Melting Ice (Roundwell Farm Trilogy)

by Rosalie Ash

  For the rest of the day they enjoyed Archie together, strapping the car seat into the back of the Mercedes and taking him to the park where Matt pushed him high on the baby swings and carried him to the top of the big slide while she held her breath apprehensively. They fed the ducks, demonstrating the technique to Archie and then laughing at his comical expression when the crumbs he threw were caught in the wind and blown back in his face. The sun was shining, the last few leaves on the horse chestnut trees were glowing pumpkin orange, and Victoria began to relax more with Matt than she had ever managed before. He seemed genuinely interested in her life-style, her routines with Archie, and she even found herself telling him about her pregnancy, hiding a slight embarrassment behind a flippant facade.

  'It needn't follow you'd have the same problems again,' he told her quietly, concern in his eyes when she admitted Archie had been delivered by forceps and considered lucky to escape brain damage.

  'Really? How would you know?' she countered coolly.

  'I read a couple of books on the subject, when I found out about the baby,' he said, with a twist of a smile. She was dumbfounded, and then found herself laughing. The idea of Matt reading baby books seemed highly improbable, and somehow very funny. When she had sobered, she said seriously, 'I doubt if there'll be a next time.'

  Matt took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

  'Why? You're young, and you're wonderful with Archie. Surely you'd like more children?'

  'What has that got to do with you?' she enquired calmly, raising her eyebrows. His face tautened under her mocking gaze, and he gave her a slight shake, the grey eyes hardening.

  'Victoria, tell me how I can get through to you,' he demanded, harsh urgency in his voice. His touch, and the appeal in his eyes, sent shivers of longing down her back, but she had a steely grip on her emotions.

  'You could try opening up a bit,’ she suggested lightly, twisting out of his hands. 'Giving away a little information about yourself. I recall you had an aversion to talking about yourself. Like trying to prise open a clam!'

  Chapter Nineteen

  They were walking along the river bank, Archie safely on his reins toddling between them. She had a feeling Matt was conducting the old internal battle with himself. Finally, he glanced sideways at her.

  'Go ahead, then. Ask me questions.' He sounded like a criminal up for interrogation, she thought with a stab of amusement. 'What do you want to know?'

  'Hmmm, let's see. Your mysterious childhood, for a start.'

  'You want to know about my childhood.' She sensed Matt tensing up, but he continued evenly, 'My mother was Danish. I never met my father. I believe he was English. Other than that I know nothing about him. When I was five I went to live with foster-parents.'

  'Why? What happened to your mother?'

  Glancing at his profile, she felt her heart go out to him suddenly. The harsh face of the man seemed only just to disguise the anguish of the child he had once been.

  'She met someone else, married him,' he said finally. 'Some man who didn't want another man's child messing things up.'

  She drew in her breath, pity welling up inside her. 'Go on,' she said quietly.

  He shot a swift, mocking glance at her.

  'It doesn't get any better. After two or three sets of foster-parents, I spent the rest of the time in a children's home. Left school at fifteen, and helped on a junk stall in a market in Bermondsey. He smiled slightly, adding, 'That was the start of my career. I had entrepreneurial skills I never realised before, I learnt to recognise valuable pieces among the piles of rubbish. I never looked back, as they say.'

  'Did you never see your mother again?' she interrupted, finding it impossible to believe any mother could simply hand her child over to foster-parents to please a prospective husband.

  'Yes. I saw her again when I was seven. She wanted me back.' His voice was expressionless, but there was a glitter in his eyes, hard as stones in the sunlight.

  'But you didn't go back?'

  'No. I didn't go back.'

  'Why? Oh, Matt, why?' The picture was so tragic and bereft, she could hardly bear to imagine it.

  He shrugged, his smile harder. 'I just wasn't a very co-operative child, I suppose.' He stopped for a moment, as if he was trying to get the past into perspective. 'I don't like talking about this. I think that's because, looking back, I can see that I must have wanted to go back to my mother more than anything else in the world. I have memories of my first five years with her, strange as it may seem. Some happy memories. Blurred sort of images of someone…warm. But I suppose she must have been a very mixed-up woman.' He shook his head, with a short laugh. 'At the time, though, I took exception to being shunted around.'

  'But surely, at seven ... I mean, how come you had any choice?'

  'The social services of the day had never heard a child scream and yell for quite so long, as I dimly recall. They eventually advised my mother to leave me where I was. She went back to Denmark with her new husband.’

  ‘And that was it? You never saw her again?’

  ‘She had another go at reclaiming me when I was ten. She got the same treatment. I suppose I was an even tougher little thug by then. With a nasty vengeful streak. I blamed her for abandoning me. I’ve got a feeling I actually told her to fuck off. Not my finest hour, I see that now. But she made the final decision to leave me in Care. Or so I was told.’ The silver gaze was bleak and mocking. Victoria shivered.

  ‘Could… could you find her again? Try to re-establish some kind of relationship with her?’

  ‘I did try to trace her. Just recently. After Sam’s suicide. She's dead.'

  It was the bleakest story Victoria had ever heard.

  Sympathy welled up but she sensed Matt would reject it.

  'Why didn't you stay with your foster-parents? Why go back to the children's home?'

  'If your face doesn't fit, if you behave badly enough for long enough, you're out. My behaviour got a whole lot worse after the episodes with my mother.' Matt shrugged. 'Foster-parents are under no obligation to keep you. It's not like adoption.'

  She stared down at the top of Archie's head, struggling with her feelings.

  How did you survive a childhood like that? It was almost impossible for her to imagine the pain, the anger and despair Matt must have felt as a child.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat, fighting back tears.

  'Well, what about romantic involvements?' she prompted, to hide her shattered emotions, 'Have you ever been in love with anyone?' She had a masochistic urge suddenly, driving her to add, 'Jessica told me once you'd broken more hearts than she'd eaten take-away pizzas.'

  The grey eyes were quizzical. 'I've known several women, obviously. I'm thirty-five. I doubt if I've broken their hearts, however.'

  She looked at him witheringly. If he only knew the effect of those eyes. Jessica was right. Matt was dangerously attractive to women, even more so because he seemed unaware of the devastation he left behind, once he detached himself and moved on.

  'So never get seriously involved. Is that your motto?'

  'Possibly. But up until two years ago, I'd never met anyone I wanted to get seriously involved with.'

  She stiffened, trying to assimilate this.

  What was he saying? For a wild, crazy moment, she thought he was talking about her.

  Then common sense saved her. Matt wouldn't insult her intelligence now by trying to pretend he had wanted to be in a serious relationship with her, all this time! Particularly since he hadn't even bothered to contact her until just over a week ago.

  A sick feeling came over her as his real meaning sank in. That weekend, when she’d met him at Jessica’s, had he just met someone who meant something to him, someone he could trust, and then had to endure a weekend of earth-shattering boredom with a love-struck adolescent?

  No wonder he had been so reluctant to respond to her clumsy infatuation.

  The thought was so painful, it felt like a bul
let through her solar plexus. Oh God, what a nightmare. What a complete fool she had made of herself.

  'Serious involvements are a bad idea. That’s why I’m happy to be independent. Shall we go back?' she asked, evading Matt's curious gaze. 'It's turning colder.'

  'Victoria? Don't shut me out.' His voice was low and compelling, and she swung away from him angrily.

  'Why not? It's a trick I learnt from you,' she said calmly, walking back towards the park.

  He caught up in a few swift strides, lifting Archie to sit on his shoulders and instantly producing gurgles of happiness.

  'Look, maybe we've both had changes of heart over the last couple of years,' he said tautly. 'But Archie is our joint responsibility now. At least give me a chance, Victoria!'

  She was hardly listening. She sat stiffly in the car on the way back to the farm, her heart leaden with misery.

  When they pulled up outside the farm, Matt turned to her,

  ‘I have to fly to Florence tomorrow. There's an art collection I've been invited to value. Will you come with me?'

  She felt her jaw drop, then gathered her wits quickly.

  'I couldn't possibly. Thanks anyway. I've got the farm to run and Archie to look after.'

  'There's Elspeth. Or you could bring him with you. I'd like that.'

  She shook her head decisively. 'Sorry. It's out of the question. It's been a lovely day out,' she added politely, 'But do you mind if I don't ask you in now? Archie is sleepy, and I've got a lot of work to catch up with.'

  Matt was scanning her face, uncharacteristically confused.

  'Then I'll see you at the weekend,' he said quietly, his expression darkening as she continued to shake her head.

  'I’ve got some old university friends coming to stay with me on Friday, and Elspeth’s away, so Jessica, Megan and I are having dinner and staying over at Jessica’s on Saturday night,' she told him calmly. She freed Archie from his baby seat, and waited as Matt came round to unstrap the seat and carry it to the porch. 'So I'll be busy. Uncle Sebastian's coming to see you, Archie!' she added, bouncing the baby in her arms, keeping her eyes anywhere but on Matt's tense face.

  'Sebastian? The lanky dark haired boy at the cocktail bar?' His tone was grim enough to make her back away from him, but she nodded blithely.

  'You’ve got a good memory! He's doing his Masters in Manchester. We keep in touch.’ With a sudden pride-saving flash of inspiration, she added, ‘We started being a bit more than friends just after you and I had our ‘mini-fling’. He's been very supportive.’

  There was a stony silence, and then Matt said,

  'That's a pity. I was going to ask you and Archie to drive back to London with me on Friday afternoon. There's a charity auction dinner at the Hurlingham Club. I was hoping you'd come with me.'

  'Oh, that's a shame. Still, no doubt you'll find someone else to take. Maybe whoever it was who changed your mind about serious relationships?'

  She feared for a moment that Matt was going to explode in a rare show of anger, but controlling his feelings with visible effort he turned away to the car.

  'Have a good trip to Florence,' she called after him casually. 'Ring me next week some time.'

  'You can depend on it,' he said caustically, climbing into the Mercedes and accelerating away with an angry crunch of gravel.

  She stood on the doorstep, watching the car disappearing down the lane, and realising that tears were running down her cheeks.

  She dashed a hand impatiently over her face, and went inside. It was pointless crying over Matt. Crying solved nothing, and it certainly wouldn't wash away the past.

  Chapter Twenty

  The rest of that week passed in a nightmare of pretending everything was all right. Setting herself a punishing schedule, Victoria worked from dawn till night and collapsed into bed in exhaustion every evening.

  By Friday she was almost on her knees, but the prospect of her visitors seemed like a light at the end of a dark tunnel. The company of her old friends was just what she needed. Her tangled problems with Matt could be forgotten. She could recall her happy student days, and relax.

  But her friends were fascinated by Archie. He had grown so rapidly he was almost unrecognisable as the baby they had last seen at the christening. Inevitably the conversation centred around Archie's engaging character, and the mystery of his absent father.

  'He's so beautiful, Vic! He takes after his father, presumably? In colouring, I mean.' Caroline, plump and blond as ever, and in her final year of a drama degree, was the first one to pluck up courage to mention Matt. Watching Victoria building Lego towers for Archie to scatter gleefully across the carpet, she was shaking her head in admiration.

  'It's a silly question really, since he's hardly a brown-eyed redhead like Victoria,' Shelley snapped, tossing back her dark hair scornfully.

  'Well, I never met the infamous Mr Larson,' said Caroline, undaunted, 'but if his son's anything to go by he must be decidedly gorgeous, darling!'

  Shelley was frowning. She had always been the serious one, although after getting a First in biology she had surprised them all by taking a job in a clothes boutique until the right job came along.

  'It doesn't look to me as if Victoria wants to discuss him,' she advised solemnly. 'And if some guy got me pregnant and disappeared without a word I expect I'd feel the same.'

  'Did he never come back?' Caroline pursued relentlessly, leaning back from the fire, her round cheeks scorched red from toasting another tea-cake. Tea-cakes round the fire had been a ritual delight since they had shared their rented house in Exeter, although they’d had to use a gas fire in Exeter. Roundwell Farm’s real fire gave the ritual extra luxury.

  'Oh, give it a rest, Caro!' Shelley said irritably.

  'As a matter of fact,' stated Victoria carefully, spreading half an inch of butter on her tea-cake and avoiding everyone's eyes, 'He did come back. A couple of weeks ago.'

  Caroline's eyes grew rounder. 'He did? Darling, how romantic!' she breathed theatrically. 'And did he know about baby Archie?'

  'Oh, yes, that's the only reason he showed up again. I think he feels a sense of responsibility for his baby son.'

  She found it almost impossible to keep the bitterness from oozing through between every word.

  'So what's his story?' Shelley demanded bluntly, her mouth full of tea-cake, black brows drawn together in a fierce frown. Victoria poured more tea, outwardly unperturbed, aware that Sebastian was gazing moodily into the fire, deliberately not taking part in this conversation. 'Where the hell has he been all this time?'

  'New York. And don't sound so indignant on my behalf, Shelley,' Victoria laughed, sipping her tea with a slightly unsteady hand. 'Just one night doesn't entitle a woman to the remainder of a man's life, you know. And as I never told him he had a son, it’s hard to make out that he’s completely to blame.’

  'So what does he want? He's not trying to take Archie away from you?' Caroline exclaimed, turning pink with indignation.

  'No, no. Of course not!' Victoria's heart turned cold at this suggestion. She was fairly certain Matt had no such intention. This was just Caroline, being typically melodramatic. But there again, she wasn't quite sure exactly what he did want, in the long term. Did he still have a relationship with this woman he had fallen in love with? And if so, could he possibly have some idea of taking Archie to live with them? The thoughts whirled endlessly, torturing her.

  Sebastian appeared to be watching her with gathering tension, like a man with something important to say who doesn't know quite how to begin. Later on the Saturday, he confided his thoughts to her while they were all out for a walk. Caroline and Shelley were up ahead of them, hand in hand with Archie in his duffel-coat, bright red bobble hat and scarf, swinging him between them and making him giggle with delight.

  'I finish my course at the end of this year,' Sebastian began, hesitantly, 'One of my papers was very well received at a conference in Mexico. They might even publish it. When I get my doctorate,
I can either look for a job in industry, or I may be offered a research post in California.' He stopped, his blue eyes searching her face for response. 'It's a secure position. The money's not as good as in industry, but it would be a good life out there. If you could stand the suffocating academic life…' Victoria was staring at him in surprise. 'I'd love it if you and Archie came with me,' he finished in a rush, flushing slightly.

  She felt deeply touched. Sebastian had kept in constant contact, admittedly, but in all the time they had known each other he'd kissed her once or twice, but seemed to accept her insistence on a platonic relationship. He had been one of several men at university who'd tried to talk her into bed but been rebuffed. Most of the others had been too annoyed by her prudishness to pursue a friendship, but Sebastian had stayed impressively loyal. He had asked her to marry him once before, when she had first discovered she was pregnant. But she had put that down to his chivalry. She'd never dreamt he might still feel that way towards her.