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'I'm not worried,' she assured Margaret. 'I'm just a bit sad that he seems to be
angry with both of us.'
His mother laughed. 'I'm used to it; Logan has been angry with me most of
his life, for one reason or another. But I can see how it would be upsetting
for you,' she said almost questioningly.
Because she wondered just how close Darcy and Logan were...?
Darcy fished she knew the answer to that herself. Last night— Better to
forget last night, she instantly berated herself. But even today, Logan had
telephoned his mother and set up this meeting, as Darcy had asked him to,
had driven his mother here. That didn't seem like the actions of a man who
was completely indifferent to her.
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 eclair 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
