The Secret Daughter

And sometimes, when the moans of other prisoners filled the night, he dreamed of Imogen in a long white dress, and how she clung to him and wept in his arms, and how he’d made her smile again. He’d wondered if she remembered him, if he’d live to see her again, if there would ever be another time when she’d turn to him. But never, in his wildest imaginings, had he thought he might have left her pregnant.

Was that what he’d done? And if so, what had happened to the child?

He drained his glass, grabbed the bottle and stepped quietly to the end of the porch where the old hammock hung. It was going to be a long night. He might as well make himself comfortable.

Imogen was up and on the road by eight, her mind refreshed by sleep, her fears of the previous night washed away. It was seeing Joe Donnelly again that had done it. Being close enough to touch him. Of course she’d been shaken up. Who wouldn’t be?

Still, she wasn’t about to take a chance on running into him again. She read in the local paper of an estate auction at a farm near Baysfield, a small market town about two hours’ drive away, and planned her escape.

She arrived in Rosemont just after four, half a dozen gorgeous quilts on the seat next to her, and went straight to Deepdene. Her mother answered the door. And even after all those years apart, the best she could come up with by way of welcome was to say plaintively, “Oh, it’s you, Imogen.”

Deciding such a tepid reception hardly warranted an offer to kiss her mother’s delicately rouged cheek, Imogen said, “Yes, Mother. How are you?”

“Well, I’m...surprised. When Molly gave me your note, I hardly knew what to think.”

Imogen suppressed a sigh. What had she expected? That the leading light of Rosemont society might have undergone a transformation and become suffused with such an uprush of maternal feeling she’d fling her arms around her only child and call for the fatted calf to be served for dinner? Hardly! On the other hand, the air of poised self-confidence that had been Suzanne’s trademark was missing. She seemed diffident, nervous almost.

“Is it so surprising that, since I’m in town anyway, I should want to see you?” Imogen asked gently.

“But why now, after so many years?”

“Because there are matters to put right between us, Mother, and I’ve...missed you.”

“Well,” Suzanne said doubtfully, “I suppose you’d better come in, then.”

CHAPTER THREE

IMOGEN followed her into the formal drawing room, where Suzanne always received visitors.

“Would you care for some tea, Imogen?”

“I’d love some. Do you still have it served in the sunroom?”

“My daily ritual.” A small smile touched her mother’s face. “How nice that you remember.”

“Of course I do. It was quite a shock yesterday to find you’d broken the habit.”

Suzanne got up and fidgeted with the triple string of pearls around her neck. “Yesterday I had...an appointment.”

Imogen saw suddenly that the years had not been kind to her mother. In fact, she looked positively unwell. “Have you been ill, Mother?”

Affronted, Suzanne straightened her spine and cast Imogen a glare. “Certainly not. Why would you suppose such a thing?”

“You seem a little tired.”

“I have been busy as, I am sure, have you.” She tagged the bellpull hanging beside the fireplace. “I’ll order tea, and you can tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since you moved to the west coast. Are you still an interior decorator?”

“Yes,” Imogen said, following her across the hall and into the huge solarium.

“I’d have thought,” her mother said, perching on the edge of one of the sofas and crossing her still-elegant ankles, “that the trust fund from your father would have precluded the need for you to go out to work.”

Her tone suggested that earning a living ranked only slightly above picking pockets.

“I like to be busy, Mother, and I enjoy the work.”

“Do you own the company, dear?”

“No.”

“How odd. I don’t believe a Palmer has ever worked for someone else. But then, you’ve never behaved quite as I expected.”

“Especially not the summer I graduated from high school.”

The maid wheeled in a brass tea trolley just then, and Imogen knew from Suzanne’s flared nostrils and raised brows that this particular topic of conversation was temporarily off-limits.

She waited until they were alone again before pursuing the one subject she was determined to discuss. “I’m sure you’d prefer that I not bring this up, Mother, but I think you and I need to talk about that time.”

“Why would you want to dig up history best forgotten?”

“Because I lost more than a baby. I lost a mother, too. And you lost a daughter. And it strikes me as a terrible waste that we’ve let so much time go by without repairing the damage to our relationship.” She looked around the vast room. “This used to be my home. It’s part of me, of who I am. But this is the first time I’ve been back since you sent me to live with your cousin Amy.”

“You could have come home again.” Suzanne hesitated before adding, “Afterward.”

“But I stayed away to punish you, Mother, because for a long time I felt you had abandoned me when I needed you the most.”

“I did what I thought was best for you. What would you have had me do? Keep you here, where everyone knew you, and so make it impossible for you to go forward with your life without your past following wherever you went?”

“It followed me anyway. Mother. Or did you think I’d simply forget my little daughter?”

“I certainly hoped you would.”

“Did you forget me, Mother? Does any woman ever forget the child she gave birth to?”

“Really, Imogen!” Suzanne set the sterling teapot on its stand with a decided clatter. “I find this conversation most upsetting and, to be perfectly frank, in very poor taste.”

“Yes,” Imogen said, dismayed to find her mother could still hurt her. “I can see that you do. Perhaps I was wrong to think we could make amends. Perhaps there are things neither one of us can ever really forgive the other for.”

Agitation lent a hectic flush to Suzanne’s cheeks. “That isn’t so, at least not on my part. I’m happy to see you. If it’s possible for us to start over, I’m willing to try. But I warn you now that it won’t happen if you insist on harping on matters best left alone. That whole business is a closed book.”

“But it isn’t for me! How can it be, when I never even saw my baby? One day I was pregnant, could feel her kicking inside me, and the next she was dead and gone, and I was expected to behave as if she’d never existed. Well, that isn’t how it works, Mother. Before you and I can resume any sort of worthwhile relationship, I need to find closure, too.”

“Imogen, I’m begging you!” Ashen-faced, Suzanne put down her cup and saucer and raised ruby-tipped fingers to her temples.

Her mother looked ill, Imogen realized with sudden compunction. The late afternoon sun slanting cruelly across the fine patrician features revealed a pinched unhappiness about the eyes and mouth, the kind brought about by recurrent pain.

Fortunately, the maid came in. “Will there be one more for dinner, madam?”

“I’m afraid not,” Suzanne said. “I feel one of my headaches coming on. I’m sorry, Imogen, but I’m going to have to go and lie down with a cold cloth over my eyes.”