The Valentine Child

by Jacqueline Baird

  Hard fingers gripped her chin and turned her head to meet the searing fury of his glance. 'You actually believe I am so lacking in morality, so despicable that I would do something so low? My God! I knew you had a low opinion of me, but that low. . .'

  'I—I. . .She had no defence. He was right; it hadn't been Justin who had told her he had a stepsister.

  A memory of the past flickered in her brain. She had been telling Uncle Bertie what a pity it was that Justin's sister could not come to the wedding, and Uncle Bertie had replied, 'Well, she's not really his sister. His mother died at birth and Justin's father married the girl's mother.' Zoe had automatically assumed that she was his stepsister.

  'Enlighten me, Zoe. How do you suffer me to make love to you when it's quite obvious that you despise me?' His hand fell from her chin and he straightened in his seat. 'Stupid question. You love Val, I'll give you that. And if I were you 1 would start praying that the news today is good. Otherwise you'll be crawling on your belly to Jess,'

  'Please, Justin, you have to believe me; I never realised Jess was your sister. If I had I would never have been so rude to her, and I don't despise you. It isn't like that.' It was pure jealousy she suffered from, she recognised, but before she could say so Justin stopped her.

  'Cut the excuses, Zoe.' His mouth tightened into a grim line. 'We'll see Professor Barnet, and hopefully the news will be good. If not I will personally ask Jess to help. I'll do everything in my power for our son. But, as for the rest, I find it hard to accept a wife who will prostitute herself, however good the reason.'

  She rushed into speech. 'But it wasn't—I meant it isn't. . . I never '

  'Forget it, Zoe.' Turning to the stewardess, he ordered coffee, adding, 'Anything for you, Zoe?'

  'I'll have a cup of coffee,' she said impatiently. How could he be so cool and withdrawn when she was bursting with emotional questions? As soon as the stewardess took the order she began again. 'Justin, you don't understand. . .'

  'Please, Zoe, we have a tense morning ahead of us. Leave it. And let's at least try to present a united front to Professor Barnet.'

  She clutched Justin's hand as if it were a lifeline as they were ushered into the great man's room and sat side by side on two straight-backed chairs in front of the large oak desk.

  'Well, Mr. Gifford, I must say I'm glad to see you.' Professor Barnet smiled from behind his desk. 'Zoe is a strong woman but she was badly in need of some support. And I'm happy to say all the signs are that you are going to be a perfect match for young Val.'

  Zoe jumped up; she was laughing and crying at the same time, hugging Justin, hugging the Professor, hugging herself. Justin was a match.

  'It's very gratifying, Mr Gifford, and your son is very lucky. There's no reason why he shouldn't eventually make a complete recovery.'

  Recovery! The word was music to Zoe's soul as she collapsed back on the chair.

  'I didn't want to distress Zoe unduly before, but his chances were extremely limited without the transplant. Oddly enough, statistically one is more likely to get a match from a male donor than a female.' Professor Barnet looked at Justin, a purely masculine smile lighting his keen blue eyes. 'We men are apparently still good for something in these feminist times.'

  Zoe ignored the chauvinistic remark and turned back to Justin, her blue eyes swimming with tears of joy and gratitude. She naturally reached for his hand; he curved his own strong hand around hers and squeezed it gently.

  'I told you it would be all right,' he said triumphantly, but the relief on his rugged features was plain to see.

  'All thanks to you,' she murmured and, unable to contain her delight, their earlier argument on the way there forgotten, she leant forward and brushed her lips against his. For a second he tensed, and she thought he was going to push her away; instead he pulled her from her seat and into his arms, and kissed her—a kiss of fervent hope, a shattering release of tension, and, she prayed, the start of something new.

  They were oblivious to the old man behind the desk, until a discreet cough brought them back to their senses.

  Hastily Zoe slid back on to her seat, her face a rosy red. But Justin, with admirable self-control and efficiency, said, 'So where do we go from here, Professor Barnet?'

  'At your age, after a kiss like that, I would have said bed.' He chuckled delightedly at his own joke and Zoe's rosy face turned scarlet but she could not help joining in the general laughter.

  Half an hour later, when Professor Barnet escorted them out of his office, she felt like pinching herself. Val was going to be all right!

  She clung to Justin's arm as they walked down the long hospital corridor, her eyes sparkling like jewels, her face more animated than it had been in months. 'I can't wait to tell Val. Do you think we should ring? Do you think we should celebrate?' She babbled on in a cloud of euphoria until suddenly Justin stopped dead.

  'Zoe, calm down,' he commanded firmly, and, grasping her shoulders, he turned her around to face him. He stared down at her, his expression deadly serious. 'We will not ring Val and in any case he's far too young to understand. Apart from which there's still a long way to go before he's cured.'

  His eyes held hers, and suddenly she realised that he was probably thinking of the operation he himself was going to have to have.

  'Sorry.' As she said the word she realised exactly how much she owed this man, her husband. She lifted her hand to his square jaw. 'Justin, I really am sorry for everything.'

  She should never have run out on him. With the worry over Val appeased she saw things clearly for the first time in ages. Janet Ord had married, according to Justin, after she had dried out. Had Zoe let gossip and the drunken rambling of a discarded girlfriend ruin her marriage?

  Her fingers trembled on his chin, and for a moment she thought she glimpsed the familiar flicker of desire in his dark eyes, but it was gone as swiftly as his hands dropped from her shoulders.

  'Forget it,' he said abruptly. 'Let's get home.'

  Her hand fell to her side and quietly she walked along beside him, lost in thought. He had called the house atRowena Cove home. Surely that was a good sign? He must be coming to care for her.

  But her relief at the good news for Val was overshadowed slightly by their argument over his sister and his enigmatic statement earlier—something about a wife who prostituted herself, however good the cause.

  She shook her fair head slightly; she was seeing problems where there were none, she told herself firmly. All she needed to do was apologise to Jess and everything would be great.

  With a new confidence in her step, she smiled broadly up at her husband. 'Home and bed,' she said cheekily.

  'Certainly,' he grinned back, and her happiness was complete.

  But five minutes later her confidence deflated like a burst balloon.

  'Zoe Gifford. How are you? Happy now?'

  Her head shot up and she was looking into the smiling eyes of Freda Lark. 'Yes, yes, I am.' She grinned and chanced a swift glance at Justin; he was standing smiling enquiringly down at the attractive doctor, and she had no choice but to introduce them.

  'It's nice to meet you, Mr Gifford. I was quite worried about your wife for a while, but I heard your good news from Professor Barnet. I'm really happy for you both.' Still smiling, Dr. Lark turned to Zoe again.

  'Mind you, after meeting your husband I can see my advice to get yourself pregnant as quickly as possible certainly wouldn't be any hardship for you.'

  Zoe felt all the blood leave her face. What a disastrous coincidence, meeting Dr Lark. She felt Justin's eyes on her but she dared not look at him, sure that her face must have 'guilty' written all over it.

  But Dr Lark had no such qualms, she realised with mounting anger as the other woman laughed flirtatiously up at Justin, and his answering grin was all male arrogance.

  'I'll take that as a compliment,' he said suavely.

  Zoe did not know how she got through the next few minutes; she cast a fearful, sidelong glance at him as
he took her elbow and ushered her out of the hospital. The easy smile he had exhibited for Freda Lark had vanished and his handsome face was as black as thunder.

  'Justin,' she said tentatively as they stood together at the roadside, 'I can explain.'

  But with commendable ease he had flagged down a taxi. 'Get in and shut up,' he snarled.

  What should have been the happiest journey of her life—she was going home with the best news in the world for her son—was fast becoming a nightmare. Justin didn't speak to her; his face was rigid; she could sense the anger coming off him in great waves, and it was only when they picked up her car at Brunswick that he deigned to look at her.

  He swung round in the driving seat, his face murderous, his black eyes boring into her. 'At last we're alone.' He watched her for a long moment. 'My God, I was so wrong about you. I thought you were a fragile young woman in need of protecting, when in actual fact you're as tough as steel.'

  Zoe bit her lip. 'I can explain,' she repeated quietly.

  '"Explain"!' he roared. 'What kind of fool do you take me for? Last Friday night wasn't about softening me up to confess we had a son; it was all about getting yourself pregnant. Yet again without telling me.' He slammed his hand down on the wheel. 'Damn it, I asked if you were protected, you little liar.'

  She had no excuse. 'I'm sorry,' she apologised miserably. She looked up at his angry face. 'But I was desperate; I thought. . .'

  'You thought you would use me as a stud—that's what these last few nights were all about.' A harsh laugh escaped him. 'Tell me, Zoe, who did you imagine I was when you went wild in my arms? Wayne? Nigel? And God knows how many more.'

  Turning back in his seat, he stared fixedly at his hands on the wheel of the car. 'A bloody sperm bank.' He swore violently. Then his gaze flashed back to hers, black and pitiless. 'Right time of the month, was it?' he demanded silkily.

  Her face burned scarlet and she had nothing to say. She saw a muscle jerking wildly in the side of his face, but his lips curled cynically. 'Last night? Ovulation over, so back to the single bunk, hmm?'

  She swallowed hard. 'It wasn't like that,' she whispered, but her response was lost in the roar of the engine. She glanced fearfully at Justin and without taking his eyes from the road he shook his black head.

  'I'll stay long enough to see that Val is OK, and to discover if I'm to be a father unknowingly yet again. Obviously I'll want to keep in touch with my children, but I see no reason to delay any longer in giving you the divorce you requested.'

  But she didn't want a divorce. She wanted Justin. But one look at the granite-hard countenance and and she knew now was not the time to tell him. Although she had started out determined to seduce him, and was guilty of what he had accused her of, as soon as he had touched her, kissed her, she had been lost to everything and had melted in his arms. She loved him. . .

  Jess was waiting in the hall when they walked in. She took one look at their faces and said, 'Oh, no, I am sorry.'

  'No need, Jess,' her brother responded, with a tight smile. 'I am a match. Val will be all right, and now, if you will excuse me, it has been a long day.'

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zoe watched his broad back as he walked up the stairs, tears in her eyes. Her son was almost saved but the euphoria she had felt in Professor Barnet's office had been replaced by a numbing certainty that Justin was lost to her forever.

  'I don't believe this. What on earth have you done to my brother now?' Jess demanded harshly. 'He looks positively grim, when he should be celebrating.'

  Zoe turned her tear-drenched eyes to the other woman and, mindful of who Jess was, said quietly, 'Can we talk? I owe you an apology, but if I don't sit down I think I might fall down.'

  Five minutes later, seated on the sofa in front of the open fire, she glanced up at Jess, standing in the middle of the room, and she could not believe how blind she had been. Jess had the same eyes, the same hair—the resemblance to Justin had been there all the time if only she had not been blinded by jealousy and full of preconceived notions of Justin's penchant for large ladies.

  'I never realised you were Justin's sister until today. I thought you were his girlfriend,' she confessed quietly.

  'His girlfriend?' Jess exclaimed. 'You've got to be kidding; my brother has never looked at another woman in years. The day you ran off to the States with your lover you effectively emasculated the man. He was almost destroyed. Then you turned up in London again and crawled straight back into his bed. Now you're trying to tell me you slept with him thinking I was his girlfriend.

  God! What kind of woman are you?' she asked derisively.

  'A very mixed-up one,' Zoe muttered. 'I don't know where you got your information from but I never ran off with a lover. I loved Justin to distraction but I discovered he never loved me. That's why I left him.'

  'You're mad!' Jess stared into her tear-stained face and something in the smaller woman's expression made her hesitate. 'You honestly believe what you're saying.'

  'It's the truth,' Zoe closed her eyes briefly, reminded of the pain and disillusion of the past.

  'Tell me,' Jess demanded, sitting down beside her on the couch. 'Give me your version.'

  'Oh, all the signs were there.' Zoe sighed. 'I had hints that Justin's reason for marrying me wasn't love, but I dismissed them as idle gossip. Until the night of my twenty-first birthday.'

  Once she started she could not stop; it was like a dam breaking, and for the next quarter of an hour she told Jess everything—the gossip of Mrs Blacket, Justin's withdrawal into work, the separate bedrooms, even his restraint in their intimacy, right up to the night of Janet Ord's revelations. Finally she described the fatal meeting with Justin in California where he had made it plain that he never wanted to see her again.

  'Incredible as it seems, I believe you,' Jess said, with a shake of her dark head. 'How two intelligent people could make such a mess of their lives is mind-boggling.'

  'Yes, well, I blame myself,' Zoe said, with a wry smile. 'I was young and easily hurt '

  'And my brother is a repressed fool,' Jess cut in. 'Listen, Zoe, I know Justin loves you. He told me all about you long before he married you. You were his one topic of conversation for years. He even joined your uncle's practice thinking it would enhance his prospects as a suitor.'

  'But he always wanted to be a judge!'

  'Rubbish, he thrived on international law, but he gave it up for you. He worshipped you, and being a closet romantic he worried himself witless about the age-gap between you.

  'He told me about your eighteenth birthday, and how he had taken another woman to your party. He was being noble. He was convinced you had to have the chance of a career, to see something of the world, before tying you down.'

  She wanted to believe Jess, but if it was true why had Justin been so restrained in the intimate side of their relationship? 'Why the separate bedrooms?' She did not realise she had voiced the question out loud.

  'Perhaps I can guess,' Jess offered, casting a reflective glance at her pale, troubled face. 'What did Justin tell you about our parents?'

  'Not much—simply that his mother died at his birth and his father married again. His stepmother died when he was in his teens, as did his father a few years later. He never talked about his family; that's why I had the idea he had a stepsister, nothing more. Until today,' she said drily.

  'Typical!' Jess snorted, before continuing. 'Dad was a Spaniard who had settled in London as a young man. He met my mother in the restaurant he owned. She was a ballerina—tiny, exquisite, a bit like you but dark. Justin doted on her; she was the only mother he had ever known and when I came along five years later he was equally protective of me.

  'We had a happy childhood. Our parents adored each other; they were always touching, loving. Every summer we went to our villa in Spain for the holidays. Justin was only fifteen when it happened—a scream in the night. He dashed to our parents' room to find my fatherstanding naked by the bed, Mother dead of a heart attack. S
he died. . .' Jess hesitated '. . .during the act. . .'

  'Oh, my God!' Zoe exclaimed.

  'Exactly my reaction. But Justin was at a very impressionable age. Embarrassed by his parents' sexuality, he was horrified and disgusted, and blamed Father for Mother's death. I heard him raging at Dad that at his age he should have more control—he should be past such things.' The two women exchanged an ironic glance.

  'The naivete of youth,' Jess opined wryly, before continuing. 'Bertie Brown was Dad's lawyer and a family friend, and from then on Justin spent most of his free time with Bertie, supposedly because he was studying hard, but to me it was as if Justin deliberately squashed the Latin side of his temperament. When Dad died three years later Justin had never really forgiven him.'

  'So what are you trying to say?' Zoe asked.

  'I'm no psychiatrist, but I do know my brother. He had girlfriends over the years—not that many, but every one was an amazon of a woman until you.'

  Zoe wriggled uncomfortably on the seat, a snatch of conversation coming back to her. Sara Blacket had insisted that Justin went for large ladies. Could there be anything in what Jess said?

  'He wrote to me when he first met you when you were a child, and even then he was obsessed with you, convinced that you needed looking after—a tiny orphan with only an old man for company. When I finally arrived in London after the wedding, hoping to meet my new sister-in-law, I found Justin completely gutted because you had run away.

  'He told me that he'd been ultra-careful not to frighten you, either in or out of bed. Until the night you said you were leaving him, and he lost control. At first he blamed himself, sure that he had terrified you the same way he did on your eighteenth birthday.'

  'He told you about that?' Zoe asked incredulously, blushing at the memory. 'But I wasn't terrified—well, not of Justin, more of myself; the feelings he aroused in me were all too new,' she explained. 'How could he have thought he was at fault?'