A Will to Love Read online

  A WILL TO LOVE

  Rosina Lesley

  Published by Xcite Books Ltd – 2011

  9781908192776

  Copyright © Rosina Lesley 2011

  The right of Rosina Lesley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

  Also by Rosina Lesley

  Chapter One

  It began as a morning like any other, when she came and opened the shop at nine, along with the other shopkeepers in the little shopping mall, anticipating a good day’s trading so near to Christmas. It was cold, with a sky heavy with the promise of snow and Annie was grateful for the heating in the converted Jacobean buildings that comprised Coach House Yard.

  Shoppers had already begun filtering in, women who had just dropped children at school and business men before going on to the office. The dedicated shoppers would come later, women who lived in the surrounding villages out for a day’s enjoyable shopping, with a nice lunch thrown in, perhaps in the Tack Room, the Cafe-Wine Bar next door to Annie’s own card shop, where she sold her own beautiful designs alongside the familiar big name greetings cards.

  It was almost midday, during a lull before the expected lunch time rush that the bell over the door brought her from her drawing board at the back of the shop. The man who stood there she took for a local businessman, a little above average height, a navy blue Barathea overcoat buttoned up against the cold, briefcase in leather gloved hands. But the thing that arrested her artist’s attention most was his head. The word that came to mind was leonine, yet the thick, silver streaked hair that sprang away from the broad brow was almost black, as were the straight brows over eyes that she could see from several feet away were the blue of the sky reflected in the sea – and as changeable as the sea itself, she knew instinctively.

  ‘Annalise King?’ He spoke before she had a chance to utter a formal shopkeeper’s welcome.

  ‘I’m Annie King, yes.’ She was surprised not only by his knowledge of her name, but of her full name.

  ‘My name is Murray Campbell.’ He remained still, watching her face for a reaction. Puzzled, she searched through her memory, wondering if she should have heard of this rather intimidating stranger.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t ...’ she began, hesitantly.

  ‘Know me?’ he interrupted. ‘No, you don’t. But you will.’

  It sounded unaccountably like a threat, and Annie drew herself up, bristling.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to explain, Mr … Campbell, I think you said?’

  ‘I think it might be better if we weren’t to be interrupted.’ He looked round - disparagingly, Annie thought. ‘Have you a back room? An office?’

  ‘Here will do fine, Mr Campbell.’ Annie set her lips in an uncompromising line.

  ‘I think not, Miss King.’ He turned to the door and flicked over the “Open” sign, releasing the catch on the Yale lock as he turned back.

  ‘How dare you?’ Annie gasped in outrage and sudden fear.

  ‘Oh, I dare, Miss King.’ An eyebrow lifted mockingly. ‘And now, shall we retire?’

  ‘No.’ Annie felt the fear churning in her stomach. ‘I would prefer to stay in full view of the public.’

  ‘I am not a rapist, Miss King, or a murderer.’ He let out an irritated sigh. ‘I wish to talk about your mother.’

  The quality of Annie’s fear changed. ‘My mother? Why? What’s happened?’ She took a step forward and stopped. ‘You’d better come upstairs.’ she said abruptly, turning towards the little doorway at the back of the shop.

  The upstairs room was part stockroom, part office and part kitchen, with no concessions to comfort. The one chair was a straight-backed kitchen chair behind the table that served as a desk. Annie turned in the middle of the room, folded her arms and waited.

  ‘Your mother was Linda King?’ Murray Campbell closed the door behind him and walked over to take a position by the handsome, if redundant, fireplace.

  ‘Was?’ Annie whispered, her heart lurching into her mouth.

  ‘Well? That was her name before she married?’ His brows came together in a formidable frown.

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Is she still living in Cornwall?’

  ‘Look, what is this?’ Annie mastered her quavering voice. ‘Have you something to tell me? Has something happened to my mother?’

  ‘I have no idea if anything has happened to her. I am merely concerned to locate her and ascertain that I have my facts correct.’ Murray Campbell looked round and placed his briefcase on the desk. He paused with his fingers on the catches and looked across at her. ‘So, is she still in Cornwall?’

  ‘Yes, she is, but if you knew that, why did you come to me? Why not go direct to her?’

  Murray Campbell opened his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. ‘I’m coming to that,’ he said, leafing through them until he found what he was looking for. He looked up. ‘Your mother is Linda Drew, née King, formerly of Basingstoke Road, London, SW16?’

  Annie’s head was whirling. ‘That was where we lived when I was little, yes.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘But I don’t understand …?’

  ‘And you are her daughter, Annalise King?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve already said …’

  ‘And your father?’

  Annie felt the colour rushing into her cheeks. ‘I don’t see that my father has anything to do with you!’

  ‘On the contrary, Miss King, he has everything to do with me.’ He referred briefly to the papers in his hand before laying them back in the briefcase. ‘The name of the father on your birth certificate is Henry Tallon-Smythe?’

  Annie lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. ‘Yes.’

  ‘At the time of your birth, Henry Tallon-Smythe was married to my mother.’

  Shock waves seemed to reverberate around the room and Annie found herself bereft of speech. This man was her brother? She was conscious, among all the emotions fighting for ascendancy, of an acute disappointment.

  ‘So you see, Miss King, your father does have everything to do with me.’ He smiled cynically.

  ‘You … you …’ Annie found it hard to put into words. ‘You’re … my …’

  ‘No, not your brother, or even your half brother, Miss King, thank heavens.’ He threw her a distasteful look. ‘As I said, my mother and your father were married at the time of your birth. I was born several years previously – fairly obviously – while my mother was still married to my father.’

  Quelling an unaccountable sensation of relief – though why shouldn’t she be relieved at not being related to this obnoxious man? Annie released her pent up breath.

  ‘What happened to him?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with you,’ he said coldly, echoing her own words.

  ‘In the circumstances, I think it has quite a lot to do with me. Are we related at all?’

  ‘No. My mother and father were divorced a long time before you were born.’ He turned away to study his papers – unnecessarily, Annie was sure.

  ‘Oh? And whose fault was that?’ Annie was gaining in confidence.

  ‘What on earth does it matter?’ He was irritated, suddenly pulling off his gloves and stuff
ing them carelessly into the pockets of his overcoat.

  ‘I have the feeling that it might,’ said Anne shrewdly, and he shot her an almost admiring look, quickly replaced by the cold mask that appeared to be his habitual expression.

  ‘The point is, Miss King, that prior to your birth, your mother appealed to Henry Tallon-Smythe for his assistance.’

  ‘Which was denied,’ Annie bit out, remembered hurt colouring her voice.

  ‘Which, as you say, was denied. There was, I believe, no proof that Henry was the father of the child Linda King was carrying.’

  ‘Short of in-utero blood tests, no!’ Annie was scathing. ‘My mother believed in the innate decency and honour of the human race. In your stepfather’s case she was wrong.’

  ‘You can talk of decency and honour when an unmarried girl had got herself pregnant by a married man?’ Murray Campbell’s eyebrows threatened to disappear into his thatch of hair.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Annie gasped. ‘Got herself pregnant? I suppose Henry had nothing to do with it? He was unconscious, perhaps? And as for being married – was she supposed to be psychic? How could she know unless he saw fit to tell her?’

  ‘You are very censorious of the man you claim as father?’ His expression was almost a sneer. ‘Surely you feel a little differently about him now?’

  ‘Because he belatedly acknowledged me as his child?’ Annie paced restlessly away from the desk towards the window. ‘Too late for my mother, wasn’t it? Or for me, as a child, unacknowledged by my father, disowned for years by even my maternal grandparents …’

  ‘But this all makes up for it, surely?’ Murray Campbell’s gesture was expansive, encompassing the whole room and indicating everything beyond.

  ‘You mean the legacy?’ Annie laughed. ‘Oh, yes. I’d quite forgotten. Having worked myself into the ground to get this place off the ground with an enormous bank loan, along comes Henry’s legacy. I reduced my loan a little, that’s all.’ A blinding light struck her. ‘So that’s what this is all about, is it? Henry’s family resent some of his money being left to his illegitimate daughter!’ She threw back her head and laughed.

  Murray Campbell watched her closely. ‘Some of his money?’ he repeated.

  ‘The contents of his bank savings account and some investments. My solicitor has the details. The savings account paid off a portion of my loan.’ She looked at him. ‘You know all this surely, or you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Yes, I know all this.’ He snapped his briefcase shut. ‘I also know that he deprived my mother of her inheritance to leave it to you.’

  ‘What?’ Annie was almost speechless.

  ‘Your mother and her outrageous claims caused the break-up of my mother’s marriage to Henry Tallon-Smythe. She never got over it. And then to find that he had believed himself your father all along and left his own inheritance to you …’ He took a deep breath and advanced a step towards her. ‘You, Miss King, have almost destroyed my mother.’

  ‘I have?’ Annie couldn’t believe her ears. ‘For a few hundred paltry pounds? You must be joking. I could have understood it if he – or the family – had helped when I was born. Then, yes. It would have broken up your family, even if my mother wouldn’t have wanted that. But to say it has done so now – it’s utter nonsense.’

  ‘If your mother was so against wanting to break up the marriage why did she apply to them for help?’

  ‘She didn’t know she was applying to his wife! She thought he was unmarried. She didn’t even intend to try and marry him! All she wanted was some help.’

  ‘A scheming little gold digger, in fact.’ Murray Campbell’s voice was as cold and hard as steel.

  ‘Do you know what it was like for an unmarried mother back then?’ Annie whirled to face him, rage simmering over. ‘Well, believe me, the only ones who gained from the so-called permissive society were the men. They must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven. The women were left to suffer, as always.’

  ‘My, my. What a bitter little person you are. Prejudice run riot, wouldn’t you say?’ His face betrayed nothing but sardonic amusement, his body deceptively relaxed as he leaned against the mantelpiece.

  ‘Prejudice!’ gasped Annie. ‘What’s prejudice got to do with it? I’m talking facts, here. My mother was left pregnant by your mother’s husband, who by all accounts was a worm of the first order. She didn’t even know he was married. And …’ Annie gave a snort of disgust, ‘he refused even to believe I was his child. No help, no money, lost her the job she had fought for and now you have the cheek to accuse me – ME – of destroying your mother. I just don’t believe it.’ Heart banging against her ribs, Annie turned to face the window, fighting for control. Her breathing was so rapid she almost felt faint and had to consciously slow it down, gripping her hands together so tightly that her knuckles went white.

  The silence went on so long it became oppressive. Annie refused to turn round or to say any more. It was obviously useless to appeal to this man’s sense of decency or fair play. She just wanted him to go.

  ‘I can see it will be no use to talk to you any further at present.’ He unconsciously echoed her own thoughts. ‘I wish I could say it had been a pleasure.’

  Annie still refused to turn round. ‘I’m sure you can see yourself out,’ she grated between clenched teeth.

  ‘Of course.’ His voice was soft – soft as silk rippling over steel spikes. ‘Goodbye ... Annie.’

  Annie didn’t deign to reply, just held herself tense waiting for the click of the door that would signify his departure.

  Finally she heard the faint tinkle of the shop door which meant he had left the building and she allowed herself to relax. She discovered to her surprise that she was actually shaking, moved slowly over to the cupboard that held her meagre supply of alcohol and poured herself a large measure of sherry.

  Crossing to the window, she looked down into Coach House Yard, now thronged with busy shoppers, but there was no sign of a broad navy covered back or a thatch of black hair. Not that she expected him to have lingered. She shook her head at her faint reflection in the window and took a healthy swallow of sherry.

  What she found most difficult to understand was the level of fuss being caused over such a comparatively small amount of money. If Henry Tallon-Smythe had left her a fortune, she could sympathise to an extent with a family who had been deprived of it with no foreknowledge, but for the small amount she had received it seemed ludicrous. Especially, she reminded herself, that it appeared from what Murray Campbell had said that his mother had not remained married to Henry after her own mother’s revelations. Had they had any children, she wondered, the former Mrs Campbell and Henry? Had she, after all, deprived some legitimate heir of their inheritance, small though it may have been? Is that what Murray Campbell meant?

  Annie sighed and went to rinse out her glass under the tap. This afternoon, when Vicki came to take over, she would telephone the solicitors who had handled the legacy on her behalf and try to find out a little more.

  Vicki was an old college friend of Annie’s who had married and produced two children. She continued to create interesting designs for cards and calendars and Annie sold them in the shop alongside her own. Occasionally, the two of them would have a joint exhibition in what Annie called her “Gallery” at the back of the shop where her drawing board stood, and meanwhile, Vicki came in to help in the shop whenever she could. When she arrived at 1.30 that afternoon, Annie told her about Murray Campbell’s visit.

  ‘There’s definitely more to this than meets the eye,’ said Vicki sagely, blowing on her mug of coffee. ‘Are you sure all he left you was the money you got to pay for the shop?’

  Annie tucked a thick strand of dark gold hair behind her ear and perched on the edge of her stool, tucking her legs up on the footrest.

  ‘All I know was that I got the letter from the solicitors informing me I was a legatee in the late Henry Tallon-Smythe’s estate.’ Annie smiled reminiscently. ‘I nearly died
of shock. I phoned Mum before I even knew what he’d left me, and you should have heard her. Talk about furious. Mind you, you could hardly blame her, when he did absolutely nothing for her – not even acknowledge I was his daughter.’

  ‘Did you look like him?’ Vicki subjected her friend to a prolonged scrutiny.

  ‘Don’t know. Mum didn’t have any pictures of him – or hadn’t kept any, anyway. And I haven’t the faintest idea what he looked like in later life.’ Annie looked down at herself. ‘I suppose the height must come from him – Mum’s so tall, and I’m barely average.’

  ‘So go on. What else did the solicitors say?’ Vicki settled more comfortably against the display rack.

  ‘When they wrote? Just to ask me to get in touch. So I called Martin Humphrey who sorted out the lease on this place for me, because the other solicitors were in Northumberland, or somewhere, and he said he would do it for me. He wrote to these other solicitors, and they wrote back with the terms of the will. Then Martin had the money transferred to me. He’s holding the investment portfolio until I decide what to do with it. I don’t think it’s much.’

  ‘And there’s nothing else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Martin would have told me if there was, I’m sure.’ Annie slipped off the stool and tucked her hands into the pockets of her thick woollen sweater. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and give him a ring and see. You’ll be OK?’

  ‘I usually am, aren’t I?’ Vicki grinned.

  ‘Sorry. Yes, of course. See you later.’

  But Martin Humphrey wasn’t available when Annie tried to get through, and all she could do was to leave a message with a bored sounding receptionist. It was approaching four p.m. and beginning to get dark when the landline rang and Annie picked up the extension.

  ‘Annie? Martin Humphrey. What can I do for you? I got your message. Do you finally want to go through this portfolio?’

  ‘Well, no actually, Martin.’ Annie chewed her lip and gazed unseeingly at a display of calendars. ‘I wanted to know if there was any more to the bequest than I knew about. You see, I’ve just had a visit from – well, Henry’s stepson, I suppose he is.’