‘Maddie… were you…?’ Sophy hesitated, the ugly word she wanted to use hardening on her lips. ‘Did someone force you—’
‘Luke was my love child,’ Maddie’s voice softened. ‘Never think otherwise, Sophy. But my relationship with his father was a complicated one. I found it too painful to pass on that information to my son. I asked him to give me time to contact his father before I revealed his name. I found excuses to avoid doing so and gradually Luke stopped asking. When I realised how ill I was, I told him I was going to try to make that contact. He told me it no longer mattered to him. Whatever pain I’d endured should remain in the past, he said. I’m afraid I’ve left it too late to make amends, yet I keep hoping to hear word…’
The night nurse, hearing their whispered conversation, whisked the screens aside. ‘Luke is outside,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting to speak to Dr Moore. You should go home, Sophy, and take some rest. As for you,’ she shook her head fondly at Maddie, ‘what are you doing burning the midnight oil?’
Maddie’s eyes were beginning to cloud. Her voice grew weaker as she held out her arm to have her blood pressure taken.
Outside the ward, Sophy had waited for Luke to finish talking to the doctor on duty. She debated discussing the strange conversation she had had with Maddie. Seeing his expression as he came towards her, she decided to leave it until later. That time never came. Maddie drifted in and out of consciousness over the next three days. Whatever she had planned to confide to Sophy remained unsaid as she gently drifted away from them.
Luke plunged into depression as soon as her funeral was over. Talking to him about his father drew a blank stare or a numbed shake of his head. Gradually, with the help of anti-depressants, his mood lifted then swung the other way into a continuation of the wild extravagance that would destroy their marriage. She had always taken the naturalness of loving him for granted, never questioning the course their love took as it ran freely through their relationship. Then it was gone. A light switched off so suddenly that it was difficult to find her way forward in the darkness that followed.
She was forced to become his furtive shadow, intent of tracking down the ‘other woman’. That night she shadowed him through city streets had been her breaking point. She had watched him enter a hallway that blazed with welcome. When the door closed on him, she saw what she had become: suspicious, jealous, desperate, confused, fearful. And, finally, the truth revealed. Sophy could have endured a flesh and blood rival but his love affair had been with Lady Luck, and there was no coming back from that. All the emotions she had endured had blended together to create a fury that carried her through the months that followed as she forensically dismantled the life they had shared together.
After his visit to Clonmoore, Luke had phoned and demanded to know about her relationship with Victor. She reminded him that he had forfeited the right to ask her such questions. Now, how would he react when he heard they had moved into Victor’s house? There was no chance of that information being kept from him. It didn’t matter that the circumstances were beyond Sophy’s control. The anger he had displayed after Isobel’s harmless disclosure would be nothing compared to how he would react to this latest development.
Victor cooked an omelette for her while she was showering. She rummaged in her backpack for jogging pants and a loose top. The girls were sleeping in separate rooms. Sophy removed a book from under Isobel’s chin and closed it. Another vampire mystery with a grotesque cover of fangs and dripping blood. The books she borrowed from Clonmoore library all had similar covers, haunted castles, skeletal zombies, vampires and black-winged birds. Shaking her head, she bent and kissed her daughter’s cheek. She checked on Julie. Cordelia as always lay beside her.
The omelette, flavoured with herbs, was light and delicious.
‘A drink,’ he said when she finished eating. ‘You look as though you need one.’
He poured brandy into two glasses and sat down beside her on a two-seater sofa.
‘I can’t thank you enough for helping us tonight,’ she said.
‘It was the least I could do. I hope what has happened to my uncle won’t affect the progress he’s made under your care?’