Rowan nodded.
‘Trouble?’ asked her grandfather.
‘I’m covering for one of the other directors this week, while he’s out of the country. One of his agents has just emerged from deep cover. We’re bringing him in.’
‘We barely see you any more,’ her mother offered next—never mind that before they’d retired they’d barely seen her at all.
‘You barely saw her during her childhood,’ her grandfather told his daughter bluntly. ‘At least when Rowan leaves at a moment’s notice she gives us an explanation.’
There was enough truth in those words to make her mother’s lips draw tight. Enough of a sting in them to make Rowan’s memories clamour for attention.
‘But it’s my birthday,’ Rowan had once said to her mother as her parents had headed out through the door, their travel bags rolling behind them like obedient pets. ‘Grandfather made cake. He made it for us.’
‘I’m sorry, dear,’ her mother had said. ‘Needs must.’
‘But you’ve only been here one day,’ she’d said to her father once, and had received a stern lecture on tolerance and duty for her efforts.
‘Where are you going?’
She’d stopped asking that one. To this day she didn’t think she’d ever received a truthful answer. The take-home message had always been that they were going somewhere important and that Rowan wasn’t welcome.
‘You need to toughen up,’ her parents had told her over and over—and toughen up she had.
That her mother now wanted a different type of relationship with her only child concerned Rowan not at all.
‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’
‘Your grandfather’s not getting any younger, Rowan. You could do more for him.’
Her mother’s salvo had been designed to hurt, but Rowan just smiled politely and let it land on barren ground somewhere left of its target. Rowan saw her grandfather at least twice a week, and called him every other day and then some.
Not that her mother knew that.
Nor did Rowan feel the urge to enlighten her.
‘You’d like this agent who’s just arrived,’ she told her grandfather, for she knew he’d be interested. ‘He’s been causing utter mayhem with very limited resources.’
‘Is he ex-Army?’
‘No, he’s one of ours from the ground up. Very creative.’
Ten to one that the next time she called her grandfather he’d know who she was talking about. He might be long retired, but he still had impressive contacts.
‘Yes, yes, Rowan. We know your job’s important,’ her mother said waspishly, and Rowan turned towards the immaculately coiffured woman who’d given birth to her.
For a woman who’d presumably had to fight the same gender battles that Rowan still fought, her mother appeared singularly unimpressed by Rowan’s successes and the position she now held within the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
‘Enjoy your meal.’ She managed a kiss for both her parents. ‘I brought apple cobbler for dessert.’
‘Did you make it yourself?’
One more barb from a mother who’d barely lifted a hand in the kitchen her entire life—such was the privileged expat existence she’d led.
‘No. A friend of mine made it because I paid her to. It’s her grandmother’s recipe, passed down through the generations. I hope you like it.’
Dismissing her mother, she crossed next to her grandfather and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
Her phone pinged again and Rowan straightened. ‘Time to go.’
‘I suppose that’s your driver?’ her mother said sarcastically. ‘He’s a little impatient.’
‘No, he’s just letting me know that he’s here.’
‘Maybe you’ll see your way to staying for the entire meal next month. If I even bother to continue with these dinners.’
‘Your call, Mother.’ Rowan glanced towards her father, who’d sat uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. ‘Are you displeased with me as well?’
Her father said nothing. Ever the diplomat.
‘You know, Mother … both of you, come to think of it … just once you might want to try being proud of me and the position I hold instead of continually criticising my choices. Just once. Maybe then I’d give you the time of day you so clearly expect.’
And that, thought Rowan grimly, was the end of Sunday dinner with her parents.
Her grandfather stood, always the gentleman, and accompanied her into the hall and to the front door while her parents stayed behind. It wasn’t his house—it was her mother’s immaculate mausoleum—but it would never occur to her to afford her daughter the same kind of courtesy she’d spent a lifetime offering to others.
Her mother had been a well-respected foreign ambassador, for heaven’s sake. Marissa Farringdon-Stuart knew how to honour others.
‘Don’t mind her,’ Rowan’s grandfather said gently.
‘She’s getting worse.’
‘She’s losing her grip on what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not. Early onset dementia.’
‘Nice try, old man, but I know what dementia is and what it’s not.’
What her mother dispensed had nothing to do with dementia—it was carefully calculated vitriol.
‘She’s jealous, and some of that’s my doing,’ her grandfather said gruffly. ‘I never had time for her. I learned from that mistake and made sure I had time for you. Plus, you’ve done extremely well in your chosen profession. Your mother’s competitive. That irks her too.’
‘And my father? What’s his beef with me?’
‘Who’d know?’ There was no love lost between her grandfather and the man his daughter had chosen to marry. ‘He’s an idiot. Too much noble blood and not enough brain cells.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she murmured.
‘You look beautiful this evening,’ her grandfather told her gruffly.
‘Flatterer.’
Rowan tried to look her best for Sunday dinner—her mother expected it—but there was no escaping the fact that her eyes were unfashionably slanted, her mouth was too wide and her ears stuck out rather a lot, no matter what she did with her hair. In the end she’d cut her hair pixie-short and to hell with her ears.
She could look ‘interesting’, at a pinch.
Give her half an hour and the right kind of make-up and she could even look arresting.
But she would never be beautiful.
‘Take the apple cobbler home with you when you go. Ask for it. She’ll only toss it the first chance she gets, and I had Maddy make it especially for you. Extra cinnamon.’
‘I’ll save you some.’
‘I’ll hold you to it.’ Rowan embraced her increasingly fragile grandfather. ‘See you Wednesday?’
He nodded. ‘And bring me carnage, politics or intrigue.’
Rowan stepped from the house and headed towards the waiting vehicle. ‘You can be sure of that.’