A Reckless Affair. Alexandra Scott
us—what? About two minutes would you say, Karen?’ He dismissed the woman, who was so clearly disapproving, with a smile. ‘Well, maybe you can stall him for a bit. You’ll try anyway, won’t you?’
And he hooked a chair with one foot, sat opposite Ginny and poured tea into two cups, one of which he handed across, offering sugar and milk as well as a plate of tiny sugary biscuit. ‘I’m sorry about the rush, Miss Browne.’
‘No.’ She was aware of being hideously intrusive, knowing only too well what unscheduled visitors could do to a carefully arranged timetable. ‘No, I’m the one who must apologise—I’ve taken an unfair amount of your time already. But, you see...’ Her mind raced and the truth seemed to adapt to the peculiar circumstances. ‘Your father and... and mine were great friends long ago... in Hong Kong ... and since...’ She must be careful, remember what she was saying. Even the slightest hint could have disastrous consequences.
‘I tell you what.’ Draining his cup, he stood up. ‘I’m due to speak with my father later this evening. I can let him know you’re here, and...’
‘Maybe...’ She felt a compulsion to equivocate, possibly because her feelings about the whole mission were so confused. She was so much less certain than she had been at first. ‘Maybe he won’t want to...he might have forgotten...’
‘I’m sure that won’t be the case, since he and your father were such friends, but, what I was going to suggest was to let me take you to dinner tonight, and then I can let you know.’
‘Oh.’ Most of her instinct was to seize the offer with both hands—there was just the tiniest sense of caution and reserve. ‘I think I have imposed enough already...’
‘You haven’t imposed. Besides...’ His eyes seemed unwilling to leave hers. They were so disturbing in their intense scrutiny. ‘I want to see you again. Nothing—’ his sudden grin was brilliant and earthshaking ‘—nothing at all to do with any friendship which existed between our parents. I shall collect you at... say... would seven-thirty be all right?’
‘Seven-thirty would be perfect,’ she said, meaning it. She rose, picked up her bag and turned to the door. ‘But, oh...’ She put her hand on the doorknob and paused. ‘Your secretary called you Jake just now.’ She lowered her voice as if there was the chance of Karen hearing their conversation through the heavy door. “That was what threw me—at first, you see, I did ask for Mr Hugo Vanbrugh.’
‘Ah, well, there is just one Hugo Vanbrugh., and, though I was christened with the same name, I’ve always been known by my second one to avoid confusion.’
‘Ah, that explains it, then.’
‘I look forward to seeing you later. Which hotel are you staying at?’
‘The Excelsior,’ she replied.
There was all the time in the world as Ginny made her way back through the bustling, lively streets for her to reconsider and regret so much lying and deceit. How much wiser to have avoided the folly of further contact with the son when her whole concern was with the father, and the very fact of that connection wholly precluded the possibility of more than friendship between her and Jake Vanbrugh. A shudder ran through her. It was a most melancholy thought—possibly the lowest point in the whole wretched business.
When she reached the hotel foyer she was achingly weary. Having misjudged the distance, she had been walking for more than an hour, so in the bedroom, she leaned her head against the door for a few moments before going to her as yet unpacked suitcase.
After rummaging for a few minutes her fingers came up against a hard square package which she stared at, filled with regret that it hadn’t been disposed of years ago. And she wished with a quite desperate longing, for her days of lost innocence, before the shock of her mother’s death in that car crash. That had been more than enough for anyone to cope with. And then to find that her entire existence was based on a lie...
It had been such a bitter, ghastly time. Looking back now, it took on the quality of a nightmare—there were days when she was certain it had happened to someone else, when she was sure she would wake and find all was well, that she wasn’t involved in this cruel history which was turning her life upside down. But in her hands she held the evidence—undeniable, absolute.
It had been weeks after the accident before she could bring herself to start the task of clearing out the family home, but at length, refusing the offers of help from various friends, she’d steeled herself and had begun to make some headway.
She had been sitting in the small room which her mother had designated the sewing room, the beauty of the spring day with the sun streaming through high arched windows and all the daffodils planted by her parents stirring gently in the breeze adding a poignant touch. Then she’d reached down for the wrapped and taped package at the bottom of the now almost empty blanket chest. And in that instant her life had fallen apart.
Even now she found it difficult to believe that Tom Browne, who had died two years previously, the man who had been such a tender and devoted father to her, was in fact unrelated by blood. Her own existence was due to a brief and very passionate affair her mother had had in Hong Kong.
The whole story was contained in the diary, in the few letters which had been hidden away for so many years and which, for all Ginny knew, would never have been revealed but for the car crash. But for the devastating suddenness of that event her mother would, in all likelihood, have destroyed the package.
Desolated by the loss of both her parents within such a short time, Ginny had found her anguish compounded by the new disclosures. Any doubts she might have clung to had been blown away by the letter her mother had written to Colonel Hugo Vanbrugh, addressed to the Military Division of the American Embassy in Saigon.
It was a passionate letter, but also touching and rather frightened, telling him that as a result of their affair she was pregnant. But the letter had never been posted, possibly because—and this was made much clearer in the diaries—they had already decided to part.
Reading the fevered soul-searching, the intensely private baring of feelings, Ginny had felt intrusive but, because of her own deep involvement, the story had been irresistible. Even various things which had vaguely puzzled her over the years were, in part, explained. Those times when her mother had seemed withdrawn, when it had seemed all her thoughts and emotions were elsewhere. It was easy now to understand.
Just once in a while there had been glimpses of a more passionate woman than the one who had kept her feelings under such strict control, while her father... Ah, well, not really that, it seemed, but the man who would always be regarded as such. Tom Browne had been placid, calm, even-tempered—a good man, a kind husband and father—but not, one might have thought, the kind of man who would have attracted Jane...
Often Ginny had mused on the apparent disparity, but then what child hadn’t pondered the improbability of sexual attraction between its parents? But what was true in this case was that Jane Browne had been an extremely striking woman, beautiful even in middle age, while Tom had been simply an average Englishman, neither good-looking nor particularly plain. But perhaps when they were both young—at least Jane had been young when they’d met and married—things might have been different.
It was so difficult to judge these things when the experience of her own generation was so very different. Intelligent women nowadays did not see marriage as any kind of goal—in fact, the very idea of any woman committing herself for life at nineteen was difficult to understand...
Tom had been an army dentist when they’d met in Germany, where Jane’s father, also an army man, had been serving, and... Oh...it was impossible to judge these things—a youngish major, a pretty girl; they could even have fallen madly in love.
The one thing that was abundantly clear was that when Jane had been on her own in Hong Kong for a few weeks—Tom back in London on some kind of military course—she had met Hugo Vanbrugh and there had been instant attraction. Neither had been willing or able to control their feelings, that much was obvious in the one letter