allowed.
Like the death of Nick’s son Luke…
She turned to him as his hand came down firmly on her shoulder. ‘I can’t—’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it, Nick—can you?’
Oh, he could believe it, all right. It wasn’t the believing of it that was the problem!
He fixed his glittering gaze on her parents. ‘Are you saying—are you telling us that Hebe may have a similar medical problem when she gives birth to our baby?’ He had caught the relevance of Jean’s statement even if Hebe hadn’t.
‘It’s a possibility.’ Henry was the one to answer him. ‘Can you see why we had to tell you?’
‘I can see why you should have told us on Saturday, not waited until now—’
‘Nick!’ Hebe cautioned emotionally.
He shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m sorry, Hebe, but your parents knew all the time that your mother had died in childbirth, knew the risk of the same thing happening to you, and yet only now—’ He broke off abruptly, turning sharply to look searchingly at the older couple.
There was something else significant in what Jean had just said about Hebe’s mother…
‘How do you know that Hebe’s mother was, to quote you, Jean, “so tiny, so delicate”?’ he prompted shrewdly.
‘You’re an intelligent man, Nick,’ Henry complimented him gruffly. ‘The reason we know those things is because Claudia, Hebe’s mother, was our daughter.’
It was Nick’s turn to be left speechless.
And if he was stunned by this revelation, how much more shocked must Hebe feel?
Except she didn’t appear shocked when he glanced down at her. Instead there was an excited glow in her golden eyes as she turned to him, a look of anticipation on her face.
‘Would you go and get the portrait, Nick?’ The animation was audible in her voice.
‘Portrait?’ He frowned his confusion.
‘The portrait, Nick,’ she said, very firmly.
What the hell did she want her portrait for now? Why show that to her adoptive parents—her grandparents?—at all? They were talking about her mother, for God’s sake—
Nick froze. ‘Hebe…?’ he questioned slowly.
She nodded. ‘Please.’
Nick moved to his bedroom as if in a dream, a truth—a startling truth—hitting him right between the eyes.
A truth he had scorned.
A truth he had accused Hebe of lying about.
The woman in the portrait was her mother!
‘Are you okay, darling?’ Hebe’s mother prompted anxiously once they were alone. ‘We shouldn’t have deceived you, I know…’
‘I’m okay,’ Hebe assured her warmly. ‘I’m not too sure about Nick, though,’ she added ruefully, having seen the stunned look on his arrogantly handsome face as he went into his bedroom.
‘You’re not upset or angry, or feeling we’ve let you down, because all this time we’ve never told you we’re your grandparents and not your adoptive parents?’ her mother probed emotionally.
It was a little strange, Hebe had to admit, but at the same time it all made perfect sense. Her mother—Claudia—had died giving birth to her, and so Claudia’s parents had taken Hebe in as their own.
She stood up, moving to hug the people who had been the only parents she knew. Kind, giving people, who had loved her and cared for her all her life. How could she possibly be angry with them? Whatever they had done, she was sure they had done it out of love and nothing else.
She smiled tearfully as she stood back. ‘How could I possibly be angry with you? You did what you thought was best, I’m sure.’
‘We still should have told you,’ her father admitted heavily. ‘But we had lost Claudia, and you—you were so like she was as a baby.’ His voice grew husky with emotion. ‘A tiny little thing, with a mop of blonde hair. We loved you on sight. And we had made so many mistakes with Claudia, it seemed. We so wanted a second chance with you.’
‘A second chance…?’ Hebe had time to ask curiously, before Nick came back into the room with the portrait.
She crossed the room to his side. ‘Just stand it on the sofa, would you, please, Nick?’ she requested softly, knowing by the grim expression on his face that he was still far from satisfied with the explanation they had been given.
Well, maybe once her parents had seen Claudia’s portrait he would be given an explanation he could accept!
Nick heard Jean give a pained gasp as he stood the portrait up against the back of the sofa, turning to see Henry walking dazedly across the room for a closer look, the lines of strain on his face making him look every one of his sixty-odd years.
Henry reached out a hand, just as Hebe had the first time she’d seen the portrait, not quite touching the canvas, but almost tracing a hand lovingly over the creamy contours of the beautiful face.
‘Tell me, Dad,’ Hebe said softly as she stood beside him in front of the portrait. ‘Did Claudia have a birthmark?’
‘She did.’ Jean was the one to answer as she moved to join her husband and granddaughter. ‘A tiny red rose-shape, just—there…!’ She gasped as she saw the portrait fully. ‘Claudia…!’ she cried brokenly, her tears falling in earnest now as she gazed in awe at the portrait. ‘But how…?’
‘It’s the portrait I told you about on Saturday—the one that Nick found hidden away in a man’s house after he died,’ Hebe explained happily.
‘Jacob Gardner’s house,’ Nick put in harshly, wishing he felt as happy as she did about all of this.
This portrait obviously was of Claudia Johnson, as Hebe had always claimed it was. Henry and Jean’s reactions to seeing it were too genuine for it to be otherwise. But if that was true then it made a complete nonsense of the things Nick had accused Hebe of doing. Accusations she had vehemently denied. He had called her a liar. A liar and a gold-digger…!
Henry turned to look at him questioningly. ‘This is the Andrew Southern portrait you told us about?’
‘Yes,’ Nick bit out tautly.
‘Twenty-seven years ago, Claudia was engaged to a man called Jacob Gardner.’ Jean sighed. ‘He was much older than her, thirty years or so, but he was very wealthy, and when he asked her to marry him she accepted.’
‘And then she met Andrew Southern and fell in love with him instead,’ Nick grated grimly.
Everything he had accused Hebe of doing, in fact.
Accused and punished her for. His jealousy
