The Secret He Must Claim

CHAPTER TWO

One year later

AN ICY BLAST of air swept into the church and the ancient oak door creaked on its hinges, heralding the arrival of a latecomer to Ralph Saunderson’s funeral. Sitting in a front pew beside her brother, Elin felt the cold draught curl around her ankles and wished she’d worn her boots. But her black patent four-inch stilettos looked better with her nineteen-fifties style coat and matching black pillbox hat with a net veil that the milliner had said made her look like Grace Kelly, and Elin had learned when she was four years old that looks were everything.

A faint frown creased between her perfectly arched brows as she listened to footsteps ring out on the stone floor of the nave. When she and Jarek had followed their adoptive father’s coffin into the church she’d noted that every pew was filled. It seemed as though the entire population of Little Bardley had turned out to bid farewell to the squire of the pretty Sussex village on the South Downs. Elin had made a mental note of the many familiar faces in the congregation so that she could thank each person who had attended the funeral.

Who had arrived halfway through the service? She felt a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades and although she tried to concentrate on the minister while he gave the eulogy, she could not dismiss an inexplicable sense of unease. When the congregation stood to sing a hymn, she glanced over her shoulder and her heart collided with her ribs when she thought she recognised the man standing at the back of the church.

Cortez!

It couldn’t be him. Elin drew a shaky breath. Her brain must be playing a cruel trick on her. It was over a year since her fateful birthday party when she’d had sex with a stranger who she’d known only as Cortez. There was no reason in the world why he would have turned up at her father’s funeral.

She jerked her head round to the front and stared down at the hymn book that shook uncontrollably between her fingers. Her brother swore softly as he slid his hand beneath her arm.

‘You’re not going to faint, are you?’ Jarek muttered. ‘The press pack who are slavering outside the church would love to snap you being carried unconscious from a venue for the second time this week. Of course there would be speculation in the tabloids that you were drunk or high at your dear papa’s funeral.’

‘You know I’m neither,’ Elin said in a low voice, while the congregation sang the second verse of the hymn. ‘I explained that I fainted at Virginia’s hen party two nights ago because it was so hot and stuffy in the nightclub.’

‘A more likely explanation is that you are still not fully recovered from Harry’s traumatic birth. I know he is three months old, but you lost God knows how many pints of blood when you haemorrhaged after giving birth,’ her brother said grimly. ‘I told you before you went to London that I didn’t think you were fit enough to return to your frenetic social life.’

Elin was stung by the faint censure in his words. The only reason she had become a familiar face on the London club scene a year ago had been so that she could try and keep Jarek out of trouble and out of the tabloids’ headlines. At least she no longer had to worry that Ralph would lose patience with her brother. Their adoptive father had died a week ago, a month after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. Jarek was destined to take over as head of Saunderson’s Bank and even though many of the bank’s board members were concerned by his reputation as a risk-taker, no one could prevent Ralph Saunderson’s heir from becoming chairman.

Elin bowed her head while the minister intoned a prayer, but her mind was on the man she’d seen in the church. She’d only caught a glimpse of him, and of course he couldn’t be Cortez, she reassured herself. Although he had known her name and London address, he had never tried to contact her in the past year and, as she did not know his surname, she’d been unable to find him to tell him about Harry.

She thought of her baby son, who had been asleep when she’d left him with his nanny in the nursery at Cuckmere Hall. Harry was innocently unaware that he had been conceived as a result of a few moments of lust between two strangers. But when he was older he was bound to be curious about his father, and Elin planned to make up a story that Harry’s father was dead. It would be better to tell her son a white lie than for him to learn that his father had abandoned him before his birth, she reasoned.

She and her brother had been abandoned by their own parents when she was a baby. Jarek had been six and he had a few vague memories of their mother and father. But Elin’s earliest memories were of looking through the bars of a cot. Jarek had told her that at the orphanage the younger children had been left in their cots, often for days. She hadn’t learned to walk until she was over two years old, and only then because her brother had sneaked into her dormitory and held her hand while she took her first steps.

Her own son had been conceived as a result of her night of shame with a stranger, but she was determined to love Harry twice as much to make up for the fact that he would never know his father.

The ceremony finished and she walked with Jarek behind Ralph’s coffin as it was carried out of the chapel. She looked closely at the people in the congregation but did not see anyone who resembled Cortez. Her imagination must have played a trick on her, she told herself, yet her sense of unease remained.

The procession of mourners filed into the graveyard and gathered around a freshly dug grave next to Lorna Saunderson’s headstone. Tears welled in Elin’s eyes. It was eighteen months since Mama had died and she still felt a deep sense of loss. Willing herself not to cry in public, she stared across the graveyard, and her heart lurched when she glimpsed a tall figure half-hidden behind the thick trunk of an old yew tree. She could not see the man’s features clearly from a distance, but something about his proud bearing and the breadth of his shoulders were familiar.

She blinked away her tears and refocused but the figure had disappeared. A flock of crows flew out of the tree, cawing loudly as if something had disturbed them. Had she imagined that she’d seen someone? Elin forced herself to concentrate on the minister reciting a final prayer, and when he finished she stepped forwards and dropped a white rose into her father’s grave.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ her brother told her later when they arrived back at Cuckmere Hall. ‘The old man is more likely to come back to haunt me than you. He did at least feel some affection for you,’ he added drily. ‘Ralph wanted to adopt a pretty little daughter but he was less keen to take on a ten-year-old boy with issues.’ Jarek strode into the house and took a glass of sherry from the butler, who was waiting in the entrance hall to greet them.

‘Ralph cared for both of us,’ Elin murmured, telling herself it was true. Admittedly she had not felt the close bond with her adoptive father that she’d had with Lorna Saunderson, but she’d been fond of the man who had been the only father she’d ever known. However, Jarek had struggled to settle into his new life in England and to accept Ralph’s authority.

‘We were his social experiment. Take a couple of kids from the lowest tier of society and see if he could mould them to fit in with the gentility.’ Jarek gave a sardonic smile. ‘It’s fair to say that Ralph had more success with you than with me.’

‘That’s not true. I’m sure he thought highly of you, and he respected your financial flair, which is why he appointed you in a senior position at Saunderson’s Bank.’

Elin took off her hat and coat and smoothed a crease from her black pencil dress. She declined the glass of sherry the butler offered her. ‘Baines, I noticed there is a car parked on the driveway. I presume that my father’s solicitor is here?’ She had hoped to run up to the nursery and spend five minutes with Harry, but she would have to wait until after the formal reading of Ralph’s will.

‘Mr Carstairs and his associate arrived ten minutes ago and I showed the gentlemen into the library.’

‘Business must be doing well for old Carstairs to drive an Aston Martin,’ Jarek commented. ‘I suppose he’s brought a trainee from the law firm with him, but there wasn’t much point. Ralph had no other family apart from us and his will must be straightforward. At least the reading of the will shouldn’t take long,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m racing later this afternoon.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t race that damned motorbike,’ Elin muttered as she followed her brother across the hallway. ‘It’s such a risky sport.’

‘Everything carries an element of risk.’ A nerve jumped in Jarek’s jaw. ‘No one could have predicted that a trip to a jewellers would cost Mama her life.’

Elin was saved from answering as she entered the library and Peter Carstairs immediately got up from an armchair. ‘Elin, Jarek, I am sure this is a difficult day for you and I will endeavour not to take up too much of your time.’

‘Thank you.’ Elin wondered why the normally affable solicitor seemed tense. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No, thank you. I think we should proceed.’ Mr Carstairs moved to the chair behind the desk and Elin followed her brother over to the sofa. She suddenly remembered that Baines had said he had shown two men into the library, but before she could suggest that they wait until the solicitor’s clerk returned—presumably he was visiting the cloakroom—Mr Carstairs picked up a document and began to read from it.

He began by announcing several small bequests that Ralph Saunderson had made to members of the household staff. ‘Next we come to the Saunderson’s estate winery.’ The solicitor cleared his throat. ‘I leave a fifty per cent share of the vineyards and winery to my adopted daughter Elin Dvorska Saunderson.’

Elin felt a jolt of surprise. She had assumed that Ralph would hand the entire ownership of the estate winery to her. She’d worked as production manager for the past eighteen months and was committed to fulfilling Lorna Saunderson’s vision of producing world class English sparkling wine. Jarek had never shown any interest in the vineyards and winery, but perhaps Ralph had hoped his heir would become more involved in developing Saunderson’s Wines, she reasoned.

She was vaguely aware of the library door opening and heard a faint click as it closed again, but her attention was on Mr Carstairs and she did not look round to see who had entered the room. The solicitor gave another nervous cough. ‘There is a stipulation attached to the bequest, Elin. Mr Saunderson decreed that you must marry within one year and provide your son with a father before you can claim your inheritance. If you choose not to fulfil the obligation, your share of Saunderson’s Wines will revert to your adoptive father’s main heir.’

Shock rendered Elin speechless. She knew her adoptive father had disapproved of her being a single mother but once Harry had been born he’d seemed delighted with the baby. ‘I can’t believe Ralph would really have expected me to meet the terms of his will,’ she said at last in a shaky voice. ‘Or that a judge would uphold such an outrageous stipulation if I contested the will.’

‘Mr Saunderson was completely within his rights to distribute his assets in any manner he saw fit,’ the solicitor murmured. ‘I have to advise you that there are no grounds on which you could contest your father’s wishes.’

Her brother reached over and squeezed Elin’s hand. ‘You know Ralph liked to play his little games,’ he said sardonically. ‘This is just his way of trying to maintain control from beyond the grave. Don’t worry, Ellie. Your share of the wine business will come to me if you haven’t married in a year and I’ll sign the whole of Saunderson’s Wines over to you. I have no desire to toil in the vineyards.’ Jarek glanced at the solicitor. ‘Do you mind getting on with it? I have other things to do today.’

Mr Carstairs cleared his throat again. ‘There are only two further items.’ He continued to read the will. ‘I leave two properties, Rose Cottage and Ivy Cottage, to my adopted children, Jarek and Elin, to live in or dispose of according to their wishes.’

Why had Ralph made the odd bequest? Elin’s feeling of unease grew. It did not make sense. Her brother was Ralph’s heir and would inherit the entire Cuckmere estate, which included Cuckmere Hall, two thousand acres of Sussex farmland, woodland and vineyards, plus thirty-five cottages and the pub in Little Bardley. She knotted her fingers together in her lap while Mr Carstairs continued.

‘Finally, I give everything I own at my death, excluding the aforementioned bequests, all monies and properties and also the position of chairman of Saunderson’s Bank, of which it is my right to appoint my successor, to my only natural son, Cortez Ramos.’

Silence. Lasting for what felt like a lifetime. Elin pressed her hand to her chest to try and ease the violent thud of her heart as the solicitor’s words reverberated around her head.

Cortez.

It couldn’t be the Cortez she’d had sex with a year ago. It must be a ghastly coincidence, she frantically told herself. But her sense of dread intensified when she remembered the dark figure she’d caught sight of in the graveyard. What did Ralph’s astonishing will mean for her and Jarek? For her son? Her heart felt as if it would jump out of her chest. Fear, she realised. The certainty of the future that she had taken for granted had just been blown apart.

She was aware that her brother had stiffened but as always he kept tight control over his emotions. ‘Is this some kind of joke, Carstairs?’ Jarek drawled. ‘You know full well that Ralph and Lorna Saunderson were unable to have children and so they adopted my sister and I. Ralph did not have a natural son and this Cortez Ramos, whoever he is, cannot have any legal claim to my adoptive father’s estate.’

Before Mr Carstairs could reply, a voice spoke from the back of the room. A deep voice with a husky accent that Elin had heard too often in her dreams in the past year. ‘Ralph did not have a legitimate natural son, but he had a bastard.’ The voice became harsh. ‘I am Ralph Saunderson’s biological son and heir.’