Page 37 of 2 Books in One Bundle

‘It’s not okay. It will never be okay. For all my parents’ faults, they weredesperatefor Felicity to be well. To imagine them actually making her sick... Why did she do it?’

That was the question that would never be answered. The answers died with her mother. All she could do was guess.

‘I think it’s because she was seen as a martyr, caring for my dad. When he died, she had nothing left.’

‘She hadyou.’

The expression on his face was pained. Louisa gave a weak kind of smile.

‘I wasn’t enough. My mum and dad were everything to each other. Sometimes, for her at least, I think I got in the way.’

‘I understand that sentiment.’

She looked at their hands, joined on the table. Giving each other support. They both had their crosses to bear.

‘How was your mother found out?’

She withdrew her hand from his. Wrapped her arms round herself. Shrugged. ‘I only know what I was told. One time when I was really sick, a nurse became suspicious. Blood tests were off. My mum had contaminated my IV. People began watching then, put up CCTV in the room. It all unravelled.’

‘There was no press. There was nothing.’

Louisa gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘My mother was a Bainbridge. Ofcoursethere wasn’t any press. The family tried to convince me not to say anything to the police. Said she wouldn’t hurt me any more because she’d learned her lesson.’

Matteo sat across from her, his eyes darkening. A heavy frown on his brow. ‘Is that when Mae took you?’

‘Yes. And she promised me that everything would be okay. Nothing would ever hurt me again. That I’d always have food on the table, that I’d be safe. And she kept that promise, till the day she died.’

Matteo clenched his jaw so hard it was as if his teeth might crack. What that family had done. They would have returned her to a perpetrator so long as it didn’t hurt the damned Bainbridge name.

Instead of her living the kind of life any child should have, there’d been attempts to silence her. Then she’d been taken in by Mae, who’d wrapped Louisa in a fantasy world. Didn’t challenge her, didn’t encourage her to live the life a young woman should. Instead, kept her in a kind of prison, one of safety and no risk.

Louisa needed more. She needed everything. A chance to explore the world and not be trapped by her own fears of it.

He was even more determined now to make the family suffer for what they’d done. To him, and to her.

‘No one paid for what happened to you.’

‘I’m free of it. That’s enough.’

‘Don’t you want to be avenged?’

‘I want to forget.’

Yet would she ever really be able to? That kind of thing left scars. She was still trapped by what had happened to her. He saw Easton Hall for what it was: a prison. He could show her a life that was something else. Something new to see every day. One on the move. He was an expert. In the meantime, if she wanted some forgetting, he could help with that too. He tamped his anger. Tried to remember that this night was all about her.

‘Wewerehere to celebrate you and your achievements.’

It was hard to tell under the magical string lights and in the candlelight, but he thought she might have blushed. She seemed to glow more rosily in the soft light.

‘I guess we were, small though they are.’

‘Don’t undersell yourself. Your illustrations are magnificent.’

Now he wassureshe blushed, her cheeks flushing a beautiful dusky shade. He didn’t think it had anything to do with the cute pictures of frogs he’d seen. He bet it had everything to do with the other pictures. The erotic ones. Darker. No whimsy about them. All passion.

Then something changed in the mood of the evening. A switch, as if their sharing had opened a door of secrets, letting out deeper desires. He took another sip of champagne. Tried to shut the sensation down yet what he’d seen seemed to breach his barriers. She’d said she didn’t want to get married. Her pictures were ones of passion. What if intimacy was what she wanted, without messy and inconvenient emotion?

‘Thank you. It’s something I love, imagining that my drawings are bringing joy to children.’