Joined By Marriage

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‘Rebecca was my client—’

‘Rebecca is dead,’ Brianna coldly cut into Peter Landris’s protest. ‘I appear to be your client now—and I would rather hear this from Nathan.’ He, at least, appeared able to talk about all of this unemotionally.

‘Father?’ Nathan glanced at the older man.

‘Go ahead,’ his father invited dully. ‘I—Seeing Brianna, the likeness to—It’s been a shock...’

‘Have a cup of cold coffee and a rapidly curling sandwich.’ Brianna poured the coffee for him, before turning back to the younger man. ‘Nathan?’ she pressed again, his father forgotten.

Nathan sighed, pulling up another chair and sitting down on the same side of the desk as Brianna, his pale blue eyes strangely compassionate. ‘We have to start with your grandparents—’

‘Rebecca’s mother and father?’

‘This will be much quicker if you don’t interrupt after every statement,’ Nathan told her sharply.

Much quicker. Although she had pushed the need to return to work firmly to the back of her mind, time was still passing rapidly. ‘Sorry,’ she ventured.

He acknowledged her apology with an arrogant nod of his head. ‘Your grandparents—Joanne and Giles. Joanne was the daughter of a very rich man; Giles was a local farmer. But, nevertheless, the two of them apparently fell in love and married. A year into the marriage Joanne gave birth to Rebecca. There were to be no more children.’

This was much better, much easier for Brianna to deal with emotionally.

‘Despite its apparently romantic beginning—’ Nathan couldn’t seem to help the cynical twist to his lips that accompanied this statement ‘—it wasn’t a particularly happy marriage. Giles came to quickly resent the fact that it was his wife who held the purse-strings, and he didn’t care for his daughter, or the pull she had on her mother’s time and love.’

‘It should have read “broken heart” on Joanne’s death certificate too,’ Peter Landris muttered harshly.

Nathan glared his father into silence. ‘At the age of eight, Rebecca was sent away to boarding-school,’ he continued evenly. ‘Her mother, it seems, never got over the loss.’

‘But there must have been holidays—’

‘Giles always made sure they were out of the country for those.’ It was Peter Landris who answered her. ‘Leaving Rebecca in the care of a housekeeper when she was at home. Joanne rarely saw her daughter during the next three years.’

‘I—But that’s inhuman!’ Brianna protested. ‘How could anyone be so cruel?’

‘If I could just continue?’ Nathan cut in icily, his brows raised as he waited for Brianna’s attention to return to him.

‘But this is all so—it’s like something out of a Victorian novel.’ Brianna shook her head dazedly. ‘I can’t believe anyone could get away with treating his wife and daughter in that way less than forty years ago!’

‘Can’t you?’ Nathan said bleakly. ‘Then perhaps you should see some of the cases that come to court nowadays!’

She had seen some of the battered wives and children that were brought into the hospital. ‘But Joanne was the one with the money.’ She frowned. ‘Surely that gave her a certain amount of—freedom?’

‘Giles was Rebecca’s father—a fact he never let Joanne forget,’ Peter Landris put in baldly. ‘I can assure you, Joanne was by no means a weak woman, but she did have a weakness. And that weakness was her child.’

Not physical cruelty, Brianna realised, but emotional blackmail—who could say which was worse?

‘Go on,’ she invited gruffly, wondering what other horrors she was going to hear about her family; perhaps Rebecca had done her the biggest favour of all by keeping her well away from them!

‘When Rebecca was thirteen, her mother died.’ Nathan was now the one to continue. He shot his father another censorious look as he added, ‘In a car accident. But her death left Rebecca with only her father.’

‘He didn’t take her out of boarding-school?’ Brianna said worriedly, beginning to care about Rebecca in spite of herself. Her own childhood had been such a happy one, with parents and a brother who loved her, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of the loneliness Rebecca must have endured as she was growing up.

‘No, he didn’t do that.’ Nathan gave the ghost of a smile in reassurance. ‘Rebecca continued to stay at the boarding-school; her father continued to be absent when she came home for the holidays. But there were no letters or telephone calls from her mother to sustain her. As was to be expected, Rebecca became desperate for love, for someone to care about her. As she got older there were—relationships. The majority of them with totally unsuitable men. But in this Giles had no say. What could he have threatened Rebecca with?’ Nathan stated frankly. ‘He had never given her anything he could possibly take away from her.’

Brianna was watching Nathan closely, questioningly. ‘You liked my mother,’ she said slowly, realising there was a warmth in his voice as he spoke of her.

Emotion flashed briefly in those pale blue eyes behind the glasses, and then it was gone, replaced by that mask of professionalism she was used to. ‘Rebecca, despite her unorthodox upbringing, was impossible not to like. She was full of life, and laughter, and beauty. Perhaps too much of the latter,’ he added wistfully. ‘It left her prey to the—attentions of men.’

Brianna frowned. ‘Are you saying my mother was promiscuous?’

‘Certainly not,’ he snapped, his mouth a thin line. ‘I’m saying she didn’t always love wisely.’

‘As she didn’t where my father was concerned. Did he happen to be married to someone else?’ Brianna guessed shrewdly.

‘We don’t know,’ Nathan said flatly. ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Perhaps her letter to you will explain all that to you,’ he added gruffly, glancing briefly at his father.

Brianna looked at him sharply, disbelievingly. She had learnt so much of Rebecca’s background in the last few minutes. Her father, she believed, had been a despot who denied his wife and daughter their love for each other. Rebecca had been the emotionally deprived child of that union, a child who had grown to young womanhood craving love, and not always finding it in the places that she should have.

Brianna had listened to all of this, had felt pity for her grandmother and her mother in an abstract way, even a little for the grandfather who must have been a very insecure man to have ruled his family in the way that he had. She had listened and had felt sorrow for such unhappiness, but it was a story of someone else’s life—a life unrelated to her own.

But a letter... A letter written to her by her mother was so much more...

She didn’t want it.

Didn’t want it.

Couldn’t read it...

CHAPTER THREE

‘GENTLEMEN.’ She stood up. ‘I thank you for your time, and the information you’ve given me today. Now I have more of an idea of what my natural mother and her family were like.’ She turned to leave.

‘Where are you going?’ Pete Landris sounded bewildered by her dismissal.

She turned back only slightly. ‘I have to get back to work now.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll drive you.’ Nathan had moved silently to her side.

‘But we haven’t finished,’ his father protested behind them. ‘There’s so much more. Rebecca’s death. Brianna’s inheritance—’

‘And Brianna has had more than enough already today for her to cope with,’ Nathan told him harshly, before turning back to Brianna. ‘I’ll drive you wherever you want to go,’ he offered gently.

‘I’m sure you’re very busy,’ she refused vaguely, needing to be away from these offices, away from the two Landris men. ‘I can get a bus. Take a taxi.’

‘I’m not busy at all,’ Nathan said firmly, lightly grasping her arm as they went out into the corridor. “The buses are incredibly irregular around here. And a taxi would be an unnecessary expense when I’ve already offered to drive you wherever you want to go.’

Brianna didn’t argue any more, standing silently by while Nathan informed Hazel of his departure, taking no interest in the brief conversation he had with a grey-haired man passing through Reception, although she sensed the other man’s interest in her as she left with Nathan. Not another one who recognised her as Rebecca’s daughter...! It was a very strange feeling to know she looked so much like someone she had never even known—and would never know...

‘My uncle, Roger Davis,’ Nathan supplied as he took her out to the private car park at the back of the building. ‘He’s married to my mother’s sister.’

He was also Nathan’s father’s partner. It really was a family-run business. And the Landris family seemed to know rather a lot about her mother and her family. Too much so, in the circumstances, Brianna was beginning to realise. ‘Nathan—’

‘Here we are.’ He unlocked a dark green Jaguar saloon car, opening the passenger door for Brianna to get in. ‘Just tell me where you want to go,’ he said, once he was seated beside her.

She gave him the name of the hospital where she worked, watching him as he drove. He handled the car in the same way he seemed to deal with everything, capably, with the minimum of effort, and completely unemotionally—even when another driver cut dangerously in front of the Jaguar at a busy junction. The Ice Man, no matter what the situation.

‘Have dinner with me this evening?’

His invitation was so at odds with her thoughts of him that for a moment Brianna was stunned into silence. The icy Nathan Landris had just invited her out to dinner with him!

‘Why?’ she returned abruptly.

Dark brows rose over those pale blue eyes, his mouth quirking, although his visual attention didn’t waver from the road and traffic in front of him. ‘Is this your usual response when a man invites you to spend the evening with him?’

Her mouth curved upwards, some of her earlier tension leaving her. ‘No,’ she acknowledged. ‘But then, it wasn’t a usual invitation!’

‘I can assure you that it was,’ he drawled.

Her eyes widened. ‘It was?’

‘It was,’ he confirmed dryly. ‘Unless there’s a young man in your life somewhere whom you feel might object to your accepting?’

Brianna had the feeling the question wasn’t as casually asked as he’d made it sound. Although why he should have any interest in the romantic side of her life, she couldn’t imagine. Even if he had invited her out to dinner...

‘Not at the moment, no,’ she answered him smilingly.

Her most recent relationship, with a young doctor at the hospital, had ended three months ago, by mutual agreement; Jim had worked nights and Brianna had worked days, and the strain of trying to keep up even a casual relationship had finally proved too much of a strain.

‘Then I repeat, would you have dinner with me this evening?’ Nathan pressed her.

In her head she repeated her own question—why? Nathan didn’t give her the impression he was in the least impulsive—in fact quite the opposite!—and, despite what he said, she didn’t think this invitation was unpremeditated, either.

Nathan turned and smiled at her, the smile that transformed him from a coldly removed man to a rakishly charming one, as she had glimpsed yesterday. A dangerously attractive one...! He couldn’t be two people, and yet...

‘Is there a young lady in your life who might object to my accepting?’ she returned evenly.

His mouth quirked again. ‘Not at the moment, no.’ He repeated her words of a few minutes ago.

It was the answer Brianna had expected him to make. Not because she didn’t think there hadn’t been women in his life—that smile said otherwise!—but because she didn’t think he was the type of man to invite one woman out while he was involved with another. For one thing, she doubted he would want the complications that would involve.

‘In that case, I accept,’ she told him.

He nodded, showing no emotion at her capitulation. ‘I’ll call at your home for you, at eight o’clock. I have the address.’ He forestalled her next comment. ‘It’s on file at the office.’

Of course it was. As were a lot of other things, things personal to her, things that, until today, she’d had had no knowledge of. Most of which she would rather still have no knowledge of, including a letter Rebecca seemed to have left for her!

The puzzle of that letter was going to burn a hole in her curiosity; she knew it was. Already part of her was wondering what was written there, what her mother had wanted to say to her daughter once she reached twenty-one. Had Rebecca loved her baby? Hated her because she had complicated her life? Did she say who Brianna’s father was? Had she even known who he was?

Did it matter? Did any of it matter? It was the past, the principal player dead and buried long ago—

‘He’s still alive, you know.’ Nathan spoke softly at her side.

She gave him a startled look. ‘Who is?’ She was completely taken aback, both because he seemed to have read her thoughts so easily, and by the statement itself. He had stated earlier that her mother hadn’t said who her father was, that no one knew—

‘Your grandfather,’ Nathan said in reply. ‘Giles is still alive.’

Brianna looked at him uncomprehendingly for several long seconds. That man, the man who had made her grandmother’s and her mother’s lives such a misery, was still living? It didn’t seem fair somehow, not after all the misery he had caused to his family.

‘Did you hear me, Brianna?’ Nathan glanced at her frowningly. ‘I said—’

‘I heard you,’ she said tensely, surprised—and pleased!—to see that they had arrived at the hospital. ‘Thank you for the lift, Nathan.’ She gave him a bright, meaningless smile. ‘I’ll see you later this evening.’