Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Copyright

“I Never Understood My Son For A Moment,”

Giles said at last.

“As long as you understand him now—” Melanie began.

“But I don’t. The only thing I have to hold on to is you. From the first moment, you’ve known what to. say and do. It’s strange—as though you and David were connected by an invisible thread.”

Melanie tensed as he came so near her secret. But there was nothing but warmth in the smile he turned on her, and her heart gave the same disturbing lurch it had given before.

Dear Reader,

We all know that Valentine’s Day is the most romantic holiday of the year. It’s the day you show that special someone in your life—husband, fiancé…even your mom!—just how much you care by giving them special gifts of love.

And our special Valentine’s gift to you is a book from a writer many of you have said is one of your favorites, Annette Broadrick. Megan’s Marriage isn’t just February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, it’s also the first book of Annette’s brand-new DAUGHTERS OF TEXAS series. This passionate love story is just right for Valentine’s Day.

February also marks the continuation of SONS AND LOVERS, a bold miniseries about three men who discover that love and family are the most important things in life. In Reese: The Untamed by Susan Connell, a dashing bachelor meets his match and begins to think that being married might be more pleasurable than he’d ever dreamed. The series continues in March with Ridge: The Avenger by Leanne Banks.

This month is completed with four more scintillating love stories: Assignment: Marriage by Jackie Merritt, Daddy’s Choice by Doreen Owens Malek, This Is My Child by Lucy Gordon and Husband Material by Rita Rainville. Don’t miss any of them!

So Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Reading!

Lucia Macro

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

This is My Child
Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LUCY GORDON

met her husband-to-be in Venice, fell in love the first evening and got engaged two days later. After twenty-three years they’re still happily married and now live in England with their three dogs. For twelve years Lucy was a writer for an English women’s magazine. She interviewed many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud.

In 1985 she won the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Outstanding Series Romance Author. She has also won a Golden Leaf Award from the New Jersey Chapter of RWA, was a finalist in the RWA Golden Medallion contest in 1988 and won the 1990 RITA Award in the Best Traditional Romance category for Song of the Lorelei.

One

Melanie sat in the hallway of Giles Haverill’s luxurious house, and hated him.

She’d hated him for eight years, but never so much as at this moment, when she was about to meet him for the first time. She tried to fight down the feeling, knowing that the next few minutes would be the most crucial of her life. She must smile and say the things that would persuade this man to take her into his home. And he must never suspect that beneath her quiet exterior she was burning with hate.

The door to his study was pulled open and an unseen voice said curtly, “You can come in now, Miss Haynes.”

She went inside and there was her enemy, reseating himself behind an oak desk strewn with papers. He was a large man, broad shouldered and dark haired, with a lean, handsome face set in a frown. Tension radiated from him. He looked her quickly up and down out of dark eyes that seemed to take in everything in one glance. Melanie trembled, afraid that he might look right into her heart and read her secret. But he merely grunted in a way that might have indicated approval of her neat clothes and pinned-back hair. He nodded her to a chair and put away some papers.

While he was occupied, she glanced around at the room. It was the office of a rich man, of plain if expensive tastes. The waste bin was made of steel, as was the lamp that hung over the desk. Where the walls weren’t covered with steel shelving they were white, and bare except for two stark, modern paintings in vivid colors. The carpet was gray, and the most notable object in the room was a large sofa of soft black leather that exactly matched the seat behind the desk. The total effect was of a kind of austere beauty, but the room was chiefly functional, and it fitted her mental picture of Giles Haverill.

He looked up from his papers. “I was rather surprised to receive your call, Miss Haynes. It’s true I was thinking of employing someone to care for my son, but I hadn’t advertised yet.”

“Somebody mentioned it at Ayleswood School,” she said. “I’m working there at the moment.”

“So you told me on the phone.” He gave her a sharp look. “There are eighty pupils at that school. Would you have applied to look after any of the others?” he demanded abruptly.

“No-”

“Then why David?”

“I couldn’t help noticing him—”

“Considering that he’s been in trouble constantly for the last few months, that isn’t surprising.”

“I don’t believe David is a naughty child,” Melanie said quickly. “Just unhappy. Of course I know that his mother isn’t here anymore—”

“His mother left me a year ago, for another man. She—didn’t choose to take her son. I’m glad of that for my own sake, but it’s had an unfortunate effect on David.”

“I can imagine,” Melanie said in a low voice.

“I wonder if you can picture just how bad it is.” Giles Haverill’s mouth twisted wryly. “Truancy, petty theft, lying—all the things that lead to delinquency later on if they’re not curbed now.”

“I should rather say, if they’re not cured now.”

Giles shook his head. “My son isn’t ill, and I don’t believe unhappiness excuses wrongdoing. I want to do everything I can to make him a happy child again, but that doesn’t include turning a blind eye when he does things he shouldn’t. No son of mine is going to grow up badly behaved because I didn’t lift a finger to prevent it.”

Melanie gripped her hands together out of sight, wondering how long she could conceal her dislike of this man with his harsh judgments. He spoke of making his child happy, but there was no love in his voice, just an iron determination to arrange things in the way he wanted.

“Did you know David was adopted?” Giles Haverill shot the question at her.

“The—school records didn’t mention it,” Melanie replied.

If he noticed her cautious choice of words he gave no sign. “My wife couldn’t have children,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why she left him behind.”

“Does he know he’s adopted?”

“Yes. We told him as soon as he could understand. It seemed best for him to grow up knowing it naturally. But it adds to the problem now. He feels he’s lost two mothers—if you can dignify the first one with the name of ‘mother.’ A woman who gives up her newborn child is beneath contempt. Don’t you agree?”

“I—surely you should hear her side of it?” Melanie stammered.

“I don’t think there can be any justification. However, let that pass. I must also tell you about Mrs. Braddock. She’s a welfare worker who’s taken far too close an interest in David since he’s been misbehaving. She’s been writing reports talking about how ‘disturbed’ he is, and how he needs to be ‘closely observed.’” A sudden cloud of black anger transformed his face, and he said swiftly, “To dare say that my son—my son…”

Melanie stared, appalled at the rage that had distorted his handsome features. He looked cruel and ruthless, capable of anything. He saw her looking at him and recovered his composure. “She’s started hinting about taking David into care, putting him with foster parents who could ‘give him a normal home,’ as she puts it.”

“But he’s used to you,” Melanie protested. “Surely this woman can’t think it will be good for him to lose you, as well as your wife?”

“That’s what I said to her. But, as she pointed out, I haven’t been around too much. I have a large business to run, and I’ve mostly left the care of David to Zena. When she left I thought I could manage, but it wasn’t that easy.” He saw her wry face and said sharply, “I’m not a ‘New Man,’ Miss Haynes. I don’t pretend to be. I’ve tried to raise David as my father raised me, to have a sense of responsibility, and be able to take on the task of running Haverill & Son. It’s a very big job and it needs a man trained virtually from the cradle.”

“I see.”

“I wonder if you do,” he responded, quick to pick up the chilly note in her voice. “I made sure he had the best education money could buy because he’s going to need it, and he justified my faith in him. Right from the start he was ahead of the class. In his nursery school he could read while the others were playing in the sand pit.”

“I expect he knew there’d be hell to pay if he couldn’t,” Melanie couldn’t resist saying.

“I’ve always let him know that my expectations of him were high. I think children respond to that. And he did respond—until recently. Now it’s a story of truancy and idleness and frankly—”

“Frankly you feel he’s letting you down,” Melanie challenged him.

He looked at her hard for a moment. “Yes.”

She’d meant to play it cool, but her temper was seething out of control. “Then I don’t know why you don’t let Mrs. Braddock have him. Unsatisfactory goods, to be returned.”

“Because he’s mine,” he asserted bluntly.

“But he isn’t, is he? Not by blood.”

“Blood has nothing to do with it,” he said, dismissing the whole of nature with an arrogant sweep of his hand. “He’s mine because I say he’s mine, because I’ve made him mine. And I don’t let go of what’s mine.”

Their eyes met for a long moment. Then Giles Haverill recollected himself with a start, realizing that he’d come perilously close to defending and explaining himself. It was his rule never to do either of these things, but this young woman had lured him out from behind his protective barriers in a few minutes. He had two contradictory impulses: to get rid of her before she troubled him further, and to confide in her the hell of confusion and misery in which he was living. He found that he couldn’t choose between them, which alarmed him even more, because indecisiveness was foreign to his nature.

“Coffee?” he asked, retreating to safety.

The abrupt change of subject caught her off guard. “Thank you—er—yes—”

“I should have offered you some when you came in, but I’m so distracted these days that I forget my manners.” He went to a percolator by the wall and poured her some. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Milk, no sugar, thank you.”

“Tell me about yourself,” he said when he’d served her and sat down. “You said in your letter that you left school at sixteen. No university?”

“It didn’t attract me. I have two sisters and a brother, who all went.”

“But you were the odd one out? I wonder why.” He gave a sudden grin, which illuminated his face, giving it a mocking look that was unexpectedly pleasing. “Black sheep?”

“Yes,” she said impulsively. “I was the naughty child of the family. Everyone said so.”

“So you and David have something in common. Careful! Don’t choke.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Went down—wrong way.”

He waited until she was calm again. “What was the matter? Did you mind my saying you and David had something in common?”

She flinched from his penetrating eyes, afraid lest they discern just how much in common she had with his son. “Not at all,” she said quickly. “I’m glad of it. I think David needs just the kind of understanding that I can give him. I know how naughtiness grows out of misery.”

“Was your childhood as unhappy as that?”

“It’s no fun being the black sheep.”

“But that’s all in the past. I’m sure your parents are proud of you now.”

There was a long pause before Melanie said, “I’m not in touch with my family anymore—not for some years.”

He waited to see if she would elaborate on this, but she didn’t. He sat considering her for some moments, a frown darkening his face. Then he said abruptly, “I can’t see you properly there. Come over here.”

He rose and went to the big bay window. She followed him and stood in the light while he studied her. She too could see better now. He was in his mid-thirties, with a stern face that seemed made for authority. His mouth surprised her, being well made and mobile, a mouth that many women would have found attractive. It was relaxed now as he looked at her, and both from his mouth and his dark eyes, she gained an impression that this was an unhappy man. But she had no pity for him. He’d contributed too much to her own unhappiness for that.

“Take your hair down,” he commanded.

“What?” She stared at him. “What difference does my hair make?”

“I don’t make pointless requests. Please do as I ask.”

She pulled the pins from her fair hair, letting it tumble in waves around her shoulders, and stared at him defiantly. He laid his hand on it, taking a strand between his fingers, savoring its silkiness. “It’s lovely hair,” he said quietly.

“I don’t see what my physical attributes have to do with anything,” she snapped.

“I think you do. That’s why you pinned your hair back, to hide its beauty. That’s why you don’t wear makeup, because you want to look severe and professional. It doesn’t work. You’ve got a lovely, delicate face, wonderful green eyes and a figure that must keep the men chasing after you.” He said this in a cool, appraising voice that robbed the words of any tinge of flattery. “And you know as well as I do why I can’t possibly employ you.”

Her heart thundered. She recovered herself enough to say, “But I don’t know.”

“David needs stability. He needs a woman who’ll stay with him through thick and thin. I had in mind somebody middle-aged, a widow or divorcée, perhaps with grown-up children, even grandchildren. You’re a young, beautiful woman, which means you won’t stay long.”

“It doesn’t mean that at all—”

“Oh, come! At your age the natural sequence of events is to fall in love and get married. I don’t want you vanishing in a few months, just when he’s learned to trust you.”

“There’s no question of that,” Melanie said desperately.

“No question?” he echoed, with a satirical look that made her want to scream at him.

“No question whatever,” she said, trying to speak calmly.

“You don’t mean to tell me that there isn’t a man in your life this minute?”

“There isn’t.”

“I don’t believe you. The very gifts that nature gave you are an incitement. They don’t affect me because I’m armored, but other men aren’t. They must be around you like flies around a honey pot.”

“Possibly,” Melanie said, fighting to keep her temper. “But they don’t get invited in. Any of them. Like you, Mr. Haverill, I’m armored.”

“Oh, I see,” he said grimly. “It’s like that, is it?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“When a woman renounces love it usually means she’s suffering from a broken heart. Who is he? Is he going to come back and sweep you off?”

Melanie’s eyes glinted with anger. “Mr. Haverill, this really isn’t any of your business, but—”

“Everything is my business that I choose to make so.”

“But the only time I imagined myself in love was nine years ago. And it’ll be the last. You can count on it.”

There was a long silence. She guessed he wasn’t used to being answered back. Oh, God! she thought, don’t let him refuse!

At last he said, “I’ll have to take your word for that. I want someone who can make David feel safe and loved. Are you the woman who can do that?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at him steadily. “I can do that as nobody else can.”

He was startled by the intensity in her voice. Again he knew the inner prompting to get rid of her. She was dangerous. But he dismissed the notion as fanciful. “In that case,” he said, “let’s go and find him.”

He led her out into the hall, toward the wide staircase.

Careful, she thought. Don’t let Giles Haverill suspect that you’ve been in this house before, that you know your way up these very stairs—the right turn at the top toward the room at the end—it’s the same room, and the door’s shut against you as it was before…

A middle-aged woman in an apron was standing outside the closed door, arguing with someone inside. She looked up as they appeared. “I’m sorry, Mr. Haverill. David’s locked himself in his room again.”

He knocked hard on the door and called, “David, come out here at once. You know I won’t stand for this behavior.”

Melanie bit her lip. She wanted to cry out, “Don’t bully him. He’s only a hurt, confused child.” But she said nothing.

“David.”

Slowly the key turned in the lock and the door was opened. The little boy who stood there was fair and would have looked angelic but for the sullen defiance written on his face.

“This is Miss Haynes,” Giles said. “You’ve met her before at school. She’s to stay with us now, and look after you.”

There was no response. The child regarded her in a silence that held no friendliness.

“David—” Giles began with an edge on his voice.

“Never mind,” Melanie said. “There’ll be plenty of time.”

He sighed. “All right. We’ll discuss money in my office. When can you move in?”

“My job finishes in two days. I’ll come immediately after that.”

“Fine. I’ll have a room made ready for you.”

She smiled at the little boy. “Goodbye, David. I’ll be back soon, and then we can get to know each other properly.”

Still saying nothing, the child backed into his room, keeping his eyes fixed on her. They were the eyes of a stranger, cold, withdrawn. The eyes of her son.

Late that night, in the bleak little flat where she lived alone, Melanie took out a photograph and studied it. It was battered from long use, frayed around the edges and stained with her tears. It showed a week-old baby sleeping in its mother’s arms, and it was the only memento she had of the child she’d borne when she was sixteen.

She hadn’t been married to the father. He’d vanished as soon as he learned of her pregnancy, but at that moment she hadn’t cared. Her love for Peter, her baby, had been immediate, passionate and total. She would spend hours holding him, looking down into his face, knowing total fulfillment. As long as Peter needed her, nothing else mattered.

Even at that age he was an individual. While she smiled at him he would stare back, as grave as a little old man. Then his smile would break suddenly, like sun coming from behind clouds, always taking her by surprise and filling her with joy. For a while only the two of them existed in all the world.

Then her mother had said coolly, “It’s time you decided to be sensible about this. Of course you can’t keep the baby. It’s a ridiculous idea.”

“He’s mine. I’m going to keep him,” she cried.

“My dear girl, how? That layabout who fathered it has gone—”

“Peter isn’t an ‘it,’” she protested fiercely. “He’s a person, and he’s my son.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have been if you’d had the common sense to have an abortion. But I thought at least now you’d see how impossible the whole thing is.”

“You could help me…” Melanie pleaded.

But her mother had raised four children and considered she’d ‘done her bit.’ Besides, she had a job now, one that she liked. She made it plain that her babyminding days were in the past.

“Then I’ll look after him by myself. I’ll get a flat—”

“Oh, yes, a flat—in some ghastly high-rise block with an elevator that never works and the stairs littered with syringes, living off welfare payments that aren’t enough. You say you love him. Is that the life you want for him?”

Dumbly Melanie shook her head while tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she held onto her child more tightly than ever. She hadn’t yielded at once, but the euphoria of the first few days was insidiously being replaced by postpartum depression.

In the blackness that seemed to swirl around her after that, only one thing remained constant, and that was her love for Peter. She breast-fed him, pouring out her adoration as she poured out her milk, clinging to the hope that something would happen to let her keep her baby.

But it didn’t. Instead there was the constant verbal battering from her family, always on the same theme, “If you loved him you’d give him up—a child needs two parents—a better life—if you loved him you’d give him up.”

At last, distraught, deep in depression, barely knowing what she was doing, she signed the papers and said goodbye to her child. For six months the conviction of doing the right thing supported her. And then, with brutal timing, the clouds lifted from her brain on the day after the adoption was finalized by the court, and with dreadful clarity she saw what she’d done.

The separation from her baby was an agony that wouldn’t heal. Her desperate pleas to be told where he was were met with bland official statements about confidentiality. All the legal processes had been completed. It was too late for her to change her mind.

Her last hope was a friend who worked for the council and who broke all the rules to give her the names, Mr. and Mrs. Haverill, and an address. Frantically she raced to their house to plead with them, only to find that Giles Haverill had already left the country to start a new firm in Australia, as part of the business empire he ran for his father. His wife, Zena, was in the middle of final packing. If Melanie had hoped to find an understanding maternal heart, she was bitterly disappointed. Zena Haverill was a strong-featured young woman with a cold voice, who had no intention of giving up what she considered hers.

“There are other babies,” Melanie pleaded.

“Other babies? My dear girl, do you know how hard it is to get a baby these days? Now I’ve got David, there’s no way I’m going to give him back.”

“His name’s Peter.”

“Giles, my husband, prefers David, after his own father. He’s a very rich man, you know. David will have the best of everything, and I daresay he’ll be better off than with an unmarried and—if you’ll pardon my saying so—rather unstable young woman. Look, I’ll lay it on the line because I’m tired of arguing. I can’t have children myself, and David is exactly what Giles wants.”

“Giles—Giles,” Melanie raged. “You don’t say that you want him.”

“There’s no need to discuss this,” Zena Haverill said coolly, and something in her voice told Melanie the terrible truth.

“You don’t want him, do you?” she accused. “Your husband wants an heir, that’s all it is. You don’t love him.”

“I see nothing to be gained by hysteria. David will have every advantage.”

“But he won’t have a mother who loves him,” Melanie screamed. “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Zena regarded her dispassionately. “The welfare worker told me you gave up David because you wanted to play in a rock band. I can only say that if this performance is anything to go by you should have been an actress. However, it doesn’t move me, you know.”

“Rock band?” Melanie echoed, dazed. “I don’t know what you mean. I may have mentioned to her that I once thought of something like that, but I didn’t give Peter up because of it. I don’t care about a career now. I just want my baby.”

“My baby,” Zena said calmly. “Mine and my husband’s. Now I think you’d better go.”

She’d pleaded for one last sight of Peter, a chance to say goodbye, but Zena had been like flint.

“He hasn’t seen you for months. You’d only disturb him. Besides,” she added belatedly, “he isn’t here.”

“He is, I can hear him.”

She ran out of the room, up the stairs toward the sound of a baby’s crying. In her distraught state it seemed that Peter was calling to her. But she never got to him. A nurse came out of a room at the end of the corridor, closed it firmly behind her and stood with her back to it.

“Peter,” Melanie screamed. “Peter.”

Then Zena caught up with her, and together she and the nurse wrestled her downstairs into the hall.

“I suggest you leave now before I call the police and charge you with attempted kidnapping,” Zena said breathlessly.

She’d stumbled out of the house, tears streaming down her cheeks. As the front door was slammed shut, she turned and screamed, “He’s my baby. I’ll get him back, whatever I have to do.”

But the next day Zena had gone to Australia, taking Peter with her.

Melanie had tried to put the past behind her and plan for a career. She’d been a talented pianist and for a while she had played keyboard with a rock band that had some modest success. Men pursued her, attracted as much by her haunting air of melancholy as by her gentle beauty. But she had nothing to give them. The trauma she’d been through had frozen her, until now she was sure she would never fall in love. Only one kind of feeling still lived in her, and it was one she couldn’t acknowledge. Each year she celebrated Peter’s birthday with a breaking heart, and each night she prayed for a miracle.

At last the rock band broke up. Melanie was growing weary of the futility of the life and she left music completely to take business courses. She joined a temping agency and took a succession of jobs until at last she was hired for a month by Ayleswood School, a select, fee-paying establishment, whose secretary was off sick. And there she found her miracle, in the school records.

His name was David Haverill, son of Giles and Zena Haverill, and his address was the very same house where she’d confronted Zena. There could be no doubt. The family had returned from Australia, and now her child was here, within a few yards of her.

When her first transports of joy had calmed, she began to search for him slowly, careful not to attract attention. There were three boys who were possible. None of them had her features, or Oliver’s, but they were fair haired, like herself. She’d cherished dreams of an instant thunderbolt of recognition, but it didn’t happen that way.

It happened through stealing.

She’d come into the anteroom of the headmistress’s office one afternoon to find one of the “possibles” there. He was sitting on the edge of a seat, his face set in a mask that might have concealed defiance or indifference or just plain misery. “Hello,” Melanie said cautiously. “I’ve got some files for Mrs. Grady. Do you know if she’s in there?”

He stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “She told me to wait here,” he said at last.

“I’m Melanie. What’s your name?’

“David.”

Her heart began to hammer. “David Haverill?” she asked breathlessly.

He nodded again. He seemed strangely listless for a boy of eight.

“Are you here because you’re in trouble?” she asked gently.

For the first time, he raised his head and looked at her directly. His nod was almost imperceptible and his eyes were wary.

“Well, I don’t suppose it’s so very bad,” she said in a rallying voice.

Before he could speak, the headmistress had opened her door and said, “You can come in now, David.”

Melanie had been forced to leave the files she’d brought and depart, trying to look indifferent to conceal her inner turbulence. After all these years she’d found her son.

She had to wait until next morning to find out more. When she casually mentioned the incident and asked what had brought David to the office, Mrs. Grady, the headmistress, said, “Stealing, and not for the first time. I suppose we shouldn’t blame the child too much. He never acted like this before his mother went away.”

“Went away?” Melanie asked.

“Ran off and left the poor little mite, about a year ago.”

Something was constricting Melanie’s breathing. “And—his father?”

Mrs. Gray’s voice became tart with disapproval. “I had to get his father out of a board meeting yesterday to tell him what had happened. He wasn’t pleased. Oh, I think he’s fond of the boy in a business-must-comefirst sort of way, and he used to be proud of him. But frankly he’s not coping very well, either, and if he doesn’t start managing better he may lose David entirely.”

“But why?” Melanie asked, startled. “Lots of fathers bring up children alone these days.”

“It’s not that. David’s run away twice, trying to find his mother. Once he was gone for two days. We had to call the police out to search for him. So of course the social services became involved, and then they discovered about the stealing, as well. To them he looks like a disturbed child. He actually has a social worker assigned to him, and I know she doesn’t think Giles Haverill is doing a marvelous job of giving David the reassurance he needs.”

That night Melanie dreamed Peter was calling to her again. The baby she’d heard crying eight years ago and the little boy who’d run away to find his mother merged into one child, pleading for her to go to his rescue. She awoke with her mind already made up. Fate had offered her the chance she’d prayed for, to be reunited with her son, even if it meant being his nanny, not his mother.

She went about her plans with cool determination. There could be no failure. While learning secretarial skills she’d sometimes worked as a baby-sitter. Now she contacted the parents for references, and when she had them she telephoned Giles Haverill.

Confronting the man himself was the hardest part. Melanie’s dislike of Zena was a rational thing, based on their meeting. But over the years Giles had loomed in her mind as a monster, the unseen puppet master whose demand for an heir had made his wife grasp at a child she didn’t love.

Now she was over that hurdle. Giles Haverill was no longer a monster, but a stern, unlikable man. He’d sized her up like goods to be assessed before buying, and she’d tolerated it because she had her eyes on her goal. There would be other things to put up with, but she would endure them all. This was her chance, and she was going to take it, Giles Haverill or no Giles Haverill.

Two

The room that Melanie had been allocated was right next to David’s. It was spacious and pleasant, and Brenda, the middle-aged housekeeper, had made it spotless.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Miss,” she said as she showed Melanie the room. “I’ve had all I can take of that child. He’s a right little devil. He’s rude and awkward, shuts himself in his room for hours at a time, and when he does come out, half the time he won’t talk.”

“Perhaps he’s got nothing to say,” Melanie observed, disliking Brenda.

“Humph! Last week all my dusters went missing. Every single one. He’d hidden them under his bed, just for the fun of watching me chasing around.”

Melanie laughed. “That doesn’t sound so very wicked, just normal childish mischief.”

“And there’s the staring.”

“What do you mean?”

“He stares at you as though he could see right through you. Just stares on and on. It’s unnerving.”

“Does he have any friends?”

“Not anymore. He made some at school, I think, but since he became a thief—”

“Don’t call him a thief,” Melanie said quickly.

“What else do you call a kid who steals? You do know he steals, don’t you?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to hang labels around a child’s neck,” Melanie said firmly.

Brenda shrugged. “Please yourself. But be sure to hide your things away.”

A shadow darkened the door. Melanie looked up to see Giles. “When you’ve finished settling in, Miss Haynes, perhaps you’d come down to my office.”

He departed without waiting for an answer. Melanie went down a few moments later and found him regarding her dispassionately. “Perhaps I should make it plain at the outset that your duties will not include listening to Brenda slandering my son,” he snapped.

“I think my duties include anything that will help David,” she said calmly. “And first of all that means learning all I can about his problems.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know.”

“Can you? There’s probably a lot about him you don’t know. Why not let me approach him my own way?”

He considered her thoughtfully. “Very well,” he said at last in a dismissive voice. “But I don’t want to overhear any more conversations like that.”

She was turning away, confirmed in her poor opinion of him, when he stopped her. “Miss Haynes…” There was an uncertain note in his voice that took her by surprise.

“Yes?”

“Those dusters—it was just childish mischief, wasn’t it? The sort of thing any boy of his age might do.” He was almost pleading.

“Exactly the sort of thing I did when I was a child. I told you I was the black sheep. Can you tell me where to find David?”

“In the garden.”

The garden was huge and could have been an enchanted place for a crowd of children, but it dwarfed one solitary little boy. David was sitting on a log, absently tossing sticks. Melanie was sure he detected her approach, but he refused to raise his head as she crossed the grass toward him.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully.

He continued tossing twigs, ignoring her presence.

“Do you remember me?” she persisted.

At last he raised his head to look at her silently, and she understood what Brenda had meant about his staring. “My name’s Melanie,” she said. “And I know you’re David. It’s nice to meet you properly at last.” A sudden impulse made her put out her hand, and she said, “How do you do?” as she would have done with an adult.

After watching her carefully for a moment, he took her hand. “How do you do?” he said politely.

“Has your father told you very much about me?” she asked, feeling her way by inches.

“Yes. He says it’ll be like having Mommy back, but it won’t.”

On the last words his voice rose to a sudden shout that made her flinch. She stared at him, appalled. For a moment the mask had cracked, giving her a glimpse of the rage and misery that boiled beneath. “Of course it won’t,” she said quickly. “Daddy didn’t mean that I could take Mommy’s place.” It hurt to speak of Zena as his mother but she had no time for her own feelings now. “He just meant that I’d be here if you ever needed me.”

“I don’t need you,” he said coldly. “I don’t need anyone. I don’t need Mommy or Daddy, or you or anyone.” Again there was that unnerving shout, coming out of nowhere.

“Well, perhaps you don’t,” she said, as if giving the matter serious consideration. “But maybe Daddy needs you. Have you thought of that?”

He shook his head. “Daddy doesn’t need me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m bad.”

The bald statement brought tears to her eyes. She fought them back. “Don’t call yourself bad. It isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. Everyone says so.”

Mercifully memory came to her rescue. “I was bad, too,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “One of my teachers told my parents I was on my way to becoming a juvenile delinquent.”

“What’s a ju…ju…?”

“Juvenile delinquent? Someone who causes chaos. I did things that made that duster trick look like nothing.”

“Brenda was really mad,” he said with satisfaction.

“Yes, it’s no fun if they don’t get mad,” she agreed.

A glimmer of appreciation appeared in his eyes. “What sort of things did you used to do?”

“There was a boy in my class who used to bully anyone smaller than himself,” she recalled. “He made people’s lives a misery. I sat behind him one day and painted his hair with glue.” She chuckled. “It wouldn’t wash out. He had to cut the hair off. Of course his parents complained to mine, and I was in trouble. But it was worth it. There’s a lot of fun to be had with sticky stuff.”

He didn’t answer this, but she was pleased to notice that he was looking more cheerful. When she asked him to show her around the garden he got up at once. He was knowledgeable for a boy of his age, and talked to her about his surroundings in a way that made her start to feel hopeful.

But her mood was short-lived. After lunch she had to return to her old flat to collect a bag she’d overlooked. Brenda agreed to look after David and take him shopping with her. David too seemed happy to go shopping, which puzzled Melanie slightly, as it seemed odd for this activity to appeal to a small boy.

But she returned to find a message that she was to see Giles immediately. In his study he turned exasperated eyes on her. “You’ve only been here a day,” he snapped, “and already you’ve shown David new ways to make life hideous for the rest of us.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said blankly.

“It was you who told him how much ‘fun’ could be had with ‘sticky stuff,’ wasn’t it?”

“Oh, heavens! What’s he done?”

“Ask Brenda.”

“He didn’t glue her hair, did he?” Melanie asked, horrified.

“Not her hair. Her purse. She went to pay the paper bill and found her purse stuck solid.”

Melanie gasped and caught her lip between her teeth. “That was wrong of him, of course,” she said in a shaking voice. “Very naughty.”

“Then you can be the one to tell him so.”

“I’m sure you’ve already told him.”

“But he needs to hear it from you, since you seem to be his partner in crime,” Giles said grimly.

“David!” She’d spied him lurking in the hall, and called to him. He came nearer, watching her closely, as though waiting for the storm. “Come here, you wretch,” she said cheerfully. “Now see what you’ve done to me.”

“But you said—”

“I did it to a boy in school who’d been bullying people. He was a fair target. Brenda isn’t. It wasn’t kind of you to make her life hard. Come on, let’s go and tell her you’re sorry.”

“But I’m not sorry,” he said innocently.

“Then fake it,” she told him, leading him away with a hand on his shoulder.

Brenda greeted them frostily but received David’s mumbled apology in astonishment. “And I’m sorry, too,” Melanie said before the housekeeper could recover. “I put the idea into his head, but I didn’t mean to. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

They came out of the kitchen to find Giles in the hall. “I only came home to get my things,” he explained. “I have to fly to New York. The plane leaves in a couple of hours.” He was shrugging on his coat as he spoke, and Melanie saw his bags standing by the front door. “It’s lucky you’re here or I’d have had a problem about leaving.”

“Will you be away for long?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea, but it’ll give you a chance to get to know David. You’re in sole charge.” He turned to David. “I’ve got to go now, son. You’ll behave yourself, won’t you? Don’t give Miss Haynes any trouble. I shall expect good reports of you when I return.”

To hell with good reports, Melanie thought crossly. Tell him you’ll miss him.

David hadn’t spoken. He stood next to Melanie in silence, but as Giles headed for the door he suddenly dashed forward and clasped his father, hiding his face against him. Melanie tensed, ready to hate Giles if he pushed his son away, but he didn’t. To her surprise he dropped onto one knee and put an arm around David. “Hey, come on now,” he said in a rallying voice. “It’s not for long.” David didn’t answer in words but his arms went around his father’s neck. “It’s all right, son,” Giles said in a softer voice than Melanie had heard him use before. “I’m coming back.”

Then he enfolded David in a fierce hug, burying his face in the child’s soft fair hair. When he emerged, his voice was a little husky, but that might have been the effect of being half strangled. “Goodbye,” he said quickly, and went away, leaving Melanie wondering just what sort of a man he really was.

Giles was away for a week, and it was a happier week than Melanie had known for a long time. She was in David’s company every day. It was she who took him to school, collected him, had tea with him, put him to bed. It was what she’d dreamed of for years, and at first it was enough.

She was free to slip into his room at night and watch him sleeping, hugging her joy to herself like a miser brooding over rediscovered gold. She’d often wondered how the reunion would be. Would her heart still recognize him as her son?

But all was well. On her side the bond held, true and strong, and along it streamed love as fierce and protective as the love he’d once drunk in with her milk. She instinctively knew that this was the child she’d held in her arms so long ago. When he wasn’t looking her way, she would watch him in secret, inwardly whispering words of wonder, “My son. My son.”

But as the days slipped past she knew that she hadn’t made the breakthrough she wanted. David spoke to her politely enough, but he didn’t give her the eager confidence she longed for, and she could sense that he was still wary of her. She was inching her way along, always alert to seize the moment that might bring them closer, but such moments were painfully slow in coming.

One morning she heard Brenda grumbling inside David’s room. “…think I’ve got nothing better to do than change sheets every day.”

“Is anything the matter?” Melanie asked, entering.

“He’s done it again,” Brenda declared bitterly. “Look at that!” She held up a sheet with a large damp place. “It’s time he pulled himself together instead of acting like a baby.”

David’s face was scarlet and he was fighting back the tears. Melanie put a hand on his shoulder. “Go down to the garden,” she suggested gently. “And don’t worry. It’s not important.”

She shut the door behind him and faced Brenda. “From now on if David is unlucky enough to wet his bed, you tell me and no one else. I won’t have him made to feel bad about it.”

Brenda was up in arms, her heavy face mottled with anger. “He’s not the only one who feels bad. It’s me who has to do the extra washing.”

“Aided by a state-of-the-art washing machine,” Melanie said, her temper rising. “If putting a few sheets in it is too much for you, I’ll do it. But the important thing is that you are to say nothing to David. Do you understand?”

Brenda seemed, about to argue but then fell silent, alarmed by a fierce gleam in Melanie’s eyes. She wasn’t to know that she was dealing with a tigress defending her cub. She only knew that something in the other woman’s look quelled her. She sniffed and hurried out of the room.

Melanie joined David in the garden and said, “Don’t worry about Brenda. She won’t bother you anymore.”

“I’m not a baby,” David said quickly.

“Of course you’re not.”

“But Daddy says I am,” he told her in a wobbly voice.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You leave Daddy to me.”

He looked at her in awe. Then a smile of gratitude and trust came over his face.

“Come on,” she said. “What are we going to do today?”

He slipped a hand in hers. “I’ve got a new computer game,” he said eagerly.

“Come on, then. Teach me.”

They spent the day cheerfully zapping each other on the screen. Like many children of his generation, David was at ease with computers and instructed Melanie with careful courtesy. One moment he was like a little old-fashioned gentleman, the next he was doubled up with excitement and laughter. But then he would grow suddenly quiet, as though all the computer games in the world couldn’t ease the crushing burden on his heart.

Late that evening the telephone rang. Melanie lifted the receiver in her bedroom and found herself talking to Giles.

“Is everything all right?” he said. “Is David behaving himself?”

“Perfectly. He’ll be thrilled that you called him. Just a moment.” She hurried out of her room to knock on David’s door. “He’s just coming,” she said when she returned to the phone.”

“Actually I didn’t—if you hadn’t run off so fast I could have told you that all I meant—” He sighed.

I know you weren’t going to talk to David, Melanie thought crossly. That’s why I called him before you could stop me.

David bounced in. “Is it really Daddy?”

“That’s right,” Melanie said brightly. She added, loud enough for Giles to hear, “He called especially to talk to you.”

“Hello, Daddy-Daddy-”

Listening to the child’s end of the conversation, Melanie formed the impression that Giles was laboring to keep going. He seemed to be questioning David about his behavior when he ought to have been saying how much he missed him. But David’s delight was touching.

At last he said, “Yes, Daddy, I’ll be good. Goodbye.”

“Back to bed now,” Melanie commanded with a laugh.

It took time to settle him down again. In his excitement at receiving his father’s call, he repeated everything that had been said a dozen times. But at last he snuggled down between the sheets and dropped off. Melanie crept out of the room but couldn’t resist returning an hour later. The moon, sliding between a crack in the curtains, touched David’s face, revealing a smile of blissful content that she had never seen before.

Melanie stood looking at that innocent smile for a long time, hating Giles Haverill with all her heart.

During weekdays, when David was at school, Melanie took the chance to explore the house. It had been built about sixty years earlier by the first Haverill to make money, and had a look of forbidding prosperity. The design was spacious but undistinguished, and the best part of the place was the huge garden. Someone had designed that garden with love, arranging trees and shrubs so that there were constant surprises and changes of view.

Downstairs the big piano tempted her. It was locked, but after a search she found the key on a hook behind the door of Giles’s office. Playing again was like rediscovering a lost friend. She sat there for so long that she was nearly late fetching David from school, and had to hurry. When she told him what had delayed her, he stared. “Daddy keeps the piano locked,” he said. “He stopped my lessons.”

“Why did he do that?” she asked gently.

He didn’t reply. His face was set in the rigid lines of misery she’d seen on the day she first saw him at school. “It was my own fault,” he said at last.

After tea she asked him to play for her. As soon as he started, she realized that he had a talent and confidence that were like her own at the same age. Listening to her child expressing himself through the gift that had always been hers, Melanie breathed a prayer of thanks. “You ought to be in the school concert,” she said when he’d finished.

“I was going to, but Daddy said no. He says if I can’t get my schoolwork right…it’s next week.” he finished miserably. “And everyone’s in it except me.”

Melanie drew a long breath and counted to ten to stop herself expressing her opinion of Giles in terms unsuitable for a child’s ears. “Let me hear it again,” she begged. “You do it so well.”

He gave her a smile, full of delight and a kind of wonder at receiving praise, and started again from the beginning. While she listened, Melanie’s mind was working furiously.

The following afternoon she sought out Mrs. Harris, the school music teacher, and found in her an ally. “Giles Haverill…” she said with concentrated loathing, then checked herself. “I’m sorry, I know he’s your employer—”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Melanie said. “I don’t like him, either. But he left me in charge of David and I’d like him to be in the concert. With any luck Mr. Haverill won’t even be back until it’s over.”

David’s joy, when she told him, was so great that she thought he would fling his arms about her. But the moment passed, and he retreated behind the barrier of caution with which he protected himself.

She began to practice the piece with him. She never had to tell him anything twice. These were their happiest times together. It was an effort not to reach out and stroke the shiny fair head bent earnestly over the piano. It was even harder not to gather him up in a hug. But the painful years had taught her patience. She must wait for that hug.

“Try it again,” she said one evening. “I love listening to you.”

He went through the piece easily, smiling at her as he mastered a tricky place, and she smiled back. They were sitting like that when Giles walked in.

“What’s this?” he asked quietly.

They both looked up quickly, and Melanie felt David flinch and move toward her. His lips moved in the word “Daddy!” but his voice was nervous.

Giles’s face was very pale, and his lips were set in a hard line. It seemed to Melanie that his face showed only anger. She didn’t know that he’d heard his son’s whispered word, seen him recoil, and felt as though something had struck him in the chest.

“Aren’t you going to say hello to me, son?” he asked.

David slipped obediently from the piano stool and went across to Giles, who went down on one knee to look him full in the face. David put his arms about his father, but it seemed to Melanie that he did so reluctantly. Giles felt it, too, and hardened himself against the hurt. When he arose his face was grim. “Who unlocked the piano?” he asked.

“I did,” Melanie said. “And I need to talk to you. I’ll come to your study when I’ve put David to bed.”

As they walked out of the room, he heard her saying, “Don’t worry, David. Everything will be all right, I promise.”

There was a protective note in her voice, Giles noted. She was protecting David against him.

In his study he poured himself a stiff brandy and waited for her, not at all relishing the way she’d taken the initiative in this meeting. It occurred to him that he disliked this woman. When she appeared, her face bore none of the unease he was used to seeing in his subordinates when they presented themselves for criticism. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “How dared you encourage him to defy me!”

“And how dared you break that child’s heart by denying him one of the few comforts he has!” she flung back. “How could you be so cruel, so callous?”

“I have good reasons for what I do—”

“There are no good reasons for hurting an eight-yearold child,” she said firmly.

He paused to take a long breath, but before he could hurl his anger and bitterness at her he was swamped by weariness. He sat down abruptly and closed his eyes, and the words that came out of his mouth, much against his will, were, “I haven’t slept for forty-eight hours.” He pulled himself forcibly together. “I don’t know what David’s told you—”

“The truth. He’s a very honest boy. He says you stopped his lessons because he got behind at school. Naturally he blames himself.”

“Why naturally?”

“Because he blames himself for everything that happens. Didn’t you know that?”

He shook his head, dumbly. He had a great longing to close his eyes.

“He told me how you’d pulled him out of the concert, too,” Melanie said. “I was astonished. I’d have thought you would seize the chance to boost David’s confidence, and give him an hour of happiness that will help him cope with the past dreadful year.”

“I see. So what did you do, Miss Haynes? For I feel very sure that you did something.”

“I put him back in the concert. He’s so happy about it that for the last two nights he hasn’t even wet his bed. And that’s made him even happier. But of course you can always go up and tell him that it’s all off.”

He eyed her shrewdly. “You’re a very clever woman.”

“Are you going to do that—and break his heart?”

“Of all the disgracefully loaded questions—!” he exploded. “Look, if I agree to this concert, there must be no more encouraging him to defy me. We have to lay down some ground rules, and you must abide by them. I’m glad you and David seem to get along well, but he’s my son, not yours. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” she said in a colorless voice.

“Very well. Now we’ve got that clear, he can do the concert.”

“And you’ll be there?”

“What?”

“It’s a pity that we can’t tell him you rushed home on purpose to see him, but it’s a bit late for that now. Never mind, we’ll have to make the best of it.”

“Good of you,” he said shortly. But irony was lost on her, he realized. “It’s out of the question. I’m behind on my appointments because I’ve been away. I can’t take an evening off. Is David’s life really going to be blighted if I don’t come to listen to him playing the piano in a drafty school hall?”

“His life will be blighted if you don’t show him that he’s vitally important to you.”

“I do that every day—”

“Not in ways that mean anything to him. He’s eight. He doesn’t care that you’re out there building an industrial empire, but he does care that you treat his big moment as though it mattered. Weren’t you ever in a school performance?”

“For pity’s sake! I don’t recall my parents turning out to my school functions. It hasn’t damaged me.”

She looked at him levelly. “Well, you know best about that, of course.”

He took a deep breath. “What’s the exact date? I’m too jet-lagged to work it out.”

She told him, crossing her fingers for the miracle. But it didn’t come. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s a banquet on that night—it’s what I came back for—I’m making a speech—there are going to be government ministers there—for heaven’s sake, surely you can understand?” His voice rose in irritation.

“Of course,” she said crisply. “I understand perfectly. So will David. Good night, Mr. Haverill.”

When she’d gone, he sat staring into space, a prey to turbulent emotions. Pictures danced before him—David sitting at the piano, his head close to that woman, exchanging smiles with her. His flinching at the sight of his father. It had been a mistake to let her into the house. He’d known that on the day they met. She’d stood there in the bay of the window, with the light falling on her lovely face and deep, mysterious eyes, and he’d been filled with alarm. He didn’t know why he should be afraid of this young woman, who seemed to have an immediate empathy with David. After all, that was what he’d hoped for when he hired her. But he had the feeling of having released a genie that had got far beyond his control. And tonight, when he’d seen David turn to her, seeking refuge from his own father, he’d known that by some mysterious process she was stealing his son.

He passed a hand over his eyes, wishing his head didn’t ache so.

Three

On the afternoon of David’s concert, Giles said to Melanie, “I thought a lot about what you said—about David needing his parents there to cheer him on.”

“Yes?” she urged eagerly.

“So I called Zena this morning, to see if she would go. But all I got was the answering machine saying they were away for a few days.”

She sighed. “Well, it looks as though David will have to make do with me.”

“I just wanted you to know that I tried,” he said, and even to his own ears his voice sounded hollow.

To the last minute, she clung to the hope that Giles would change his mind, but when she saw him descend the stairs in white tie and tails she knew he hadn’t dressed up for a school concert.

David, too, was ready to leave. Giles placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said. “Make me proud of you.”

“Yes, Daddy.” David’s voice was expressionless and his face had become a mask again. Melanie threw an angry look at Giles, but he was already walking away and didn’t see it. She wanted to shout after him, “How can you be proud of him if you’re not there?”

Then she wondered at her own thoughts. She would have David’s big moment all to herself, free from Giles Haverill’s intrusion. As his mother, what more could she ask?

But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t the one David wanted. Giles might be neglectful, overbearing and insensitive, but his little son adored him and lived for his praise. And she, who loved David more than anything in life, wanted only his happiness.

In the school hall she made sure of getting a seat where David could see her, and led the applause when he appeared. She held her breath as he played the opening notes. Then gradually she relaxed as she realized everything was going to be fine. He played confidently, without stumbling once, and when he reached the end the applause was more than just polite.

“Well done,” she said when they met afterward. “That was the best ever.”

“Would Daddy be proud of me?” he asked wistfully.

“Of course he will. I’m going to tell him how splendid you were.”

At home she gave him some milk and sandwiches, and put him to bed. He snuggled down, promising to go to sleep, but when she came up later she heard noises from inside his room. She listened for a moment before pushing the door open a crack. David’s little television was on. “You shouldn’t be watching that now,” she said.

“But I’m watching Daddy,” he pleaded. “Look.”

As Melanie glanced at the screen the announcer was saying, “…made a speech to captains of industry tonight, in which he declared…” There was Giles talking from the top table to a room full of men, all identically dressed in white tie and tails. David’s eyes never left the screen. “That’s Daddy!” he said excitedly.

Sure enough, there was Giles, at ease, speaking without notes. Seeing him like this, Melanie realized how handsome he was. When he made a neat joke, his white teeth gleamed against the brown of his skin. He was in the prime of life, assured, at ease, a master in his own sphere. But none of that was of any use to the little boy who had to watch him through a television screen.

When the program was over she persuaded him to lie down. “Tomorrow we’ll talk about what we’re going to do during your school holidays. Will your father be taking you away on vacation?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“What about your mother?” Melanie asked cautiously.

He looked back at her from unblinking eyes. “My mother’s dead,” he said simply.

Melanie expelled her breath slowly, realizing that she’d wandered into a mine field. Who had told the child that Zena was dead, and why hadn’t Giles warned her? “Well…” she began to say.

“My mother’s dead,” David repeated. “If she wasn’t dead I’d be living with her.”

“I see. Yes, of course. Do you—have a photograph of her anywhere?”

“No,” David said. “She’s dead. She’s dead.”

Again there was that unnerving stare. Melanie had an impression that inside himself the little boy was clinging onto a sheer cliff face with his fingertips. “Good night,” she said softly, and left him.

She went to her own room and did some thinking. And when her thinking was completed she settled down to wait for Giles Haverill’s return, because no matter how late he was, she needed to talk to him urgently.

To pass the time, she switched on the television and found herself watching a late news program. It ran a brief clip of Giles’s speech, followed by some general information about his earlier career.

“Haverill & Son has always been a family firm,” declared the presenter, “but under Giles Haverill it became one of the major operators in the sphere of—”

Melanie hardly heard. She was studying Giles as he’d been a few years ago, his face already set in stern lines, his eyes fixed ahead as though nothing mattered but his goal. Sometimes he was accompanied by a woman Melanie recognized as Zena, but mostly he was shown heading meetings and traveling by airplane, concentrating on the screen of a portable computer.

“…a ruthless operator, as more than one of his rivals could testify—pride in the firm he inherited, and his determination to double it in size and influence—”

“And to raise his son to do the same,” Melanie murmured. “Poor little mite.”

She looked angrily at the face on the screen, the face of a conqueror, an acquisitor, a man so proud of his heritage that he’d trained a child from birth to fit into it.

“And I handed you over to him,” she whispered angrily. “God forgive me!”

As the hours ticked away she began to doze off. To keep herself awake, she went out into the hall and settled on the stairs. She was awakened about two in the morning by the sound of the front door opening and closing. “Miss Haynes?” Giles called, peering into the gloom of the hall. “What are you doing on the stairs?”

Melanie yawned and got stiffly to her feet. “I wanted to be sure not to miss you, Mr. Haverill. There are things we have to discuss.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, it can’t. I need to get some things straightened out before I see David again.”

“Look,” he said tiredly, “I’ll pay for it, whatever he’s done.”

“He hasn’t done anything. Can we talk somewhere more private than the hall?”

“All right, in here.” He pushed open the door to the living room. “Now what is it?”

“You told me David’s mother had gone away. Is that true?”

“Of course it’s—” He stared at her narrowly. “Has David told you she’s dead?”

“Yes.”

He groaned. “I thought he’d got over that. It was a stage he went through soon after she left.”

“Does he know she’s alive?”

“Of course he knows. He’s been to stay with her.”

“So she does still have some interest in him?”

“Very little. She invited him only at my insistence, and it wasn’t a success. But that’s no excuse for him lying about her.”

“He’s not lying,” she said, outraged. “He’s fantasizing.”

“Is there a difference?”

She looked at him for a long, thoughtful moment. “Have you ever had an operation, Mr. Haverill?” she asked at last.

“What on earth—? Yes, I had my appendix out years ago.”

“Did they give you an anesthetic?”

“Of course.”

“And why? Because the pain would have been too much to bear without help. Well, that’s David’s situation, too. Can’t you imagine the pain of simply being abandoned by the one person in the world who’s supposed to put him above everything?”

“He has a father-”

“Fathers aren’t the same. It’s his mother who’s supposed to be there for him, listen to him, cuddle him, defend him—” She stopped abruptly as a sudden rush of emotion threatened to choke her.

“What’s the matter?” Giles asked.

“Nothing.” She turned away from him, hurriedly brushing her eyes.

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