Kitabı oku: «The Outback Engagement», sayfa 3

“Don’t look so martyred. You’re not being thrown off.”

Darcy ignored him. “I am an experienced, responsible woman, not an idiot. I grew up on a cattle station unlike Courtney who doesn’t know a thing about it.”

“Spare yourself a lot of grief, Darcy,” Curt advised her. “Don’t fight your father on this. He’s determined on taking this course. His aim however much you disagree is to protect his fortune. Courtney mightn’t be as level-headed as you.”

“This document doesn’t even exist,” Darcy said hopefully.

“No, but Jock wants the lawyers back.”

“He could die at any time,” Darcy looked skyward. As if her father had already taken off on wings.

Curt sighed. “I’ll bet whatever you like he survives until after a carefully prepared will is drawn up.”

“I could argue he wasn’t of sound mind.”

“I doubt you’d get anyone to agree with you. I didn’t fly over here this morning to do your father’s bidding and in doing so anger you. Jock is set on his course. He has a perfect right to do whatever he wants with his money. And with Murraree. It’s a wonder he doesn’t want it sold up after he’s gone. He’s of the opinion he’s the last of the line. No woman could run the station on her own. It’s killing work. Your husband according to Jock might well be a waster.”

Reluctantly Darcy returned to her chair, a wash of tears over her eyes. “Maybe the reason for this decision is Dad is now reconciled to the notion I might end up marrying you?”

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” Curt said with a flash of contempt. “However, for all my unbridled lust which so frightened you, I never got around to asking you to marry me though I went to the city to buy you an engagement ring. Don’t look so shocked. Some fiancée you’d have made never trusting me. These days there are just too many suitable girls around without your problems and unresolved conflicts. But at a professional level I think we could work together very well.”

She blinked furiously, fighting the impulse to do something—anything—to relieve the intense pressure his admission had put on her. An engagement ring? My God! “I’m dead against this,” she said.

“Tell your father.” Curt was acutely aware of her sense of betrayal. “That’s if you’re prepared to thoroughly antagonise him. I hardly think Jock McIvor is the man to change his mind once it’s made up.”

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE middle of the broad flight of stone steps leading up to the homestead’s verandah, stood a small graceful figure.

Her sister.

A few feet behind her, impressively tall and elegant, Adam Maynard, the solicitor, his dark hair in the sunlight glossy as a crow’s wing. Adam had arranged the charter flight from Brisbane. He would be staying a few days. The young woman, enchantingly pretty, moved forward blindly. Tears flowed from her large azure blue eyes.

“Darcy!”

Darcy’s heart gave a great jolt that wasn’t apparent from her sober expression. It wasn’t hard to reconcile this lovely apparition with the image of the ten-year-old-girl Darcy carried in her head. Her sister, Courtney, was still the image of their mother.

Darcy put out her hand. “So you finally got here, Courtney?”

Courtney ignored the outstretched hand and the cool, regal demeanour. As a little girl she had adored her big sister. She ran up the steps and hugged her sister hard. “Oh, Darcy! Oh, Darcy!” she cried, like she had been drowning and Darcy was her saviour.

Though it cost her the greatest effort for she too was in a highly emotional state, Darcy remained enormously guarded. She gazed over her sister’s blonde head—she couldn’t have been more than five-two—at the lawyer. “How are you, Adam?”

“Fine, thanks, Darcy. And you?”

“A bit shaky. Dad’s life is hanging by a thread.”

“It must be very difficult for you, Darcy,” Adam said, feeling an uprush of sympathy for this gutsy young woman whom he had come to admire. At the best of times he found Jock McIvor a devious, controlling sort of man but clearly Darcy loved him so there had to be some good in him.

Adam stood there, allowed his perceptive dark eyes to record the momentous meeting of those two young women parted for so long. Physically they couldn’t have been more different. Darcy, taller than most women, slim as a reed, athletic, long shining dark hair pulled back in the familiar thick plait and those incredible slanting aquamarine eyes; her younger sister Courtney her blue eyes huge with tears as adorable as a Persian kitten with all a kitten’s cuddly charm. She should have been intimidated by her older sister’s manner—Darcy was on her home ground—but there wasn’t the slightest awkwardness about her. She appeared genuinely overcome by emotion, thrilled to be reunited with her sister.

It could, however, be an act, Adam found himself thinking cynically. He had seen a lot of duplicitous behaviour over the past years. Especially from the beneficiaries of wills. Remarkably Jock McIvor still clung to life, claiming he wouldn’t shut his eyes forever until he had seen his daughter, Courtney once more. This could be Courtney’s big chance to effect a highly rewarding reconciliation.

“Come in,” Darcy invited, extending her arm. She might as well have added, since you’re here. She glanced at her watch. “Curt is flying in. He should be here soon. There are matters he wants to discuss with you, Adam, I understand?”

“We do have things to discuss,” Adam confirmed looking back over his shoulder towards the jeep. A station hand had been detailed to drive them up to the homestead from the airstrip. Now this man with the bow legs of someone scarcely ever out of the saddle, was setting several pieces of luggage on the circular drive.

“Don’t worry about your things, Adam,” Darcy said. “Gordon will bring the luggage up to your rooms.” Darcy’s eyes touched on her sister briefly when she really wanted to stare and stare, familiarize herself with Courtney the adult. “Dad is anxious to see you the moment you arrive, Courtney. I expect you’d like to freshen up first?” She already looked as fresh as a newly sprung flower.

“Thank you, Darcy. My heart is pounding.” Courtney stared tentatively into the shadowy cool of the house. “I can’t believe I’m here. It’s like the recurrent dream I had for years. I still have it from time to time. But this is reality!”

For a fraction of a second Darcy felt like bursting into tears but she’d been too well trained. It would take quite a while for her to re-trust her sister again. “How many years is it?”

“An eternity,” Courtney replied, impetuously sliding her hand into her sister’s. Just like the old days, Darcy thought, stiffening against the warm soft pressure. “I’ve missed you all my life.”

Darcy needed all her strength to resist that gentle grasp. “You handled it,” she pointed out in a dry tone. “So what was the big problem? Did your mother forbid you to come out here? She might have been able to when you were a child. But you’re twenty-four.”

“All that wasted time,” Courtney acknowledged the resistance in her sister’s hand by letting it go. “The answer is simple, Darcy. Our father didn’t want me here. He made that very, very, plain.”

“Really? Haven’t times changed.”

“At the end people do change, Darcy,” Courtney said quietly. “The prospect of death is bigger than even Jock McIvor it seems. He must want to make amends.”

“It would seem so.” There was no bitterness in the way Darcy said it. In truth, though she was at great pains to hide it, she was trembling with emotion inside. Her little sister was lovely, immensely graceful, feminine in a way she could never be. Courtney wore a very chic white ruffled shirt with little insets of cotton lace and turquoise detail, turquoise cotton jeans with a pretty belt slung around her tiny waist. Her hair was cut medium short and brushed into a sunburst of curls around her small featured face. Her expression was as sweet as Darcy remembered. There was a purity about her that was extremely engaging.

Yet her sister had betrayed her, Darcy reminded herself. Who wouldn’t come running when they were offered a few million dollars?

“This is beautiful! You’ve gone to a lot of trouble.” Courtney wandered in a kind of dream around what had been her mother’s bedroom. Her parents had never shared the master suite. That had been their father’s exclusively not that their mother had been relegated to a lesser suite. Although this bedroom wasn’t as huge as the master bedroom it shared the same splendid view of the home grounds with the magnificent pink lady waterlily lagoon. It was filled with a collection of French furniture and many beautiful things that to Courtney’s dazzled eyes had never been moved since her mother’s time.

Sunlight streamed in from the verandah across the Aubusson rug, the soft silks and brocades, the Louis chairs, the pink roses in a porcelain vase.

“You’ve never used this room?” Courtney asked her sister gently.

“Why would I?” Darcy returned more sharply than she intended. It was because inside she was so upset. “I had to try to forget I had a mother. It was hard work.”

“Mum wasn’t the villain, Darcy.” Courtney hung her head. “She left here in despair. We both did.”

“You left though, didn’t you?” Darcy went on the attack. “You didn’t take me with you.”

“Don’t you think we paid for it?” Courtney moaned softly. “Dad was a dangerous man. Surely you’ll allow that? Mum was very fearful of him.”

“So how did she manage to get away? Not on her own, either. With you!”

The tears weren’t far from Courtney’s eyes. She couldn’t get over how beautiful her sister was. And how angry. “Mum told me right from the start she was only allowed to take one of us.”

“Naturally it was you,” Darcy said in a deeply disturbed voice. “The ten year old version of her mother.”

“Dad made the choice for her.” Courtney whispered it, as though it was too painful to be said out loud.

Darcy’s gem coloured eyes flashed. “I don’t believe that.”

“I believe Mum.” Courtney shook her golden head. “She was scared of him, Darcy. I remember he used to take out his temper on her. You must remember too, because you were the one who risked sticking up for her. Lots of people were scared of him. You saw him through different eyes. You could do all the things I couldn’t do. You were the one Dad wanted. Make no mistake about it.”

“That’s what your mother wanted you to believe.” Darcy lifted a shaky hand to rub at her temple. It wasn’t the time now to lose all faith in her father.

“She’s your mother too, Darcy.” Courtney reminded her.

“She’s a hard, uncaring woman!” Darcy said in ringing tones. “She threw me away like a rag doll when I most needed her.”

Courtney gave a profound sigh. “Mum must have been desperately unhappy in her marriage. We were too young to understand. Dad ruined life for her. She was in an awful situation. She believed she could get away with the two of us but Dad is a vengeful man. He must have convinced her he’d destroy her if she didn’t leave you behind.”

Darcy laughed that to scorn. “What was she so afraid of? He couldn’t commit murder.”

“Who knows what he had in mind,” Courtney said, obviously believing anything to be true. “I was a child, Darcy. Younger than you. I didn’t understand anything. I’d done nothing wrong.”

“Neither had I.” All these years she had borne the scars. Courtney, at least, had had the loving comfort of their mother. The gentleness, the female tenderness and sharing. Whatever her deep feelings for her father Darcy knew she hadn’t had that.

Courtney was unashamedly crying. “Mum lost the battle, Darcy. She was right to be afraid.”

“So afraid she left me in the firing line,” Darcy countered passionately. “Why did she let you come out here now?”

Courtney took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, as Darcy expected, daintily. “She could hardly stop me. I live my own life. I share an apartment with a girlfriend, but I see Mum and Peter all the time. Mum didn’t want me to come. She tore up the letter the solicitor sent me. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with Dad even when he was dying. I don’t think she really believed he was dying. Like it was all a trick to get me here.”

“So why did you come? The money? I guess Dad owes you. You are his daughter.”

“I came to see you,” Courtney said simply. “I wanted desperately to see you more than anything else in life. You’re a woman and you’re so beautiful.” Courtney’s blue gaze was full of the old love and admiration.

“Pleeze!” Darcy was desperate not to display an ounce of softness. She didn’t know her sister. She didn’t know if the sweetness was real or assumed to make Courtney’s short stay on Murraree easier.

“You’re like Grandma.” Courtney let her eyes move over her sister’s face and the willow delicacy of her tall frame. “The colouring, the set of your eyes and brows.” She found she was trembling so much with emotion, she had to settle herself into an armchair. “Mum would do anything to make it up to you, Darcy. So would I.”

“Well that’s nice of you, but it’s too late now, my dear.” Darcy stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets in case she reached out to her sister. “The damage has been done, Courtney. To you and to me. We grew up apart. I loved you once but we can never get back to that. The results of separation have been too profound.”

They went into their father’s bedroom together, but Jock McIvor only had eyes for his younger daughter. Darcy might not have existed so blinkered was his vision.

I should have taken a bet on it, Darcy thought. I love him but people are right. He’s one son of a gun. I’ve heard it for years but I did everything I could to block it out. Just how many times had she found McIvor lacking and forgiven him?

“Courtney!” Now McIvor was gesturing with his withered hand for her pretty as a picture sister to come close.

Last minute bonding, Darcy thought bleakly. McIvor was obviously desperate to get on the right side of God.

“Father,” Courtney answered, her voice trembling. She was still afraid of him from the look in her eyes, even though McIvor seemed as though his heart could stop at any moment.

“He wants you to go to the bedside,” Darcy prompted, dead set against showing protectiveness but protective all the same. It was as if they had moved back in time. The big sister with the little sister who had to be protected from her blustering father. “It’s okay.” She nodded reassuringly. “He’s failing very fast.”

“Come with me,” Courtney begged.

Another pattern from the past.

“It’s you he wants,” Darcy murmured, absolutely beyond jealousy. Such were life’s ironies she was fast learning.

“What are you two whispering about?” McIvor demanded querulously, a frown gathering. “Always whispering. No need to stay, Darcy. I’m not going to eat her.”

“I want Darcy to stay,” Courtney spoke up. She crossed the Persian rug with its rich glowing colours to stand beside the bedside.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” McIvor asked.

It was frightfully hypocritical. McIvor was giving a perfect imitation of the loving father with the prodigal child.

Does he really deserve a kiss? Darcy thought, standing well back so she could ponder life’s mysteries. One thing was certain. This was Courtney’s fifteen minutes of fame.

Courtney bent over him gracefully like a daffodil on a stalk, planting a quick kiss on McIvor’s deeply scored forehead. “I’m sorry you’re so desperately ill,” she said, as pity consumed her. The wasted figure in the bed bore no resemblance to the man she remembered. None! That man had been a giant, splendidly fit and handsome, with brilliant blue eyes and a deep booming voice. This man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His lips were blue. There was even a blue tint to his grey skin. His hands on the coverlet trembled. He looked ready to expire.

“I’m dying, my girl,” McIvor said poignantly, whether to make Courtney feel guilty or not Darcy didn’t know. She was learning new things every day. Her father had never adopted that tone with her. Never got his tongue around it. “I wanted to see you before I breathed my last,” McIvor told Courtney staring into her lovely face like she was an angel who had come to escort him to Heaven. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother.”

Courtney gently shook her head, staring down at her father in surprise. The intervening years had changed him. He was so different to how he had been then. So totally different to what she had expected.

“I keep that portrait in my room to remind me.” McIvor gestured towards the opposite wall.

Courtney turned to follow his gaze. Her vision had been so trained on the man in the bed she had failed to notice anything else. “How extraordinary!” she whispered. She began to wonder if there was a possibility she had judged her father too harshly. “You must have cared about her?”

“Of course I cared about her,” McIvor claimed, as though his love had never burned out.

He’s not having any difficulty lying Darcy thought. Probably his whole life had been littered with lies.

“And you,” McIvor added, grasping Courtney’s hand. “I blame all our unhappiness on your mother, child. She behaved very badly. She broke the sacred marriage bond.”

Clearly that’s the way he saw it, Darcy thought, wanting to quit the room and bang the door. And what did you do, Dad? Hit on every attractive woman in sight? Darcy felt like she was awakening from a distorted dream. Apparently her father’s marriage vows had adultery written into them. It was starting to seem like she’d been brain washed as Curt had long claimed.

“Mum missed Darcy terribly,” Courtney was saying. “I did too. We were so unhappy.”

McIvor gave a terrible smile, lips drawn back from his teeth like a tiger. “She managed to cope though, didn’t she? She soon found herself another man. You mother may have abandoned me but still, my girl, we share a powerful bond. You are my daughter and I want to leave you well provided for.”

“I have a good job I enjoy.” Courtney answered swiftly as though trying to head him off.

“What does this job involve?” The fatherly pose slipped again. The question came out like a sneer, in keeping with his long held view Courtney would turn out like her mother to be a bit of fluff.

“I’m personal assistant to the top woman in a public relations firm. The competition for my job was intense.”

“So you’re clever like your sister?” McIvor cut a bitterly sarcastic grunt short. “You’ll be able to open your own firm with what I’ll be leaving you. More than you could possibly make in a dozen lifetimes. You two girls—” only now did his gaze shift to Darcy who was reduced to supporting herself against a gigantic rosewood cabinet-on-chest “—will be heiresses. The McIvor heiresses. Is there some man you’re mixed up with?” He shot Courtney a piercing stare she didn’t appear uncomfortable with.

“I have lots of male friends,” she said calmly.

“You would! The men would be swarming around you like bees around the honey pot,” he harrumphed.

It would be fair to say they did but Courtney answered modestly. “There’s no-one special in my life at the moment.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” McIvor said. Affairs were all right for him. That didn’t include his daughters. “After I’m gone, the two of you will become a mark for all sorts of unscrupulous characters and it will happen quickly. You must be protected. I’ve made arrangements for that. Your sister will tell you all about it.” He patted Courtney’s hand in a way that suggested he’d been deprived of her for far too long. “You’re going to stay with me, aren’t you?”

Darcy watched in amazement. Her father appeared to be speaking with genuine intensity. She had an impulse to cry out: “I’m over here, Dad. I’m Darcy, remember? The one who stayed.” Her father’s reactions were so strange. He was acting positively loving towards Courtney, as if he desperately needed to make up for her loss, when he had never spoken of his younger daughter. Not for many years and then as though her loss didn’t matter. Perhaps Jock McIvor had a deadly fear of meeting his Maker. Darcy was seeing a side of her father she had never seen before.

“That was awful,” Courtney gasped, when they were out in the long hallway jam-packed with enough consoles and mahogany chairs to fill an antique shop. “I didn’t know my own father. He’s changed beyond all recognition.”

“That’s what a couple of heart attacks and a stroke do to you,” Darcy said. “Only six months ago he still looked marvellous.” Darcy kept her tone dispassionate when she was feeling profoundly upset. “His first heart attack shook him to the foundations. He thought he was indestructible. When it came it came all at once.”

“And you weren’t going to tell us?”

“You’re kidding!” Darcy’s tone was bleak. “I didn’t identify with you any more, Courtney. It’s as simple as that.”

“Please tell me you don’t resent my coming here now, Darcy?” Courtney spoke haltingly as though it pained her.

“I’m struggling not to, but it’s quite a task. I’m only human.”

“I don’t want the money. I don’t need to be an heiress.”

“Crazy as that sounds.” Darcy scoffed. “Who knocks back money?”

“Whatever there is belongs to you,” Courtney said, desperate to get closer to the sister she had missed for so long. She had lots of girlfriends but no one could take Darcy’s place. “You were the one who stayed. Adam told me you’ve been an enormous asset to Father; that you do a marvellous job on Murraree. You always did love the land.”

“I would hope now you’re a woman you will too,” Darcy surprised herself by saying. “Dad didn’t handle you right. He was such a bully. He’s said in the past he had no talent for being a husband. There’s a good chance he had no talent for being a father either.”

They found Curt and Adam talking companionably in the old plant filled conservatory at the rear of the homestead. The external steel framed glass walls were almost enveloped in an extravagantly flowering cerise bouganvillea that turned the very air rosy. Both men stood up as the two sisters moved into the room side by side, as complete a contrast in types as one could ever see.

Darcy looked like a high strung thoroughbred with the upward tilt of her head, long neck, thick glossy mane and delicate racehorse legs, Curt thought. Golden haired Courtney was much shorter but she too held herself beautifully, the prettiness of her childhood firmed into adult loveliness. Although they couldn’t have looked less alike both shared an air of intelligence, breeding and a quiet self-confidence for all the traumas associated with their childhood.

Darcy for her part watched in endless amazement as Curt and Courtney moved towards each other as if drawn by powerful magnets. It hit her right between the eyes. Curt and her radiant little sister? Well it didn’t have her blessing. He bent his shapely head and kissed Courtney’s apple blossom cheek. He hugged her. He did hug her. Even imperturbable Adam was looking hard in their direction as though he hadn’t foreseen such an ardent welcome either. Adam’s expression hardly evoked approval

And what of hers? Did it mirror Adam’s? It would have to be revealing. Not that anyone appeared to notice her. Courtney went very sweetly into Curt’s arms, not even reaching his heart. Darcy’s own heart gave a great sick lurch. Some trembling voice inside her began to shriek. Don’t take him. He’s mine. He’s mine. He’s always been mine.

Curt didn’t appear to know about it. Neither did Courtney. They were smiling at each other with open affection. Something more. Strong attraction? Darcy felt herself flush a hot red. It was all her own fault. She had blundered through her love life. Maybe Courtney was in search of a husband? No woman in her right mind could overlook Curt. But Curt was her rock and Darcy was ashamed she kept quiet about it. She really had become her own worst enemy. The sight of Curt and Courtney together filled her with something like dread. She needed time to assimilate it. She knew from the depths of her sick and sorry experience she couldn’t bear seeing another woman in Curt’s arms.

Even her own sister. Her own sister worst of all! Courtney would be much better at holding onto a man than she ever was. Courtney would know lots of things she didn’t know. How to keep a man at her side. How to make him feel big and strong and cherished. Courtney clearly didn’t have her pathetic hang-ups.

“Curt, how lovely to see you!” There was honey in Courtney’s sweet voice. Emotional tears sparkled in her blue eyes as she looked wonderingly into Curt’s striking face.

“Welcome back, Courtney,” Curt responded in a way that would have made any woman’s toes tingle. “How did the meeting with your father go?’

Ultimately Darcy pulled herself together. “Break out the trumpets. It was the return of the prodigal daughter.” Her laugh was brittle. Surely it was extraordinary neither Courtney nor Curt had made any comment on the other’s appearance. Curt might have been six-foot at sixteen when Courtney and her mother had left but he was just a boy. Now he was a marvellous looking man, intensely charismatic. Courtney for her part had been a child of ten. Now she was a vision of enchanting femininity. They surely couldn’t have seen one-another in the meantime, could they? Darcy very nearly turned faint. Curt would have told her. Wouldn’t he? She almost asked the question aloud but she felt undermined enough already. The answer could be really bad.

“I’ll organise coffee,” she said instead, covering her dismay and confusion with briskness. “Still black for you, Adam?”

“Yes, thank you.” Adam responded almost solemnly. He was hard at it pondering the possibility Courtney was giving a performance for Curt’s benefit. And what a performance. Little Ms Courtney McIvor had multiple talents.

“I’ll help you,” Courtney turned to offer, struck by the expression on her sister’s high mettled face.

“No, thanks. You and my friend, Curt here, must have lots to catch up on.” Darcy tried, but couldn’t control the sarcasm. “Adam can explain all about the trust that Dad wanted set up and how it works.”

“Trust?” Courtney looked worried. “Aren’t you inheriting outright?”

“Your father had his reasons for wanting a trust to be set up, Courtney,” Curt said, companionably drawing up a chair. “Adam and I are trustees. As Adam is the legal man I’ll let him explain it to you thought it’s simple enough. I’ll give Darcy a hand in the kitchen. I’m hoping she’ll find herself a housekeeper. I know a few suitable women who’d jump at the job.”

“I can manage. I have managed,” Darcy pointed out stiffly. “Really I’d hate another woman in the house.”

“Having a housekeeper will give you more time to yourself,” Curt said in a reasonable voice. “Besides the homestead is too large for one woman to get around.”

“So is that a criticism?” Darcy demanded to know as they were walking away. “Have you been busy checking for dust?”

“What’s eating you?” he asked, noting the high colour in her cheeks.

“I’ve learned one thing today,” she informed him. “Nothing is ever as it seems.”

In the privacy of the kitchen she asked the burning question. “You didn’t seem much surprised by Courtney’s appearance nor she by yours. If I didn’t know differently I’d swear you two have met up sometime. Maybe when you’re in Brisbane on business. Have you?” she asked fiercely, feeling the hammering of her heart.

Curt’s chiselled mouth turned down. “How I’ve dreaded this day! I am so sorry, Darcy. I can’t put a foot right with you. I should have known you wouldn’t miss a trick. We didn’t think it would do the slightest good to tell you. In fact a lot of harm.”

“We, who’s we?” Darcy was on the verge of hitting him.

“Mum and me,” Curt said, taking a step nearer, not away. “You must remember our mothers were friends?”

“So? I thought we were friends? What are you talking about? Please tell me in under ten seconds because I’m going to explode!”

“You’re worse than a fire cracker,” he said as though the thought had suddenly struck him. “My mother was worried about them. She kept in touch.”

“Kath did?” Darcy took it so badly she almost bent double. Katherine Berenger was the finest woman she knew. Darcy respected her immensely. That Kath of all people had never said a word!

“She didn’t dare start anything lest it rebound on you. Your father would have reacted badly to any interference in his affairs. Your mother believed it was far too risky to anger him. She made my mother promise to keep their meetings a secret.”

With one dismissive gesture, Darcy waved his explanation away. “I don’t think I can handle this,” she announced, looking as appalled as she felt. “Your mother helped me through the worst times yet she never confided in me?”

“Think about it, Darcy,” he urged, his handsome face taut with strain. “If you were told you would have confronted your father. No question about it. You know what his reaction would have been. He’d have gone ballistic. You were no match for McIvor. He used to make strong men quail. My mother tried to offer you all the balm she could affirming your mother’s love for you. The terrible position she was in.”

“Her love for me!” Darcy’s laugh was wild. “It wasn’t enough to make her stay. Some women stay with their children no matter what. Abusive husbands, poverty, isolation. She wouldn’t stay, much less risk taking me.”

“She was so desperately unhappy she couldn’t remain with your father. She couldn’t continue sleeping with the enemy.”

Darcy stared at him. “I’ll never forgive you.” Her words rang loudly in the silent kitchen.

“That’s not the worst thing you’ve done to me,” he responded harshly.