To Eternity. Daisy Banks

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СКАЧАТЬ She shook her head. “It’s no good, I don’t understand, Magnus.”

      “You would have discovered it, either in the dreams or from my reactions to her granddaughter. You would have known, and I thought it worse for you to find out then, rather than now from me.” He pressed a kiss to her palm.

      She leaned back from the table. The napkin slipped from her other hand. “You’ve booked them?”

      “Yes. They’ll come to the house at the end of November. I’ve scheduled the visit to take place before the next full moon. From my conversation with Martha, as long as I’m agreeable to their terms and plans, once they’ve evaluated the garden, they’ll work through part of December to clear and repair, do some minor decorative planting. After the initial work, they’ll offer me more in-depth plans for spring.”

      “I see.”

      “I’m not sure you do, but I thought it important to tell you.”

      She narrowed her eyes. “There’s more. I know it.”

      “It’s an inkling I have. I won’t know for definite until I meet Martha in person.”

      “You think she’s a relative?”

      He stared, not astonished she’d understood so quickly. Her pain radiated to him, but it was too late to do much to mend the situation. “It may be possible.”

      She removed her hand from where it topped his. The set of her shoulders squared. “Magnus, how could you?” She shifted her gaze from him to stare away across the dining room.

      “I wanted you to know.”

      The gloss of tears shone in her eyes.

      Guilt snapped through him. “Would you rather I’d not said?”

      “No.” She faced him again. Her sadness poured like a corrosive through his soul. “But I wish you could understand.”

      “I do.”

      “No, you’ve no idea. Since you told me the truth about you in September, I’ve spent hours longing for you to say we will be together always. That you’ll allow me to be your love in truth, that one day we’ll become a real couple and have children. Yet, each time we’ve spoken of it, you back off, tell me it’s impossible, you won’t inflict your malady on a child. Yet today, you sit here at lunch and tell me a woman gardener I found on the internet happens to be what you believe is your granddaughter!” She swiped at a tear. “How could you?” She pushed the chair back and stood. The thick weave of her curls swung when she shook her head. She turned on her heel to the door. “I need to think about this.”

      “Sian! It’s not like that.”

      The heavy carved door slammed behind her. He buried his head in his hands. Sometimes the truth hurt more than anyone could imagine.

      Chapter 5

      Sian grabbed her jacket from the walk-in cupboard in the entrance hall. She shoved her arms in the sleeves as she headed out the front door and through the black and white tiled portico. Outside, her confusion didn’t lessen as she’d hoped. She strode down the cinder path, her vision bleary with tears. She palmed them away, but more fell. What an arrogant, soulless, thoughtless bastard he could be.

      No one in their right mind would welcome the news he’d just shared. The possibilities this discovery opened up were so disturbing she couldn’t get her head around it. She’d not considered he might have had a child. This woman, who could be his granddaughter, might represent something she could scarce believe. Was this the only relative he had? Over the years, he might have fathered hundreds of children. He could have scattered infants throughout eighteenth century Europe in his youth. More since as he traveled. Though he’d explained his relationship with Julia, he couldn’t have always lived like a monk since 1763.

      She stood still where the cinder path forked, one side leading to the gateway to the rose garden, the other to the lake.

      “How could you?” she yelled.

      A wave of anger sent an adrenalin rush barreling through her body. She broke into a run, pounding down the path toward the lawn and lake.

      No, not that way. She changed direction for she’d no wish to look at the pagoda or recall the golden autumnal day she and Magnus had first made love skin to skin. What a bloody fool she was. The steps to the terrace came into view. The early autumn day that had changed her life, all happened here. After the best sex she’d ever known, and with her shredded underwear in the bin, she came here to sit with Magnus for tea. Trust and truth, they’d spoken of both, but the conversation had delved into much more. Magnus hadn’t pressed her, but she’d acknowledged there was no other man she wanted. She’d trusted him, but look at the truth he had offered her.

      She wasn’t good enough for him to make her his forever. Oh, no, she was just a one-lifetime screw. Not much more than a roll in the hay for a guy who was near immortal.

      He’d refused to make her like him, point-blank. No way. Yet a girl he met in the pub had his child. “Selfish then. Just as bad now!”

      Turning away, she ran off the path, over the slope of slippery grass, along the thicker, rough turf on the flat ground. She didn’t slow the pace as she pushed herself hard on the track into the woods. She dodged to avoid fallen branches and rotting logs half-buried in the undergrowth. Despite the difficult ground, she raced on until her chest burned fiery with her efforts. No matter how fast she ran, she couldn’t leave the pain behind.

      Twiggy branches lashed her face as she dashed through the trees. One vicious hit caught her cheek a stinging blow that forced her to slow. A few paces on, she had to pause. She bent with her hands on her thighs. A muscle burn flamed. She must make the time to run more. Finally, her breathing slowed, her legs eased, and she sank down onto a mossy damp tree stump to think.

      She’d never imagined he might have had a child, or dreamed the idea would hurt so much. Self-analysis proved hard. It wasn’t the child, or in this case grandchild, who might appear in his life that bothered her most. It was the symbolism of what it might mean.

      Magnus said he hadn’t loved the woman. That, at least, was something.

      She wiped her eyes with a tissue, and her nose with another, as she recalled his surprised expression at her reaction. He didn’t expect her to be hurt or even upset because…he thought she wouldn’t feel that way.

      She shook her head trying to get into Magnus’s mind. He thought he’d offered her something no one else had ever had from him. She stood and walked for a short way as an idea formed. No one else had ever gotten so close to him. Maybe she’d gotten more intimate than even Julia. Of course, Magnus offered Julia marriage, but she’d refused and they had parted, in the physical form at least.

      They hadn’t discussed marriage, but with contraception, there was no need these days. At least they had that freedom in their physical relationship. And, God, it was so good with him.

      The complexities of life with Magnus needed a lot of mental agility. She swallowed past the ache in her throat, blinking her eyes to finish the tears.

      Rain dripped from the branches, oozed through her hood, sneaked in cold rills down the back of her jacket. She ambled on, kicking dead wood out of her path with no real sense of direction. Did it really matter if she СКАЧАТЬ