Kathryn Ross – Tycoon's Choice: Kept by the Tycoon / Taken by the Tycoon / The Tycoon's Proposal (страница 26)

Then to Katie, ‘Do you have to tell all my most shameful secrets? And come to that, how do you know?’

The little girl giggled. ‘Mum told me. But she thinks Bertrand is rather grand for a puppy, so I’ll probably call him Bertie for short.’ She turned her attention back to Madeleine. ‘He was rescued when his previous owner left him shut in the basement of a derelict house,’ she explained. ‘He’d almost starved to death before he was found. But he’s very friendly and he still likes people.

‘He’s from the Mill House Animal Sanctuary. Uncle Rafe gives them lots of money to help the animals…’

While they waited for the meal to be served, and between courses, Katie chatted away non-stop.

Madeleine smiled and listened and marvelled that a child she had regarded as quiet and a little shy could be so talkative.

Catching her eye, Rafe said with a wry smile, ‘As a rule Katie doesn’t say much, but when she gets excited she could talk for England.’

They had almost finished their coffee before Diane herself came hurrying in, wearing a businesslike grey suit and carrying a black shoulder-bag-cum-briefcase. Her cheeks were flushed and she sounded more than a shade breathless as she said, ‘Hi there.’

‘You’re very late, Mum,’ Katie pointed out.

‘Yes, I know, darling, and I’m sorry. I began to think I wasn’t going to make it at all. I was trapped into having lunch with a client.’

She gave her brother, who had risen at her approach, a peck on the cheek and, stooping to hug Madeleine, said with obvious sincerity, ‘It’s good to have you back.’

‘I expect you can do with some coffee?’ Rafe asked.

‘You’re a mind-reader.’ Dropping into the chair he’d pulled out for her, Diane smoothed a hand over the dark hair that fell straight and gleaming to her shoulders, and grumbled, ‘Sometimes I wonder why I keep on working.’

He smiled. ‘You know perfectly well that you love your work. If you didn’t have it, you’d be lost.’

‘That’s true. I just don’t want to be a mirror image of Mother.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think you need to worry on that score.’

‘But you wouldn’t want your wife to have a career,’ Diane noted.

‘I’d prefer her not to. Unless it would make her seriously unhappy to give it up. If that was the case, I’d have to withdraw my opposition…’ He sat back confidently.

They chatted for a minute or so until the fresh coffee had arrived and been poured, before Katie reminded him, ‘Uncle Rafe, you promised you’d show me the inside of your helicopter some time and let me sit in the pilot’s seat…’

‘Well, I will, sweetheart.’

‘Can’t you do it now?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s only a quarter to two.’

As Rafe hesitated, Diane said, ‘Go if you want to. Maddy and I can catch up on some gossip.’

‘Oh, please, Uncle Rafe.’ Katie was already on her feet and tugging at his arm.

He cast his eyes heavenwards. ‘I should have more sense than promise these things.’

‘Go on,’ Diane urged, ‘you know you want to.’ Then to Madeleine, ‘Men always enjoy showing off their toys.’

‘Femaled into it,’ he said with mock-resignation. ‘Come on, then, Poppet. We’ll pick up your coat on the way out.’

‘It’s Helga’s yoga class this afternoon,’ Diane reminded her daughter, ‘so if you see her come while you’re out there, you’d better go straight home with her. Daddy should be there by the time you get back.’

‘All right…Bye, then, Mum.’

‘Bye, darling. I won’t be late tonight.’

‘That’s good. Bye, Maddy. Come and see us soon—then you’ll be able to meet Bertie. I think you’ll like him.’ Katie ran back and put her arms round Maddy.

‘I’m sure I will,’ Madeleine agreed, and hugged the slight figure.

‘Come on, then, Uncle Rafe…’ She took his hand.

Over the child’s head his eyes met Madeleine’s, an unmistakable warning in their cool green depths, as he said lightly, ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes or so. Don’t go anywhere.’

As the tall, broad-shouldered man and the slender dark-haired child turned away, they heard Katie coax, ‘If I’m very careful, will you let me try on the earphones, Uncle Rafe?’

He smiled down at her. ‘I dare say.’

‘Oh, goodie!’

While the pair made their way to the door, Diane sipped her coffee and looked after them fondly. ‘I’ll be pleased when Rafe settles down and has a family of his own…’

Madeleine felt her heart constrict as if an iron band had tightened round it as Diane added, ‘He’ll make a really good father. He’s great with Katie, and she fairly dotes on him.’ Then a shade diffidently, ‘I hadn’t realised how things were—between you and Rafe, I mean—until he told me…’

Madeleine found herself wondering exactly how much he’d told his sister, and where Fiona fitted into all this. It didn’t sound as if Diane knew about the bargain Rafe had struck with his godfather…Or if she did, she certainly didn’t seem to be blaming him for not keeping it.

‘He hasn’t been happy while you’ve been away,’ Diane went on. ‘But now you’re back, thank the lord, and I’m only too delighted that things finally look like they’re working out…’

Not knowing what to say, Madeleine stayed silent.

‘Poor Rafe…In some ways he’s had a raw deal…’

Seeing the sceptical look on Madeleine’s face, she hurried to defend her brother. ‘Oh, yes, I know he appears to be the man who has everything, but so far, through no fault of his own, he’s lost out in ways that have really mattered to him.

‘Though he was never deprived of material possessions, he didn’t have a very happy childhood. In fact it’s a miracle he didn’t grow up warped…’

Recalling the story he’d told her about his stepfather, Madeleine began, ‘You mean…?’

‘I mean he could so easily have ended up weak, psychologically damaged. But thank the lord he’s turned out to be one of the strongest, most stable people I know.

‘The only thing I’ve ever known to really throw him off balance was when you went to the States…’ She glanced up at Madeleine and then went on, ‘But to get back to the point. Our mother wasn’t a home-maker. She never wanted children. She was a career woman through and through, and well over thirty when she married Dad. Even then she only agreed to a wedding because I was on the way.

‘Children bored her, and she couldn’t wait to get me off her hands so she could be free. Unfortunately for her, there was still Rafe to come.

‘She believed she was in the menopause, and by the time she found she was pregnant again, it was too late to do anything about it. No child asks to be born, yet, as though he was to blame, she always resented him.

‘Dad and I did our best, but he needed a mother’s love, and the more he tried to get close to her, the more she pushed him away. He was much too young to understand why…’

Madeleine’s heart bled for the poor, bewildered child who’d been so cruelly rejected. But after the way he’d treated Fiona he didn’t deserve her pity, she reminded herself.

‘Then when he was twelve and I was nineteen our father died, and six months later, to our surprise, Mother remarried. Unlike Dad, who was a kind man and wouldn’t have hurt a fly, her new husband was a brute and a bully. It’s not surprising that Rafe came to hate him…

‘To cut a long story short, when Rafe was barely fourteen, for his own safety, he was sent to live with his godparents.’

Her face clouded.

‘It’s true that they welcomed him with open arms, but even there he had his share of problems…’

Madeleine was taken aback. When Rafe had talked about his godparents, he’d made no mention of any problems. Rather he’d emphasised how well they’d treated him.

As if pushing aside unpleasant memories, Diane made a dismissive gesture and went on, ‘Though at that time the Charns could well afford it, he was anxious not to be a financial burden. He wanted to be independent, to be able to fund his own schooling.

‘As though in answer to a prayer, when our paternal aunt died she left us a small legacy in her will. I used my half to further my career, while Rafe, with his godfather’s help and approval, put his into stocks and shares.

‘When it comes to finance, my brother has the Midas touch. Everything he invested in turned to gold, and by the time he went to university he had the independence he craved.

‘He could have cut free then from the Charn household, but he didn’t,’ Diane said proudly. ‘He continued to call their house home, continued to treat them as if they were his own parents. And when Christopher ran into trouble, Rafe stood by him through thick and thin…’

Well, he would do if he was expecting to inherit Charn Industries, Madeleine thought cynically. But once again there had been no mention of Fiona.

She was about to jump in with both feet and ask where the other woman was, when Diane exclaimed, ‘Oh, lord, aren’t I rabbiting on? But I wanted you to know, to understand, that Rafe isn’t—’

‘Isn’t what?’ Rafe asked.

Both women jumped.

‘Oh, you’re back,’ Diane said. And, obviously flustered to be caught talking about him, hurried on, ‘Did Katie enjoy the helicopter?’

He grinned. ‘Enormously. She’s quite determined to get a pilot’s licence as soon as she’s old enough.’