Emma Harte 04 Emma's Secret Read online

  B A R B A R A T A Y L O R B R A D F O R D

  ___________________

  Emma’s Secret

  For Bob, as always, with all my love

  CO N T E N T S

  PROLOGUE

  2000

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Dynasty: 2001

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PART TWO

  Legend: 1940

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  PART THREE

  Legacy: 2001

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Acknowledgements

  The Three Clans

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  2000

  ‘In my end is my beginning.’

  Mary, Queen of Scots

  PROLOGUE

  She sat very still in the chair next to the bed, holding her grandmother’s hand. It was so quiet in the hospital room she could hear her breathing, the breath coming in soft little intakes and exhalations.

  The old woman’s face was relaxed, the tension gone from it as she dozed, and she appeared to be younger than her years, younger than she had looked in a very long time.

  Perhaps she will get better, Evan thought, her eyes on her grandmother, the person whom she loved most in the whole world except for her father. She wished he would get here. He was driving into Manhattan from Connecticut and had left several hours ago; she couldn’t imagine what was making him this late. Evan glanced at her watch, and when she saw the time she realized he was probably snarled up in the late afternoon traffic of Manhattan … rush hour was imminent and Thanksgiving was next week. Too many cars in the city today, she decided, trying to relax. A moment later Evan focused on her grandmother once more, and a small sigh escaped her; she couldn’t imagine her life without her beloved Gran in it. The prospect was bleak.

  She had been suffering with a kidney infection and had gone into kidney failure. It was only a question of time.

  Glynnis Jenkins Hughes. The Welsh girl from the Rhondda Valley, who had arrived in America fifty-four years ago as a GI Bride. Come to these shores to join her GI husband Richard Hughes, and bringing with her their small son Owen, conceived and born in England when Richard had been stationed there in the Second World War.

  And she’s been as much a mother to me as she has to Dad, Evan decided, leaning back in the chair, closing her eyes, allowing a fund of childhood memories to come flooding back … Gran always there for them … always laughing, full of fun and gaiety, her warmth and love so abundant, her capacity for caring boundless.

  Her mother had been ill for as long as Evan could remember, and still was, a manic depressive living in a world of her own, out of reality, out of their lives in a certain sense.

  One day, many years ago, her Gran had come up to Connecticut from New York City and had taken over, muttering that they were all too little to fend for themselves. And adding, in a quieter voice, but not so quiet Evan didn’t hear, that a man needed a hot meal to come home to at night, as well as loving arms to hold him, a good woman to give him comfort and warmth and understanding. To boost him, when he needed it, to bolster his confidence.

  Gran had spent several years sheltering her and her two sisters, Elayne and Angharad, taking care of them, running their young lives. She had been full of robust energy, enthusiasm and good will, a happy woman, comfortable in her own skin, who wanted only to share her joy in living with them and their father, her only child. Which she did so profoundly, Evan thought, and she is the best part of me. She made me what I am.

  Finally opening her eyes, Evan glanced towards her grandmother. A smile broke across her troubled face when she saw that Glynnis was awake.

  ‘You were dozing, Evan,’ Glynnis said weakly, her voice whispery.

  ‘Not really. Just resting my eyes and thinking, Grandma.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘You, and how you took care of us so well when we were little girls. And Dad, too.’

  A smile touched Glynnis’s lips, and quite unexpectedly her rheumy old eyes cleared, became alive, very bright and shining, the blueness remarkable in its intensity.

  Squeezing her grandmother’s hand, Evan exclaimed, ‘You’ll be out of here soon! You’ll see.’

  ‘Where’s Owen?’ Glynnis murmured, her voice querulous, barely audible.

  ‘Dad’s on his way. He’ll be arriving any minute … he’s probably caught in traffic’

  ‘Leave here,’ Glynnis instructed hoarsely.

  ‘I can’t leave you alone, Gran!’ Evan protested, shaking her head. Wondering what this was all about, she frowned and added, ‘I want to be here to take care of you, and so does Dad.’

  ‘Leave New York … that’s what I meant … you’re twenty-six … should be out … in the world …’ Glynnis’s voice trailed off wearily. And she sighed, seemed to sink further into the pillows.

  Evan leaned closer to her grandmother, her eyes fixed on her unwaveringly. ‘I’m happy here, I love my job at Saks … and anyway, I want to be near you.’

  ‘I’m dying.’ Glynnis’s lids fluttered, and she stared back at Evan, held her granddaughter with her own steady gaze.

  ‘Don’t say that, Gran! You’re going to get better. I know you are.’ Evan’s eyes filled, and she tightened her grip on Glynnis’s fragile fingers.

  ‘Old,’ Glynnis whispered, ‘too old now.’

  ‘No, you’re not! You’re only seventy-nine, that’s not old these days,’ Evan protested, her voice rising.

  Glynnis sighed, and her heart clenched. It was unbearable for her to see her granddaughter’s tears, to witness her pain. My one true love, she thought, well there was the other, but that was so long ago it doesn’t matter any more. Evan was always mine. Like my own daughter, the daughter I never had with Richard. Dearest, dearest Richard. The truest husband a woman could ever want. Such a good man. The best man I ever knew; the right man to spend a lifetime with, after all. So much to say to Evan. So little time left. I must get my thoughts unscrambled … get them straight. I should have told her before … but I was afraid …

  ‘Gran! Gran!’ Evan cried. ‘Please, Gran, open your eyes!’

  Slowly Glynnis’s eyelids lifted, and as
she gazed at her granddaughter again, a sudden radiance flooded her wrinkled face. ‘I was thinking of your grandfather, Evan. Such a good man, Richard Hughes.’

  ‘We loved him too, Grandma.’

  ‘Do you think he’s waiting for me? Do you believe in an afterlife, Evan? Is there a heaven, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, Gran.’ Evan brushed her eyes with her fingertips, flicked away the tears. ‘I hope so, I really do.’

  ‘I think perhaps there is … don’t weep for me, Evan, I’ve had a good life … sad at times … painful, too … But I’ve enjoyed it all … there’s always the bad along with the good …’ Glynnis drifted off once more, lost in her thoughts, trying to summon the last vestiges of her strength.

  Evan bent closer, touching Glynnis’s cheek very gently. ‘I’m here, Grandma.’

  ‘I know, dear.’ Glynnis sighed, and a faint smile flickered on her wide and generous mouth.

  Evan said, ‘Dad’ll be here any minute now,’ and she hoped that he would. She pushed her spiralling anxiety away.

  ‘I loved him too much,’ Glynnis muttered suddenly.

  ‘You can never love a child too much – you said that yourself, Gran.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, long ago, to me, when I was a little girl.’

  ‘I don’t remember. Evan?’

  ‘Yes, Gran?’

  ‘Go to Emma.’

  ‘Emma? Who’s Emma?’

  ‘Emma Harte. In London. She has … the key. To your future. Oh, Evan—’ Glynnis stopped speaking abruptly, stared at her granddaughter with enormous intensity as though committing her face to memory, and then she closed her eyes. A long, fluttering sigh rippled through her before she lay absolutely still.

  ‘Gran,’ Evan said in a low, insistent tone. ‘Gran.’

  There was no response, not even the flicker of an eyelash. Evan glanced down at their hands clasped together on top of the sheet and she saw that her grandmother’s hand had gone slack in hers. She felt her throat closing. Her eyes welled.

  Gran’s gone, Evan thought. Gone to another place. She’s out of her pain and suffering, at peace.

  Bending forward, Evan kissed Glynnis’s stillwarm cheek; the tears spilled out of her eyes and slid down her face as grief engulfed her. So distraught was she that Evan did not hear her father come into the hospital room. It was only when she felt his loving hand resting lightly on her shoulder that she became aware of his presence.

  ‘She’s gone?’ Owen asked, a catch in his voice.

  ‘Yes, Dad, but only a second ago.’ As she spoke, Evan smoothed her hand over Glynnis’s silver hair, and then she got up, turned to her father. When she saw the tears in her father’s blue eyes, the anguish on his face, she stepped into his arms, wanting to comfort him and needing his comfort in return.

  They clung together for a few seconds. Finally, Owen said, ‘I tried to get here before she died.’

  ‘I know Dad, and Gran knew that too.’

  ‘Did she have any last word for me?’

  ‘She said she loved you too much.’

  Her father was silent, a reflective look crossing his face. A moment later he released Evan and went to sit beside his mother, his dark head bent over her, his sorrow apparent.

  Evan, watching him, concerned for him, did not immediately think of her grandmother’s last words to her. When she did, she was baffled.

  And some time later she went to London. To find Emma Harte. To find her future.

  PART ONE

  Dynasty

  2001

  Hold your friends close,

  Your enemies closer.

  ANONYMOUS

  Be not forgetful to entertain

  strangers: For thereby some have

  entertained angels unawares.

  Hebrews 13: 1–2

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a blustery morning.

  The penetrating wind blowing in from the North Sea was laden with moisture, and the dampness was heavy on the air, and icy. Linnet O’Neill felt as though it were seeping into her bones.

  She huddled further into her thick, loden-green wool coat and tied her scarf tighter around her head. Then, thrusting her gloved hands into her pockets, she trudged on, doggedly following the winding path which would bring her to the crest of the moors.

  After a moment she lifted her head and glanced up.

  Above her, the arc of the sky appeared hollowed out, resembled the inside of a vast, polished bowl. It was the colour of steel, its metallic greyness relieved by a few scudding clouds, pale and wispy in the clear crystalline light so peculiar to these northern climes. It was an eerie light that seemed to emanate from some hidden source below the horizon.

  When she first set out to walk up into the high country which soared above Pennistone Royal, Linnet had anticipated rain, but the massed black clouds of earlier had been scuttled by the gusting wind.

  Since she had lived here all of her life, she knew about the weather and its unpredictability, knew that the skies of Yorkshire were ever-changing. By lunchtime the sun could easily be creeping out from behind the greyness to fill the heavens with radiance, or rain might be slashing down in a relentless, unending stream.

  You took your chances when you went walking on the Yorkshire moors, she knew that. But she didn’t care. Ever since she had been a small child, these moors had been irresistible to her; she had loved to come here with her mother when she was little, to wander amongst the heather and the bracken, content to play alone with her stuffed animals in the vast emptiness surrounding her. It was her world; she had even believed it belonged to her when she was growing up, and, in a way, she still did.

  It was quiet on the moors this morning.

  In the spring and summer, even in the autumn, there was always the splash and tinkle of water as it tumbled down over rock formations into pebble-strewn becks, and the whistling of little birds, the rapid whirring of their wings, was ever present.

  All were absent on this cold January Saturday.

  The birds had long ago flown off to warmer places, the becks had a layer of ice, and it was curiously silent as she climbed higher and higher, the land rising steeply.

  Linnet missed the sounds of nature so prevalent in the summer months. To her there was nothing sweeter than the twittering and trilling of the larks and linnets as they wheeled and turned in the lucent air.

  On those lovely, balmy days it was a treat to come up here just to hear the musical choruses of the linnets, often delivered with gusto from an exposed branch of a bramble bush. They loved those bushes, these little birds, as well as the gorse that grew on the moors where they often made their nests or searched for seeds.

  And on those days, in the sunlight and under cerulean skies, there was the scurry of rabbits, the calls of larger birds, the scent of warm grass, wildflowers, bracken and bilberry mingling, all so sweet and redolent on the air. Then the moors were at their most beautiful, except for late August and September, when the heather bloomed and transformed the dun-coloured hills into a rolling sea of royal purple and soft muted greens.

  Suddenly the wind became fiercer, buffeted her forward and, taken by surprise, she almost stumbled on the path but quickly regained her balance. No wonder the wildlife has gone to ground, or gone away, she thought, and she couldn’t help asking herself if she had been foolish to come out in this bitter cold weather.

  But whenever she returned to Pennistone Royal, even after only a short absence, she usually headed for the moors at the first opportunity. When she was walking across them she felt at peace, tranquil in her mind, and at ease with herself. Up here she could think clearly, collect her thoughts and sort things out. And most especially if she was troubled. These days her troubles centred on her sister Tessa who had become her rival in various ways. And especially at the store where they both worked.

  It pleased her to know that she was home again, in the place where she truly belonged.

  Her mother also loved the moors, but on
ly in the spring and summer months; Paula did not entirely share her feelings about this wild and desolate landscape in the winter, considered by some to be the bleakest county in England at this particular time of year.

  It was her father, Shane O’Neill, who had a deep affinity for the high country all year round, and a rare, almost tender love of nature. She always thought of her father as a true Celt, a throwback to a much earlier century, and it was he who had nurtured her own love of the outdoors, of wild things, and the flora and fauna which abounded in Yorkshire.

  She knew from her mother that her great-grandmother had been just as passionate about the moors as she was, and had spent a considerable amount of time on them throughout her life. ‘Whenever she was troubled, Grandy headed for her beloved moors,’ her mother had once told her, years ago. Linnet fully understood why they had given Grandy such solace; after all, she had been born in one of the moor villages, had grown up in the Pennine hills.

  Her great-grandmother was the renowned Emma Harte, a legend in her own time; people who had known Emma said she was like her, and made comparisons between the two of them. Linnet simply laughed somewhat dismissively, but secretly she was thrilled. Who wouldn’t want to be favourably compared to that most extraordinary woman, who single-handedly had created a great family dynasty and an enormous business empire circling the globe?

  Her mother said she was a chip off the old block and equated her with Emma, because she had considerable business acumen and a talent for merchandising and retailing. ‘Just like Grandy,’ Paula would point out constantly, with a proud smile.

  Linnet felt warm inside when she thought about her mother, Paula O’Neill. She was a very special person, fair and just in her dealings with everyone, whatever others might believe. As for her father, he was awesome.

  Linnet had always enjoyed a perfect and most harmonious relationship with Shane, and they had drawn even closer after Patrick’s death ten years ago. Her elder brother had died of a rare blood disease when he was seventeen, and they had all mourned the sweet-natured Patrick, retarded from birth but so loving and caring. He had been everybody’s favourite; each of them had protected and nurtured him in their own way, especially Linnet. She still missed him, missed mothering him.