The English Lord's Secret Son (3 page)

Lord Julian Ashton Carlisle, Fifth Baron Wyndham.

The father of her child.

* * *

She had come to him a virgin, the man who had devastated her life. So this was the way Karma worked? Action, effect, fate. She was trapped in the same room as the man she had never succeeded in erasing from her mind or her heart and hated him for it. He was indelibly fixed there by lost love, sorrow and humiliation. She had tried with every atom of her being to put the past behind her, but the past had had its effect on all of her subsequent relationships. No other man measured up.

Now her brain was signalling warnings.

The Day of Reckoning is at hand.

Over the past years she had almost succeeded in convincing herself Jules was solely
hers
.
A virgin birth as it were. She knew now she had lost all touch with reality. Jules at some point in his life was going to want to meet his father. Jules’ father might very well want to meet the son he had hitherto known nothing about. The only way she could avert such a thing happening was to keep them far apart. At least until Jules was of an age to undertake his own search for his biological father, who probably by now had children with his aristocratic wife. Impeccable breeding, of course. It was expected, after all. Someone had to inherit the baronetcy, keep up tradition. Social status was something to be cherished.

Cate made a massive effort to calm herself by focusing on how appalling things had been for her. Alicia, steely eyed, tall, rail-thin body vibrating as she told her to go away and not come back. All Alicia had ever been up to then had been no more than a bit on the snobbish side—a woman with a mindset stuck in the early twentieth century, very patronising to a young woman from the colonies, but pleasant enough. Then everything had abruptly changed. It had been crisis time, with Ashe away for a few days in London on family business. It had all been stunningly, shockingly sudden.

“There’s simply no place for you here, Catrina.”
Alicia had spoken with a gleam of triumph in her slate-grey eyes.
“My son has acknowledged that. I am sorry for you, my dear, but you allowed yourself false hopes. You made a terrible mistake, but then you’re so very young. So ignorant of the ways of the world. Frankly I did try to warn you. There are unwritten rules to our way of life. We all understand them. You don’t. You would never have fitted in. Marina was born for the role. Julian may have thought you special for a time, but now he knows he has to take a step back. Life is all about doing one’s duty, assuming one’s responsibilities.”

Cate hadn’t accepted that blindly. She had fought back claiming all were equal under the sun, her expression so combative any other woman but Alicia might have ducked for cover. She’d told Alicia she needed to hear it all from Ashe himself.

Ashe, please help me.

Only Ashe wasn’t there.

“That’s the thing, my dear. Julian is in London,”
Alicia had countered, trying to sound pitying and only succeeding in sounding chilling.
“He’s not there on business. I assumed you would guess that. He went away because he couldn’t bear to tell you himself. It was far from an easy decision but I helped him see it was the best way. Indeed the only way. You are both far too young. Julian simply didn’t realise you were taking him so utterly seriously. Holiday romances tend to fade pretty quickly, my dear. You’ll find that out when you get back to Australia. You have your own life. My son has his.”

And so she had vanished. It took her a couple of months more to come to the devastating realisation she was pregnant.
Hello, pregnant?
When they had practised safe sex. She had never trusted safe sex from there on. She was pregnant to a young man, to a family, who didn’t want her. Moreover would not be eager to know her child even if it had their blood. She
wasn’t good enough. It was a grave situation and one of her own making. She had turned to the only mother she had ever known to help her.

Stella.

CHAPTER TWO

England, 2005

C
ATE
HAD
BEEN
driving for miles through the picture-perfect English countryside, a patchwork
of emerald-green fields bordered by woods, lovely towering trees and wondrously
neat hedges. Miraculously it had stopped raining. She had only been in England a
couple of weeks, and the rain had been falling without end. And, Lord, was it
cold!
The European winter was fast setting in.
But for now the sun shone, however briefly, and what lay before her was a
pastoral idyll, a symphony of soft misty colours. It made her feel good to be
alive. On her own at last. Freedom! Was there anything so good?
Freedom.
She sang it aloud. No one to hear her anyway
but the woolly white sheep that dotted the enchanting landscape. It was simply
wonderful to be footloose and fancy free.

Her base for her gap year was the great historic city of
London, squeezed into a
teeny
flat with two of her
university-going pals. Not that they noticed the lack of life’s little
luxuries to which all of them had long been accustomed. They were too busy
enjoying themselves and exploring the cultural wonders the great city had to
offer. This was to be a great year for them, their Grand Tour. Afterwards all
three would embark on their chosen careers. Josh came from a long line of
medical doctors, so it was Medicine for Josh. Sarah with her legal family would
read Law. Cate had decided on the high-flying world of Big Business, maybe along
the track of an MBA from Harvard? So that had meant an Economics degree. At
school her brilliance at Maths had set her apart. That didn’t bother her. She
had been something of an oddity all her life.

Why wouldn’t she have been, given her history? She had been
raised not knowing who her biological parents were. That alone put a girl at a
severe psychological disadvantage. But at least she had been adopted as a baby
by a beautiful young Englishwoman who to her great sadness couldn’t carry a baby
beyond a couple of months without suffering a miscarriage. She had come by all
accounts as a gift from God, albeit a giveaway baby to the right couple. Stella
and Arnold certainly were. She knew they loved her. She loved them. They were
good people, kindness itself, encouraging her in every way. But she had never
truly felt she
belonged
.
Forever a step away.
Despite all their efforts—and
she had been a difficult child she had to admit—she was and remained, in her own
mind at least, an
outsider
.

Stella had had no idea when Cate left Australia that her
adopted daughter fully intended tracking down the Cotswold manor house where
Stella and her sister, Annabel, had grown up. “Lady” Annabel, her ravishing
adoptive
aunt
,
had only
visited her sister in Australia a mere handful of times in the last two decades.
A true and loving sister. Annabel had remained in England where she married one
Nigel Warren, knighted by the Queen for something or other and a seriously rich
man many years her senior. Stella, on the other hand, had married someone her
own age. The great mystery was Stella and her new husband had abandoned their
gracious lives in England to migrate to the opposite end of the earth:
Australia
.
An extraordinary
move, one would have thought. They hadn’t arrived penniless, however. Quite the
reverse, which surely had some significance? With private funds they had settled
into a new life on the oldest continent on earth.

Surely though they had to be missing all this? Cate thought.
Even the softly falling rain had its own enchantment. Home was Home, wasn’t it?
This part of the world somewhat to her surprise—used as she was to a brilliant,
eternally shining sun and vast open spaces—she found truly beautiful.
Comforting.
Oddly
familiar. It was as though she had
stepped into a wonderful English landscape painting by Constable. One with which
she identified. That mystified her. Such a landscape couldn’t be further removed
from
where she had grown up. There the sun
dominated. The rain when it came didn’t require one to keep a raincoat forever
handy—often it required a boat.

For now she was intent on catching a glimpse of the manor house
that had been in Stella’s family for many years. Yet Stella had chosen to
abandon the country of her birth and what had to be a gracious heritage for the
comparative wilderness. Cate had to think it was love. Arnold was as English as
Stella. Both, even after twenty years, retained their upper-class English
accents. A few of her schoolmates in the early days had dared to call her a
“Pom”. They hadn’t done it twice. At least not to her face. But even she knew
her accent was more English than English-Australian. Why wouldn’t it be the way
she had grown up?

She had arrived in the village now, with no idea her life was
poised for dramatic change. She pulled to the side of the street, then switched
off the ignition of her little hire car, looking keenly around her. The village
was so small but very pretty, dominated by what had to be original Tudor
buildings with a handful of speciality shops. Glorious hanging baskets featured
a spilling profusion of brightly coloured and scented flowers. She spotted a tea
room, a picturesque old pub, The Four Swans, and a post office. There was a
central park that had a lovely large pond. Over the green glassy surface glided
the said four snow-white graceful swans. Her heart lifted. She stepped out of
the car, rounding the bonnet, to enter the post office. Graceful in body and
movement, she walked fast with a long confident stride.

A pleasant-faced woman carrying too much weight was behind the
counter deep into a romance novel. A bodice ripper by the look of it. The woman
glanced up with a welcoming smile as Cate entered. “Lost yourself, love?” She
inserted a bookmark to mind her place.

Cate had to laugh. She had an excellent sense of direction.
“Not really. I was enjoying this very beautiful part of the world.”

“So it is. So it is. I’m the postmistress among other things.
Aussie, love?”

Cate’s smile widened. “At home more often than not I’m mistaken
for a Pom.”

The woman nodded sagely. “Not the accent, love.” Upper-class
English, but not
quite
,
Joyce Bailey thought. “Something about your easy manner, the confident stride,
the attitude.”

“Now that is flattery at its finest.” Cate gave a little mock
bow.

The postmistress leant heavily on the counter. “I have family
in Australia. Been out there a couple of times. Ah, life in the sun! The family,
especially the kids, won’t come back now. They’re fair dinkum Aussies. So how
can I help you?’

“Radclyffe Hall,” Cate said, moving closer. “Which way is it?
I’m keen to take a glimpse.”

The postmistress abruptly sobered. “Great white elephant of a
house. Lots of tragedy in that family. Sons that served in the army. Lost in all
sorts of battles. Crimean, Balkan, First and Second World Wars, the Falklands.
Enormous devastation, wars! The present Lord Wyndham who inherited when his
older brother was killed doesn’t entertain much. Not like the old days. But the
whole village has learned the historic gardens and the parklands are being
restored. Be quite a challenge, I reckon. A famous landscape gardener has been
working there for months. His aim is to bring the estate back to its former
glory. Best of luck, we all say. We’ll have the tourists back in no time. The
hall’s rose gardens used to be ever so famous. You won’t be able to get in,
love. But you can enjoy the view. The manor house—it’s built out of our lovely
honey-coloured Cotswold stone—stands on the top of the hill. Keep driving north
out of town, no more than three miles on. Can’t miss it. All of them rolling
acres belong to Lord Wyndham. Only had daughters. No surviving son. The estate
is entailed so it will pass to another male member of the Radclyffe family once
Lord Wyndham is gone.”

Cate absorbed all this information in utter silence. In truth
she was poleaxed. Stella had rarely spoken of her former life. Stella had made
secrecy an art form. Cate hadn’t even known the house where Stella and her
younger sister, Annabel, had grown up was called Radclyffe Hall until fairly
recently when she had overheard a conversation between Stella and Arnold. So
this all came as a revelation. Lord Wyndham was Stella’s father. My God! Wasn’t
Stella a woman for burying the past? Cate felt incensed but shook it off.

“What’s lunch like at the pub?” she asked, swiftly changing the
subject. It would take time to absorb it all. Lots of time. Quietness to
reflect.

“Second to none!” the postmistress declared stoutly.

“Think they can put me up for a few days?”

“I’d say so, love. Me and my hubby, Jack, run it. Shall I book
you in?”

“If you would. My name is Cate Hamilton, by the way. I have ID
in the car.” She half turned to go out and get it.

“Won’t be necessary, love,” the woman stayed her. “We’ll get
the particulars when you return from your sightseeing jaunt. I’ll have your room
prepared.”

“Thank you. You’re very kind, Mrs—”

“Bailey. Joyce Bailey.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Bailey.” Cate put out her hand. It
was heart-lifting to be so warmly received.

Joyce Bailey took it. She just loved that radiant smile. Funny
thing was the girl—she couldn’t have been more than eighteen—reminded her of
someone. She tried to think who. No one who lived in the village. She was
absolutely sure of that. She knew every last soul. But the smile, the girl’s
beauty, struck some sort of chord. Maybe it would come to her some time. Never
an oil painting, she suddenly remembered the beautiful Radclyffe girls, Stella
and Annabel. Dark-haired both, with lovely melting dark eyes; Annabel had been
considered the more beautiful of the two. The whole district had been stunned
when Stella and her husband had taken off for Australia. Annabel had gone with
them at the time. But Annabel had returned almost a year later to marry a
baronet who carried her off to London.

It had taken little time for Lord and Lady Wyndham to adapt to
losing their beautiful daughters. The loss of their son, the heir, in infancy
was the big tragedy. Everything else rated far below the line. The death of the
son had come as the great blow of their lives. Other losses could be sustained.
It was well known in the village the Radclyffes were a dysfunctional family.

After Lady Wyndham died, her husband retreated from the world,
seeing few visitors. The Australian girl had no chance of getting a glimpse
inside the hall. She could get as far as the garden. Beautiful girls had a way
of getting in where the ants couldn’t.

* * *

So her objective Radclyffe Hall was only a few miles
away. Cate couldn’t help feeling a quickening excitement. She slipped back
behind the wheel with a parting wave to Mrs Bailey who, intrigued, had come to
the post office door to see her off. Cate was really looking forward to this
excursion. Lunch too for that matter. She was hungry. Back on the road there was
a continuation of the chequered green landscape, a tapestry with all its
different textures. It had the most potent charm. She had the window wound down
so she could feel the breeze against her cheek. This was a muted world of soft
pastel shades, and a totally different quality of light
.
Even the underlying colour schemes were different. She was used to such a
flamboyant palette.

Just when she thought it was all plain sailing, the engine of
the little hire car gave a cough, then a splutter. She urged it onto the verge
where it quietly died.

“Blast!” Cate hit the wheel with both hands. Clever she might
be at maths, but a car mechanic she was not. She looked ahead, then back.
Nothing coming. She could lock the car, then proceed on foot. She couldn’t be
that far off her objective. But what about getting back again? She got out of
the car, setting about lifting the bonnet to have a peer inside. Perhaps the car
had overheated and she could restart it after a while. She heard a vehicle
coming along the country road behind her. She didn’t turn around, trusting
whoever it was would stop. Help out a young lady in distress. The English were
mannerly helpful people. Or so she’d been told.

The resonant male voice when it came wasn’t in the least
solicitous. It was unmistakably a young man’s voice, but it proclaimed the
legendary public-school accent—Eton? Harrow? Maybe modernised a bit.

“Think you can handle it?”

She found herself bridling at the tone. It was shocking in its
languidness. “Clear off,” she muttered, risking she would be overheard.

He pounced. “I did ask a question.”

“Really!” She spun around, shocked by the level of aggression
that tone had provoked. “And I’m asking
you
one.
What’s so funny? Do you want to help or are you just being bloody-minded?” Of
course he was. She could spot it.

He gave her an extraordinarily beautiful if condescending
smile. Humour the girl. Beautiful white teeth, perfectly even and straight. She
felt all her nerve ends clench. “Exaggerating, aren’t you?” he asked ever so
slowly, at the same time taking her in. “I only enquired if you can handle the
problem.”

She couldn’t mask the irritation his persona engendered. Such
feelings had never attacked her before. He was as handsome as the devil. Those
eyes
!
She had never
seen eyes so intensely blue
.
Sapphires set in
coal-black lashes. A wave of jet-black hair flopped down onto his high forehead.
His skin faintly dewed with perspiration was very fine, lightly tanned. He had a
nose disagreeable to her. An aquiline
beak
,
the bone as straight as a blade. You could get
impaled on it. He was using it to good effect looking down it at her. Some girls
would really fancy him. Most would actually. “I’ve never met with a problem up
until today,” she told him shortly. “A less than efficient hire car, in fact a
bit of a rattle trap. Steering a bit wobbly. But it’s been okay up to date,
which doesn’t explain why the engine suddenly died on me.”