With anyone else he would have seized this offer with relief, but with her things were mysteriously different. In his mind he saw again the defining moment of their relationship, the moment when she had reached out to him, offering rescue, offering life. The moment had passed, yet it lived in him still and, he guessed, would always do so.
The need to accept her friendship, trust it, rely on it, was so strong that it sent warning signals. Nothing would ever be the same again. But there was no turning back now.
‘I don’t think I’ll ignore you,’ he said softly, taking her hand. ‘You’re not a woman that’s easy to ignore.’
‘I’ll just vanish if you like.’
‘No,’ he said, his hand tightening on hers so suddenly that she gasped. ‘Stay. I want you to stay.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay.’
He led her back to the table and poured her a glass of wine.
‘People always think big families are charming,’ he said after a while. ‘But it can be an illusion. Most of us didn’t grow up together. My father’s family was very poor and he had a hard life, which he was determined to escape at all costs. Some of the things he did don’t look very sympathetic, but maybe if you have to live as he did—’ He made an expressive gesture with his hands.
‘Was he very—?’ She paused delicately.
‘Yes, very. Still is, for that matter. His family were miners, and he was expected to go down the pit. But his father had died down there and hell would freeze over before he went the same way. He did well at school, got top marks in practical subjects like maths. Not literature, or “the soft stuff” as he calls it. He reckons that’s for fools. But with figures there’s nothing he can’t do.
‘So he ran away and managed to start up his own business, just a little market stall, but it grew into a big one, and then bigger, until he got a shop.’
‘He made enough profit to rent a shop? Wow!’
‘Not rent. Buy. By that time he’d married my mother. She came from a rich family and they met when he made deliveries to their house. Her relatives did everything they could to stop the wedding. They believed all he really wanted was her money.’
‘But they gave in at last?’
‘No way. He simply ran off with her. “If you want something, go after it by the shortest route.” That’s his motto. She gave him every penny she had. I know that because I’ve heard her father complaining about it.’
‘But he probably loved her, and you. Surely everything in his life wasn’t about money? It couldn’t be, could it? There’s always something else.’
‘Is there?’ he murmured. ‘Is there?’
His face had changed. Now it wore a look of pain that made her take his hand in hers in a gesture of comfort.
‘Don’t say any more,’ she said. ‘Not if it hurts too much.’
He didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on the hand holding his, as it had once before. Then it had offered survival, now it offered another kind of life, one he couldn’t describe. He had no talent for words, only figures. She’d spoken of it hurting him too much to talk, but now he knew that the real pain lay in not talking about things that had been shrouded in silence for too long. Somehow the words must come. But only with her.
‘I’LL tell you something,’ Darius said at last. ‘Falcon isn’t my father’s real name. He chose it for effect.’
‘He wanted to be named after a bird?’
‘No, he discovered that it has connections with a Roman consul and two princes.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Do you mean you’ve never heard of Pompeyo Falco?’ Darius demanded with mock surprise. ‘He was a very powerful Roman. The princes were Spanish, and there’s even supposed to be a saint in the background. Not that he’s ever made too much of that one. Nobody could keep a straight face.’
‘I guess your father isn’t much like a saint.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. He called me Darius because it means “wealthy”. It was his way of signalling what he expected of me.’
Harriet dropped her face into her hands. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ she said at last. ‘It’s like something out of a mad fantasy.’
‘That’s just what it is. I grew up knowing what I had to do to please my father—or else! Luckily, I’d inherited his head for figures, so I was able to live up to at least some of his expectations.’
‘Only some?’
‘He’s not pleased with me at the moment, losing so much money and letting things crumble under me.’
‘But that’s happened to a lot of people.’
‘Doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t have happened to a Falcon. He’s currently considering whether I, or one of my brothers, does him the most credit. At the moment I think I’m bottom of the list.’
Harriet frowned. ‘I think I read somewhere that your brothers come from different parts of the world,’ she said carefully.
‘If you mean that my father spread himself thinly, yes, that’s right. As the business built up he did a lot of travelling, first in England, then abroad. I don’t think he was ever faithful to my mother for five minutes; that’s how, in addition to a full brother, I come to have a half-brother from Russia, one from France, and one from America.
‘In the end my mother couldn’t stand it any more and she left, taking my brother Jackson and me with her. But she died after a few years and my father reclaimed us. By that time he had a new wife and a new son. We entered their house as strangers, and that was how we felt for a long time. Jackson coped better, although even he had a tough time with our stepmother.’
‘She was furious that we were there at all because that meant that her boy, Marcel, wasn’t the eldest. When she caught my father playing around she left him and went back to France. Marcel turned up a few years ago and, oddly enough, we all get on well. Our father has helped him start up in business in Paris, and I understand he’s a real chip off the old block.’
‘More than you?’ she asked shrewdly.
He hesitated before saying, ‘Who can say?’
Greatly daring, she ventured to ask, ‘Is that what you want? To be like him?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s all become confused. When I was growing up my one thought was to follow in his footsteps and be a power in the land. People were awed by him, they hurried to please him, and that seemed wonderful to me. But I was immature and, as you grow up, things happen to you—’
He grew silent. After a while he repeated softly, ‘I simply don’t know.’
A noise made him look up quickly, smiling as if everything was normal. Nobody, Harriet thought, could guess that the moment of insight had taken him by surprise. Now she felt he was trying to forget it.
‘Ah, here’s Kate with the next course,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And not only Kate.’
Phantom had slipped in and came to curl up near the table.
‘Have you had enough?’ Harriet asked, caressing his ears. ‘Has the guest of honour been properly cared for?’
A soft woof was the reply.
‘How did Phantom happen to be with you and the rest of the crew that night?’ Darius asked when