In a superbly cut black silk dress and impossibly high-heeled shoes, there was no way they could expect Valerie to walk the path between the two properties, so Jay fetched the car out, transporting them from door to door in style.
It quickly became apparent that Valerie was playing the part of the sorrowing widow for this renewal of acquaintance with Donald and Cathy Grey, making no reference at all to the time she had worked as a secretary at Wenlow thirty years before. And Donald and Cathy were only too happy not to raise the subject. They listened as Valerie told them what a wonderful husband her Oscar had been, and asked polite questions about her life in America. That took them safely through pre-dinner drinks, and when they were all settled round the table sampling Cathy’s soup made from asparagus grown in her own garden, Donald asked Valerie about her plans.
She seemed unwilling to commit herself. ‘I don’t think I could bear to go back to California now my dear Oscar’s gone. On the other hand, I shall miss my friends. Yet what are friends compared to one’s own flesh and blood? I missed Jay so much all these years that I’m inclined to stay close now.’
‘London, perhaps?’ Cathy suggested, darting an anxious glance at a very wooden-faced Jay before gathering up the empty soup bowls and setting out the warmed plates.
‘Ah, London! I’ve always loved London,’ Valerie agreed. ‘Oscar left me very well provided for, so that widens my choice. And there’s no hurry to make up my mind.’
Mirry couldn’t hide her dismay as she glanced at Jay, whose expression gave nothing away. It was her father who suggested diplomatically that maybe Valerie could spend some time in Jay’s London flat while she looked around for somewhere suitable, adding with bland innocence, ‘As your own marriage was so happy, I’m sure you won’t blame me for reminding you every newly-wed couple need time on their own to settle down.’
‘But of course. Please don’t think I’m about to outstay my welcome.’ Valerie fluttered her eyelashes at him, adding sweetly, ‘But as you and Cathy have your daughter on your doorstep, I’m sure you won’t blame me for wanting to stay close to my son.’ She gave a tinkling laugh. ‘Why, I might even decide to buy one of those flats he’s planning at the Hall.’
‘They’re still very much in the planning stage, Mother,’ Jay pointed out. ‘We haven’t applied for planning permission yet.’
Something flickered in Valerie’s light eyes. Mirry would have expected anger at Jay’s apparently trying to put her off, yet it looked oddly like satisfaction. ‘Then maybe I shall buy a permanent home in London and one of the flats here later as a pied-a-terre,’ she said carelessly. ‘That way I can see my son without upsetting his wife.’
‘I don’t think anyone has suggested your visit has upset Mirry, Mother,’ Jay said coolly.
‘But of course not, dear.’ Valerie looked helplessly flustered. ‘I must have put it badly. I meant, so that I won’t be intruding on either of you.’ Then she said to Cathy as she was offered the sauce-boat, ‘Do your children pick you up on every word? I seem to remember you had two small boys.’
‘I finished up with five,’ Cathy laughed.
‘Five?’ Valerie opened her eyes wide. ‘Five boys to cope with, yet you still went ahead and adopted Mirry!’
Mirry froze in her chair. It was something that had haunted her ever since the last night of her honeymoon, the possibility that the subject of her adoption might come up, yet that it should do so tonight was utterly unexpected.
Her eyes flew to Jay’s face, seeing his shock as Valerie pursued with gentle persistence, ‘She was, wasn’t she? Adopted, I mean?’
‘Yes, it’s never been any secret. Mirry was the little girl we’d always longed for and had given up hoping to achieve.’ Cathy smiled fondly at her daughter, but Mirry’s gaze hadn’t moved from Jay’s face. And when he met her eyes it was with such an appalled expression that she slid quietly from her chair in a dead faint.
She didn’t see Jay leap to his feet so violently that his chair crashed backwards to reach her before her father did, nor hear her mother’s startled shriek. And none of them noticed the rather surprised satisfaction on Valerie’s face, for Jay’s mother had drawn a bow at a venture and had somehow managed to hit a bull’s-eye.
Mirry came to groggily to find herself in her own bed at Wenlow, with Doctor Alton bending over her and her mother hovering at his shoulder. ‘How did I—’ she faltered, wondering if that scene at her mother’s dinner-table had been a bad dream.
‘I wanted to put you to bed at the Dower House, but Jay insisted on bringing you home,’ her mother said. ‘Now just lie still, Mirry, while the doctor takes a look at you.’
Jay may have insisted on bringing her home, but he wasn’t with her now, Mirry noticed, and that fact seemed to say it all. She lay still while the doctor pulled down her eyelids, then shone a light into her eyes.
‘Any idea what made you pass out?’ he asked.
She knew her mother would have to know the truth eventually, but she couldn’t face the doctor knowing too, so she used the only other excuse available to her. ‘I—I think I might be pregnant.’
She saw the relief and delight in her mother’s face even as the doctor gave an understanding, ‘Ah!’
‘I was going to come and see you,’ she hastened to add, ‘but I thought it might be too soon.’ She glanced at her mother. ‘I haven’t even told Jay yet.’ And when she did, would he grant a stay of execution while he waited to see if she produced a son? She couldn’t get that appalled expression she had seen on his face out of her mind.
‘I’m going to leave some iron tablets with you now,’ the doctor said, ‘and in the morning I expect you to ring the surgery and make an appointment.’ He counted out some pills into a box and snapped his bag shut. ‘And the best treatment I can recommend is plenty of TLC from your husband,’ he finished jovially as he moved to the door.
Tender loving care. The last thing she was likely to get from Jay now. Mirry squeezed her eyes shut to stem the tears. ‘I’m sorry I made a shambles of your dinner party, Mum,’ she said as a movement by the bed reminded her she wasn’t alone.
‘As if that matters,’ Cathy dismissed. ‘I think you should sleep now, darling. Would you like me to stay?’
It was tempting to revert to childhood again, to lay her burden of pain on her mother’s shoulders and have her make everything better. But this was something only she and Jay could work out between them. ‘Thanks, Mum, but I’ll be fine. You get home and tell Dad there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘As if that’ll stop him,’ her mother laughed. ‘And you’d better tell Jay your news, even if you haven’t had it confirmed yet. He looked like a man whose last moment had come when you collapsed like that.’
But Mirry knew it wasn’t her collapse that had caused his consternation.
‘She says she’s feeling better, Jay,’ her mother said, and then he was there in the doorway, his face white and rigid, only his eyes alive, glittering with a fierce emotion Mirry knew could only be anger.
He closed the door behind him. ‘You still look very pale.’ Watching him apprehensively as he walked stiffly towards the bed, Mirry didn’t comment. ‘My mother’s packing,’ he said with harsh abruptness.
‘Your mother’s packing?’ The unexpectedness of it prompted a near hysterical laugh. ‘And here I was expecting you to tell me to go!’
‘Mirry…’ His voice sounded strangled and her hysteria died to leave her feeling numb and empty, drained of all emotion.
‘I’m sorry, Jay,’ she said remotely. ‘I should have told you about my adoption as soon as I knew how important it had suddenly become, but we were already married by then and I hoped—’
‘You’re sorry?’ Jay slid to his knees beside the bed and gripped her hand. ‘My God! It’s not you who has anything to be sorry about, it’s I who should be begging you to forgive me. As I am now… on my knees.’
‘Jay…?’ Mirry stared at him wonderingly, unconscious of the pain of his
grip. ‘But I thought… you told me why you married me… and when your mother… Jay, you looked so appalled!’
‘Of course I was appalled,’ he said roughly. ‘I was remembering all those things I’d said, realising how much I must have hurt you, knowing exactly why you were looking so stricken. When you collapsed…’ He squeezed his eyes shut.
He didn’t sound now like the man Kate had described as having a blind spot to other people’s feelings. Perhaps there was some hope for them, after all. ‘You—you don’t want to end our marriage, then?’
‘God, no!’ His answer came explosively. ‘Anything but that.’ Only then did he realise he was crushing her much smaller hand and release his grip, gentling the marked skin with both of his and missing the flood of relief in Mirry’s face. ‘The things I told you about why I married you…’ He kept his gaze on their joined hands. ‘They were all true, but they weren’t the whole truth. There was so much more that I couldn’t—didn’t know how to say. Even now…’
‘Oh, Jay…’ Mirry’s eyes were glowing with compassion and tenderness, and her free hand reached out to caress his downbent head, curving round to his cheek. ‘I think I understand what you’re trying to say. I’ve been so lucky, growing up part of a loving family. It’s been easy for me to love you. But your childhood was so different. I can understand if you find it hard.’
He took her into his arms, holding her convulsively, his face pressed against her hair. ‘I only know you’re like the sun, like a flame,’ he said thickly. ‘The source of all warmth. When I’m away I can’t wait to get back to you. I feel… different when I’m with you. I want to laugh more, make you laugh. Make you happy, and I can’t bear to think of a world without you at its centre.’
‘Oh, darling…’ Mirry laughed gently, though she felt nearer to tears. ‘You’ve just described exactly what it’s like to be in love.’
He moved back a little so he could look down into her face, for the first time his expression open to his emotion. ‘In that case, I love you, Mirry.’ He pulled her close again, whispering against her ear like a vow, ‘I love you… I love you…’ as if having started to say it he couldn’t stop. Even when Mirry pulled his head down to kiss him, he still said the words into her mouth, continued to say them while his hands and mouth worshipped her, cried them aloud as their bodies joined, and again as the world splintered into shining fragments around them.
‘My God! What have I done?’ he panted raggedly when the breath returned to his lungs.
‘It seemed very much as if you were showing me how much you love me,’ Mirry teased lovingly, knowing she would always think of this night as the true beginning of their marriage, when both their hearts had been open to each other without fear or restraint.
‘But not an hour ago you were unconscious!’ Jay exclaimed worriedly. ‘I shouldn’t have—’
‘Of course you should,’ Mirry contradicted. ‘As if loving me could ever hurt me. Besides, I only fainted because I could be pregnant, and I’m not going to let that stop—’
‘Pregnant?’ Jay shot up in bed and stared at her as if he’d just been sand-bagged. Then, with a dawning look of wonder, ‘You’re having my child?’
‘The first of our sons,’ Mirry said determinedly.
Jay flopped back against the pillow, tightening his arms around her. ‘Sons, hell! I want a little girl…just like you.’
If Mirry had had any lingering doubts about Jay’s feelings, those words would have dispelled them. They were what she had yearned to hear that traumatic last night of their honeymoon, and they told her that what she had always wanted was hers at last, a marriage like her parents had, built on a love so deep that it spilled over on to all who touched it, children, family and friends. She could even feel it in her heart to tolerate her mother-in-law… in small doses.
‘You’ll have what you get,’ she told him, laughing, ‘and love it anyway.’
‘Yes.’ Jay gave a sigh of pure contentment. ‘But you’ll always be the most precious thing in my life, Mirry. Mirry… No wonder that name stuck. You are a miracle. My very own miracle…’
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