Legacy Of Shame. Diana Hamilton
she turned away, butting into Potty, who was now standing directly behind her, her eyes anxious in her parchment-pale face.
‘Is he coming?’ she asked quickly, and Venetia nodded, her throat too choked with fear to allow her to speak.
‘Good. That’s all right, then.’ The housekeeper visibly relaxed, as if she was convinced that all the doctor had to do was wave a prescription. Venetia wished she had such blind, unquestioning faith. She couldn’t forget how desperately ill her father had looked.
And something of this must have shown in her face, because Potty stroked a strand of silky black hair away from her clammy forehead, her voice reassuring as she soothed, ‘It won’t be long before the doctor gets here, and Carlo’s with him. He took him to the library and asked me to fetch a blanket. Run along, now; go and hold his hand, why don’t you?’
Venetia tried to pull herself together as she watched the older woman hurry to complete her errand. It wouldn’t help her father if she appeared at his side looking distraught. And somehow, clinging on to the thought that Carlo was with him helped her. Nothing bad could happen while he was there. He wouldn’t let it!
Nothing this traumatic had happened to her in her entire life and she’d been young enough, inexperienced enough—until ten minutes ago—to believe it never would.
She had been only a few months old when her mother had died. The horse she had been riding had fallen at a gate, crushing the life out of the slender young woman. Venetia had been unaware of the tragedy, and her father had done all he could to ensure that she never felt the lack of a maternal parent too keenly. He had, all her life, lavished enough love, care and patience on her for two.
She remembered now the look on his face when, at the age of eleven, she had asked for a pony of her own. At the time, she hadn’t translated that haunted expression as fear. It hadn’t been until years later, when her undoubted equestrian skills had led her to take calculated risks, that she had finally put two and two together, tying the look of agony deep in his kindly eyes to the tragic death of her mother.
Parting with Bliss, her lovely grey mare, had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do; convincing her father that she was giving up riding because the sport was beginning to bore her had called upon all her acting abilities.
But it had been worth it for the look of soul-deep relief in his eyes. It had been the first completely unselfish act of her young life and she prayed it wouldn’t be her last.
She felt guilty as she recalled how, a full year before she had been due to leave the convent school, she had flatly refused to make any plans for future career training, and, when the time had come for her to wipe the cloistered dust of the convent from her feet, had brushed aside her father’s suggestion that she join the family business, working her way through every department right up to the top.
What she had wanted, she had lovingly teased him, was to stay home and have fun for at least six months before having to think of anything as dreary as working for her living. After the nuns’ stern discipline she had deserved that much, hadn’t she?
She knew she had disappointed him, although he had tried not to let it show. And now she regretted her frivolous attitude to life more keenly than she would ever have believed possible.
Potty caught up with her as she reached the library door, pushing a folded blanket into her arms.
‘Take this to him, while I wait around to show the doctor through,’ she instructed. ‘Then I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea. I dare say you could do with one. I know I could.’
Consciously relaxing her shoulders, Venetia pushed open the library door, giving a terse nod at Carlo’s, ‘Well, is he on his way?’
‘How are you feeling now?’ she wanted to know as she tucked the blanket around her father’s legs. He was stretched out on the chesterfield and he smiled at her.
‘Better. Fielding’s going to read me the riot act for wasting his time. I stayed in bed, hoping the pain would pass off, but it didn’t. Now he’s actually coming there’s no sign of it. Typical!’
‘It’s his job,’ Carlo said, moving into her line of vision. ‘Even if the pain’s gone now, something caused it.’
Quickly, Venetia lowered her lashes, turning her head away from the Italian as a slow flush of guilt covered her face. Potty had remarked on her father’s lateness, but she, Venetia, hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. She’d been too busy lying in wait for Carlo, plotting how to get him to go with her to Natasha’s party. She should have gone to his room to check, she castigated herself, instead of trying to attract a man who was plainly bored by what he called her infatuation, who had taunted her cruelly, as good as telling her that a man would have to be paid in hard currency before he could bring himself to be seen with her on his arm in a public place!
Thankfully, she heard the sounds of the doctor’s arrival and hurried to meet him, grateful, at least, for the colour that was gradually returning to her father’s face. And, over an hour later, with the elderly man safely tucked up in bed, she walked with the doctor to his car.
‘Grumbling appendix,’ he told her, opening the door of the sturdy Volvo, putting his bag on the passenger seat. He had kind eyes in a weary face and he glanced up at Carlo, who had followed them out, ‘Nothing to panic about, but call me if the pains recur. And liquids only for twenty-four hours. He should be fine in a couple of days.’
‘I’ll go up to him,’ Venetia stated as the Volvo left, her voice stiff. She couldn’t bear to look at Carlo. She would burst into noisy sobs if she did, remember just how cruel he had been, how he’d reduced what she felt for him to the level of juvenile infatuation, remember that by this time tomorrow he would be gone, and she would never see him again. Already her whole body was starting to shake.
‘No.’ His hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks, and she froze and closed her eyes, afraid that he would see the pain, the humiliation, the sheer blinding power of her love for him in the revealing depths. ‘He was already falling asleep when I left him,’ he stated. ‘He had a restless night; a peaceful few hours will do him more good than anything. Besides—’ he had two hands on her shoulders now, turning her round to face him ‘—Potty has promised to look in from time to time, to keep an eye on him.’
He was so close to her now. So close. She could feel the warmth of his body, the nearness of him, the indefinable, exquisitely potent force field of his masculinity as it reached out, as always, to enthral her, hold her spellbound.
Her lips began to tremble. Why couldn’t he feel it too? Why did the only man she could ever love feel nothing for her except exasperation? She couldn’t stay here with him a moment longer; it was too much to bear! Venetia felt the build-up of a sob inside her and tried to contain it, pushing at his body with her fists as the shameful tears welled up in her eyes, spilled over.
And he saw them, of course he did. He didn’t miss a trick. And he would begin to taunt her again, call her a child; she knew he would, she thought hysterically, trying to hold her body rigid to counteract the weak trembling that was such a give-away.
But there was no cruelty in his husky voice as he pulled her into his arms.
‘Ssh,’ he whispered, dipping his dark head so that his cheek lay on hers. ‘Don’t cry. It’s been a worrying couple of hours for you, but it’s over now. Your father’s going to be fine. You’re suffering from reaction, that’s all.’
All? Her sobs began in earnest as he held her, allowing her to cry all over his shirt, his hands gentling her as she clung to him, sliding rhythmically from her shoulders to her waist and back again. The way he was holding her, their bodies so close they might be one being, would have been sheer ecstasy if she hadn’t already known he thought of her as a silly child, with as much sense in her head, as much capacity for real emotion, as a gaudy butterfly. The knowledge that he was leaving tomorrow was breaking her heart.
Gulping back a renewed spasm of sobbing, she tightened her arms around him, as if the sheer force of her love could