Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
For the next ten minutes, Ellen followed behind Joe in a semi-daze. He was talking about original mouldings and floor finishes and, all the while, her mind was a rolling stream of questions.
Was this why Robert had been so against coming out here in the first place? The reason he didn’t want her to get back in touch with Lucy? Had he been hiding a daughter all of these years? Nausea rolled around her stomach, she felt hot, then cold, then hot again. Her whole body was at sea.
‘And here we are back at the kitchen.’
She’d barely noticed that they’d returned to the centre of the house. All she wanted now was to get to Robert and find out what was going on. Her throat was so dry that she could barely speak, but – somehow – she forced a smile onto her face. ‘Thanks, Joe. That was really interesting.’
His laugh was warm, but her mind was so adrift, it felt as if it was coming from the other end of a tunnel. ‘I’m not sure that I believe you, but thanks for indulging me. Now what can I get you to drink?’
She wasn’t going to be side-tracked or distracted or misdirected for another moment. ‘Actually, I’m fine. I’m just going to check in with Robert.’
‘Good idea. I’ll see if I can locate Lucy.’
Outside, a breeze rippled across the surface of the pool.
Charlotte had disappeared, but Robert was still at the railing, looking out to sea.
Even from behind, his body was almost as familiar to her as her own.
The way he crossed one leg in front of the other as he leaned forward over the railing, the breadth of his shoulders, the slight wave in the back of his thick dark hair.
They’d been married for so long. Surely there was no way he could have hidden a secret daughter all of those years? There had to be an easier explanation.
Barely breathing as she made her way towards him, her shoes silent on the smooth marble tiles, Robert wouldn’t have heard her approach. ‘Hi. I’m back.’
He jumped a little before he turned. His face serious before he painted on a smile. ‘Hey. How was your shopping trip. Did you spend a fortune?’
Their words were stilted and polite. More like the small talk between casual acquaintances than the conversation of a long-married couple. ‘I bought a dress that’s probably never going to see the outside of the wardrobe. Lucy is very persuasive.’
His laugh was more of a dry cough. ‘I can imagine.’
Now, standing in front of him, she couldn’t reconcile her fears with the solid, good, reality of him. But she needed to know for sure. ‘Look, I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk. Just the two of us?’
He frowned. ‘Now?’
‘Yes. I think last night…I said some things and…well, I just want to talk to you about something.’
Was that fear on his face? ‘What is it, Ellen?’
She really didn’t want to have this conversation here. Had no idea how she was even going to start it. I just wondered, did you father a child twenty-five years ago and forget to mention it? ‘I just want some time on our own for a little while.’
She only realised that Lucy was behind her when Robert looked over her shoulder. Then she heard the forced gaiety of her voice. ‘Ellen! You survived. Did Joe bore the pants off you? He’s very into the building process.’
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Ellen turned towards her. ‘No, he was fine. Robert and I were just going to go out for a walk.’
Lucy glanced at Robert, then back at her. ‘Don’t go. I need you to help me with the lunch. I’ve bought a crazy amount of vegetables and I need you on chopping duty.’
She hated to say no, but she really needed to get this sorted with Robert. ‘We won’t be long. I can help when we get back?’
But Robert was quick to find the opportunity to slip out of her grasp. ‘It’s fine, you go chop and we can walk after lunch. I’m going to ask Joe about the extension you wanted.’
Again, there was no way out without looking difficult. She followed Lucy. If Robert was going to prove elusive, she was determined to get some answers out of her.
Robert disappeared from view as soon as she was in the kitchen with Lucy.
She hadn’t been lying about the mountain of vegetables.
She passed Ellen a chopping board, two fat green courgettes, three ruby red peppers and a knife, setting herself up beside her with a glossy aubergine and a small pile of shallots.
‘I want to make ratatouille to go with the fish tonight.’
Watching her knife skills, Ellen was pretty sure that Lucy could’ve dispatched this lot pretty speedily without her help, but if she was here she was going to make the most of it. ‘Joe is absolutely lovely. You make a great couple.’
Holding the end of the knife, Lucy chopped the onion like a pro chef. ‘Yes, I’m pretty lucky.’
‘I didn’t realise until he told me that Charlotte isn’t his daughter.’
There was a micro pause in Lucy’s chopping rhythm and then she continued. ‘She is his daughter. He’s the only father she’s ever known.’
In her frustration, Ellen had been unbelievably tactless. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant at all. It was just a surprise when he told me that he wasn’t her biological father.’
Lucy wasn’t giving anything away. She sliced the top from the aubergine. The knife loud on the block. ‘Was it?’
‘Well, we were at university together when I got pregnant and there’s only a year between our daughters so I wondered if I might know him. Charlotte’s biological father, I mean.’
Lucy swept the cubes of aubergine flesh from the board and took another, bringing the knife down hard. ‘Right.’
For someone usually so garrulous, Lucy’s reticence was loud and clear. There was a reason she didn’t want to talk about this with Ellen and – though it made her sick to her stomach – she had a horrible idea why. ‘Do I know him, Lucy?’
Lucy sighed and closed her eyes. ‘Yes, you do.’
Ellen’s heart thumped in her chest. For all of her suspicions, she hadn’t really believed that this was true. Was Robert really Charlotte’s father?
Lucy turned and looked at her. Eyes as deep as the pool on the patio. ‘It was Ian.’
As soon as she said his name, it was like a tricky jigsaw piece clicking into place.
Of course. That’s why Charlotte had looked so familiar.
It was the eyes. He’d always had piercing blue eyes, though they looked far less cruel on Charlotte.
Her face was softened by Lucy’s delicate bone structure, her full red lips.
‘Ian? I didn’t even realise that you two had got back together. ’
There’d been a very public break-up between the two of them towards the end of their third year together. Ellen had been relieved for Lucy. Ian was not a nice guy. Even thinking about him turned her stomach.
Lucy sighed. ‘You and Robert were in your own “planning for a life with a baby” bubble by that stage. I’m not surprised that you didn’t notice.’
Irritating as that was, it wasn’t going to derail Ellen from getting to the truth. ‘But why did you get back with him? He was…’
She trailed off at the expression on Lucy’s face. It was like she was challenging her to be honest. But after the last time she’d attempted to warn her about him, she wasn’t about to try again.
‘He was fun. And that’s what I needed at that point after my best friend had pretty much abandoned me.’
Ellen flushed. ‘I didn’t abandon you. We were having a baby.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘It felt the same. Anyway, now you know.’
Ordinarily. Ellen wouldn’t be brazen enough to push further, but the way things had been the last two days, she threw her usual reticence to the wind. ‘Joe said that Charlotte doesn’t see her biological father. I assume he knows that he has a daughter?’
As if she couldn’t trust herself to keep chopping as she spoke, Lucy rested the heel of her hand on the worktop, leaving the knife hovering over the board.
‘Of course he knows! Who do you think I am? But his interest in her lasted until just after her first birthday. After that, nothing. Not even a birthday card. He’s no loss.
Joe has been a wonderful father to her. She doesn’t remember anyone else. ’
Was that why she was so secretive about it all? Not knowing where in the house Charlotte was currently, Ellen lowered her voice. ‘But she does know? That Joe is not her biological father?’
Lucy sighed dramatically. ‘Yes. She knows. And she is sensible enough to understand that any man who can walk out on his one-year-old daughter is not worth knowing.’
She was right there. Robert had absolutely doted on Grace from the moment she was born. The very idea of him removing himself from her life was unthinkable. ‘I’m sorry. That must have been tough for you.’
Lucy’s eyes were like ice. ‘I am tough. Have you not noticed that?’
Not knowing how to answer, Ellen resumed her careful chopping.
She was relieved that Lucy’s revelations had stopped her anxious speculation that Robert could’ve been Charlotte’s father.
But it still didn’t answer the question of what was going on between Charlotte and Robert.
His shock at her arrival, Lucy’s apology that she was there and their intense conversations and engineering of being alone together.
As if she’d conjured her, Charlotte padded into the kitchen in her bare feet.
In her cut-off jeans and tight-fitting top that skirted her naval, she could believably have been a film star on vacation.
Now she looked at her with fresh knowledge, Ellen could see more of Ian in the shape of her jaw, the arch of her brow.
She was definitely his daughter. And, with that thought, another piece of the jigsaw was in her hand and she was frightened to see if it fit.
Charlotte’s smile was wide and generous. ‘Oh no, have I missed the work again?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Of course you have. Isn’t that what you do best? Although there are still mushrooms to chop if you could possibly manage it?’
Charlotte blew her mother a kiss. ‘In a minute, dear Mama. I’m just going to show Robert a website I was telling him about. I’ll be back in a moment. I promise.’
Heart in her mouth, Ellen watched her go.
This beautiful twenty-five-year-old with the body of a model and the brain of an academic.
Any man would have to be made of stone not to find her attractive.
Even a tired sales executive with a daughter only a year older than her.
A man who had been distancing himself from his wife for the last few months in a way that could only – she now realised with pain – signal that he was thinking of leaving her.
Was this possible? Could Robert be having an affair with a girl that young?
She turned to see Lucy looking after her daughter with a mixture of pride and concern.
Did she know? Would she condone that? Suddenly, everything was making perfect painful sense.
All the time she’d been headed off by Joe or Lucy when Robert was with Charlotte.
They knew. They had to know. She felt sick that she was the only one – the only stupid, short-sighted idiot – to not realise what was going on here.
But this was madness. Charlotte was a beautiful, intelligent, young woman. However much Lucy seemed to like Robert, surely she wouldn’t want her daughter in a relationship with a married man in his late forties?
And then it hit her. What had Lucy said about Abigail two nights ago? ‘You’ve got to let them live their own life.’ She didn’t want to be the mother who demanded that her daughter give up her boyfriend. No, she was way too cool for that.
She wanted Ellen to do it.