Alice had been sorrowfully wiping her eyes, but at that unexpected comeback she stared wide-eyed. And then she started laughing—only unfortunately she couldn’t stop. She laughed until she choked, and then she started sobbing again, as if her heart was breaking. Harriet abandoned her stance of dignified distance and put a hesitant arm round the younger woman to edge her over to the sofa. Alice sank down beside her and just wept and wept.
‘I love him…I love him to bits,’ Alice kept on gasping pitifully. ‘I don’t know what to do!’
Harriet felt guilty for reflecting that she would never have loved Luke enough to tolerate him telling her that she was too stupid for him. But the last remnants of her anger with Alice had melted away.
‘At the beginning he was mad about me…he was!’ Alice muttered painfully. ‘He was always sending me cheeky texts. I thought he loved me. I thought you and he had been together so long he was bored, and that he was never going to marry you anyway.’
‘You may well have been right.’
‘No, I was telling myself what I wanted to believe. I certainly know different now.’ Fresh tears welled up in her sibling’s eyes. ‘Luke never stops comparing me to you. You’ve been with him since you were students. How am I supposed to compete?’
‘What’s Eva got to say about all this?’
Alice loosed a tight, bitter laugh. ‘Mum? What do you think? She doesn’t want to know. She never does want to know when things go wrong. She’s furious that the wedding is being postponed, and she says it’ll never be on again. Last month she threw a big party for us in Paris, and introduced Luke as my fiancé. Now she’s telling me that the wedding cancellation will embarrass her and that I need to learn how to hang on to a man!’
Her sister wailed the last sentence and then started crying again. Recognising that the tears were more half-hearted than serious this time around, Harriet passed her the box of tissues and went off to make tea. She had been planning to tell Alice about Rafael, but now felt that it really wasn’t the right moment. She knew her sibling well enough to suspect that telling Alice about her own happiness would only make the younger woman feel more wretched than ever.
Over the tea, Alice gave her elder sister a discomfited appraisal. ‘I’ve really missed having you to talk to. I never meant to hurt you…it just happened. I was mad about him, and so jealous of you for so long—’
‘How long?’
Alice twisted a long strand of blonde hair round her finger and grimaced. ‘I suppose it really started when I was seventeen. Luke used to tease me a lot. He knew I fancied him, and he liked it, so there was always this flirting thing going on between us. But I felt bad about that, so I began to act all snooty and superior when we met, and he hated that. It gave me a kick.’
Harriet was disturbed to appreciate just how young Alice had been when she’d first formed an interest in Luke. She could vaguely recall Luke teasing her little sister. She had thought nothing of it at the time, and had paid more heed to the seeming hostility that had eventually replaced the banter. Now it occurred to her that Luke had taken advantage of the girl.
‘As for when the affair started…About six months before you caught us together I called round one evening to see you, but you were away on business.’ Having begun, Alice could not stop confessing. ‘Luke invited me in for a drink, and I had too much and he kissed me…and it went from there…’
Harriet didn’t want the tacky details. ‘We don’t need to talk about that. But, whatever happens between you and Luke, you and I will still be sisters and we can stay close.’
‘Not if Luke dumps me and goes back to you.’
‘Alice…you’re assuming that I want him back, and I don’t, so please get that idea out of your mind.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Alice compressed tremulous lips and dropped her head.
Harriet thought it was unfortunate that she was not in a position to convince Alice that Luke was bad news for her. But the evidence was clear to see. Luke had stolen her sister’s confidence and turned her into a nervous wreck, racked with self-doubt. All her life until now Alice had been a golden girl, who led a charmed existence. The experience did not appear to have taught Alice the survival skills she needed now.
‘I’m at the other end of the phone whenever you need me,’ Harriet told her gently. ‘You’re also welcome to come and stay with me in Ballyflynn.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ Alice loosed a plaintive sigh. ‘But it would be all mud and horses, and I’m not a country girl at heart.’
A couple of hours later, Harriet knocked on the door of her mother’s hotel suite. She was surprised when Gustav let her in. A tall, spare man, with thinning blond hair, her mother’s third husband rarely accompanied his wife to London, and as a result he was almost a stranger to Harriet.
‘Eva is lying down…this has been a traumatic time for her,’ the older man remarked stiffly.
Harriet felt that the postponement and possible cancellation of Luke and Alice’s wedding had been rather more traumatic for Alice than for her mother. But she was also well-acquainted with Eva’s ability to persuade people that she was an immensely fragile and sensitive individual, who had to be protected at all costs from every ill wind.
‘I want you to promise that you will say nothing further to upset her,’ Gustav added in an anxious undertone. ‘I appreciate that this is very difficult for you as well…’
‘How for me? Oh, sorry—you mean with me having once been engaged to Luke,’ Harriet gathered wryly. ‘I’m well over that. In fact, I’m even reaching the conclusion that Alice may have saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life.’
‘Luke?’ He studied her in visible bewilderment. ‘Forgive me, but what do Luke and Alice have to do with this? It is Boyce’s intrusion into what is a very confidential matter that has caused your mother such distress.’
‘Boyce?’ Belatedly Harriet understood what her mother’s husband was trying to tell her. She froze. Evidently her half-brother had kept his promise to speak to Eva about Harriet’s need to know who her father was. She was astonished, for their conversation on that issue had been brief, even casual, and she had not really expected Boyce to make good on his pledge to lend her his support.
‘Yes, Boyce. It was fortunate that I overheard the discussion between your brother and my wife and realised what was happening. Quite understandably, Eva was distraught.’ Gustav managed to lend more than a hint of reproach and censure to that statement. He gazed his fill at Harriet’s pallor and, apparently satisfied that she was suitably impressed by his words of warning, then opened the door to let her enter the sitting room.
The blinds had been lowered to screen out the harsh sunlight, and it took a moment or two for Harriet’s eyes to adjust to the comparative dimness. Eva was reclining on the sofa. Dressed in the ultimate little black dress, her mother looked very delicate and vulnerable.