A Secret Disgrace Read online

  ‘Sometimes it does happen, when all the probabilities are against it,’ the consultant had told them both. ‘There is no scientific evidence to explain exactly why, or what makes the difference. I suggest you simply think of it as a gift of happenstance.’

  ‘It is you who has made this possible,’ Caesar had told her in a raw, unsteady voice once they were on their own, his eyes filled with tears of joy and love. ‘You, with your love and with everything that you are.’

  ‘Of course I shall have to look after her when she starts to grow up—’cos that’s what you do when you have a sister, isn’t it, Papa?’ Louise heard Ollie telling Carlo importantly as Caesar brought Francesca back to her.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Caesar confirmed, ruffling his son’s hair before both boys went off with Anna Maria to find her other sons and her husband.

  The main salon of the castello was busy with their guests, but as Caesar handed Francesca back to her, Louise felt as she had done after their daughter’s birth, when they had been alone in her hospital room: filled with love and with joy and with the specialness of the connection they shared through the birth of this second child.

  Her thoughts moved to her mother, whom she’d invited to the christening. She’d received back one of her usual vague e-mails, filled with promises of a visit that would certainly never come. However, her mother had mentioned a present she was going to send for Francesca, and good wishes for the future, and Louise found herself able to look with more compassion than before upon a woman who had never wanted to be a mother.

  ‘Your father’s here.’

  Caesar’s quiet words foreshadowed her thoughts and made Louise’s heart thump against her chest wall.

  When her father had written to her just before Francesca’s birth, to tell her that his marriage to Melinda was over and that she’d walked out on him for someone younger, she hadn’t really wanted to know. It had been Caesar who had counselled that perhaps it was time to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.

  ‘He is Ollie’s grandfather and your father, Lou. And, reading between the lines of his letter, he is feeling very alone and vulnerable.’

  It went against her training to protest that her father had never cared much about leaving her alone and vulnerable—and besides, now she was wrapped in the protection of Caesar’s love and the happiness of their family life, the misery of her childhood seemed to belong to another faraway life that had no bearing on her current happiness.

  Urged on by Caesar, she had written back to her father, offering him her sympathy. Slowly, over the intervening weeks and then months, they had continued their correspondence even if it had been tentative and wary. When taxed, her father had admitted to withholding Caesar’s letter from her—at Melinda’s insistence.

  He had begged Louise to allow him to meet his grandson and his son-in-law, reminding her that they were now all the family he had. She hadn’t really wanted to agree, but somehow or other she had found herself inviting him to Francesca’s christening, followed by a stay at the castello.

  So far, though, she hadn’t really spoken to him very much. She’d had the excuse of the christening, after all. But now, with him looking across the room towards her, a man broken in many ways by the humility forced on him by the defection of his wife, she felt pity for him touch her. Without really making any conscious plan to do so she found that she was walking towards him, carrying Francesca, and knew without having to look round that Caesar would be shadowing her progress protectively.

  When she reached her father she looked up into his face—lined now, and thinner. Here was a man who somehow had never quite achieved all that he might have done. She felt pity for him. How awful to be alone at his age, and emotionally dependent for love on the kindness of the daughter he had always resented.

  ‘Hello, Dad,’ she said shakily.

  ‘I dare say you don’t really want me here—’ he began. Louise shook her head, suddenly sure of what she must do as she looked across the room and saw that Oliver was watching them. Family relationships weren’t always straightforward or easy, but they were surely worth working at.

  ‘Where else would you be? We’re your family, after all. And, speaking of families, how about saying hello to the newest member of it?’

  For a moment she thought that her father was going to turn his back on her, but then Louise saw the tears in his eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she told him softly. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’

  Taking Francesca from her, Caesar held her out to his father-in-law, telling him proudly, ‘She’s got Lou’s looks, thank goodness.’

  ‘Got those looks from my side of the family, Lou did,’ Louise heard her father respond in a voice that was slightly rusty. ‘Prettiest baby that ever was, I can tell you.’

  Already he was rewriting the past, Louise thought ruefully. But she didn’t have the heart to challenge him. After all, her heart now—like her love—was given to a man who treasured and valued it. A man she could trust always to put her first. A man who truly loved her.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Penny Jordan 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-408-97408-7

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  Chapter Two