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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

HE WAS standing in the dining-room, by the window, gazing out at the rain that had been falling solidly ever since they left the church. Olivia guessed he must be thinking it was an omen. After weeks and weeks of dry weather, it had to be the day of the funeral that it changed.

She halted in the doorway, realising he was not yet aware of her presence, and dreading the moment when she would have to say goodbye. If only she were older, she thought. If only Sally had considered before blithely making Philip her son’s guardian. But who would have expected Sally and Keith to die before either of them was thirty-five? And Philip was Sally’s brother. He was obviously the natural choice.

Even so …

Olivia caught her lower lip between her teeth as she stared at the boy’s drooping figure. Today had been more of a strain for him than for anyone, and his bent head and hunched shoulders spoke of a misery he could no longer hide. He had done well, she thought, handling himself through the tortuous rites of the burial with a dignity and self-possession enviable in a much older man. But now, believing himself unobserved, he had given way to his real feelings, and Olivia’s heart went out to him as she recognised his grief.

’Conor.’

His name was barely audible across the silent room, but he heard her. He turned then, dashing his hand over his face as he did so, struggling to resume the defensive posture that had kept his tears at bay.

’Oh—hi, Aunt ‘Livia,’ he said, forcing a smile that was determinedly bright. ‘I was just watching the rain. The garden’s waterlogged. Mum’s—–’ He broke off abruptly as the mention of his mother’s name disconcerted him, and then continued with an obvious effort, ‘Mum’s dahlias are really taking a hammering.’

’Are they?’

Olivia came to stand beside him, noticing almost inconsequentially that he had grown another couple of inches in the last twelve months. He was almost as tall as she was now, and at five feet seven inches—nine in her heels—she was considered above average height.

But now she feigned an interest in the flowers Sally had planted in the borders. The rain-soaked garden showed little of the colour it had flaunted earlier in the summer. The last time Olivia was here they had all had tea on the lawn …

She glanced at the boy beside her, more concerned about him than about his mother’s flowers. What was he really thinking? she wondered. Was he wishing he had gone with his parents on that fated day trip to Paris? He looked so pale and drawn, his sandy hair, which always seemed to need cutting, straggling over the collar of his dark suit.

If only they had made her his guardian, she thought helplessly. At fifteen, a boy needed to know who he was; he needed roots. Everything he knew and loved was here in Paget. He knew no one in the United States. He hadn’t even been to Florida for a holiday.

’Do I have to go?’

The low, impassioned words were uncannily like an echo of her own thoughts, and Olivia wondered if he could read her mind. Certainly her association with the Brennans had always been a close one, and only in the last couple of years, since she had gone to live and work in London, had their friendship suffered because of the separation.

Of course, it was his mother with whom Olivia had had the most in common, she acknowledged. She had been ten when Keith and Sally Brennan had moved into the big old house next to her grandmother’s cottage. And, from the beginning, she had been a welcome visitor there. Naturally the fact that the Brennans had also had a baby son had been a great attraction, but as Olivia grew older it was Sally who had shared all the hopes and fears of her teenage years.

Olivia had hardly known her own parents. They had been involved in a car accident when she was little more than a baby herself, and although her mother had lingered on in the hospital for several weeks after the crash there had never been any real hope of her recovering consciousness. In consequence, Olivia’s paternal grandmother had taken her to live with her and, although Mrs Holland had done her best, she had been too used to living alone to have much patience with a lively toddler.

That was why Olivia felt such an enormous sense of empathy with Conor now. She had known him since he was two years old. She had watched him grow from a mischievous schoolboy into a confident teenager. She had combed his hair and scrubbed his knees, and sometimes told him off. And lately she had teased him about his girlfriends: the procession of budding Madonnas who hung around outside his gate. He was the closest thing to a nephew she was ever likely to have, and she was going to miss him badly.

’I—think so,’ she answered now, finding it difficult to say the words with his anxious eyes upon her. She struggled to sound optimistic. ‘Look at it this way—it’ll be a fresh start. And—where your Uncle Philip lives sounds really beautiful. Imagine being able to swim all the year round!’

’I don’t want to go.’ Conor’s response was desperate. ‘I want to stay here. Why can’t I stay here? This house is mine now, isn’t it?’

’Well, yes, but—–’

’There you are, then.’

’Conor, you can’t stay here alone!’ It wasn’t as if her grandmother still lived next door. Last year Mrs Holland had had a stroke, and she had been moved into a retirement home. The cottage had been sold, and Sally had said they hardly knew the new occupants.

’Why can’t I?’ he demanded now. ‘I’ve stayed here on my own before.’

’Not for weeks you haven’t,’ replied Olivia flatly, finding it impossible to sustain his cornered gaze. ‘Conor, you’re only fifteen—–’

’Sixteen,’ he interrupted her swiftly. ‘I’ll be sixteen in three months.’

’No, Conor.’

’Then why can’t I come and live with you?’ he demanded, seizing on the idea. ‘I wouldn’t get in your way, honestly. I could get a job—–’

’Conor …’ She sighed. ‘Conor, you have to finish your education. It’s what your parents would have wanted.’

’In Florida!’ His lips twisted.

’Yes.’ Olivia knew she had to be firm.

Conor sniffed. ‘I see.’

’Oh, don’t say it like that.’ She couldn’t bear his defeated stare. ‘If there was anything I could do—–’

’—you’d do it. I know.’ But Conor sounded horribly cynical. ‘I’m sorry. I should have realised. You’re going to be a hotshot lady lawyer! The last thing you need is a raw kid hanging around your apartment, cramping your style, when you bring clients home—–’

’Conor, I don’t have an apartment, and you know it,’ she protested weakly. ‘I have a room in a house that I share with three other women. It’s just a bed-sit, really. And there’s no way you could live there.’

’Well, why can’t you get something bigger? Something we could share? I’d help with the rent—–’

’No, Conor.’ Olivia squashed that idea once and for all. ‘I’m not your guardian,’ she explained gently. ‘Your Uncle Philip is. Even … even if it were possible—which it’s not,’ she put in hurriedly, ‘he wouldn’t allow you to stay with me.’

’And aren’t you glad?’ Conor’s expression changed to one of bitterness. He swung away from her, thrusting aggressive hands into his trouser pockets, rounding his shoulders against an unforgiving fate. ‘I bet you can’t wait to get in your car and drive away from all this, can you?’ he exclaimed scornfully. ‘It’s not your problem, so why get involved? I don’t know what you came here for. You can’t help, so why didn’t you stay away?’

’Oh, Conor!’

Olivia’s composure broke at last, and, as if her grief was all that was needed to drive a wedge through his crumbling defiance, he turned back to her. For a few tense moments he just stared at her, and she saw the glitter of tears on lashes several shades darker than his hair. Then, with a muffled groan, he flung himself into her arms.

He was shaking. She could feel it. And his thin, boyish frame seemed even bonier than she remembered. One of the neighbours had told her he hadn’t eaten a thing since he had learned that the plane carrying his mother and father to Paris had exploded over the Channel. He had borne it all bravely, but inside it was eating him up.

’I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he muttered at last, dragging himself away from her. He rubbed the back of his hand across his cheek, looking at her rather shamefacedly. ‘I’ve wet the collar of your blouse.’

’It doesn’t matter.’ Olivia wished the dampness she could feel against her neck was all she had to worry about. ‘I just wish there was something I could do. Your mother was my best friend. I don’t want to let you down.’

Conor’s lashes drooped to veil eyes that were presently a watery shade of green. He had long lashes for a boy, and they did a successful job of hiding his feelings. Dear God, why had this had to happen? The Brennans had been such a close family. They had come to live in Paget when Keith, who was a physiotherapist, got an appointment at the hospital in nearby Dymchurch. Sally, meanwhile, had been content doing social work and looking after her garden, and Conor had been the centre of their universe …

’What time are you leaving?’ he enquired abruptly, and she guessed what it must have cost him to ask that question. But he knew, as well as she did, that it would take her some time to drive back to London. And now that the nights were drawing in again …

’Um—pretty soon,’ Olivia answered now, putting out her hand to brush a thread of lint from his jacket, and then withdrawing it again as he flinched away from her touch. She linked her hands together instead in an effort to control her own anguish, and glanced behind her. ‘I—you will write and let me know your address, won’t you? You know where I live, and I’m looking forward to hearing all about Port Douglas.’

Conor shrugged. ‘If you like.’

There was a flatness to his tone now, an indifference, and inwardly Olivia groaned. It was foolish, she knew, but the thought of leaving him, of not seeing him again for God knew how long, was tearing her apart, and she realised she had to get away before she gave in and said something she would regret. He couldn’t stay with her. There was no way she could support herself and a boy of his age. And it was no use toying with the idea of abandoning her legal training, getting a job down here, and offering to live with him, in this house, as a kind of guardian-cum-housekeeper. Philip Cox would never allow it. And, in any case, the house was probably going to be sold to pay for Conor’s education.

Biting her lip, she took a steadying breath. ‘So,’ she said, striving for control, ‘you’re going to be all right?’

Conor’s mouth twisted. ‘Of course.’

Olivia hesitated. ‘You do—understand?’

Conor shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

’Of course it matters.’ Just for a moment Olivia lost her hard-won detachment, and a little of her own frustration showed in her voice. ‘I want you to be happy, Conor. And you will be. Believe me!’

CHAPTER ONE

THE small hotel, part of a row of wood-faced Tudor-type dwellings, many of which owed their origins to the days when the Cinque Ports provided ships to fight the Spanish Armada, stood at the end of the quay. Of course, the old buildings had been much renovated and repaired since Elizabethan times, but the Ship Inn’s low doorways and timbered ceilings were too attractive to tourists to be replaced, however inconvenient they might be.

Not that Paget attracted as many visitors as Romney, or Hythe, or Dymchurch. It was too small, for one thing, and, for another, the salt-marshes were not suitable for children to play on. But, as a fishing village that hadn’t altered drastically since the sixteenth century, it was one of a kind, and many visitors, Americans particularly, came to take photographs of its ancient buildings and cobbled streets.

But at this time of the year there were few tourists stalwart enough to brave the east wind that came in over the marshes. The first weeks of February had been wild and blustery, and only that morning there had been a sprinkling of snow over the fishing boats lying idle in their stocks. Storm warnings had been out all along the coast, and the few fishermen willing to venture out into the choppy waters had been driven back again by the gales.

Standing at her bedroom window, her head stooped to accommodate the low lintel, Olivia felt no sense of regret at the inclement weather. On the contrary, it suited her very well that she did not have to put on a sociable face when she went down to the tiny dining-room for breakfast. She hadn’t come to Paget for familiarity or company. She didn’t want to talk to anybody, beyond the common courtesies politeness demanded. Because he hadn’t recognised her name, the landlord had assumed she was a stranger here, and it had suited her to foster that belief. As far as Tom Drake was concerned, she was one of ‘them crazy Londoners’, she was sure. Who else would choose to come to Paget while winter still gripped it in its icy grasp? Who else would book a room for an unspecified period when it was obvious from her appearance that she would have benefited from a spell in the sun?

Of course, the fact that she looked thin and pale and tended to drag her left leg might have given the staff other ideas, Olivia acknowledged. After all, this was hardly the sort of place to come for a rest cure. Perhaps they thought she had some awful terminal illness and had come to Paget to die. It was impossible to speculate what they might think, but in the week that had elapsed since she came here they had respected her privacy and left her alone.

And Olivia was grateful. In fact, for the first time in more than a year she actually felt as if she was beginning to relax. Her leg was still painful, particularly if she walked further than the doctors had recommended. But her appetite was improving a little, and she didn’t always need barbiturates to sleep.

Her lips curled slightly as she accorded that thread of optimism the contempt it deserved. Imagine needing drugs to enjoy a night’s rest, she thought bitterly. She was thirty-four, and she felt at least twenty years older!

But her low state of fitness was not entirely unwarranted, she defended herself. The shock of learning that Stephen had been unfaithful had barely been blunted when the accident happened, and weeks spent in a hospital bed had served to exacerbate her sense of betrayal. If she’d been able to carry on with her work, lose herself in its legal intricacies, she might have weathered the storm fairly well. It wasn’t as if her marriage to Stephen had been ideal from the outset. It hadn’t, and it had taken her only a short time to acknowledge that she had allowed her biological clock to induce her into a situation that was primarily the result of pressure. Pressure from her friends, pressure from her peers, but also pressure within herself at the knowledge that she was twenty-nine, single, and facing a lonely future. In consequence, she had allowed herself to be persuaded that any marriage was better than no marriage at all, and it wasn’t until the deed was done that she had realised how wrong she was.

She couldn’t altogether blame Stephen. Like herself, he had been approaching an early middle age without a permanent companion, and, if some of his habits had been a little annoying, and his lovemaking less than earth-moving, she had determined to make the best of it. No doubt there were things she did that annoyed him, too, and if her grandmother had taught her anything, it was that life was seldom the way one wanted it to be.

But, predictably enough, she supposed, it was Stephen who tired of the marriage first. And, equally predictably, she was the last to find out. Perhaps if her job had not been so demanding, if she had not spent so many evenings visiting clients or preparing briefs, she would have noticed sooner what was going on. But Stephen’s job in wholesaling meant that he was often away overnight, and it wasn’t until a well-meaning friend had asked if she had enjoyed her mid-week break in Bath that she had been curious enough to examine their credit-card statements more closely. What she had found was that Stephen often occupied a double room on his nights away, and that, while this was not so incriminating in itself, another receipt, showing dinner for two at a bistro in Brighton, was. Olivia knew that Stephen had purportedly gone to Brighton to attend a delegates’ conference, and the presentation dinner that followed it had supposedly been a dead bore.

When she confronted him with her suspicions, he had tried to deny it. For all the inadequacies of their marriage, he had still wanted to maintain the status quo. It had suited him to have a wife who wouldn’t divorce him hovering in the background. It gave him an excuse not to get too involved, and he’d enjoyed the thrill of forbidden fruit.

For Olivia, however, the idea of continuing such an alliance was abhorrent to her. She wanted out. She had learned her lesson, and she wanted her freedom, and Stephen’s pleas to give him another chance only filled her with disgust.

Nevertheless, although she moved out of the apartment they had shared in Kensington, Stephen had continued to hound her. Even though she employed a solicitor in another partnership to represent her, Stephen insisted he would fight the petition in court. And Olivia knew, better than anyone, how messy such divorces could be. And how ironic that she should be caught in such a situation which could only be damaging to her career.

In the years since she had become an articled solicitor she had gained a small reputation for competent representation. She still worked for the large partnership with whom she had trained, but her obvious abilities had not gone unnoticed. There was talk of a junior partnership, if she wanted it, or the possibility of branching out on her own. Neither option would benefit from adverse publicity of any kind, and Olivia knew Stephen would do anything to embarrass her. He was bitter and resentful, and, incredibly, he blamed her for their estrangement. He was not going to let her go easily, and his threats were a constant headache.

Which was probably why the accident had happened, she acknowledged now, even though she had never blamed Stephen for any of it. She had already been sleeping badly, and the extra hours at work she had been putting in, in an effort to keep other thoughts at bay, had taken their toll. She shouldn’t have been driving. She should have taken a taxi to the station, and caught a train to Basingstoke. But she hadn’t. She had driven—straight into one of the concrete pillars supporting a bridge over the M3. Or at least, that was what they had told her. She didn’t remember anything after leaving the office.

Of course, Stephen had been sorry then. He had come to see her in the hospital, when she was still strung up to so many machines that she must have looked like a marionette. She could have her divorce now, he’d said. He wouldn’t oppose it. He’d contact her solicitor straight away, and get the thing in motion. It wasn’t until later that she’d wondered at his speed.

By then, by the time she was lucid enough to understand that she was lucky to be alive, she had had other problems to contend with. Not least the news that, although her skull was evidently thicker than it had a right to be, and her wounds would heal, and her broken limbs would mend, her left leg had suffered multiple fractures, and it was unlikely she would ever run again.

She remembered she’d tried to joke about not being able to run before, but, as time went on, she realised what they had been trying to tell her. Her left leg had been crushed, badly crushed, and, although all the skills of modern surgery had been brought to bear, the tendons had been damaged quite beyond repair.

Physiotherapy had helped a lot. That and her determination to walk again. When she first left the hospital she had had to get around on crutches, and for weeks she had struggled to and from the clinic in an ambulance. But gradually she had been able to put the crutches aside and manage with a walking-stick, even taking up her job again, although that had been rather harder. Her leg ached if she had to stand for any length of time, and the stress of both the accident and the divorce had taken a toll on her defences. Eventually, she had had to accept that if she wasn’t careful she was going to have a complete nervous breakdown, and the senior partner at Hallidays had suggested she take a holiday.

Olivia knew he had had something different in mind from the east coast of southern England. The West Indies, perhaps, or South America. Somewhere where the sun was hot and life was lived at a slower pace. Somewhere she could relax, and restore the tattered remnants of her existence.

Of course, her colleagues didn’t know the whole story. They had assumed that Stephen’s defection had precipitated this crisis. But the truth was that the weeks of inactivity had given Olivia time to re-evaluate her life, and, despite a sense of frustration at her weakness, she was no longer sure of what she wanted.

For so long her career had been the yardstick by which she had measured her success. She had wanted to become a lawyer, and she had succeeded. She had wanted to be offered a partnership, and that, too, was within her grasp. So why did it all seem so empty, somehow? What had happened to the ambition that had sustained her for so long?

She had tried to tell herself that it was the old biological thing again. That, however pointless her marriage to Stephen had become, it had still been her best chance to fulfil herself as a woman. If she had had a baby, would things have been different? They had never taken any precautions, but it had evidently been not to be. Maybe she couldn’t have children. Maybe that was why she felt so empty now. Or was it, as Conor had said once, that she had got hard in her old age? But then, he had wanted to hurt her, and undoubtedly he had succeeded.

Conor …

Leaving the window, Olivia crossed to the dressing-table and seated herself on the padded stool in front of the mirror. As she examined her pale features without pleasure, she wondered where he was, and what he was doing now. It must be—what?—nine years since she’d seen him. In fact she had only seen him that one time since he had gone to live in the United States.

She grimaced. It was not a visit she remembered with any affection. At seventeen and a half, Conor had changed totally from the sensitive boy she had known. He had been loud, and cocky, and objectionable, full of his own importance and brimming with conceit. He had been in London with a group of students from the college he attended in Port Douglas, and he had arrived at the house she still shared one night, already the worse for drink.

To Olivia, who was used to the Conor she knew from the letters he had occasionally sent her, he was almost a stranger, bragging about the life he led back in Florida, impressing her with the parties he went to, the car he drove. He was arrogant and brash, decrying the room she had furnished with such care, and disparaging her lifestyle compared to his. He had said she was a fool to spend all her time working, that he was glad he’d got out of England when he had. And when Olivia had defended herself by taking a stiff-necked stance, he had accused her of getting hard in her old age.

Oh, yes. Olivia traced the curve of one eyebrow with a rueful finger. That visit had not been repeated. Indeed, it had taken her quite some time to get over it, and when there were no more letters she wasn’t really surprised. Who’d have thought it? she mused. That two years should have made such a difference. But then, he had been young, she conceded, as she had done numerous times before. Perhaps it had been his way of dealing with the situation. There was no doubt that losing both his parents had been quite a blow.

Still, in spite of the lapse in communication, she did continue to think about him sometimes. Particularly times like this, when she was feeling rather low. Which was probably why she had chosen to come to Paget, even though, since her grandmother’s death five years ago, she had no connection with the place. She hadn’t wanted to go anywhere hot and noisy. She supposed what she’d really wanted to do was return to her roots.

A final grimace at her appearance, and she was ready to go downstairs. The trouble with very dark hair, particularly the unruly variety, was that it accentuated any trace of pallor in her face, she thought ruefully. Since the accident it had grown so long that she was obliged to confine it in a knot at her nape, and even then it contrived to escape every hairpin. She looked like a witch, she decided, all wild hair and black-ringed eyes. It was a reminder—if any reminder was needed—of why she had always kept her hair short in the past.

She left the walking-stick propped by the door. Slowly but surely, she was managing to do without it for a little longer every day. Eventually, she told herself, only the slight dragging of her foot and the ugly scars that would never completely disappear would be all that remained of her trauma. And in three weeks she’d possess her decree absolute, and Stephen would no longer play any part in her future.

Poor Stephen, she thought, with an unwarranted sense of pity. He hadn’t been able to wait to dissociate himself from any responsibility for what had happened to her. He had got quite a shock when he saw her in the hospital. He must have been afraid he was going to be tethered to an invalid for the rest of his life.

Men! She shook her head regretfully as she closed her door behind her. Her experience of the opposite sex was that a woman should not rely on them. Olivia determined that, whatever she decided to do, she would not be taken in again. She was free—or she would be in three weeks—over twenty-one, and independent. What did she need a man for?

Since she was the only guest staying at the inn right now, Mrs Drake always made a fuss of her after she’d negotiated the narrow, twisting stairs that led down to the lower floor. Seating her at the much-coveted table in the leaded window embrasure, the publican’s plump wife rattled through a series of questions about how she was, whether she’d slept well, had she everything she needed, and, finally, what did she fancy for breakfast this morning?

As she only ever had coffee and toast, that question was really academic, but, as always, Olivia answered her, adding a polite enquiry as to her and Mr Drake’s health.