The Unexpected Baby Read online

  She turned wretched eyes in his direction, then quickly looked away. The grim contempt on his hard profile was unbearable. ‘On the day of Sam’s funeral I started what I thought was a period and truly believed the treatment hadn’t worked,’ she whispered threadily. ‘Somehow, it made the sadness even worse. Over the years of our friendship he and I discussed many things—marriage and children amongst them. I longed for a child,’ she confessed. ‘But I’d had one taste of marriage and didn’t want a second. Sam said he wouldn’t marry because of the nature of his work, but he regretted not having a child because he believed that having a child was the only claim to immortality the human race could hope for.’

  Talking about it now, she couldn’t hold the words back. They tumbled over each other, urgent, low, probably too low for him to hear everything she said. That wasn’t really important now, because he wouldn’t believe her in any case, but verbalising her memories gave her a tiny measure of reassurance.

  ‘We decided, for our own separate reasons, to try to make a baby. Sam had a friend in London—head of a private clinic—and pulled in a favour. But, like I said, I thought the treatment hadn’t worked. Looking at his grave that day, I knew he’d lost his claim to immortality, as he’d seen it. It added a heavier burden of sadness. I wasn’t prepared to put that on you at that time. I truly thought it best to wait.’

  She leaned her head sideways on the back of the seat, staring through the window. Jed’s silence was like a heavy weight. Had he heard what she’d said? Was he sifting through it, looking for something he could use to prove she lied? Or did he consider the whole unlikely story unworthy of comment?

  The latter, most probably, she decided with a wretchedly miserable mental shrug. There seemed no point in asking him. She was too emotionally drained to counter any further scornful accusations.

  Another fifteen minutes would see them back at Netherhaye. Would the gods be kind? Would Catherine be in the cottage garden, making plans to transform it when she and Susan took up residence? Or would she be home, waiting to hear every last detail of last night’s ceremony, fully expecting her to be bubbling with happiness and excitement?

  The thought of being plunged into pretending life was a ball, without a breathing space to get herself together, drained her already meagre supply of energy.

  To take her mind off the prospect, and Jed’s continuing telling silence, she forced herself to concentrate on the passing scenery.

  The lanes were narrower now, the verges a tangle of Queen Anne’s Lace, wild roses and honeysuckle, the overhanging trees heavy with new leaf. And every time her eyes dropped to the wing mirror she saw the dusty blue Escort that she was sure she’d seen close behind them way back in the city streets.

  It was unlikely to be the same car, of course. That make was very common. But watching it, sometimes left behind as the Jaguar swept round a bend, sometimes coming up close, then dropping back to a safe distance, gave her something other than misery to occupy her mind.

  When the Jaguar turned off into Netherhaye’s long, tree-lined drive the blue car went straight on towards the village, and all Elena’s dread of having to face Catherine and pretend came flooding back. But Jed cut the engine well before the house came into sight.

  He turned to her in the green silence and softly put his hand over hers. She lifted bewildered eyes to him, his touch riveting her to her seat. She was incapable of movement. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t tenderness. It altered everything. Instinctively, her fingers wound around his, his touch making her breathless.

  He’d been looking at their entwined hands, and now he raised his eyes to lock with hers. She thought she saw a longing there in the smoky depths, some deep emotion that echoed the longing in her heart.

  She trembled, tears shimmering in her eyes, and he held her hand more tightly, just for a moment, then pulled away, gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles showing white.

  ‘Elena—can we cool it?’ he asked flatly. ‘Give it more time—give me more time?’ His eyes swept her troubled face. ‘I’d like to think I did—do—mean something to you. It’s tough knowing what to believe, given the circumstances, but I’m working on it. The whole situation’s done my head in, and believe me, that’s not something I’m happy with. Will you give me more time to get to grips with this before you go along a path we’d both find difficult to retrace?’

  She dipped her head in silent acknowledgement of his words, biting down hard on her lower lip, sucking it between her teeth, holding back dredging disappointment.

  Stupid to have hoped he was ready to say he believed what she’d told him, was willing to go forward, build on the rebirth of trust and understanding.

  Had he asked for more time just to stop her walking away? Making the breakdown of their marriage public, shattering Catherine’s happy illusions and making it difficult for him to have a say in his brother’s child’s future welfare—much less be the constant presence in his or her life he had always insisted on?

  Or had he really had a change of heart? Had he been telling the truth when he’d implied he was trying to come to terms with everything that had happened, that he wanted to be able to believe she loved him?

  She didn’t know. But she had to take the chance because it was the only one she had.

  ‘I’ll go along with that. Take all the time you need. I want you to believe me because, God knows, it’s the truth,’ she told him falteringly, and hoped to heaven she was doing the right thing in letting herself hope, not storing up more pain for the future, handing him a sharpened stake to thrust through her already bleeding heart.

  CHAPTER NINE

  RELUCTANTLY, Elena left the rustic seat at the far end of the garden, the one with the view over miles of open countryside, and began to amble slowly back towards the house.

  She treasured these early-morning walks and the solitude she found; it was her way of escaping for just a little while. During the three days of Jed’s absence his mother had done nothing but chatter. She’d wanted to know every last detail of the ceremony, had clipped out every newspaper report she could find and was proudly sticking them in a scrapbook. And when that subject was temporarily exhausted she chattered excitedly about the cottage, the changes she and Susan would make after they moved in.

  It was perfectly understandable. Talking non-stop about everything and anything took her mind off the recent loss of her son, and Elena was more than happy to listen, but she did need a few quiet times of her own in which to do some thinking.

  Jed had phoned each evening. Until last night they’d been duty calls, largely made, Elena suspected, for his mother’s benefit, nothing personal.

  But that had changed last night, when he’d said, ‘I’ve thought a lot about what you told me and there’s more I want to ask. But I’m beginning to think we can work this out—if you want that. I’ll be home tomorrow evening, hopefully around dinner time? Perhaps we should go back to Las Rocas. What do you think? We need to talk some more, and we can do it more easily on our own.’

  Hope had lapped her body with warmth as she’d agreed shakily, a little breathlessly. ‘That sounds fine.’ And it had. It couldn’t get much finer. At least now he was willing to talk, perhaps to believe her and begin to understand the desperate, gnawing need that had driven her to accept Sam’s offer. ‘Shall I book the flights?’

  ‘No, leave it to me. I’ll arrange it for Friday, if I can.’

  She had said, because it had been bothering her, ‘I really do think Catherine should be told about the baby before we leave. I couldn’t fasten my jeans this morning, so by the time we come back from Spain—’ fingers crossed they would be coming back together ‘—it might be obvious. I’ve no idea how quickly these things happen.’

  His ensuing silence had alarmed her. Had it been too soon, taking too much for granted, to talk about her pregnancy with such apparent ease? It was a subject he couldn’t be happy with, and she could understand that. But the need to tell Catherine the truth had been
playing on her mind.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he’d agreed at last. ‘Whatever happens, she has to know the truth. Would you prefer to break the news on your own, or would you rather wait until I can be there?’

  ‘On my own, I think.’ The way he’d said ‘whatever happens’ meant he wasn’t sure about their future at all, she’d recognised dispiritedly. She didn’t want any bad vibes coming from him to spoil whatever pleasure Catherine could take in knowing her beloved Sam had left a child.

  And now she was going back to the house to find Catherine and have that talk. Elena’s mouth went dry at the prospect. Unconsciously she straightened her shoulders, and tucked her workmanlike blue and white striped shirt more firmly beneath the waistband of her loosely styled white cotton chinos.

  She ran Catherine to earth in the morning room, making designs for her new garden on graph paper. ‘Darling! You were quick—did you get everything you needed?’

  ‘I haven’t been to the village yet.’ Elena wandered over to the window seat where Catherine was working. ‘I’ve been having a lazy walk around the garden.’ And thinking about what I have to tell you, and how I’ll tell it, and wondering how you’re going to take it, she added silently.

  ‘Oh—if I’d known!’ Catherine transferred the block of graph paper from her knees to a small coffee table at her side. ‘When he phoned I couldn’t find you, and Edith said she hadn’t seen you, so we thought you’d already gone to the village.’

  ‘Who phoned?’ Elena sat on the other end of the window seat, trying not to let her sudden panic show.

  Jed? Had he changed his mind about coming home this evening? About Spain? Had he decided they had nothing to talk about after all?

  ‘A journalist from one of the women’s magazines—I quite forget which one. They want to do an interview with you,’ Catherine answered excitedly. ‘About your books, and the award, and whether you’ll be making your home here or dividing your time between here and Las Rocas. He seemed really keen for information. If I’d known you were only in the garden I would have come to fetch you. Anyway, he said he’d phone back later on to arrange an appointment, so I’m sure he will—as I said, he seemed very keen—so many questions!’

  Elena’s smile was one of relief. Her panic attack had been for nothing, except, of course, to show her how very much she was hoping she and Jed could find a way through this mess.

  She dismissed the journalist and his interview easily from her mind. She supposed she should be flattered, or interested, but she wasn’t. There were far more important things in life. ‘Catherine,’ she said gently. ‘I have something to tell you.’

  Choosing her words with care, she began at the beginning, watching Catherine’s eyes grow wider with every word she said, then filming with tears as she whispered, ‘Sam’s baby—I can’t tell you how much that means to me. To hold a child of his in my arms, a living part of him. And I can understand why you agreed to it at that time. I don’t think men can properly understand the primeval instinct to mother—I guess you felt your biological clock ticking away and panicked.

  ‘And typical of Sam, too, bless him! He always said life was too short to miss out on the things you really wanted, and if the opportunity arose you upped and grabbed it. Much as I loved him, I’m afraid that the words “duty” and “responsibility” were a foreign language to him. Though what he lacked in that department, Jed more than made up for. And—’ Her teeth worried at her lower lip. ‘What was Jed’s reaction?’

  ‘He wasn’t exactly ecstatic,’ Elena understated. ‘But I promise you, he’s working on it.’ It was as much as she could offer. It would be cruel to paint a rosy picture when everything could still go badly wrong.

  ‘Yes,’ Catherine remarked softly. ‘Jed would work hard to accept it. He’s such a strong character and I know how very much he loves you. He told me he found the missing half of himself when he found you.’ She put her fingertips to her suddenly trembling mouth. ‘I do hope the poor boy doesn’t feel he’s lost out to Sam again. That would be unbearable for him.’

  ‘Lost out again?’ Elena questioned gently, her pulses quickening. Was Catherine about to confirm what she already suspected—that for some unfathomable reason Jed felt he came a poor second-best to his matinée-idol-handsome younger brother? ‘How could that possibly be?’

  ‘It’s entirely my fault; I know that.’ Catherine answered the question in her inimitable, round-about-thehouses way, her eyes anxious. ‘I feel so guilty when I think about it all. At the time we thought we were doing the right thing. Park House is such an excellent prep school, and it had been arranged that Jed should go there when he was eight.

  ‘Sam was just a tiny baby then—a sickly baby, demanding all my attention. I absolutely refused to hire a nanny; I needed to care for him myself. From one or two things Jed let slip when he was in his early teens I’m sure, with hindsight, he must have felt he’d been pushed out—especially when Sam wasn’t sent away to school but was tutored privately at home. He was still a frail little boy, and wayward and wilful, too. We knew he wouldn’t fit in with school discipline.’

  She was twisting her fingers together so frenziedly that Elena thought her mother-in-law’s hands might fall apart at any moment. She took one of them in hers and held it gently. She couldn’t believe this warm and loving woman would ever knowingly hurt anyone. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought best.’

  ‘I didn’t think about it deeply enough!’ Catherine castigated herself, her fingers gripping Elena’s now. ‘Because Jed was always stronger and tougher than his brother, in every possible way, it was Sam who got the lion’s share of encouragement and cosseting. And because we knew the family business would be safe in Jed’s hands it was Sam who got to do what he wanted in life.

  ‘Jed was never asked what he wanted; we just took it for granted he’d do his duty and shoulder the responsibility. And after his father died Jed was always here for me—strong, supportive, clear-headed and caring. While Sam—well, we often didn’t know where he was for weeks and months at a time.

  ‘So when he did come home for a few days between assignments what did I do? The prodigal son and fatted calf wasn’t in it! The silly thing is, I think—no. I know—that I made much more fuss of Sam to make up for secretly loving Jed the best.’

  Elena gently released her hand from Catherine’s clutching fingers. What she’d said explained so much, why the fact that it was Sam’s child she was carrying had been so hard for Jed to face, for starters. Hadn’t she asked him to try to imagine if his reaction would have been the same if she’d had a brief affair with any other man and fallen pregnant, well before she’d even met him?

  He wouldn’t have been delighted, but because he was a highly intelligent, compassionate man, without, until recently, a jealous bone in his body, he would have understood that mistakes can happen. And, because they’d loved each other, he would have found a way to accept it.

  But because Sam was her child’s father he simply couldn’t take it. Even if the baby’s conception had been the result of clinical treatment.

  She said quietly, ‘Thank you for telling me this. I think you should tell Jed, too. Explain it, as you’ve just explained it to me. It would wipe away his misconceptions about coming a poor second-best to his brother.’

  She stood up, finding a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll make some coffee; we could both do with some. And don’t worry. You did a fine job of bringing up both your boys. Sam was clever, charming, a great friend to many people, and he excelled in the work he did; he took it very seriously. And Jed—’ She spread her hands expressively. ‘Jed is simply the best.’

  Elena got back from her delayed trip to the village at a little after three o’clock that afternoon, just as the phone rang. She put the packages and carriers she’d brought in from the car down on the parquet floor of the hall and lifted the receiver, pushing her hair out of her eyes with her free hand.

  If it was the journalist who’d called earlier he’d be wast
ing his time. She and Jed would be on their way back to Spain by this time tomorrow.

  It wasn’t. It was Liam. Elena took the instrument from her ear and stared at it, frowning. She couldn’t believe it. Why would her ex-husband be calling her? How did he know she was here?

  His insistent voice on the other end of the line had her reluctantly listening again, her soft mouth pulled down in distaste.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked him frigidly, wondering if he’d bother to phone again if she simply put the receiver down and cut him off.

  ‘I just told you.’

  ‘And I wasn’t listening,’ she told him back.

  ‘Then you’d better listen this time,’ he said toughly. ‘I want money. Big fat bunches of the stuff. And I want it now. Because of you I was banged up. You turned me in. I always treated you right, showed you a good time,’ he said resentfully. ‘Now I’ve paid my debt to society,’ he sneered. ‘So it’s your turn to clear your debt to me.’

  ‘I don’t owe you a single thing.’ She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. It was surreal.

  ‘Ten years at Her Majesty’s pleasure. You call that nothing? You set me up. You owe me. And don’t tell me you can’t afford it. I know better. And don’t say you won’t, because if you do I’ll make big, big trouble. For you and your nice new husband.’

  Elena’s eyes flicked round the hall. The house felt empty, but she knew it wasn’t. At any minute Catherine might wander through and want to know if she was talking to that nice journalist who had phoned earlier.

  How could she explain that she wasn’t, that she was speaking to her ex-husband, the ex-convict, who was now demanding money with menaces?

  She really could do without this on top of everything else!

  Dealing with it firmly, she said, ‘Get lost. You’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘OK. If that’s the way you want it. You just sit back and wait till the rubbish hits the fan. You and hubby will be covered with it.’