'Yes. They talked quite a bit about you. They're very proud of their clever niece, perhaps even a tiny bit intimidated by your managing ways.' He let her go and idly circled the room, forcing her to turn to keep him in her sight.
How she hated that word—intimidated. 'Someone has to be practical. Most of the time they exist in a world of their own,' she said stiffly.
‘I think I used the wrong word,' he murmured, alert to the flicker of pain that crossed her face. ‘I should have said they're a little in awe of you. They know without you to take charge their business would have gone to rack and ruin some time ago, but they also told my grandfather that they were worried that your devotion to them was jeopardising your chances of marrying and having a family of our own.'
Elizabeth looked at him, shocked. 'They've never said anything like that to me,' she said defensively.
Jack grinned. ‘I think they were well into Grandpère's fine stock of brandy at the time, and talk was fast and loose. I don’t doubt that Grandpère responded by bemoaning the fact that I haven’t yet done my duty and married a nice girl who will bear Hawkwood heirs and curtail my regrettable independence of spirit.'
'But surely your brother's children are the Hawkwood heirs...' Elizabeth was relieved that the conversation had moved off the subject of herself.
‘In the strict sense yes, although not as far as this place is concerned. This he intends to leave to us jointly, but
Jules and Marie-Clare—that's Jules wife—' with a little sidelong glance that mocked her puzzled ignorance '—prefer not to reside permanently in a "sub-tropical backwater". As you might guess, the distance in that marriage is not only in kilometres. I don’t approve, but neither can I condemn. Being the younger, I was never pressured to make a dynastic marriage. If our positions had been reversed—' he shrugged '—who knows?
Perhaps I too would have settled for a civilised "arrangement".'
‘I can’t quite see you "settling" for anything,' Elizabeth blurted, and he bowed teasingly.
‘I shall accept that as a compliment. To continue: therefore I will be the one to actually live here, as master of our joint inheritance...'
'You'll move out of the hotel? Live here, all by you
rself?' It was a strangely distasteful vision to think of him alone here, living in the solitary splendour. Even though Jack gave the impression of being sufficient unto himself he enjoyed himself so richly in his role of autocratic and gregarious hotelier that Elizabeth could not imagine him being happy with the kind of isolation that obviously suited his grandfather. He had too much energy, too intense an enjoyment of life to want to retreat from it, either physically or mentally.
He gave her a heavy-lidded smile. ‘I hope not entirely alone, chérie. Grandpère is only seventy-five. With reasonable care for his delicate health, I hope he will live a number of years yet. He is a fighter and he'll not let go of life easily. By that time—who is to say?—I may be deep in the blissful toils of domesticity, father to a brood of children who will fill these echoing halls with their life and laughter...'
It was an almost poetically beautiful vision. 'You want children?' Elizabeth asked.
‘I almost had one, once,' he said quietly, looking out of the window over the immaculately rolled lawn that sloped down to a perfect slice of beach. 'Zenobia was pregnant with my child when she was killed.'
'Oh, Jack. I'm so sorry.' She moved over to touch his straight back tentatively. The impulse to wrap herself around him and cry took her by surprise. Her own life crises seemed petty and unimportant in comparison with all that he had endured.
‘I would have loved the child,' he continued, without acknowledging her touch, 'whatever I had discovered the mother to be. I don’t subscribe to the theory of visiting the sins of the parents on their offspring.'
Or the sins of the uncles? Elizabeth was appalled at the callous opportunism of the thought that bubbled to the surface of her mind. If she confided in him now he would think that she was using his deeply personal grief for her own gain. And perhaps he would be right...
He turned and caught her in the midst of mental self-disgust.
'Don’t look so tragic, Eliza-Beth, I did my mourning long ago. Now I look to the future. And you, do you wish for the loving husband and children that your uncles are anxious that you are depriving yourself of?'
The wish that did rise instantly in her mind was so far beyond her reach that it was foolish in the extreme. Her eyes shuttered against the pain of it. 'Some day, I suppose...'
'Some day?' His tone mused on her feeble attempt at indifference. 'That is very vague from a woman who seems to pride herself on independence and decisiveness. Should I assume, therefore, that your experience of love was as bitter in its way as mine, and that it has made you wary of being hurt again?'
‘It wasn’t love,' she said jerkily, unable to stop the words of denial bubbling out. ‘I was very young— nineteen. I only thought I was in love but it was an infatuation. A physical infatuation,' she stressed with a pointed look in his direction.
'So it was your first affair. And he was a hot-blooded young student?'
'No, as matter of fact he was in his late thirties... one of my professors...'
'Ah, a father-figure.' He nodded gravely.
'Definitely not. He was very good-looking, very sexy,' she snapped. 'A good lover?'
She blushed and frowned at his boldness. ‘It was a long time ago.'
He smiled wickedly. 'Not a memorable one, then—I have no need to worry that you're making unflattering comparisons. Was he a modern Casanova, cutting a swath through his students and ducking any threat of commitment?'