A Lost Love

‘I've always been the head of Charlwood Industries,’ he said hardly. ‘And I doubt even Patrick would welcome a complete stranger into the company as a shareholder.’

She didn't even stiffen at his insulting tone; she had learnt to school both her reactions and features as the latter had been slowly changed. ‘But you don't mind inviting one to share your home?’ she lightly mocked.

‘The cottage is hardly my home,’ he derided.

‘But the Charlwood estate is,’ she pointed out with coy sweetness.

‘If my being here bothers you I can always arrange to live at one of our other houses,’ he dismissed.

‘I think perhaps,’ she softly taunted, ‘my being at the cottage would bother you rather than the other way around.’

Hard grey eyes raked over her with slow disdain. ‘Believe me, Miss Adamson, where you choose to live is completely immaterial to me.’

‘Really?’ Dark blonde brows rose. ‘In that case, I'd better give all this very serious thought. As you don't seem to care one way or the other——’

‘I didn't say that, Miss Adamson,’ he bit out, evidence that he wasn't quite as controlled as he appeared, although his eyes were glacial, his mouth the forbidding line she remembered so well. ‘I would, of course, prefer the Charlwood shares to remain in the family.’

In that case she could decide on either of the conditions in the will, because if she did take the shares they would simply revert to Robert on her death. But she already knew that she was going to live in the cottage, could hardly contain her relief and elation at the thought of still being able to catch the occasional glimpse of the son who had been taken from her when he was only six months old. He had been a beautiful baby, and had grown up into a lovely little boy, but his babyhood had been robbed from her by the man standing at her side. She would never hear Robert call her ‘Mummy’ either, and all because this man had ruled her fate by his moral judgments on her, deciding she was unfit to be the mother of his child. She was no more unfit to be his mother than Rafe was to be his father!

‘I understand that,’ she told him coldly.

‘But you still need time to think about your decision?’ he rasped.

‘Yes,’ Brooke nodded, knowing it was time to cut short this private conversation with this potentially dangerous man. ‘And now if you don't mind, I would like to leave.’ She raised her voice enough to encompass the rest of the people in the room, her gaze remaining unflinching in the face of the hostility that surrounded her.

‘You'll contact me when you've made your decision, Miss Adamson,’ the lawyer asked politely; he was the only one who wasn't antagonistic, although he did seemed slightly puzzled by it all.

‘Of course.’ She moved to shake his hand, nodding coolly to the married couple before turning to leave.

‘I'll walk you to the door.’ Rafe fell into step beside her.

She gave a cool nod of acceptance and moved with graceful elegance at his side.

‘I've spent some time with my son, Miss Adamson,’ he suddenly drawled, ‘so I'll now repeat my dinner invitation to you.’

She turned to look at him as they reached the door. ‘And I'll repeat my refusal,’ she said without emotion. ‘No, thank you.’

His gaze was rapier-sharp as it raked over the beautiful perfection of her face. ‘Besides the fact that you disapprove of the way I'm bringing up my son,’ he drawled, ‘what else have I done to make you dislike me?’

She arched shaped brows. ‘Isn't that enough?’ she asked disdainfully.

His mouth twisted, his confidence now wavering for a moment. ‘Do you come from a broken home yourself?’

‘Both my parents are dead, yes.’

‘Ah.’

Brooke drew in a deep breath at his patronising tone. ‘They died when I was a child, I never really knew them. I just believe that any parent should bring up their child themselves if they're able to, and not leave it to servants.’ She could see that this time she had got beneath the coolness of his guard, his mouth tightening ominously at her rebuke.

‘Someone should have mentioned that fact to my wife,’ he bit out contemptuously.

She forced herself not to react as bitterly to that derogatory remark as she was tempted to do. She had suffered too much to get this far, she wasn't going to lose all that for the satisfaction of wiping the arrogance off Rafe's face for just a few minutes—that was as long as it would take him to recover from the fact that his wife wasn't dead after all, and to have her thrown out of his home as quickly as possible. No, even that satisfaction wasn't worth giving up the chance to be with her son.

She met his contempt with some of her own. ‘I believe I said if they are able to, Mr Charlwood,’ she drawled dismissively.

‘Meaning?’ His voice had lowered threateningly.

‘Meaning your wife wasn't given the chance to bring up her child. You brought in a nanny from the day your son was brought home from the hospital, engaged a nurserymaid to help her out with his care. I wouldn't say that left a lot of time for your wife to be involved in bringing him up, would you? Except perhaps for an hour or so before dinner?’ Her voice was heavily laced with sarcasm.

‘You would seem to know a lot about my marriage, Miss Adamson,’ Rafe grated.

She didn't just know about it, she had lived it! From the moment Robert had been placed in her arms after his birth she had loved him, but Rafe had insisted she couldn't take care of him herself, that it would tire her too much. After that she hadn't seen enough of Robert for him even to become familiar of her as his mother, the army of servants Rafe employed for his son's care making it obvious that he believed her incapable of looking after him properly. And then he had wondered why she became bored and dissatisfied with her life at Charlwood!

‘As you once mentioned, Mr Charlwood, your separation was much—publicised,’ she derided. ‘I believe at the time we were allowed to hear your wife's side of the marriage too.’

‘A side with which you obviously sympathise,’ he bit out.

She straightened her slender shoulders. ‘Any woman would feel compassion for another woman who was so callously denied her child.’

‘Callously, Miss Adamson?’ he repeated savagely, his nostrils flaring angrily, his eyes like chips of ice as he looked down at her. ‘You don't know the first thing about my marriage.’

‘Perhaps not,’ she agreed lightly. ‘Maybe you would care to enlighten me some time?’

‘I doubt it,’ he told her glacially. ‘I don't discuss it with anyone.’

Brooke nodded with cool dismissal. ‘I'll be in touch with Mr Gardner concerning the will.’ She looked pointedly at the door, waiting for him to open it before leaving with a haughty confidence she maintained until she had unlocked her car and driven down the driveway, raising her hand in only a polite token of acknowledgment to the man who stood so rigidly proud at the top of the stone steps that led into the house.

He looked very like the first time she had ever seen him in that moment, so darkly arrogant, so commanding, so handsome. Before setting eyes on Rafe Charlwood she hadn't believed such men existed outside of the pages of books or up on the big screen. He had been everything she believed tall, dark, and handsome should be and never hoped to find, had an experience and air of power that had merely added to his already devastating attraction.

Brought up by an aunt and uncle who had little interest in her, having no desire for children of their own, let alone an orphaned niece, she had been overjoyed when she won a scholarship to one of the famous schools for dance, and was happy there for the first time in years, despite being told that although she had the height and build of a ballet dancer she would never have that elusive talent that would make her into a star, the tutors advising her to concentrate on modern dance. It had been something she enjoyed more than anything else, teaming up with five other girls from the school to do a round of auditions that seemed never-ending, and rarely successful. But after almost a year together, and a change in a couple of the girls, they had finally managed to secure a season with Greg Davieson on his own television show. It had been like the realisation of a dream, the glamorous parties they were invited to being just a bonus as far as she was concerned.

And then at one of those after-the-shows parties she had seen Rafe. He had been talking with the producer and director, and she learnt from one of the other girls that he was a friend of the former, was the powerful owner of Charlwood Industries. He was a man often in the news for one business merger or another, and at thirty-five he looked his age—and he was also the most handsome and most sought-after man in London at the moment. Jacqui felt sure she didn't have a chance with him, wished she had worn something a little more mature, more sophisticated. She had come straight to the party from the show, just wanting to relax a little. The dress she had changed into was a simple yellow jersey, the colour clashing abominably with her red hair. With a natural colour of mousy-brown, and two blondes already in the group, she had decided on a more interesting shade of auburn. At their first conversation Rafe had told her he much preferred redheads to blondes, and from that moment on she had decided to keep her hair auburn.

Greg Davieson had introduced them, and to Jacqui's surprise they had spent the remainder of the evening together. When the party broke up at two o'clock in the morning Rafe Charlwood had been the one to drive her home, his home, his apartment in London. For two more weeks they had been together constantly. Jacqui was as yet unsure of Rafe's feelings for her, no closer to knowing the inner thoughts of this man than she had been before she spoke to him, and yet knowing that she was in love with him. She had known it that first night, had given him her innocence without thought of denial, and didn't hesitate on any occasion after that when he telephoned her and wanted to be with her. The night he had asked her to marry him she had been sure he loved her, although he still didn't say the words, not even at the height of passion, but remained a very private and insular man.

Her life had changed irrevocably the moment she became Rafe's wife—that much she had realised when a whole new wardrobe of clothes had been packed for her in the expensive suitcases they took with them on their honeymoon, her own clothes dismissed by Rafe as unsuitable attire for his wife. She had accepted the change of clothes, although the new ones hadn't really been the style she liked to wear, being smart rather than modern, elegant rather than stylish. But she had been too much in love with the strong man who was her husband to care about the subtle changes he made in her life, and she was overjoyed when he told her only a month after their wedding that he would like her to have his child. She had been ecstatic eight weeks later when she could tell him he was to have his wish. But it was then that even more changes began to happen in her life—the termination of her dancing career by Rafe as soon as he knew she was carrying his child, the way meetings with friends from her past life as a dancer became rarer and rarer, her life at the Charlwood estate becoming almost unbearable as her pregnancy became advanced, and Rafe forbade her to exert herself in any way. He spent more and more time away on business, and she had to contend with Rosemary's bitter jealousy over her pregnancy when she couldn't have children of her own.

As her pregnancy neared its latter months she saw even less of Rafe, not even having him close to her at night, as he no longer made the trips from his adjoining bedroom to hers, her enlarged condition making it impossible for them even to make love any more. Without that closeness between them any more she became more and more uncertain of herself, feeling the difference in their backgrounds and ages in a way she never had before. She began going up to Loudon to see her old friends.

The first time she lied about seeing the girls she used to dance with she knew she had made a mistake, but she hated it when Rafe became angry or disapproving, and came to dread those times when she had to listen to him lecturing her on maintaining her position as his wife and the mother of his expected child.

Her visits to the rehearsals of the show, with her replacement going through the routines with the other five girls, became increasingly frequent, and the lies to Rafe along with them, the excuses becoming easier to make as time went on. But she was sure that with the birth of their baby everything would come right between them again.

It had been worse. Robert had been taken over by servants as soon as they returned home, so much so that Jacqui felt superfluous, to both him and Rafe. When she asked him if it would be possible for her to begin working again now that the baby was born and he was being taken care of so well Rafe had almost exploded with anger, telling her that if he had wanted a ‘damned showgirl’ he would have taken himself a mistress, not a wife, that it was time she settled down and realised her position as his wife. His last instruction at the end of that argument had been that she wasn't to see or visit the girls at the television studio ever again.

And for several months she had obeyed him, although it hadn't been without resentment. Rafe's punishment for that had been once again to stop sharing her bed, treating her with a coldness that had made her cry herself to sleep on more than one occasion, her sister-in-law's barbs about her lack of ability to hold her husband's attention past the first wedding anniversary rubbing salt into an already open wound.

It had been after one of these more than bitchy exchanges with Rosemary that Jacqui had left the estate with a defiance that had sent her to the studio, to an agreement to take the place of one of the girls in the dance group after she fell during rehearsals and twisted her ankle. It had been an impetuous and rebellious act on her part, since the programme was being televised later that evening. After such a defiant gesture on her part it had seemed stupid not to go to the after-the-show party, deciding that Rafe might as well chastise her for really disobeying him. She hadn't expected him to come to the party, to take one look at her laughing and flirting lightly with Greg, and have her locked out of the estate.

The guard on the gate told her he had instructions not to let her into the grounds, and even her impassioned telephone call to Rafe had met with chilling uninterest. He had told her she would be hearing from his lawyers!

She had heard from them; she could hardly believe that Rafe meant them to separate and keep Robert himself just because he had seen her at a party with Greg. But Rafe had refused even to talk to her, all his contact being made through his lawyers. Those lawyers had been paid well to produce evidence of her affair with Greg Davieson—and produce it they had, each visit to her friends at the television studio being made to look as if it were a personal one to Greg, the nanny and nurserymaid engaged to look after Robert making it look as if she had no interest in her child. How she had fought against that—but her defence of herself had been weak. Rafe had got his separation, had got his son too, and Jacqui had been awarded a large settlement and told she could see her son when it was convenient to Rafe.

It was never convenient to him. After five months of trying to see Robert she was ready to have a nervous breakdown. She hadn't managed to see her son or Rafe since the legal separation.

With Rafe's influence the Greg Davieson show had been cancelled, and both he and the girls, Sensuous Romance, had been out of a job, with no possibility of getting another one when it was known Rafe Charlwood didn't want them to. Sensuous Romance had decided to try their luck in America, and they had invited Jacqui to go along with them. She was almost past caring what she did by then, knowing that Rafe would stop her seeing Robert at any price. Her efforts to take him to court for access to her son had been in her favour, yet still he defied those orders. She had appealed to his aunt then. Jocelyn was always her ally, and had agreed to bring Robert to see her. But Rafe had found out about that too, and had warned her, through his lawyers once again, that if she did anything like it again he would have her charged with kidnapping. At that moment she had known that Rafe was too powerful and cruel an adversary for her to fight and win, and the decision to go to America was taken out of her hands.

The car crash so soon after their arrival in Los Angeles had left three of the six girls dead, the others seriously injured. Jocelyn Charlwood had been the one to come over to America to identify the body of her niece-in-law, only to find that she was still very much alive, although her head injuries meant that she could be scarred for life. Jocelyn had wanted to tell Rafe that his wife was still alive, but Jacqui's pleading that she didn't, the fact that the doctor warned that she was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown, had persuaded Jocelyn not to do so. For three days and nights the older woman had sat by her bedside, had talked her back to sanity, had promised to help in any way she could, and had agreed to help her see Robert after the plastic surgery had been completed.

And she had. She was still helping even now she was dead, knowing that the cottage was the only way Jacqui—or Brooke as she was now called—could ever be with her son. Rafe's hatred of her was so deep that he would never let her near Robert if he once guessed who she really was.

She should never have become Rafe's wife, she knew that now. It would have been so much better, for them all, if Rafe had just kept her as his mistress. But then she wouldn't have given him his son, and that had been what he married her for, after all; she had learnt the truth of that from her last heated exchange with Rosemary. Rafe had never loved her, didn't want to get married at all, but with Rosemary's barren state a Charlwood heir was needed, and it was up to him to provide it. A nice unobtrusive wife who could give him a son and then be dismissed from his life had been the reason he married her.

With only an uncaring aunt and uncle for a family she must have seemed the perfect choice to him, a little nobody who pleased him in bed—for a time. Her boredom, her defiance in seeing Greg Davieson and her old friends, must have greatly annoyed him, especially the scandal that had been caused, and reported in the newspapers, when she had fought him for custody of their child. Her death so soon after their separation must have seemed providential to him, having meant the scandal wasn't raked up again when he actually divorced her. The fact that he hadn't even come to Los Angeles to identify the body himself just proved that he had never cared for her.

Charlwood looked more imposing than normal as she drove up to the gates three weeks later, expecting an argument with the guard, prepared to meet it with one of her own. To her surprise the gates swung open as soon as she approached them in the Porsche, and the man waved her through with a friendly smile.

How ironic, she thought. She wouldn't have got within a mile of the house if it were known who she really was, and yet here she was driving straight past the main house, her cottage being about half a mile away, far enough away for her to live in privacy, but near enough for her to catch the occasional glimpse of Robert. He was a very healthy little boy, very robust; she just hoped that his father didn't break his spirit as he had once broken hers.

She had seen nothing of Rafe during the last three weeks, although she knew he had been informed by the lawyer of her decision to accept the cottage and not the shares. The lawyer had seemed relieved by her decision when she called him several days after the funeral. Her own feelings were still mixed—relief at being able to see Robert, dread at the thought that she would also see Rafe. Whatever love she had once felt for him had been slowly destroyed during their year of marriage, his savage taking of Robert from her making her hate him. And it was that hatred that she feared. At the moment Rafe seemed to be lightly pursuing her, the dinner invitations very real. But if he became too persistent, as she knew he could be, she was frightened what she might say to him in anger. Because she would never consent to going out with him, knowing too well the brand of pain he inflicted.

Jocelyn's cottage—she doubted she would ever be able to think of it as anything else!—faced away from the main house towards the river, its setting beautiful among the old oak trees, surrounded by a small neatly kept garden, wild roses trailing up and along the walls in a kaleidoscope of colour.

It was beautifully peaceful, far removed from the formality of the main house. Jocelyn had lived alone here until the last few months before her death, when Rafe had insisted she have one of the maids from the house to do the cleaning and cooking. Brooke had decided she would remain here alone herself, so the maid was back in the main house now, her own days being long and empty enough for her to take care of herself. After the accident, in which one of her legs had been broken and retained a weakness, dancing had been out for her, and with the money she had left from Rafe's more than generous settlement on her after the separation, she had no need to work anyway, aware that if she did she would stand little chance of seeing Robert. Rafe had never placed a lot of importance on money—probably because he had so much of it!—and as far as she knew he had never enquired what had happened to her fortune after her death. As far as she was aware he hadn't given her a second thought after that!

The cottage was as charming inside as it was out, olde-worlde, with chintzy furniture and curtains. Brooke felt as if she had come home after a long time away, and she put down her suitcases to look about her appreciatively, sure that she was going to be happy here.

Although the vase of yellow roses on the coffee-table struck a note of unease, and she walked over to read the card tucked among the blooms, dropping it again as if it had burnt her as she read the message written there. ‘Welcome to Charlwood, Rafe'. The message differed in only one word from the one that had accompanied the red roses that had been placed in her bedroom when she came back to Charlwood a new bride, but then Rafe had added ‘love’ before his name. The emotion had proved to be as false as the man himself, and taking the vase of yellow roses she threw them into the bin in the kitchen, feeling no remorse for the perfect yellow blooms, the fragments of the ripped card scattered on top of them.

‘Hello?’

She turned sharply at the sound of that soft query, leaning back against the unit as she saw her son standing at the doorway he had quietly opened. Pain stabbed at her heart that she couldn't pick him up and hold him the way she wanted to, but she knew that would only distress him—their acquaintance had so far been casual in the extreme. Although she intended changing all that, and as soon as possible.

‘Hello, Robert,’ she greeted lightly, closing the cupboard door firmly on the discarded roses. ‘You know who I am, don't you?’ she prompted gently as he still looked a little uncertain of her, his eyes as blue as her own, the only feature he had inherited from her as far as she could tell, the rest of him being all Rafe. But at least he didn't have those cold grey eyes.

‘Brooke,’ he nodded shyly. ‘You visit Aunt Jossy sometimes.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘She's gone away, you know,’ he spoke with a maturity far beyond his three years. ‘Nanny Perkins says Aunt Jossy has gone to see God, but Connie says she's dead. What's dead mean?’ he frowned his puzzlement.

Brooke knew that Maureen Perkins, a woman of fifty, looked after Robert in the position of nanny, and that Connie Roberts, a girl of twenty, helped out in the nursery. They had both been waiting at the house the day she brought Robert home, and although her dislike of them wasn't personal she still couldn't bring herself to like or accept the fact that two other women were bringing up her son.