"My mother died in an accident when I was about eighteen months old, so unfortunately I can't remember anything of her," he answered shortly, 'and my father lives in New Zealand. We communicate regularly, he's a great guy, but due to the distance we only meet a few times a year. “He shrugged dismissively.
"Oh..." Her tender heart was touched and it showed.
"That's a shame."
His face closed immediately, his mouth straightening.
"I've never looked at it that way." It was a definite snub, but in view of the fact that he had just told her he'd lost his mother at such an early age, she found it washed over her head.
"Well, I would." She looked him straight in the face now.
"I think families are important."
"Do you?" He smiled slightly at her vehemence and she saw the hard face relax slightly.
"Well, I suppose _I'm not the best judge of that. My mother was killed on an expedition my father had organised, and I think he always felt the fault was his. They were very much in love and it took him many years to get over her death. In the meantime I was cared for by a nanny and various servants in whatever country we happened to be in until I went to boarding-school in
England at the age of eight. I never really got to know my father until just a few years ago when--' He stopped abruptly.
"When I was passing through a bad time," he finished shortly.
"He was a tower of strength and we found we had more in common than we thought."
"You must have travelled extensively, then, when you were younger?"
She felt the personal revelations were alien to him and sat uncomfortably on his shoulders, and aimed at lightening the mood.
"And how." He grinned suddenly and, as before, it did something to her heart that was acutely uncomfortable. "But it had its advantages although I didn't appreciate them at the time. I can speak fluent French, German, Italian and
Greek and have a smattering of several other languages, all directly attributable to my nomadic beginnings.
Once I was taught languages officially at school I found I had absorbed far more in my early years than I had known. "
"That's good." It hurt her, far, far more than it should have done, that he hadn't had a mother's love. Ridiculous, and he would be furious if he knew what she was thinking, but the thought of 'the boy Wolf being cared for by paid employees hit a nerve inside her that was distinctly painful.
"Did you enjoy school?" she asked as she slipped into her jacket, keeping her voice casual. He mustn't guess _that these tiny glimpses into his personal life were of intense interest.
"Yes, I did, actually." There was a note of surprise in his voice as though he imagined he shouldn't have. "Most of the other boys were always aching to get home and see their folks, but as that didn't apply to me I found school life fulfilling and interesting. My father sent me to a good school and always provided the cash for any activities I wanted to take up."
"Did he?" But he wasn't around, she thought painfully, for the childish confidences and sharing of troubles that were so important in adolescence.
He had had to cope alone.
"What about you?" He smiled down at her and her heart flipped over.
"The regulation two-point-four family?" he asked teasingly.
"Almost." She smiled back carefully.
"My parents just had me and the dog. They wanted more children but somehow, after me, it just didn't happen. Then Dad died when I was twelve and I guess from that point Matthew took over looking after me. He was brilliant to me and Mum," she finished flatly.
"I'll never forget that."
"Of course you won't." His voice had stiffened but she didn't notice as she reached for her handbag. As she turned to him again he gestured towards a large framed photograph of herself and Matthew that she kept on a small coffee-table under the window at one end of the room. She had felt in the early days that it was important for Hannah to see and recognise her father as much as possible as she would never see him again, and the idea had worked well. When asked by another child at nursery why her Daddy never came to pick her up, Hannah answered quite cheerfully and without a moment's hesitation that her Daddy was in heaven and liked toast and marmalade for breakfast.
"Where did she get that last bit from?" the teacher who had reported the children's conversation had asked Lydia when she had arrived to pick Hannah up in the evening.
"That's her favourite breakfast," Lydia had replied quietly, her eyes warm as she had watched her small daughter playing with a group of friends. She was secure and happy and contented. Matthew couldn't have wished for more. She hadn't failed him.