The pregnancy had been the real problem all along, she recognised. A dancer needed to be light, free, supple—and suddenly she had been none of those things, and she had hated that. Ross was right. Her slight build had made her pregnancy difficult. She had suffered appalling morning sickness for weeks and when that had passed off she had been miserable about her changing shape, had resented getting fat and heavy.
She had blamed Ross for it, hadn’t she? Oh, not consciously, but somewhere in her mind he had taken the blame, especially when he’d stopped making love to her and seemed to be avoiding her.
If she had talked to Ross frankly they might have understood each other better, but they hadn’t even known each other a year, and Ross had always been so busy. He had been out in the forest during daylight hours, and sometimes during the night. When they were together they hadn’t done much talking in the first months of their marriage. Their desire for each other had been too hot, too intense; the fire had flared up the instant they were alone together.
When she’d woken up just now and seen him asleep in that chair she had instantly felt her body burn with passion, with need, with desire. Her own feelings hadn’t changed—but had his?
They had to start talking, understand each other at last—there must be no more misunderstandings.
Five minutes later she went back into the bedroom to find Ross alone, standing by the fireplace, putting another log on the fire burning in the grate. The dry wood crackled and a greenish flame shot up the chimney. Hearing her, Ross turned his head without straightening, his thick black hair tumbling over his face.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
She had splashed her face with lukewarm water, combed her hair and tied it back from her face. Staring with an awareness that made her pulses beat twice as fast, Ross said huskily, ‘You look the way you did when we first met! It suits you, that hairstyle—shows off your beautiful cheekbones and those great big blue eyes.’
She couldn’t remember the last time he had paid her a compliment, or looked at her the way he was looking now! Flushed and breathless, she climbed back into the bed, which either Ross or Ruth had remade while she was in the bathroom. She was relieved to lie down again; the effort of that visit to the bathroom had been more tiring than she had expected.
‘Ruth won’t be a moment,’ he said, still staring, making her very self-conscious. Coming over to the bed, he sat down and picked up her hand, stroking her slender fingers. ‘Dylan...you do believe me, now, don’t you? About Suzy? God knows why you jumped to the conclusion that we were lovers, but I swear to you we weren’t. There has never been anything like that between us.’
‘If she hadn’t called you darling when she rang I might not have been so jealous!’ Dylan confessed.
Ross grimaced. ‘She calls everyone darling! Suzy is very extrovert, extravagant, over-the-top-not my type at all.’
‘What is your type?’ she asked bitterly, and his fingers tightened on hers.
‘You are. Don’t you know that? I love your quietness—you don’t talk all the time, like Suzy, or play loud pop music night and day, or chatter on the phone to friends. Alan’s happy with Suzy because she suits him, but she would never suit me. I could never live with someone like that.’
She believed him now; his tone was convincing. ‘She doesn’t turn you on, then?’ she murmured, her lashes lowered, watching him through them.
‘How could you think for a second that I’d look at her when I have you?’ He lifted her hand to his mouth, turned it palm upwards and softly pressed his lips into her skin, making Dylan’s heart race wildly.
At that instant they heard Ruth’s tread on the stairs.
‘Damn, we never get a minute alone!” muttered Ross. ‘I shall be glad when we’re in our own home and people can’t keep walking in on us!’
So shall I, Dylan thought, still trembling from the sensual delight of having him kiss her hand.
‘Here’s your lunch,’ Ruth said cheerfully as Ross opened the door for her.
The smell of the food made Dylan’s stomach clamour—she was suddenly absolutely ravenous. How long was it since she ate anything? Breakfast seemed a long time ago. She sat up, and Ross slid pillows behind her, then Ruth placed the tray across her lap.
The casserole had a marvellous smell. It was a delight to the eye, too: golden chicken in a creamy, honey-coloured sauce, with mushrooms, slices of potato, carrot, peas and tiny herb dumplings. Ruth had brought her a glass of orange juice, too.
‘I’ll bring you some coffee while you eat that,’ said Ruth, going out again.
‘Have you eaten?’ Dylan asked Ross, and he nodded.
‘Ruth brought me some food a couple of hours ago.’ He went back to the fire and stirred it with a longhandled brass poker, making the logs crackle and sparks fly up the chimney, little glints of red against the sooty black.
By the time Ruth came back with her coffee Dylan had finished the casserole and was leaning back against her pillows, feeling sleepy and sated.
‘You were obviously starving,’ Ruth laughed, taking the tray away and putting a cup of very milky coffee on the bedside table. She had brought coffee for Ross, too.
‘It was delicious, thank you. I enjoyed every mouthful,’ Dylan said, then with husky eagerness asked, ‘Will you bring me my baby now?’
‘Right away,’ promised Ruth, going out, and came back at once, carrying the wicker basket she had turned into a cot, with Henry following hard on her heels.
Dylan had almost finished her coffee by then. She put the cup down and held out her arms.
‘Please, bring her to me.’
‘Let me,’ Ross said to Ruth, who smiled indulgently at him.
Taking the baby from the basket very carefully, one hand beneath her tiny head, his other arm cradling her, Ross carried her over to the bed.
Dylan felt a tremor inside her as he put her baby into her arms. Stroking back the fine dark hair with one finger, she gazed down into the little face. Bright blue eyes stared back at her, then the baby’s face turned a furious dark red, her mouth opened and she began to yell.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ross asked, looking worried.
‘She’s a smart baby—she knows it’s time for her first feed!’ said Henry, amused. ‘Dylan, your milk won’t be in yet, but she’ll get some nourishment from you. Let’s see how you get on.’
Dylan undid the front of her cotton nightdress and uncertainly lifted the baby’s small dark head to her breast, feeling the searching movements of that tiny mouth with a quiver of tenderness. Baby Ruth needed some help to get the brown-aureoled nipple between her parted lips, but once it was there she fastened on to it eagerly.
Henry smiled benignly. ‘Well done!’ He yawned, covering his mouth. ‘Well, you obviously don’t need me. I’ve had a long day—I’m off to bed. Goodnight.’
‘If you need anything else I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen for a while,” Ruth said, going out too.
The door closed quietly. The fire was burning low again, the soft drift of the ash through the grate the only sound in the room. Dylan gazed down at her baby, gently stroking the head moving so greedily at her breast.
‘Does it hurt?’ asked Ross, and she smiled.
‘It’s a strange feeling, but not exactly painful. I think I shall enjoy feeding her.’
‘She obviously enjoys it,’ he murmured, staring at her naked breast. ‘I can’t get over the way your breasts have changed. They’re twice the size they were.’
‘And you hate that,’ she muttered, looking at him angrily. ‘I know you couldn’t stand the way I looked while I was pregnant. You couldn’t bear to see me, or share my bed. I turned you right off! If you’d really loved me you would never have felt like that!’
CHAPTER NINE
Ross broke out in a hoarse voice, ‘Dylan, for God’s sake—I told you. You aren’t listening to me! I was going crazy. I didn’t dare make love to you because I believed Ella—I thought she must
be right, that it could be dangerous for you, or the baby, if we had sex. You’re so delicate and frail; I was terrified of hurting you. I could see you were really down those last few months. You looked as if you were at the end of your tether! But believe me, darling, I wanted to make love to you so much it drove me out of my mind!’
She drew a sharp, agonising, hope-filled breath, holding that fixed, luminous stare. Did he mean it? Was that really how he had felt? Had they both been as frustrated, as unhappy, as each other?
‘God knows how many nights I slept in my forest hut, freezing to death, awake half the night, but staying away from you just to stop myself getting into your bed and doing what I badly needed to do,’ Ross said, his voice thickened with desire.
She said unsteadily, ‘I thought you hated the way I looked!”
‘I loved the way you looked. I found it intensely sexy to know my child was inside you,’ he said, reaching out to touch the smooth, pale flesh of the breast his baby was sucking. ‘I found it so moving, darling. I thought you were even lovelier than you had been before!’
She closed here eyes, breathing raggedly as he slowly caressed her. ‘Oh, Ross! Why didn’t you tell me? If you had only said something, explained...’
‘I was afraid to say anything, in case...’ He was flushed, laughing. ‘Well, in case one thing led to another, and I ended up doing the very thing I was determined not to do. I thought it was safer not to talk about it.’ His fingers slid down to where the small mouth was clamped on her. He stroked the baby’s downy cheek. ‘I’d switch places with her any day!’ he whispered, and Dylan laughed huskily.
The baby stopped sucking, the small head falling back, the round blue eyes staring at Ross with affront.
He laughed at her furious expression. ‘Am I interrupting your dinner? Sorry, sweetheart,’ he said, watching Dylan switch her to the other breast. ‘She’s quite a character already, isn’t she?’
‘She reminds me of you,’ Dylan said, dimpling.
He softly pinched her ear between finger and thumb. ‘Well, who else would she take after? I am her father.’ His fingers pushed into Dylan’s curly brown hair and he sighed. ‘God—how much longer am I going to have to wait before I can make love to you, Dylan?’
She blushed and laughed. ‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends on how quickly I get over the birth.’ That reminded her of a notice she had seen in the village a month ago. ‘There are weekly aerobics classes at the village hall from January, Ross. I’ll sign up for them. I can take the baby with me; they have a crêche in another room while the mothers are working out. I’ll go swimming, too, and do lots more walking. That should soon get my figure back.’
His face grew serious. ‘You hated being pregnant, didn’t you?’
‘I wanted the baby, Ross!’
‘Yes, I know, but you hated being pregnant!’
She made a wry face. ‘Not at first, but towards the end, when I got so heavy, I have to admit... Well, a dancer has to be light on her feet, very supple, and suddenly I was neither. I couldn’t even see my feet this last couple of months!’
He smiled. ‘You were never that big!’
‘Oh, yes, I was—I hated seeing myself in the mirror, especially naked. That’s why I found it so easy to believe you hated the sight of me, too.’
‘But I didn’t! Dylan, I loved seeing you heavy with my baby; you were more beautiful than ever before. Your skin glowed like a peach and you had that wonderful, smooth roundness—I was dying to touch you all the time, but I couldn’t trust myself even to kiss you because I knew if I once got too close I’d never have the strength to stop myself.’
Dylan sighed, remembering the misery she had suffered during those final weeks. ‘I wish you’d told me that! I know you thought you were doing the right thing, staying away from me, not making love—but you should have told me why you were being so distant, then I wouldn’t have got the wrong idea. I’d have been saved a lot of grief.’
He leaned to kiss her gently, stroking her face. ‘I’m sorry, Dylan, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. I was having a very bad time—I was eaten up with frustration and anxiety. I guess it made me very bad-tempered.’
‘It certainly did! You were horrible at times! It would have made it easier if you’d talked to me about what was happening to you.’
He nodded ruefully. ‘I see that now, but I’m not a great talker, I’m afraid, that’s why I’m happy in my job. I don’t mind being alone for hours with nobody to talk to but my trees.’
Groaning, Dylan said, ‘I think I’m more jealous of those trees than I was of Suzy! I know you love them more than me!’
‘I don’t love anything or anybody more than I love you, Dylan!’ He let his mouth slide down her neck and she heard his breathing quicken, roughen. ‘Oh, darling. . .you smell so wonderful.’ His lips softly caressed the curve of her breast; he laid his cheek against the aching fullness their baby had just been enjoying.
Her fingers stroked his thick, warm hair which clung to her skin as if magnetically attracted. Little Ruth had fallen asleep, her head in the crook of her mother’s arm, her pink lips parted in a little smile. Dylan looked down at them both, her husband, her baby, both lying against her, drifting off to sleep, and closed her own eyes with a contented look. For the first time for ages she was really happy.
Ruth woke her, and Ross, when she arrived a few minutes later and came into the room after tapping and getting no answer.
Ross sat up hurriedly, flushed and yawning. ‘Sorry, I must have fallen asleep.’
Hurriedly, Dylan buttoned her nightdress bodice again with one hand while she held the baby with the other.
‘All three of you were asleep. You’re obviously dead tired,’ Ruth said, amused. ‘Ross, I’ve made up a bed for you in the little room across the landing; I put a hot water bottle between the sheets to warm up the bed for you. Off you go and get a good night’s sleep.’
He stood up, stretching with a yawn. ‘That sounds wonderful. I hardly slept at all last night, or the night before—I must be running on the last of my adrenalin.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ nodded Ruth. ‘Give me the baby, Dylan. She can sleep in the room with me, downstairs, then I can change her or give her a bottle, if she wakes up during the night. I want you to try and sleep again, but if you need me all you have to do is yell. I’m a light sleeper; I’ll hear you.’
‘You can leave her here. I can cope—I’ll have to once I get home with her,’ Dylan protested as Ruth picked up the wicker basket.
‘No, after all the effort of the birth you need a good rest. Doesn’t she, Ross?’
‘Yes,’ he obediently agreed. ‘Ruth’s right. Goodnight, darling. See you in the morning.’
Giving her a kiss on top of her head, he went out, and Ruth took the baby very carefully, trying not to wake her. As she laid the child in the wicker basket little Ruth stirred, frowning petulantly, grizzled a little, then yawned and went back to sleep as Ruth carried her out of the room.
Ruth slept fitfully that night, woken up several times by the crying of the baby. At first light she was up, walking the kitchen floor, with the baby over her shoulder, red-faced and hiccuping with wind after a bottle, the tiny fists clenched and flailing impotently.
‘Shhh...shhhh...’ soothed Ruth, patting the baby’s back, and when that didn’t work tried singing a lullaby she remembered from her own childhood, although she only remembered some of the words. She filled in the rest with humming wordlessly, and the baby quietened, listening.
‘That isn’t a bad voice. You should be in the church choir,’ Henry said from the door, making her jump and swing round to face him.
He had washed and shaved, brushed smooth his white hair and was clear-eyed and smiling, a warm blue sweater she recognised as one of her own worn casually over the shirt he had worn yesterday. Seeing her look at it, he grinned. ‘You don’t mind my borrowing this, do you? I was cold when I first got up.’
‘Of course not. I�
��m amazed it fits you so well—you might as well keep it. I never wear it, but it suits you.’
‘Well, thank you, and a Happy Christmas!’
‘Oh, my God, I’d forgotten it was Christmas,’ she groaned, horrified by the lapse of memory.
‘How could you forget that with a Christmas baby in your arms?’ he teased, laughing. ‘And a house full of Christmas guests! What are you going to give us all for lunch today? I don’t smell a turkey cooking in the range, and there’s no sign of a Christmas pudding waiting to boil!’
Ruth grimaced at him. ‘I wasn’t intending to bother about Christmas. There’s no point when you live alone.’
Henry gazed at her, face becoming serious. ‘I know how you feel. I didn’t bother to make any preparations, either. I sent a few cards and bought a few presents, but I didn’t bother to put up decorations or a tree. I had any number of invitations.’
Yes, thought Ruth a little acidly, he didn’t need to tell her that. She could imagine who from! There were several women without a man in the village who had their eyes on him; he was still very attractive, despite his white hair, rugged, forceful. An eligible divorcee with a nice house of his own and plenty of money, he had no need to spend Christmas alone.
There had been no such invitations for her. Who wanted a dull, greying old spinster hanging about over the festive season, when families came together again and people tried to forget all their worries, to shut out the rest of the world, have fun and be happy?
‘Whose invitation did you accept?’ she asked, aware that the baby had fallen asleep over her shoulder, the small body heavy in that wonderful abandonment which could be so touching.
‘Yours,’ Henry murmured, looking amused.
Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t invite you!’
‘No, but here I am, and I might as well stay for the rest of the day. Why don’t I make coffee while you take that baby upstairs to its mother? Then we can cook a Christmas breakfast together while we work out how we can make this a very special day for our unexpected visitors.’
The Yuletide Child Page 15