Wealthy Australian, Secret Son

Mary Rose, orphaned at an early age, had been “raised right” by her maternal grandmother, a strict woman of modest means, who had sent her very pretty granddaughter to the district’s excellent convent school. Mary Rose Costello, with the Celt’s white skin and red hair, had been regarded by the whole community as a “good girl”. One who didn’t “play around”. Yet Mary Rose Costello, too young to be wise, had blotted her copybook by falling pregnant. Horror of horrors out of wedlock or even an engagement. The odd thing was, in that closely knit Valley, no one had been able to come up with the identity of Rohan’s father. Lord knew they had all speculated, long and hard.

Mary Rose had never confided in anyone—including her bitterly shocked and disappointed grandmother. Mary Rose had never spoken the name of her child’s father, but everyone was in agreement that he must have been a stunningly handsome man. And clever. Rohan Costello, born on the wrong side of the blanket, was far and away the handsomest, cleverest boy in the Valley. When Mary Rose’s grandmother had died, she’d had the heart to leave her granddaughter and her little son the cottage. Mary Rose had then worked as a domestic in both the Marsdon and Prescott residences. She’d also done dressmaking. She had, in fact, been a very fine dressmaker, with natural skills. It was Charlotte’s mother who had encouraged Mary Rose to take in orders, spreading the word to her friends across the Valley. So the Costellos had survived, given her mother’s continuing patronage.

Up until the Tragedy.

People were milling about on the lush open lawn that stretched a goodly distance to all points of the compass, or taking shelter from the sun beneath the magnolia trees, heavy with plate-sized waxy cream flowers. Children were playing hide and seek amid the hedges; others romped on the grass. The naughty ones were running under the spray from the playing fountain until some adult stopped them before they got soaked. Everyone looked delighted to have been invited. A huge white marquee had been erected, serving delicious little crustless sandwiches, an amazing variety of beautifully decorated cupcakes, and lashings of strawberries and cream. White wine, a selection of fruit juices and the ubiquitous colas and soft drinks were also provided. No one would be allowed to get sozzled on alcohol that afternoon.

Charlotte had a few pleasant words with dozens of people as she threaded her way through the crowd. Her smile was starting to feel like a glaze on her face. It wasn’t easy, appearing relaxed and composed, given the melancholy depths of her feelings, but she’d had plenty of practice. Years of containing her grief had taught control, if nothing else. Years of going down to breakfast with the Prescotts, a smile glued to her face, after another fierce encounter with Martyn. At such times he had hit her. Lashed out. Nowhere it would show. That would have caused an uproar. Though spoilt rotten by his mother and sister, his father would swiftly have taken him to account. Domestic violence was totally unacceptable. A man never hit a woman. It was unthinkable. Cowardly.

Only Martyn, who had turned out to be a bully, had desperately wanted what she could never give him. Her undivided love. He had even been jealous of Christopher. Had he ever dared lift a hand to her son she would have left him. But as it was, pride had held her in place. It wasn’t as though she could have rung home and said, I’m up to the neck with this marriage. I want out. I’m coming home.

Her mother had been endeavouring to make a new life for herself elsewhere. Her father at that stage would have told her to “pull her socks up” and make her marriage work. It was only after Martyn had been killed and the scandalous circumstances were on public record that her father had welcomed her back—lonely, and totally unused to running a house. That was women’s work. He’d detested the cleaning ladies who came in from time to time. His daughter would take over and cook him some decent meals. Such was his Lord of the Manor mentality. Besides, he loved his little grandson. “Chip off the old block!” he used to say, when Christopher unquestionably wasn’t.

He took it for granted that Charlotte would stay, when she knew she could not. But when would the right time arrive? Christopher was now seven. No longer a small child.

Everyone was agog to meet the new mystery owner. So far he hadn’t appeared, but an hour into the afternoon a helicopter suddenly flew overhead, disappearing over the roof of the mansion to land on the great spread of lawn at the rear of the house. Ten minutes later there was a little fanfare that got everyone’s attention. A tall man, immaculately tailored with a red rosebud in his lapel, followed by no less a personage than Ms Diane Rodgers in full garden party regalia, came through the front door.

Even at a distance one could see this was someone quite out of the ordinary. He moved with lithe grace across the colonnaded verandah, coming to stand at the top of the short flight of stone stairs that led to the garden. His eyes surveyed the smiling crowd as he lifted a hand.

Immediately, enthusiastic clapping broke out. Here was their host at last! And didn’t he look the part! They were just so thrilled—especially the children, who had stared up in wonderment at the big silver helicopter with its loud whirring rotors.

How is Dad going to handle this? Charlotte thought.

Her father revealed his class. He strolled out of the crowd, perhaps with a certain swagger, to greet the CEO of the company that had bought the ancestral home. “Come along, Charlotte,” he commanded, as he drew alongside her. “It’s just you and me now. Time to greet the new owner. I very much suspect he’s more than just a CEO.”

Unfailingly, Charlotte supported her father.

“My, he is a handsome man.” Her father pitched his voice low. “And a whole lot younger than I would have expected,” he tacked on in some surprise. “I fully anticipated someone in their late forties at least. Hang on—don’t I know him?”

Charlotte couldn’t say whether he did or he didn’t. Even with the broad brim of her picture hat the slanting sun was in her eyes. But she did manage to put a lovely welcoming smile on her face. They were on show. Anyone who was anyone in the Valley was ranged behind them—every last man, woman and child keen observers of this meeting. This was an historic day. The Marsdons, for so long lords and ladies of the Valley, now displaced, were expected to act with grace and aplomb.

Except it didn’t happen that way.

“Good God, Costello—it can’t be you?” Vivian Randall bellowed like an enraged bull.

He came to such an abrupt halt Charlotte, slightly behind him, all but slammed into him, clutching at his arm to steady herself. She saw the blood draining out of her father’s face. A hard man to surprise, he looked utterly poleaxed.

She, herself, had felt no portent of disaster. No inkling that another great turning point in her life had arrived. She couldn’t change direction. She was stuck in place, with such a tangle of emotions knotted inside her they could never be untied.

There wasn’t a flicker of answering emotion on the man’s striking, highly intelligent face. “Good afternoon, Mr Marsdon,” he said suavely, coming down the stone steps to greet them. Effortless charm. An overlay of natural command. His voice was cultured, the timbre dark. An extremely attractive voice. One people would always listen to. “Charlotte.” He turned his head to look at her. Blazing blue eyes consumed her, the electric blueness in startling contrast to his colouring—crow-black hair and brows, olive skin that was tanned to a polished bronze. The searing gaze remained fixed on her.

She was swamped by an overwhelming sense of unreality.

Rohan!

The intervening years were as nothing—carried away as if by a king tide. The day of reckoning had come. Hadn’t she always known it would? Her heart was pumping double time. The shock was devastating—too excruciating to be borne. She had thought she had built up many protective layers. Now she was blown away by her own emotional fragility. She tried to get her breath, slow her palpitating heart. She felt as weak as a kitten. She raised one trembling hand to her temple as a great stillness started to descend on her. She was vaguely aware she was slipping sideways …

No, no—don’t give way! Hold up!

“Rohan!” she breathed.

He was as familiar to her as she was to herself. Yet he had never given a hint of warning—right up until this very day. It was cruel. Rohan had never been cruel. But it was abundantly clear he wanted to shock her far more than he wanted to shock her father. He wanted to stun her to her very soul. She read it in his dynamic face. Revenge, smoothly masked. But not to her. She knew him too well. So long as there was memory, the past lived on. One might long to forget, but memory wouldn’t allow it.

Her pride broke.

“You do this to me, Rohan?” She knew she sounded pitiful. The immediate world had turned from radiant sunshine to a swirling grey fog. It smothered her like a thick blanket. Her ears seemed stuffed with cotton wool. She was moving beyond complete awareness, deeper into the fog, oblivious to the strong arms that shot out with alacrity to gather her up.

A little golden-haired boy ran out of the crowd, crying over and over in a panic, “Mummy … Mummy … Mummy!”

His grandfather, beside himself with sick rage, tried to catch him. The boy broke away, intent on only one thing: following the tall stranger who was carrying his beautiful mother back into the house.

This was the new owner of Riverbend! By now everyone was saying his name, turning one to the other, themselves in a state of shock.

Rohan Costello.

Fate had a way of catching up with everyone.

CHAPTER TWO

Silver Valley, summer fourteen years ago

IT WAS one of those endless afternoons of high summer—glorious months of the school vacation, when the heat sent them racing from the turquoise swimming pool in the mansion’s grounds into the river. It meandered through the valley and lay in a broad glittering curve at Riverbend’s feet. They knew they were supposed to keep to the pool that afternoon, but it wasn’t as though they weren’t allowed to take frequent dips in the river. After all, their father had had a carpenter erect a diving dock for their pleasure. Prior to that they had used a rope and an old tyre, fixed to stout branches of a river gum to swing from.

She was twelve, and very much part of the Pack of Four, as they had become known throughout the Valley. She didn’t feel honoured to be allowed to tag along with the boys. She was one of them. All three boys were inseparable friends: her older brother Mattie, Rohan—Mrs Costello’s son—a courtesy title insisted on by their mother, because Mrs Costello was really a miss, but who cared?—and Martyn Prescott, young son of the neighbouring estate, High Grove. Charlotte was their muse.

Although she would have died rather than say it aloud, Rohan was her shining white knight. She loved him. She loved the burning blue looks he bent on her. But these days a kind of humming tension had cut into their easy affection. Once or twice she’d had the crazy desire to kiss him. Proof, if any were needed, that she was fast growing up.

Rohan easily beat them into the water that day, striking out into the middle of the stream, the ripples on the dark green surface edged with sparkles the sunlight had cast on the river. “What’s keeping you?” he yelled, throwing a long tanned arm above water. “Come on, Charlie. You can beat the both of them!”

He was absolutely splendid, Rohan! Even as a boy he had a glamour about him. As her mother had once commented, “Rohan’s an extraordinary boy—a born leader, and so good for my darling Mattie!” In those early days their mother had been very protective of her only son.

“Won’t do him a bit of good, wrapping him in cotton wool.” That irritated comment always came from their father, who was sure such mollycoddling was holding his son back.

Perhaps he was right? But their mother took no notice. Unlike her young daughter, who enjoyed splendid health, Matthew had suffered from asthma since infancy. Mattie’s paediatrician had told their anxiety-ridden mother he would most likely grow out of it by age fourteen. It was that kind of asthma.

That fatal day Charlotte remembered running to the diving dock, her long, silver-blonde hair flying around her face. It was Martyn who had pulled her hair out of its thick plait. It was something he loved to do. Most of the time she rounded on him—“How stupid, Martyn!” was her usual protest as she began to re-plait it.

“You look better that way, Charlie. One day you’re going to be an absolute knockout. Mum and Dad say that. Not Nicole, of course. She’s as jealous as hell. One day we’re going to get married. Mum says that too.”

“Dream on!” she always scoffed. Get married, indeed! Some husband Martyn would make.

Mattie always laughed, “Boy, has he got a crush on you, Charlie!”

She chose not to believe it. She didn’t know then that some crushes get very crushed.

Rohan never laughed. Never joked about it. He kept silent on that score. The Marsdons and the Prescotts were the privileged children of the Valley. Certainly not Rohan Costello, who lived with his mother on the outskirts of town in a little cottage hardly big enough to swing a cat. Their mother said the pair would have to shift soon.

“Rohan is quickly turning into a man!”

At fourteen, nearing fifteen, it was apparent the fast-growing Rohan would easily attain six feet and more in maturity. Mattie, on the other hand, was small for his age. Rohan was by far the strongest and the best swimmer, though she was pretty good herself—but built for speed rather than endurance.

Totally unselfconscious, even with her budding breasts showing through her swimsuit and her long light limbs gleaming a pale gold, with Rohan—her hero—watching, she made a full racing dive into the water, striking out towards him as he urged her on, both of them utterly carefree, not knowing then that this was the last day they would ever swim in the river.

Years later she would shudder when she remembered their odd near-total absorption in one another that summer afternoon. A boy and a girl. One almost fifteen, the other twelve.

Romeo and Juliet.

Martyn appeared angry with them, sniping away. Jealous. Mattie was his normal sweet self. At one stage he called out that he was going to swim across to the opposite bank, where beautiful weeping willows bent their branches towards the stream.

“Stay with us, Mattie,” Rohan yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“What’s the matter? Reckon I can’t do it?” Mattie called back, sounding very much as if he was going to take up the challenge.

“‘Course you can!” she had shouted, always mindful of her brother’s self-esteem, undermined by his sickness. “But do like Rohan says, Mattie. Stay with us.”

Mattie appeared persuaded. He turned in their direction, only then Martyn yelled, his voice loud with taunt, “Don’t be such a cream puff, Marsdon! Are you always going to do what Mummy says? Are you always going to stick by Rohan’s side? Rohan will look after Mummy’s little darling. Isn’t that his job? Go for it, Mattie! Don’t be such a wimp!”

“Shut up, Martyn!” Rohan roared, in a voice none of them had ever heard before. It was an adult voice. The voice of command.

Immediately Martyn ceased his taunts, but Mattie confounded them all by kicking out towards the opposite bank, his thin arms stiff and straight in the water.

“Perhaps we should let him?” Charlotte had appealed to Rohan, brows knotted. “Mummy really does mollycoddle him.”

“You can say that again!” Martyn chortled unkindly. Everyone in the Valley knew how protective Barbara Marsdon was of her only son.

“I’m going after him.” It only took a little while of watching Mattie’s efforts for Rohan to make the decision. “You shouldn’t have taunted him, Martyn. You’re supposed to be Mattie’s friend. He’s trying to be brave, but the brave way is the safest way. Mattie doesn’t have your strength, or mine. He isn’t the strongest of swimmers.”

“He’ll make it.” Martyn was trying not to sound anxious, but his warier brain cells had kicked in. Rohan was right. He shouldn’t have egged Mattie on. He went to say something in his own defence, only Rohan had struck out in his powerful freestyle while Charlotte followed.

Martyn chose to remain behind. He thought they were both overreacting. Mattie would be okay. Sure he would! The distance between the banks at that point wasn’t all that wide. The water was warm. The surface was still. There was no appreciable undercurrent. Well, not really. The waters were much murkier on the other side, with the wild tangle of undergrowth, the heavy overhang of trees, the resultant debris that would have found its way into the river. For someone like Rohan the swim would be no more than a couple of lengths of the pool. But for Mattie?

Hell, they could be in the middle of a crisis, Martyn realised—too late.

One minute Mattie’s thin arms were making silver splashes in the water, and then to their utter horror his head, gilded by sunlight, disappeared beneath the water.

All of a sudden the river that had taken them so many times into its wonderful cool embrace seemed a frightening place.

“Oh, God—oh, God!” Charlotte shrieked, knowing in her bones something was wrong. “Get him, Rohan!” she cried hysterically.

“Come on, don’t be stupid, Charlie. He’s only showing off,” Martyn shouted at her, starting to feel desperately worried. The traumas of childhood had a way of echoing down the years. Martyn felt shivers of prescience shoot into his gut.

Charlotte ignored him, heart in her mouth. Martyn never was much good in a crisis. It was Rohan who knifed through the dark green water with the speed of a torpedo.

She went after him, showing her own unprecedented burst of speed. “God—oh, God!” Tears were pouring down her face, lost in river water.

There was no sign of Matthew. She knew he wouldn’t be playing games. Matthew was enormously considerate of others. He would never frighten her, never cause concern to the people he loved. He loved her. He loved Rohan, his best friend. He wouldn’t even have caused dread to Martyn, who had taunted him either.

“Mattie … Mattie Mattie … !” She was yelling his name at the top of her lungs, startling birds that took off in a kaleidoscope of colour.

Rohan too had disappeared, diving beneath the dark green water. She followed his example, fear reverberating deep within her body. Lungs tortured, she had to surface for air. As she came up she thought she saw something shimmering—a shape moving downstream. She went after it. Rohan beat her to it. She was screaming in earnest now. Rohan was cradling a clearly unconscious Mattie like a baby, holding him out of the water in his strong arms. A thin runnel of blood was streaming off Mattie’s pale temple.

Fate could swoop like an eagle from a clear blue sky.

“I’ll tow him to the bank,” Rohan shouted to her. His voice was choked, his handsome young face twisted in terror. ‘I’ll try CPR. Keep at it. Charlie—get help.”

But Mattie was gone. She knew it. Lovely, laughing Mattie. The best brother in the world.

A swim across the river. She could have done it easily. Yet Mattie might have plunged into a deep sea in the blackness of night. There was no sign of Martyn either. He must have run back to the house for help. She thought she might as well drown herself with Mattie gone. There would be no life at Riverbend now. Her mother would most likely go mad. She knew her father would somehow survive. But her mother, even if she could get through the years of annihilating grief, wouldn’t stay within sight of the river where her adored Matthew had drowned. She would go away, leaving Charlotte and her father alone.

Except for the gentle shadow of Matthew Marsdon, who would always be fourteen.

The whole tragic thing would be blamed on someone. Her inner voice gave her the sacrificial name.

Rohan.

Rohan the born leader, who would be judged by her parents, the Prescotts, and a few others in the Valley resentful of the Costello boy’s superior looks and high intelligence over their own sons, to have let Matthew Marsdon drown.

Such an intolerable burden to place on the shoulders of a mere boy. A crime, and Rohan Costello was innocent of the charge.

The present. The garden party.

Rohan Costello had returned to the scene of his childhood devastation. That showed passion and courage. It also showed that the cleverest boy in the Valley had become extraordinarily successful in life. Matthew Marsdon’s tragic death had locked the daughter, Charlotte, and Costello even more closely together. Eventually they’d gone beyond the boundaries, but that had never been known, or if suspected never proved. What was known was that the Tragedy had never driven them apart—even when Charlotte’s parents, in particular her mother Barbara, had burned with something approaching hatred for the boy she had in a way helped nurture.

There had only been one course left to the Costellos. Mother and son had been virtually driven out of the Valley, the sheer weight of condemnation too great.

The brutality of it!

People could only wonder if Rohan Costello had returned to Silver Valley to settle old scores? The past was never as far away as people liked to pretend.

Charlotte’s faint lasted only seconds, but when she was out of it and the world had stopped spinning she was still in a state of shock, her body trembling with nerves. She was lying on one of the long sofas in the drawing room, her head and her feet resting on a pile of silk cushions. Her hair had all but fallen out of its elegant arrangement. She was minus her hat and, she noted dazedly, her expensive sandals.

Rohan was at her head. Christopher was at her feet. Diane Rodgers and a couple of her mother’s old friends stood close by. Her mother’s friends’ watching faces were showing their concern. Not so Ms Rodgers, whose almond eyes were narrow. There was no sign of her father, but George Morrissey, their family doctor, hurried in, calling as he came, “Charlie, dear, whatever happened?”

Morrissey had brought the Marsdon children into the world, and Charlotte had always been a great favourite.

“How are you feeling now?” He sat down beside her to take her pulse. A few more checks, and then, satisfied there was nothing serious about the faint, he raised her up gently, while Rohan Costello, the new owner, resettled the cushions as a prop at her back.

“The heat, George,” she explained, not daring to look up at Rohan, who had so stunningly re-entered her life. What she wanted to do was seize hold of her little son and run for her life. Except there was no escape. Not now. “I must be going soft.”

“That’ll be the day!” the doctor scoffed.

“Mummy?” Christopher’s lovely olive skin had turned paper-white. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, darling.” She held out a reassuring hand. “Come here to me.” She tried hard to inject brightness into her voice. “I love you, Chrissie.”

“Mummy, I love you too. You’ve never fainted before.” He clutched her hand, staring anxiously into her face.

“I’m fine now, sweetheart. Just a little dizzy.” She drew him down onto the spot Dr Morrissey had readily vacated, putting a soothing arm around him and dropping a kiss on the top of his golden head. “I’ll get up in a minute.”

“Give it a little longer, Charlie,” Morrissey advised, happy to see her natural colour returning. He very much suspected extreme shock was the cause of Charlotte’s faint. Incredible to think young Costello had become so successful. Then again, not. Rohan Costello had been an exceptionally bright lad.