Kissed a sad goodbye - Deborah Crombie [98]
“No. Had she?”
“We don’t know. Your father says he rang her because she left him a message saying she’d called off her engagement, and that she sounded quite upset.”
“My father?” Gordon’s face was once again expressionless.
Gemma felt as if she were walking on eggshells, and fought against her inexplicable urge to protect him. “We’ve seen your father. He also told us that he and Annabelle Hammond had a long-standing relationship, and I’m having a hard time believing you weren’t aware of it.”
“I told you—my father and I aren’t close. Why should I have known?” He kept his voice even, but Gemma could see the tension in the muscles of his jaw.
“Apparently she was seen about with him often enough. This neighborhood is as insular as any village, and considering the way information travels in that sort of environment … I should think you’d have heard sooner rather than later.”
Gordon grimaced and looked away. After a moment, he said, “We lived here when I was a child. I started school here, just up the road. My father was already a presence in the neighborhood, gaining a reputation for trying to save the old buildings—that was pretty eccentric for those days, when most people didn’t believe that the Docks could really die. But they respected his success. Everywhere I went I was Lewis Finch’s son.
“Then, when I was eight, my mum decided we should move to the suburbs; that was her idea of success—bridge and cocktails—but my dad despised it. When they divorced, he came back to the Island for good.”
“You stayed with your mum?”
“Lewis sent me to boarding school. Education meant everything to him, and he was determined I should have the best. What he couldn’t accept was my not making use of what he provided for me—at least not in the way he’d had in mind.”
Gemma thought of her own father, a self-made man in a small way compared with Lewis Finch, but still proud of the success he’d made of his bakery. Had he dreamed that his daughters would follow in his footsteps? If so, they had both disappointed him.
“He wanted you to join the firm?” she guessed.
Gordon buried his fingertips in the thick ruff of fur at the back of Sam’s neck. “I lasted a year. Have you any idea what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone like my father?”
Gemma studied him. His gray eyes were deep-set under the winged brows, his hair stuck up on the crown of his head in unruly spikes, there were hollows under his cheekbones and creases at the corners of his mouth that bespoke hard years. “So you remade yourself as far from his image as you could get: a street musician, an unconventional activist—”
“I found out what happened to the people who could no longer afford to live in their old neighborhoods,” he protested.
“You could have gone anywhere. No one would have known who you were. But you came back to the Island.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Because you care about what happens here. You’re your father’s son, whether you like it or not. And I think that’s why Annabelle sought you out.”
“That’s rubbish,” Gordon said hotly. “She didn’t even know my name in the beginning.”
“I think she did. I think she was already seeing your father, and she became curious about you. So she came to listen to you play. Maybe that’s all she meant to do at first, and it turned into more than she bargained for.”
“But why? What could she possibly have wanted?”
“I don’t know.” Gemma plucked a blade of the soft grass under her hand. “But there is a connection between your families—your fathers were evacuated together during the war.”
He stared at her. “I’d no idea.”
“And you never heard that there was some sort of feud between your father and William Hammond?”
“No. And the idea’s absurd.”
“Annabelle’s sister Jo says their father warned them away from your father and his family.”
Gordon seemed about to reply, then stopped, his expression puzzled. “It is strange, now that you mention it. Annabelle was always asking questions about my family. I thought it was just ordinary curiosity