stay away from them for very long. I’m just like her. I yearn for them, as she did.’
Emma Harte.
Evan turned the name over in her mind. Dead though she had been for thirty years, Emma still lived on, her spirit and her presence almost as potent as it had been when she was alive. Emma Harte was her great-grandmother, too, although she had not known this when she had come to England in January. Just eight months ago now; how her life had changed since then. She was a Harte. And had been accepted by this unique family, made to feel one of them. She was still trying to come to grips with recent developments.
Almost immediately her thoughts swung to Robin Ainsley, favourite son of the legendary Emma: her father’s biological father, her biological grandfather; a man she had met only a few weeks ago, but whom she had quickly grown to like and knew she could easily come to love. There was something endearing about Robin, even vulnerable, and she wanted to nurture and protect him. At eighty he seemed so alone and lonely in old age.
Robin Ainsley had abandoned her grandmother during the Second World War, but he had had his reasons, and it was over half a century ago now. And if she were honest with herself, she had to admit that her grandmother had probably had a much better and certainly a more tranquil life without Robin. After all, they had been forever at each other’s throats, according to him. And Gran had a loving husband in Richard Hughes, who had married her some months before her baby, Owen, was born. Richard had brought up Owen as his son. He had been a good father; no man had ever had a better one, her father said that all the time.
Her father’s face insinuated itself into her mind’s eye, and she felt herself tensing. Yet again she wondered how to tell him what she had so recently found out? Owen had idolized Richard Hughes …
‘I’m so sorry to have left you alone,’ Robin murmured from the doorway, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I’m afraid Dr Harvey can go on a bit at times.’
Evan jumped up and swung to face him. ‘You’re all right, aren’t you? You’re not ill?’ she asked. Her voice echoed with sudden concern, and her eyes were anxious.
‘I’m perfectly fine, my dear. In very good health, I do assure you. Dr Harvey was merely ringing up to confirm our dinner engagement tomorrow evening.’ As he finished speaking Robin stepped onto the terrace. ‘Let’s stay out here for a while, enjoy Mother Nature. It’s such a grand morning.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Evan agreed.
They sat down on the bench, and Robin went on, after a moment, ‘You said earlier that you needed to talk to me about several things, but so far we’ve only discussed my relationship with your grandmother. What else do you have on your mind?’
‘My father.’
‘Ah yes, Owen. Have you told him about me? Does he know anything about … Emma’s well-kept secret?’
‘No.’
‘Did you lose your nerve, Evan? Surely not. Not you.’
‘No, not really. But I did decide it might be better to wait until he arrives in London later this month.’
‘Don’t you think you ought to give him an inkling about what’s happened before he comes? About me, I mean? It would prepare him for what will no doubt be a bit of a shock.’
‘It did cross my mind,’ Evan responded, biting her lip, looking worried. ‘But then I decided it would be smarter to tell him face to face.’
Robin frowned, stared ahead, his light-coloured eyes fixed on the distant horizon. After a moment, he began to speak slowly, thoughtfully. ‘He’s not going to like what he hears. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were very angry. After all, some of his illusions are going to be shattered. He’ll certainly be angry with me about the past.’
‘And maybe he’ll also be angry with his mother for not being truthful,’ Evan suggested succinctly. ‘Gran lied to him.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, my dear. Glynnis did the right thing. It was wiser not to tell him I was his father. Richard was married to Glynnis for some months before Owen’s birth, and whilst he may not have made her pregnant, he loved that child as his own. Richard’s behaviour was impeccable, and I think Glynnis did what she thought was best, you know.’
‘That’s true, but …’ She let her sentence go unfinished.
‘But what?’
‘My father’s not easy, Robin.’
A look of comprehension swept across his face and he exclaimed, ‘I remember something, Evan. When Paula brought you here for the first time you told us you thought your father had come across some papers after Glynnis died.’
‘I did. But he never actually said he found anything. It was just a feeling I had that sprang from his sudden, rather odd attitude towards the Harte family.’
‘Oh. What kind of attitude?’ Robin asked, his curiosity aroused.
‘He became a bit … well, down on them. I guess that’s the best way of describing it. He wasn’t happy about my job at Harte’s, and that was mystifying to me because he had agreed I should visit London to seek out Emma Harte … just as Gran had suggested on her deathbed.’
Robin ventured, ‘I think he stumbled on a diary, or letters, or other items from long ago, which Glynnis had perhaps forgotten about.’
‘That could be so,’ she agreed. ‘And what he found might have turned him off the Hartes. Is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘Yes, it is.’ There was a pause. ‘I wonder if it might not be wiser to let sleeping dogs lie, my dear? Why tell your father anything at all? He doesn’t need to know the truth about his paternity. Perhaps it would be more prudent to let it remain the secret it’s always been. Why not let him continue to think Richard Hughes was his biological father?’
‘That makes sense,’ Evan exclaimed, and instantly felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her chest.
Almost as if he instinctively knew what she was feeling, Robin put his arm around her, held her close to him. ‘We know the truth, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ was all she said, and she leaned against his shoulder, closing her eyes, filled with relief.
They did not speak for a short while, lost as they were in their own thoughts. Evan was thinking about her boyfriend Gideon Harte, wondering how she would explain her sudden change of heart, yet knowing that whatever she decided to do he would back her to the hilt, would be on her side. Gideon had an understanding heart, and he was sensitive to her feelings about her father. In fact, he himself had suggested, only the other day, that maybe she would be better off not telling her father he was a Harte. She had been ambivalent; Gideon had then said he trusted her judgement and whatever she did ultimately would be all right by him.
As for Robin, his thoughts were centred on Evan Hughes. How glad he was that this young woman had come into his life. Very late in his life, that was true, but at least he had been fortunate to become aware of her existence. He had grown to know her over the past few weeks, and he liked what he had learned about her. Once before he had held her close like this, when she had comforted him, and he was glad to hold
