Absent in the Spring (The Shakespeare Sisters 3)

Lachlan slid his phone into his pocket, his jaw tight. Did she really just say she loved him? He could feel his heart hammering against his chest, the way it did after he’d finished a ten-mile run. Yes, she’d said it.

So why hadn’t he said it back? As soon as the words slipped out of her mouth he’d been like a scared kid, frozen in place. He hadn’t known what to say at all.

Grant popped his head around the door. ‘Your visitors are back from lunch. I’ve put them in the boardroom. Marcus should be joining you soon.’

Lachlan nodded. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’ Finishing his half-empty mug of coffee, he looked out of the window, staring down at the city below.

She was out there and she loved him. And he cared deeply about her, too. He might not have been able to say the words yet – even the thought of it panicked him – but maybe he could show her. And tonight, when they were back at his apartment, he planned to do exactly that.

She wasn’t sure she recognised the girl staring back at her. Her hair was wet, hanging in a damp curtain past her shoulders. Her face was freshly scrubbed, glowing from the shower. She looked healthy, she looked happy.

She looked like somebody she used to know.

Behind her, the steam was still drifting in the air, a leftover effect of her over-long stay in the shower. Her skin could still feel the heated blades of water that had crashed down from the rainfall showerhead, her cells tingling with the tactile memory. She looked around the room – at the expensive ceramic wear, the perfectly laid marble tiles, the beautifully fragrant toiletries that Lachlan had bought for her to use.

Wrapping a towel around her hair and tucking it in, she grabbed a bathrobe and slid her arms inside, blushing when she knotted the belt around her waist. That night in Paris when he’d used a very similar belt to tie her to the bed didn’t seem so long ago. And yet it seemed like forever, too.

She was walking back into the bedroom when her phone rang, buzzing on the dressing table where she’d left it. Smiling, she walked towards it, expecting to see Lachlan’s name flashing o

n the screen.

But instead, it was her sister, Cesca.

Something made her hand freeze in the air as she reached for it. A sense of foreboding, maybe? Whatever it was, her fingers trembled as she finally picked it up, the cellphone almost slipping out of her grasp.

‘Cesca, is everything okay?’

A second’s silence was followed by a sob.

‘Cesca?’ she said again, her chest tightening at her sister’s cries. ‘Are you still in London?’ Just hearing her sister’s gasping breaths was enough to send a shot of ice-cold panic through her veins. ‘Are you with dad? Is he all right?’

‘He said… he said…’ Another hitched gasp. ‘It’s not true, is it?’

‘What?’ Lucy asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He thought I was Mum. Started shouting at me, telling me not to leave him, then told Sam to… to… eff off.’ She sniffed. ‘The nurse tried to calm him down, but he started trying to grab Sam. He was so confused, he started crying and wailing. Begged me to stop my affair before I hurt our girls. Except it wasn’t me he was talking to.’ Her voice was drowned by another sob. ‘He was talking to Mum.’

So her father knew about the affair after all. A fresh surge of panic made Lucy’s legs weak. ‘He’s talking nonsense, you know that. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’ Her breathing was rapid, as though she’d been running for miles.

‘He doesn’t make things up,’ Cesca’s voice was low and raspy. ‘He just remembers old things. That’s what the doctor said.’

Lucy sat down on the edge of the bed, lowering her face into her hand, her fingertips digging into her wet hair. Think, Lucy. She just needed to find the right words, and it would all be fine. The way it always was. ‘It was all so long ago, Cesca, it’s not important.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s sick, that’s all.’

‘Did you know?’ Cesca asked, then coughed out another cry. ‘You did, didn’t you? You don’t sound surprised at all.’

Lucy’s stomach lurched, and she tasted the pasta salad she’d eaten for lunch all over again. ‘I didn’t…’ She searched her brain, trying to find the words. ‘I just…’

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Cesca said again. ‘Oh my God, you knew about this. You lied to me, to us.’ She was talking quickly, her voice loud over the connection. ‘Who else knows?’ she demanded. ‘Who else is lying? Does Juliet know?’

‘No,’ Lucy said, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Just me. I didn’t tell anybody at all. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘Of course it means something.’ Cesca’s tone became angry. ‘It means everything I thought about my family was wrong. I wrote a bloody play based on Mum, or who I thought she was. You must have been laughing at me all along.’

‘No, Cess, I promise I wasn’t.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘What is it like then?’ Cesca demanded. ‘You seem to know everything that’s going on. Tell me what it’s all about.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lucy said, leaning against the dressing table, her body feeling leaden and achy.