Element Of Risk

His hands were clasped on the desk in the traditional attitude of power. ‘Did you really believe they’d be here?’ he asked deliberately. ‘You must think I’m extraordinarily trusting.’

‘It seems that I’m the trusting one.’ As she spoke she got to her feet and headed for the door.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Where does it look as though I’m going? I’m leaving,’ she said, relieved that she could sound so unemotional. ‘I don’t want to socialise. The only reason I’m here was to see the children.’

‘Come back and sit down,’ he ordered.

Shoulders stiff, she turned reluctantly. ‘Why?’

‘Because we need to talk.’ When she didn’t move he leaned back in the chair, narrowed eyes holding hers. ‘Common sense should tell you that I’m not going to let you just burst into their life.’

He was right. They did need to talk. She nodded slowly, and walked to the chair, sitting down with a guarded expression that gave, she hoped, nothing away.

‘First of all,’ he said without inflection, ‘why did you suddenly decide after all this time that you want to meet them?’

‘It was no sudden decision.’ She hid a swift flare of anger with precisely chosen words. Did he think she’d come back on a whim? ‘I’ve always wanted to know how they are, but until a few months ago I couldn’t find out who had adopted them.’ She smiled humourlessly, repressing memories of the outrage she had experienced then, the pain and the strange, weakening exultation. ‘Now that I know, I want to see them.’

‘If you can convince me that you won’t upset them,’ he said collectedly, ‘then you may see them.’

Her green glance mocked him. ‘Really? You’ll excuse the faint note of disbelief, I’m sure. Somehow I got the distinct impression that you’d have been more than happy if your children’s birth mother had never turned up. You certainly covered your tracks well. In spite of the new laws, it’s taken me five years to find out who adopted my daughters. You have a lot of power, Luke.’

‘And I’ll use it,’ he said with a soft menace that dragged the hairs on her skin upright in a primitive, involuntary reaction, ‘to stop anyone from hurting my children.’

‘I don’t want to hurt them.’ If she wanted to hurt anyone it was him. ‘I just need to see that they’re happy.’

Dark brows snapped together. ‘Why shouldn’t they be happy?’ he demanded. ‘They’re loved and cared for.’

‘I need to be sure of that.’ She closed her eyes for a second. ‘They are my daughters as well as yours. I didn’t abandon them, you know. I’d have kept them if I could.’

He didn’t move, didn’t react in any way, yet somehow she sensed that her frank plea had struck home. She leaned forward. ‘It doesn’t have to be here,’ she said quietly. ‘We could meet somewhere in a park. I just want to talk to them. I won’t tell them who I am.’

‘And if you think they’re unhappy?’ he asked with disbelieving curtness. ‘What will you do then?’

‘I don’t know. But—I’m not unreasonable, Luke. You’re their father, you’ve had them since they were a week old, and I’m not going to interfere unless I think the situation warrants it.’ An aching smile curved her wide, lush mouth. ‘I don’t expect it to. I just want to see them.’

He said heavily, ‘I suppose your private detective told you that Natalie is dead.’

Perdita’s lashes quivered. ‘Yes.’

She knew how much Luke had loved his wife, knew that her death must have been shattering to them all. As it had been to her.

In the older woman, her mother’s cousin, the young, emotionally neglected Perdita had found the love and consideration she had never been able to elicit from her own mother. Luke’s wife had loved her and valued her, and because Natalie was gracious and charming and affectionate, Perdita had responded with a child’s unquestioning gratitude. At eleven, newly come to Pigeon Hill, she had been struck up by Natalie’s conviction that life was perfectible—it merely needed work—and vowed to grow up as much like Natalie as she could. It still struck her as an excellent ambition, although she had long given up believing that she could ever resemble her cousin. Such people were born, not made.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said now, her voice uneven in spite of her attempt to steady it. ‘Oh, Luke, I am so sorry.’

He looked at her. ‘I really believe you are,’ he said harshly.

‘Of course I am! I loved her.’ Perdita swallowed, but nervous tension had her well and truly in its grip. Tears pearled through her fingers as she pressed them to her eyes, slid down her hands. She sniffed, and groped in her bag.

‘Here,’ Luke said, his voice strained.

A soft handkerchief was thrust into her hand. Turning away from him she blew her nose and swallowed hard. She couldn’t afford to give in to her emotions, it made her too vulnerable.

Wiping her eyes, she said thickly, ‘How did the girls take it?’

‘As you’d expect.’ He spoke with barely caged impatience. “They were shattered, but they’ve come through it fairly well. However, there’s been enough turmoil in their lives. I don’t want them upset again.’

‘All I’m interested in is their happiness. Do they know they’re adopted?’

‘Of course they do.’ He shrugged. ‘Natalie insisted.’

Being Natalie, she would have done everything right. Everything but stay alive.

‘Did Natalie know they were my daughters?’ she asked, unable to stop herself. Ever since she had read in Frank’s dossier that her daughters’ names were Olivia and Rosalind she had wondered whether Natalie and Luke had somehow discovered that she was their mother.

However, common sense told her it was just that Natalie liked Shakespearian names; she had always admired Perdita, saying once that when she had daughters she could do worse than search through his plays.

Now Perdita waited, holding her breath, shadowed eyes searching Luke’s hard-boned, uncompromising face with something like anguish, but his studied composure was so absolute that nothing could have broken through it.

‘No,’ he said deliberately, ‘and neither did I. All details of their parentage were kept quiet, although we were given character traits and intelligence, a few physical characteristics, things like that.’ In a voice that held derision he finished, ‘I was pleased the father was so like me.’

Her relief startled her, lowering her guard enough for her to blurt, ‘Didn’t you even wonder?’

His mouth twisted. ‘I didn’t know you were pregnant. Your mother certainly wasn’t telling anyone.’

Perdita opened her mouth to tell him that Natalie had known, she had visited her in the nursing home, but he forestalled her ruthlessly. ‘Not that it matters. Even if you can prove that you are their birth mother, Perdita, you have no legal claim to the children.’

‘I know that. I accept it. Is it so difficult to believe that I simply want to see them, to reassure myself that they’re happy?’

He said forcefully, ‘I don’t think you’d be a good influence.’

Perdita’s head lifted sharply, the bell of heavy hair falling across her neck in a silken swathe. For a moment she was speechless, scanning his face to see whether he could possibly be joking. He wasn’t. He meant every word he said. Evenly, almost lightly, she asked, ‘Why is that?’

‘The life you’ve led these past ten years.’ He waited for her answer, and when she didn’t speak said with cold-blooded austerity, ‘My daughters are only ten, Perdita. You’ve spent those ten years in the fast lane, living with a variety of lovers, leading an infinitely more sophisticated life than anything New Zealand can offer. I’d be at fault as a father if I allowed you the chance to impose your demi-mondaine manners and morals on them.’

Her face a mask of scorn, she got to her feet and confronted him fearlessly. ‘What a smug, sanctimonious prig you are, Luke. I don’t understand how Natalie could love you. Listen to me, and don’t forget it, because I’m not going to say it again. I intend to see my children. If necessary I’ll stay in Manley until they come back from wherever you’ve hidden them, and then sneak around to see them. I gave you the chance of doing it properly, but I will see them, whether you want me to or not.’

Ignoring his sharply indrawn breath, she turned towards the door, but before she had reached it he was barring the way, his face set in lines of contempt and anger, aquamarine eyes blazing with frigid fire.

‘Let me past,’ she said between her teeth.

‘Not until I’ve had my say,’ he returned dangerously. ‘Listen to me, Perdita, and for once think of someone other than yourself. Those girls have just come through a traumatic time. They don’t need any more pain. I swear, if you hurt them, confuse them or upset them, I’ll make you suffer so much that you’ll wish to God you’d never been born.’

She had to tilt her head back to look up into his face. Sheer fury turned her eyes to smoky pools, her voice to a molten purr. ‘Then you’d better come with them when I see them,’ she said softly, ‘so that you can monitor my behaviour. Because I am going to see them.’

He swore. Perdita had learned to ignore swearing, but she flinched at the naked hatred in his voice. ‘You little bitch,’ he said slowly. ‘I thought I was rid of you—why the hell did you have to come back?’