by Liz Fielding
Best put him out of his misery. ‘Has May told you our good news?’ he asked.
‘Adam…’
She knew.
‘We’re getting married later this month,’ he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her.
Jeremy’s shocked expression told its own story and, before he could find the appropriate words, May swiftly intervened.
‘I can’t decide which design I like best, Adam. What do you think?’
He waited pointedly until Davidson moved out of his way, then put his hand on the desk and leaned forward, blocking him out with his shoulder.
They were pretty enough floral designs with ‘Coleridge House Honey’ in some fancy script. About right for a stall at a bazaar.
‘You produce handmade sweets too, don’t you?’ he asked her, looking at the shelf and picking up a fairly basic price list that, like the brochure, had obviously been printed on her computer. ‘Is this all the literature that you have?’
She nodded as he laid it, with the brochure, beside the labels.
‘There’s no consistency in design,’ he said. ‘Not in the colours, or even the fonts you’ve used. Nothing to make it leap out from the shelf. Coleridge House is a brand, May. You should get some professional help to develop that.’
‘Jeremy—’
‘There’s a rather good watercolour of the house in your bedroom. The country house, nostalgia thing would be a strong image and work well across the board. On labels, price lists and on the front of your workshop brochure.’
She looked up at him, a tiny frown creasing the space between her eyes.
‘Just a thought.’ With a touch to her shoulder, a curt nod to Davidson, he said, ‘I’ll call you later.’
He found Robbie in the kitchen preparing a feed for Nancie, who was beginning to sound very cross indeed. Resisting the urge to take the child from her—the whole point of the exercise was to leave Nancie in May’s capable hands and not get involved in baby care, or her cottage industry, for that matter—he took a card from his wallet and placed it on the table.
‘This is my mobile number should you need to get hold of me urgently.’
‘Stick it on the cork board, will you?’
He found a drawing pin and stuck it amongst a load of letters, appointment cards and postcards. The kind of domestic clutter so notably absent from the slate and steel kitchen in his apartment.
‘Is this bag all you have?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid so. You’ll be needing rather more than that, I imagine?’
‘You imagine right.’
‘Well, just get whatever you want. Better still, make a list and I’ll have it delivered. May can give it to me when I ring her about the wedding arrangements.’
Robbie said nothing when May returned to the kitchen after seeing Jeremy Davidson out, just handed her the baby and the feeder and left her to get on with it, while she set about cleaning salad vegetables at the old butler’s sink.
‘Any hints about how to do this?’ she asked, using her toe to hook out a chair so that she could sit down.
‘You’ll learn the way I did when your grandfather brought you home, no more than a month old,’ she said abruptly.
‘Robbie…’
‘You’ll find that if you put it to the little one’s mouth she’ll do the rest.’ She ripped up a head of lettuce. ‘Just keep the end of the bottle up so that she’s not sucking air.’
May settled the baby in the crook of her arm and, as she offered Nancie the bottle, she latched onto it, sucking greedily. She watched her for a while, then, when Robbie’s silence became oppressive, she looked up and said, ‘Are you angry with me, Robbie?’
‘Angry with you! Why would I be angry with you?’
‘You’re angry with someone.’
‘I’m angry with your grandfather. That foolish, pig-headed old man. Just because your mother wouldn’t listen to him. Wouldn’t live her life the way he wanted…’
‘You’re talking about the will?’
‘Of course I’m talking about the will. How could he put you in such a position?’
She breathed out a sigh of relief.
She’d been anticipating a tirade about promises made and broken. About marriage being for love, not convenience. She wouldn’t take a schoolgirl crush into account.
‘The will wasn’t about my mother, Robbie,’ May said. ‘It was about history. Tradition.’
‘Tradition, my foot! I can’t believe he’d do this to you.’
‘He didn’t. Not deliberately. He thought I was going to marry Michael. If he’d known…’
‘Who knows anything?’ she demanded. ‘If I’d known my husband was going to drop dead of a heart problem when he was twenty-six I wouldn’t have insisted on waiting to have a baby until we had a house, until everything was just as I wanted it…’ Without warning, her eyes were full of tears. ‘Life is never just as you want it, May. There are no certainties. How could he look after me and not take care of you? It’s so cruel,’ she said, dashing them away with the back of her hand. ‘After the way you cared for him all those years when you could have been married, with a family of your own…’
‘Hush, Robbie, it’s all right. It’s going to be all right,’ she repeated, wanting to go to her, comfort her but hampered by Nancie, who had snuggled into her shoulder as if she belonged there.
‘Only because Adam Wavell happened by when you needed him.’
‘He didn’t just happen by. He was on his way to ask for my help. This is a mutual aid package.’
‘And if he hadn’t needed you? What would you have done then?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I was going to sit down and make a list of all the unmarried men I know. Jed Atkins was favourite.’
‘Jed!’ Robbie snorted. ‘Well, he’d be a safer bet than Adam Wavell. And no baby.’
‘But hundreds of relations who’d all expect to be invited for Christmas. Would there be a turkey big enough?’
Robbie groaned and they both laughed, but then her smile faded and she said, ‘Don’t fall for him, May. It’s just a piece of paper.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you?’ Robbie asked, her look searching, anxious. ‘That kiss…’
‘He kissed me to seal the bargain we’d made. It was nothing.’
‘Nothing to him.’
‘And nothing to me,’ she said, pressing her lips tightly together in an attempt to stop them tingling at the memory. Forget the desperate need that his touch had awakened.
Trying not to read too much into his edgy reaction to Jeremy Davidson. The poor man had fallen apart when his wife left him and she’d offered him a distraction with her labels, something to keep his mind occupied. Something to make him feel needed. But the way Adam had made it so obvious that he’d been in her bedroom… If he’d been a dog, she’d have said he was marking his territory.
Which was ridiculous.
Adam only wanted her as a nanny.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said with emphasis. It was only in her head that she’d kissed him back, seduced him with her mouth and then her body…
Robbie made the ‘humphing’ noise she used when she was unconvinced.
‘What did you expect us to do? Shake hands?’ she asked, ignoring the fact that it had started out that way.
‘Why not? If it’s just a business arrangement.’
‘We’ve known one another for a very long time. I see him all the time at civic functions. He’s saving my home, for heaven’s sake.’
‘And you’re saving him a world of trouble,’ she replied. ‘Just remember that as soon as this “family crisis” of his is resolved—’
‘He’ll be gone.’
‘Let’s just hope it isn’t before he’s put the ring on your finger. Signed the register.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘HE WOULDN’T…’
‘Lead you on, then back out at the last minute? He has no reason to love this family. Be kind to you.’
No r
eason that he knew.
‘He needs my help,’ she said. Then, as the baby paused to draw breath, ‘Do you think you can manage lunch on your own? I’ll have to wash the cot down.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ she replied, letting it go.
‘Sorry?’
‘You gave it to the vicar last year. For that family whose house burned down.’
‘Oh, fudge! I’d forgotten.’
‘Adam said to make a list of anything you need,’ Robbie said, resuming her attack on the vegetables.
‘Right. I’ll do that,’ she said, then was distracted by Nancie, who was opening her mouth like a little fish, waving her sweet, plump arms to demand her attention. May was familiar with the powerful instinct to survive in small mammals blindly seeking out their mother’s milk, but this urgency in a small helpless baby went straight to her heart.
‘An extra pair of hands wouldn’t go amiss, either,’ Robbie said. ‘You’ve got that order for toffee to deliver by the end of the week.’
‘No problem. Adam wants to help. I’ll have to clear a wardrobe in Grandpa’s room for him.’
‘He’s moving in? To your grandfather’s room?’
‘It’s ready. And there’s nowhere else until the guests have gone.’ Her only response was the lift of an eyebrow. ‘It’s not like that, Robbie.’
She shook her head. ‘Leave your grandpa’s room to me. I’ll see to it.’
‘Thank you.’ Then, as Nancie pulled away from the bottle, wrinkled up her little nose, distancing herself from it, ‘Have you had enough of that, sweetheart?’
She set the bottle on the table and just looked at her. She was so beautiful. Just like her mother.
‘You’ll need to wind her,’ Robbie said. ‘Put her on your shoulder and rub her back gently.’
‘Oh, right.’
She lifted her, set her against her shoulder. Nancie didn’t wait for the rub but obligingly burped. Before she could congratulate herself, she realised that her shoulder was wet and something warm was trickling down her back.
‘Eeugh! Has she brought it all back up?’
‘Just a mouthful. A little milk goes a very long way,’ Robbie said, grinning as she handed her a paper towel. ‘You used to do that all the time.’
‘Did I?’ No one had ever talked to her about what she was like as a baby. ‘What did you do?’
‘Changed my clothes a lot until I had the sense to put a folded towel over my shoulder before I burped you.’
‘Well, thanks so much for the warning,’ she said, using the towel to mop up the worst. ‘What else did I do?’
‘You cried a lot. You were missing your mother.’
Right on cue, Nancie began to grizzle and May stood up, gently rubbing her back as she walked around the kitchen.
‘Poor baby. Poor Saffy.’
‘So what did he tell you? What is this family crisis? Where is she?’
‘Adam doesn’t know. She dropped the baby off at his office and ran. He showed me the note she left with the baby, but she didn’t sound quite in control, to be honest. It seems that Nancie’s father has found out about her problems and he’s trying to get custody.’
‘In other words, he’s pitched you into the middle of his family’s messy life.’
‘Saffy told him I would help.’ Then, as she saw the question forming on Robbie’s lips, ‘He was desperate, Robbie.’
‘Clearly, if he’s prepared to marry you to get a babysitter.’
‘My good luck.’
‘Maybe. Do you remember that young jackdaw with the broken wing that he left on the doorstep?’
He’d left all kinds of creatures until Robbie had caught him and sent him packing. After that, he’d come over the park gate, dodging the gardener, keeping clear of the house, coming to look for her in the stables. She’d made him instant coffee while he’d emptied her biscuit tin, stayed to help her clean out the cages. It had been a secret. No one at home, no one at school had known about it. Only Saffy.
‘I remember,’ she said. ‘What about it?’
‘You cried for a week when it flew away.’
She swallowed. ‘Is that a warning not to get too attached to Nancie?’
‘Or her uncle.’ She didn’t wait for denial but, tapping the tip of her knife thoughtfully against the board, said, ‘There’s that old wooden cradle upstairs in one of the box rooms. You could use that for now. In fact, it might be a good idea to get Nancie out of here before the Christmas lot break for lunch.’
‘Can you and Patsy manage?’
‘Everything’s done but the salad.’ She jerked her head. ‘Off you go.’
Well aware that Robbie could handle lunch with one hand tied behind her back, May returned to the peace of her sitting room, fastened Nancie into her buggy and went to find the old cradle.
When it was ready, she put it at the foot of her bed. ‘Here you go, sweetie,’ she said, putting down Nancie, then rocking her gently, humming the tune to an old lullaby to which she’d long since forgotten the words.
‘Very pretty.’
She started, looked up.
Adam was leaning, legs crossed, arms folded, against the architrave of the door between her sitting room and bedroom. He’d abandoned the muddy pin-stripes for what looked like an identical suit, a fresh white shirt. Only the tie was different. It had a fine silver stripe that echoed the bright molten flecks that lifted his eyes above the ordinary grey.
‘How long have you been standing there?’ she demanded, hot with embarrassment.
‘Long enough. Robbie directed me to the morning room to wait for the lady of the house but, since I brought my bag with me, I decided to bring it up. Put it in my bedroom. I used the back stairs.’
‘Don’t be so touchy. She probably thought you’d blunder in and wake Nancie.’
‘She’s never seen me slip over the back gate and dodge the gardener.’
‘No.’ She looked away. It was the first time he’d alluded to the past. The golden days before she’d lied to her grandfather, lied to Robbie and gone to the school disco with him.
‘How many generations of Coleridge babies have been rocked to sleep in that cradle?’ he asked, pushing himself off from the door frame, folding himself up beside her.
‘Generations,’ she admitted. Probably even the children of the man whose unwillingness to settle down was causing her so much grief.
‘Everything in this house looks as if it’s been here for ever.’
‘Most of it has. Unfortunately, there’s one thing missing,’ she said, scrambling to her feet, needing to put a little distance between them so that she could concentrate on what was important.
Kneeling shoulder to shoulder with him by the cradle she was far too conscious of the contrast between his immaculate, pressed appearance and her own.
He’d showered and smelled of fresh rain on grass, newly laundered linen. Everything clean, expensive.
She smelled of disinfectant, polish and the sicky milk that had dried on her shoulder. The band holding her hair back had collapsed so that it drooped around her face and she didn’t need to check the mirror to know what that looked like. A mess.
‘Nancie really should have a proper cot. Unfortunately I gave ours away. I’m going to have to run over to the baby store in the retail park after lunch and buy a few things. I can pick one up then.’
‘We can get do that while we’re out.’
‘Out?’
‘That’s why I’m here. I’ve spoken to the Registrar. He can fit us in on the twenty-ninth.’
May opened her mouth. Closed it again. Then said, ‘The twenty ninth?’
‘Apparently, there have to be sixteen clear days from notice. That’s the first day after that. He’s free at ten o’clock. If that’s convenient? It’s a Monday. You haven’t got anything planned for that day that you can’t put off?’
She shook her head. ‘We have mid-week courses and weekend courses, but Monday is always a clear day. What about you?’
she asked.
‘Nothing that won’t keep for ten minutes,’ he assured her. ‘I assume you just want the basics?’
She hadn’t given the ceremony any thought at all. Not since she was an infatuated teen, anyway, when she’d had it planned out to the last detail. But this wasn’t an occasion for the local church scented with roses, choristers singing like angels and the pews packed with envious class mates as she swept up the aisle in a size 0 designer gown.
‘The basics.’ She nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
‘We’ll need a couple of witnesses. Robbie, obviously. I thought we might ask Freddie Jennings to be the other one.’
‘Good idea,’ she said.
‘I’m full of them today. All we need to do now is go to the office with our birth certificates and sign a few papers.’
‘Now? But I can’t leave Nancie.’
‘Then you’ll have to bring her along.’
‘Yes. Of course,’ she said, looking at Nancie. Looked at the buggy. Trying to imagine herself wheeling it through town with everyone thinking it was her and Adam’s baby. ‘I’d…um…better get changed.’
She grabbed the nearest things from her wardrobe. The discarded gold cord skirt and a soft V-necked black sweater, a fresh pair of tights from a drawer and backed into her bathroom. Where she splashed her face with cold water. Got a grip.
Because she was going to arrange her wedding and the Registrar would expect her to have made an effort, she put on some make-up, twisted her hair up into a knot, then stared at her reflection. Was that too much? Would Adam think she was making an effort to impress him?
Oh, for heaven’s sake. As if Adam Wavell would care what she was wearing. And yet there was something so unsettling about the fact that he was in her home, sitting in her most private space, waiting for her.
It was too intimate. Too…
Nothing!
Absolutely nothing.
She wrenched open the door and he looked up, startled by the ferocity of her entrance.
Calm, Mary Louise. Calm…
‘Okay?’ he said.
‘Fine. I just need my boots.’ She took them from the closet, pulled them on, doing her best not to think about Adam standing at her bedroom window, Nancie against his shoulder.