I left home at eighteen, with nothing but a handful of mediocre A levels and the offer of an au pair job in Clapham. By that time I was old enough not to have a curfew, or someone sitting up for me past their bedtime, reproach in their eyes when I came home.
But I was very, very far from not needing anyone to look out for me.
Maybe Rhiannon was too.
“Rhiannon.” I stepped forward, trying to keep the pity out of my voice. “Rhiannon, I know that since Holly—”
“Don’t you dare say her name,” she growled. She took a step backwards, stumbling on her high heels, and suddenly she looked like what she was—a little girl, teetering in clothes too old for her that she had barely learned how to wear. Her lips were curled in a way that could have been anger but I suspected meant she was trying not to cry. “Don’t you dare talk about that slut-faced hell witch here.”
“Who—Holly?” I was taken aback. There was something here, something different from the generalized world-hating hostility I had felt emanating from Rhiannon up until now. This was pointed, vicious, personal, and Rhiannon’s voice shook with it.
“What—what happened?” I asked. “Is this because she abandoned you?”
“Abandoned us?” Rhiannon gave a kind of derisive, hooting laugh. “Fuck no. She didn’t abandon us.”
“Then what?”
“Then what?” she imitated, cruelly mocking my south London accent, blurring her cut-glass consonants, swallowing the final t into an estuary drawl. “She stole my fucking father, if you must know.”
“What?”
“Yes, my dear darling daddy. Shagged him for the best part of two years and had Maddie and Ellie wound round her little finger covering up for them both, telling my mother lies. And do you know what the worst part of it was, I didn’t even realize what was going on until my friend came to stay and pointed it out. I didn’t believe her at first—so I set them up to find out the truth. My dad doesn’t have cameras in his study—did you ever notice that?” She gave a bitter, staccato laugh. “Funny that. He can spy on the rest of us—but his privacy is sacrosanct. I got Petra’s baby monitor, and I plugged it in under his desk and I heard them—I heard him telling Holly that he loved her, that he was going to leave my mum, that she just had to be patient, that they were going to be together in London, just like he’d promised.”
Oh fuck. I wanted to put my arms around her, hug her, tell it was okay, that it was not her fault, but I couldn’t move.
“And I heard her too, begging, wheedling, telling him she just couldn’t wait, that she wanted them to be together—I heard it, all the stuff that she wanted to do to him—it was—” She stopped, choking with disgust for a moment, and then seemed to pull herself together, folding her arms, her face set in a mask of grief too old for her. “So, I framed the bitch.”
“What—?” But I couldn’t finish. I could barely even form the word.
Rhiannon smiled, but her face was twisted like she was holding back tears.
“I got her in front of the cameras, and I wound her up until she hit me.”
Oh God. So this was where Maddie had learned it.
“And then I told her to get out, or I’d put the footage on YouTube and ensure she never worked in this country ever again, and ever since then—”
She stopped, gulping, and then tried again.
“And ever since—”
But she couldn’t finish. She didn’t need to. I knew the truth, what she was trying to say.
“Rhiannon.” I stepped towards her, my hand outstretched like I was trying to tame and gentle a wild animal, my own voice shaking now. “Rhiannon, I swear to you, there is no way in a thousand—no, a million years, I’d ever have sex with your father.”
“You can’t promise that.” Her face was swollen, there were tears running down her cheeks now. “That’s what they all think, when they come here. But he keeps on, and on, and on, and they can’t afford to lose their jobs, and he’s got money, and he can even be kind of charming, when he wants to be, you know?”
“No.” I was shaking my head. “No, no, no. Rhiannon, listen, I—I can’t explain, but just—no. There’s no way. There’s just no way I’d ever do that.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. The words came out like sobs. “He’s done it before, you know. Before Holly. And that time he did leave. He had another family. Another child, a baby. I heard my m-mother t-t-talking one day. And he l-left them—it’s who he is, and if I hadn’t stopped him—he j-just—”
But she couldn’t finish. Her voice dissolved into sobs. I felt an awful kind of realization wash over me, and I put my hands on her arms, trying to steady us both, linking us both, trying to communicate everything I could not say with the certainty of my voice.
“Rhiannon, listen, I can promise you this—this is absolutely cast-iron. I swear on—on my grave, I am never, never going to sleep with your father.”
Because.
It was on the tip of my tongue.
I am never, never going to sleep with your father because—
I wish I had finished the sentence, Mr. Wrexham. I wish I had just said it, told her, explained. But I was still clinging to the idea of explaining the reason for my deception to Sandra the next day, and I couldn’t tell Rhiannon the truth before I confessed to her mother. I had to confess that I wasn’t Rowan, and Sandra’s pity and understanding about why I had come to her house under a false name was my only chance of making it out of the situation without being at minimum sacked, and very possibly sued.