie enquired as he stood and went to the drinks table by the door.
‘I will, thank you.’ The older man waited as Archie poured him another whisky, then took a sip. ‘To answer your question, Pen – no, I had no idea that Colm was here. I called Archie, and after several failed attempts – I couldn’t quite work up the nerve to speak, you see – I told him I was trying to locate my son.’
‘The strange phone calls,’ Helen exclaimed. ‘All the hang-ups. That was you!’
He nodded.
‘But why the sudden interest?’ Penelope wondered. ‘After all those years...’
He sighed. ‘Various reasons. But the catalyst was my wife, Anne. She died last month.’
Pen eyed him in sympathy. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. That must’ve been terribly difficult for you.’
‘It was.’ He set his whisky aside. ‘Eight months ago I was diagnosed with a tumour on my left lung. Malignant. They tell me I might have six months, possibly a bit longer. I’m in remission at the moment.’
‘How awful.’ She reached out and touched his hand.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve more or less made my peace with it. What else can one do? But facing my own mortality made me realize I had a huge wrong to right.’ He looked at his son.
‘If it’s forgiveness you want before you die,’ Colm shot back, ‘it’s too late.’
‘Colm,’ Helen chided, ‘perhaps you’re being a bit too hard on your father…’
‘No, I deserve it,’ Longworth said heavily. ‘I deserve every bit of his scorn. I have no right to expect anything else. After Anne died, I was obsessed with finding out what became of our baby.’ He fixed his gaze on Pen. ‘I wanted to find the child I’d asked you to,’ he took a deep breath, ‘to get rid of.’
‘Of course I didn’t do it,’ Pen murmured. ‘I couldn’t.’
He nodded. ‘I knew you wouldn’t. I imagined you’d given the baby up for adoption, and so I began a series of discreet enquiries, until I learnt that Colm was adopted by the McRoberts family.’
‘Why bother to find me after all this time?’ Colm demanded. ‘Are you planning to leave me your millions?’ he added scornfully.
There was a charged silence. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Graeme said finally, ‘I am.’