A Rekindled Passion

CHAPTER TWO

‘THE MOST BEAUTIFUL girl…’

‘Such a lovely dress…’

‘What a fabulous day…’

The comments washed past Kate as she stood on the steps of the church with Sophy and John and John’s immediate family.

The June sunshine was dazzlingly bright and hot after the cool, cloistered peace of the church. The vicar had held a private memorial service for her parents in that same church after the plane crash…Her breath locked in her chest as she reminded herself that, today of all days, she must not allow anything to cloud Sophy’s happiness.

And Sophy was happy. It radiated out of her.

As she watched, the newly married pair touched hands, a small, private gesture of shared love and reassurance, and then Sophy commented curiously, ‘Heavens, John, who’s that gorgeous dark-haired man over there with the redhead?’

All of them turned to look in the direction Sophy was discreetly indicating.

A couple were standing apart from the rest of the guests, in the shadowy seclusion of the quiet graveyard.

Kate looked at them absently, and then focused abruptly on the man, her heart feeling as though it had suddenly been clamped in a giant vice. The whole world seemed to spin crazily around her as her throat went dry, and she fought off the panic engulfing her. It couldn’t be…Not here! Not now! Not today!

Somewhere in the distance John was pretending to be jealous, and his mother was saying in amusement, ‘That’s my cousin, Joss Bennett.’

‘Oh, is it? I’ve heard you mention him,’ Sophy was responding, enlightened. ‘Funny, I’d envisaged him being much older than that.’

‘You mean rather more around my age,’ John’s mother teased.

Kate heard their conversation. It lapped round her, a lulling, distant noise that couldn’t calm her jangled, discordant nerves. She was concentrating on the man standing within the shadows of the ancient yews, sunlight dappling his features, obscuring them slightly, but not so much that she had not recognised him immediately.

It had been almost twenty-two years…by rights her heart and mind should have forgotten everything about him…but they hadn’t.

She had a confused awareness of a desperate need to keep up appearances, to act as though nothing untoward had happened…as though she hadn’t looked across a sun-dappled churchyard and seen standing there the man who had deserted her all those years ago, leaving her to bear his child…this child who was now a young woman.

Somewhere in the distance, John’s mother was saying easily, ‘Well, of course, Joss is much younger than me, I suppose now he must be forty-two, going on fortythree.’

‘He doesn’t look it,’ Sophy was saying admiringly. ‘Heavens, I would have thought he was somewhere in his late thirties at the most.’

‘Hey,’ John cautioned her teasingly. ‘Watch it…I’m beginning to get worried. I shall definitely not introduce you to him.’

The sun’s heat, the laughter and warmth of the day…all of them might not have existed, Kate felt so cold and alone.

Was it mere coincidence that had brought him here today of all days, or…?

It was coincidence! It had to be. If by some remote chance he had discovered that Sophy was his child, surely he wouldn’t have waited until today, until she was getting married, to claim their relationship?

The vice loosened its grip a little. She drew a deep, shaky breath, trying to control the trembling she could feel threatening her composure. It was just a horrible coincidence. He was John’s mother’s cousin, a coincidence…

Someone touched her arm and she turned her head to look into Sophy’s concerned eyes.

‘Are you all right, Mum? You’ve gone quite pale, and you feel cold.’

Momentarily she was the focus of the small group’s attention. This was Sophy’s day, she reminded herself fiercely, and nothing was going to be allowed to spoil it. Nothing. She could see that John’s mother was already beginning to frown a little, as though picking up the vibrations of shock emanating from her…the kind of shock that had nothing to do with a beloved daughter getting married.

‘It was colder than I’d expected inside the church,’ she managed, forcing herself to smile.

The outfit she had chosen for the wedding consisted of a black and white silk spotted dress with short cap sleeves, in a vaguely twenties style, with a plain white silk jacket and a white silk hat trimmed in black, the colours being perfectly acceptable since Sophy had chosen to wear a dress of heavy cream silk rather than the traditional white she had claimed would look awful with her olive-tinted skin.

Skin she had inherited from her father, Kate acknowledged, unable to resist darting another tormented look at the couple in the churchyard.

They were standing facing one another, Joss bending towards the redhead while she removed something from the lapel of his jacket. She was tall, almost as tall as Sophy, and he didn’t have to angle his head far to look down at her. When he had been with her… Her heart jolted frantically in her chest as memories she didn’t want came surging past the barriers of her self-control. Memories of the first time they had met on the cliffs beyond the windy Cornish fishing village, devoid of tourists during that wet cold summer. She had run into him, having got caught out in the rain. She had been running back to her mother’s aunt’s cottage, her head down, not looking where she was going.

He had caught hold of her as she staggered, and she had lifted her head to apologise and had promptly fallen fathomlessly in love, as only a girl of just sixteen could.

He had seemed so distant and sophisticated: almost twenty-two to her sixteen, a huge distance in terms of life experience. He was already a man, she still a child, but he had offered to walk back to her aunt’s with her, offering her a few personal details about himself as he did so. It was over a mile from the clifftop path to the village where her great-aunt lived, and despite the buffeting wind and icy rain she had wished it might be twenty.

When he had told her how old he was, she had lied about her own age, claiming to be nineteen.

He had almost caught her out, asking her what she was doing, what kind of post-school training, but she had fibbed that she was having to resit A levels and so was having an extra year at school.

She hadn’t known then what had made her lie about her age, only that she desperately wanted to be seen as his equal and not as a silly adolescent schoolgirl.

She had been speechless with bliss when he’d asked her out. He’d been working in Cornwall for the summer, a job with the National Trust, helping to maintain the cliff-paths. He’d been lodging in the village at a house not far from her aunt’s…and so it had begun.

‘Mama…the photographer’s ready.’

Sophy’s calm, firm voice broke into her private world. She blinked, and the vision of the tall, dark-haired young man who had charmed and delighted her so much was gone, and in its place she saw the reality of a man in his forties who, as Sophy had so rightly said, could easily have been mistaken for someone in his late thirties—a man who wore his obvious wealth and sophistication as casually as the boy she had known had worn his jeans.

The arrival of the photographer gave her a much-needed excuse to slip into the background and be alone. The shock of seeing Joss so completely unexpectedly had made her feel sick and faint. Long, long ago she had accepted that he was gone from her life and that it was right that he should have done so, so that to see him here today of all days was appallingly painful. The redhead must be his wife…and she, like Joss, looked younger than her forty-odd years. She gave another quick, hunted look at the woman’s immaculate make-up and hair. Her clothes were expensive, designer label most likely, but there was a petulant set to her mouth and a frown marring her forehead. Where was their child? Odd that she had never known whether it was a boy or a girl…Sophy’s half-brother or -sister. Her heart gave a frantic twist as the pain splintered inside her. Still, after all this time, when it should have long ago died.

She was starting to shake. Another moment and her distress would be so obvious that it would cause comment. There were still the photographs to get through, and then the reception. The day seemed to stretch endlessly in front of her, like some kind of refined torture.

What would happen when they met? Would he recognise her…and, if he did, would he acknowledge her…or pretend that they had never met?

The latter, most probably. And what about Sophy, standing there with John, laughing up into her bridegroom’s face? She would go through the rest of her life never knowing that John’s mother’s cousin was in reality her own father.

Her heart seemed to bolt with fright. If only her parents were still alive…If only she had someone to turn to…to confide in.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder and jumped in panic, but it was only Sophy’s godfather, James Phillips, the local doctor.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked her frowningly. Today he had stood in for the father Sophy had never had and the grandfather she had lost…giving her away…Tears rose and stung her throat and the backs of her eyes.

‘Just being sentimental and stupid,’ she assured him.

‘Ma…the photographer wants you,’ Sophy called, and distractedly she hurried over to join John’s parents, while James followed at a more leisurely pace.

It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be real…but it was, and sooner or later she was going to have to come face to face with Joss. She shuddered sickly, and the photographer frowned. It was normally the bride who looked faint and sick, and not her mother…although this particular bride’s mother was rather unusual, slim as a gazelle, and young enough to pass for the bride’s sister. It seemed impossible to believe the reality of their relationship. She must have been a child herself when she had had her, he reflected consideringly.

She was a very beautiful woman, and would have been more so if she had not looked quite so strained.