Kitabı oku: «The Secret Mother»

CHAPTER ONE

FROM the window of her small sitting-room, adjoining the nursery, Caroline watched the snow falling on Morningside Heights. Soft, feathery flakes, swirling from a night sky, piled up against the glass and wrapped the trees in a white shroud.

All at once she shivered.

Snow always made her remember. Brought back the past with cruel clarity. But as the years went by surely the hurt would grow less, the emotional scars heal as the physical ones had?

The mirror no longer showed any sign of them, and even her sensitive fingertips could find no trace. True, she still looked hollow-cheeked, older than her years, but ironically, with her remodelled face, she was almost beautiful now, whereas before she bad been merely attractive.

A tap at the door broke into Caroline’s thoughts.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ Lois Amesbury, her employer, was always scrupulously polite, as well as being pleasant and friendly. ‘Only I thought you should know things are finally settled. My husband needs to take up his post at Burbeck Hospital before the new year, so we’ll be moving to California during the Christmas break...’

Their decision to move back to the west coast had been mentioned and discussed previously, but Caroline had tried not to think about it.

It was more than two years since the Amesburys had taken a chance, after hearing a little of her story, and employed the quiet, sad-eyed woman to be nanny to their twin girls, now three years old.

She was established here, secure, and, if not happy, she was at least relatively content. The move meant an upheaval, a parting Caroline had been dreading.

‘I’ll miss New York,’ Lois went on, taking the chair opposite, ‘but I’m looking forward to practising law in Oakland, and we’ll be virtually next door to my folks. Mom can’t wait to take charge of the children...’

Children that had helped to fill Caroline’s empty arms and empty heart.

‘Though I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll spoil them rotten—’ Suddenly glimpsing the desolation the younger woman was trying hard to hide, Lois broke off abruptly.

After a moment she went on with a practical air, ‘What I really came to tell you was, this afternoon Sally Danvers rang me at the office to ask if you would be looking for another situation. She knows of a wealthy businessman who needs a reliable nanny and is willing to pay top rates.

‘There’s one child, a girl of about the same age as my two. Her father is either a widower or a divorcé; I’m not sure which. Not that it matters... The little girl’s grandmother had been taking care of her, but a few months ago the old lady died quite suddenly.

‘I gather the nanny who took over then couldn’t win the child’s confidence. The poor little mite didn’t like her, and preferred to stay with the housekeeper. When her father discovered how things were he asked the woman to leave, so he needs someone trustworthy who can start immediately. He’ll be home tomorrow morning if you would like time off to go and see him.’

‘Oh, but I can’t start immediately...’

Lois, dark-haired and elegant, waved away the protest. ‘I cleared my office desk today and I’ll be at home until we move, so if you decide to take the job, I’m sure I can manage. You’ve been an absolute godsend, and I’m very grateful. That’s why I’d like to see you happily settled before we leave.

‘The man’s name is Matthew Carran. He lives in the Baltimore building on Fifth Avenue. I’ve written the address and the telephone number on here...’

She passed over a folded sheet of paper.

‘Well, I guess I’d better hurry. We’ve tickets for a concert at the Octagon Hall, if the snow’s not too bad...’

But, though Caroline had automatically accepted the piece of paper, she’d heard nothing since the name Matthew Carran.

Shock had made the blood drum in her ears and brought a hovering darkness that threatened to swamp her. As the door closed behind her employer she swayed forward and put her head between her knees.

After a moment or two the faintness passed and she sat upright. Talk about the irony of fate! It was almost unbelievable that the man who needed a nanny so urgently should be the one man she couldn’t possibly work for.

Or was it the same man? The address was different.

Yes, it had to be. Matthew was a fairly common name, but Carran wasn’t, and in a way the rest fitted... The last time she had heard, his stepmother had been looking after his baby daughter and he’d been about to get married. But now it seemed he was either widowed or divorced, and with the death of his stepmother the child was left to the care of a nanny.

With a sudden feeling of anguish, Caroline recalled Lois Amesbury saying, ‘I gather the nanny who took over then couldn’t win the child’s confidence. The poor little mite didn’t like her.’

Closing her eyes tightly, oval nails biting into her palms, Caroline fought the urge to weep. If only her own circumstances had been different, but in a matter of weeks she would have no home and no job, so there was nothing she could do.

Or was there? Matthew wouldn’t recognise the name Caroline Smith. When she had known him she had called herself Kate Hunter. And there wasn’t much chance of him recognising her.

Though, after this length of time, she should have been used to the metamorphosis, it still occasionally came as a shock to catch sight of a strange woman looking back at her from the mirror.

At twenty-two she had been a good eighteen pounds heavier, and had worn her hair short and blonde and curly. Now it was long and straight, back to its natural ash-brown.

Then she had been young and fresh and curvaceous. Now she was old, if not in years at least in experience, and thin to the point of gauntness, her glow extinguished.

No, he wouldn’t recognise her. After several sessions of plastic surgery, it was doubtful if her own mother would have known her.

But it was a risk she couldn’t afford to take. She could still see his expression, the way he’d looked at her with such contempt and condemnation.

Still the longing to see him again, the need to see his child, was like a physical pain.

No. No! She couldn’t do it. Such a step would be utter madness. It would tear open all the old wounds and destroy what little peace of mind she had managed to find.

But if she got the post as nanny it would be the answer to all her prayers.

Fifth Avenue, on this cold, bright morning, was teeming with both traffic and pedestrians, its glittering shops and gilded window displays rivalling the sunshine.

The sidewalks were clear of snow, except where it had been piled along the edges in dirty banks, but Central Park looked like a winter wonderland, and there was skating on the pond and at the Rockefeller ice rink.

The Baltimore building, she discovered, overlooked the park. Standing in its marble-floored foyer, beneath a magnificent chandelier, Caroline admitted that she’d been insane to come. She was behaving like an utter fool. Yet, lured by the chance to achieve her heart’s desire, she had been unable to help herself.

Following a virtually sleepless night, that morning, after she had given the twins their breakfast, she had dialled the number Lois Amesbury had written down and waited with a wildly beating heart to hear Matthew’s voice.

It had been something of an anticlimax when the call had been answered by a woman with an Irish brogue, who’d identified herself as Mr Carran’s housekeeper.

Caroline had stated her business, and after a minute or so the housekeeper had returned to say cheerfully, ‘Mr Carran will be pleased to see you at nine-thirty, Miss Smith. He said to take a cab, and he will reimburse you.’

Hoping that the exercise would calm her, and with time to spare, Caroline had paid off the cab some blocks away, and walked down Fifth Avenue.

Now it was almost nine-thirty and, moving towards the bank of elevators on the far side of the foyer, she was forced to admit that the strategy had failed. Her stomach was churning and she felt almost sick with nerves as she pressed the button for the penthouse suite on the sixty-fifth floor.

As the high-speed elevator carried her smoothly upwards she took a pair of heavy, dark-rimmed spectacles from her bag and put them on.

Though they were no longer necessary to mask the scar that had run across the bridge of her nose and above one eye, she still preferred to wear them. They were something to hide behind. And knowing the tinted lenses altered the colour of her eyes, changing them from a light, clear aquamarine to a deeper cloudy blue, now provided an added crumb of much needed confidence.

The buxom, middle-aged housekeeper opened the door to Caroline’s ring, and hung her coat on the mirrored hallstand.

‘Mr Carran is waiting for you in his study,’ she said, her smile approving of the newcomer’s neat bun, the plain woollen dress and simple calf-length boots. ‘It’s the door there, on the left.’

Crossing the large, luxuriously carpeted hall on legs that shook, Caroline knocked and waited.

‘Come in.’ After almost four years, that decisive, low-pitched voice was heartbreakingly familiar.

She swallowed hard, and her palm, damp with cold perspiration, slipped on the doorknob, making her fumble, before the door opened into a book-lined study.

Matthew Carran was sitting behind a polished desk, a slim gold pen in his hand and a sheaf of papers in front of him. As though impatient of the business suit he was wearing, he had discarded his jacket and loosened his tie. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing lean, muscular arms, sprinkled with dark hair.

At her entrance he rose to his feet and stood stock-still, neither moving nor speaking, while his eyes travelled slowly over her.

He seemed taller, his shoulders beneath the pinstriped shirt even broader than she remembered, but his tough, hard-boned face, the peat-dark hair and handsome green-gold eyes were the same.

Though she had thought herself prepared, a flood of emotion swept over her, sending her mind reeling. The book-lined room began to whirl hideously, and the faintness she’d felt the previous evening returned, threatening to engulf her.

Head bent, she bit her soft inner lip savagely, focusing her attention on the pain, refusing to be dragged under.

‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

‘Yes...’ Lifting her head, she swallowed, tasting the slight saltiness of blood. ‘Quite all right, thank you.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down?’

When, thankfully, she sank onto the chair placed opposite his, he resumed his own seat and remarked with what sounded like genuine concern, ‘You’re rather pale. Have you been unwell?’

‘No.’ It was the truth, and she left it at that.

‘Have you had much time off while working for Mrs Amesbury?’

‘It was agreed that I should have one day a week and every alternate weekend—plus the odd evening, if and when I wanted it.’

But she had rarely taken advantage of the concessions.

‘I meant for illness and suchlike.’

‘None. I’m perfectly fit and healthy.’ Now.

He studied the delicate oval of her face for a moment, then gave a slight shrug before saying, ‘If you are contemplating working for me we need to get to know each other, so can I ask you to begin by telling me about yourself?’

Before she could comply, he added, ‘You have an attractive voice, but you sound more English than American.’

Caroline stiffened. She had given no thought to her voice or her accent.

As she hesitated he asked a trifle impatiently, ‘Well, are you English?’

‘I was born in London, but I have dual nationality.’

‘Tell me about your parents.’

She glanced at him in surprise.

‘A person’s background can be relevant.’

He’d known nothing of her background previously, so it couldn’t do any harm.

‘My father, a native New Yorker, was a writer and journalist. He was working in London when he met and teamed up with my mother, who was a newspaper photographer. They got married and I was born a year later. We lived in London until I was fifteen, then we moved to New York.’

‘You’re an only child?’

‘Yes. Having no brothers or sisters is my one regret.’

‘So you had a happy childhood?’

‘Very. It was slightly bohemian, I suppose. But I always felt well loved and cared for.’

‘Do your parents still live in New York?’

Caroline shook her head. ‘They were freelancing, covering a fire at a chemical plant in New Jersey, when they were killed in an explosion.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘While I was in my final year at college.’

‘May I ask how old you are now?’

She hesitated, then answered, ‘Nearly twenty-six,’ and saw by his face that he’d put her down as considerably older.

‘And you’ve been a children’s nanny how long?’

‘Since leaving college.’ She felt guilty that it wasn’t the truth, but it might save him digging any deeper.

Matthew Carran’s green gaze probed her face. His eyes had always had the power to warm or freeze. Now, as though he had guessed she was lying, they could only be described as glacial.

After a moment he changed tack to ask, ‘Does your present employer insist on you wearing a uniform?’

‘No.’ Lois Amesbury had been happy to keep things informal.

‘Would you have any objection to wearing one?’

Disliking the idea, but aware that it would be unwise to say so, Caroline bit her lip before answering, ‘No.’

‘What made you decide to become a nanny?’

‘I like children.’ That was the truth. She had always had an affinity for children.

His tone silky, he suggested, ‘So perhaps you regard being a nanny as an easy way of earning a living?’

Stung, she retorted, ‘I’ve never thought of it like that... And being a nanny is not an easy way of earning a living. It just happens to be the work I prefer.’

After staring at her for what seemed an age, but could only have been seconds, he asked with a twist to his chiselled lips, ‘What qualifications have you, apart from “liking children”?’

Flushing, she said, ‘I’ve passed all the prescribed courses in child care and development, diet and first aid.’

‘What do you think are the two most important things in a young child’s life?’

She answered immediately. ‘Security and affection.’

For an instant he seemed to be gripped by some powerful emotion, then it was gone, leaving his lean, dark face devoid of expression.

Unwilling to meet his eyes, Caroline stared at his hands. He had good hands. Lean, well-shaped, masculine hands, with long fingers and neatly trimmed nails.

All at once, going off at a tangent, he queried, ‘Do you smoke?’

She blinked. ‘No.’

‘Drink?’

‘No.’

‘But no doubt there is...shall we say, a man in your life?’

It was almost as if he was taunting her, and suddenly she found herself wishing passionately that she hadn’t put herself through this ordeal.

‘No.’

The brilliant eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, come now...’

With a flash of spirit, she retorted, ‘I hadn’t realised that having a man in my life was compulsory.’

As soon as the imprudent words were out, Caroline cursed herself for a fool. Why was she antagonising Matthew Carran when she so desperately wanted this job?

‘I can do without the sarcasm, Miss Smith.’ His tone was repressive.

‘I’m sorry. But surely I’m entitled to a private life?’

‘Everyone is entitled to a private life. I just want to be sure yours won’t affect your charge. When Caitlin’s grandmother died...’

Caitlin, Caroline thought, her heart feeling as though it might burst. They’d called her Caitlin.

‘...and I had to engage a nanny, I made a bad mistake.’ His mouth a thin, hard line, Matthew added grimly, ‘I have no intention of making another.’

‘If there was a man in my life I wouldn’t dream of letting it affect any child in my care,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘But there is no one.’

Tension had dewed her face with a fine film of perspiration, and, feeling her spectacles slip, she pushed them further up the bridge of her nose.

‘Why are you wearing glasses?’

His question, coming with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, threw her. ‘I—I’m sorry?’

‘I asked why you’re wearing spectacles.’

‘Because I... I need them.’

Rising to his feet, he leaned across the desk and without so much as a by your leave lifted the glasses from her nose. For a long moment, while shock held her rigid, he looked deep into her clear aquamarine eyes.

Whatever he saw in them—anxiety, pain, loneliness, sadness—his own showed not the slightest sign of either pity or recognition.

Caroline gave thanks to whatever guardian angel was watching over her.

Prematurely, it seemed, as a moment later Matthew was raising the spectacles and squinting through the lenses.

He passed them back to her and, as she hurriedly replaced them, queried succinctly, ‘Why do you need spectacles that are just tinted glass?’

She stammered out the only answer she could think of, ‘I—I thought it would be better if I looked older.’

His voice icy, he remarked, ‘Looking older doesn’t necessarily make you more suitable.’

Strain had set her head throbbing dully, and, convinced now that he would never give her the job, she felt bleak and hopeless.

Wanting only to escape before those pitiless eyes noted her despair, she half rose. ‘Well, if you’ve decided I’m unsuitable...’

‘Please sit down,’ he instructed curtly. ‘I haven’t decided anything of the kind.’

When, the whole of her body shaking, she had obeyed, he informed her, ‘While you were on your way here this morning I had quite a long conversation with your present employer...’

He paused, as though deliberately prolonging the suspense, while the seconds ticked away and Caroline fancied she could hear the roar of the traffic far below on Fifth Avenue.

‘She told me that you had been with her for over two years, and spoke very highly of you.’

Caroline was just drawing a shaky breath of relief when he asked, ‘Who was your previous employer?’

‘Previous employer?’

‘I mean before Mrs Amesbury.’

Realising too late that. having told him she’d been a nanny since leaving college, she was in deep water, Caroline floundered. ‘Well, I...’

‘Surely you remember?’ He was giving her no quarter.

She hated to lie but could see no help for it. ‘A Mr Nagel,’ she improvised wildly as she recalled the plot of a book she’d been reading. ‘I took care of his little boy when his wife left him...’

‘And?’

‘Eventually she came back and they were reconciled, so I was no longer needed.’

Becoming aware that he was watching her hands, moving restlessly in her lap, she clasped them together to keep them still.

‘Have you got Mr Nagel’s references?’

‘I—I’m afraid I don’t know what became of them.’

His sceptical look seemed to make it plain that he didn’t believe her.

She could feel the guilty colour rising in her cheeks when he said, ‘Presumably they must have been satisfactory, or the Amesburys wouldn’t have employed you...’

Picking up the pen he’d been using, he began to tap the desk, each little explosion of sound like a hammer-blow, stretching her already overstretched nerves and making her wince.

‘Very well, with the proviso that Caitlin likes you, the position is yours, if you want it, for a trial period of one month.’

As she stared at him, pale lips a little parted, he went on, ‘Now to practicalities. I’m prepared to allow you the same time off as your previous employer, and if you stay on alter the trial period, you will receive two weeks’ annual holiday. The post carries a salary of...’ he named an exceedingly generous sum ‘...and there is a self-contained suite next to the nursery, which I think you’ll find comfortable.’

When she continued to gaze at him in silence, he observed brusquely, ‘You look surprised. Have you changed your mind about wanting the job?’

‘No... No, of course not... I just hadn’t expected to be offered it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I...I got the impression you didn’t like me.’

Sardonically, he said, ‘It hadn’t occurred to me that it was necessary to like the nanny I engaged.’

As her face began to burn he added flatly, ‘If Caitlin takes to you, that’s all that matters. She’s a sunny, good-natured little thing, and very forward for her age. At the moment Mrs Monaghan, my housekeeper, is looking after her, and according to that good lady the child isn’t one scrap of trouble.

‘Even so, it’s a lot for the poor woman to take on, so if everything goes well, and you decide to accept my offer, I’d want you here, ready to start, by tomorrow morning.’

‘Wearing a uniform?’ In spite of Caroline’s efforts to speak smoothly, there was a ragged edge to the question.

After a moment’s deliberation, Matthew answered coolly, ‘I think not’

His tawny eyes on her face, he went on, ‘Now, before we go any further, maybe you’d like to ask me some questions?’

When, wits scattered, she failed to respond, he suggested trenchantly, ‘Or possibly you already know everything you need to?’

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she managed, ‘I just know what Mrs Amesbury told me.’

‘And what did Mrs Amesbury tell you?’ He sounded annoyed, as though he suspected they’d been gossiping about him.

‘Only that you are either widowed or divorced, and your daughter is about three years old.’

‘Not terribly accurate, I’m afraid. I’m neither widowed nor divorced...’

So he must be still married... Married to Sara...

Watching Caroline’s eyes widen behind the tinted glasses, he continued, ‘And Caitlin isn’t my daughter. My own mother died shortly after I was born, and when I was nine years old my father married again. His second wife already had a three-year-old son. Caitlin is my stepbrother’s child.’

Quietly, he added, ‘In point of fact I’ve never been married.’

‘Oh, but I thought—’ Cursing her unruly tongue, Caroline stopped speaking abruptly.

‘What did you think, Miss Smith?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing... Really...’

His thickly lashed eyes glinted, and she feared he was going to pursue the matter, but he let it go and said briskly, ‘Well, if there isn’t anything you want to ask me, perhaps you’d like to take a look at the accommodation and say hello to Caitlin?’

Taking a deep, uneven breath, doing her best to control an almost feverish rush of excitement, Caroline rose to her feet as Matthew left his chair and walked round the desk.

At five feet seven inches she was fairly tall for a woman, but, at an inch or so above six feet, he seemed to tower over her.

Suddenly she found herself trembling with a new and different kind of excitement, and, looking up into his dark face, she was shaken to the core by the depth of her feelings for him.

After all this time she had hoped, prayed, that she would be able to look at him and see only a man she had once known and loved. A man who no longer meant that much to her.

But the instinctive knowledge that he was the other half of herself, the part that made her whole and complete, was still there, as certain and inevitable as it had ever been.

As she stood, dazed and dumb, he suggested smoothly, ‘Now we’ve established that you don’t need the glasses, perhaps you’d care to take them off? It seems a shame to hide such beautiful eyes.’ The last was added with a certain bite, as though he didn’t intend it as a compliment.

Unable to think of a reason for refusing, Caroline took off the glasses and slipped them into her bag, trying not to meet his glance in case he should see all too clearly what she was thinking, feeling.

He opened the door and, a hand at her waist, ushered her across the well-furnished hall and into the living-room.

From the first moment they had met his impact had been stunning, and now his touch—light and impersonal though it was—proved to be devastating, trapping the breath in her throat, making her heart lurch drunkenly and her pulse begin to race with suffocating speed.

Despite its open-plan vastness and elegance, Matthew’s apartment had a homely, lived-in air. Several toys lay scattered on the Aubusson carpet, and a wooden rocking horse, ridden by a large, floppy rag doll with yellow plaits, stood in front of the long windows.

‘The playroom and nursery are this way.’ They went through a wide arch and across a second hallway. ‘And these rooms will be yours if you take the job.’ He threw open a pair of polished doors and showed her around.

Fitted with every mod-con, and beautifully furnished, the suite—sitting-room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette—was more than comfortable. It was downright luxurious.

She would have taken the job if it had been a ratinfested dungeon. But everything depended on whether Caitlin showed any signs of liking her.

Feeling a kind of dull hopelessness, Caroline wondered how anyone could expect a child of that tender age—a child who had already had one nanny she didn’t like—to take to a woman who was a total stranger?

‘Now if you’d like to come and meet Caitlin...’

Turning, Matthew led the way to a large, airy kitchen, where Mrs Monaghan was keeping an eye on her charge while making the morning coffee.

Dressed in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and brightly coloured dungarees, the child was busily engaged in tucking a doll into a pram. Looking up at their entrance, she came running over to Matthew and threw her arms around his legs.

Rumpling her dark silky hair, he said, ‘I’d like you to say hello to Miss Smith.’ Then, in a conspiratorial whisper he added, ‘If we’re both very nice to her, she may come and live with us and look after you.’

As Caitlin released her hold and turned to stare solemnly at the newcomer Caroline went down on her haunches. Her heart feeling as though it might burst, she smiled shakily at the little girl.

She was a beautiful and dainty child, her skin with the bloom of a peach, her dimpled cheeks still babyish, her long-lashed eyes an exquisite blue-green.

For long moments they looked at each other without speaking. Then in a clear, childish treble, Caitlin asked, ‘Do you want to come and look after me?’

Caroline found her voice and said huskily, ‘I certainly do. You see, I’ve been looking after two little girls who have to go away, and it would be lovely to have another little girl to take care of.’

After considering this for a second or two, Caitlin turned and trotted away, to return almost immediately with a large brown bear wearing a red and green striped scarf and a pugnacious expression on his heavy-jowled face.

‘This is Barnaby.’ She thrust the bear into Caroline’s arms.

‘Well, hello, Barnaby.’

‘He’s a boy.’

‘And a bear of character, I can see. Would he mind if I hugged him?’

Leaning against Caroline’s knee, Caitlin confided, ‘He likes to be hugged.’

‘He also likes a mid-morning nap,’ Matthew suggested, with a glance at his housekeeper.

‘Well, come along, me darlings.’ Mrs Monaghan obediently gathered up the child and the bear. “Time for a little sleep.’

As the trio departed Matthew put a hand beneath Caroline’s elbow and helped her to her feet.

‘Thank you.’ Trying to hide her desolation, she added.

‘I’d hoped to have a little more time with Caitlin.’

‘You’ll have plenty of time with her once you’ve moved in.’

Hardly daring to believe her ears, with a wildly beating heart, she asked, ‘You mean...?’

‘I mean Caitlin liked you.’

‘How can you tell?’

Just for a second his green-gold eyes warmed into laughter. ‘Only the people she really likes get to meet Barnaby. So, if you want the job...?’

Filled with joy and excitement, she breathed, ‘Yes... Yes, I do.’

‘Then as soon as we’ve had some coffee I’ll drive you over to the Amesburys’ to pick up your things. That way you’ll have the afternoon and evening to settle in before you start work tomorrow morning.’