by Penny Jordan
‘Better be on the safe side,’ he told her firmly. ‘You never know with these tropical fevers …’
‘Thanks—I was bitten by a spider, remember,’ she told him, ‘not stricken with Lassa fever!’
Nigel grinned. He was wearing his ‘I’m into something big’ again face, and walked out of the office whistling off-key, a sure sign that things were beginning to jell. It was Tamara’s conviction that Nigel enjoyed the hunt for a new talent more than the surefire success books that resulted from it.
Although she had scoffed at his advice, when a week went by and she was feeling no better, she decided that it might be as well to have a check up. She belonged to a large group practice, and the busy doctor who saw her was brusque and to the point.
‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ he told her dryly, having examined her thoroughly and asked a good many questions, ‘unless you count pregnancy as an illness. I’ll have to test to make sure, but I’m ninety per cent certain you’re in the early stages of pregnancy. If you are and you want a termination …’
‘No!’
The word was out without her having to think about it, and for the first time she received a faintly approving smile.
‘Come back in a fortnight’s time and we’ll talk again. The results of the test will be through in about a week. Ring my receptionist to check, and if, as I suspect, you are pregnant she’ll start making arrangements for ante-natal care, relaxation classes, all that sort of thing.’
Tamara left the surgery in a daze. Pregnant! She could barely take it in. The signs had been there, but she naïvely had not perceived them; it had simply not occurred to her that as a result of Zach’s lovemaking she might conceive his child. Zach’s child! She came to an abrupt halt, torn between wildly fluctuating joy and pain—joy because she would bear the child of the man she loved, and pain because he would never know of its existence.
It was only later that the agonising started; did she have the right to bring up her child alone, depriving it of the love it could receive from two parents were it adopted; did she have the right to have the baby at all?
‘Everything okay?’ Nigel asked her, coming into her office as she was removing her coat, and frowning slightly when he saw her dazed expression.
‘Tamara?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she told him baldly.
‘Pregnant?’ He did an obvious double-take and stared. ‘Hell! I suppose that means you’ll be bringing the date of the wedding forward, and I’ll lose you right in the middle of the biggest thing that’s ever happened to this firm!’
Tamara tried not to laugh. He was the supreme egotist.
‘There won’t be any wedding,’ she told him quietly, holding out her left hand. ‘Look, no ring.’
‘But after this!’ Nigel expostulated. ‘Hell, even a prune like Malcolm couldn’t leave you high and dry with his child!’
‘Wrong and wrong again.’ It was amazing how cheerful she managed to sound. ‘One, the baby isn’t Malcolm’s, and two, I was the one to break the engagement—before I knew about the baby. Not that knowing would have altered my decision. If I couldn’t marry Malcolm because I didn’t love him I certainly couldn’t marry him to give a name to someone else’s child.’
‘I see.’ For once all Nigel’s attention was focused on her. He perched on the end of her desk, toying with a pencil. ‘Umm, I’d noticed a certain … blossoming of late, a certain honing of features which had always been there, but neglected so to speak. So. Well, are you planning to marry the man who’s the father of your child?’
Tamara shook her head.
‘It was a very brief encounter,’ she said lightly. ‘I loved him; he desired me. The fact that I’m pregnant is not his concern. What I would like to know is, will you keep me on?’
It cost a lot to speak so matter-of-factly, but it had to be done.
‘I don’t see why not, but it won’t be easy for you,’ Nigel warned her, ‘especially not once the baby has been born. I know enough about you, Tamara, to know that you’re not the sort of woman who’ll want to let anyone else bring up her child, but still at least you’ve got your own home, and I suppose we could come to some flexible arrangement over hours; perhaps you could even work at home part of the time …’
Tamara had to turn away to hide the quick rush of grateful tears. She had still not really taken in the fact that she was pregnant; it had all happened too quickly.
‘This man,’ Nigel was saying, ‘you met him in the Caribbean, I take it. You say you love him—are you sure it’s not just infatuation? Malcolm might not be the most exciting man on earth, but …’
Tamara shook her head decisively.
‘No. To both questions.’
‘Mm—well, I know when I’ve met a lady who knows her own mind. Which reminds me—talking of people who know their own minds, I’ve managed to fix up an interview for my next project. It’s definitely going to be a biggie, Tamara. We’re driving down to see him next Friday. Lunch at his stately pile,’ he grinned, enjoying her expression. ‘You’re about to meet a philanthropist. He wants to turn his home into a rehabilitation centre for disturbed children, and the book is going to help finance it.’
‘What’s the book going to be about?’ Tamara asked him.
‘Faction—but this time it’s all about power games. He’s a very shrewd operator, knowledgeable in his field too, but he’s determined not to sell himself cheap.’
‘He sounds formidable,’ Tamara said lightly. ‘Will you want me to make notes or will you use the recorder?’
‘We might as well be prepared for both. From the outline he’s sent me I don’t think there’ll be too much to discuss. He read English Literature at Cambridge and he certainly seems to know how to put his point across.’
The rest of the day passed in a blur of telephone calls, checking on the progress of a jacket cover for a children’s book they had in hand, and soothing the affronted feelings of a writer who had been trying to speak to Nigel for a week without success, and it wasn’t until she was back in her own flat that Tamara could give her mind over to the reality of her pregnancy. She touched her stomach—still flat, showing no sign of the life growing inside her.
Zach’s child. Illogically, she wanted a son. But she must not smother the child, whatever sex it was, she warned herself. She must remember always that it would probably inherit some of Zach’s fierce independence an independence it would surely need. But one-parent families were no longer remarkable.
It never even occurred to her to try to get in touch with Zach. If he knew about the baby it would only be an embarrassment to him. He would probably advise her to obtain an abortion; he might even drawl in that same hatefully mocking voice he had used the last time she had seen him that the paternity was in doubt and that the baby might possibly be Malcolm’s.
No, it was far better that he didn’t know.
The flat had a second small bedroom which she used as a storeroom-cum-study; she could use it for the baby. It was a pity there was no proper garden, but there was a park within walking distance, and perhaps later she could buy a small house … For the first time since she had returned from the Caribbean she felt that she had some purpose in life; something to live for instead of merely existing. Zach could never be hers, but his child …
She was smiling when she went to bed, but while she slept tears slid down her checks. Having Zach’s baby was a bitter-sweet pleasure, knowing that his father would never be there to see him growing up.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A WEEK later Nigel announced that the following day, which was a Friday, they were going to visit their new author.
‘Not that he’s committed himself to us yet,’ Nigel admitted, ‘but I’m hoping to get something concrete out of him this afternoon, so smile your sweetest at him.’
Tamara merely smiled. She knew when she was being teased, and yet she could not help feeling a tiny glow of pride early the next morning when Nigel came to pick her up at her flat, h
is eyes widening as she came towards him.
She had dressed carefully for their visit. When Aunt Lilian had died she had left Tamara her house and the money which had come to her on Tamara’s parents’ death and which she had carefully put aside for her great-niece, and although previously Tamara had not given much thought to the matter she was grateful now to have the quite substantial sum behind her. The only money she had spent since her aunt’s death had been on buying the flat, but since her return from holiday, in the brief weeks before discovering her pregnancy she had surprised herself by almost completely renovating her wardrobe. Today’s outfit was one of the results, and it was the first time it had been warm enough to wear the petrol blue suit with its contrasting white blouse.
The clothes were from a range of separates Tamara had discovered in a small boutique, and the skirt had caught her eye immediately. Basically quite plain, it had been made attractively eyecatching by the addition of self-coloured embroidery just below the neat wasitline, and an insert of tiny fan pleats in the front seam. The blouse was decorated with appliquéd satin flowers on the shoulders and yoke, and Tamara knew that the outfit was both demure and feminine.
‘Very nice,’ Nigel approved. ‘And I like your hair too. It looks much better down. Makes you look more approachable somehow.’
‘Not too approachable, I hope,’ Tamara retaliated teasingly.
By rights she ought to have been feeling terrible. Here she was expecting a child and unmarried Aunt Lilian would have been disgusted and horrified, but all Tamara could feel was intense joy. It was as though knowing she was carrying Zach’s child helped to ease the aching pain of his absence. She wasn’t looking through rose-coloured glasses, though. She knew there would be hard times ahead, times when she regretted intensely committing herself to single parenthood, but there would also be great joy, a new dimension to life.
‘Wake up, dreamer!’ Nigel chided her, opening his car door.
Tamara settled herself composedly. It was by no means unusual for her to visit authors with Nigel. Their firm believed in pampering its authors and frequently, rather than subject them to the harrowing journey to London, they visited them in their own homes. Normally Tamara remained very much in the background, notebook on hand, listening carefully for anything that Nigel might forget.
They took the M4 towards Bristol. The motorway was relatively quiet, ‘Too early for weekend escapers,’ Nigel told her. Outside the car windows the countryside basked in a rare day of June sunshine. Tiny white clouds scudded storybook fashion across a sky the shade of blue which is only found in England, and Tamara leaned back in her seat and enjoyed the intense sensation of wellbeing she was experiencing.
At Bristol they turned on to the M5 to head north, the Bristol Channel to their left and the beginnings of hills to their right.
Gloucester was their first town, and as they travelled down one particularly wide and gracious street Tamara was reminded that it had once been a famous spa to rival Bath and Tunbridge Wells, and her mind mentally populated the curving terrace of Regency houses with dandies tooling dangerously fast carriages, and demure damsels in floating muslin dresses and huge poke bonnets.
The Cotswolds were familiar to her from her visits to see Malcolm’s parents, but she never tired of the enchantment of rounding a corner and coming upon a tiny village, or of the green and gold patchwork of fields.
‘Not far now,’ Nigel told her, mistaking her sigh of pleasure for one of tiredness. ‘We’re looking for a village with the improbable name of Wharton-under-the-Hill. There should be a signpost on your left any moment now.’
They came to it several seconds later, taking a meandering B-road along leafy lanes, heavy with cow-parsley and ragged Robin. Wild roses were blooming in the hedgerows and Tamara wound down her window to breathe in the sweet summer air. Despite Malcolm’s mother’s oft-voiced beliefs to the contrary, Tamara did like the country, and at this particular moment could think of nothing more delightful than settling down in one of the tiny huddle of cottages which comprised the village of Wharton. The ‘under-the-Hill’ addition was easily understandable in view of the gentle rise of the Cotswolds behind the village, and although Tamara was quite familiar with the Cotswolds, this particular village was new to her.
‘Pub looks nice,’ Nigel commented regretfully as they drove through the village and turned left over an ancient hump-backed bridge barely wide enough for the car.
‘Is it much farther?’ Tamara asked him curiously.
‘Three or four miles. Interesting chap, our host,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I’d never have put him down as the philanthropic type—he’s a damned sight too hard and shrewd. Could have knocked me down with a feather when he told me that he intended to use the royalties from his book to equip and run his home as a rehabilitation centre. Of course he’ll still have the land, and there’s a sizeable dower house, apparently, but even so …’
‘What’s he like?’ Tamara asked, her curiosity stirring. For some reason she pictured a peppery gentleman in his sixties, rather dapper, and charming in a way that deceived no one as to his true character.
‘Wait and see,’ Nigel replied mysteriously. ‘What did you think of the outline?’ He had given it to her to read earlier in the week.
‘Very impressive,’ she agreed. ‘Almost frightening if it wasn’t a blend of fact and fiction.’
‘I’m not so sure it is,’ Nigel astounded her by saying. ‘In fact I have a strong suspicion that our author is using more fact than fiction, but is carefully disguising it to lessen the blow.’
The outline Tamara had read concerned a dangerous leakage from a Winscale-type plant, and the authorities’ determined suppression of that fact, and the frightening results of the suppression. Tamara had found what she had read chillingly frightening, and she looked a little uncertainly at Nigel, asking him.
‘But how could it possibly be true?’
‘I don’t know. But I do know that he has contacts pretty high up in the Army and he may have got the initial whisper from them. Ah, this looks like it,’ he commented as iron gates suddenly loomed up at the side of the road.
The small lodge seemed to be deserted, so Tamara had to climb out of the car to open the gates. The drive was choked with weeds, and the grounds a wilderness of rhododendrons and azaleas.
‘It must have been lovely once,’ she commented as she caught a glimpse of a small lake, choked with weed, and then the drive forked abruptly, causing Nigel to frown slightly over his instructions.
‘The right fork is the one we take,’ he told Tamara. ‘The main house isn’t being used at the moment—something about problems with the roof, so we want the Dower House.’
They found it round a long curve in the drive, and Tamara caught her breath in delight when she saw the perfect Regency house with its graceful shape and symmetry, the warm brick dyed rose-gold by the sun.
Nigel aparked his BMW next to the elegant Porsche. Obviously Nigel’s new find wasn’t exactly short of money, Tamara reflected as she followed her boss up the shallow flight of steps.
A middle-aged man of soldierly bearing opened the door to them and they stepped into a rectangular hall with a beautiful double staircase curving up to an overhanging gallery. Tamara had a brief impression of white and gold décor, and the magnificence of a Waterford chandelier, and Adam decor, and then one of the doors leading off the hall opened and everything else faded from her mind as she stood rooted to the spot, every shred of colour fading from her face, leaving it as matt white as the beautifully painted walls.
‘Zach!’ Nigel was striding forward, his hand extended, unaware of Tamara’s frozen stance. ‘Great to see you. Can I introduce my assistant to you? Tamara, come and meet our new author-to-be.’
Somehow she found herself moving forward, as mechanically as a jointed doll, her lips stiff with the effort of maintaining the rictus smile she had pinned to them, a cold clamminess invading her body, her eyes unable to meet the cold green ones she remembe
red so well.
‘Tamara and I have already met,’ Zach murmured expressionlessly. ‘In the Caribbean and then again more recently. She’s engaged to a neighbour of mine. Tell me,’ he invited, turning to Tamara, ‘have I managed to convince your fiancé yet that I have no intention of allowing them to hunt over my land?’
Tamara made a suitably noncommittal reply, glad of the shadows in the hall to conceal her flushed expression. She could feel Nigel watching her with sudden speculation, and all her fears crystallised when she heard him saying to Zach,
‘You met in the Caribbean, you say? Quite a coincidence. Did you enjoy your holiday?’
‘It had its moments.’
Tamara dared not look at either of them. She bitterly regretted confiding in Nigel to the extent of telling him that she had fallen in love with someone she had met on holiday. He was far too astute not to guess the truth, but surely he wouldn’t betray her?
She held her breath when Zach said to Nigel, ‘I understand you’ll soon have to look for a new secretary?’
‘Er …’ For a moment Nigel looked perplexed and then he said cheerfully, ‘Oh, you mean when she gets married? Oh, she’ll be with me for quite a while yet, no firm date has been set—has it, Tamara?’
‘No,’ Tamara agreed huskily.
‘Lunch is ready, Colonel,’
Colonel! Tamara’s eyes swung to Zach’s impenetrable face. That was something he hadn’t told her during their imprisonment together. When she had talked about being in charge she had assumed he meant as a Captain or a Major.
‘Johnson tends to forget that I’ve left the Army,’ Zach explained dryly as the manservant disappeared silently. ‘He was under my command and invalided out, but the old habits die hard.’
Tamara’s mind whirled. Zach had told her that he had to prove that he was no longer afraid of the jungle and she had assumed he meant because of his career, but now it seemed that he was no longer in the Army, and yet he had proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he had overcome the devils haunting him.
‘Colonel, eh?’ Nigel murmured as they followed Zach into a pleasantly furnished dining room. Most of the furniture was antique, but it possessed none of the heaviness of Malcolm’s parents’ antiques. The dining room overlooked lawned gardens to the rear of the house, and some attempt had obviously been made to clear the flower beds of the choking weeds. Stately trees framed the rear of the garden, an attractive terrace apparently running the width of the back of the house, its stone balustrade weathered with age.