RSVP...Baby

by Pamela Browning

  “Bianca?”

  “Of course I’ll marry you,” she said. “Of course I will. I love you, Neill. Even though you are a Bellamy.” She smiled at him and he gave a whoop of delight and enfolded her in his arms.

  “You know,” said Tully consideringly from his place in front of the fire, “I think I really like beer better with spaghetti.”

  One hour later

  “What,” Neill said, “has gone on in here?”

  Bianca, following him into Mulberry Cottage, stared blankly at the confusion within. Clothes were dumped out of drawers, a suitcase stood empty on the couch, and Nana Lambert was perched amid a pile of shoes watching the Viceroy-Bellamy mine video on TV.

  She smiled brightly up at them. “I thought you said you mine amethysts,” she said to Neill.

  “Nana—” he began.

  “Well, you should mine amethysts. Not these emeralds. I don’t like them. I only wear shades of purple, you know. Amethysts give off good vibrations.”

  “How did you get in?” Bianca said. She leaned up against Neill and he put his arm around her. They had come to the cottage to be alone. Now they weren’t, and there was no telling how they would get rid of Nana.

  “I walked in. The door was open. Do you know they think I’m a jewel thief?”

  “You are the jewel thief?” chorused Neill and Bianca.

  “Well, they think so. Not that I’ve found any amethysts worth wearing. Genevieve has hidden hers, and Winnie’s are nothing more than bottle glass. I thought I could depend on you, Joe, to produce some nice ones. And I’m not a thief, for heaven’s sake. I buy amethysts. I have a nice collection of them, you know.”

  “I’m Neill,” Neill said.

  “And it looks to me as if you’ve finally settled things with the woman you adore. Bianca, isn’t that your name?” Nana cocked her head in Bianca’s direction and smiled approvingly at both of them.

  “Yes,” Bianca said.

  “Well, I checked out your room, too. You were so kind to leave the door unlocked for me yesterday so I could browse through your things. You’ve got some nice jewelry, but it’s all so modern-looking. I like old-fashioned things, like lavaliers and such. Vittorio said you’re going to start a new gemstone line, and I hope you’ll include some amethysts in your designs.”

  “You talked with Vittorio?” Bianca said, nonplussed.

  “Oh, yes, he phoned while I was in your room, and I think I knew him in my past life. He invited me to Rome, you know. I’m going week after next to visit him in his villa.” Nana, for all the world like a sprightly bird, hopped up from her place on the couch.

  “Impress upon her your ardor,” she said to Neill, wagging her finger roguishly. And then she flitted out the door, trailing scarves and the scent of lavender.

  Neill closed the door firmly after her and turned to Bianca. He held out his arms. “Come here. I want to do what Nana says.”

  “‘Impress upon me the strength of your ardor?’” Bianca allowed herself to be folded close to Neill’s chest and to be soothed by his strong steady heartbeat.

  “And more,” he said. “When do you want to get married?”

  “Soon,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “Vite.”

  “And where?”

  “Far away from any Bellamys,” she said with great conviction.

  “Where would that be?”

  “On top of Mount Everest?” she said, leaning back to gaze up at him with adoration.

  He laughed. “It suits me, but it would be kind of hard on our daughter. I want her there, you know.”

  “I know,” Bianca said.

  “Do you think we could just go and do it? On our own? Whenever?”

  “I think that’s a very good idea. Because,” and she smiled up at him, and he joined in so that they repeated together, “Anything can happen at a Bellamy wedding.”

  Epilogue

  Eighteen Months After the Non-Wedding of the Century

  “Bianca, Vittorio’s on the phone,” Neill said. He emerged from their joint office on the second floor of their elegant town house in Rome holding Tia in his arms.

  Bianca was reclining on a chaise longue in the gallery that linked their office with the other rooms on the second floor, a purple afghan nestled around her feet to ward off the chill of a rainy Roman winter. “I think I’m in labor,” she said.

  “You are?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  Neill set Tia down on the Aubusson carpet and she immediately toddled to Bianca.

  “Mommy? Book?”

  Bianca kissed Tia and smoothed her silky blond hair. “No, cara, I’m afraid I can’t read to you this minute. But I’m sure Nana could.”

  “Nana could what?” Nana appeared from the elevator, an amethyst tiara on her head, a lavender print rain poncho over her clothes.

  “Nana! Nana!” cried Tia, running to her with delight.

  “Here, Nana, you talk to Vittorio,” Neill said, handing the phone to her. Nana immediately launched into a stream of fluent Italian punctuated by bursts of loud laughter, then hung up.

  “That Vittorio—what a card. Would you mind if he and I take Tia to get a gelato?” Nana asked hopefully. Tia loved Italian ices, especially strawberry.

  “Well, it’s certainly all right, Nana, but Bianca thinks she’s in labor,” Neill told her.

  Nana frowned at Bianca. “You do look a bit peaked. I think you should put on that nice leotard I bought you and do some of those dance exercises I showed you, Bianca dear. I danced right up to the moment dear Genevieve was born.”

  “And we all know how Gen turned out,” Neill muttered under his breath as Bianca cast a warning look in his direction.

  Nana took Tia’s hand. “Come along, Tia. Let’s see if Nanny Gabrielle would like to go with us. Uncle Vittorio is coming in his big long car to pick us up. Bianca, I’m quite sure the baby won’t come right away. We’ll be back before you go to the hospital, tra la, tra la.”

  “ ’Bye, Mommy. ’Bye Daddy.” Tia waved her little hand as she disappeared into the elevator with Nana. Tia loved Nana, which was not surprising since Nana was so much like a child herself.

  Neill sat on the edge of the chaise and took Bianca’s hand. He held it to his lips and kissed the fingers one by one, lingering on the one that bore his wedding band and the huge emerald he’d given her as an engagement ring. Of course, he’d placed the wedding ring on her finger first and given her the emerald after she’d had a chance to design a setting for it. Nana had said that was an obvious case of putting the cart before the horse, but then, it wasn’t necessary to be conventional, was it? and Bianca had agreed. Neill hadn’t cared about conventionality. All he’d wanted was to be married to Bianca and to be a family.

  And they were. Nana had struck up a friendship with Vittorio, who had retired again recently and devoted all his time to her. She had bought a new hearing aid so she could hear Vittorio’s “sweet somethings,” as she’d termed them. For the time being, she chose to live with Neill and Bianca, knitting lots of purple afghans and baby garments while allowing Vittorio to shower her with affection and amethysts in that order. Both Bianca and Neill hoped she would never leave them.

  “Are you in pain, darling?” Neill murmured to Bianca.

  She shifted slightly. “I’m fine. We don’t have to go to the hospital yet.”

  “I want to get there in time. I don’t want to be the one to deliver our child in the back of a Rolls-Royce.”

  “Of course not.” She caught her breath as she felt another contraction.

  “Bianca?”

  She had to smile because he looked so worried. And so loving. Their marriage, they both agreed, was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Like swans, they considered themselves mated for life. Neill had given up his hands-on work at the mine in Colombia, visiting there only four times a year. Sometimes Bianca and Tia went with him. Often they traveled to Paris for Bianca’s business, and after the baby was born t
hey planned to move permanently to New York, where Bianca’s office was enlarging in both scope and function with the help of Kevin, her sales manager, and Storm, who had given up modeling and was a crackerjack public relations person. D’Alessandro’s new gemstone line was a huge success, especially after tie-ins with a cable TV shopping channel, which had been Neill’s idea. He’d even bought the channel.

  “Can I get you anything?” Neill asked.

  “You’ve already given me everything a woman could want,” Bianca said, gazing up at her handsome husband. “A beautiful daughter, another baby and more love than any woman could expect in one lifetime.”

  Neill gathered her in his arms, carefully so he wouldn’t hurt her. “I love you, Bianca.”

  “More now even than at our wedding?” she asked, grinning in spite of the fact that another contraction was following fast upon the heels of the last.

  Neill considered this. Their wedding had taken place in Nepal before Neill started out to climb Mount Everest. In attendance had been their daughter, Tia. It was one Bellamy wedding at which nothing unexpected had happened, unless you could count deciding on the spur of the moment to be married by a minister who was making the climb with Neill. Four Sherpa mountain guides had been pressed into service as witnesses. Their honeymoon had waited until Neill had triumphantly ascended the peak and had returned with cold feet that needed warming, not to mention a really bad case of the flu. Bianca had borne all with good humor, and afterward they’d celebrated Neill’s ascent of the mountain and their new married state by taking Tia and her nanny to Maui for three weeks. No Bellamys had been invited to any of the festivities.

  “I love you even more than on the day I married you,” Neill told her. “I didn’t know it was possible to love anyone this much.”

  “Nor did I,” Bianca whispered. “And that last contraction hurt.”

  “You’re in pain? Is it awful?” Neill looked so frantic that she had to laugh.

  “It’s not awful. It’s wonderful. It’s producing a baby.”

  “You look so pale. I’m scared to death. What if something happens to you? How could I live without you?

  Mirth bubbled in Bianca’s throat, and she wanted to laugh. But she didn’t want to hurt her husband’s feelings because he was so sincere and so earnest.

  “Nothing will happen to me, but maybe you’d better tell the driver to bring the car around. And get my small suitcase out of the closet in our room.”

  “I can’t stand to see you in pain. I’m never going to make love to you again if this is what happens. I can’t stand it. I don’t know why we keep having babies when I’m not supposed to have much of a sperm count.”

  “There may not be many, but they’re definitely potent,” Bianca said with great conviction. “And we will make love again. You can count on it, dearest.”

  “I love you, Bianca. If it hadn’t been for what happened in the gazebo that night, I would never have known that I could father children. It changed my life, and for the better. I don’t have to be alone any more. I have a real family now.”

  “Just—get the suitcase,” Bianca said, thinking that this was not the best time for Neill to wax eloquent no matter how much she loved him. She reached for the phone to call the driver herself.

  With one last harried look into her eyes, Neill rushed off to do her bidding.

  Bianca summoned the chauffeur and closed her eyes against the next contraction as it washed over her in a wave. She concentrated on the baby that was coming. She would have a son this time, and he would grow into a tall, strong, charming child with webbed feet exactly like every other Bellamy she’d ever met.

  Neill was back and bending over her. “Bianca? Are you okay?”

  “I will always be okay as long as you are my husband,” she said, reaching her arms up to him.

  “And I will always be okay as long as you are my wife.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Now let’s get the hell to the hospital and get this baby born.”

  “Vite,” gasped Bianca in Italian. Which, as Neill knew by now, meant quickly.

  Mr. and Mrs. Neill Cameron Bellamy

  and their daughter Tia

  announce with great joy

  the birth of a son and brother,

  Neill Cameron Bellamy, Jr.

  8 lbs., 5 oz.

  December 9, 2001

  Rome, Italy

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5029-1

  RSVP. . .BABY

  Copyright © 1999 by Pamela Browning.

  All rights reserved. Except for use In any review, the reprodudion or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now know or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the Imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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