The Master's Mistress

‘Yes, I’ve heard it,’ Elizabeth confirmed softly. ‘And that may or may not be true of both your own father and mine. But I can’t forget what you said to me yesterday about dealing with the unresolved issues between my father and myself before it’s too late. The funeral today, with all those people who have fond memories of your father, has shown me that I need to know, to find out for myself what sort of man my father really is. Before it’s too late,’ she reminded him gently.

Rogan’s mouth compressed. ‘The implication being, I suppose, that I left it too late to find out what sort of man my own father was?’

Elizabeth gave him a sympathetic look as she shook her head. ‘Not everything is about you, Rogan.’

He scowled fiercely. ‘I know that, damn it.’

‘Then please try to understand that I have to do this—for my own peace of mind, if nothing else.’

Rogan did understand. He even admired what Elizabeth was proposing to do. He had just been totally thrown by her announcement that she intended leaving Sullivan house later today…

Which was pretty stupid when Rogan already knew he had no intention of staying on there any longer than he absolutely had to. That he would be leaving there himself tomorrow. Or at the very latest the day after that.

But the thought of Elizabeth leaving, of never seeing her again, disturbed him more than he could ever have imagined…

‘Fine,’ he accepted offhandedly. ‘Go. But I hope you’re prepared to accept that your father just may be every bad thing you ever thought he was!’

‘Believe me, I do accept that, Rogan.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘Obviously my mother and father weren’t good for each other. But, as I told you before, I didn’t know until I was old enough to realise that. I remember my father as being full of fun, always laughing, and very loving towards me when he was at home. Possibly because of the lack of love in his relationship with my mother—I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘But which came first, I wonder? My mother’s drinking? Or my father’s affairs? I was a child, so how could I possibly know or be in a position to act as his judge and jury?’

Had Rogan acted as judge and jury to his own father…? Hell, yes. After his mother had taken her own life, he had most definitely judged his father! But he was an adult now, and not the emotional teenager he had been when he’d left Sullivan House all those years ago. Was his judgement still the right one? Or had it been as flawed as Elizabeth now felt perhaps her own had been of her own father?

Whatever the answer to that question was, Rogan certainly didn’t feel like thanking Elizabeth for putting these doubts in his own mind!

‘Maybe I’ll see my father again and still be filled with the same anger I‘ve felt towards him for so many years,’ Elizabeth continued ruefully. ‘And maybe I won’t…’ Her expression was wistful.

Rogan looked at her thoughtfully. ‘That’s a pretty gutsy outlook.’

‘It may prove to be a very stupid one.’ She laughed softly. ‘But I have to at least try.’

Rogan had to admire her courage.

At least he would have admired Elizabeth’s courage if he didn’t still feel so confused by his own anger at the thought of her leaving here later today.

Leaving him!

The car finally pulled up to the house, and other cars with guests who had taken Mrs Baines up on her offer of tea and sandwiches after the funeral were already starting to pull in behind.

Elizabeth looked at him sympathetically. ‘Are you ready to face them again?’ she asked.

‘Not really, but I suppose I’ll have to,’ he replied. ‘Hopefully it won’t go on too long.’ And, with that, he took a deep breath and opened the car door.

Chapter Eleven

‘ROGAN?’ Elizabeth said softly.

He made no move to acknowledge her presence as she stood hesitantly in the bedroom doorway. He simply stood as still as a statue in the middle of the room where she had finally found him. He had disappeared straight after talking with his father’s lawyer, once the other funeral guests had left.

‘Rogan, what’s wrong?’ Elizabeth pressed.

His expression was grim, and there was a slight pallor to his tightly etched features. His eyes were so dark and unfathomable that Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel concerned about him.

‘The louse!’ Rogan finally grated harshly, his fingers crushing the letter he held in his hand.

‘What are you talking about?’ she exclaimed.

‘You were right and I was wrong, okay?’ He turned on her fiercely, dark eyes blazing.

She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Take a look around you, Elizabeth,’ Rogan said. ‘What do you see?’ he prompted angrily, already knowing exactly what she would see. What she couldn’t fail to see!

Photographs. Dozens—no, hundreds of them, on every conceivable surface in what had once been his mother’s bedroom. Several of them featured Rogan himself, from babyhood to a young man. But most of them were of Rogan’s mother, Maggie. A dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty who smiled so innocently into the camera.

Every family photograph that had ever once adorned the rest of the house and many more that hadn’t were all meticulously framed and arranged. On the dressing-table. The bedside tables. Even the walls! Everywhere he looked, Rogan was presented with likenesses of his happily smiling mother.

The place was like a shrine!

There were even fresh flowers in a vase on the dressing table. Yellow roses. His mother’s favourite blooms. Looking less than their best now. Which wasn’t surprising, considering that the person who had tended them had been dead for over a week now.

Bradford Lucas Sullivan.

Rogan’s father.

Maggie’s husband.

‘How could he?’ Rogan ground out fiercely. ‘All this time I blamed him. Thought—Believed—Hell!’ His jaw was clenched so tightly it ached.

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say. Or if she should say anything at all.

The bedroom was so feminine, with its lace drapes about the four-poster bed, the floral wallpaper and cream and gold décor, that it had to have been Rogan’s mother’s. Was still Rogan’s mother’s, in fact. Every surface was free of dust, and there was a deep blue gown draped across the bedroom chair, as if ready for its owner to slip into. Perfume and make-up bottles stood on the dressing table. Even the hairbrush had several strands of long dark hair still entangled in its bristles.

This room, the roses, all those framed photographs, were a monument to someone who had been deeply loved.

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she repeated huskily.

Rogan’s mouth twisted grimly. ‘Neither did I. Not until I read this.’ He held up the letter he had seconds ago crushed in his hand. ‘I told you my father knew exactly how ill he was, and he—he left this letter with his lawyer, for me to read. After his funeral, if I’d bothered coming back for it. Or to be forwarded on to me if I didn’t,’ he added bleakly. ‘Read it if you want.’ He threw the letter down on the bed before striding across the room to stand in front of the window, the rigidity of his back turned towards her.

Elizabeth wasn’t sure that she did want to read the letter that Brad Sullivan had left for his son to read after his death, feeling as if she would be intruding on something very personal between father and son. Too personal, surely, for a third party to become involved in?

Even a third party who had made love with Rogan that morning…!

She grimaced uncomfortably. ‘I’m not sure that I should, Rogan…’

‘Why not?’ He turned and faced her. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how wrong I’ve been all these years? About everything, it seems.’

He had been wrong about his father. About his mother. Just wrong, wrong, wrong!

He strode back to snatch up the letter, smoothing out the creases before beginning to read out loud. ‘“My dear Rogan…My deepest regret is that you and I have been estranged all these years—”’

‘Rogan, I really don’t think—’

‘“But it couldn’t be any other way,”’ Rogan continued relentlessly. ‘“Not without tarnishing memories of someone we both loved so dearly. Better by far, I decided long ago, that you think badly of me than of her. Your mother was, and always will be, the dearest love of my life. I fell in love with her the day I met her, and be assured I remained in love with her until the day I died. Hopefully the two of us are together again now. I sincerely hope so. These years without her have been harder to bear than you could ever imagine. Harder even than my estrangement from you, Rogan. Perhaps now you’re older you might understand why it had to be this way? I sincerely hope so. For my part, I must take equal responsibility for any difficulties that your mother and I encountered during those years after we relocated in England. I was always so busy working, often not even managing to return to Cornwall for the weekends, and as such left Maggie alone and lonely far too much. In such circumstances, mistakes happen. Faced with the truth of those mistakes, we have the choice of beginning again, of forgiving and forgetting, or relinquishing the one we love most in the world. I chose to forgive and forget.”’