A Lost Love. Carole Mortimer

the legal separation.

      With Rafe's influence the Greg Davieson show had been cancelled, and both he and the girls, Sensuous Romance, had been out of a job, with no possibility of getting another one when it was known Rafe Charlwood didn't want them to. Sensuous Romance had decided to try their luck in America, and they had invited Jacqui to go along with them. She was almost past caring what she did by then, knowing that Rafe would stop her seeing Robert at any price. Her efforts to take him to court for access to her son had been in her favour, yet still he defied those orders. She had appealed to his aunt then. Jocelyn was always her ally, and had agreed to bring Robert to see her. But Rafe had found out about that too, and had warned her, through his lawyers once again, that if she did anything like it again he would have her charged with kidnapping. At that moment she had known that Rafe was too powerful and cruel an adversary for her to fight and win, and the decision to go to America was taken out of her hands.

      The car crash so soon after their arrival in Los Angeles had left three of the six girls dead, the others seriously injured. Jocelyn Charlwood had been the one to come over to America to identify the body of her niece-in-law, only to find that she was still very much alive, although her head injuries meant that she could be scarred for life. Jocelyn had wanted to tell Rafe that his wife was still alive, but Jacqui's pleading that she didn't, the fact that the doctor warned that she was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown, had persuaded Jocelyn not to do so. For three days and nights the older woman had sat by her bedside, had talked her back to sanity, had promised to help in any way she could, and had agreed to help her see Robert after the plastic surgery had been completed.

      And she had. She was still helping even now she was dead, knowing that the cottage was the only way Jacqui—or Brooke as she was now called—could ever be with her son. Rafe's hatred of her was so deep that he would never let her near Robert if he once guessed who she really was.

      She should never have become Rafe's wife, she knew that now. It would have been so much better, for them all, if Rafe had just kept her as his mistress. But then she wouldn't have given him his son, and that had been what he married her for, after all; she had learnt the truth of that from her last heated exchange with Rosemary. Rafe had never loved her, didn't want to get married at all, but with Rosemary's barren state a Charlwood heir was needed, and it was up to him to provide it. A nice unobtrusive wife who could give him a son and then be dismissed from his life had been the reason he married her.

      With only an uncaring aunt and uncle for a family she must have seemed the perfect choice to him, a little nobody who pleased him in bed—for a time. Her boredom, her defiance in seeing Greg Davieson and her old friends, must have greatly annoyed him, especially the scandal that had been caused, and reported in the newspapers, when she had fought him for custody of their child. Her death so soon after their separation must have seemed providential to him, having meant the scandal wasn't raked up again when he actually divorced her. The fact that he hadn't even come to Los Angeles to identify the body himself just proved that he had never cared for her.

      Charlwood looked more imposing than normal as she drove up to the gates three weeks later, expecting an argument with the guard, prepared to meet it with one of her own. To her surprise the gates swung open as soon as she approached them in the Porsche, and the man waved her through with a friendly smile.

      How ironic, she thought. She wouldn't have got within a mile of the house if it were known who she really was, and yet here she was driving straight past the main house, her cottage being about half a mile away, far enough away for her to live in privacy, but near enough for her to catch the occasional glimpse of Robert. He was a very healthy little boy, very robust; she just hoped that his father didn't break his spirit as he had once broken hers.

      She had seen nothing of Rafe during the last three weeks, although she knew he had been informed by the lawyer of her decision to accept the cottage and not the shares. The lawyer had seemed relieved by her decision when she called him several days after the funeral. Her own feelings were still mixed—relief at being able to see Robert, dread at the thought that she would also see Rafe. Whatever love she had once felt for him had been slowly destroyed during their year of marriage, his savage taking of Robert from her making her hate him. And it was that hatred that she feared. At the moment Rafe seemed to be lightly pursuing her, the dinner invitations very real. But if he became too persistent, as she knew he could be, she was frightened what she might say to him in anger. Because she would never consent to going out with him, knowing too well the brand of pain he inflicted.

      Jocelyn's cottage—she doubted she would ever be able to think of it as anything else!—faced away from the main house towards the river, its setting beautiful among the old oak trees, surrounded by a small neatly kept garden, wild roses trailing up and along the walls in a kaleidoscope of colour.

      It was beautifully peaceful, far removed from the formality of the main house. Jocelyn had lived alone here until the last few months before her death, when Rafe had insisted she have one of the maids from the house to do the cleaning and cooking. Brooke had decided she would remain here alone herself, so the maid was back in the main house now, her own days being long and empty enough for her to take care of herself. After the accident, in which one of her legs had been broken and retained a weakness, dancing had been out for her, and with the money she had left from Rafe's more than generous settlement on her after the separation, she had no need to work anyway, aware that if she did she would stand little chance of seeing Robert. Rafe had never placed a lot of importance on money—probably because he had so much of it!—and as far as she knew he had never enquired what had happened to her fortune after her death. As far as she was aware he hadn't given her a second thought after that!

      The cottage was as charming inside as it was out, olde-worlde, with chintzy furniture and curtains. Brooke felt as if she had come home after a long time away, and she put down her suitcases to look about her appreciatively, sure that she was going to be happy here.

      Although the vase of yellow roses on the coffee-table struck a note of unease, and she walked over to read the card tucked among the blooms, dropping it again as if it had burnt her as she read the message written there. ‘Welcome to Charlwood, Rafe'. The message differed in only one word from the one that had accompanied the red roses that had been placed in her bedroom when she came back to Charlwood a new bride, but then Rafe had added ‘love’ before his name. The emotion had proved to be as false as the man himself, and taking the vase of yellow roses she threw them into the bin in the kitchen, feeling no remorse for the perfect yellow blooms, the fragments of the ripped card scattered on top of them.

      ‘Hello?’

      She turned sharply at the sound of that soft query, leaning back against the unit as she saw her son standing at the doorway he had quietly opened. Pain stabbed at her heart that she couldn't pick him up and hold him the way she wanted to, but she knew that would only distress him—their acquaintance had so far been casual in the extreme. Although she intended changing all that, and as soon as possible.

      ‘Hello, Robert,’ she greeted lightly, closing the cupboard door firmly on the discarded roses. ‘You know who I am, don't you?’ she prompted gently as he still looked a little uncertain of her, his eyes as blue as her own, the only feature he had inherited from her as far as she could tell, the rest of him being all Rafe. But at least he didn't have those cold grey eyes.

      ‘Brooke,’ he nodded shyly. ‘You visit Aunt Jossy sometimes.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘She's gone away, you know,’ he spoke with a maturity far beyond his three years. ‘Nanny Perkins says Aunt Jossy has gone to see God, but Connie says she's dead. What's dead mean?’ he frowned his puzzlement.

      Brooke knew that Maureen Perkins, a woman of fifty, looked after Robert in the position of nanny, and that Connie Roberts, a girl of twenty, helped out in the nursery. They had both been waiting at the house the day she brought Robert home, and although her dislike of them wasn't personal she still couldn't bring herself to like or accept the fact that two other women were bringing up her son.

      ‘It means that that person has gone away,’ she explained gently, ‘and that they will never come back.’

      His still-babyish face creased into a frown of concentration. ‘Does that mean my mummy