Morgan's Secret Son

The knife twisted even more sharply in his guts. What a hypocrite he was, a sham, a fraud! God! reliving it all was unbearable. He had to get away.

‘Thanks,’ he croaked, and had to stop to clear his throat of the clogging emotion.

The postman took advantage. ‘Good on you for looking after their baby—not many men would do that. Close relative, are you?’

‘Not exactly. Excuse me,’ he said stiffly, before the relationship could be investigated—and endlessly dissected during some idle coffee morning. ‘His bath water’s getting cold.’

He shut the door with a sigh of relief and instinctively hugged Jack closer, as if that could protect him from anything bad anyone might say or do.

But danger had literally threatened. Perhaps it was just as well that Sam had been rejected by his daughter. She would have jeopardised Jack’s future. And that, Morgan thought darkly, was something he couldn’t bear.

The baby felt soft and warm against his chest and a lump came back into Morgan’s throat as emotion spilled in a flood of liquid heat through his body.

Teresa’s death had stunned him. It had been the last thing he’d expected. And now…

What had he got himself into? The deception was getting harder to maintain. Every time he visited Sam the secret of Jack’s birth burned inside him like a red-hot poker, souring his relationship with the man he admired and respected and loved more than any other.

Morgan groaned. Blurting out the truth would make him feel a hell of a lot better—but it would crucify Sam. Probably catapult him into a fatal decline.

‘I can’t do it!’ he rasped in despair.

But…he loathed deceit and despised people who were so feeble they had to tell lies.

His eyes darkened with pain as he tried to face the inevitable and make the ultimate sacrifice. The truth would have to be locked up inside him and never revealed while Sam lived, however much that went against his own wishes and desires. There were two people weaker than himself involved, and they had needs greater than his.

‘Jack… How small and defenceless you are… And yet you don’t know the trouble you’ve caused, little one,’ he said quietly to the baby, who gave him that black glass stare and rooted around with his mouth, blind instinct prompting him to search for his non-existent mother’s breast.

‘Poor little scrap,’ Morgan whispered, offering a knuckle in compensation. The small mouth clamped around it, digging in hard, and the black lashes fluttered in bliss. ‘No wonder Sam adores you,’ Morgan murmured, enchanted as always. ‘You’d make anyone’s heart soften. Let’s get to that bath and make you all clean for your…’

He couldn’t say it. Some things were impossible to deal with, and assigning fatherhood was one insurmountable hurdle he hadn’t yet come to terms with.

Morgan took the baby up to the nursery feeling like a heel. He was caught in a web of lies. Here he was, fooling Jack with a knuckle to suck instead of the real thing. And in the future he’d be deceiving the child every single day of his life.

But he didn’t want to! Stricken, he stopped in mid-stride, fighting the souring anger, desperately trying to suppress his own needs. All his paternal instincts—previously hidden even to himself—were clamouring for the truth to be known. His head told him that was impossible. Head versus heart. A soul-destroying battle. Which would prevail?

Anguish distorted his features. Emotion flooded unchecked within him, his customary tight self-control eroded by exhaustion and shock.

For a terrifying moment he felt an overwhelming need to throw back his head and let rip a primal yell of anger and frustration. Only the presence of the child stopped him. Slowly his heart rate became regular again as the anger became ruthlessly suppressed.

For Jack’s sake he gritted his teeth and continued the interrupted bath rituals, blocking out everything but the immediate needs of the tiny, dependent baby.

When he’d finished they settled in front of the log fire in the drawing room, and as Jack sucked enthusiastically on the bottle Morgan watched, his harrowed features relaxing into a deep awe. This was his compensation, the joy amid the grieving.

To him, the child was a miracle of perfection. Dark-haired, flawless skin, thick black lashes. Smiling, he touched the little hand with its long, slender fingers and minute fingernails. Jack’s hand curled around his finger in an impressive grip of possession. Morgan’s heart ached.

This was his son, and he wanted everyone to know it.

CHAPTER TWO

BLEAKLY he acknowledged the impossibility of that dream. ‘Sam will be proud of you,’ he promised with an effort.

The urgent hungry expression on Jack’s face was slowly vanishing and a soft, blissful look of repose had begun to replace it. The small features smoothed out, the impossibly arched mouth slackened with sleep.

Desperate for sleep himself, Morgan adjusted his arm so that the two of them could rest in comfort. Just a few minutes for a catnap, he promised himself vaguely. Unfortunately his teeming thoughts wouldn’t allow him to rest.

He hadn’t found a daily help yet, and the kitchen needed clearing up. After that, he had to sterilise a load of bottles, make up a new batch of feed, put the washing on and do some ironing. Some time today he had to ring the office to see if it still existed. Then he and Jack would wrap up and go to see Sam.

He groaned at the catalogue of things which needed doing. It was eleven-thirty and he hadn’t even shaved—let alone found time to grab a morning coffee! But when he wasn’t by Sam’s bed, doing essential chores or looking after the baby, he was pacing the floor night after night, and his energy levels were at rock bottom.

More to the point, his mind was consumed with guilt. He’d never done anything wrong in his life before and this secret was testing his self-respect and control to the limit.

He knew he was on a short fuse. Was it any wonder? Morgan’s black brows screwed together in a fierce frown. His big capable hands curled around the tiny baby who slept, oblivious to everything around him. Jack made Morgan feel both protective and envious.

His eyes grew hazy as he contemplated the future. For years he’d done whatever he’d wanted, gone where he’d pleased, lived as free as a bird. Now circumstances had clipped his wings and it was hard to adjust.

Once he had been free to fly to exotic sites and absorb their meaning, to discover that feverish excitement of seeing one of his designs take shape on his drawing board—and then grow in reality on the site, at one with its environment.

But in one brief moment with Teresa Frazer he had created and designed something which had turned his world upside down. For the rest of his life he’d never forget the moment when he’d turned up at the hospital and she had confessed that Jack was his son, not Sam’s. Jack had been conceived while they were still together—before Sam even knew of Teresa’s existence.

He winced, seeing again that once-beautiful face, hideously mangled by the car crash which had brought him hurrying to Sussex from his London flat. He hadn’t doubted her word for a second. She had been so desperate to tell the truth, and too aware that she was close to death to waste her time with lies.

Morgan thought of Sam’s breakdown when news of the crash had come through, how it had been he, Morgan, who’d been with Teresa for her last conscious moments before the emergency Caesarean.

It had been he who’d first held his baby, he who’d wept with unrestrained joy and amazement. He hadn’t shed tears since he was eleven, but the suddenness of fatherhood had overwhelmed him.

Emotion had filled his heart to bursting. He’d wanted this child. His child! And yet he had known even then that he’d have to surrender him for the sake of a slowly dying man. Jack must be registered as Sam’s son.

Such joy and sorrow mingling together as he had never known…

Morgan passed a shaky hand over his face. He owed everything to Sam. But this was the cruellest price to pay!

Racked with despair, he bent his weary head and gently kissed the downy forehead. The warmth of the fire and the accumulation of several sleepless nights began to blur his mind. His thoughts became less focused and finally he slept, briefly free from his troubles and the destructive, shameful deceit.

The closer Jodie came to the village where her father lived, the more breathless and excited she became. Discovering his existence had been the most wonderful thing that had happened to her. Her heartbeat quickened. She dearly wanted this to work. It must! All her hopes were resting on it.

Her eager eyes took in the scenery with its voluptuously smooth hills—incongruously called Downs, according to the map. Sheep grazed on the emerald grass of the tiny fields and swans were lazily decorating a meandering river.

And then she saw it: an old-fashioned signpost pointing the way down a country lane. She turned off the main road, her heart singing with unrestrained delight.

It was getting dark, even though it was only about four o’clock in the afternoon. In her headlights she could pick out quaint flintstone cottages strung out sporadically along the lane. Occasionally there would be a small Tudor cottage, with black and white timbers, a thatched roof and pretty garden.

As she passed each house she slowed the car to a crawl, so she could read the names, her mouth increasingly dry with nerves. At last, in the rapidly fading light, she spotted the one she was looking for: Great Luscombe Hall.

‘Be there!’ she begged in a heartfelt plea.

Nervously she headed down a long drive, her hands gripping the steering wheel in a mixture of panic and anticipation. Her forest dark eyes widened. There was a moat! Awed, she steered the car over the wooden bridge that spanned it. It had never occurred to her for a minute that her father might be wealthy!

Adjusting to this fact, Jodie brought the car to a halt in front of the house. Her heart was beating hard in her chest with anticipation. Great Luscombe Hall was a rambling, timbered manor house with a roof made from huge slabs of stone, and its façade had been constructed with enough oak beams to make a fleet of ships.