see.’ Isobel hesitated. ‘Then you’ll know that by-pass operations on the elderly can have—complications.’
‘So that’s what it was.’ Jake nodded. ‘I didn’t know.’
Isobel frowned. ‘But you said—Emily—’
‘She was pretty vague.’ He shrugged, and then glanced about him. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down? You look tired.’
‘Thanks.’
It was hardly a compliment, but Isobel was glad to accept his advice. She was tired; exhausted, actually. She had been for weeks; months. Ever since she’d heard that her husband was involved with Marcie Duncan.
Of course, he’d had affairs before. Several, actually, over the years, and she’d suffered through every one of them. But his relationship with Marcie was something different. It had gone on for so much longer, for one thing, and for another a friend had told her that Marcie was telling everyone that he was going to marry her.
Except he was still married to Isobel.
Expelling a quivering breath, she moved into the room and seated herself on the sofa nearest to the door. Then, as he lounged into the chair opposite, she forced a formal smile.
But it was difficult. Bloody difficult, actually, she thought with a sudden spurt of anger. Sitting opposite the man you had once thought you loved better than life itself was never going to be easy, and she despised the fact that he could come here and behave as if all they had ever been to one another was polite strangers.
He looked so damned relaxed, she mused tensely. In the kind of casual gear he wore to work, which her mother had always deplored on a man in his position, he looked completely at his ease and she resented it.
A black tee shirt was stretched across his broad shoulders and exposed the ribbed muscles of his stomach. He didn’t appear to have an ounce of spare flesh on him, and tight-fitting moleskin pants hugged his narrow hips and long powerful legs. A leather jacket, still displaying the fact that it had been raining when he arrived, was hung over the back of a chair and one booted foot rested casually across his knee.
He was not a handsome man, she assured herself, unwilling to admit that his strong, hard features possessed something more than mere good looks. His skin was darker than the rest of his colouring, his hair streaked in shades of silvery blond and amber, and eyes as green as his Irish roots should have indicated a fair countenance. But somewhere in Jake’s mongrel ancestry—as her mother would say—there had been a darker strain. Just another reason why Lady Hannah Lacey had opposed his marriage to her only daughter.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ she asked at last, rather than broach the subject she was sure was his reason for being here, and Jake regarded her through narrowed lids.
‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Our appointment was for five o’clock, wasn’t it?’
Isobel sighed. ‘Do we have to have appointments?’ She smoothed her damp palms over the slim lines of her skirt. ‘This isn’t a business meeting, is it?’
Jake didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, ‘I guess you know why I’m here,’ and a shiver feathered its way down her spine.
‘Do I?’ She refused to make it easy for him. ‘Dare I suspect that you’ve finally decided to acknowledge that you have a daughter?’
‘No!’ Jake’s appearance of relaxation disappeared. His boot thudded onto the carpet and he leaned forward in his seat, legs spread wide, forearms resting along his thighs. ‘We dealt with that fiction some time ago, and I don’t intend to let you divert me with it now. I’m here because it’s past time we put an end to this travesty—’
‘What are we having for supper, Mummy?’
Isobel didn’t know if Emily had been eavesdropping on their conversation or whether her intervention was as innocent as it appeared. Either way, it achieved the dual purpose of providing a distraction and putting Jake off his stride.
He swore, quite audibly, and Isobel glared at him reprovingly before transferring her attention to her daughter. ‘Have you made the tea?’ she asked, ignoring her husband’s scowling face. ‘We can decide what we’re having for supper later.’
‘Will Daddy be staying for supper?’
Emily was nothing if not persistent, and despite everything Isobel was tempted to smile. ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Just fetch the tea, sweetheart. Then you can go and start running your bath.’
‘Oh, must I?’
‘Do as your mother says,’ said Jake harshly, and Emily’s expression changed from mild disappointment to cold fury.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do, you—you womaniser!’ she exclaimed angrily, and Isobel didn’t know which of them was the most astounded at her outburst.
After the way Emily had behaved when she’d got home Isobel had hoped that she and Jake had come to some sort of compromise. She should have known better.
Predictably, Jake recovered first. ‘You little bitch!’ he snapped. ‘How dare you call me a womaniser?’
‘Because it’s what you are,’ declared Emily, unwilling to back down, and Jake snorted.
‘I bet you got that from your grandmother, didn’t you?’ he demanded. ‘That old—’
‘I heard it at school, actually,’ Emily contradicted him, her voice breaking a little now. ‘It’s what the older girls say about you. They laugh about it. They say you’ve had loads of girlfriends and that you don’t care about Mummy and me at all.’
Isobel didn’t know where to look. It was obvious that the child’s words had shocked her husband, but she knew she couldn’t allow Emily to get away with insolence, whatever the justification.
‘I think you owe your father an apology, Emily,’ she said quietly, uncaring what Jake thought of her words. But his response overrode hers.
‘I don’t care what people say,’ he retorted grimly, but Isobel could tell from his tone that that wasn’t entirely true. Jake was not without feelings, after all, and Emily’s accusations had the ring of truth. ‘Your mother knows I would never allow her—or you—to suffer from my actions.’
‘But we do,’ muttered Emily tearfully. ‘Why can’t we be a proper family? Why can’t you live with us, like any proper father would?’
‘Emily—’
Isobel was desperate to stop this from going any further, but Jake had had enough.
‘Because I’m not your father,’ he snapped savagely, and Isobel closed her eyes as Emily’s face whitened and the tears began to fall in earnest.
‘You are,’ she protested, in spite of her distress, and although Isobel got to her feet and started towards her it was too late. ‘I know you are,’ she persisted. ‘Mummy says so. And Mummy doesn’t tell lies.
‘And nor do I,’ said Jake, driven to his feet also. ‘For pity’s sake, Emily—’
‘I
