Margaret Way - Wealthy Australian, Secret Son

Her father had taken his pick of the valuable collection of books. Even in her highly perturbed state she could see their number had been replaced.

“You mean you were having sex with us both?” Rohan asked, looking and sounding appalled. “Oh, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know,” he groaned.

She had to turn away from the anger flashing in his blue eyes. “It wasn’t like that, Rohan. You were lost to me. Forever lost to me.’

His brief laugh couldn’t have been more bitter or disbelieving. “You’re lying again. You knew I would never let you go. I had to make something of myself, Charlotte. I had to have something to offer you. All I needed was a little time. I told you that. I believed you understood. But, no, you got yourself married to Martyn in double-quick time. Poor gutless Martyn, who went around telling everyone who would listen that I had goaded Mattie into trying to swim the river. Martyn was the golden boy in the Valley, not me. I was Mary Rose Costello’s bastard son. Yet I thought the world would freeze over before you ever gave yourself to Martyn.”

“Maybe he took me, Rohan. Ever think of that?” She threw up her head in a kind of wild defiance, though she was on the verge of breaking down completely.

“What are you saying?” There was fire in his eyes.

Rivers of tears were threateningly close. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” Her heart was labouring in her chest. “I never thought I would lay eyes on you again.”

“Rubbish!” he responded violently. “You knew you would see me again. With Martyn gone. I’ve given you enough time to recover.’

“There would never be enough time.” Her green eyes glittered. “What do you expect me to say? Welcome back, Rohan?”

A great anger was running in his veins. Whatever he had expected, it had never been this. He had learned early that she and Martyn had had a child—a boy. The agony of it, the pain of loss and betrayal, had nearly driven him mad. Day and night, month after month, year after year he had fought his demons. Charlotte and Martyn. Now he was confronted by the staggering truth. Christopher wasn’t Martyn’s at all. Christopher was his.

How terrible a crime was that? And what about the precautions she was supposed to have taken? “You’re a cheat and a liar, Charlotte,” he said, low-voiced and dangerous. “And I fully intend to prove it. You told me you loved me. You promised to wait for as long as it took. Why not? We had plenty of time. You were only eighteen. I hadn’t even turned twenty-one. I’m Christopher’s father. Don’t look away from me. Don’t attempt more lies. I will push this further.”

“A threat?”

“You bet!” he said harshly, even though to his horror the old hunger was as fierce as ever. Would nothing kill it? She was even more beautiful—her beauty more pronounced, more complete. Charlotte who had betrayed him. And herself.

“Please, Rohan, I don’t need this now.” There was anguish in her face and in her voice. “I can walk back to the Lodge.”

“Forget it. I’m driving you. Has your father the faintest clue? Or is he still hiding his head in the sand?” He compelled her out of the comfortable elegance of the library and back into the arched corridor, making for the rear of the house, where a vehicle was garaged and kept for his convenience.

“Dad loves Christopher very much.” There was a trembling catch in her voice.

“Not what I asked you,” he said grimly.

They were out in the sunshine now. The scent of the white rambling rose that framed the pedimented door and climbed the stone wall filled the air with its lovely nostalgic perfume. More roses rioted in the gardens, and lovely plump peonies—one of her great favourites.

“Chris did have a fleeting look of Mattie for a few years,” she offered bleakly. This was the age of DNA. There was no point in trying to delude Rohan. What he said was correct. Christopher would only grow more like him. Hadn’t she been buffeted by the winds of panic for some time? “Now that he’s lost his little-boy softness the resemblance has disappeared. He has our blond hair.”

“Isn’t that marvelous?” he exclaimed ironically. “He has the Marsdon blond hair! God knows what might have happened had his hair been crow-black, like mine. Or, even worse, red like my mother’s.”

“I loved you, Rohan.” The words flamed out of her.

In response he made a strangled sound of utter disgust. “You must have wept buckets after you decided to drop me. But there’s intense satisfaction in my being rich. Daddy turned out to be a real loser with his lack of financial acumen. I had nothing. Too young. Martyn stood to inherit a fortune. Must have ruined your day when you lost him. How come you’re living with your father? Didn’t Martyn leave you a rich woman?”

“Sad to say, no. It’s none of your business, Rohan.”

“I beg to differ. It’s very much my business. Martyn’s father was too smart to let go of the purse strings. And your mother? The self-appointed avenger?”

“My mother has settled—or tried to settle—into a different life. I don’t see much of her. She has little interest in my beautiful Chrissie.”

“Our beautiful Christopher,” he corrected curtly, usurping her as the single parent.

“He’s not Mattie, you see,” she continued sadly. “Really there was no one else for my mother.”

Rohan’s striking face was set like granite. “She loved you in her way. Of course she did.”

“Not enough,” she answered simply.

“I think I might find that a blessing,” Rohan mused. “Your mother keeping her distance from my son. Your mother is deeply neurotic. She would never accept me in any capacity. Not in a hundred lifetimes.”

She couldn’t deny it. Rohan had been chosen as the scapegoat. She had been the daughter of the family—a girl of twelve. Martyn Prescott the only son of close friends. It had to be Rohan Costello—Mary Rose’s boy. “My mother has been steeped in grief, Rohan. Dad has soldiered on.”

“Good old Vivian!” Rohan retorted with extreme sarcasm. “The fire’s not out in the old boy either. Did you hear the way he bellowed my name?”

Charlotte flinched, defending him quickly. “It was cruel not to let us know.”

“Cruel?” Rohan’s brilliant eyes shot sparks. “The hide of you to talk of cruelty! I can’t believe your treachery! I’ve missed out on the first seven years of my son’s life, Charlotte. First words. First steps. Birthdays. The first day at school. How can you possibly make it up to me for that?”

“I can’t. I can’t. I’m so sorry, Rohan. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. Do you want me to go down on my knees? I’ve raised Christopher as best I could. He’s a beautiful, loving, clever child. He’s everything in the world to me.”

“So that’s okay, then, is it? He’s everything in the world to you. What about me? I never held my newborn son in my arms. I was robbed of that great joy. Tell me, how did you manage to put it across Martyn? Or didn’t you? It’s common knowledge he had a young woman in the car with him. It’s a great mercy she wasn’t killed or injured as well. Tell me—did he fall out of love with you? Or did he get sick of what little affection you could show him? You didn’t love him. Don’t tell me you did.”

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