Old Desires/A Stranger's Kiss (2-in-1 edition) (5 page)

‘She thought it best. She didn’t tell me, but clearly something happened then that made her decide it was better to stay away.’ Holly felt a chill along her spine. She didn’t need Joshua Kent to tell her what had happened.

‘But she told you everything else?’

‘She needed to confide in someone.’ He stirred the food around his plate with a fork. ‘I think she thought someone younger wouldn’t be so shocked to hear about her illegitimate daughter.’

‘Daughter?’ Holly sat for a moment while the words sank in. Then quite suddenly everything was clear. All that stuff about her conscience, his grim disapproval. She could hardly blame him, she thought as she raised her hand to her temple, feeling faint. Shock always had that effect on her. She needed air.

Joshua swore softly under his breath, at her side in a heartbeat, his arm around her. ‘You didn’t know.’

It wasn’t a question and she didn’t bother to confirm or deny it. ‘Will you take me back to the hotel?’ she asked, struggling to her feet.

‘Holly?’

‘Now, please. Straight away.’

His brow creased in concern. ‘Yes, of course.’ He signalled to the waiter and signed the bill. He paused before starting the car, as if he would say something, but the deathly pale set of her face stopped him.

He drew up outside the hotel and she fumbled with the door, wanting to get away from him as quickly as she could but her brain didn’t seem to be sending the right messages to her fingers.

He reached across and took her hands and held them in his own, turning her towards him.

‘Holly, I’m sorry. Mary thought you knew.’ She glanced down at his hand. It was as if the strength in those long fingers was pouring into her, helping her.

‘There’s absolutely no need to apologise. I should have realised right at the beginning that all this was some sort of mistake.’

‘Mistake?’

‘I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. If you came to my house looking for Mary Graham’s illegitimate daughter, you were misled, Mr Kent. You’ve found the wrong woman.’

His face was all shadows, unreadable. ‘What are you talking about? Of course I haven’t found the wrong woman. I was looking for Holly Carpenter. I found her.’ He shook her slightly as if this would make her see sense. ‘I found you.’

‘But I am not Mary’s daughter.’

‘Holly, please. I can see you’re upset. It must have been a shock. But it really doesn’t matter.’

She turned on him. ‘How could you possibly know that? If your opinion of your own infallibility is so great that it hurts to admit you are wrong, then I’m sorry. But on this occasion you will simply have to accept that you are.’ Stronger now in her anger, she moved to go, but his hand tightened, detaining her.

‘There’s no possibility of a mistake.’

‘On the contrary, Joshua. I’m Holly Carpenter. My mother was Margaret Carpenter and my father was Peter Carpenter. That’s the truth and the end of it.’

‘And the folder? Why the hell do you think she garnered every scrap of information she could about you? It was more than simple curiosity, wouldn’t you say?’ His grey eyes glittered angrily, convinced as he was that she was simply refusing to accept a self-evident truth.

‘I don’t know.’ But that wouldn’t do. He would have to be convinced that he was wrong. She shook her head from side to side, trying to wipe out the memory of that small bundle of paper that represented her life. ‘Perhaps she took a special interest in her cousin’s child, a child about the same age as her own daughter?’ There was no softening in that cold face. ‘If what you say is true, that would be understandable,’ she offered, aware of a pleading note in her voice.

But he was relentless. ‘You are her daughter, Holly.
She told me your name and where to find you. God knows, I wanted to come and fetch you before but she wouldn’t let me. It had been your decision, she said, and she accepted that. She just wanted, hoped that you would finally relent and come to her funeral.’

‘If I had known she was ill I would have been happy to come and see her, but no one told me. And I’m not her daughter.’

His mouth was drawn in a hard line. ‘Damn you, Holly. I know you’re Mary’s daughter and somehow I’ll prove it to you.’

‘That is not possible.’ She finally pulled free of his grasp. ‘Goodnight, Joshua.’ She moved too quickly for him to open the door for her, but he was at her side as she entered the hotel. ‘Will you be all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to see me to my room.’ He ignored this, turning her towards the stairs. ‘It’s been a trying day,
Holly. Sleep on it,’ he urged as he opened her door. ‘We’ll talk again tomorrow. We’ll sort something out.’

‘Talking won’t change anything.’

‘Hiding from the truth won’t help, either,’ he said, losing patience in the face of her intransigence. ‘Something you’ve picked up from Margaret Carpenter. I’ll see you in the morning.’ He turned and walked quickly away.

She closed the door and for a while leaned against it, desperately trying to sort out her confused thoughts.

Nothing made sense. She wasn’t adopted, she knew that. But one thing was certain — she wasn’t planning to stay in Ashbrooke to be hectored by Joshua Kent. It was too late to leave immediately. She would have to spend the night at Ashbrooke Hall, but she made enquiries about the train service and booked a taxi for seven-thirty the following morning and an alarm call. Then she packed her bag, leaving her trousers and sweater ready for the morning.

Not that she slept. She felt stifled by the heavy drapery around the four poster and disturbed by her own unhappy thoughts. When finally she drifted off in the early hours, she dreamed that she was searching desperately for something, but didn’t know what.

A tap on the door finally woke her, releasing her from this misery. It was dark in the room, the heavy curtains blocking the early morning light, but she heard a tray being placed on the table near the bed.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You asked to be called at six-thirty, Holly. But I’ve cancelled your taxi. If you want to go home today, I’ll take you.’ She struggled up from the depths of the great bed.

‘Joshua? What are you doing here?’ He switched on the lamp and sat on the edge of the bed. His hair shone damply in the light, fresh from the shower, and he was dressed casually in jeans that clung to his long legs and a dark polo shirt.

‘I was going to have breakfast with Luigi in the kitchen, but I spotted your tea tray so I volunteered to bring it up to you.’ He poured two cups of coffee. ‘The croissants are fresh from the oven.’

‘I didn’t ask for breakfast.’

‘No. But I’ve missed mine.’

‘Help yourself,’ she said, pulling the covers higher as his gaze lingered on her naked shoulders. Having been too hot during the night, she had a dim recollection of throwing off her nightdress. She surreptitiously felt under the bedclothes in the hope of finding it.

Joshua offered her a cup and smiled. ‘Your nightdress is on the floor.’

She blushed. ‘I was hot in the night,’ she said, taking the cup with one hand and hanging on to the sheet with the other. ‘These drapes…’

‘I know,’ he said sympathetically. ‘But then, I never wear anything in bed to start with. It’s so much simpler.’

She swallowed. ‘Would you pass it to me?’ He bent and picked up the long plain black satin nightdress, dangling it from his fingers by the shoe-string straps.

‘Pretty.’

‘Please, Joshua.’ He offered it to her, then watched with amusement as she tried to juggle the cup and the sheet to take it from him. ‘Oh, go away!’ she said furiously, giving up.

He laughed softly, but took pity on her and stood up. ‘I’ll go if you promise that you’ll meet me in the main hall at eight.’ His words were a stark reminder of the real reason for this early call.

‘And if I don’t?’ she asked.

His mouth curved in a provoking little smile as he twitched the night-gown out of her reach. ‘I’ll just have to stay here and make sure you do.’

‘I promise,’ she said quickly. Anything to get rid of him.

‘What a pity.’ He let the nightgown trickle through his fingers on to the bed, where it made a dark patch against the coverlet.

The minute he was through the door she flew to lock it and then went to shower. She was ready long before eight o’clock, but it was exactly on the hour that she walked down the stairs and into the reception area.

Joshua was waiting and took her bag. ‘There’s no need to do this, you know,’ she said. ‘If you take me into Exeter I can quite easily catch a train.’ He opened the car door, ignoring this one last attempt to escape from him, and she climbed in without further protest.

‘I’ve been looking through Mary’s papers,’ he said as he headed the car towards the motorway.

‘And did you find anything?’ She found herself almost holding her breath, but that was silly. There was nothing to find.

He shook his head. ‘No, Holly. Not a thing. The folder contained everything that referred to you.’

‘So why didn’t you just let me leave?’

‘A number of reasons. If I’m right…’

‘You are not right! Why
do you have to be so damned obstinate?’

He threw her an exasperated glance. ‘And you’re not being stubborn, I suppose?’ She didn’t answer. Satisfied that he had made his point, he went on. ‘If I’m right there must be papers somewhere and your house is the obvious place to look.’

‘There are no papers.’

They paused at a junction and he turned to her and fixed her with a look that pinned her back in her seat. ‘When I came to see you, Holly,
I was angry. I had spent the previous week watching a friend die and as far as I was concerned you were an uncaring, thoughtless woman who had taken a quite calculating decision to cut her mother out of her life. I didn’t want to like you.’

‘You made that plain enough.’

‘Your first reaction to my news only reinforced those feelings. The rejection seemed so utterly callous.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘No. I realise that. But Mary thought you knew; your mother — Margaret Carpenter — had promised to tell you the truth.’

‘There was nothing to tell, Joshua. Why won’t you simply accept that?’

‘Because of this.’ He slipped an envelope from the breast pocket of his shirt and handed it to her.

She didn’t want to take the envelope, but she knew that he wouldn’t let this go until she had done as he asked.

‘What is it?’ she asked as they moved on.

‘It’s a photograph. I want you to look at it.’ Her fingers trembled as she pulled at the flap and tipped the photograph on to her lap. Then she frowned. It was a photograph of her… No, not her, someone very like her. Someone with the same almond-shaped eyes, but blue, not light brown, the same wide, high cheekbones, the too full mouth. Holly unconsciously touched her hair.

Silver-blonde hair that hung in a smooth curve to her shoulder. She turned the photograph over and there was the stamp of a photographer in Ashbrooke and the date, fifteen years earlier.

‘Who is this?’ she demanded. But she didn’t need an answer. She remembered the look on his face when she had pulled off her hat and he had seen her hair for the first time. ‘It’s Mary, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? It could be you.’

‘Yes…’ Why hadn’t she realised how alike they were? Except that she had only been seven and they hadn’t been alike then. She had been a rather thin and scrawny child, not at all like the woman in the photograph.

‘You do see now. Holly? You can see why I know I’m right.’

‘No! It’s
just a family likeness. Coincidence.’ His expression was compelling her to some unacceptable truth and somehow she had to make him see, prove to him that he was wrong. ‘I have my birth certificate,’ she said. ‘It’s at home, I’ll show you. As soon as we get there. I’ll show you.’ Her voice broke on a sob as she turned to him. ‘You’ll see then, Joshua. You’ll have to believe me then.’

CHAPTER FOUR

JOSHUA wanted to stop, give Holly a chance to recover her composure, but she refused. ‘I want to get home as quickly as possible,’ she said, unmovable in her determination. After the briefest glance at her set face he had humoured her, putting his foot down when they reached the motorway and keeping it there, his concentration focused only on the road.

It was lunchtime when he finally pulled up outside her home and the two of them sat for a moment, adjusting themselves to the stillness. Then Holly roused herself. ‘Thank you, Joshua.’

‘What for?’

‘Understanding that I didn’t want to talk.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll get your bag.’

She put her hand on his arm, detaining him. ‘That will wait. I’ll get that birth certificate and then I’ll make you some lunch.’ He watched as she searched through the sideboard drawer. ‘I had it recently,’ she said desperately, when her shaking fingers couldn’t find it. ‘I’m going to Italy and I had to get my passport renewed. It must be here. I know it is...’

She jumped as he placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned over her. She turned to glance up at him, surprised by the intimacy suggested by the warmth of his body against hers, the simple touch of his hand.

‘I believe this is it.’ He plucked the document from the drawer and offered it to her.

She forced her mind back to the business in hand. ‘Yes, it is. How on earth did I miss it?’

‘Maybe you didn’t want to find it?’ he suggested.

She made no comment, but took the document from him and spread it on the sideboard, holding it flat. ‘Now, there,’ she said. ‘Will you believe me now?’

His breath was sucked in sharply as he read the words the registrar had written in a neat, copperplate hand.

‘It’s not what I expected.’

‘What did you expect?’ she demanded. ‘An adoption certificate?’ ‘Frankly, yes. I’m sorry for doubting you, Holly. I knew you wanted to believe it, but I thought you were fooling yourself.’ He took the certificate and held it up to the light, checking to see if there had been any illicit alterations.

‘But I still don’t understand.’ He turned to her. ‘I’ll have to check the original entry, of course, but I have no doubt that this is genuine enough. There has to be another explanation.’

‘Well, thank you,’ she said with uncharacteristic bitterness, shaken, bewildered by his insistence, in the face of this evidence, that he was right.

‘Holly, please try to understand.’ His voice was so unexpectedly gentle that her insides flipped over. She moved quickly away and sat down, wrapping her arms around herself.

‘No, Joshua,’ she begged. ‘Just go away and forget you ever came here.’ But there was no escape. He came and squatted on his heels in front of her.

‘I was told by a dying woman that you were her daughter.’ He pushed back a dark strand of hair that had fallen over his forehead. ‘It was hard enough to believe that she had a child. For her to admit that she had given her...given you…to someone else to bring up was an agony for her. If you had known her you would understand.’

‘I’ll never understand why you’re putting me through this,’ she said, rising quickly, needing to move, not wanting to hear him, and he let her go, straightening behind her, but said nothing. ‘Are you sure she wasn’t…?’ Holly hesitated, turning to him. ‘She must have been on some sort of drugs for the pain—’

‘You think she was imagining all this?’

‘Isn’t it possible?’ Her voice pleaded with him.

‘No.’ He dismissed the idea without hesitation. ‘Are there any other family papers?’

Her shoulders sagged. He wasn’t going to give up unless she convinced him, but she didn’t know how. ‘A few. Marriage certificates, death certificates, that sort of thing. They’re upstairs, but they won’t tell you anything.’

‘Nothing else? Letters, diaries? What about the loft?’

‘I don’t know. There are a few boxes stored up there, but nothing important. I haven’t been up there in ages—’

‘Perhaps we should—’ The key in the door stopped him and he turned as David appeared in the doorway and, eyes narrowed, glanced from Holly to Joshua and back again.

‘How’s the heiress, then?’ he said, casually dropping a kiss on her cheek before she could anticipate the gesture and avoid it. ‘Are we celebrating tonight?’

‘No—’

But Joshua forestalled her, his voice wintry as he took in the casual way David had draped his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to celebrate Holly’s legacy. There has been a slight hitch.’

‘What sort of hitch?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘It’s nothing much,’ she said quickly, in case Joshua might take it in his head to explain. But Joshua made no such mistake. There was an awkward silence and, to fill it, she quickly introduced the two men.

‘Joshua, this is David Grantham. I share the house with him,’ she added, because she hated the word lodger, but clearly some explanation was necessary. ‘David, Joshua Kent, my cousin’s executor.’

‘Joshua Kent?’ David was suddenly all smiles and offered his hand. It was taken briefly. ‘I thought you looked familiar. I’ve heard a great deal about you. Can I offer you a drink?’

‘I’m
just about to make some lunch for Mr Kent, David,’ Holly said quickly, hoping to head him off.

‘Great. We can have a chat over one of Holly’s omelettes. She’s a great cook.’ Joshua ignored this and when he turned to Holly his face had returned to the aloof, unreadable expression of the man who had called two days earlier.

‘I can’t stay for lunch, Holly,’ he said. ‘I’ll get your bag from the car.’

She followed him out. ‘I’m sorry, Joshua. David’s— ’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he said curtly, opening the boot. ‘But we still have to examine the papers in the loft.’

‘Not now.’ She would have enough trouble damping David’s curiosity as it was. He was ambitious enough to realise the potential in this sort of human interest story. Friendship would count for nothing if there was a chance of a story that would make the nationals.

‘Tomorrow, then.’ And she knew there was no point in arguing.

‘If you must, but I have to work in the morning. Come after two o’clock. You can search the house if you want, so long as you promise that if you don’t find anything you’ll stop all this nonsense.’

‘And if we do find something?’ he persisted, placing her bag in the hall.

‘We won’t.’ She shook her head at the sharp question in his eyes. ‘I shan’t go up to the loft before you and destroy the evidence, Joshua. You’ll be the first person up there in several years. I offer the dust as my alibi.’ She managed a smile. After all, she had been right and could afford to be generous. ‘I have a particular aversion to spiders.’

He reached out and touched the platinum curve of her hair. ‘Something else you have in common with Mary. Until tomorrow, then.’

It was a while before she moved, then she slowly closed the door and turned back into the living room.

She picked up the birth certificate and gently smoothed out the folds.

‘What’s that?’ David asked, coming from the kitchen with a beer.

‘My birth certificate,’ she said, and touched the date. December the twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve. Her mother had said she was the best Christmas present she’d ever had. Now, quite suddenly, the words seemed to take on a different meaning.

* * *

‘The boyfriend not at home?’

‘Who? Oh, David. No, we won’t be disturbed today. He’s at the magistrates’ court all afternoon.’

‘Really? A parking ticket, or can I hope it’s something more serious?’

‘Neither,’ she said, surprised into giggling. ‘He works for the local paper.’

‘Far more serious, then,’ he said with a barb to his voice. ‘We’d better get on with the search party, before he comes back and scents a story.’

Joshua had come prepared for a foray into the loft dressed in a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt. He looked so much younger out of a suit that her suggestion that he was Mary’s lover seemed embarrassing in retrospect. He must have women falling over themselves. Young, beautiful women. She remembered the look that Lisa Stamford had given him and wondered if they were lovers. The sharp stab of jealousy was so unexpected that she almost gasped.

‘The ladder is in the shed,’ she said quickly.

‘Lead the way,’ he said and she did, thankful that he was totally unaware of the impossible thoughts racketing around her head. But his strong, reassuring arm at her back was oddly disturbing.

A few minutes later the ladder was propped against the loft hatch and the trouble he had opening it dispelled any doubts he might harbour that she had been there ahead of him.

She steadied it while he pushed at it with the heel of his hand, unable to take her eyes from the firm, well-muscled line of his thighs as he strained upwards. It finally shifted with a small shower of dust and she turned away with an exclamation as it covered her.

‘All right?’ He glanced down at her. ‘No spiders?’ She shuddered involuntarily. ‘Don’t!’ He laughed and disappeared into the darkness. She could see the swing of the torch he had brought with him as he crawled across the joists.

‘You could do with some insulation up here,’ his voice came hollowly back to her.

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ she called back.

His head appeared in the hatchway, a provoking grin doing disturbing things to his mouth. ‘Where shall I begin?’

Her voice caught in her throat. Perhaps it was the dust. ‘Just get on with it,’ she urged him hoarsely.

He hung there for a moment, very still. ‘From anyone else,
Holly Carpenter, I’d take that as an invitation.’

He didn’t wait to see her sudden blush, but disappeared into the darkness and for a while she heard him moving about above her. When he finally reappeared he handed a dust-covered box down to her.

‘This is the only possibility. It’s not heavy.’ Holly took the box. He was right, it wasn’t heavy, but it was sealed up with tape and had clearly not been disturbed for a long time. She had no recollection of seeing it on her admittedly infrequent trips into the roof space.

He joined her on the landing, and she dragged her eyes back from the box to him.

‘Have you any idea what’s in here?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve
never seen this before.’

‘It was right at the back,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it was meant to be found by anyone
but the most persistent searcher.’

‘And you are certainly that,’ she said unhappily. She had been so sure. But now, looking at this battered box that had once held nothing more interesting than copy paper, she knew, deep inside, that there was something to be discovered. And all she was certain of now was that she didn’t want to know what it was.

‘I have no choice, Holly.
You must see that.’

‘Haven’t you? Couldn’t you just put this back and pretend you never saw it?’

He took the box from her. ‘You know I can’t. If you are right I will have to start looking for someone else.’

‘But you don’t think I’m right.’

‘Mary would never have been that careless.’

‘Wouldn’t she? You’re quite prepared to believe she was careless enough to give away her child.’

His mouth hardened. ‘There’s no point in standing here arguing about it.’ He turned away and went quickly down the stairs. She followed him a good deal more slowly and when she reached the living room the box was already on the table and he had opened a pocket knife in order to slit the tape.

‘Wait!’ He straightened and after one glance at her white face he handed her the knife. She pushed in the point, but her look was pleading as she hesitated, hoping even now that he would change his mind.

‘It’s like pulling off a sticking-plaster, Holly,’ he urged her. ‘The quicker you do it, the less painful it is in the end.’

‘Is that a guarantee?’

‘Life doesn’t come with guarantees.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ She took a firmer grip on the knife and sliced quickly through the tape, then let the knife fall with a clatter to the floor as she dropped to her knees and pulled at the lid and revealed a thick, padded envelope.

There was nothing written on it but her name. It must have been bought especially for this purpose.

Joshua lifted it out and held it for a moment before handing it to her.

She smoothed over the envelope, turned it over. Read her name again.

‘Do you want to be on your own while you open it, Holly?’ Joshua asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. You’d better stay and see it through.’ The truth of the matter was she needed him with her. Needed his strength. She opened the envelope and tipped its contents on to the table.

Until then she had still hoped that it wasn’t true. That her birth certificate wasn’t a lie. That her mother hadn’t given her away. There wasn’t much to tell her that her hope was groundless. A man’s linen handkerchief, half a theatre ticket, a bunch of pressed violets pinned to a card, their colour as fresh as the day they were picked, a tiny gold locket and a thick notebook. Five small items. She sat back on her heels, stuffing her fist into her mouth to prevent the cry of dismay.