it before? You identified him immediately, as soon as I mentioned a new boy. I should have connected the two things sooner, only I was more concerned about you.’
Ashley set down her scarcely-touched glass with a weary hand. What was the point of denying it any longer? she thought. Malcolm was no fool. He could demand a satisfactory explanation, he deserved a satisfactory explanation. So why pretend she could just leave here without arousing his suspicions?
‘Well?’ he was asking now. ‘I am right, aren’t I? It’s the boy Gauthier who’s upset you. Why? What’s he to you? Do you know him? Do you know his family? Ashley, I mean to find out, so you might as well be honest with me.’
Ashley inclined her head. ‘He’s my son,’ she said simply, folding her hands in her lap. ‘Hussein—Andrew—Gauthier is my son.’
Malcolm’s astonishment was not contrived. A look of stunned disbelief crossed his features and remained there. He was evidently shaken, and who could blame him? she thought bleakly. She had never, at any time, mentioned that she had had a child.
‘Don’t you think that statement deserves some explanation?’ he ventured at last, thrusting his pipe back into his pocket with somewhat unsteady haste. ‘You told me you’d been married, that your husband was dead. But—but not that—that there were children!’
‘There were no children,’ retorted Ashley wearily. ‘Only one child. And—and as I never saw him, I never felt as if he was mine.’
‘But you must have done!’ Malcolm stared at her. ‘Ashley, a woman always cares about her children.’
‘Not all women,’ corrected Ashley tautly, controlling her emotions with great difficulty. ‘But you’re right about me, as it happens. I did care. At least, in the beginning.’
Malcolm shook his head. ‘You mean to tell me you’ve never even seen this boy?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But how—why? How did it happen?’
Ashley sighed. ‘It’s a long story, Malcolm—–’
‘And don’t you think I deserve to hear it?’
Ashley pressed her lips together. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps you do—I don’t know. Oh, Malcolm, what am I going to do?’
Malcolm got up from his chair and came round to her, perching on the side of his desk and looking down at her with compassionate eyes. ‘I meant what I said, you know. A trouble shared can help one to see it in its right perspective. Perhaps if you talked to me—–’
‘I can’t teach my own son!’ declared Ashley emotively. ‘I can’t, Malcolm. I can’t!’
‘I see there’s a problem,’ said Malcolm levelly, but as she would have protested again, he held up one hand. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Hear me out. This is something we have to talk about.’
Ashley made a helpless gesture. ‘What is there to say? It’s an impossible situation.’
‘First of all, I want you to tell me why you haven’t seen—Hussein—all these years.’ He frowned. ‘And why you added the name Andrew. I don’t recall the boy having that name.’
‘He doesn’t.’ Ashley moved her shoulders wearily. ‘That was my name for him. I called him Andrew. I—I refused to have a son of mine with only an Arab name.’
Malcolm nodded. ‘All right, I understand that. But I had no idea your husband was an Arab. I imagined he was someone you’d met in England.’
‘I did meet him in England,’ said Ashley flatly. ‘I—I met his brother at—at the home of a girl I got to know at university. And—and through him, I got to know Hassan.’
‘I see.’ Malcolm digested this. ‘So you know his family?’
‘I—knew his brother,’ Ashley corrected tightly.
Malcolm sighed. ‘Yet you were married. You had a child!’
‘I lived in London,’ Ashley explained. ‘Hassan had been working here before we got married.’
‘Of course.’ Malcolm slapped his hand to his knee. ‘The Gauthiers are in oil and shipping, aren’t they?’ He gave her a strange look. ‘Ashley, did you realise what a wealthy family you were marrying into?’
Ashley’s long lashes veiled her expression. ‘Yes, I realised it,’ she replied dully. ‘You might say—that was why I married Hassan.’
‘Ashley!’
‘Well—–’ she tilted her gaze up to him, her green eyes dark and haunted, ‘I wouldn’t be the first girl to admit that. It’s true. I was pregnant, you see.’
‘Oh, my dear!’ Malcolm made a sound of sympathy. ‘And you were—how old?’
‘Eighteen,’ she answered blankly. ‘In my first year at the college.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘I was very naïve.’
Malcolm hesitated. ‘But he did marry you. Some men—well, you know what I mean.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ashley assented, ‘I know what you mean. But Hassan—always got what he wanted, and he wanted me.’
She said it without conceit, and Malcolm watched her closely. ‘You’re still bitter.’
Ashley’s smile was self-derisive. ‘Yes.’
‘Your husband dying so soon after the wedding—that must have been a great shock to you.’
Ashley’s expression hardened. ‘Yes.’
‘They—his family—they wouldn’t let you keep the boy?’
Ashley bent her head. ‘I’d really rather not talk about it.’
‘Which means I’m right, doesn’t it?’
‘Malcolm, you don’t understand.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
Ashley sighed. ‘Hassan died the day after the wedding—–’
‘So?’
‘—–and his family blamed me!’
Malcolm stared at her. ‘Why?’
Ashley turned her head away. ‘Oh, Malcolm, don’t make me go into all the details. Let it be enough that they thought they had grounds for thinking that.’
‘But it wasn’t true?’
Ashley looked at him with tortured eyes. ‘No, it wasn’t true.’
‘And later, when they found out you were pregnant?’
Ashley hunched her shoulders. ‘We were estranged. I’d gone back to college. When—when—Hassan’s
