of them enjoying a genuine relationship. Hal at least had to try.
Holding her gaze across the table, he gave her a tentative smile. Did he really have the courage to be vulnerable enough to confess the wreckage of his past to this woman?
‘All right, then. I’ll tell you about her,’ he agreed.
Her eyes widening, Kit gently loosened her hand from his and sat back in her seat to give him her full attention.
‘My mother was very beautiful,’ he went on, his hand tunnelling restlessly through his hair for a moment. ‘And her bewitching looks drew men to her like bees to honey. My dad is a wealthy landowner, and even though he was mad about her when they first met and asked her to marry him his property and his estate always came first. She didn’t appear to mind that too much. She loved the fact that he was landed gentry as well as being rich, but she didn’t understand why he chose to work at all when he didn’t have to. If she’d troubled to find out, she would have soon learned that taking care of the estate and the people who worked for him to maintain it was a matter of fierce pride to him. The estate has been in the family since the sixteenth century, and my dad wasn’t going to be the one that saw it fall to rack and ruin, as he’d say. The charities he supported were also hugely important to him, and he’d hoped that my mother would see how being associated with them might help her. Given her PR background, he thought she might be able to help fundraise and organise events and might even enjoy it.
‘He encouraged her to try and forge a good relationship with the staff on the estate and get to know them a little. To sum it up, my father believed that she needed a purpose...at least until children came along. She’d been flitting in and out of PR work when they’d first met, but her heart wasn’t really in it. Turned out that she had her own ideas about what the “lady of the house” should do, and when she moved onto the estate with my dad it became clear that it wasn’t very much.
‘She couldn’t hack the isolation of the countryside. She was a city girl through and through and she hated being alone when my dad was taking care of his business on the estate—especially as she craved attention round the clock. In a very rare and honest moment my father once told me that he’d hoped when she had me and Sam she would settle down a bit, be more content with her lot. But instead of becoming devoted to her family she grew more and more restless and started to have affairs.’
Grimacing, Hal shook his head.
‘At first my father turned a blind eye, hoping she would grow tired of her soulless behaviour and realise what she had at home...two children who adored her, and a husband who loved her enough to forgive her destructive behaviour and also hoped that given time she would change for the better.’
Clearing his throat, Hal picked up his mug of coffee and took a swig. At the same time he found himself examining Kit’s pensive expression to try and gauge what she must be thinking about his faithless mother and his perhaps too patient, some might say foolishly deluded father. Henry Treverne Senior was a man who had never given up hope that his wife would come to see the error of her ways and be content just to be his partner and mother to their children.
‘Unfortunately she never did...change for the better, I mean.’ He shrugged. ‘When Sam and I were nine and seven respectively she ran off with an Italian count and relocated to Venice. She never kept in touch, even though my father regularly wrote to her and told her how much Sam and I were missing her.’ Hal bit down on his lip as a familiar scissor of pain jack-knifed through his heart at the memory.
Again he cleared his throat and took another swig of coffee. ‘About six years ago—just about the time I started to make a name for myself in the music industry—my father was notified by the Italian authorities that she’d been killed in a car accident. Apparently the Count’s twenty-one-year-old son from a previous marriage had been driving the car at the time and also lost his life. It was common knowledge in Venice that he and my mother had been having an affair. Doesn’t make for a very pretty story, does it?’
‘That’s so sad. For all of you.’ Her face paling a little, Kit breathed out a soft, heartfelt sigh. ‘Do you mind if I ask who looked after you and your sister when she left?’
Hal grimaced. ‘A series of not very reliable nannies, I’m afraid. One or two of them might have stayed, given the chance, but my father didn’t think any of them were good enough to mind his children. He was always finding fault with them for some reason or other. The truth is—courtesy of my beautiful, faithless mother, I think—he started to believe that women on the whole were fickle and not to be depended on. As soon as Sam and myself were old enough, he packed us off to boarding school.’
Taking another sip of coffee, he realised it was now practically cold. ‘Ugh.’ Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he returned the mug to the table, his avid gaze alighting on Kit. ‘We could be close...me and my father, I mean. But he couldn’t see why I wanted to leave and branch out on my own in a career when I was going to one day inherit the estate and title from him. He still doesn’t understand my reasons for wanting to be completely independent and neither does he see—in his words—why I “recklessly” risk my life in pursuing extreme sports.’
Kit’s smooth brow puckered in a frown. ‘Is that why he didn’t come and visit you in the hospital after your accident? You said that he’d e-mailed you saying “pride comes before a fall”.’
With any other woman he would have been surprised she should remember such a detail, but not with Kit. Hal heaved a sigh. To be honest, he wanted to shake off that painful illustration of the chasm that had grown between him and his father but he just couldn’t.
‘Trouble is he was right, you know? The only reason I agreed to that stupid bet with Rigden was because I had to prove I was better than him. Sometimes I am proud...too proud to see reason and let common sense rule.’
Ruefully he tapped his knuckles against his cast. ‘This injury being a case in point. But my dad’s proud as well—too proud to admit that sometimes he might be wrong. He should have come to see me in the hospital!’
With a tender smile, Kit nodded her agreement. ‘Yes, he should have. But perhaps he was unsure how his visit would be received by you—whether it would be welcome or not if there had been previous disagreement and tension between you? When you spend too much time apart from someone it’s very easy to believe that you know them so well you can predict how they’re going to react when you see them again. You don’t consider that they might have moved on from their old behaviour or changed for the better. When was the last time you actually spent any time with your dad, Hal?’
He sensed the heat rise in his face even before he started to speak. Kit’s words had definitely given him pause. ‘I don’t know...a few months, I suppose. I know that sounds bad, but I’ve always been too busy to organise anything. Besides...’ he shrugged a shoulder ‘...I got fed up with listening to his criticisms every time we happened to speak.’
Leaning towards him, Kit gently laid her hand over his. Her blue eyes were so captivating that Hal temporarily forgot that he was aggrieved with his dad. It was like gazing back into the most serene and calm lake.
‘Would you like to go and see him? If he won’t come to you, maybe you should go to him?’
Ever since he’d had his accident in Aspen it had been eating away at him that his father hadn’t shown any evidence that he cared. Resentment was a bitter companion, and it was only apt to grow worse if not dealt with, he knew. Kit’s suggestion that he make a conciliatory move and go and visit his father was so obvious, so eminently sensible, that he knew he couldn’t resist it. Reliving some of the tensions of his past with her just now had made him suddenly yearn to make amends. Losing one parent was bad enough—never mind allowing your relationship with the remaining one to deteriorate so much that you barely spoke to each other.
‘Once again your astute insight has floored me, Kit,’ he told her. ‘You’re right...I should go and see my dad. It’s crazy that I’ve put it off for so long. Will you drive me?’
Immediately she withdrew her hand from his and frowned.