Cruel Legacy (55 page)

'And forget about it—no...' He came over to her and folded her in his arms, resting his chin on top of her head, his hand slowly stroking her hair. 'I know what you're thinking,' he told her huskily, 'and I know you're right. I promise I'll do my best to try to cultivate a more positive attitude...

'This afternoon, when I'd started to come down a little, I told myself how lucky I've been... not just because of the unit, but because I've been given a chance to... to see what lies ahead and to prepare for it.

'I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I feel any differently about it—I don't... but perhaps I can
learn
to feel differently. In fact,' he added softly, drawing her closer, 'I've already thought of one way I can make very good use of all this free time I'm ultimately going to have—a leisure activity eminently suitable for a man of my age with a proven beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system. You haven't got anything planned for this evening, have you...?'

'This evening...?' Elizabeth laughed, and teased him,
'AU
evening...?' as his hand stroked up over her body and lingered caressingly against her breast.

'All evening,' Richard confirmed, laughing with her.

'Mmm...' Her mouth curled into a smile as he kissed the side of her throat. 'Fifty pence says you can't...'

'You're on,' Richard told her.

Elizabeth felt him move slightly, and as she peered over his shoulder she saw that he had the fingers of his free hand crossed behind his back.

She was still laughing as she turned .to walk upstairs with him.

The
Volvo estate car Blake arrived to pick her up in wasn't somehow the kind of car she had expected a man of his professional stature to drive; a top-of-the-range Jaguar, BMW or Mercedes would have been more the type of car Philippa would have expected him to own—shiny and expensive, rather than merely comfortable and clean.

Andrew would have been highly disdainful, but then Andrew had always placed too much emphasis on outward show and material possessions.

It had been hard to know exactly what to wear this morning—or perhaps easier to worry about her clothes than all the other issues her decision to accept Blake's job offer had raised. Had she been working in an office it would have been much easier—a suit, a skirt and blouse—but what did a housekeeper-cum-surrogate mother wear?

Bearing in mind the fact that she was going to be meeting Anya's social worker as well as Anya herself, Philippa had opted for a simple plain white T-shirt and her jeans, but had brought with her a navy jacket she could wear to add a touch of formality if it proved necessary.

A little to her surprise, Blake was wearing almost exactly the same sort of outfit, except that he did not have the jacket, and the T-shirt he was wearing moulded the contours of his body far more snugly than her own did hers.

Inadvertently she found herself looking at him for just that little bit too long.

His forearms were taut and sinewy, with far more muscle than she would have expected in a man whose occupation was mainly sedentary; his skin was tanned a warm golden-brown, a legacy from the time he had spent in America, she guessed.

Even the soft furring of hair on his arms had a faint golden sheen to it... Would the rest of his body hair be the same colour or slightly darker still, the way she remembered it?

Her stomach did a somersault.

'Are you OK?' he asked.

'Yes... Yes, I'm fine...' Instinctively she took a step back from him, widening the gap between them before risking meeting his eyes.

When she saw that they were registering only good-mannered concern, she relaxed slightly.

'I'm glad you've dressed casually,' he approved as he opened the car door for her. 'Anya's parents were more concerned with their cause than their appearance and she tends to be slightly afraid of anyone dressed too formally or in uniform.

'She's never actually been to South America, of course, but her parents still lived there spiritually in many ways. An overriding point in my favour as far as the Social Services were concerned is the fact that with me she would have the opportunity to become more integrated into the mainstream of everyday life; she's completely fluent in Spanish, but she's never had a doll and appears more knowledgeable about the difficulties of arming revolutionaries than she does about playing games with other children.'

'That isn't necessarily a disadvantage,' Philippa commented drily. 'In fact I should think it would make her extremely popular with her peers. Children are all potential revolutionaries...'

'With adults their oppressors?' Blake suggested, laughing.

As Philippa shared his laughter she was sharply aware of how much shared adult male-to-female laughter had been missing from her life.

Andrew had not had a good sense of humour, frowning disapprovingly whenever he'd heard the boys telling her jokes. Philippa had the suspicion that he'd considered that spontaneous genuine laughter in a woman was somehow something not quite acceptable...like spontaneous genuine enjoyment of sex?

Quickly she dismissed the thought, clipping on her seatbelt as Blake started the car. As she glanced over her shoulder she noticed a dog guard lying in the back of the car.

'Have you got a dog?' she asked him curiously.

Blake, following her glance, shook his head, and then told her slightly self-consciously, 'No... At least not yet... I had thought... pets can be very therapeutic for people going through trauma; they can often express their emotions through animals far more easily than they can through their contact with other human beings. That's one of the reasons I bought this car. Plenty of room for a family and for a dog as well. Don't you like animals...?'

'Yes, as a matter of fact I do, but Andrew never cared for pets, and with the boys at boarding-school...'

Philippa saw the look he was giving her and, correctly interpreting it, told him quietly, 'It wasn't my decision. Andrew insisted and...' She hesitated, searching for the right words, reluctant to betray to him what she perceived as her own weakness. 'There was family pressure as well...'

'From your father,' Blake guessed. His voice was suddenly much harder and colder, Philippa noticed. 'What did he do?' he asked her harshly. 'Tell you that you were being selfish and emotional in wanting to keep them at home, putting your own needs before theirs?'

Startled by his perception, Philippa stared at him.

'How did you know that...?' she began, and then fell silent. Blake and her father had never liked one another and habit prevented her from criticising someone to whom she was supposed to be close to someone who wasn't.

'Oh... I suppose it's your training,' she hazarded. 'You must...'

'No.. .it isn't my training,' Blake contradicted her. He sounded angry, she recognised. Male anger had always alarmed her and unnerved her, and she had to fight to suppress the instinctive urge to placate him in the way that she had been taught... in the way that her father and eider brother had demanded and expected.

Those days were gone now; she was not responsible for Blake's emotions, they were his responsibility, she told herself firmly.

'It isn't my training,' he repeated. 'Just the fact that I know your father.'

And I know you, he might have added, Philippa acknowledged silently. I know how weak you are.

'It seemed better to let them go to school rather than keep them at home in a bad atmosphere,' she said in defence of herself. 'I didn't want them growing up like my father, like Robert, like Andrew, to think that being a man means that you have to withdraw from any kind of emotional contact with anyone.

'As it happens, the fact that they are away at school has meant that it's been easier for them to come to terms with Andrew's death. They never really knew him, you see. He never really had time for them...' Or for me, she could have added, but she didn't. She was in danger of becoming over-emotional as it was. 'And thankfully they're still both young enough not to feel any guilt...'

She stopped speaking. She had already said enough...too much really, but there was something about the quality of Blake's silence that made it easy to talk to him.

All part of his training, no doubt.

'You love them very much.'

His statement was as unexpected as the soft roughness in his voice.

'Yes,' Philippa agreed chokily.

'When do they come home for the summer holidays?'

'Not until the end of the month,' Philippa told him, grateful for the switch from emotional to practical matters.

'Three weeks. Good... That should give Anya some time to get settled in first.'

'Three weeks isn't very long,' Philippa said. 'It's bound to be difficult for her, and not just because of the trauma of losing her parents. The change from living in a city, in a small flat to living somewhere rural... She's bound to find it confusing.'

'Yes, I know. The one good point is that she starts secondary school in September, which means that at least she will be on a par with her peers there.'

'To some extent,' Philippa agreed.

'Having second thoughts?' Blake asked her lightly.

Why was he asking her that? Was
he
having second thoughts himself, perhaps judging her too emotional for the role he wanted her to play after hearing her speak about her sons?

'No,' Philippa denied. 'Are you?'

'No, I'm not.' He took advantage of a slowing down of the traffic to turn his head and look at her. 'What makes you think I might?'

His questions made her feel slightly uncomfortable, vulnerable almost.

She gave a small shrug, unwilling to express the self-doubt or the self-knowledge that had given rise to her question, and said instead, obliquely, 'I'm still my parents' child.'

There was a moment's pause, and then Blake asked her softly, 'Are you? Somehow I don't think so. I would have said that now you're very much your own woman.'

His compliment, so unexpected and so unlooked for, caught Philippa off guard; she could feel her skin starting to heat and she was probably gaping at him like a raw adolescent, she told herself fiercely as she willed her body heat to subside and turned her head away from him.

Very much her own woman; they were words to be treasured and savoured, bright stars lighting the darkness of her own voyage of self-discovery, and would have been no matter who had given them to her; but to have received them from Blake of all people.

Be careful, she warned herself... Be very, very careful.

The outskirts of Leeds were similar to those of any other large industrial city, the block of flats where Anya was staying depressingly familiar.

How could any child thrive, living in such surroundings? Philippa wondered sadly. It was like planting flowers where they would be deprived of sunlight.

The flat where Anya was staying was halfway up one of the larger blocks; the lifts were out of order so Philippa and Blake had to walk.

She would have felt very uneasy about using these stain on her own, Philippa acknowledged as she carefully avoided any eye-contact with the silent group of youths gathered together on one of the landings, and she was a healthy, relatively young woman. How must it feel to be old and alone, living in one of these places?

It was Anya herself who opened the door to them. Her skin, which Philippa suspected would have gleamed warm honey-gold in a warmer climate, looked sallow, clinging to the thin bones of her face and body, and her huge brown eyes watched them in silence as they entered the small flat.

The clothes she was wearing were too small and shabby.

It wasn't so much that she looked undernourished, Philippa recognised, rather than that she looked underloved.

A huge rush of emotion seized her, a need to take hold of Anya's thin body and hold her protectively in her arms, but Philippa sensibly resisted it. To overwhelm Anya with ·unfamiliar and probably unwanted physical affection would be the worst possible thing she could do.
Her
needs were not the ones that were paramount—Anya's were.

There were two other people in the small cramped sitting-room—an older grey-haired woman, who Philippa guessed was the foster mother the council had had looking after Anya since her parents' death, and a younger woman who quickly introduced herself as Anya's social worker.

It was obvious from the slight stiffness in her manner towards Blake that she did not totally approve of the situation. Her manner towards
her
was slightly warmer, Philippa recognised, and she mentally applauded the girl's professionalism in putting her responsibility towards Anya before her own personal reactions.

While she listened to her and responded to her questions, Philippa watched Anya, aware that despite her physical withdrawal from the adults discussing her future she was fully aware of what was going on.

Philippa's heart went out to her. She knew all too well how it felt to have other people in control of your life, to feel powerless to have any say in the decisions they were making.

'Has anyone asked Anya what she would prefer to do?' she asked quietly when the social worker had finished speaking.

Immediately the younger woman bridled resentfully, 'Of course,' she told Philippa crisply. 'Naturally. It is always the child's needs that are of paramount importance...'

When it was time to leave, Anya did so in an apathetic silence which caught at Philippa's heart. The social worker walked with them to the car. She was so plainly determined not to be impressed by Blake that Philippa had to hide her amusement.

'It's all right for you,' Blake muttered to her as the other woman left them. 'You're not a potential child molester.'

'It's their job to be concerned...' Philippa pointed out quietly,

'Yes, I know,' Blake agreed as he placed Anya's suitcase in the back of the estate car. 'But it still isn't...' He shook his head and added feelingly, 'God, I'd hate to be a parent, a father caught up in an alleged abuse case...'

'Yes,' Philippa agreed with a small shiver. There were worse things than being an emotionally absent father as Andrew had been; far, far worse.

Anya looked surprised when Philippa got in the back of the car with her, but she didn't, as Philippa had half expected her to do, retreat into the far corner, putting as much physical distance between them as she could.

'We'll have to stop somewhere for lunch,' Philippa warned Blake as he started the car.

'What kind of things do you like to eat, Anya?' he asked as he drove off.

Silence. A small, anxious frown pleated the sallow forehead.

'For a special treat my sons love going to McDonald's,' Philippa offered, and was rewarded with a relieved look from Anya's brown eyes and a brief hint of a smile.

'McDonald's, eh?' Philippa had to fight hard not to laugh as she saw Blake's expression.