And now that lady was saying complacently, 'Your good news couldn't have been a better homecoming present. I'm going to have to buy lots of baby wool.'
Beth winced inside. Could her mother really have forgotten all those tiny jackets and caps, carefully folded away in tissue paper, which she'd knitted with such enthusiasm for the baby they'd lost?
No one ever mentioned the accident, and its tragic aftermath. Everyone had been traumatised. They seemed to think that if it wasn't mentioned it hadn't really happened.
'And do tell…' Mrs Garner leaned forward to pour them both another cup of tea. 'I heard that Hall woman turned up at South Park—brazen as ever, with her two-year-old son. Did you give her short shrift? I know I would have done. That woman has no sensibilities whatsoever! She's not married, apparently.'
'I didn't see much of her,' Beth said, feigning indifference. 'We had a houseful of guests for the weekend and I was leaving for France almost immediately.' Any minute now her mother would be relaying the news that young Harry bore a remarkable resemblance to Charles Savage, and Beth didn't know quite how she was going to skirt round that one. She could feel perspiration begin to break out on her brow, in the palms of her hands but, thankfully, her father walked in through the door.
'Any tea in the pot? I'm parched.' He flopped down on the sofa next to Beth, running his hands through his thinning grey hair. 'Soon be autumn, and I can put the garden to bed. I know exercise is good for me—drummed it into my patients often enough, but—'
'But you'll spend the winter evenings reading through the seed catalogues, mapping out new borders, ordering plants, fretting to get out there again,' his wife cut in drily, passing him a cup of tea. 'Do you know, Beth, he paid Johnny Higgs a small fortune to keep everything trim while we were away, and no sooner had he dumped the suitcases in the kitchen than he was out there, on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for imaginary weeds, trimming hedges, mowing lawns…'
Amid the rueful laughter Beth got to her feet, smoothing down her skirts, making her excuses. 'Charles was away last night, but he said he'd be back by teatime. I must rush, if I'm to be there to meet him.'
They kept up the pretence, even in front of each other, treating each other politely, like strangers. He worked more from home now but every now and then had to go up to town, staying overnight to give himself two clear days at head office. And she always made sure she was around when she knew he was due, emerging from her office in time to tidy herself, ready to greet him with polite if stilted enquiries about the journey, offering him a drink to help him unwind, passing on snippets of local news she thought might interest him. No one would ever be able to accuse her of not keeping to their bargain.
'Well, don't rush too much,' her father advised gruffly as he walked with her to the door, an arm around her shoulder. 'Got to handle yourself with kid gloves from now on.'
It was the nearest either of her parents had got to mentioning her miscarriage, apart from the initial flood of shocked sympathy, and she wondered, belatedly, whether more openness would have helped during the long, distressingly miserable months that had followed.
Certainly, if Charles had been able to bring himself to explain that his deep feelings of guilt had been responsible for the distance he had put between them, then things would have been easier, and they would have grown closer instead of further and further apart. Especially if she had confided her own feelings of failure, the terrible feelings of inadequacy she'd gone through after she'd learned she might never conceive again.
But any closeness they might have achieved would have counted for nothing from the moment that Zanna and Harry put in an appearance, she reminded herself tartly as she settled herself behind the wheel of her car. The past was over and all the might-have-beans in the world would make no difference to the future.
Winding down the window and pasting a smile on her face, she waved to her hovering parents, calling brightly, 'Dinner with us tomorrow. Don't forget—seven o'clock sharp. And bring your holiday snaps; Charles won't want to miss seeing them.' And she drove away slowly because sudden, stupid tears were blurring her vision. She had a long way to go before she could calmly accept her life for what it was.
She entertained a great deal, worked hard for the agency, put on a bright face. And if her parents expressed concern over her pallor, the dark smudges beneath her eyes, she told them truthfully that she was being looked after by one of the leading obstetricians in the country—at Charles's instigation—and that he pronounced himself satisfied, said she was doing fine.
And when she and Charles were together, which happened as little as she could arrange it, she sometimes glanced up to find him watching her and, just for a moment, their eyes would hold. And there was something there she could not read, gave up even trying to, and pigeon-holed the enigmatic expression under the label of resentment.
He had to resent her presence, her nominal position as his wife. They both knew he had been willing to divorce her, to take the woman he loved as his wife, and they both knew that she, Beth, was only here because she was carrying his child, because the impossible-to-pin-down Zanna had walked out on him yet again.
His heart was with the flamboyant, vibrantly alive redhead; always had been, always would be. Every time he looked at her, Beth, he would resent her for not being Zanna.
She was a second-best wife, and knew it. But was learning to handle it, learning to make the most of her organising abilities and put them to good use in the build-up of the agency. Learning, slowly and painfully, to erect an impenetrable wall around her heart.
Christmas and the New Year festivities came and went and Beth congratulated herself on handling everything perfectly. The big house was decorated with branches of holly cut from around the estate, the huge open hearths alight with blazing logs, the hospitality lavish—right down to the silver bowls of Mrs Penny's aromatic punch.
Charles's brows had drawn together in a frowning black bar when he'd scanned the guest list he'd asked to see, but she'd ignored the obvious signs of his displeasure, knowing that he possessed enough self-control to be the perfect host, knowing that she had to fill the house with guests to be able to get through the season at all because she wasn't yet strong enough, self-contained enough, to be alone with him at this supposedly happy, family time.
But she was getting there, she assured herself, learning to live with his icy, slightly mocking politeness, learning to match it, learning not to care. And when he told her, 'There will be no more entertaining, apart from when your parents come for dinner, no more huge parties,' she simply dipped her head in cool submission and turned back to her work, feeding fresh data into the computer.
He had come to her office, which was unusual, and his interference in the way she ran the social side of their lives more unusual still. And the veneer of cool indifference was peeling along the edges of his voice as he bit out, 'You're running yourself ragged. If you don't give a damn about your own health, you should think about the child. From now on, you're going to do just that because, if you don't, I'll damn well make you.' And left the room, slamming the door behind him.
The child. Of course. The new life she was carrying inside her was his prime concern. The only reason she was here. But she couldn't feel resentful, couldn't wish the baby had never been conceived. It was all she had to live for now.
In all truth, she didn't regret Charles's strict veto. She was getting bulkier and slower, her body telling her it was time to be quiet. Entertaining so frequently, so lavishly, was, she recognised, becoming something of a strain.
But that didn't mean she could be content to spend much time alone with Charles. She knew, from the bitter expression she sometimes surprised in the depths of her eyes when she used her mirror, that she was on the verge of accepting her life as it was, the polished, surface-bright sham of her marriage.
However, alone with him, who could tell whether some remnant of emotion she hadn't qu
ite managed to kill off might rear to shocking life and rend her with the pain of all that would-be forgotten love? She simply couldn't trust herself enough to run that risk.
Love didn't die to order; you couldn't switch it off because you had been hurt and humiliated.
But she was getting there.
So, as January drew to its storm-swept, bleak close she devised other methods of distancing herself.
Her mother was more than happy to agree to her suggestion of a week in London, buying new maternity clothes, but still she said, 'You won't want too many, surely? Only a couple of months to go and if you're anything like I was… after you were born, I couldn't wait to donate those dreadful tents to the vicar's jumble sale! Mind you, I felt guilty afterwards because they might have come in again. But, as it turned out, you were the only one—we did so want you to have a brother or sister. But, with any luck, you and Charles will have lots of babies—South Park needs filling, don't you think?'
Beth closed her eyes on the pain of that artless remark. The child she was carrying would be the only one. That her marriage to Charles was in name only, physical intimacies relegated to the past, was her bitter secret. South Park's empty rooms would remain so.
Nevertheless, her chin came resolutely up. As an only child herself she had never felt deprived or lonely. She'd always had lots of friends in the village and at school and she would make sure that her child had them too.
And of course the week away stretched to just over two. There were plenty of shows Beth suddenly found she had to see, exhibitions which would be a pity to miss.
'Pity not to pamper ourselves now we're here,' she told her mother when she pointed out that their week was up. 'It's nice to see all we want to see in a leisurely fashion. You're not fretting about Dad, are you?'
'No, of course not.' Molly Garner smiled up at the hotel waiter who had brought a rack of fresh toast to their breakfast table. 'He manages very well on his own. He probably enjoys the silence. He's always accusing me of talking too much! No, Beth, it's you I'm worried about. Is everything all right?'
'Of course!' she answered, too quickly, and made a great production of buttering toast she didn't want. Beneath the prattling inconsequentiality of her mother's conversation there was an astute mind. And she'd always been a little over-protective of her only offspring. She would do well to remember that. So she tacked on offhandedly, 'Whatever makes you ask?'
'You've changed. I can't quite put my finger on it. But there's a sadness in your eyes that sometimes makes me want to cry.'
'Idiot!' It was an effort to achieve a light tone, to force a smile. If her mother had remarked on a new hardness, she would have privately agreed with her and silently congratulated herself on the achievement of her aims. But sadness?
Did what she had gone through really show that much? Did her eyes say one thing even as her brain was saying another? Had she still such a long way to go in her determination to wrench all that ill-begotten love for her husband out of her heart? It didn't bear thinking about. So she smiled resolutely at her troubled parent and passed it off.
'You're imagining things. You're looking at a woman who has backache, frequent heartburn, puffy ankles and bruises to show where a certain little monster is playing football with its mother's insides! Now, what shall we do today? The exhibition of Victorian jewellery? Or shall we go back to Harrods to look at that suit I almost talked you into buying on Wednesday?'
But she couldn't stay away forever, and, certainly, Charles gave her no indication that he had missed her. But, then, why should he? They had stopped pretending when his feelings for Zanna had been brought out into the open.
Besides, she had plenty to occupy herself. She had the excuse of the agency work to catch up on and so was able to shut herself in her office each day, emerging to share a hasty and largely silent dinner with Charles, going immediately after to her room on the pretext of tiredness.
Not that it was a pretext, of course. She was tired, her body ached with it. But her mind wouldn't let her rest. And, one early March night, with the icy rain lashing her window panes, she gave up all attempt to capture elusive sleep, pulled a wrap over her increasing girth and waddled as quietly as she could to the nursery.
Although Charles had said nothing—one raised brow had been enough to tell her he thought her crazy but was willing to pander to the whims of the pregnant—she had insisted on having the room redone.
It was here that Harry had slept—not that she blamed the little innocent, but she couldn't forget how she had seen his parents hovering over him as he lay in the cot that had been bought with such excitement for the baby she had lost.
And even now, if she allowed the forbidden memory over the wall she had built in her mind, she could see Zanna in that clinging satin nightdress, Charles holding her, hear again those fervent words of welcome for the child she had brought him…
Wandering around, touching things, she felt herself begin to relax and sat down on the edge of the single bed she had had one of the gardeners bring into the room. She would sleep here for the first few months of the baby's life as she had every intention of feeding it herself and no intention whatsoever of asking Charles to vacate the adjoining master suite.
The thought of him, now, lying sprawled in the huge double bed, did nothing to help her determination to relax so she thrust it unceremoniously away and hauled herself back to her feet.
Mrs Penny had insisted on carrying up the packages of baby clothes she'd spent an extravagant small fortune on in London, saying, with some justification, that there was enough stuff here already to clothe an army of infants before pushing the new consignment on to the top of the series of open shelves that ran down one side of the cream-painted nursery cupboards.
They had been there for weeks now and needed sorting, placing on the right shelves, and, even standing on tiptoe, Beth couldn't quite reach. Not willing to give up the attempt, she caught hold of the low nursing chair and dragged it across the floor. Clambering up on it, she could just reach, her fingers closing around the piles of tiny, tissue-wrapped garments, the boxed baby toys she hadn't been able to resist.
And the first intimation she had that she was not alone was the rough sound of a crude oath and the strength and warmth and power of the male arms circling her body.
'Just what the hell do you think you're doing?' His voice cracked like the lash of a whip and her whole body went on fire as his arms tightened, swinging her gently down from the chair and setting her on the ground. He was still holding her, but loosely, and she twisted round within the circle of his arms and then wished she hadn't.
He was wearing one of his short towelling robes, hastily tied, and she knew from experience he would be naked beneath it. He never wore anything between the sheets. And just looking at him, at the severely carved angles and planes of his unforgettable features, the dusting of crisp body hair that coarsened the olive-toned skin of his exposed chest and long, firmly muscled legs, her heart began to thunder and her thought processes lay down and died.
'Well?' he demanded, his eyes flaying hers, making her lower her thick lashes very quickly to deny him the knowledge of the effect he could still have on her.
Pushing her tongue over her dry lips, she managed, 'I still haven't sorted out the baby things I bought in London.' She had to stay calm, she had to. Now wasn't the time to throw a wobbly. But after months of conducting limited conversations in tones of lightly veiled sarcasm or, what was probably worse, with polite boredom, his sudden anger, that show of real emotion, had her running scared, unsure of how to handle it.
It didn't fit into her undeviating delineation of what their type of marriage should be, and without her carefully drawn-up guidelines to cling on to she was in danger of drifting woefully off course.
'So you decided, after weeks, to do it right now. Couldn't it have waited until you could have asked someone else to reach the stuff down?'
He had released her now, stuffing hi
s hands into the pockets of his robe, rocking back a little on the heels of his bare feet. And she stepped back, away from his overpowering sexual appeal, knocking against the back of the chair and earning herself an impatient scowl.
'I couldn't sleep.' Did she have to sound so overwrought? she asked herself edgily. And why was she so suddenly aware of how truly awful she looked, her bulky, clumsy body forcing her to stand with her feet planted wide apart, the weight she had put on extending to her face, giving her the beginnings of a double chin?
'Neither could I,' he admitted, his rarely seen smile flickering briefly along his beautiful male mouth. 'That's why I heard you blundering about in here.'
Blundering. She bit down on her lip at his choice of word. He might as well come right out with it and tell her she looked and moved like a whale out of water.
She swung quickly away, furious with herself. Why did it matter? Women in her condition shouldn't care if they were unattractive, and minding that he should describe her as blundering was surely abnormal, especially since he had never really wanted her at all, but had simply used her because she was his wife and was available.
But his cool fingers caught her hand, trapping it beneath the tensile strength of muscle and bone, and the intonation of gentleness in his voice was something she hadn't heard since she had run out on him to go to France.
'As neither of us can sleep, why don't we do the job together?' His hands went to her shoulders, exerting a soft yet firm pressure as he sat her down in the nursing chair then turned in one fluid movement to reach the pile of packages and carriers from the top shelf. 'You unwrap them and tell me where to put them.'
The old, almost forgotten warmth and tenderness was right back in his voice, in the dark grey eyes that slanted an understanding smile towards her, and she sat there, feeling like a beached sea mammal, wondering at the ease with which he breached her carefully erected wall.
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