The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,125

to someone I hardly knew.’

‘Andy will grow to love you again, I’ll make sure of that,’ Esmie insisted. ‘It’s like Stella said: a love that deep doesn’t just vanish.’

Tom pulled away and gave Stella a guilty look. ‘Andrew asked about you in particular. I’m afraid I told him about Keating betraying you – being married already.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Blamed himself for putting you in touch with Keating again. He was angry on your behalf – it’s the only thing we agreed on.’

Stella put her hands to her burning cheeks. She was mortified that Andrew should know how foolish she had been over Hugh – how ridiculously naive she had been. Yet she was touched that he had been indignant. Like Esmie, she longed for the opportunity to see him again and let him know that, despite the long years apart, she wanted them to be friends once more.

Stella got up. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll eat in my room tonight and give you both a chance to talk things over on your own.’

Long into the night, Stella pondered her situation. Had she been right to give up Belle to the Lomaxes or had it brought them an extra burden? She could see now how Andrew must have resented not being told about this new addition to his family. She perhaps should have told him on the telephone. Poor Andrew! None of them had thought hard enough about how this would affect him.

She must do the best she could for her daughter. Listening to Belle’s gentle breathing, Stella was still convinced that being brought up by the Lomaxes was the best thing for her, and that Andrew would, must, eventually come to love his new sister.

In the early hours of the morning, at the first glimmer of light, Stella wrote a letter to Hugh.

Dear Hugh,

Many times, I have sat down to write to you and given up, not knowing how to reply to your letter sent at the end of last year. You must have known how devastated I would be to hear that you were already married and had a wife in Ireland. You claimed that you are estranged but how can I believe you? If it were so, you would have told me about her from the beginning of our courtship. I fear you only proposed to me so that you could seduce me – knowing how utterly in love I was with you.

I’m ashamed now of my naivety. So, this is to tell you that I am breaking off our engagement and releasing you from the pretence of wishing to divorce your wife and marry me. The child I bore you has been given up for adoption so you have no further obligation to me.

I can’t say I don’t still have feelings for you, Hugh. Although you have not attempted to let me know that you are safe, I’m glad that my fears that you were captured by the Japanese didn’t turn out to be true. Mr Lamont wired me to say you had escaped from Singapore and are now in South Africa. I imagine he will send on this letter to you there or that you will eventually get it if you return to Calcutta.

You have broken my heart, Hugh, and I do not want you to contact me again. Perhaps the most honourable thing you can do is to return to Ireland and be reconciled with your wife.

This is farewell,

Stella

For a long time after she’d finished writing the letter, Stella sat at the window watching the dawn break over the eastern peaks. She had shed tears and felt such turmoil – longing, anger and desolation – as she wrote the words. But now that it was done, a calmness settled over her. Never again would she allow herself to be so infatuated by a man. She had wasted years fantasising about a life with Hugh and pining for him. But it had been based on nothing more than an on-ship dalliance. She had been too eager to believe Hester Cussack’s ideas of romantic love – that there was only one person in the whole world who was the right one for her. Nobody could live up to such an ideal – least of all a womaniser like Hugh.

At breakfast, Stella handed over the letter to be put in the post.

Tom, who had Belle in the crook of his arm and was making a fuss over her, gave Stella a wary look. ‘You’re writing to