"I'll see you two later in the library" Lord Winfield said, disappearing upstairs followed by Abbott with some suitcases.

In total silence, Dempsey and Harry walked back to the library where they had sat before. The book he had read to Sophia laid on the floor if Harry just had dropped it there when she had heard her father coming in. When Dempsey had closed the door of the library behind them he turned to Harry who picked the fallen book off the ground and pretended if she had great interest in reading it as well. But Dempsey knew her better. This was just a way so that she didn't need to talk to him about what had just happened in the hallway. But it wouldn't work, not this time!

"What was that all about?" Dempsey asked, taking the book out of her hands and lying it on table out of reaching distance.

"Give me that book back!" Harry ordered not answering his question.

"No. Where are you so afraid off?"

"I'm not afraid!"

"Well I get the impression you are"

"Well you have it wrong then!" Slowly Harry started to become angry.

"I don't need this!" she added.

"Need what?"

"A lecture from you about my behaviour"

"I'm not......"

But Dempsey got no time to finish, because at that moment Lord Winfield entered the room. Immediately he noticed a change in Harry. She didn't look at her father, stared at her hands and played nervously with her fingers. He also saw the sad look in the old man's eyes which he tried to hide when his eyes met Dempsey's but failed miserably. What the hell was going on here? Last week, when he and Harry had talk about going to Winfield Hall, he got the impression that she wanted it as much as he did. Has she perhaps only done this because of him? But why?

"Sit down James, do you want something to drink?"

"No thanks, all I want are some answers"

"Answers?" Lord Winfield asked, frowning his eyebrows.

"Yeah answers" Dempsey repeated, sitting down next to Harry on the sofa. He wanted to lay his arm around Harry's shoulders, but she pushed his arm away and slipped out of his grip.

"What kind of answers do you want?" Lord Winfield tried to ignore what he had been forced to see what was going on between Dempsey and Harry.

"Why you were able to reach me after all these years and Harry obvious couldn't"

Surprised Lord Winfield stared at the man sitting in front of him. Then his gaze turned over to his daughter who had clenched her hands together now.

"Wasn't it worth doing it?"

"That's not what I asked"

"She never told you?" Lord Winfield asked a little hesitated.

"Told me what?"

"About Sophia?"

"Yes she told me last week everything about our daughter......and son, but that's not the answer I'm searching for here"

"Then where are you searching for?"

Dempsey stood up from the sofa and pointed a finger in Harry's direction.

"She told me that she had tried everything to contact me but failed. But obvious you hadn't had any difficulties at all. How would you explain that?"

"It wasn't easy, but after I had explained everything to your superior, what's his name...."

"O'Grady" Dempsey filled in.

"Yeah after I told your boss about what had happened here, he gave me your phone number without any hesitation"

"But you told me" Dempsey had turned to Harry: "You had phoned the NYPD and they wouldn't give you my number"

While saying that a terrible thought crossed his mind, a thought he didn't want to think about. It was too terrible if that was true, but he had to know.

"Harry? Did you perhaps never try to reach me when I went back to New York?"

He watched her jumping up from the sofa almost immediately. Forgetting that she wasn't able to do that. He heard her groaning.

"How do you dare to say that!" she said with a voice filled with tears she hard to hold back.

"I'm sorry I...." Dempsey felt miserable. Again he had hurt Harry with his words and said something before thinking.

"Don't touch me!" he heard her saying, slapping his hand away when he wanted to grasp her. Helpless he saw her picking up her stick and walk out of the room slamming the door behind her. His first thought was to run immediately after her, but Lord Winfield took his arm to hold him back.

"I think it's better that you stay here"

"But..."

Lord Winfield nodded his head: "Going after her now would only make things worse. Let her come to her sense for awhile. She'll realise then that you had all the right to ask her that question"

Dempsey wasn't convinced at all that he was doing the right thing in here. He wanted to talk to Harry, making it up with her, telling her that he had no doubts about her, but on the other hand: maybe it was better to let her think things over first before he would storm after her.

"Sit down"

Dempsey did what he was ordered and accepted the drink the man offered him seconds later.

"I think you'll need this"

Taking a glass with vodka himself, he sat down on the sofa next to Dempsey where Harry had been sitting earlier.

"Did Harry tell you that she stayed here that first week after you had been forced to go back to New York?"

"Yeah. I'm still wondering if you knew back then that she was pregnant when I left her" That had been one of the questions that had crossed Dempsey's mind since he came back.

"No I didn't"

"You didn't know it either?" Dempsey asked wondered.

"The first three days she stayed over here, I wasn't around. Later I heard from Abbott that she had been crying all the time. You know my daughter, always pretending she's strong and independent, even if she isn't"

"I thought she had learned something these last 2 years"

"Maybe she does, sometimes, but, forgive me that I'm saying it, obvious not when you are around"

Dempsey turned his glass around in his hands.

"She doesn't have to prove anything to me, she must know that by now"

"You know that, I know that, but deep down inside she thinks that you are still seeing her only as the woman who you met the first time. When Gordon forced you two to work together"

"But I have changed. She has changed. We are total different people now"

"James? Did Harry also tell you, besides the fact that you became a father, what happened here during the three days she stayed here on her own?"

"Happened? What do you mean?"

"Did you try to reach Harry here at Winfield Hall when you went back and you couldn't reach her at home during that time?"

"I can't remember" That was true. Harry had asked him the same question last week and how hard he tried to remember this week if he had phone her here, he still had no idea if he did or didn't.

"After the three days Harry had spent here alone, I came over from London to be with her. I knew how close you two became. That you almost moved in with her and I can imagine how hard it must have been for the two of you to hide your relationship and for you that you had no other choice than to leave her"

"Why? What do you mean? Had the fact that I was forced to leave her such a great impact on her that she couldn't deal with it? Is that what you are pretending to say?"

Lord Winfield felt silence for a short moment of time. When he saw Dempsey looking at him with great concern in his eyes, he made a decision. If Harry would like it or not, he had to tell the other man the whole story.

"The last time you and Harry were here together, you must have noticed that I had more personnel around. Besides Abbott I mean"

When Lord Winfield didn't continue and fell silent again, Dempsey realised that the other man had been forced to go back in time. To a time he didn't want to go back to, but had to.

"Do you remember that I had a personal assistant who looked after me?"

"Yeah, what was his name....Charles or something like that"

"It was indeed Charles. I wished I had never hired him!"

"Why not?" Dempsey could see at Lord Winfield's face what a great impact only mentioning the man's name had at the old man.

"Because I had never realised what he was capable of. He worked hard, helped me with everything and I really thought I could trust him. So when Harry wanted to stay here at Winfield Hall after you had gone, I phoned Charles to go with her. Abbott insisted on going with them as well. Back then I had no idea why, but later he told me that he had had some suspicious already. I wished he had told me before!"

"Suspicions? Suspicions about what?"

"That he was in love with Harry"

Dempsey almost dropped his glass with vodka. Astound he tried to let the news sink in.

"In love with Harry?" he repeated the words Lord Winfield had said to him. As if saying them aloud would make it more understandable.

"Oh I must say he acted like a real pro. Was very concern about Harry, drove her here to Winfield Hall, helped her, did everything for her. The first night Harry phoned me, everything seemed to be normal, but then the second night I could feel that something had changed. Of course I asked her about it, but she refused to tell. She said only that she didn't feel well but that nothing was wrong with her. Even then she didn't tell me she was pregnant and that she felt sick every morning"

"And you never discovered it when you were here either?" How could that happen? Dempsey thought.

"No, but by the time I arrived here it seemed I met a total stranger. The girl that I named my daughter, wasn't my daughter anymore. She closed herself up in her room, hardly wanted to speak to me. I had no idea why, because in my opinion I hadn't done anything wrong but it was obvious that she didn't want to be around me anymore"

Something must have happened during the two days she had been on her own with Charles and Abbott, but what? Was that also still a misery for Lord Winfield or did he knew more? Dempsey was afraid to push the man who was still living in the past. In his idea it took ages before he continued.

"That same morning after my arrival here, I went over to her room to talk to her. I knocked on her door. First she didn't want to let me in, but finally opened the door. She hesitated when I asked her if I could come in. Then she gave in. I walked over to her bed and sat down. She stood at the window. I remember that I wondered why she didn't get dressed by then. It was around 12 and she was still walking around in her robe. Grabbing it firmly around her. Later I realised why she had done that, because she was afraid that I would discover she was pregnant. Well anyway, I tried to get through that barrier she had built around her. Talked about you, asked her if she knew how you were doing at that moment, but she didn't answer me. Only stared out of the window. I had never seen her so awful in my entire life. Even after her mother died, she was sad but not so despaired as she was now. I still thought it was because of you. I asked her then if Charles had done what I had ordered him to do, to look after her. I have never seen someone's mood change so quickly. Within a second she had turned around. With a red face and dark eyes she said: 'Never mention that man's name to me again'. Of course I had no idea where she was talking about. And then she told me something I will never forget in my life"

Dempsey could hardly breathe. What the hell had she told her father?

"Charles had been upstairs. Waited till he had seen Abbott leaving the house to go to the market to do some shopping. Hardly Abbott had been away before Charles took his chance. He knocked at Harry's door saying that he had to tell her something. She opened the door, thinking that perhaps he had a message from you, but before she knew it, he had pushed her inside. Of course Harry started to scream, but nobody heard her, because nobody was there. He said that she was finally his, now that you had left her. And that she doesn't have to make herself any illusions about you coming back. He pushed her down on the bed, she started to fight as a tiger, but he was too strong for her. I guess, she was also too afraid to lose the baby if she didn't cooperate"

"Cooperate?" Dempsey whispered softly, feeling mentally sick: "Cooperate to do what?"

"James....." The old man laid a hand on Dempsey's arm: "Charles raped her, he forced her to sleep with him"