His Australian Heiress by Margaret Way

Author:Margaret Way [Way, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Brendon had to wait his turn to see his father, like everyone else. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. However high he climbed, he was going to do it on merit. His opportunity came at the midmorning break.

“How’s it going?” Julian Macmillan looked up smilingly from a pile of papers in front of him. He felt pleased to see the son he had been blessed with.

“Fine, Dad,” Brendon said, taking a chair across the desk from his father. “It’s not the Goldberg case. I’m on top of that. It’s Simon Mansfield.”

“Really?” Julian lifted his glasses off his nose and then rubbed the bridge. “Have you struck up an unlikely friendship?”

“Hardly.”

“A very unpleasant young man, that. He was spoilt rotten by his doting mum, as you’ve heard any number of times. Conrad, who should have been a steadying influence, did nothing but write his book. Admittedly, it was a darn fine book.”

Brendon decided to let his father in on his and Charlotte’s suspicions. He explained all of their reasoning and concluded, “Charlotte and I don’t think he wrote it.”

Julian looked away across the spacious room, then back again. “Good God!” he murmured, quietly. “You want coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“Black, one sugar, just like me?”

“Thanks, Dad.” He watched his father press a button, arranging for another cup to be brought in.

“You’ll have to have some pretty convincing evidence,” Julian warned.

“You don’t sound all that shocked, Dad?”

“The truth will win out, won’t it?” Julian said with a head shake.

“We don’t have evidence that would hold up,” Brendon admitted. “Charlotte asked if she could sight the manuscript. Patricia Mansfield told her she had read the opus so far.”

“And?”

“It’s like this.” Brendon went on to recount what they had learned, breaking off momentarily as coffee arrived and was served.

“Thank you, Emily.”

Emily smiled at both men and then left the room. “So it’s only gut instinct you’re going on,” Julian Macmillan picked up on the conversation, not looking impressed.

“Okay, gut instinct,” Brendon agreed, “but Charlotte said the opening page was so dismally bad it could not have been written by the author of Cries of the Heart.”

“So on that flimsy basis, she thought her uncle had to have plagiarized what was her father’s book? Is that it?”

“I’m delighted you hit on that, Dad. Charlotte is clever,” he said, with quiet certainty.

“My God, yes,” Julian breathed. “She’s going to make a formidable woman. Not only that, a fascinating woman.”

His father’s smile seemed to Brendon to be a sad, knowing one. It prompted him to ask, “Did you have an affair with Charlotte’s mother, Dad?” He had never doubted his father, unlike his mother, but there was something there. “I know you’ve always denied it, but I need to hear it again. I’m not standing in judgement, and I wouldn’t dream of stirring up trouble, but I need the entire truth of the matter.”

Julian Macmillan had no trouble looking his son in the eye. “There was no affair, Brendon,” he said, no force but total honesty in his voice.

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