Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 3 (63 page)

‘My dear son,

‘If you are reading this, I am gone, and I did not find the courage or right time to explain things to you in person. I regret that more than words can say.

‘Whatever you may have heard by now from Yvette, I hope you will read my side of the story and find it in your heart to forgive me. I loved Angelique, your birth mother, with all my heart. We were so young, barely twenty, yet she was everything to me. She truly was my angel. Despite all the obstacles my family put in the way, we married as soon as we knew you were to be part of our lives. I would have given up everything for Angelique but she died just days after you were born. I refused to lose you, too, but I couldn’t manage alone.

‘Beside myself with grief, I stupidly allowed my family to take over and railroad me into marrying Yvette—a good business and social match. Yvette promised to raise you as her own in return for the wealth and position the marriage afforded her. There is enough mixed blood in our ancestry that no one questioned your skin being darker than ours. Your grandfather and some of your cousins carry the same Caribbean heritage, as you know.

‘The family placed a condition—you were not to be told about Angelique. I was uneasy but weak. I agreed…but have long wished I had not. Yvette was never a good mother and I am so sorry for her coldness to you. She resented you, hated me and the situation. She will try to use my death to tie you to a life not of your choosing. Do not yield, my son. You are a doctor through and through. The estate will survive well in the
hands of your cousins and Yvette’s welfare needs are guaranteed for life.

‘Please…follow your heart. Do not repeat my mistakes and be bound by a false sense of duty to something that will never make you happy or fulfilled. Live your life your way. You have my love and my blessing always. You have so much to give to the sick who need you. Medicine is your destiny.

‘Enclosed with this letter are details about Angelique and her origins, as well as some photographs. Although she had no immediate family left when she came to France, I am sure you will wish to learn more of your heritage and that side of the family. She was an amazing young woman, full of goodness and love. We both wanted you desperately.

‘There is much of her in you. I am so proud of you, Gabriel, and Angelique would be, too. Be true to yourself, my son, and be happy.

‘Love always, Papa’

His voice cracking, Gabriel set the letter aside and looked up to see tears streaming down Lauren’s cheeks. She rushed across the room and wrapped her arms around him. Taking her down with him to the mattress, Gabriel held on tight, burying his face in her hair, breathing in her scent, giving thanks that she was here.

He felt a huge weight lifting off his shoulders and a new sense of freedom welled within him, a peace he had not known for a long time. It was nearly two years since his father had died, two years in which he had struggled to come to terms with all Yvette had told him. Now he knew the truth. His father had not had an affair. He had loved Angelique. Both his natural parents had wanted him. Thanks to his father’s loving words, the road ahead was clear to him. Being a doctor
was a fundamental part of who he was. His father had known that, had released him from any misplaced family duty and urged him to follow his own path.

Despite Yvette’s belief, family responsibility was not something he took lightly. He valued his upbringing, the benefits he’d enjoyed, his father’s love. Learning that his father had been proud of him and respected his choices brought a rush of emotion to his heart. His father had known what would happen, had wanted to prepare him, to protect him in death, as he had in life, from Yvette’s bitterness and spite.

Thank goodness Lauren was here with him. Natural, earthy, intelligent and genuine, she had given him so much in every way. And she responded to his touch like no other woman he had ever known. She shifted, pulling back to meet his gaze. Touched by her concern for him, he brushed away the tears that showed how much she cared. He loved her so much and valued her opinion above all others. She accepted him for who and what he was, the whole person, not his family name or his bank balance or the ancestral estate. From the first he had sensed Lauren was a kindred spirit. It had been like a meeting of souls.

‘I’m so glad for you, Gabe,’ she told him, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Listen to your father—and to your heart.’

It was good advice. And he planned to follow it. ‘Right now my heart is telling me to take you to bed,’ he murmured huskily, delighting in the way her eyes flared with answering desire.

Late that night, cocooned in the privacy of their room, the noises of the city filtering up from the streets below, Gabriel held Lauren close, their bodies tangled together, limbs entwined. It had been an unforgettable day…a day in which he had been given a new lease of life and had recaptured his true memories of his father.

His thoughts turned to Lauren. Their love-making remained as passionate and explosive as ever and yet he still sensed that new desperation in her. He needed to tell her how
special she was and how much she meant to him. He had held back for so long, scared to push too soon or too hard—in the same way he had given her space to come to terms with the problems with her sight.

Stroking her satiny hair, breathing in her scent, he tightened his hold. ‘I love you, Lauren,
ma belle
,’ he whispered against her skin, knowing she was not yet asleep.

He fought against the heartache that gripped him when there was no response to his admission bar the tensing of her body. Fear clenched his stomach. Today Lauren’s support and reactions had proved that she cared, too, and yet she refused to acknowledge what was between them. Why? What was holding her back? For days he had sensed the times when she had been distancing herself, backing off from him emotionally, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

He couldn’t force her to trust in him, to love him, but he wanted so much more than the commitment-free relationship they had discussed at the beginning. He
wanted
commitment,
needed
Lauren in his life—for ever. How ironic that at the very time he should have rediscovered his father and be in a position to not only understand his mother’s heritage but to be free to plan his future, the one person he wanted most to share it with him was slipping out of his reach.

Lauren sat in Oliver’s car on the journey back from St Piran Hospital on Friday afternoon frozen with shock and despair. She bit her lip, trying not to think of the last hours and all the tests she had undergone—a battery of assorted eye-function tests and examinations, including visual field, acuity and colour assessments. There had been a blood test, an electro-retinograph—which determined the function of the photoreceptors in the eye—and endless questions. Unfortunately, due to her adoption, she had not been able to provide any details of her family medical history.

Oliver had reassured her several times about Professor Kieran Murchison’s reputation and the rotund, balding and jovial man had lived up to his billing today, showing a kindness that matched his thoroughness. Yet he had held her fate in his hands and she had felt sick to her stomach when he had finally delivered his verdict.

‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long, my dear, but I wanted to be very sure of the results,’ he had told her when she had been shown into his office, leaving Oliver—who had stuck with her throughout and had borne the delays and boredom with amazing fortitude—sitting outside in the waiting area.

‘But you have the results now?’ Her voice had wavered alarmingly. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

His expression serious, the professor had looked down at her notes before speaking. ‘I’m afraid you have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s a group of related, inherited disorders—a genetic disease of the retina—the majority of which have no known genetic cause. The most common cases of RP result from abnormalities of the photoreceptors—the rods and the cones,’ he had explained. ‘The presentation of your symptoms suggests that you have autosomal dominant RP, which means that you fall into the group who have rod-cone dystrophy, affecting the rods more than the cones. This explains the problems you have reported, including those with your night vision, peripheral vision, bumping into things, slow adjustment to light and so on.’

Struggling to take it all in, Lauren had forced herself to ask the next question. ‘What about treatment?’

‘There is much we can do to help you manage the condition, and to prepare and cope for the changes that lie ahead. There are various genetic and stem-cell studies ongoing
around the world which might have positive results in future, even a bionic eye project. For now, though, Lauren, there is no treatment and no cure. Progression of RP is different for everyone. Yours has been slow so far. Hopefully it will continue to follow the same pattern. You have a challenging time ahead, but it’s not a death sentence. And it’s not going to happen overnight. So much will still be open to you.’

The words rang in her ears even now. She had a whole stack of advice leaflets to read, a list of recommended books and website addresses to gain further information, but the appalling and impossible truth could not be ignored. Retinitis pigmentosa was a progressive disease. She would continue to lose her vision and, ultimately, could become totally blind.

Her mind in turmoil, she leaned back and closed eyes still blurry from the drops Oliver had warned her would be administered. Aside from the utter terror of today, of facing up to the reality that all was not well with her eyes, she couldn’t get Gabriel out of her thoughts. France had been amazing, she’d loved her time away with him. The icing on the cake had been learning about the letter and seeing the difference his father’s words, love and pride had made to him, to his sense of identity and his thoughts for the future.

On Monday night in Paris she had frozen when Gabriel had told her he loved her. She had wanted to turn in his arms and kiss him, to shout from the rooftops that she loved him, too, but instead she had pretended to be asleep and had ignored his longed-for words. If only they had come at a different time and not while she’d had this problem hanging over her and had been rigid with fear for her future. A future that now stretched ahead of her, painful and lonely, because Gabriel could not be part of it.

He had been hurt by her silence and there had been an uncharacteristic tension between them on their journey back to Cornwall the next day—a tension that had contin
ued throughout the rest of a busy week. No matter how much she told herself she was doing the right thing, guilt weighed heavily upon her. She hated deceiving Gabriel and keeping things from him. He’d be so upset if he knew where she had been today. And he’d believe she’d kept it from him because she didn’t trust him. Which wasn’t true. Far from it. She was just so terribly scared about what was happening to her and devastated now that the diagnosis confirmed the worst.

‘Lauren? Talk to me,’ Oliver cajoled, taking her ice-cold hand in his as he drew the car to a halt outside Gatehouse Cottage. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t think at the moment.’

His fingers squeezed hers and she heard the shock and upset in his voice. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m here for you. We all will be…if only you will let us.’

‘I need some time to decide what to do,’ she whispered after a long, uncomfortable pause. ‘Promise me that you won’t say anything to anyone. Not even Chloe. Especially not Gabriel.’

‘I’ve already told you I won’t break your confidence, Lauren. But I have to say I think you are wrong to shut out those who care so much about you,’ he advised gently.

Shock, anger and fear made thought and reason impossible. Withdrawing her hand from his, Lauren gathered up her things and reached to open the door. ‘I can’t thank you enough for all you have done for me. I’m more grateful than you can know. But I need to handle this my own way, Oliver,’ she told him, her voice quiet but firm.

‘All right.’ He sighed, running his fingers through his hair, his frustration and concern clear. ‘You can always come to me at any time if you want to talk about things, or if there is anything at all I can do. Promise me that much.’

‘I know. I promise.’

‘I don’t like to leave you alone,’ he protested, his voice
heavy with worry. ‘But Adam swapped with me and I have to get back to the clinic to take evening surgery.’

‘Go. Please. I’ll be fine. I need to read up, to absorb all the professor said,’ she reassured him, holding on to her composure by a tenuous thread.

After Oliver had finally been persuaded to leave, Lauren went inside and wandered around the cottage that no longer felt like home. Home was with Gabriel. A place she could no longer be. She sat down on her bed, Foxy’s head in her lap, the booklets describing her disease spread around her, and cried for all that was lost. Everything seemed too monumental to cope with. How long could she continue to do her job? What was going to happen to her one, five or ten years down the line? Would she be totally blind?

The first most pressing and impossible thing she had to do was to distance herself from Gabriel, to begin the terrible process of withdrawing and ending their magical relationship. Even thinking about it brought more pain and sadness than she had ever known. It cut deep inside her. But she had to do it. For his sake. Because he deserved someone who could be his equal, someone with whom he could have a family. With her condition, genetic testing might show she could never risk having children of her own.

Hearing Gabriel’s car going past in the drive, Lauren left Foxy behind at Gatehouse Cottage and walked slowly to the Manor House. For endless moments, scared of what was to come, she hesitated on the steps, shivering despite the mildness of the late afternoon. Finally, unable to delay the inevitable, she rang the doorbell. After a few moments, she heard Gabriel’s steps jogging down the stairs, then the front door swung open. All the breath left her lungs in a rush at the sight of him. He was so gorgeous. More than anything she wanted to throw herself into his arms, confess all, tell him she loved him, but it wasn’t fair to him.