Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

       CHAPTER NINE

      DOMINIC DASHWOOD’S house, although about four times the size of Marchwood, was nothing like Lola had imagined it would be.

      Because he was so rich—richer by reputation than anyone else she knew—she had been convinced that the place would be filled with costly antiques. But it wasn’t. It was a minimalist’s heaven, with its streamlined, carefully chosen pieces of furniture and its pale, polished wooden floors, occasionally strewn with silk rugs far too beautiful to walk on.

      And in the midst of all this understated wealth sat Lola’s mother, June Hennessy, desperately trying not to look nervous and failing spectacularly.

      She was a woman whose youthful prettiness had survived, to give her face something approaching a serene kind of beauty in her forties. Her ash-blonde hair was still glossy and her beautiful pale blue eyes owed much to her Austrian parentage.

      Sitting opposite her now, Lola was taken aback by how different she and her mother looked—and how she had always subconsciously pushed those differences to the back of her mind. She was also still reeling from the fact that Geraint had managed to get her mother up from Cornwall at such short notice, and seemingly without any trouble at all—the man must have hidden strengths!

      ‘Will you tell me the whole story, Mum?’ she asked as she sat down on a squashy white sofa, her hands locked tightly together in her lap. ‘Every bit of it, please. Don’t spare me details just because they might hurt me—I need to know, you see.’

      ‘Yes, I realise that now,’ said her mother slowly. ‘Geraint made me realise that.’

      Geraint? Why on earth had her mother’s voice softened to speak of Geraint in an almost awe-filled way?

      But that was not important now. She had come to talk about her father, and Geraint could wait. Lola lifted her chin expectantly.

      ‘Tell me, Mum.’

      ‘It’s a story as old as time itself,’ her mother began quietly. ‘I was just eighteen when I met Peter Featherstone—I was working as a barmaid at the local yacht club and he was taking an extended sailing holiday after pulling off the biggest merger of his career.’

      Her smile was tinged with nostalgia as she looked across the room at her daughter. ‘He was just over twenty years older than me—but he certainly didn’t look it. Or act it! He was a devastatingly handsome man—with dark, curly hair and bright blue eyes just like yours! And he was quite unlike anyone I had ever met before—funny, good-looking, rich and confident. I fell madly in love with him, and, being thoroughly inexperienced, made no attempt whatsoever to hide it. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me, of course, not in that way.’

      ‘He—didn’t?’ asked Lola in surprise.

      Her mother shook her ash-blonde head. ‘Of course he didn’t! I was too young. Much too young. And gauche. Naive, too. I was looking for Mr Right, and he certainly didn’t fit the bill—or so he told me!’

      ‘He told you that?’ asked Lola breathlessly.

      ‘Yes, he did. Peter had never married because he recognised the limitations of marriage—for him, anyway. He told me all this quite honestly—and although it was not what I wanted to hear—I always respected him for his openness.’

      ‘But you had his baby, Mum?’ said Lola, her brow furrowed with confusion. ‘How—if he was so against it? What made him change his mind?’

      Her mother threw her an odd look. ‘This part of the story, too, lacks originality. That’s one of the things you discover as you grow older, Lola—that patterns of behaviour carry on repeating themselves, no matter how often they fly in the face of experience—’

      ‘Mum, please.’

      June Hennessy smiled. ‘It was the night of the yacht club ball—a very prestigious affair—and I was to be Peter’s partner.’

      ‘How come?’

      ‘Oh, I had dropped so many hints I think he was too much of a gentleman to say no! And he was planning to leave the following day. I think he thought that no harm could be done on that final evening. . .which just goes to prove how wrong you can be.’

      Her mother’s pale eyes took on a far-away look. ‘The combination of a dress which revealed far too much cleavage together with the champagne and the night and the music. . .’ Mrs Hennessy looked at her daughter with a defiant spark in her eyes. ‘I’m not proud of what happened that night, Lola, but neither do I regret it. Nor shall I regret it for as long as I live—for Peter demonstrated to me what making love could be like.’

      ‘What h-happened?’ asked Lola in a low voice.

      ‘Peter left the following day, as planned. I assured him that nothing would happen—indeed I was convinced that nothing would. But three weeks later I discovered I was going to have a baby. . .’

      ‘Me,’ breathed Lola.

      ‘You.’ Her mother smiled. ‘You.’

      Mrs Hennessy shrugged. ‘What could I do? I had no idea where Peter had gone. And times were different then—there was a shame and a stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock. John—the man you thought was your father—had been in love with me since we were at school together. I think he was almost pleased that I had gone and got myself pregnant, because it meant that I was vulnerable to his proposal of marriage.’

      ‘And did you—love him?’ asked Lola slowly.

      ‘I grew to love him. There’s a difference, you know. At first I was just grateful for his support and understanding—but he was a good husband and, more importantly, a good father, too. Oh, I never loved him the way I had loved Peter—but then I never expected to. That kind of love doesn’t come more than once in a lifetime. But John accepted that.

      ‘And John treated you as his own—something for which I will always be grateful—and he was content with the love I could give him. He came to the marriage with only one stipulation. . .’

      Lola suspected that she had already guessed what that stipulation had been. ‘And that was?’

      ‘That to all intents and purposes you would be his child. You were to be registered in his name on the birth certificate.’

      ‘And did Peter never come back?’

      June Hennessy gave a smile which was tinged with regret. ‘Yes, he did. When you were about six months old, he came to find me. He knew that you were his, of course he did, but I denied it, and he played along with what I wanted. I never wanted to trap Peter into staying, you see. He offered me money to support you, but I never took it. John wouldn’t have wanted it, and neither, more importantly, did I.’ She paused. ‘He went away that night—and I never saw him again.’

      Lola stared at a magnificent seascape which dominated one of Dominic Dashwood’s immense white walls. ‘Why did you never tell me this before, Mum?’ she asked quietly.

      ‘For what? To upset John? To make you discontented? All for the sake of a tie which had been broken long ago? Peter never got in touch again—your appearance might have caused complications in his life. People change, you know, Lola. What if he had denied all knowledge of you? Wouldn’t it have