Dangerous to Know. Barbara Taylor Bradford

lamp, I pulled the covers up over me and settled down for the night, hoping to fall asleep quickly. It had been such an exhausting day emotionally. A day of shock. A day of sorrow.

      Moonlight filled the room. The silence was a balm. I lay there drifting with my thoughts; Sebastian was foremost in them. We had shared so much in this room. So much pleasure. So much heartbreak. I am convinced that I conceived my child in this room, his child, the child I lost in miscarriage. And, once again, I found myself wondering if Sebastian and I would have remained together if that child had been born. Perhaps.

      Cradled in his arms, I had lain in this bed, weeping on his shoulder, and he had comforted me about the loss of our baby. How could Jack believe he was a monster? Nothing was further from the truth. Sebastian had always comforted and nurtured me. And everyone else, for that matter. Jack was so terribly wrong about him; his judgment about Sebastian was flawed, just as it was flawed about most things in his personal life. He had made a mess of it and he loved to blame others, especially his father. I loved Jack like a brother, but I saw him with clear eyes.

      Sebastian had always been there for me, for as long as I could remember, since my childhood. I recall so well the afternoon he had come to me, after my mother had been found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps at his farm. I had just arrived from Manhattan; Jess, my mother’s housekeeper, had phoned him the instant I had walked through the front door and he had rushed over to Ridgehill immediately, full of concern for me.

      It had been such a warm June day, unnaturally hot for that time of year, and I had been sitting on the balcony of this room, distraught, sobbing, my heart breaking, when he had come looking for me.

      Eighteen years ago.

      I had been eighteen when my mother died. So long ago now. Half my life ago. Yet it might have been yesterday, so vividly did I recall it.

      I found myself focusing on the past yet again, and I walked back into that June afternoon of 1976.

      “Vivienne…darling…I’m here! I’m here for you,” Sebastian said, coming through the bedroom and out onto the balcony like a whirlwind.

      I lifted my head and blinked, staring at him, my eyes blinded by my tears and the bright sunlight streaming out behind him.

      He was by my side in an instant, sitting down next to me on the long bench. Worriedly he looked into my face and his own was bleak, strained. A muscle pulsed in his temple, and his startlingly blue eyes were dulled by sadness.

      Wiping away the tears on my cheeks with his fingertips, he enveloped me in his arms, held me close, soothed me as though soothing a wounded child.

      “It’s such a terrible tragedy,” he murmured against my hair. “I cared for her too, Vivienne, so I know what you’re suffering. I’m suffering myself.” As he spoke his arms tightened around me.

      I clutched him. “It’s not fair,” I sobbed. “She was so young. Only forty-two. I don’t understand how it happened. How did it happen? How did my mother fall down the basement steps, Sebastian? Do you think she got dizzy and lost her balance? And why was she going into the basement, anyway?”

      “I don’t know. No one knows. It was an accident,” he replied, then drew slightly away and looked down into my face. “You’re aware she’d come to stay with me, whilst some of the rooms at Ridgehill were being painted, but I wasn’t in Connecticut last night. I was in the city for a Locke Foundation dinner. I got up at the crack of dawn and drove out to the farm, wanting to have breakfast with her. And also hoping to go riding with her later. When I arrived, the whole place was in an uproar. Aldred had found her body earlier and had called the police. Then he’d spoken to Jess, told her to get in touch with you. By the time I got hold of her, you were already on your way to New Preston.”

      I nodded, and before I could say anything my grief overcame me once more, and fresh tears flowed. Sebastian continued to comfort me; he was so kind.

      At last, I managed to say to him, “Jess believes my mother died instantly. Do you think she did? I couldn’t bear it if I thought she’d suffered.”

      “I’m sure Jess is right. When someone tumbles down a steep flight of stairs I think it must go very fast…in a terrible rush. There’s no question in my mind that she did die immediately. She couldn’t have suffered, rest assured of that.”

      Conjuring up the image of my mother falling to meet her doom, I suddenly cried out in my anguish. He held me closer, calming me as best he could. “I know, I know,” he said softly against my hair.

      “You’re going to miss her, Sebastian,” I eventually muttered. “You loved her, too.”

      “Yes.”

      I buried my face against his chest and held onto him as if he were the only thing I had left in the world. In a way, he was; and he was my safe haven.

      Sebastian stroked my hair, smoothed his hand down my arm, continuing to murmur gentle words. I pressed myself even closer, and I felt as though I were somehow drawing strength from him.

      We sat together like this on the balcony for a long time, and eventually a kind of peacefulness drifted over me and my tears finally ceased altogether. But he made no move to get up, and neither did I; and so we continued to sit on the old bench.

      At one moment I stiffened inside and held my breath, hardly daring to move. Something quite strange was happening to me. My heart was pumping rapidly; my throat had gone dry and was suddenly constricted.

      The blood rushed up into my face; I understood exactly what was happening, understood myself only too well. I wanted him to stop kissing my hair and kiss me instead. I wanted his mouth on mine. I wanted his hand stroking my breast, not my arm. I wanted him to make love to me. Without knowing it, he was arousing me sexually, and I discovered I didn’t want him to stop. When I realized how damp I was between my legs my face flamed. I was mortified.

      I did not dare to stir in his arms. I did not dare to look at him. He could read my mind; he’d always known what I was thinking ever since I was a little girl.

      And so I continued to sit there, waiting for these extraordinary feelings to subside, to go away. I was confused and embarrassed. How could I be experiencing such feelings, today of all days? My mother was lying dead in the morgue at Farmington, probably being autopsied by the Chief Medical Examiner at this very moment.

      I shuddered inside. Sebastian had been her lover for more than six years. And now I wanted him for myself. I shuddered again, hating myself for my dreadful thoughts about him, hating my body, which was so betraying me at this moment.

      Thankfully, at last, Sebastian’s arms slackened and he let go of me. Tilting my face to his, he kissed me lightly on the forehead. He attempted a smile, looked as if he were about to speak, but remained silent.

      Eventually, he said in a low, concerned voice, “I realize you must be feeling very much alone, but you do have me, Vivienne dear. And you mustn’t worry about a thing. I will look after you. I know it’s impossible for me to take your mother’s place, but I am your friend, and I’m here for you whenever you need me.”

      “Ever since that day you found me in the gazebo, that first day we met, I’ve felt protected by you,” I replied, and I meant every word.

      Again he tried to smile, but without much success. After a brief moment, he said, “You must always come to me, whatever the problem. I won’t let you down, I promise.” A small sigh escaped him, and he said, almost to himself, “You were such a lovely child. You touched my heart.”

      And now he was dead, and no longer there to protect me, and my life would be that much poorer without him. I pushed my face into the pillow and it was a long time before I could stem the tears.

      I must have eventually fallen asleep, for when I awakened with a start sunlight was streaming in through the many windows. Last night I had forgotten to draw the curtains and a new day had dawned. I could hear the chirping of the birds outside, and far away, in the distance, the cawk