Silence. Keir Bourne looked away.
‘And in case you're wondering, I do know who you are,' said Patsy. ‘Which means I know why you came here to Stanton Langley.'
More silence, broken only by the sound of her own uneven breathing.
‘And now I hate myself. I feel so stupid.' Tears filled her eyes, then slid down her cheeks and dripped on to her bare feet. ‘I feel grubby and gullible and used.'
‘Well you shouldn't,' said Keir, ‘because I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Not this between you and me. I came here for one reason … a completely different reason … and I didn't expect to meet you, but I did. All of this, the way I feel about you and the way you felt about me … it was real.' He swallowed, as if on the brink of tears himself. ‘It is real.'
Patsy's voice broke. ‘You're Lily's father.'
‘Yes.'
‘You dumped Jo. She was all alone and pregnant, and you abandoned her.'
Keir shook his head sorrowfully. ‘No, no, you've got it all wrong. It wasn't my fault.'
‘You're lying again.' Sobbing now, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the white dressing gown.
‘I'm not, I swear. Please listen to me,' Keir said with anguish in his eyes. ‘Just let me explain.'
Chapter 33
Twelve years on from that night, the very, very worst of her life, Patsy wondered if this one was about to eclipse it.
All around her, at the table in the garden of Goldstone House, the rest of them were discussing the situation with varying degrees of outrage and disgust. The Sunday edition of the newspaper was yet to appear online; they were waiting for it to be uploaded within the next hour or so. And who could say what might be revealed when it did?
Patsy felt sick. For all this time she'd guarded her deepest, darkest and most shameful secret. At first she'd lived in perpetual fear that one way or another the truth would come out. Then, as the years had rolled by, the terror had lessened to a low-level rumbling anxiety. Lily had continued to be completely uninterested in meeting her biological father, and that had been the best news of all.
But now … oh, but now Keir was wanting to make contact with his daughter, and instead of simply writing to her, he'd chosen to do it via the medium of a national newspaper. God alone knew what he might be about to say.
‘Are you OK?' Coral was looking at her with concern.
‘I'm afraid … well, not really. I'm feeling a bit … ill.' Patsy's hand shook as she took a sip of water, and the rim of the tumbler clattered against her teeth.
‘You do look pale,' said Eddie.
‘Don't try and blame my barbecuing skills,' Dan announced. ‘It's too soon for food poisoning.'
Coral said, ‘It might be one of those bugs.'
‘I think it could be that.' Hating herself even more, Patsy nodded weakly. ‘I've been feeling a bit yuck for a few hours, but it's getting worse.'
‘Poor you,' Lily exclaimed. ‘And you've been trying so hard to pretend nothing's wrong. If you feel sick, I bet you're dying to go home.'
‘I am feeling sick.' Patsy put the tumbler down. ‘I think I probably should go. Sorry.'
‘Don't be silly, it's not your fault! Would you like me to walk you home?'
Patsy said, ‘It's fine. Don't worry, you stay here.' Lily's compassion was only making her feel worse. ‘I'd rather be on my own.' She made stay-sitting gestures, but it was too late; Lily was already out of her chair.
‘You mustn't … ' Patsy protested as Lily hugged her. ‘You don't want to catch whatever I've got.'
‘I won't, I never do. Poor you,' Lily said again. ‘I hope you feel better soon.'
Patsy had never felt more like Judas. Her throat tight with shame and self-loathing, she murmured, ‘Me too. I'm sorry.'
Lily smiled. ‘Will you stop saying that? You didn't do it on purpose!'
The shameful words echoed through Patsy's brain: Oh, but I kind of did.
The piece appeared on the newspaper's website at just gone midnight. As soon as Dan looked up from his phone and said, ‘It's there,' Lily nodded and pushed back her chair.
‘I'll read it inside. Won't be long.'
‘Oh darling, are you sure you don't want anyone with you?' Coral was looking concerned.
Lily gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don't worry. I'll be fine.'
In the kitchen, Lily sat down at the scrubbed oak table and opened the page on her iPad. It wasn't a case of being worried she might cry; she simply wanted to be able to concentrate and take it all in without being aware that everyone was watching her.
All these years, the fact that she'd never once googled Keir Bourne had been a source of great pride to Lily, proof that he was a nobody who meant nothing at all. The man had never shown any interest in her, so he was absolutely irrelevant to her life. What he'd done to her mum was disgusting and reprehensible and he didn't deserve to be looked up or searched out in any way whatsoever. Lily had always refused to give him the satisfaction of finding out that she'd so much as typed his name into a search engine. A man like him was beyond contempt, and that was that.
But had she been curious? OK, yes. Of course she had. And now that he'd made his move, she needed to know what he'd said.
Forewarned is forearmed, and all that.
Willing herself to stay calm and detached, she twisted the crystal-studded bangle on her left wrist and looked at the photo that had just come up on the screen, of the man who was her biological father.
Keir Bourne had been photographed looking appropriately sincere and concerned, sitting in a chair whilst holding one of the photos of her that had appeared in last week's newspaper.
He had short brown hair that was greying very slightly at the temples. Defined eyebrows, dark eyes and the beginnings of a double chin. He wasn't ugly; you could tell he'd been good-looking when he was younger. And if she were being honest, although there wasn't any strikingly noticeable similarity, there was something about his forehead and jawline that was reminiscent of her own.
No intense thud of recognition, though, thank goodness. And no sense of longing to meet him. Also good.
Lily exhaled and realised she was still compulsively twirling her mother's bangle around her wrist. She knew from Coral that Keir Bourne had never liked having his photo taken. When her mum had been seeing him, he'd always turned away from the camera, shielding his face with his hand or simply ducking out of sight. She'd only ever seen two or three photographs of him, and they'd been poor-quality snaps taken with a cheap throwaway camera – you'd never subsequently recognise him in real life.
Plus, those snaps had been taken before she'd been born, when he was still in his early twenties. A quarter of a century had passed since then.
Once a bastard, always a bastard.
OK, that was the first hurdle over. Bracing herself, Lily turned her attention from the photo to the text and began to read.
A week ago, Lily Harper sprang to the public's attention when she rescued a runaway mouse from superstar Mira Knowles … or maybe rescued Mira Knowles from a runaway mouse. Today we speak to Keir Bourne, who recognised Lily from the coverage as the daughter he's been deprived of knowing all these years, thanks to the impulsive actions of Lily's runaway mother, Jo.
‘You mustn't blame her mum,' Keir anxiously tells me when we meet in a café close to his home in Milton Keynes. ‘She didn't mean to cause me all these years of heartache. I'm sure in her own mind Jo's intentions were good. We loved each other so much, though; I don't think she realised how deep my feelings for her were. It was the worst pain I've ever known when I found out she no longer wanted me in her – and our daughter's – life.'
He pauses to gaze at the photograph of Lily in his hand, then gathers himself to continue. ‘But as the years passed, I did my best to build a new life of my own. I married and had another daughter, but was never able to forget Lily. How could I? She was my firstborn.' Keir's voice breaks as he proceeds. ‘Every single day I wondered how she was and if she was missing me. Then when Lily was seven years old, I received a letter from Jo telling me she was dying of cancer and had made arrangements for our daughter to be cared for and brought up by friends of hers. I was devastated, naturally, but she insisted she didn't want me to contact her or Lily. And although it was like a knife in my chest, I felt I had no other choice than to go along with what Jo had decided. Once again I was heartbroken.