Newborn Under the Christmas Tree by Sophie Pembroke

Author:Sophie Pembroke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

LIAM TIPPED HIS chair back on two legs and stared at his hands. What had happened with Rose? That was a question he’d asked himself a million times over the years. What had he done at ten years old that meant he wasn’t good enough for his great-aunt? And what had changed between then and now, to mean that she’d left him everything she held dear?

Looking up, he met Alice’s eyes. She’d known Rose better than anyone at the end, he’d bet. Maybe she’d be able to explain it to him.

‘I was ten,’ he said, figuring it was easiest to just get it over with. She’d find out eventually. It might as well be him that told her. ‘I’d been kicked out of my uncle’s house in Brisbane, and the authorities were running out of places to put me. Someone figured out about my father’s family over here in the UK and got in touch with Rose, who was more or less all that was left of it by then. She agreed to meet me.’

‘You came to Thornwood?’

‘Briefly.’ Sighing, he let his chair drop back to all four legs again. ‘I pitched up here, freezing cold and miserable, and this creepy old guy answered the door—the butler. He looked down his long nose at me and... I knew this wasn’t the place for me.’

‘What did you do?’ From her tone, Liam knew she’d probably already guessed. Apparently he was getting predictable in his old age.

‘I acted up. I was rude, objectionable and did everything I could to make sure Rose wouldn’t take me in.’

‘And she didn’t.’

‘No, she didn’t.’ What he didn’t tell her, of course, was how much he’d wanted her to. How desperate he’d been for someone—even this old lady who was his only link to his father—to look past his act and see how much he needed her.

Of course, she hadn’t.

‘She sent you back?’

‘Worse.’ Liam tried to stop the pain in his chest at the memory. ‘She looked down into my eyes, stared for a while, then stepped back and said, “Well, he’s a Howlett all right. Can’t mistake those eyes.” That was the first time anyone from my father’s family had ever officially acknowledged me.’

‘What was so bad about that?’

‘Because that got my hopes up.’ Just remembering that hope, that brief shining moment when he’d imagined the possibility of family again, made acid burn in his throat even now. He shrugged the memory away. He didn’t need that any more. ‘But the next day I got the message—she couldn’t take me in. So it was back to the foster system for me. It taught me a valuable lesson at least, I suppose.’

‘What lesson?’

‘That you can’t rely on anyone—especially not family.’

He’d expected her to do as all his ex-girlfriends had when he’d expressed the sentiment—tell him he was a cynic, or try to convince him that he just hadn’t met the right person yet. But instead Alice gave him a small smile and said, ‘It took me twenty-four years to learn that one.

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