‘I don’t think she intended you to find her—or anyone else, in fact.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t know when I wrote to you on Friday, but—but Claudia’s parents only learnt of her whereabouts when the hospital called them as next of kin. She died giving birth to me,’ she explained as gently as she could. ‘They brought me up, and have been the only parents I’ve never known.’
Andrew gave another choked sob. ‘All these years…I never knew what had happened to her, Hebe. Why she left so suddenly,’ he explained as she looked puzzled. ‘Until I received your letter this morning and saw that photograph of you I never knew that she was expecting my child. And it never—it never even occurred to me that she might have been dead all these years.’ He gave a disbelieving shake of his head, as if he still couldn’t take it all in.
Nick looked at the other man admiringly, not sure he would be staying even this much together if he had just learnt that Hebe was dead.
‘Or that you had a daughter?’ Hebe put in softly.
Andrew Southern’s face lit up as he looked at her, but the sorrow remained etched beside his eyes and mouth. ‘Or that I have the gift of a daughter. A very beautiful daughter,’ he added gruffly.
‘Who, in seven months’ time, is going to make you a grandfather,’ Nick added gently, and he stepped forward to place his arm possessively about Hebe’s shoulders.
She gave him a surprised look. What was Nick doing? Andrew Southern—her father—didn’t need to know about the baby she was expecting. It served no purpose at this moment, and would surely make it more difficult for Nick to just walk away, as he intended doing.
Andrew Southern looked at the younger man with sharply assessing eyes. ‘And am I going to have to get my shotgun oiled and ready…?’he finally murmured derisively.
‘No,’ Nick answered firmly. ‘Hebe and I are getting married. If she’ll have me…?’ He turned to look down at her uncertainly.
She swallowed hard, shaking her head, not understanding this at all.
‘Looks like you have some persuading to do there, Nick.’ Andrew had misinterpreted that dazed shake of her head as a refusal. ‘Feel free to take her off somewhere private. I’m quite happy sitting here looking at Claudia’s portrait for an hour or six—or a lifetime,’ he added, and he sat down in the armchair beside the painting, already seeming to have forgotten their existence as his eyes misted tearfully and the tears began to fall for the woman he had loved and would never see again.
Hebe took Nick into the room that had used to be her bedroom, bare now of everything that marked it as being hers, not understanding what was going on at all.
‘Do you think he’s going to be all right?’ She frowned with concern.
‘I think that he’s probably had twenty-six years to come to terms with losing Claudia, so her death makes it no more final,’ Nick answered carefully. ‘With your agreement, I would like to give him the portrait of Claudia? It belongs with him, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, slightly breathlessly, appreciating his understanding. ‘Oh, yes! But I—I thought we had agreed to cancel the wedding.’ She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘I told you, I’m not going to be difficult—’
‘I am,’ he cut in grimly, his dark blue gaze fixed firmly on hers. ‘Hebe, I don’t intend ending up like Andrew—in love with a woman for the rest of my life but not with her.’
‘I realise that,’ she acknowledged softly. ‘That’s why I agreed to end the engagement, and forget our marriage. I know you and Sally want to be reconciled—’
‘Sally?’ Nick cut in sharply. ‘What the hell does Sally have to do with any of this?’
Hebe looked confused. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I overheard you talking to her on the telephone yesterday evening.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I know she’s the reason you no longer want a marriage of convenience with me—that the two of you want to be together and that you’re going to talk things over when you go back to New York.’
Nick looked at her incredulously. That was why, after the two of them had made love so beautifully, so thoroughly, Hebe had gone to the spare room to sleep last night! The reason she had been so ready to call off the engagement and cancel the wedding. Because she thought he was still in love with Sally!
‘Hebe.’ He breathed deeply. ‘Sally remarried a year ago, very happily. Last night she called to tell me—she was so happy she had to share it with me—that she had just given birth to a little girl.’ He watched Hebe closely for her reaction. ‘I probably should have told you about it, but you had gone from my bedroom when I got back, and in the morning—Well, you know what it was like between us this morning.’
Hebe stared at him incredulously. ‘Sally’s had a baby…?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded, hope starting to blossom and grow.
‘Hebe, I know you might find this hard to believe after the way I’ve behaved—’ he shook his head self-disgustedly ‘—but the only woman I want to be with, the only woman I love, will ever love, is you!’
Hebe’s incredulity turned to wonder. ‘You do…?’
‘I do,’ he assured her grimly. ‘I think I fell in love with you six weeks ago. These last two years, when I’ve been—involved with a woman, I’ve just forgotten about her once I’ve walked away,’he admitted ruefully. ‘But you—you were different. I thought about nothing but you for five weeks—six if you count the week after I bought the portrait. I knew even then that I would have to see you again once I returned to London, that somehow you had got under my skin.’
Hebe moistened her dry lips, hardly able to believe Nick was saying these things to her. ‘But the portrait changed all that…?’
He nodded, sighing. ‘Because I’m an idiot. Because I didn’t believe you when you told me you weren’t the woman in the portrait. It looked like you!’ he groaned. ‘The you I had seen the night we spent together. The you who had been like a living flame in my arms. The you who had been haunting my days and invading my nights.’ He shook his head. ‘Seeing that portrait, imagining the man who had painted it looking at you and seeing exactly what I had seen, touching you in the way I had touched you—I was so angry I think I was blind with rage the next time we met,’ he admitted.
Nick was saying these things to her!
‘And now?’ she prompted breathlessly. ‘Now that you know the truth? You released me from our engagement and agreed to cancel the wedding,’ she reminded him huskily.
He gave a humourless smile. ‘I was trying to do the honourable thing. I realised that I had bullied you into both those things because of my mistaken belief that you were trying to trap me into marriage by getting pregnant on purpose. And I was mistaken, Hebe. I know now that you were just as surprised by your pregnancy as I was. Worse, you were probably terrified. And I’ve behaved like a complete bastard to you,’ he murmured self-disgustedly.
‘But now?’ she prompted again.
‘Now, after listening to Andrew, hearing him describe how much he loved Claudia and the hell his life has been for him since he lost her, I’ve decided—unless I want to go quietly insane—that I have to forget being honourable,’ he said determinedly. ‘I don’t want to be another Jacob or Andrew, my life barren and loveless because I’ve let the woman I love walk away from me without even trying to show her how much I love her and want to be with her. If it takes me months, or even years, I’m going to woo you, Hebe Johnson.’ He reached out to grasp her arms. ‘I’m going to woo you and win you. I love you too much, need you too much, to ever be able to let you just walk away from me. Will you allow me to do that, Hebe?’ he pressed fiercely. ‘Will you give me a chance to court you, care for you, love you?’
Hebe almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that question—she