The Master's Mistress

Rogan looked up at Elizabeth. ‘Don’t you see? He was the one who chose to forgive and forget what she did, not the other way around.’

Yes, Elizabeth did see. Only too well. And her heart ached for all three of them. Maggie as well Rogan and Brad.

Because, whether he had intended it or not, Brad’s letter revealed that he wasn’t the one who had had an affair during his marriage. That, although Brad had forgiven and forgotten, it had been Maggie who was unable to live with her own guilt…

The next paragraph of the letter clearly showed that Brad hadn’t intended his son to know that. ‘“But perhaps I have said too much,”’ Rogan continued reading flatly. ‘“My only wish in writing you this letter, Rogan, is to let you know how very much your mother and I have loved you, will always love you, and how proud we are to call you our son. Always, your loving father.”’ Rogan’s voice broke emotionally as he came to the end of the letter. ‘Damn him. Damn, damn, damn! Why couldn’t he have told me all this before he died and given me a chance to reconcile with him?’

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say. In view of the doubts she had expressed earlier, concerning her judgement of her own father, what could she say that wouldn’t sound like either triteness or possibly another rebuke?

Rogan felt as if he had a vice wrapped about his chest, preventing him from breathing. Preventing him from doing anything but reliving every moment of that last terrible argument with his father fifteen years ago, the accusations he had made, and all the years of neglect and estrangement since.

And he had been wrong. So very, very wrong!

Something he would have to deal with in the same way his father had all these years. Alone.

His expression was bleak as he looked across at Elizabeth and saw tears of sympathy swimming in those deep blue eyes. ‘I presume you’re packed and ready to go?’ he asked.

She looked startled. ‘I…Are you going to be all right, Rogan?’ she questioned concernedly.

It was a concern Rogan didn’t feel able to deal with right now. He had far too much thinking and soul-searching to do first. ‘Why shouldn’t I be all right?’ he retorted. ‘Every belief I’ve ever had has just been shattered into a million pieces—but, hey, it doesn’t matter, does it? As my father said, we all make mistakes, right?’

Elizabeth was well aware that Rogan was being deliberately flippant in an effort to hide the depth of the pain he was feeling at learning the truth behind his mother’s death. That it was his way of shielding his real emotions.

If only things were different between them. If only Rogan loved her as she loved him. Then Elizabeth might have been able to go to him. To take him in her arms. To comfort him. To hold him as he expressed all the grief he must be feeling from learning the truth.

Instead of which they were simply two people, forced together by circumstances, who had been intimate together only once. And Rogan couldn’t have made it any clearer than with that ‘packed and ready to go’ remark that he would rather forget that intimacy had ever happened.

‘Right,’ she agreed hollowly. ‘I haven’t packed yet, but I’m just about to.’ She answered his earlier question before turning away, only to pause and turn back again. ‘If you should decide some time in the future that you want to continue having the library catalogued I can recommend someone…?’

‘It’s too soon at the moment for me to know what I’m going to do—either with this house or the library,’ Rogan said.

He looked so bleak. So much in pain. So alone. It was all Elizabeth could do not to run across the room and take him in her arms. A comfort Rogan was sure to reject…

‘It was just a thought.’ She nodded. ‘Perhaps you would prefer it if I didn’t bother you again before I leave?’

‘Bother me?’ Rogan repeated incredulously. ‘Elizabeth, you’ve bothered me since the moment we first met!’

‘I’m sorry…’

‘So am I,’ he said. ‘You’ll never know how sorry!’

There was nothing more to be said, Elizabeth realised heavily.

Rogan was totally preoccupied with his feelings towards his father, and Elizabeth would be leaving shortly.

It was over.

Whatever ‘it’ had been…

‘I’m coming with you.’

Elizabeth looked up from completing her packing to see Rogan leaning against the doorframe into the bedroom that had been hers for the duration of her stay at Sullivan House, both his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his faded jeans. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Rogan straightened to stroll further into the bedroom. A bedroom that was now clean and tidy and totally devoid of any sign that Elizabeth had ever been there. ‘I said I’m coming with you.’

She stared back at him blankly. ‘Coming where?’

‘I have no idea,’ he answered. ‘Wherever it is your father lives, I guess.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She gave a perplexed shake of her head.

As well she might, Rogan acknowledged ruefully. He hadn’t exactly been polite to her an hour ago, when she’d come and found him in his mother’s bedroom. But he’d had every reason not to be feeling polite at the time! He just shouldn’t have taken out his frustration over a situation that couldn’t be changed on Elizabeth…

Rogan still found it hard to accept what his father had done after his mother had taken her own life fifteen years ago. The secrets he had kept all those years in an effort to protect the wife he had loved so deeply, causing years of estrangement between himself and his son that Rogan could never take back.

But as he had sat in his mother’s bedroom, thinking of all those things, as he had grieved for all those lost years, it had slowly dawned on Rogan that his father hadn’t just been protecting Maggie’s memory by keeping those secrets, he had been protecting Rogan too. He had allowed Rogan to keep his treasured memories of his beautiful mother. At great cost to Brad himself.

Human frailties. They all, every one of them, had human frailties.

His father’s had been to love Maggie so much that he would have done—and had done—anything to protect her memory. Rogan’s had been to put his mother on a pedestal and refuse to admit or acknowledge that she could ever have done anything wrong. Choosing to blame his father for everything rather than ever seeing any fault or blemish in his mother. And Maggie, so warm and charming, had been so guilt-ridden over her own human frailty that she had taken her own life rather than continue to live with it.

Once Rogan had acknowledged and accepted all of those things, he had also realised that Elizabeth might possibly be opening up a can of worms for herself with her decision to go and visit her own father.

‘I’m coming with you to visit your father, Elizabeth,’ he repeated firmly.

Elizabeth blinked. ‘I—But…why?’ she finally managed to ask.

Rogan’s mouth compressed. ‘It’s too much to expect that we’ve both been so wrong about our fathers, and I think someone should be there to help you keep it together if your own father turns out to be as bad as you always thought he was.’

Why on earth would he want to do that for her? Elizabeth wondered. It didn’t make any sense to her—but, then again, when had Rogan ever made any sense to her?

Never, she acknowledged ruefully. But she had fallen in love with him anyway!

She shook her head. ‘I really don’t think that’s necessary, Rogan. My father lives in Surrey now—hours and hours’ drive away from here.’

‘Believe me, at this moment a drive to Surrey sure beats staying here,’ he drawled.

Ah. Rogan’s offer had to do with the fact that he had no wish to stay on alone at Sullivan House, surrounded by memories of his own parents…

‘It’s very kind of you to offer, Rogan—’

‘You were there for me today, Elizabeth,’ he interrupted. ‘I intend returning the favour, that’s all.’

Was that really all his offer was? Elizabeth wondered. Of course it was! Much as she might wish it were otherwise, that Rogan was as loath to part from her as she was from him, she would only be fooling herself if she tried to read anything more into it.

She shrugged. ‘I’m pleased to have been of help to you.’

‘Of course you are,’ Rogan said. ‘Now let me do the same for you, hmm?’

Elizabeth had been alone too long, made her own decisions for too many years, to be able to accept anyone’s help unquestioningly or willingly.

Even Rogan’s? Yes, especially Rogan’s! He had breached her defences in a way that no other man ever had. Had made love to her in ways Elizabeth had only read about in books. Better by far to make a clean break from him, and what she felt for him, when she left Sullivan House.

‘Besides, if it’s as far as you say it is, I can do some of the driving for you,’ Rogan added determinedly, as he sensed Elizabeth was about to voice further protest.

Protest that he could have told her would be a complete waste of her time and energy; he had decided he was going with Elizabeth to see her father, and as far as he was concerned that was an end to the subject!

‘Rogan, I’m perfectly capable of driving myself wherever I need to go.’