The Deserving Mistress

‘Of course I didn’t ask April!’ Jude rasped impatiently, sitting forward to once again pick up his wine-glass and take a much-needed swallow of the white wine. ‘I told you, we don’t have the sort of close friendship that would allow me to intrude on her private life in that way.’

‘But you think we have?’ she derided with a disbelieving smile.

His eyes glittered silver. ‘I didn’t bring the subject up, May—you did,’ he reminded hardly.

She gave a shrug. ‘We could hardly have spent the whole evening together and totally ignored the subject.’

‘Not with any comfort, no,’ he accepted heavily. ‘But if you had chosen not to mention it, I doubt that I would have, either. I’m totally at a loss to understand any of it, May,’ he continued agitatedly as she would have spoken. ‘And, as I’m sure you’re totally aware, that isn’t something I admit to lightly,’ he added self-derisively.

‘No.’ May gave a rueful smile.

‘Do January and March know their mother is still alive?’ he prompted softly.

May’s smile faded. ‘No,’ she said hardly. ‘And I don’t want them to know, either.’ And for that to happen, she now had to ask for this man’s cooperation. Something she wasn’t sure he would give… ‘How do you think they would both feel if they were to be told the truth now? How would you feel?’ she reasoned impatiently.

‘But it isn’t me, May,’ he came back explosively. ‘It isn’t you, either, not really—’

‘Of course it is—’

‘No.’ He gave a slow shake of his head at her angry outburst. ‘If my guess is correct, and from what I’ve observed the last few days, then you’ve always known your mother was still alive, it’s January and March who have lived in ignorance of the fact. And maybe that was the right thing to do at the time, I don’t know.’ He gave a baffled grimace. ‘But do you really think, now that April is here, in England, only ten miles or so away, that you have the right to keep that information from your sisters any longer?’

May bit back her own angry retort as their first courses were delivered to the table, still silent once they had been left alone once again.

Because the truth of the matter was, she wasn’t sure herself any more that she had that right.

Oh, she had never doubted the rightness of what she’d been doing as they’d all been growing up, had known that it was easier for everyone—but especially their father—if questions about the mother the two younger sisters barely remembered were kept to a minimum. Which they wouldn’t have been if either January or March had realised their mother was still alive, was now a successful actress living in America.

But these last few weeks, since May had been offered the role in a film playing the part of April Robine’s daughter, had been something of a strain, made even more so because of David Melton’s persistence in trying to get her to accept the part.

And she didn’t welcome Jude putting into words the question that had been plaguing her the last few weeks, but especially so since April Robine had arrived on the scene.

With Jude, of all people…

Jude watched the emotions flitting across May’s expressive face, knew that he had hit a raw nerve with his last question.

But what else could he do? Now that May had actually confirmed what he had only suspected this morning, he felt he had no choice but to play the devil’s advocate. Which was guaranteed to make May hate him all the more.

If that were possible…

‘She’s the reason you turned down the offer of the film role, isn’t she?’ Jude realised shrewdly. ‘You were trying to avoid something like this happening.’

‘Can you blame me?’ May’s eyes flashed angrily.

She was hurting, he could see she was hurting, and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to take her in his arms, assure her that everything was going to be okay, that it would all work itself out.

But the former he didn’t think she would accept at all, and he wasn’t sure the latter were true.

How did you set about telling two grown women of twenty-six and twenty-five that the mother you had told them was dead was actually very much alive and staying in a hotel ten miles away?

Worse, how was May going to stop April telling January and March the truth, if that was what she chose to do? If they needed any telling after meeting the actress face to face, that was.

He now knew that it was April that May had reminded him of the first day he’d come to the farm. Despite the fact that the women were such a contrast to each other, April always chicly elegant, May dressed in overbig clothes that day, an unattractive woollen hat pulled over her hair, there had still been enough of a likeness between the two women for Jude to have felt a jolt of something. He just hadn’t known what that something wa

s until this morning…

‘I’m not the one you have to worry about blaming you for anything, May,’ he told her gently. ‘It’s January and March you have to convince of that.’

He wished the words unsaid almost as soon as he had said them, May’s face paling dramatically, her eyes huge green pools of pain in that paleness.