She had even dressed up today, was wearing more make-up than she usually did, in the hope of showing herself in a different light to Logan. Too often he had seen her as a weeping mess, or hot and tired from working in the kitchen; she had wanted to show him that she wasn’t always like that. For all the notice he had taken of her chic appearance today she might as well not have bothered!
Darcy gave a dismissive shrug. ‘He’s been very kind,’ she answered Margaret Fraser noncommittally.
‘Hmm, most unLoganlike,’ his mother offered thoughtfully. ‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me, Darcy,’ she continued. ‘I think my son is a pretty wonderful man: kind, caring, considerate, very much the gentleman. It’s just that, usually, he tends to hide it very well.’
Darcy couldn’t help it; she smiled. It was such an accurate description of the man she had come to know this last week that she couldn’t do anything else. Logan was all of the things his mother said he was, and he really didn’t like people to realise that.
‘That’s better.’ Margaret smiled back warmly, leaning forward to pick up the plate of delicacies that had arrived with their tea. ‘Have a cake, Darcy,’ she invited. ‘We can both think about our waistlines tomorrow!’
Margaret Fraser didn’t look as if she needed to think about hers at all, slender but shapely. But then, neither did Darcy normally—so she took one of the offered cakes, a nice gooey, chocolatey one.
‘We couldn’t do this in front of Logan,’ Margaret continued before biting into the chocolate e´clair she had chosen. ‘There’s simply no way of eating a fresh-cream cake with any degree of ladylike delicacy!’ she said, before dabbing with a napkin to remove some of the excess cream from her mouth. ‘I love your father very much, you know, Darcy.’
The remark was so unexpected Darcy almost choked over her second bite of chocolate cake!
They had been talking about waistlines and cakes, for goodness’ sake; where had that last remark come from?
She looked across at the older woman, finding Margaret looking straight back at her, her gaze steady and direct, all pretence totally gone as that gaze revealed the full extent of her emotions.
This woman really did love her father…
Darcy swallowed hard before moistening her lips. ‘Logan asked you a question before he—left,’ she began slowly. ‘Do you know where my father is?’
Margaret’s gaze didn’t waver. ‘Yes.’
Darcy’s breath left her in a relieved sigh. ‘Is he okay?’
Again Margaret met her gaze head on. ‘Yes.’
Darcy nodded. ‘That’s all I need to know.’
Margaret smiled slightly. ‘Can you imagine Logan accepting my answers as easily?’
‘No,’ Darcy answered honestly. ‘But then, he doesn’t have the same interest in my father’s welfare that I do.’
‘No.’ Logan’s mother sighed. ‘Logan’s interest, unfortunately, is much closer to home. I made a bad second marriage,’ Margaret enlarged at Darcy’s questioning look.
She frowned. ‘I don’t think—’
‘It’s relevant, Darcy,’ the older woman told her quietly. ‘Logan was eleven when his father died, twelve at the time I remarried—not a good age for any boy to be presented with a stepfather!’ She looked sad. ‘More to the point, he disliked Malcolm intensely. What I wasn’t aware of, for some time, was that the dislike worked both ways. My husband Malcolm, without my knowledge, was an absolute brute to Logan. So much so that when he was fourteen, Logan informed me that he hated my husband, and me, and moved to Scotland to live with his grandfather. It took me several more years of being married to Malcolm before I realised exactly why Logan had gone. By which time our own relationship had been irrevocably damaged. He’s never forgiven me,’ she concluded sadly.
Darcy really didn’t think they should be discussing Logan in this way, and yet a part of her wanted to know, wanted to try and fathom what made Logan the man that he was. The things Margaret had told her already answered some of the questions she had about him. His willingness to help her, for one thing; he obviously knew exactly what she was going through at the thought of her father’s second marriage.
Except, because of the little time she had spent talking to her, Darcy didn’t think she was going to hate Margaret Fraser…
‘He was a child still,’ Darcy excused Logan’s behaviour.
Margaret shook her head in disagreement. ‘Adulthood, unfortunately, hasn’t changed our relationship. As far as Logan is concerned, I let him down when he needed his mother the most.’ She stared Darcy right in the eye. ‘Which is precisely why I won’t come between you and your father.’
Darcy had already realised that. But she wasn’t the child Logan had been at his mother’s remarriage; she was twenty-five years old, far too old to have any say in her father’s life any more. Besides, now that her initial shock at the idea had dissipated, maturity meant she simply couldn’t be that selfish.
‘Daniel told me that, if the two of us ever met in the right circumstances, I would like you,’ Margaret said hesitantly. ‘He was right.’
Darcy drew in a shaky breath. ‘He told me the same thing about you,’ she admitted gruffly. ‘And, again, he was right. When you next speak to him, would you please tell him—?’
‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’ Margaret suggested warmly. ‘After he telephoned me yesterday I— It was very difficult when Logan called for me earlier. You see—your father is at my apartment, Darcy,’ she admitted awkwardly. ‘I couldn’t bear it when I knew how deeply upset he was, and so I—’
‘It’s all right, Margaret,’ Darcy cut in happily. And it was—she was just relieved to know where her father was. ‘Does he know the two of us are meeting this afternoon?’
‘I didn’t tell him,’ Margaret confirmed. ‘He would probably have insisted on coming with me if I had, and—Can you imagine Logan’s reaction to that?’ she said knowingly.
After witnessing the way he behaved towards his mother, and hearing his anger directed towards her father—yes, she could imagine only too well!
‘Do you think my father is likely to suffer a heart attack if I arrive back with you now?’ she prompted lightly.
‘Probably.’ Margaret laughed softly. ‘But he’ll quickly get over that when—’ She broke off.
‘When…?’ Darcy prompted.
Margaret gave a small smile. ‘I was being presumptuous, jumping two steps ahead.’
‘Because you believed I would give my blessing on your marriage to my father?’ Darcy easily guessed. ‘That isn’t being presumptuous, Margaret; I should never have objected in the first place. Even if you were absolutely awful—which you aren’t,’ she added hastily.
‘I wish you could convince Logan of that,’ Margaret told her almost wistfully.
Logan!
It wasn’t just a possibility now that he might be her stepbrother—it was a fact!
How on earth was he going to react to knowing that…?
CHAPTER NINE
LOGAN had no idea what he was doing standing outside the entrance of Chef Simon at eleven-thirty in the morning!
When he’d left his mother and Darcy at the hotel yesterday he had been absolutely furious at what he deemed to be their dismissal of him, had had no intention of talking to either of