The Promise (27 page)

My knees would no longer support me and I sank to the deck screaming with grief and despair. The ship was drawing further from the shore with every beat of my aching heart, and there was nothing we could do. Ellis looked as desolate as I felt, holding me tight as both of us sobbed for our lost son while I cradled Maura’s baby in my arms.

‘So my father, Aaran, is actually the son of you and Ellis?’ Chrissie said, wanting to be sure she had it all sorted in her mind. The entire family was by now gathered together in the library, where Georgia sat by the fire in her cosy dressing gown telling the end of her remarkable tale.

‘That’s correct. And Vanessa is really the daughter of my one-time maid, Maura, and Drew Kemp. I confess, though, that I have always thought of you as mine, and loved you as if you were my own,’ the old lady said, her eyes soft as they rested on her adopted daughter.

‘Which means that Aaran and I are not related?’ Vanessa asked, in breathless tones.

‘Not at all. I desperately regret not explaining that to you properly when you challenged me with it all those years ago. But I was afraid that my children would all be
shamefully branded as illegitimate, and I would face the ignominy of jail for bigamy. I thought I could convince you without revealing quite everything, but you were young and headstrong and flounced off. Try as I might, I could not find you.’

‘Oh, Ma, I don’t care about being illegitimate, and I would have kept your secret, never let them take you.’

‘I doubt any of us would have had the power to stop the legal machine from grinding us all to dust. For that reason I was terrified of your going to America.’

‘I can see that now,’ Vanessa said. ‘If only I’d properly understood.’

‘I wanted to return myself once, to retrieve my son, but Prue threatened to expose me as a bigamist if I so much as set foot on American soil. I loved my sister dearly, still do, but she stole my son. I could never forgive her for that. She wasn’t a bad person, just rather selfish and foolish, considered no one’s feelings and needs but her own. Sadly, Prue’s life did not turn out as well as she’d hoped. She remained the spoilt greedy child she always had been, and became filled with a bitterness which ultimately destroyed her. Kemp did not change his ways, you see. He became embroiled in many more charges of fraud and graft, which is why she broke her promise never to ask anything more of me, and constantly begged for money to dig them out of yet another hole. She even resented not being given more of Mama’s jewels. I had to cash those in long since, to pay her off year after year.

‘He did at least marry her, for the sake of Aaran, even though he knew the boy was not his son. And Prue stuck
with him, through thick and thin, but Kemp was never faithful, as you might imagine. There were always other women. It was not a happy marriage, and his financial successes gradually turned into failures, much of his profits paid out in fines and bribes, and to lawyers.

‘When I refused to finance their profligacy any further she had the gall to send Aaran, my own son, to plead her case. Maura was dead by that time but Prue had continued to keep the promise Maura made, and told no one of my existence. Now she threatened to reveal all, to destroy my family, and me. I might have given in to her pleas, as I generally did, but I wanted an end to her demands, her blackmail. I had to stop her ruining your life as well as mine, so I put my foot down once and for all. Kemp died soon after that, no doubt one scandal too many taking its toll. Consequently, she took her final revenge on her deathbed by telling Vanessa that Aaran was my son, without explaining that Ellis was his father, or that Vanessa was in fact Maura’s daughter, fathered by Kemp. It was a selfish, wicked thing to do.’

‘And with dreadful consequences,’ Chrissie softly added, giving her mother’s hand a comforting squeeze.

Vanessa said, ‘It destroyed us. Aaran and I loved each other so much we couldn’t bear to be apart. I started to drink, he got involved in gambling, all to offset the misery and loss we felt. We did meet secretly from time to time, right up to the war, and always firmly believed what my mother-in-law had told me. Aaran was so determined to protect Chrissie, he actually fabricated his own death by pretending he’d been killed at Dunkirk.’

‘What did you say?’ Chrissie was staring at her mother now in disbelief. ‘Are you saying that Dad isn’t really dead?’

Vanessa smiled. ‘He’s very much alive and well, still living in London, if in straitened circumstances, working hard to pay off the debt he foolishly ran up. He rings me often to ask how you are, darling, and misses us both dreadfully.’

‘Oh, Mum, I can’t quite take this in.’

She laughed, looking young and beautiful again, quite her old self. ‘You must, because this means he can come home, and we can be a family again.’ Then mother and daughter were both crying, hugging each other with joy and relief.

A beaming Georgia said, ‘It would seem, Chrissie dear, that your interference has paid off. Digging up family secrets and dusting off the past has been a good thing, after all.’

A few days later, when Aaran himself arrived, the family reunion was complete. It was a most joyous occasion. Georgia welcomed her son with open arms. And for Chrissie to see her father alive and well, to have him hug her and tease her was more happiness than she’d ever dreamt of. The rest of the family had to be sent for, of course: Ryall and his snobby wife, the twins and their children. A huge celebration dinner was arranged at which old wounds would at last be healed, the family feud finally brought to an end.

Ben and Chrissie managed to escape the melee as he
took her hand and pulled her out into the garden. ‘So does this mean that you aren’t going to break up with me, after all?’ he asked, his eyes bright with love as he dropped a kiss on to her soft mouth.

‘I might just consider keeping you on for a while longer,’ she admitted, slipping her arms about his neck. ‘I mean, there’s still work to be finished on the bookshop, isn’t there?’

‘How much longer do you reckon you’ll need me? Another week maybe? A month?’

‘It’s hard to say. What do you think? Is it a long job?’

‘I’m afraid so, it could take at least a lifetime.’

Chrissie sighed with pleasure. ‘That would suit me perfectly, so long as Karen has no objections.’

‘No problem. I’ll get her approval in writing, then there’s no comeback,’ Ben agreed, kissing her some more. ‘All legal and above board, on the grounds that in our family there will be no secrets. And all promises will be kept.’

‘Have you any particular promise in mind?’ Chrissie asked, eyes closed as their kisses grew ever more passionate, and desire kicked in.

‘Only to love me for ever. Could you manage that, do you think?’

‘Now that’s a promise I can easily keep.’

The characters and story are entirely fictional, but all the locations featured in the book are as real as I can make them, including the historical details of San Francisco. Some liberties have been taken with the timing of the Bowness-on-Windermere Water Festival for the purposes of the story.

House of Angels

Angels at War

The Promise