Carole Mortimer - Keeping Luke's Secret

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Cover

Title Page Keeping Luke’s Secret Carole Mortimer www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Copyright

‘DR LEONORA WINSTON, I presume?’

Leonie looked across the room to the now open doorway, having been shown into this sitting-room a couple of minutes ago by the maid who had admitted her to the house, her smile fading to a frown as she found herself being looked at with scathing dislike by the tall, dark-haired man standing there.

‘Tall, dark and handsome’ instantly came to her mind, although there, Leonie was sorry to say, the compliments stopped. He was also arrogant—from his scornful expression. Cold—pale green eyes were icy with contempt as he looked across at her. And the word pompous also sprang to mind.

But there were also two things wrong, as far as she was concerned, with this man’s deliberate misquote.

For one thing, her given name might be Leonora— Leo for her paternal grandfather, Nora for her paternal grandmother—but she was never known by that name, had been called Leonie for as long as she could remember.

Secondly, she was sure, when Stanley had made that original statement to Livingstone, that he had been pleased to see the other man. The man now standing in the doorway of this sunlit sitting-room was definitely not pleased to see Leonie.

In fact, the opposite!

It was there in the scornful tone with which he spoke to her. It was also apparent in the way he looked at her so contemptuously, with those eyes the pale green of a cat, down the long length of his arrogant nose. No, this man was anything but pleased to see her.

And she had no idea what she had done to elicit such enmity in a complete stranger…

She returned his gaze with cool grey eyes. ‘Mr Luke Richmond, I presume?’ One blonde brow rose as she returned his challenge, unwillingly to allow him to think he had her at any sort of disadvantage; she might not be acquainted with this man but she had recognised him for exactly who he was the moment she’d first looked at him.

Even white teeth snapped together with displeasure, the sculptured mouth tightening, those pale green eyes narrowing with obvious displeasure. ‘You may find this situation amusing, Dr Winston—’

‘Please call me Leonie,’ she interrupted smoothly, her frown returning. ‘And I believe you’ve mistaken my mood, Mr Richmond—I’m more puzzled by this so-called “situation” than I am amused!’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Because it was my mother you were expecting to see rather than me?’ he rasped, nodding dismissively in answer to his own question. ‘Don’t worry, you will see my mother—eventually; Rachel is notorious for being late,’ he added with obvious impatience for that habitual tardiness, moving forward to close the door behind him with studied decisiveness. ‘I wanted a chance to talk to you alone before the two of you met.’

Leonie stood in front of the bay window across the room, the sun warming her back—but even so, being shut in the room with this man was like being enveloped in a sudden blast of ice-cold air.

It wasn’t just those pale green eyes that made this man so daunting; he also stood well over six feet tall. His dark hair was styled deliberately short, shoulders wide and muscular in his black shirt, his torso lean, legs long in black denims. In fact, everything about this man—apart from those pale eyes—was darkly saturnine!

Don’t be ridiculous, Leonie, she instantly admonished herself; this man might not appear exactly friendly, but his mood might not actually have anything to do with her presence here, he might just be having a bad day. Or maybe this rudeness was just normal for him, and not to be taken personally!

She forced her features to relax into a smile. ‘There seems to have been some sort of mistake, Mr Richmond—’

‘Any mistake that’s been made, I can assure you, Dr Winston, is completely on your side,’ Luke Richmond cut in harshly. ‘I have no idea what subterfuge you may have used in order to get this appointment with my mother, but let me assure you—’

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘—it will do you absolutely no good whatsoever—’

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘—because my mother never gives interviews to journalists—’

‘I’m not a journalist!’ Leonie cut in with firm indignation.

‘—or biographers,’ Luke Richmond concluded with obvious satisfaction. ‘For obvious reasons,’ he added with harsh derision.

One of those ‘obvious reasons’, Leonie knew, was an unauthorised biography of the screen star, Rachel Richmond, that had appeared in the bookshops two years ago. It had been full of innuendo and speculation about the actress’s colourful life, none of it quite libellous, but unpleasant to read, nonetheless.

Another ‘obvious reason’, Leonie was also well aware, was this man himself…

Thirty-seven years old, obviously handsome, having won several Oscars for various screenplays he had written, Luke Richmond was very successful in his own right. A man, in fact—on the surface, at least!—that anyone would be proud to call their son.

Except that no man ever had…

Star of the screen and theatre for over fifty years, Rachel Richmond had never married, neither had she ever named the man who had fathered the baby son she’d given birth to thirty-seven years ago.

At the time, the mid-sixties, the fact that the actress had been an unmarried mother had threatened to abruptly end Rachel Richmond’s acting career, where morality in the screen icons had still been expected, if not demanded, by the multimillion-pound studios.

But Rachel Richmond had remained adamantly single, sweetly silent, instead choosing to take her baby son with her everywhere she’d gone, becoming overnight the epitome of the perfect mother, the whole world seeming to take her, and her baby, to their hearts.

Speculation as to the baby’s father had continued intermittently over the years, but in the face of the actress’s indomitable silence it had remained exactly that—speculation.

Looking at him now, Leonie wondered how Luke Richmond had coped with the speculation throughout his life concerning his paternity. Or if, in fact, it was speculation to him… Surely his mother, as Luke reached maturity, would have confided his paternity to him, at least?

If she had, he had remained as close-mouthed about it as his mother had always been!

Leonie drew in a determined breath. ‘I really think there has been some sort of confusion as to my presence here, Mr Richmond,’ she tried again. ‘You see—’