True Colours Read online

  ‘He wasn’t on his own.’ Tom muttered the words, shifting uncomfortably in the bed as he spoke. ‘Can you get me a glass of water love? This place is like an oven.’

  Leaning over to the bedside locker, Alex filled the glass, her face caught in a frown,

  ‘So who else was there?’

  Tom sighed, it was all going to come out now, and he was quite sure she wouldn’t like it.

  Tom had tried to think of a way to explain what had happened that would soften the blow, that would make it easier for her. But in the end he’d given up, had kept his fingers crossed that she would believe him, take his vague explanation about a car accident at face value and move on. Silently, he cursed himself. He should have known she’d find out, that one of the nursing staff would let something slip. And he knew the truth would cut Alex to the core. Whatever about her dashing off to Barcelona pretending that she was following her dream, pretending that everything was perfect, he knew damn well something had happened all those years ago, that something had gone wrong between her and Sebastian. And, without a doubt, the truth of what had happened out there on the Long Ridge would open old wounds, sting like salt. It had been a long time ago, but how could he forget her drifting about like love’s young dream one minute, starry-eyed, a permanent grin on her face, then, in a heartbeat, she was leaving the country. Putting as much distance between herself and Sebastian as was humanly possible.

  Despite Alex’s efforts to hide it, whatever had happened, Tom had always reckoned, must have been caused by Sebastian. Watching her pack, folding her good dress with military precision, he’d known damn well Alex didn’t really want to leave, that she was still mad about Sebastian. He’d tried to ask, to get her to talk about it to tell him the truth, but she had been full of Barcelona and the design course and the miracle that they’d given her a place – she’d applied on a whim apparently, not mentioned it because she’d reckoned she had no hope of getting in.

  And then they’d offered her a scholarship…

  And at that moment, all those years ago, perched on the edge of her bed nestling under the sloping ceiling of her room, the shutters flung back, the tiny window open and letting in the scent of the wild roses climbing around the frame, the sounds of the wood around them, Tom had felt utterly helpless, had had no idea how to get through to his headstrong teenage daughter. And the neat package of grief that he’d sealed away at the back of his mind when he’d lost her mum had begun to open up again, the pain seeping through the wrapping, overwhelming him, swallowing him up, dark and stinking of what might have been. At that exact moment he missed Carmen more than ever, knew for sure that if Carmen was around that they’d get the full story. Carmen would have been able to get to the root of the problem, find out the truth about what had happened between his daughter and Sebastian. She’d only just got the results of her exams for goodness sake, had put off applying to universities, was toying with the idea of taking a year out, of getting a job in interiors, in a shop or a consultancy, to see what she thought of it before she committed to a career. She had plenty of time to decide; she had sat her Leaving Certificate a year early, had been recognised by her teachers as a high-flyer early on. But he hadn’t expected her to be flying so soon, flying like a startled pheasant in front of a fox, flying away from him.

  And after she left, Alex had never asked about the estate, never asked about the Wingfields, so Tom had taken it that she didn’t want to know, that it was easier for her not to know. He had wrestled with the news of the death of Sebastian’s parents, eventually deciding that she had enough to cope with, that leaving had been hard enough without having to do it all over again if she returned for their funeral.

  Of course she’d had to come home, eventually. He’d been backwards and forwards to Barcelona, taking a few days here, a few days there, trying to keep his destination quiet – not that it would have mattered. Sebastian was back in London at university by then, had moved on. But she must have still been sweet on him, because when she had finally stepped across the threshold of the cottage, she had closed the cadmium yellow front door firmly behind her and didn’t set foot outside again until it was time to return to Barcelona.

  Now, looking at her sitting beside him, her face was set with the same bitter determination he’d seen when they set off for the airport that first time. The same pain. And there wasn’t an easy way to explain what had happened. Tom Ryan drew in a deep breath.

  ‘Caroline. It was Caroline’s idea to go out. She talked him into it, and I reckon she must have distracted him when he was aiming. He’s an excellent shot. There’s no way he would have shot wide unless someone bumped into him or something. Look I don’t know, I didn’t ask. Like I said, what’s done’s done.’

  Caroline. Alex felt like she’d been kicked in the teeth. Her eyes narrowed and she sat up straight, very straight, like she was in a board meeting, like she was negotiating a major deal. Caroline. She should have known.

  ‘It isn’t Dad. What’s done is most definitely not done. It doesn’t end there. It can’t do. I spoke to your doctor, you’re never going to be able to walk again without a stick. Which means that you won’t be able to work.’ She pronounced each word clearly, taking him with her through her thought process, logically, pragmatically.

  ‘Don’t you worry lass I’ll be fine. It’ll sort itself out. Honestly, it’ll all be fine. Lord Kilfenora will look after it, he’s been good to us. Very good.’ He forced himself to sound light, unworried, like she was creating a fuss where there was none.

  The mention of Lord Kilfenora’s name seemed to throw Alex off track for a moment, but only for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low, deadly serious ‘Dad, it is not going to sort itself out, and it’s not going to go away. If you can’t walk, you can’t work – you certainly can’t work on the estate. And if you can’t work then you’ve got nowhere to live. You’re effectively homeless because Sebastian Wingfield got slap happy with a shotgun.’

  Tom shook his head. She could tell he wasn’t listening, was blocking out what she was saying.

  ‘So Lord Kilfenora’s going to pay compensation is he? For loss of earnings and to get you settled in alterative accommodation?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed anything like that. I just want to get better, then we can deal with the details.’

  ‘The details? I don’t think they’re details Dad. More like fundamentals.’

  ‘I know, I know, I’ll sort it out. I can look after myself you know.’

  ‘Obviously.’ The word was loaded with sarcasm. He ignored it, was beginning to feel tired.

  ‘Isn’t it time you went to a meeting or something?’ It sounded snappier than he’d intended.

  ‘A meeting? Good God, you’re worse than Mum! Do you think if you bury your head in the sand you’ll wake up and everything will be all right, your leg will fix itself and everything can get back to normal?’

  Tom’s face paled at the mention of his beloved Carmen, and for a split second Alex regretted bringing her mother into the conversation. But she had ignored her cancer, had ignored the symptoms, and if she’d been treated earlier, who knows what might have happened…

  ‘You’re going to have to leave you know, leave the estate. You can move in with me in Dalkey when they let you out of here, but then we’re going to have to have a serious think about what you want to do.’

  For a moment Tom looked dumbfounded. ‘Leave? Don’t be ridiculous girl.’

  Alex shook her head. ‘You can’t work with a serious leg injury Dad, they need a fully fit gamekeeper – how many times have you said it’s a hard job, that if you weren’t fit, you’d never manage it? Well you’re not fit now, and they’re going to have to find someone who is, and that someone is going to have to live somewhere, aren’t they?’ Tom Ryan looked shocked, he hadn’t thought about the situation from that angle, hadn’t actually thought about it at all, his sole focus on his recovery. He pursed his lips as she continued, ‘They’ll have to pay compensation or
we’ll have to sue.’

  ‘What?’ Tom’s reaction was explosive, produced several accusing looks from across the ward.

  ‘Well, what did you expect? Think about it. Loss of earnings and your home. You’re looking at tens of thousands. And unless Sebastian Wingfield agrees to pay up, we’ll have to go to court.’

  ‘But he could be charged’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, I don’t know. It’s a legally-held shotgun but it’s not for shooting people is it?

  Alex raised her eyebrows. Right now, seeing Sebastian Wingfield sentenced to seven years in Mountjoy Prison wasn’t such an unattractive prospect.

  ‘And he’s getting married girl. We can’t ruin all that with a lawsuit.’

  ‘Can’t we? We’ll just have to see what he says then, won’t we?’

  TWENTY SIX

  ‘Thank you so much for the flowers.’ Caroline’s voice, jarring like an inexperienced violinist tuning up, was dripping with sarcasm. Tearing himself away from the series of doodles he had been creating in the margins of his desk calendar, one hand reaching to massage his pounding head, Sebastian adjusted his mobile against his ear and thought fast. Was she ringing because he’d forgotten to send her flowers (why should he have remembered??) or because she didn’t like the ones she’d got, assuming them to be from him?

  They’d hardly spoken since lunch yesterday, had hardly spoken at all during the meal. A tense affair, the idiot wedding planner gushing about lilies, about organza, about pink champagne, his grandfather appearing blissfully unaware of any tension, smiling at Caroline like she was Helen of Troy, occasionally reaching out to pat her arm which was resting on the table beside him, the Wingfield Sapphire displayed to its maximum advantage.

  ‘Weren’t you listening to anything I said yesterday?’ Without waiting for him to answer Caroline barrelled on. He was tempted to say ‘I heard you loud and clear…’ but she didn’t give him a chance, ‘I very clearly said that I hated yellow, and obviously if I don’t like yellow any fool would know that I wouldn’t be keen on orange either...’ Any fool? Yellow and orange? ‘…and to be honest, parrot flowers are quite grotesque.’

  Parrot flowers? Then the penny dropped; Joss. Joss loved parrot flowers…Joss must have sent them…but how on earth did she know they’d had a row? Sebastian suddenly realised that she had stopped speaking, the silence growing between them like a vacuum.

  ‘Sorry, I missed the bit about the yellow…’ it sounded hopeless, even to him, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Caroline didn’t answer but let out a sharp breath like an escape of steam from a piston. Sebastian tried again, ‘You know flowers aren’t really my thing…’

  ‘I’d noticed.’ Her retort was short and piercing. He winced.

  ‘I hope you’ve done a bit better with the rest.’

  The rest? The rest of what? The rest of the flowers? Hardly. Glancing towards the door of his office, willing Joss to come in and rescue him, Sebastian said the only thing he could think of, finding himself using the exact phrase that that fool in Cannes had been spinning out for the past six months:

  ‘Of course darling, everything’s under control.’

  Perhaps it was the empty tone in his voice that she picked up on, or maybe she found the choice of words as shallow as he had done, but her reply came out in a hiss.

  ‘You’ve forgotten – you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about do you?’

  There was a pause while Caroline waited for him to react. He didn’t; still didn’t know what he’d done wrong, what she was talking about.

  ‘How could you?’ Caroline’s voice was rising, ‘So, who sent the flowers? Oh my God, it was Joss wasn’t it? That woman’s mad; she’s just the type to think I’d like those hideous parrot things. I cannot believe it.’ Her last words came out as a screech, gears jamming in an engine room. And she wasn’t finished. ‘After you were so beastly yesterday, how could you forget my birthday?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Don’t bother making excuses Sebastian Wingfield. You’ve just been too wrapped up in that bloody gamekeeper and his precious daughter to think about me, haven’t you? Alex Ryan with her red briefcase and her bloody blonde curls. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at her.’

  ‘What? What do you mean the way I look at her, don’t be ridiculous…’

  ‘Ridiculous, me? You’re the one mooning over the staff, making a complete idiot of yourself, and I’m quite sure that I’m not the only one who’s noticed. I won’t be made a fool of Sebastian. I will not, do you hear me? You’re just going to have to get rid of her and find someone else to do the ballroom.’ Caroline paused for breath, continuing with a sneer, ‘Ask Joss, she’s very efficient. I’m sure she can find another painter and decorator.’

  And with that, Caroline slammed down the phone.

  Reeling from the vitriol in her voice, astonished, Sebastian clicked his phone off, laying it down carefully beside his desk pad. His PA had sent her flowers and she didn’t like the colour. And okay, with everything on his mind, he had forgotten that it was her birthday. Big deal! There were children dying of hunger in Africa, suicide bombers attacking shopping centres in the Middle East, and Caroline was having a fit about the colour of a bunch of flowers.

  Straightening the phone, shifting it slightly so that it lay exactly parallel with his desk pad, Sebastian took a deep breath. His world was cracking apart. Spectacularly so. Cracking and breaking like ice, huge sections of it floating away from him, gathering speed as everything that was happening caught hold of them, spinning them out of control in a torrent of secrets and accusations.

  Had it started with the accident?

  The gut-wrenching horror of seeing Tom lying there hit him full force all over again; his desperate radio call to the house; the whup-whup-whup of the blades of the rescue helicopter pounding the cold air, mirroring the beat of his heart; the race to the hospital; pacing outside the operating theatre, disinfectant catching in his throat, the lights too bright, nameless, faceless people passing him like zombies in some awful B movie. And then seeing Tom sitting up in bed, his face drained of colour; fumbling for the right words, not knowing where to start, how to make things right.

  ‘It’s all right son, accidents happen.’ It’s all right son…

  And then there was Alex. Walking right back into his life as if she didn’t know him, as if they had no connection. The memory of that kiss gave him a physical pain in his gut, sent another chunk of his carefully balanced life spinning into oblivion. He’d had a feeling she might come, if he was honest with himself, knew she would come as soon as she heard Tom was in hospital, but in the whirl of events that had followed, between Caroline’s non-stop plans for the wedding, the mess that that idiot had made of the business in Cannes, Jackson’s negotiations with New York, he’d pushed it to the back of his mind. He hadn’t wanted to see her, was firmly decided on that. She was the one who had left. Left him in bits.

  He’d eventually found a way to deal with the loss, the hurt, to build a barrier to protect himself, a shield around his heart that allowed him get on with his life, to focus on the estate and his business. But no matter how strong Sebastian thought he was, he couldn’t stop the memories gushing through fissures in his armour every time he heard a particular song on the radio, smelled perfume that was vaguely like hers, heard a blackbird call. And with every fissure that appeared, despite his efforts to repair it, despite the distance of the years, his protective wall had weakened. And then Alex Ryan had walked into his office and the whole lot had started to shift alarmingly, fault lines rippling out in every direction.

  Sebastian picked up the fountain pen on his desk, ‘with all my love’ engraved along its shaft, fed it through his fingers. He’d come into the office early this morning, waking at four, cold, unable to sleep, a nagging ache to the left of his forehead. Caroline, thankfully, had taken herself off to spend the night at her apartment so,
instead of tossing and turning, he’d decided to get up, had grabbed a coffee and come straight to the office, frightening the cleaners half to death when they’d arrived with their trolleys laden with mops and brooms and mysterious sprays. And he’d been sitting here ever since, trying to sort it all out in his head, blissfully unaware that he should have been at Caroline’s apartment at the Four Seasons Hotel with flowers (pink) and a rock from Weir’s. But he’d probably have got that wrong too, gone for emeralds when she wanted diamonds, earrings when she wanted a necklace. They didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength at all.

  Sebastian groaned half to himself, remembering the feeling of horror as Caroline had revealed the truth about Tom’s accident. Like the start of an avalanche, he had heard the laughter in her voice before she came out with it, had felt as if chunks of rock and snow were sliding past him in slow motion as she continued, gathering momentum as they crashed to earth. What on earth had possessed her? He rolled the pen between his fingers again. He only had a few minutes now before Joss would be up with the coffee, before Jackson would be on the phone, before the Minister arrived to talk about this bloody shopping centre. Why on earth would Wingfield Holdings be interested in a shopping centre? The pen felt solid in his hand, heavy, comforting, the light from the chandelier catching its fluted surface, dancing, teasing him with memories.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Eyes sparkling, Alex had glanced at him over her shoulder as she pushed the peeling door of the Mill House open, the sound of the hinges creaking over the rush of the water tumbling beside them, gushing through the wheel, stuck tight after so many years of neglect, weed streaming from its paddles like mermaids’ hair. He’d followed her into the darkness, the windows boarded now against the elements, the only light from the hole in the roof, the smell of rotting leaves and damp pervading every crevice. They’d secured the ladder in place, prevented it from falling with an old piece of nylon rope, red and scratchy, and nails that she had found in her dad’s tool kit. Sebastian had been surprised – he hadn’t told her it was his birthday, somehow afraid that slipping another year ahead of her would make him too old for her, would turn her off him. But, as they scrambled up to their dry corner, he saw she’d already pulled the old tartan travelling rug straight, had piled the cushions into a heap, a bottle of Asti Spumante and a pair of glasses set ready on a battered tin tray, a chocolate cake from the village bakery safe from the mice in its glossy white cardboard box.