Bittersweet Deception

by Liz Fielding

  Jay followed the doctor from the room, returning a while later with a tray. ‘I haven’t had any lunch so I thought I’d have some with you. Nancy’s chicken soup.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jay.’

  He glanced up. ‘Sorry?’ A pulse was beating fiercely at his temple. ‘Why are you sorry?’

  ‘About the baby. I should have taken precautions. I just didn’t think…’

  ‘On the whole, I think I prefer you when you’re not thinking. Did I ask you to take precautions?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘In that case allow me to take responsibility for my own actions.’ He stared at her. ‘Unless, of course, you don’t want my child?’

  ‘Not want…?’ Words failed her. She flung back the covers and struggled to her feet. ‘Damn you, Jay Warwick. Damn you. This is my child too! How dare you suggest I don’t want him?’ He caught her before she had taken a step and held her sobbing in his arms. ‘I’ve messed up your life, Jay. How could I have been so stupid?’ He picked her up and laid her back on the bed. ‘This doesn’t change anything. I’m going in September.’

  ‘Him?’ He laid his hand upon her stomach. ‘You’re so certain it’s a boy? It’s odd, but I was sure of a girl with black hair and grey eyes, just like her mother.’

  ‘You knew?’ She sighed. ‘I tried to be so quiet when I was sick.’

  ‘I knew before then, Kate.’

  ‘But you couldn’t. I didn’t know myself…’

  He pushed aside the creamy silk of her nightgown and cradled her breasts in his hands. They were fuller, lightly veined, different. No longer the breasts of an untried girl, but those of a woman. ‘They are quite beautiful.’ He bent and kissed each firm peak before covering her once more and pulling the sheet over her.

  It was hard. But she had to say it now. Straight away. ‘I mean it, Jay. I planned to go before you found out about the baby. This makes no difference.’

  ‘You won’t believe you said that when she’s crying in the middle of the night,’ he warned her.

  ‘He!’ Jay laughed. God, but she loved him so much. ‘You made Annabel a promise, Jay. You must keep it.’

  ‘On the subject of Annabel, I think you should see this.’ He produced a stiff white card from his pocket.

  She took the card. ‘What is this?’

  ‘An invitation to her wedding.’

  She felt the blood drain from her face. He was so matter-of-fact. Annabel had seen him married to her and this was her response.

  ‘Jay, you must tell her!’

  ‘Tell her what?’ he murmured. He had stretched out alongside her and was busy kissing her fingers. His lips were already moving to her wrist and she had to stop him.

  ‘No! You can’t let this happen!’

  He looked up. ‘Let what happen?’ As the tears flowed once more he was all concern. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘I can’t let you do this. Go to her. Tell her that in a few months you’ll be free…’

  ‘I think Charlie Mountjoy would take a dim view of that. And while Annabel would doubtless find the whole story amusing, I can assure you she’s not about to take me under her duvet.’ He pulled a face. ‘I never could see the attraction of three in a bed…’ He smiled lazily down at her. ‘Well, not if one of the other two is a bloke.’

  ‘Stop trying to make a joke of it! I’m being serious, for heaven’s sake. You accused me of making a martyr of myself—well, I’m not about to let you do the same.’

  ‘Let me assure you, my love, that I’m thoroughly enjoying the sacrifice.’

  ‘Jay, this is hard enough.’ She turned away from him while she regained control. ‘Just let me go away. No one will even notice.’ She turned back, a bright smile fixed to her lips. ‘I’ve been to look at some places in Suffolk. You were right, you know, about a country restaurant.’ She sniffed. ‘I really loved Beccles…’

  His harsh execration on that charming town made her gasp. ‘You are my wife, Kate. You are carrying my child. Do you think I would have married you if I loved someone else? Dear God! If you think that, no wonder you can’t wait to get away from me.’

  ‘But you said. We agreed. It was to be just an affair. Until September.’

  ‘But I have every intention of taking up my option to renew. Didn’t you know that? Sweet, noble Kate, prepared to sacrifice all happiness on the altar of family duty and who would even now stand aside for a rival.’ He drew her into the circle of his arms. ‘You have no rival, my darling.’

  A long time later he raised his head. ‘I was going to ask you to marry me that night. I had the champagne all ready.’ Kate remembered the bottle cooling on the sideboard. ‘I couldn’t sleep after you had gone. I lay hour after hour wondering what on earth I was going to do about you and then it was all so blazingly obvious. I wanted you forever. And I had the feeling you might prove resistant to the idea. I knew that I would have to convince you that I would take on a whole chorus of sisters if you came with them.’ He rocked her gently in his arms. ‘I took myself quite by surprise.’

  ‘You’re taking me that way, right now,’ she whispered.

  ‘That David really did a job on you, didn’t he? It must have seemed so easy to hide behind Sam.’ He cradled her softly in his arms. ‘And like an idiot I fell for it. Until you went out with Mike. That gave me pause for thought. I was beginning to understand you a little and I knew you had some strong attachment to Sam, whoever he was. And I didn’t believe for one moment you would go out with one man when you were in love with another. So I changed my tactics. Gave you some space. Tried being gallant. I had the feeling you were almost disappointed…’

  ‘I didn’t notice much thinking, Jay Warwick,’ she retaliated. ‘You took very precipitate action, as I recall.’

  ‘Can you blame me? The thought of Mike Howard kissing you… Then Sam fell into the lake and—’

  ‘I fell into your bed.’

  ‘I came racing back across the Atlantic, convinced that you were a ripe plum, ready for the plucking.’ He shook his head at her sharp intake of breath. ‘Shocking, I know. I’m ashamed of myself. I didn’t even stop over in London. I drove straight up here and there you were, tucked up warm and willing in my bed and me half dead from exhaustion—’

  ‘Are you saying you threw me out because you were tired?’

  A smile trembled on his lips. ‘I promise you that I wasn’t that tired, my love, but I do have certain standards of performance to maintain.’ She gasped. Then pushed him away as he laughed out loud. He pulled her back into his arms and held her close. ‘No. Oh, darling, no. But when you put your arms around my neck, all trembling innocence, and said, “Love me, Jay,” I almost fell apart. I didn’t think I could ever love anyone again. I knew then that I had to have you for ever. Because I do love you, Kate. With all my heart. Quite an admission from an old cynic like me. Can you believe it?’

  She held her breath, for a moment unable to speak with happiness. Then she lifted her head to look at him, a little furrow creasing her brow. ‘But you spent the night before the wedding with Annabel.’

  ‘With Annabel’s parents. I had to stay somewhere. It wouldn’t have done for us to have shared the same breakfast-table on the morning of our wedding. Shockingly bad luck. And the Courtneys are old friends. She had come down for the wedding too.’

  ‘She really does want to marry someone else?’

  ‘I imagine so. She never did anything that she hadn’t organised with military precision.’

  Kate picked up the invitation. ‘Charles Mountjoy? Wasn’t there a divorce a few months ago?’

  ‘Yes, but nothing messy. He and Annabel have been seeing one another for years. Very quietly. Whenever interest in Annabel’s doings became uncomfortably public I was hauled in to squire her about a bit. Put the news hounds off the scent. I insisted she return the favour by doing her level best to make you jealous.’

  ‘She did, Jay. Oh, she did.’

  ‘She was less than pleased to have her c
onvenient escort hijacked by you, I can tell you.’

  She recalled the overheard conversation. Now he had explained, it all had a completely different meaning. ‘Well, she can’t have you back.’ She paused. ‘But you already told her that, didn’t you?’

  He gave a sharp exclamation. ‘You overheard us?’

  She nodded. ‘I thought you had gone back to her, when I saw you this morning on the television.’

  ‘That was work, Kate. I love you. There aren’t any other words to describe the way I feel about you.’ But before she could tell him that she felt the same way he had moved on. ‘Now tell me all about this restaurant in Beccles.’

  ‘What restaurant?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never heard of Beccles.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s a relief. I was beginning to worry how you were going to run it, run Fullerton Hall and have a baby as well. And you should know that Annabel has worked everyone up into a furore of excitement about doing a television series from this kitchen. She seems to think she will have you to convince me.’ He seemed a little tense as he waited for her response.

  ‘I hope you told them that it was impossible.’ She reached out and touched his cheek. ‘I want you, Jay Warwick, not a television career.’

  He caught her face between his hands and kissed her. ‘Will you stay, Kate?’

  She lay back against the pillows and smiled very slowly. ‘Why don’t you ask me again in September?’

  * * *

  Kate opened the church door. The scent of chrysanthemums from the floral display near the altar mingled with dust and old hymn books. The light filtering through the stained glass of the main window was subdued but she could see Jay standing before the altar just as he had on their wedding-day, not turning, although he must have heard her.

  She walked up the aisle, the sound of her footsteps echoing around the high ceiling. She had been by herself that day too. Then the church had been full and expectant, bursting with music and Jay had been waiting near the altar, staring ahead in that fixed way, not turning until at last she had stood beside him.

  ‘Jay?’ Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. ‘What are you doing? Nancy said you wanted to see me in here.’

  He turned to her then, his face grave. ‘It’s the last day of September, Kate.’

  ‘Jay—’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the day we came here to be married. All those people watching us make our vows. I wonder what they would have thought if they had known that I had bullied you into marriage and that you would have done anything to have been a thousand miles away from me that day.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? I knew that I loved you, I was sure you loved me, but it wasn’t quite what it should have been, was it?’

  She lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Jay. I spoilt everything.’

  ‘No. If there’s blame to be apportioned I have no doubt the scales would be weighted rather more heavily on my side than on yours. I behaved very badly to you. Made assumptions about your character I had no right to make, except that even as I saw you in Harry Roberts’ arms I felt something very like jealousy. Quite a shock to my system. And you took your revenge, so subtly that I might never have known but for Sam’s accident. I underestimated you. Something, believe me, Kate, that I shall never do again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been sitting here for hours, wondering what I would do if you decided after all that you didn’t want to stay.’

  ‘I—’ He stopped her, covering her mouth with his fingers.

  ‘Let me finish.’ He turned to face her, taking both her hands in his. ‘Kate Warwick, before God, in this place, I want you to know that I love you with all my heart. I promise to love you and honour you all my days. Now I am asking you, will you stay with me as my wife? Be the mother of my children?’

  The church, the coloured light from the stained glass windows, the flowers, all ran and blended into a ripple of colour as her eyes filled with tears. He had once demanded tears of happiness. Now, at last, they spilled down her cheeks. She blinked and looked up at him.

  ‘Jay Warwick, before God, in this place, I want you to know that my heart, my soul, my life are yours. For as long as you want me.’

  For a moment they both stood a little breathless and bemused. Then he leaned forward and touched her lips with his. ‘Forever, my love. Until death us do part.’

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 9781460392201

  Bittersweet Deception

  Copyright © 1995 Liz Fielding

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