At Alex’s cottage, the yellow sports car was nowhere to be seen. A stranger opened the front door: a woman in her fifties, looking me up and down with hostile eyes.
“Are you Ruth?” she asked.
“No!” I bit back an incredulous laugh. “Where’s Alex?”
He appeared from around the side of the cottage, tugging a pair of gardening gloves off his hands.
“Laura. Hi.”
The woman folded her arms and continued to stare at me. I pressed my bag more tightly to my side.
“Can we talk? In private?” I asked him.
The flash of hope in his eyes made my stomach turn over. I followed him into the low-ceilinged cottage, through a small living room to an even tinier room at the back. It smelled of new paint, and there was a cot in the corner, made up with fresh white bedding and a brightly colored crib bumper. A baby bath and changing mat sat on the floor next to it, alongside packets of nappies and a soft toy rabbit. My mouth fell open, but no words came out. He closed the door.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I swallowed. “It’s... I wasn’t expecting...”
He wound a dial on the cot mobile, and a tinkly lullaby tune filled the room as the teddy bears on the hanging frame rotated.
“I’ve done the same at home in Leeds,” he said over the music. “A bigger room there, of course. And I’ve bought a family-friendly car. But we’ll play it by ear. If the child is safe at Summerbourne, then he or she can just come here for short visits at first.”
He finally read the shock in my expression.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “The woman out there—she’s a private midwife. She’s going to help me in the early days. I’m not leaving anything to chance.”
I handed him Ruth’s note, and stood by the window as he read it. A scruffy blackbird darted out from the undergrowth and snatched a worm from the freshly turned earth of a flower bed. A noise of contempt accompanied the scrunching of paper behind me.
“She still thinks I might back down?” he said.
I turned slowly. “She hopes you will.”
“How can I?”
I shook my head, but his hand shot out suddenly and grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me closer until his face was only inches from mine.
“You’ve got to help me, Laura. She’s not rational. I’m afraid she’s going to hurt the baby.”
I tried to jerk my arm from his grasp, recognizing in his expression the same wild desperation I had seen in Ruth’s when she read his letters.
“You’ve got to tell me,” he said. “The moment it’s born. Do you understand? I need to know as soon as it happens.”
“Let go of me!”
He blinked, and released his grip. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But promise you’ll tell me.”
I backed toward the door, rubbing my wrist. He was just as deluded, just as irrational as she was. All this time I hadimagined a compromise could be reached—that I could help them reach it, even, and they would both be grateful. How naive I was; how immature and useless.
“I’m going home, Alex.”
His forehead creased. “Okay.”
“I mean I’m resigning. Going back to London. Dominic’s on annual leave next week, and then there’ll be his paternity leave. They don’t need me anymore.”
His eyes widened. “You can’t. You can’t leave. I need your help.”
For a split second I was tempted to close the gap between us; to take hold of his hand and promise to help him; to tell him we could do this together. We could look after this baby together. Me and him.
