But as his eyes rested now on the woman he was addressing he felt doubt fill him. This was the woman he’d trekked to this grim, rainswept northern town to find in a race against time for his stricken grandfather? Marcos wouldn’t even have looked twice at her—let alone taken her to his bed!
‘Are you Miss Brandon?’ he asked, his voice sharper now.
He saw her swallow and nod jerkily. Saw, too, that her entire body had tensed.
‘I am Anatole Telonidis,’ he announced. His voice sounded clipped, but his mission was a painful one—and an urgent one. ‘I am here on behalf of my cousin, Marcos Petranakos, with whom I believe you are...’ he sought the right phrase ‘...acquainted.’
Even as he said it his eyes flicked over her again doubtfully. Even putting aside her unprepossessing appearance, Marcos’s taste had been for curvy blondes—not thin brunettes. But her reaction told him that she must indeed be the person he was looking for so urgently—she had instantly recognised Marcos’s name.
And not favourably...
Her expression had changed. Hardened. ‘So he couldn’t even be bothered to come himself!’ she retorted scornfully.
If she’d sought to hit home with her accusation she’d failed. The man who’d declared himself Marcos Petranakos’s cousin stilled. In the dark eyes a flash of deep emotion showed and Lyn saw his face stiffen.
‘The situation is not as you suppose,’ he said.
It was as if, she realised, he was picking his words carefully.
He paused a moment, as if steeling himself to speak, then said, ‘I must talk to you. But the matter is...difficult.’
Lyn shook her head violently. She could feel the adrenaline running through her body. ‘No, it’s not difficult at all!’ she retorted. ‘Whatever message you’ve been sent to deliver by your cousin, you needn’t bother! Georgy—his son!—is fine without him. Absolutely fine!’
She saw emotion flash in his dark eyes again, saw the shadow behind it. Out of nowhere a chill went through her.
‘There is something I must tell you,’ Anatole Telonidis was saying. His voice was grim, and bleak, as if he were forcing the words out.
Lyn’s hands clenched. ‘There is nothing you can say that I care about—!’ she began.
But his deep, sombre voice cut right through hers. ‘My cousin is dead.’
There was silence. Complete silence. Wordlessly, Anatole cursed himself for his blunt outburst. But it had been impossible to hear her hostility, her scorn, when Marcos lay dead in his grave...
‘Dead?’ Lyn’s voice was hollow with shock.
‘I’m sorry. I should not have told you so brutally,’ Anatole said stiffly.
She was still staring at him. ‘Marcos Petranakos is dead?’ Her voice was thin—disbelieving.
‘It was a car crash. Two months ago. It has taken time to track you down...’ His words were staccato, sombre.
Lyn swayed as if she might pass out. Instantly Anatole was there, catching her arm, staying her. She stepped back, steadying herself, and he released her. Absently she noticed with complete irrelevance how strong his grasp had been. How overpowering his momentary closeness.
‘He’s dead?’ she said again, her voice hollow. Emotion twisted in her throat. Georgy’s father was dead...
‘Please,’ Anatole Telonidis was saying, ‘you need to sit down. I am sorry this is such a shock to you. I know,’ he went on, picking his words carefully again, she could tell, his expression guarded, ‘just how...deep...you felt the relationship was between yourself and him, but—’
A noise came from her. He stopped. She was staring at him, but the expression in her face was different now, Anatole registered. It wasn’t shock at hearing about Marcos’s tragic death. It wasn’t even anger—the understandable anger, painful though it was for him to face it—that she’d expressed about the man who had got her pregnant and then totally ignored her ever since.
‘Between him and me?’ she echoed. She shook her head a moment, as if clearing it.
‘Yes,’ Anatole pursued. ‘I know from your letters—which, forgive me, I have read—that you felt a strong...attachment to my cousin. That you were expressing your longing to...’ He hesitated, recalling vividly the hopelessly optimistic expectations with which she had surrounded her announcement that she was carrying Marcos’s baby. ‘Your longing to make a family together, but—’
He got no further.
‘I’m not Georgy’s mother,’ Lyn announced.
And in her bleak voice were a thousand unshed tears.
For a moment Anatole thought he had not heard correctly. Or had misunderstood what she had said in English. Then his eyes levelled on hers and he realised he had understood her exactly.
‘What?’ His exclamation was like a bullet. A blackening frown sliced down over his face. ‘You said you were Linda Brandon!’ he threw at her accusingly.
His thoughts were in turmoil. What the hell was going on? He could make no sense of it! He could see her shaking her head—a jerky gesture. Then she spoke, her voice strained.
‘I’m...I’m Lynette Brandon,’ Anatole heard her say.
He saw her take a rasping breath, making herself speak. Her face was still white with shock with what he’d told her about Marcos.
‘Lindy...Linda—’ she gave her sister’s full name before stopping abruptly, her voice cutting off. Then she blinked.
Anatole could see the shimmer of tears clearly now.
‘Linda was my sister,’ she finished, her voice no more than a husk.
He heard the past tense—felt the slow, heavy pulse of dark realisation go through him. Heard her thin, shaky voice continuing, telling him what was so unbearably painful for her to say.
Her face was breaking up.
‘She died,’ she whispered. ‘My sister Linda. Georgy’s mother. She died giving birth. Eclampsia. It’s not supposed to happen any more. But it did...it did...’
Her voice was broken.
She lifted her eyes to Anatole across a divide that was like a yawning chasm—a chasm that had claimed two young lives.
Her mind reeled as she took in the enormity of the truth they had both revealed to each other. The unbearable tragedy of it.
Both Georgy’s parents were dead!
She had thrown at Anatole Telonidis the fact that his uncaring, irresponsible cousin wasn’t wanted or needed by his son, but to hear that he had suffered the same dreadful fate as her sister was unbearable. As unbearable as losing her sister had been. Tears stung in her eyes and his voice came from very far away.
