Love Unspoken

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘You’re looking better today,’ she fussed behind Julie, plumping up her pillows.

  Julie leant back into the comfort. ‘I thought I glowed,’ she teased, knowing that whatever Zack had said to Mrs Humphries last night about them, she still had a friend in her.

  ‘You do.’ The breakfast table was placed over her legs. ‘But yesterday you looked a little tired.’

  Julie sipped the coffee, biting lightly on her bottom lip. ‘My husband—’

  ‘Should be back soon.’

  ‘Back?’ She bit into the toast, feeling the familiar heaving feeling in her stomach.

  ‘He went to your flat to collect some more of your things,’ she was told cheerfully.

  ‘But it’s only seven-thirty!’ Julie gasped.

  ‘Mr Reedman was up at six this morning.’

  ‘Oh.’ It seemed that Zack had suffered the insomnia she herself had avoided. And Mrs Humphries didn’t seem to have any curiosity about the fact that she wasn’t aware of what time Zack had been out of bed, or of the fact that they had separate bedrooms. Maybe Zack had also explained that last night?

  She was up and dressed by the time Zack returned, sitting in the lounge, the radio on softly, attempting to read the book on the birth of a baby that she had bought last week. It all sounded rather frightening—beautiful, but frightening all the same.

  Zack still looked grim, putting her other two suitcases in her room before coming back to the lounge. ‘I closed the lease on your apartment,’ he told her arrogantly.

  Julie only just managed to bite back her angry retort. After all, she mentally shrugged, she had been moving out anyway. ‘Thank you,’ she accepted distantly.

  If Zack was surprised by her acquiescence he didn’t show it. ‘I thought you might need these.’ He held out her spare bottle of iron tablets to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said once again as she tools them from him.

  He gave her an impatient look. ‘I think we should talk, Julie.’

  She eyed him coolly, ignoring the lines of weariness she could see beside his eyes and mouth. He deserved to be weary. ‘About what?’

  ‘This—situation, for one thing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call my pregnancy a situation,’ she taunted dryly.

  His mouth tightened. ‘Don’t be difficult, Julie. We can’t live the rest of our lives in this state of armed neutrality.’

  The rest of their lives! God, how ominous that sounded. She shrugged. ‘So we drop our arms.’

  ‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ Zack scowled down at her.

  Julie sighed, her peace once again shattered. ‘What do you want now, Zack? What else can I do? I’m here, you’re going to have your child, so what else can I do?’

  ‘You can tell me that I was wrong last night, that our child was safe with you.’ He looked at her with tortured eyes. ‘Can’t you tell me that?’

  ‘I already have,’ she said woodenly. ‘I don’t intend begging, Zack. You either believe me or you don’t.’ Her head was held at a proud angle.

  ‘You couldn’t really give a damn?’

  Of course she cared, why else did he think she was so hurt by what he had said. ‘Not any more,’ she shook her head.

  ‘So I believe what I want?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I believe you.’

  Her brows rose. ‘You do?’ She couldn’t hold back her surprise.

  ‘I have to,’ he said gruffly. ‘Otherwise we don’t stand a chance together.’

  ‘I doubt we do anyway, Zack. Our marriage was at an end once, I think it still is.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged tersely. ‘But we have to try and make something of it. What would you like to do today?’

  ‘Rest,’ she shrugged.

  His gaze sharpened. ‘I realise now this must be the reason you fainted at the press conference, your feelings of weakness. You’re all right in yourself, aren’t you?’

  ‘Would you care if I weren’t?’

  ‘Are you?’ he rasped harshly at her cold tone.

  ‘Yes, of course I am,’ she snapped. ‘A lot of women feel faint, tired. It’s nothing unusual.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I intend coming with you the next time you go to see the doctor.’

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Julie-‘

  ‘All right, all right,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sorry. And of course you can come with me the next time I visit the doctor.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘My appointment isn’t for—All right,’ she agreed at his stubborn look. ‘If you insist.’

  ‘I do.’

  As it happened the doctor couldn’t give her an appointment until Wednesday, despite Zack’s own telephone calls. His waiting for Wednesday morning certainly wasn’t done patiently, and several derogatory remarks were made about British doctors.

  Julie had been right about Mrs Humphries. Her care of her was almost motherly, and within a couple of days the two of them were firm friends.

  ‘You know I don’t like lamb, Mrs Humphries,’ Zack complained at dinner on Tuesday evening.

  ‘Mrs Reedman does,’ he was informed before the housekeeper bustled off back to her kitchen.

  He turned to scowl at Julie. ‘You have the woman eating out of your hand!’

  Julie ate her meal with quiet enjoyment. ‘She’s a definite improvement on the housekeeper we had before.’ That woman had gone out of her way to treat Julie like a guest instead of her mistress.

  Zack ate his own food with less enjoyment, although he made no further comment about the lamb. ‘Connie and Ben have been worried about you,’ he told her as they drank their coffee in the lounge.

  Much to Julie’s surprise they had settled down to a semi-polite existence the last few days; Zack’s occasional bouts of temper had soon passed.

  ‘Have they?’ she frowned.

  ‘Apparently Connie’s been telephoning your flat all week. Ben wondered if I’d heard anything.’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘And of course you told him I was with you,’ she taunted.

  He sighed. ‘What else would you have had me say?’

  Julie shook her head. ‘Did you tell him about the baby too?’

  ‘Yes. I felt it would be better coming from me.’

  Her cheeks had coloured a delicate pink in her embarrassment. ‘Was he pleased?’

  ‘Ecstatic,’ Zack revealed dryly. ‘You would never think he already had two of his own. I’m surprised Connie hasn’t called you,’ he added affectionately.

  ‘I’ve been out all afternoon. Buying baby clothes,’ she explained at his censorious look. ‘Would you like to see what I’ve bought?’ she offered shyly.

  He swallowed hard. ‘You really want to show me?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Babies are for sharing, Zack,’ she told him softly.

  ‘Even with me?’

  ‘Especially with you,’ she nodded.

  ‘Julie…?’

  ‘I’ll go and get the things I bought.’ She hurried from the room, not trusting the longing in Zack’s voice. All that was over between them, she wouldn’t allow him to revive it. There was a vast difference between accepting him as the baby’s father and accepting him as her husband.

  He was staring broodingly into space when she returned to the lounge with the baby-shawl and pram-suit in a beautiful shade of apricot.

  ‘The baby will be born in March, so I thought it might still be cold then,’ she explained the woollen articles.

  ‘Yes.’ Zack looked down at the delicate clothing. ‘They’re beautiful, Julie,’ he said in a husky voice.

  She sat down opposite him. ‘What are we going to do about a nursery? I suppose we could convert one of the bedrooms here, but it’s going to be a little cramped—’

  ‘I thought we could buy a house,’ Zack put in quietly.

  Julie blinked. ‘You did?’ It was the first she had heard of it.

  ‘A flat, especially one in London, is
no place to bring up a child.’

  She already knew that, and it had been worrying her. ‘You’re thinking of moving out of London?’

  ‘I was thinking we could move out of London,’ he corrected pointedly.

  She frowned. ‘But you’ve always said you have to live in town.’

  ‘I didn’t have a family to think of then. You were working here, and so was I, London was convenient for both of us.’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘And now it isn’t?’

  He ignored her derision. ‘I thought you might like to live nearer Connie and Ben.’

  Her expression brightened. ‘I would. But—’

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ Zack said briskly. ‘I’ve already contacted an estate agent—’

  ‘Without talking to me first?’

  ‘I only contacted him, Julie. To see if there were any properties available in that area.’

  ‘And were there?’ she enquired stiffly.

  ‘A few,’ he nodded. ‘I should have the details by the end of the week.’

  Julie was angry, and she wasn’t altogether sure why. A house would be a much more suitable place to bring up a child, and it would be nice to be closer to Connie, Ben, and the children. Maybe it was the fact that Zack hadn’t consulted her that bothered her so much, that he had made the decision without even asking her.

  ‘Maybe when you’ve decided where we’re going to live I might be allowed to look at it,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Julie-‘

  She stood up. ‘I’ll just put these things away,’ and she rushed from the room.

  Was this how it was to be, how they would live out this lie of a marriage? Was Zack to make all the decisions and she expected to just agree to them? She hadn’t been able to accept that sort of marriage last time, and she wouldn’t be able to this time either.

  She sensed Zack’s presence in her room before he spoke, looking up at him challengingly. ‘Yes?’

  He shrugged his exasperation. ‘I have no intention of even looking at a house unless you’re with me.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I don’t believe you, Zack,’ she told him in an unemotional voice. ‘I’d like to go to bed now, if you don’t mind?’

  His expression darkened with concern. ‘You’re all right?’

  ‘The baby is fine,’ she answered wearily. ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘It was you I was asking about,’ he scowled.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘You know it was,’ he snapped.

  ‘I-‘

  A gentle knock sounded on the door. ‘Telephone call for you, Mrs Reedman,’ the housekeeper told her.

  ‘Connie,’ Zack said dryly.

  ‘Probably,’ Julie nodded, going back to the lounge.

  Connie was so pleased she and Zack were back together, that there was to be a baby, that Julie didn’t have the courage to tell her friend the only reason they were back together was because of the baby.

  Zack had disappeared into his study by the time she managed to get off the telephone, so she went to bed, pretending to be asleep when the door opened quietly about ten minutes later, her eyes remaining firmly closed when she sensed Zack’s presence next to the bed.

  She almost gave herself away when she felt his hand gently touch her cheek, covering her surprise by turning away from him as if her sleep had been disturbed, holding the tears back from cascading down her cheeks.

  ‘Goodnight, darling,’ he murmured huskily several long seconds later.

  It seemed to Julie that she must have stopped breathing until she heard the door softly closing as Zack left.

  She sat up in the bed, wondering if she could possibly have imagined that moment of tenderness. But she was sure she hadn’t, her cheek was still tingling where Zack had touched her.

  But why had he touched her? And why had he called her darling?

  Dr Frederick told Zack exactly the same as Julie had the next morning—that she was very well, and that the pregnancy was progressing very normally.

  ‘Your wife has been the model expectant mum,’ the doctor beamed at them both. ‘I wish all women were willing to take the care she has.’

  ‘Julie is very conscious of her health—’

  ‘Of the baby’s health,’ the doctor corrected briskly. ‘Mrs Reedman has been very conscious of the right diet and exercise for your baby, the ante-natal classes she should attend nearer the time.’

  ‘So everything is—normal?’ Zack persisted.

  ‘Very much so,’ the doctor nodded. ‘Of course I can understand your anxiety—’

  ‘Thank you so much for your time, Doctor.’ Julie stood up to leave. ‘I’m sure my husband feels reassured now. Don’t you Zack?’ she looked at him with challenge.

  He stood up to shake the doctor’s hand. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing more Julie could do to ensure the—safety of the baby?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ the doctor smiled at him indulgently. ‘It’s just a question of waiting now. And in the meantime you can be sure I’ll take good care of her.’

  Zack was distant on the drive back to their home, and Julie knew the reason why. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’ she sighed.

  ‘I-‘

  ‘Don’t bother to lie, Zack,’ she dismissed. ‘You still think I intended sneaking off somewhere and ridding myself of your baby. And what would I have done then? Let me guess,’ she said bitterly. ‘I would have calmly come back to London, resumed my job, my life? Is that what I would have done, Zack?’ she taunted.

  ‘Calm down, Julie—’

  ‘Oh, yes, I mustn’t get upset, must I? I mustn’t do anything to distress the baby! Do you think it’s a boy or a girl, Zack? I don’t sup pose it really matters,’ her voice rose shrilly. ‘If it’s a boy it will probably be a bastard like its father, and if it’s a girl it will be a bitch like-‘

  ‘No, Julie!’ he cut in angrily. ‘I won’t let you say that. I may be a bastard, a suspicious, cold- hearted bastard, but you are not a bitch. God, I must have been insane to have said those things to you!’ He ran a hand through the darkness of his hair.

  ‘You said you were—insane, I mean.’

  ‘With wanting you? Yes—and God help me, I still am,’ he groaned. ‘The thought of my child growing inside you fills me with wonder and pride.’

  Julie had stiffened at his mention of still wanting her. He couldn’t mean that, not still.

  He turned to her with agonised eyes, and she knew that he did. Zack still wanted her.

  ‘No! No, don’t say it,’ she shook her head frantically. ‘Too much has already been said, done. I won’t listen to you any more.’

  His expression became shuttered, the light died out of his eyes. ‘You feel nothing for me?’

  She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said raggedly.

  If Mrs Humphries sensed a worsening in the relationship between her master and mistress she gave no indication of it, continuing to fuss over Julie, caring nothing for the scowls of her employer if she should happen to serve a meal he wasn’t particularly keen on but which she felt would be good for Julie and the baby.

  ‘I feel like a lodger in my own home,’ he told Connie and Ben a few days later; the other couple had been invited over for dinner.

  Julie bridled resentfully. ‘I’m sure Mrs Humphries doesn’t mean to make you feel like that.’

  ‘I know that, darling.’ He dropped down beside her on the sofa, his arm going about her shoulders.

  She stiffened as he touched her, all contact between them had been kept to the verbal in the last three days. Having him touch her now, when she couldn’t stop him, wasn’t something she welcomed.

  ‘I like to see the way she takes care of you,’ he added with warm sincerity. ‘I often feel like spoiling you myself.’

  She looked at him sharply, sensing sarcasm. But it wasn’t sarcasm she saw in his face, it was naked desire, his eyes glowed with it. She hail seen th
at look several times the last few days, had seen it, and feared it. Zack really was sorry for all the accusations and cruel things he had said to her when he found out about the baby, and she didn’t know if she were strong enough to fight his tenderness, not loving him the way she did.

  She had always known that loving a man was like this, more pain than happiness, had thought that three years ago she had escaped its hold on her once and for all. It was worse the second time around, the baby was an added complication she had wanted to avoid at all costs. Now she would never get away, would have to watch while Zack’s wanting of now turned to boredom as he searched for a new love to brighten his life.

  She had seen it all before, had watched her mother slowly die a little as her father had one woman after another in his life. He had left them so many times in the first ten years of her life that towards the end of that time she had begun to think he was the lodger!

  It seemed that no matter how many times he left, the cruel things he said, her mother was always willing to take him back. And Julie had been determined that would never happen to her, had refused to have children for that very reason, unwilling to subject any child to the pain she had suffered through her own traumatic and stormy childhood.

  And now she was trapped as surely as her mother had been trapped; she loved Zack so much she would have to forgive the other women in his life, would love his child so much she knew she could never leave it—and Zack would never let her take it away with her!

  That was one way in which Zack differed from her father. He was possessive over his child, would allow no one else to bring it up but him. Her father hadn’t known she was there half the time.

  Yes, she was trapped in her own love for Zack and their unborn child, and some of her desperation must have shown in her face, for Zack’s arm tightened about her shoulders, a deep frown marring his brow as he looked down at her.

  She hastily looked away, knowing how astute Zack could be. Somehow he had never guessed the truth about her reserve when it came to commitment. Probably because she had always told him her father was dead, that both her parents were dead!

  Her mother had faded from the world when Julie was eleven years of age, a year after her father had left them for the last time. The doctors said she had died of pneumonia, but Julie knew it had been of a broken heart. Her father had been filing for divorce, had intended marrying the woman he had been living with the last year, and when her mother realised that he really wasn’t coming back this time, she had just given up the will to live.