‘Myself. And so I duly made my appearance.’ His eyes grew shadowed. ‘Did my mother love me? Yes—but she was not allowed to spend much time with me. I had nurses, nannies, a governess—eventually a tutor, boarding school. Then university, military academy—the usual drill.’
He shrugged with an appearance of nonchalance.
‘In the meantime my mother was lonely. Her life sterile. When she met your father...’ his eyes went to Nikos’s now, unflinching ‘...despite his philandering reputation she believed she had met the love of her life. His betrayal of her—his repudiation of any loyalty to her after their affair had resulted in the disaster that was your conception—broke her. And then...’
His voice hardened, with a harshness in it that Nikos recognised—recognised only too well.
‘And then my father broke what was left of her.’
Antoine reached for his drink now, took a long swallow, then spoke again. The harshness was still in his voice.
‘He made her choose. Choose what she would do with the remainder of her life. She was entirely free, he told her, to fly to Greece that same day—to throw herself at the feet of the philandering seducer who had amused himself with her. Or, indeed, she was entirely free to raise her bastard child as a single parent on her own, anywhere in the world she wanted. But if she did then consequences would follow.’
He looked at Nikos, with dark, long-lashed eyes.
‘She would never set eyes on me again and I would be disinherited of everything but the title. My father could not take that from me when the time came, but everything else would be sold on the day of his death. My entire inheritance—the chateau, the ancestral lands, all the property and wealth of our name. I would be landless, penniless.’
Nikos saw his half-brother’s hands clench, as if choking the life-force from an unseen victim.
‘She would not do it. Would not leave me to the tender mercies of my father...’ His voice twisted. ‘To grow up knowing that nothing but an empty title would be his legacy to me. Knowing that she had abandoned me.’
A shadow went across his eyes.
‘She felt her responsibility was to me rather than you. That you would be better off raised in a foster home, never knowing her. Thought it would give you some form of stability at least, however imperfect.’
Nikos watched him take another deep draught of his beer, feeling emotion swirl deep within him, turbid and muddied, as if sediment that had long sunk to murky depths was being stirred by currents sweeping in from unknown seas.
Antoine was speaking again, his glass set down.
‘When you came to see her all those years ago, as a young man, she knew that nothing had changed and nothing could change. Oh, I was an adult then myself, of course, and even my father could not have kept me apart from her, but still he held the threat of disinheriting me over her head. She knew you were financially protected—that your biological father had settled a large amount of money on you, to be given to you when you came of age.’
‘He can rot in hell too!’ Nikos heard his own voice snarl. ‘I never took a penny of that money. He’d disowned me from birth!’
For a moment Antoine held his half-brother’s gaze. ‘We have not had good fathers, have we?’ he said quietly. ‘But...’
He held up a hand, and in the gesture Nikos saw a thousand years of aristocracy visible in the catching of light on the signet ring on his brother’s finger.
‘But I do not think that of our mother.’ He was silent a moment, then spoke again. ‘Come to her, Nikos.’
It was the first time he’d used his half-brother’s name.
‘She has a serious heart condition. This operation is risky, and requires great skill from a top surgeon. She deferred the operation deliberately for years, waiting for her husband to die. Only now, with my inheritance assured, can she take the risk.’ He took a breath that was audibly ragged. ‘The risk that she might die before seeking to make what peace she can with you.’
Antoine gave a long
sigh.
‘You blame her—I can understand that. I too would be bitter. But I hope with all my heart that perhaps you can at some point bring yourself if not to forgive her, to understand her. To accept the love she has for you despite all she did.’
Nikos closed his eyes. He could not speak. Could not answer. Could only feel, deep in that part of him he never touched any longer, where the sediment of bitterness, of anger, had lain for so long, that there could now be only one answer.
His eyes flashed open. Met those of his half-brother.
‘Where is she?’ he said.
* * *
Diana stood at the wide front entrance to Greymont, with the lofty double doors spread to their maximum extent. Dusk was gathering in the grounds and she could hear rooks cawing in the canopy, an early owl further off, and she caught the subliminal whooshing of a bat.