Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  “Well, I imagine you’re feeling a good bit better.” Too high to be disgusted, he’d staggered to his feet then held out a hand. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

  To Emma’s amazement there had been no beating, no cruel pinches or sudden smacks. Instead he had stripped them both down to the skin in the bathroom, then hauled her into the shower. He’d even sung as the water had poured over them, something about drunken sailors that had made her forget to be sick.

  When they were both bundled in towels, he had woven his way to her room to slip her into bed. His hair had been wet and sleek around his face as he’d fallen over the foot of the bed. Within seconds, he’d been snoring.

  Cautious, Emma had crawled out from under the covers to sit beside him. Gathering her courage, she’d leaned over and pressed a damp kiss to his cheek. In love for the first time, she had tucked Charlie under Brian’s limp arm, and gone quietly to sleep.

  Then he had gone away. Only days after the wedding the big car had come, and two men had carried out luggage. He had kissed her and had promised to bring her a present. Emma had only been able to watch wordlessly as he’d ridden away, and out of her life. She hadn’t believed he was coming back, even when she heard his voice over the phone. Bev said he was in America where girls screamed every time they saw him, and people bought his records almost as fast as they were made.

  But while he was gone, there wasn’t as much music in the house, and sometimes Bev cried.

  Emma remembered Jane crying, and the smacks and shoves that had usually accompanied the tears. So she waited, but Bev never hit her, not even at night when the workmen were gone and they were all alone in the big house.

  Day after day, Emma would cuddle up on the window seat with Charlie and watch. She liked to pretend that the long, black car was cruising down the drive, and when it stopped and the door opened, her da came out.

  Each day when it didn’t come, she became more certain it never would. He had left because he didn’t like her, didn’t want her. Because she was a nuisance and bloody stupid. She waited for Bev to go away too, and leave her alone in the big house. Then her mam would come.

  WHAT WENT ON IN the girl’s mind? Bev wondered. From the doorway she watched as Emma sat in her now habitual position on the window seat. The child could sit for hours, patient as an old woman. It was rare for her to play with anything except the ratty old stuffed dog she’d brought with her. It was rarer still for her to ask for anything.

  She’d been in their lives now for almost a month, and Bev was a long way from resolving her feelings.

  Only a few weeks before, her plans had been perfectly laid. She wanted Brian to succeed, certainly. But more, she wanted to make a home and family with him.

  She’d been raised in the Church of England, in a calm, upper-middle-class family. Morals, responsibilities, and image had been important parts of her upbringing. She’d been given a good, solid education with the idea that she would make a sensible marriage and raise solid, sensible children.

  She had never rebelled, mostly because it had never occurred to her to rebel. Until Brian.

  She knew that although her parents had come to the wedding, they would never completely forgive her for moving in with Brian and living with him before marriage. Nor would they ever comprehend why she had chosen to marry an Irish musician who not only questioned authority but wrote songs defying it.

  There had been no doubt that they had been appalled and baffled by Brian’s illegitimate child, and their daughter’s acceptance of her. Yet, what could she do? The child existed.

  Bev loved her parents. A part of her would always desperately want their approval. But she loved Brian more, so much more that it was sometimes terrifying. And the child was his. Whatever she had wanted, whatever her plans had been, that meant the child was now hers as well.

  It was difficult to look at Emma and not feel something. She wasn’t a child who faded into the woodwork no matter how quiet and unobtrusive she tried to be. It was her looks, certainly. Those same elegantly angelic looks of her father. More, it was that sense of innocence, an innocence that was in itself a miracle considering how the child had lived the first three years of her life. An innocence, and an acceptance, Bev thought. She knew if she walked into the room right now, shouting, slapping, Emma would tolerate the abuse with barely a whimper. That struck Bev as more tragic than the miserable poverty she’d been saved from.

  Brian’s child. Instinctively Bev laid a hand over the life she carried. She’d wanted so desperately to give Brian his first child. That wasn’t to be. Yet every time she felt resentment, she had only to look at Emma for it to fade. How could she resent someone so utterly vulnerable? Still she couldn’t bring herself to love, not as unquestioningly, as automatically, as Brian loved.

  She didn’t want to love, Bev admitted. This was another woman’s child, a link that would forever remind her of Brian’s intimacy with someone else. Five years ago or ten, it didn’t matter. As long as there was Emma, Jane would be a part of their lives.

  Brian had been the first man she’d slept with, and though she had known when they’d become involved that there had been others for him, it had been easy to block it out, to tell herself that their coming together had been an initiation for them both.

  Dammit, why had he had to leave now, when everything was in upheaval? There was this child slipping around the house like a shadow. There were workmen hammering and sawing hour after hour. And there was the press. It was as ugly as Brian had warned her it would be, with headlines screaming his name, and hers, and Jane’s. How she hated, how she detested, seeing her picture and Jane’s on the same page of a paper. How she loathed those nasty, gloating little stories about new wives and old lovers.

  It didn’t fade quickly, as she had prayed it would. There was speculation and questions about the most personal areas of her life. She was Mrs. Brian McAvoy now, and public property. She had told herself countless times that because marrying Brian was what she wanted most, she would be able to tolerate the public dissections, the lack of freedom, the smirking headlines.

  And she would. Somehow. But when he was away like this, thousands of miles away, she wondered how she could bear a lifetime of being photographed and hounded, of running away from microphones, of wearing wigs and sunglasses to do something as ordinary as buy shoes. She wondered if Brian would ever understand how humiliating it was for her to see something as intimate as her pregnancy splashed in headlines for strangers to read over their morning tea.

  She couldn’t laugh at the stories when he wasn’t with her, and she couldn’t ignore them. So she rarely left the house when he was gone. In less than two weeks, the home she had envisioned for them with its cozy rooms and sunny windows had become a prison. One she shared with Brian’s child.

  But she was enough her parents’ daughter to know her duty, and to execute it unwaveringly.

  “Emma.” Bev fixed a bright smile on her face as Emma turned. “I thought you might be ready for your tea.”

  There was nothing Emma recognized quicker or distrusted more than a fake smile. “I’m not hungry,” she said and gripped Charlie tighter.

  “I guess I’m not, either.” If they were stuck there together, Bev decided, at least they could talk to each other. “It’s hard to have a nice tea with all the hammering going on.” Taking the step, she sat on the window seat beside Emma. “This is a nice spot. I think I should plant more roses, though. Don’t you?”

  Emma’s lip poked out a little as she moved her shoulders.

  “We had a lovely garden when I was a girl,” Bev continued desperately. “I used to love to go out in the summer with a book and listen to the bees hum. Sometimes I wouldn’t read at all, but just dream. It’s funny, the first time I heard Brian’s voice, I was in the garden.”

  “Did he live with you?”

  She had Emma’s attention now, Bev thought. It only took a mention of Brian’s name. “No. It was over the radio. It was their first single—’Shadowl
and.’ It went … ’At night, midnight, when shadows hug the moon.’” Bev started the tune in her soft lilt, then stopped when Emma picked it up in a clear, surprisingly strong alto.

  “‘And the land is hot and still, breathless I wait for you.’”

  “Yes, that’s the one.” Without realizing it, Bev reached out to stroke Emma’s hair. “I felt he was singing it just for me. I’m sure every girl did.”

  Emma said nothing for a moment, remembering how her mother had played it over and over on the record player, drinking and weeping while the words had echoed around the flat. “Did you like him because he sang the song?”

  “Yes. But after I met him, I liked him much more.”

  “Why did he go away?”

  “His music, his work.” Bev glanced down to see Emma’s big eyes shiny with tears. Here was kinship, where she hadn’t wanted or expected it. “Oh, Emma, I miss him too, but he’ll be home in a few weeks.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back?”

  It was foolish, but Bev sometimes woke with that same awful fear in the middle of the night. “Of course he will. A man like Brian needs people to listen to his music, and he needs to be there while they do. He’ll often go away, but he’ll always come back. He loves you, and he loves me.” As much for comfort as to comfort, she took Emma’s hand. “And there’s one more thing. Do you know where babies come from?”

  “Men stick them in ladies, but then they don’t want them.”

  Bev broke off an oath. She could cheerfully have throttled Jane at that moment. Although Bev’s own mother had always been reserved, unable to speak of intimacy in more than a vague fashion, Bev firmly believed in openness. “Men and women who love each other make babies together, and most of the time they both want them very much. I have a baby right here.” She pressed Emma’s hand against her stomach. “Your father’s baby. When it’s born, it will be your brother or sister.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Emma slid her hand over Bev’s stomach. She didn’t see how there could be a baby in there. Mrs. Perkins across the alley had had a big bloated belly before little Donald had come.

  “Where is it?”

  “Inside. It’s very, very small now. It has almost six months more to grow before it’s time for it to come out.”

  “Will it like me?”

  “I think so. Brian will be its da just like he’s your da.”

  Enchanted, Emma began to stroke Bev’s stomach as she sometimes stroked Charlie. “I’ll take good care of the baby. No one will hurt it.”

  “No, no one will hurt it.” With a sigh, Bev slipped an arm around Emma’s shoulders and looked out toward the hedgerow. This time Emma didn’t inch away, but sat still, fascinated, one hand over Bev’s stomach.

  “I’m a little afraid of being a mum, Emma. Maybe you can let me practice on you.”

  After a deep breath, Bev stood up, bringing Emma with her. “We’re going to start right now. Let’s go up and put on your pretty pink dress. We’re going out to tea.” The hell with reporters, the hell with starers and gawkers. “We’re going to make ourselves into the two prettiest ladies in London and have our tea at the Ritz.”

  FOR EMMA IT was the beginning of her first relationship with another female that wasn’t based on fear or intimidation. Over the following days, they shopped at Harrods, walked in Green Park, and lunched at the Savoy. Bev ignored the photographers who snapped them. When she discovered Emma’s love of beautiful materials and bright colors, she indulged them shamelessly. Within two weeks, the little girl who had come to her with only the shirt on her back had a closet bulging with clothes.

  But at night the loneliness crept back, when each lay in bed pining for the same man.

  Emma’s longings were more direct. She wanted Brian to come back because he made her feel good. Love wasn’t something she’d learned to define or agonize over.

  But Bev agonized. She worried that he would grow tired of her, that he would find someone more in step with the world he lived in. She missed the good, strong sex they shared. It was so easy to believe he would always love her, always be with her during that calm drugging time after love and before sleep. But now, alone in the big brass bed, she would wonder if he filled up his loneliness with women as well as music.

  The sky was just beginning to lighten when the phone rang. Bev groped for it on the third ring. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Hello.”

  “Bev.” Brian’s voice was urgent.

  Instantly awake, she shot up in bed. “Bri. What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. Everything. We’re a smash, Bev.” There was a dazed and dashing edge to his laughter. “Every night the crowds get bigger. They’ve had to double security to keep the girls from flinging themselves on stage. It’s wild, Bev. Insane. Tonight one of them grabbed Stevie’s sleeve as we were making the dash for the limo. Ripped his coat clean off. The press is calling us vanguards of the second wave of the British invasion. Vanguards.”

  Sinking back onto the pillows, Bev struggled to drum up enthusiasm. “That’s wonderful, Brian. There’ve been some snippets on the telly here, but not much to go by.”

  “It’s like being a gladiator, standing there onstage and listening to the roars.” He didn’t think he could explain, even to her, the thrill and the terror. “I think even Pete was impressed.”

  Bev smiled thinking of his pragmatic, business-first-and-last manager. “Then you must be something.”

  “Yeah.” He drew on the joint he had lit to extend the high. “I wish you were here.”

  She heard the background noises, loud music, male and female laughter mixed with it. “So do I.”

  “Then come.” He pushed away a blonde, half naked and glazed-eyed, who tried to crawl into his lap. “Pack a bag and fly over.”

  “What?”

  “I mean it. It’s not half as good as it would be if you were here.” Across the room a brunette, nearly six feet tall, slowly stripped. Stevie, the lead guitarist, popped a Quaalude like rock candy. “Look, I know we talked about it and decided it was best for you to stay home, but we were wrong. You need to be here, with me.”

  She felt tears well in her eyes even as laughter bubbled. “You want me to come to America?”

  “As soon as you can. You can meet us in New York in—shit. Johnno, when are we in New York?”

  Sprawled on a couch, Johnno poured the last of the Jim Beam. “Where the fuck are we now?”

  “Never mind.” Brian rubbed his tired eyes and tried to concentrate. His mind was bloaty with booze and smoke. “I’ll get Pete to work out the details. Just pack.”

  She was already out of bed. “What should I do with Emma?”

  “Bring her, too.” On a burst of family feeling, Brian grinned at the blonde. “Pete will figure out how to get her a passport. Someone will call you this afternoon and tell you what to do. Christ, I miss you, Bev.”

  “I miss you, too. We’ll be there as soon as we can. I love you, Bri, more than anything.”

  “I love you. Talk to you soon.”

  Moody and restless, Brian reached for the brandy bottle the moment he’d hung up. He wanted her with him now, not a day from now, not an hour from now. Just listening to her voice had him hard and hurting.

  She had sounded just as she had on the night he’d met her, shy, a little hesitant. She’d been so sweetly out of place in the smoky pub where his band had been playing. Yet even with the shyness, there had been something so solid, so true about her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, not that night, not any night since.

  He lifted the brandy and drank deeply. It seemed as though the brunette and Stevie weren’t going to bother to move to the privacy of one of the bedrooms to have sex. The blonde had given up on Johnno and was rubbing her long, limber body against P.M., their drummer.

  Half amused, half envious, Brian drank again. P.M. was barely twenty-one, his face still round and youthful with its sprinkle of acne on the chin. He looked both appalled and de
lighted as the blonde slid down to bury her face in his lap.

  Brian closed his eyes, and with music filling his head, fell asleep.

  He dreamed of Bev, and the first night they had spent together. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his flat, talking earnestly, about music, about poetry. Yeats and Byron and Browning. Dreamily passing a joint back and forth. He’d had no idea it had been her first encounter with drugs. Just as he’d had no idea, until he had slipped into her, there on the floor with the candles guttering in their own wax, that it was her first encounter with sex.

  She’d wept a little. Instead of making him feel guilty, her tears had brought out feelings of protectiveness. He’d fallen completely, and somehow poetically, in love. That had been more than a year ago, but he had never been with another woman during that time. Whenever the temptation came strongly, he would see Bev’s face.

  The marriage had been for her, and the child, his child, she carried. He didn’t believe in marriage, the foolishness of a contract on love, but he didn’t feel trapped. For the first time since his miserable childhood, he had something more than music to comfort and excite him.

  I love you more than anything.

  No, he couldn’t say that to her with the ease and honesty she could say it to him. He probably would never be able to say that to her. But he did love, and where he loved, he was loyal.

  “Come on, my lad.” Barely rousing him, Johnno dragged Brian to his feet. “It’s bed for you.”