Keeping Luke's Secret

Keeping Luke’s Secret

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘DR LEONORA WINSTON, I presume?’

Leonie looked across the room to the now open doorway, having been shown into this sitting-room a couple of minutes ago by the maid who had admitted her to the house, her smile fading to a frown as she found herself being looked at with scathing dislike by the tall, dark-haired man standing there.

‘Tall, dark and handsome’ instantly came to her mind, although there, Leonie was sorry to say, the compliments stopped. He was also arrogant—from his scornful expression. Cold—pale green eyes were icy with contempt as he looked across at her. And the word pompous also sprang to mind.

But there were also two things wrong, as far as she was concerned, with this man’s deliberate misquote.

For one thing, her given name might be Leonora— Leo for her paternal grandfather, Nora for her paternal grandmother—but she was never known by that name, had been called Leonie for as long as she could remember.

Secondly, she was sure, when Stanley had made that original statement to Livingstone, that he had been pleased to see the other man. The man now standing in the doorway of this sunlit sitting-room was definitely not pleased to see Leonie.

In fact, the opposite!

It was there in the scornful tone with which he spoke to her. It was also apparent in the way he looked at her so contemptuously, with those eyes the pale green of a cat, down the long length of his arrogant nose. No, this man was anything but pleased to see her.

And she had no idea what she had done to elicit such enmity in a complete stranger…

She returned his gaze with cool grey eyes. ‘Mr Luke Richmond, I presume?’ One blonde brow rose as she returned his challenge, unwillingly to allow him to think he had her at any sort of disadvantage; she might not be acquainted with this man but she had recognised him for exactly who he was the moment she’d first looked at him.

Even white teeth snapped together with displeasure, the sculptured mouth tightening, those pale green eyes narrowing with obvious displeasure. ‘You may find this situation amusing, Dr Winston—’

‘Please call me Leonie,’ she interrupted smoothly, her frown returning. ‘And I believe you’ve mistaken my mood, Mr Richmond—I’m more puzzled by this so-called “situation” than I am amused!’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Because it was my mother you were expecting to see rather than me?’ he rasped, nodding dismissively in answer to his own question. ‘Don’t worry, you will see my mother—eventually; Rachel is notorious for being late,’ he added with obvious impatience for that habitual tardiness, moving forward to close the door behind him with studied decisiveness. ‘I wanted a chance to talk to you alone before the two of you met.’

Leonie stood in front of the bay window across the room, the sun warming her back—but even so, being shut in the room with this man was like being enveloped in a sudden blast of ice-cold air.

It wasn’t just those pale green eyes that made this man so daunting; he also stood well over six feet tall. His dark hair was styled deliberately short, shoulders wide and muscular in his black shirt, his torso lean, legs long in black denims. In fact, everything about this man—apart from those pale eyes—was darkly saturnine!

Don’t be ridiculous, Leonie, she instantly admonished herself; this man might not appear exactly friendly, but his mood might not actually have anything to do with her presence here, he might just be having a bad day. Or maybe this rudeness was just normal for him, and not to be taken personally!

She forced her features to relax into a smile. ‘There seems to have been some sort of mistake, Mr Richmond—’

‘Any mistake that’s been made, I can assure you, Dr Winston, is completely on your side,’ Luke Richmond cut in harshly. ‘I have no idea what subterfuge you may have used in order to get this appointment with my mother, but let me assure you—’

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘—it will do you absolutely no good whatsoever—’

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘—because my mother never gives interviews to journalists—’

‘I’m not a journalist!’ Leonie cut in with firm indignation.

‘—or biographers,’ Luke Richmond concluded with obvious satisfaction. ‘For obvious reasons,’ he added with harsh derision.

One of those ‘obvious reasons’, Leonie knew, was an unauthorised biography of the screen star, Rachel Richmond, that had appeared in the bookshops two years ago. It had been full of innuendo and speculation about the actress’s colourful life, none of it quite libellous, but unpleasant to read, nonetheless.

Another ‘obvious reason’, Leonie was also well aware, was this man himself…

Thirty-seven years old, obviously handsome, having won several Oscars for various screenplays he had written, Luke Richmond was very successful in his own right. A man, in fact—on the surface, at least!—that anyone would be proud to call their son.

Except that no man ever had…

Star of the screen and theatre for over fifty years, Rachel Richmond had never married, neither had she ever named the man who had fathered the baby son she’d given birth to thirty-seven years ago.

At the time, the mid-sixties, the fact that the actress had been an unmarried mother had threatened to abruptly end Rachel Richmond’s acting career, where morality in the screen icons had still been expected, if not demanded, by the multimillion-pound studios.

But Rachel Richmond had remained adamantly single, sweetly silent, instead choosing to take her baby son with her everywhere she’d gone, becoming overnight the epitome of the perfect mother, the whole world seeming to take her, and her baby, to their hearts.

Speculation as to the baby’s father had continued intermittently over the years, but in the face of the actress’s indomitable silence it had remained exactly that—speculation.

Looking at him now, Leonie wondered how Luke Richmond had coped with the speculation throughout his life concerning his paternity. Or if, in fact, it was speculation to him… Surely his mother, as Luke reached maturity, would have confided his paternity to him, at least?

If she had, he had remained as close-mouthed about it as his mother had always been!

Leonie drew in a determined breath. ‘I really think there has been some sort of confusion as to my presence here, Mr Richmond,’ she tried again. ‘You see—’

‘I believe I, at least, have made myself more than clear, Dr Winston,’ he cut in coldly. ‘I’m sure you’re a very capable biographer. In fact, I know you are,’ he added with a frown. ‘I read your book on Leo Winston,’ he explained at her puzzled look.

Leonie blinked in surprise; she wouldn’t have thought the subject of her book one that would interest this man. ‘It wasn’t a hard book to write,’ she answered ruefully. ‘He’s my grandfather,’ she explained wryly.

Luke Richmond gave a brief inclination of his head. ‘So I believe. But he was also one of the best-kept secrets of the English government during the years of the Second World War.’

‘Yes…’ Leonie confirmed slowly. He had read the book!

‘My mother read the book before passing it on to me; she thought your grandfather’s story might make a good screenplay,’ Luke Richmond drawled as Leonie still looked puzzled by his interest.

Knowing her grandfather, he would be horrified at the mere thought of such a thing!

‘My grandfather prefers to be known for his ability as a historian rather than anything else that he may or may not have done in his earlier years,’ she hastily assured the screenwriter.

‘A genuine twentieth-century Scarlet Pimpernel,’ Luke Richmond continued thoughtfully. ‘Although, on reflection, I decided the storyline was probably a bit hackneyed,’ he added with cool dismissal.

If he was meaning to be deliberately insulting, then he was succeeding. Which was precisely the reason Leonie refused to give him the satisfaction of responding to the insult!

‘“On reflection”?’ she prompted dryly, glancing distractedly down at her wrist-watch. This man was right about his mother’s tardiness; Rachel Richmond was now almost fifteen minutes late for their appointment.

He gave an abrupt inclination of his dark head. ‘Your grandfather convinced me it would be in no one’s interest—least of all his!—if I were to write his story for the big screen. Besides,’ Luke Richmond added with the slightest show of humour in those cold green eyes, ‘we couldn’t agree on the man who could play the part of your grandfather.’

Leonie frowned at this disclosure; until this moment she’d had no idea this man had ever met her grandfather, let alone progressed any further than that. Her grandfather had certainly never mentioned it…

‘I think my grandfather may have been being deliberately obstructive.’ She shrugged narrow shoulders ruefully.

The screenwriter looked at her coolly. ‘A family trait, perhaps?’ he drawled insultingly.

Leonie drew in a sharp breath. She really had no idea what she had done to alienate this man—probably nothing, she reasoned; the man seemed to have a natural antagonism!—but it was certainly time it stopped.

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘My dear Leonie—I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting!’ Rachel Richmond chose that moment to sweep into the room like a breath of fresh air, literally seeming to brighten up the room with her presence.

Rachel also, Leonie acknowledged admiringly, totally belied her seventy-odd years in a figure-hugging green dress, her blonde hair swept back from her beautiful unlined face in a casual shoulder-length style.

‘And Luke, too.’ The actress moved to kiss her son warmly on the cheek. ‘How wonderful!’ She turned back to Leonie. ‘Why, my dear, you’re perfectly lovely,’ she exclaimed warmly, reaching out to grasp both Leonie’s hands into her own slender ones.

After the son’s icy contempt, this woman’s obvious pleasure in meeting her took Leonie aback slightly. Although there was no doubting the other woman’s warmth was totally genuine; her green eyes sparkled with pleasure, the smile that had been charming theatre- and cinema-goers for over fifty years completely enfolding Leonie in its beaming ray.

Although describing her as ‘perfectly lovely’ was a slight exaggeration, Leonie felt. In her heeled shoes, she easily towered over the older woman by at least six inches, her appearance completely businesslike in a tailored grey suit and white blouse, her blonde hair kept conveniently short, washed in the shower every morning and simply left to dry in curling wisps. Her looks weren’t exactly impressive either: grey eyes, pert nose, curving lips, and a determinedly pointed chin.

In fact, she looked exactly what she was: a historian, like her grandfather.

‘Thank you,’ Leonie dryly accepted the compliment, very aware of Luke Richmond’s contemptuous smile even as she inwardly admitted to being slightly uncomfortable at the effusiveness of the actress’s greeting. In fact, she wasn’t sure she didn’t almost prefer Luke Richmond’s coldness. Almost…

‘I think you should release Dr Winston’s hands now, Rachel,’ Luke Richmond drawled derisively. ‘You’re obviously embarrassing her,’ he added with a mocking lift of those dark brows in Leonie’s direction.

She flushed resentfully. ‘Not at all,’ she told him hardly before turning back to his mother. The woman he appeared to address as Rachel… ‘Your son seems to be under the impression that I’m intruding—’

‘It isn’t just an impression,’ he cut in harshly, that brief, mocking humour fading as abruptly as it had appeared. ‘It’s a fact!’

‘Really, Luke.’ His mother turned to him in mild rebuke, finally releasing Leonie’s hands as she did so. ‘Leonie won’t understand your sense of humour yet, darling.’ She gave him an indulgent smile.

‘Sense of humour’! Did this man have a sense of humour? Only an indulgent mother, Leonie was sure, could possibly think so.

‘I think you’re wrong there, Rachel.’ Luke Richmond’s cold gaze didn’t waver from the paleness of Leonie’s face as he answered his mother. ‘I believe Dr Winston understands me only too well,’ he added challengingly.

Oh, she understood him, all right—he was just completely wrong in his obvious conclusions concerning her presence in his mother’s home.

She turned back to the older woman. ‘Miss Richmond—’

‘Please do call me Rachel,’ the actress instantly invited, still smiling warmly. ‘Luke, darling, did you ask Janet to organise some tea for us all?’ She arched blonde brows at her son.

His mouth tightened grimly. ‘No—’

‘Then do so, darling,’ his mother interrupted imperiously before turning back to smile at Leonie once again. ‘Leonie, I’m sure you would like a stroll in the garden while we wait for our tea.’ Without waiting for an answer she linked her arm with Leonie’s and led the way out the French windows into the sunlit garden. ‘I do so want you to tell me all about yourself, my dear,’ she encouraged interestedly. ‘I’ve never met a female historian before. It must be so exhilarating to excel in such a male-dominated subject. Exactly what…?’

Leonie was only half listening to the older woman as she chattered on, seemingly not really requiring an answer to her questions. At least, Leonie didn’t give her any. She was too distracted by the furious expression she had seen on Luke Richmond’s face as the two women walked outside into the garden. It was more than obvious to her that if he could have forcibly removed her from the house without upsetting his mother, then he would have done so.

‘It really is lovely to meet you, my dear.’ Rachel Richmond squeezed her arm in delight, green eyes glowing as she smiled. ‘I did so enjoy your last book.’

‘My first book,’ Leonie corrected dryly. ‘But also my last,’ she added ruefully. ‘You see—’

‘Oh, I do so hope not, Leonie—I may call you Leonie, I hope?’ Rachel Richmond prompted belatedly, a slight frown marring the actress’s otherwise smoothly creamy brow.

‘Of course,’ she accepted dismissively. ‘But, Miss Richmond—’

‘And you really must call me Rachel,’ the older woman invited again lightly. ‘Everybody does. Even Luke,’ she added affectionately.

A fact Leonie had already noted—and found strangely odd. And, in truth, she wasn’t sure she could use such a familiarity herself. This woman was an icon of the theatre and cinema, still able to command the interest of a crowd whenever she chose to make a public appearance, still able to draw a full audience night after night on the rare occasions she agreed to appear on the stage. As Leonie was finding, her personality was just as commanding in the flesh…

She frowned. ‘Rachel,’ she conceded awkwardly. ‘Your son seemed to think—’

‘You really mustn’t mind Luke.’ The other woman smiled indulgently. ‘He’s very protective of me. And he’s always been such a serious boy,’ she added affectionately.

‘Boy?’ At thirty-seven, Luke Richmond could hardly be called that!

Rachel laughed softly at Leonie’s stunned expression. ‘He’ll always be a boy to me.’ She smiled. ‘And, I do assure you, his bark is so much worse than his bite,’ she excused lightly.

Somehow Leonie seriously doubted that, had every reason to believe he would have forcibly ejected her from the house if his mother hadn’t appeared so precipitously.

And late…

‘Perhaps,’ she conceded disinterestedly.

After all, Luke Richmond’s arrogance was completely unimportant to her; he wasn’t a man she intended being in the company of any more than she had to. Which amounted to a simple goodbye when she left in a few minutes’ time, as far as she was concerned!

Leonie gave another glance at her wrist-watch. ‘It’s getting rather late, Miss Richmond—Rachel,’ she corrected as the older woman gave a little moue of rebuke for her continued formality. ‘I—’

’How long did it take you to drive down here?’ the actress asked interestedly.

‘Just over an hour,’ Leonie answered frowningly. ‘I’m afraid I do have another appointment in town this evening, so—’

‘It was so good of you to give up your Saturday afternoon in order to drive down here.’ Rachel nodded. ‘I get up to London all too seldom nowadays, I’m afraid,’ she confided ruefully.

‘Not at all,’ Leonie dismissed. ‘But I really will have to be going shortly, so—’

‘Don’t you just love the springtime?’ Rachel seemed not to have heard her last comment, looking around the garden with obvious pleasure in the early colourful blooms that already abounded in the numerous flower beds. ‘Everything is so new. Life replenished,’ she added wistfully.

As it happened, Leonie did like the spring, but more practically because it meant an end to the dark winter evenings and mornings, hating the fact that during the winter months she often arrived at her job at the university in the dark, and also left in the dark.

‘Yes,’ she answered dismissively. ‘Rachel, you telephoned me completely out of the blue last week and asked for this meeting; don’t you think it would be helpful if you were to tell me why?’ she added with a frown.

In fact, Leonie had been caught completely off guard when summoned to a telephone call at the university eight days ago, only to discover that the caller was the actress Rachel Richmond. She had been so thrown by the identity of the caller that she had agreed to this meeting while still in a daze.

Although it was obvious from the few insulting remarks Luke Richmond had thrown at her that he was under the impression that she had asked for this meeting.

A fact Leonie would have been only too happy to have corrected for him—if he had given her the opportunity. Which he most definitely hadn’t!

But despite having had plenty of time for thought since Rachel’s call Leonie was no nearer knowing the reason for this meeting. She had even enlisted Jeremy’s help, but he had simply teased her about ‘hobnobbing with the rich and famous’. Other than that he had been no help in finding a solution either.

Jeremy…

Leonie found herself smiling as she thought of her fellow lecturer, a computer whizkid, who managed to transmit his love for the technology to the students who flocked to join his degree course year after year.

An attraction of opposites, Leonie accepted with a rueful smile. Leonie, with her love and interest firmly fixed in the past, Jeremy, with his lightning-speed acceptance and understanding of an advanced technology that he was sure would dominate the future.

He was also the reason she didn’t want to be late back to town, the two of them having a dinner date for this evening…

Rachel unlinked her arm from Leonie’s as she turned to look at her, suddenly serious, the green eyes no longer glowing with warmth but darkly searching, looking more like her seventy-odd years now that she was no longer smiling. ‘But surely it’s obvious why I telephoned you, my dear?’ She frowned quizzically.

Leonie gave a rueful grimace, shaking her head in obvious puzzlement. ‘Not to me. All you would say on the telephone last week was that you wanted to talk to me,’ she reminded lightly.

‘But—’ Rachel shook her head. ‘You mean you have absolutely no idea why I invited you here?’ She sounded incredulous.

‘None at all,’ Leonie confirmed with a good-humoured grimace.

‘I see.’ Rachel frowned. ‘Oh, dear. Well, that makes things rather awkward, doesn’t it?’ she realised ruefully. ‘You see, I read your book on Leo Winston—’

‘So—so your son informed me.’ Somehow Leonie couldn’t bring herself to call that arrogantly cold man by his first name! ‘I believe he also read it.’ Her voice hardened as she remembered the disparaging comment he had made. ‘I’m pleased you liked it, of course, deeply flattered—’

‘My dear girl, I didn’t ask you all the way down here just to compliment you on your book,’ Rachel assured her chidingly. ‘I could quite easily have done that on the telephone. No, my dear Leonie, I asked you here because I want you to write my biography. An official biography this time,’ she added with a certain steeliness in her tone for the previous effort that had so recently appeared.

Leonie stared at the older woman.

She wanted her to—

Rachel couldn’t be serious!

CHAPTER TWO

‘IS SHE serious?’ Jeremy gaped at Leonie across the width of the dinner table later that evening.

‘She says she is,’ Leonie confirmed slowly. ‘That she’s been looking for the right person to write the truth for years—’

‘And she’s decided that you’re it,’ Jeremy realised excitedly. ‘What a coup!’

Leonie nodded less certainly. ‘I did try to tell her that I’m not really a biographer…’ But her protests had been instantly dismissed, Rachel assuring her that she wanted Leonie, and Leonie alone, to write the biography that the public had been clamouring for for years, that after reading Leonie’s biography on Leo Winston she was sure Leonie would write Rachel’s own story with the same truth and warmth.

‘Of course you are,’ Jeremy instantly rebuked, grinning widely, the same height as Leonie if she wore flat heels, as she was this evening. He was boyishly handsome, his straight blond hair slightly overlong so that it fell endearingly over his eyes, those eyes the blue of a summer sky. ‘A damned good one too!’

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ Leonie accepted with a smile.

‘But this is—wow.’ He shook his head dazedly. ‘In view of Rachel Richmond’s well-publicised view of biographies, this was something we never even gave a thought when we were mulling over reasons she might want to meet you—I still can’t believe it!’ His grin widened.

Neither could Leonie. And despite the obvious compliment being paid to her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it, either!

It wasn’t the work involved that daunted her. In fact, she was sure she would very much enjoy the research involved. The reason for Leonie’s reluctance to become involved in such a venture could be summed up in two words—Luke Richmond!

She hadn’t seen Rachel’s son again before leaving the house earlier, Luke not having graced them with his presence while they’d drunk tea together, but Leonie had no doubts whatever what his reaction would be to being informed that Leonie was going to write his mother’s biography; he would believe Leonie had arranged to see his mother for the sole purpose of persuading the actress into letting her do it!

In view of that, Leonie had asked Rachel for a week to think the offer over…