She began to punch numbers but hadn't got beyond the first two when a second contraction, much stronger than the first, had her dropping everything in sheer amazement.
And, of course, it was Charles who drove her. He had walked into the hall, one arm casually draped around Zanna's shoulders, and had sized up the situation immediately.
Putting the dangling receiver back on its rest, he'd taken the bag from the panting Mrs Penny and ushered her out of the door, lifting her into the passenger-seat of the Range Rover, which was parked at the front, right beside Zanna's showy sports job.
'You can drive me, because it will be quicker,' Beth told him, tight-lipped, as he swung in beside her, firing the ignition. 'But after that I don't want you near me.' She wiped the beads of perspiration from her upper lip with the back of her hand, meeting his narrowed, sideways glare defiantly. 'I wouldn't want the responsibility of keeping you from your little playmate. I'm sure she's got lots of lovely games for you to enjoy while I'm out of the way!'
'And what the hell is that supposed to mean?' His hands were tight on the wheel as they shot out of the main gates and on to the narrow country road, and his voice was a threat. But Beth had other things to think of right now and she tossed back exasperatedly,
'You know what it means! I overheard you talking, remember?' She winced, holding on to the edges of her seat as they flew over a hump-backed bridge. Perspiration dewed her small pale face all over again, but it had nothing to do with the speed. He was driving fast, but it was a controlled speed. He knew these roads like the back of his hand and wasn't taking any risks. And when she'd regained her breath she castigated, 'When she brought your son to meet you, back in June, you'd have divorced me like a shot to marry her. I only agreed to come back to you because I was pregnant—'
Again the spiking, clawing pain, but she howled straight through it. 'She walked out on you again, didn't she? Oh, I know she told you she was tired of being a single parent, and Harry needed his father, but she still walked out in the end. And I hoped you'd think twice about letting her do that to you again. But no, oh, no!' Her even, white teeth showed in a mirthless smile. 'The minute she shows again you're all over her like a rash—holding her, kissing her. You make me sick!'
He shot her a dark, complicated look. There were so many different emotions colouring his eyes black, too many to untangle, and she wasn't interested in trying, was she? she questioned herself snappily as he turned his attention back to the road and told her heatedly, 'You've got more than a few wires crossed.'
'Is that so?' Cool indifference might be more telling than any amount of justifiable ire and she turned her head to look out of the window at her side.
They had left the village behind and were on the main road and it wouldn't take longer than another five minutes to reach the exclusive private maternity home where she was booked in. She couldn't wait—in more ways than one!
'Beth—'
'Don't try to soft-soap me!' she grated through whatever it was he was beginning to say. 'And don't think I can't see through you. If you want to keep your options open, fine. But don't look to me. Whether Zanna stays or goes, it's all one to me because I won't be coming back. Not this time.'
For some crazy reason her throat clogged, unshed tears stinging at the backs of her eyes. She blinked furiously, aware of his hard sideways stare, the harsh intake of his breath.
And just for a moment his foot eased on the accelerator, as if he was contemplating pulling out of the traffic on to the side of the road, the better to give his full attention to the row they were having. But as a fresh spasm gripped her she gave a shuddering gasp and closed her eyes and his foot went down again. And all he said was, with a kind of bitter calm, 'We'll talk this over in a day or two. Right now I suggest you save your energy. You're hysterical.'
He could be right, Beth anguished, her eyes glued shut. Finally bringing things out into the open, speaking her mind, showing her utter disgust at the way things were between him and Zanna, had helped to take her mind off the horrible thought of having her baby in a lay-by. And now, in the tense silence, she wasn't so sure she was going to be able to avoid such an undignified happening!
In the event, it was the early hours of the following morning before the tiny, red-faced bundle was laid in her arms. Beth's heart went out instinctively, irredeemably and eternally and as her fingers stroked gently over the velvety cheek she whispered, 'Your name is Aidan John, my precious.'
'No "Charles"?' Soft-footed, Charles stood in the open doorway, the look in his eyes unrevealing. He advanced very slowly. 'Let's see—Aidan, because you like the name, I presume. John, for your father. But nothing for me, his father?'
Although she had told him she didn't want him near her, he had insisted on staying and, if she was honest, she had been more than merely grateful for the way he'd offered his hand for her to mangle, the way he'd stroked something cool and slightly fragrant over her heated skin. He'd never been more than inches away, completely supportive, and now, although she made a half-hearted attempt to come up with a withering comment, she couldn't find one.
She was tired but completely euphoric and now, with her hour-old son in her arms, wasn't the time to start another unholy row. But her unresisting capitulation, the tenderness in her smile as she glanced from her tiny son to his father, surprised her, and she acknowledged huskily, 'Charles Aidan John Savage—to be known as Aidan to avoid confusion.'
'Ah. Of course.' He had reached the bedside and was hunkering down, unfurling his son's tiny fingers, and devils were dancing in his sexy eyes as he murmured, 'I think it's time you got some rest, Mrs Savage. I'm glad to see you've worked your way through your own particular confusion.'
As if on cue, one of the nurses came in, took the sleeping baby and dimmed the light.
'Rest now, Mrs Savage,' she echoed, 'and if there's anything you need, just press the bell. Mr Savage…?' The tilt of a blonde eyebrow was frankly flirtatious, the blue eyes full of female assessment, and Beth felt a sleepy smile drift across her mouth. Maybe she should feel jealous, but she didn't. Women had been giving Charles Savage the come-and-get-me since he'd reached his late teens and there was no room for jealousy or resentment, just a glorious sense of pride. Which was strange, she pondered exhaustedly as she heard him reply, 'Is staying put until his wife falls asleep,' and felt the rough, needing-a-shave brush of his cheek against hers as the dark waves of sleep pulled her under and her last conscious thought was that maybe he was right. Maybe her confusion was over.
In the early afternoon, holding court among a positive bower of hot-house flowers—the largest and most lavish of which had come from Charles—Beth knew that nothing was over, certainly not her 'confusion', if that was what he'd thought her decision to remove herself from his life to be.
He had phoned much earlier, full of supposedly loving enquiries, but she'd cut him short, saying her room was full of gabbling visitors, which was true—except for the gabbling bit—and that she couldn't hear herself think—which wasn't true at all because she'd heard the hard bite in his voice when he'd said he'd be with her later.
And now her parents were on their way out, taking Mrs Penny with them because she'd begged a lift to see the new arrival. And Allie inched her way in as they were going out, and although Beth would have welcomed the opportunity to have a good long thinking session, planning exactly what she would say to Charles when he got his two-timing, louse-like person here, she greeted her best and oldest friend with pleasure.
After the obligatory peek into the cradle, and enthusiastic cooings, Allie laid her offering of spring flowers on the counterpane and grimaced.
'Coals to Newcastle, I see! Never mind, I've got something you might appreciate more.' She put a bulky package on Beth's knees. 'It came to the agency this morning. There was a covering letter so I know what it is. Go on, open it!'
It was, it transpired, after she had dealt with Sellotape and brown paper, bound proofs of William's latest bo
ok, the one she had worked on with him. And her face went pink with embarrassment as she read the accompanying card:
If you ever need your job back, or anything else, don't hesitate. I'll always be here. Yours, Will.
Which was misguided of him, but sweet, and not at all helpful when a narrow-eyed Charles walked into the room and enquired, so silky-smooth, 'Someone sent you a book? Hi, Allie.' He glanced in the other girl's direction, but only briefly; he was intently reading the message on the piece of pasteboard he'd taken from Beth's nerveless fingers.
And then his eyes went black as outer space as he tossed the card back on the bed and took the two strides necessary to have him hovering over the cradle.
Beth knew, she just knew what was going on in his twisted, devious mind and a wildness took over her brain as she hissed, regardless of Allie's presence, 'If you're looking to see if there's any likeness—forget it. And if you mention tests to establish paternity, I'll kill you!'
He slewed round on his heels, his face granite, the impeccable cut of the dark suit he was wearing making him seem unapproachable, the menace in him distancing him from his surroundings as he clipped out coldly, 'Save your breath. Your reaction to my accusation, back in France, convinced me. You wouldn't have put a foot back over my doorstep if I'd had the slightest doubt.'
'I'll—I'll be off, then.' Allie's fluttery, awkward words were lost to them both as Beth sniped back at him.
'You do have a nice trusting nature, don't you?' she said, and didn't even flinch when his brows came down in a threatening bar.
'So it seems. I'd appreciate it, though, if you could acquire one, too.'
His effrontery took her breath away and she opened her mouth on a howl of protest. But he covered her lips with a none-too-gentle hand and warned her darkly, 'Don't utter another sound until I've had my say.' Leaving her propped amid the pillows, her lips compressed but her chin at a defiant angle, he put the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the outside of the door, tossed Allie's flowers and William's bound proofs on to the floor, and lay on the bed, his arms folded behind his head, ignoring her snort of outrage.
'I've been trying to figure your behaviour out ever since you came up with the stupid idea of a trial separation.'
'It was one of the most sensible things I'd ever done.' He might have commanded her to keep quiet, but he couldn't make her keep her mouth shut. And she wished he'd get off the bed. He was far too close. So she tacked on viperishly, 'You hadn't come near me in months. I could have been a lodger, an octogenarian one at that, for all the interest you showed in me.' She gave him a fulminating sideways glare then stared sniffily at the ceiling, her arms folded beneath her breasts. She hadn't finished with him yet—she had barely begun!
'I've explained why.' For the first time, there was a trace of weariness in his voice and Beth's heart twisted sickeningly as he went on, 'If you knew how guilty I felt, you wouldn't have needed to ask why.'
No matter what he was; never mind if he would always put Zanna first, she had to acknowledge that he had been sincere about that. There had been no mistaking the pain in his voice when he had told her how he had blamed himself during those dreadful months after the accident. Her taunt had been unnecessary and out of order, and, to make up, she said diffidently, 'How could I have known, if you didn't tell me? And if it helps at all, I felt the guilt, too. You'd married me to have children—primarily, at least. I felt I'd let you down. Knowing I was unlikely to conceive again made me feel a failure, inadequate.'
He twisted suddenly on the bed, forcing her to look at him.
'You should have told me. Correction.' His hard mouth indented wryly. 'We should have told each other. Talked it through.' His eyes softened; his mouth did, too, as he brushed his lips over the suddenly sensitised skin of the shoulder her sleeveless nightgown left bare.
Beth shuddered helplessly. This confrontation wasn't going as she'd planned—she felt as if she'd been left in a mire of non-communication. If only they'd talked, not kept their guilt locked away inside themselves.
But that was all in the past, and they couldn't go back there, and he made that patently clear when he hoisted himself up on one elbow, his inescapable eyes on a level with hers as he informed her with studied patience, 'As I've been trying to explain, working out the motives for your behaviour has been beyond me. Until, that is, you came out with that hysterical spiel on the way here.'
'Hysterical?' she bridled, stung. 'It had nothing to do with what I was saying. You'd have been hysterical, too, if you'd thought you wouldn't make it in time to give birth in the proper place!'
'Rather more than that, I'd say. I would have been having a few rather serious doubts about my role in life.'
Unwillingly, her lips twitched. And then she remembered that jettisoning a husband was utterly serious. And, strangely, frightening, too. She sighed, very sober now, cold inside and, despite the peacefully sleeping baby, very alone. And Charles told her, 'It was only when you gabbled some nonsense about Harry being my son that I was able to put the facts together. Tell me, what exactly did you overhear, back in June?'
Nonsense? Beth's heart leapt then settled down to a sombre, heavy beat. She had heard what she had heard, and there was no way he could get round that. And, surely, he wouldn't want to, would he?
She ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips, and husked out accusingly, 'She called you darling.'
'Is that all? She calls everyone darling.' He turned on his back again and closed his eyes, as if totally bored. Beth dug him sharply in the ribs.
'No, not all—not by a long chalk, and you know it.'
A small mew, followed by a hiccupping screech, had Beth scrambling down from the bed, lifting the tiny, protesting scrap of humanity from the cradle and scrambling back, Charles Aidan John tucked comfortably at her breast. And Charles muttered, 'Well, go on, then. Tell me.'
'I don't think this is the time or the place to be discussing the breakdown of our marriage,' Beth replied repressively. She would not let herself be upset. Not now. Later, perhaps. Or tomorrow. But not now.
Charles shifted round again, his eyes on the greedily suckling infant, his gaze slowly lifting to the softly vulnerable curve of her lips, the dreamy green of her eyes, and he said thickly, 'My God—I think I'm jealous of my own son!' And then he went on, taking in her fiery blush, 'When you took that job in France and told me you wanted a separation, I nearly went out of my mind. Things had been going badly for us—I knew how much you wanted children. I think, on the whole, that desire was responsible for turning the tide in my favour when you agreed to marry me.'
'You said you wanted children, too. Hordes of them, to fill South Park,' she reminded him defensively, and he held up a quietening hand.
'Only because I knew how keen you were. I wanted you, only you. If you gave me children, great. But if you hadn't been able to I wouldn't have gone into a decline, believe me,' he told her drily. 'And I believed seeing young Harry, in our home, was the final straw, the thing that sent you away. I'd been responsible—in my own mind at least—for the way you'd lost your baby. And, for all we knew, lost all hope of having any more. I tried to make you believe that there would be more for you—more to comfort you than to ease my own conscience. I could see how Harry's presence was hurting you, making you bitter. I hadn't been able to touch you, you see. Partly because of my feelings of guilt and partly because I knew if we shared the same bed I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you. I felt you needed time to come to terms with what had happened, without my making that sort of demand.'
She had been thinking about his words, words about wanting her, and only her, allowing them to linger on her mind like soothing balm, and about him saying he'd tried to comfort her, telling her there would be more children for her when, at the time, she'd believed he'd meant men! But his statement about the effect his son had had on her jolted her out of the dangerous fool's paradise. Of course Harry's presence had hurt, made her bitter and jealous!
&nb
sp; 'I was hurt because Harry was—is—your son,' she told him tightly, feeling the ache of loneliness and loss build up inside her again. 'I heard Zanna call him "our son", say she'd had to come to you again because the boy needed to get to know his father. Tell you she'd heard our marriage was over, which it was to all intents and purposes—and only you could have told her that. And I saw you together that night, in the nursery, and Mrs Penny said Harry was the spitting image of you, which he is, and—'
'Mrs Penny always did know more than is good for her,' Charles interrupted, lifting a hand to gentle away the tears she hadn't been able to prevent escaping from beneath her closed eyelids. 'Don't upset yourself, my love. There really is no need. Because you do love me, don't you?'
The deep note of triumph in his voice made her shiver. And she nodded, too emotional now to speak, to even try to salvage the pride that had become so important to her.
He took the now sleeping baby from her arms and tucked him gently back in his cradle, then sat on the bed, pulling her into his arms, telling her huskily, 'I worked that out for myself, in between ministering to you while you were so gallantly producing our son and heir! From what you'd told me, I knew you couldn't have overheard all that conversation, as I'd believed. If you had, you would have known that Harry is James's son, not mine! You left because you believed Zanna had come back to me, bringing our son, and I was going to turn you out.'
'James's son?' Beth lifted her face from the haven of his broad chest, her eyes incredulous. 'But she was having an affair with you—everyone knew how obsessed you were with her.'
He dropped his mouth to her parted lips, whispering against them, 'I never had an affair with Zanna. And as for being obsessed, I suppose I was, in a way. Obsessed by the need to keep her away from James.'
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