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‘Why?’ she challenged her. ‘Because you thought of it with me?’
Amber couldn’t speak for her guilt.
‘You did, didn’t you?’ Emerald guessed. ‘You wanted to get rid of me? Perhaps you should have done.’
‘Emerald, no. You mustn’t say that. And no, I did not want…there was never any question of me not having you, never.’
There it was again, that weird feeling of panic and pain and longing for something almost within reach that she couldn’t allow herself to stretch out for.
Alessandro’s mother would, of course, want her to have her pregnancy terminated. In fact, Emerald was pretty sure she would try to insist upon it, which was enough to fill Emerald with a stubborn determination not to do so. If Alessandro’s mother did not want her to have the child, then she would have it just to spite her.
‘If I do have it, then it will be up to you to look after it because I certainly don’t intend to.’
Rose looked at her watch, and then increased her pace, shielding her eyes from the brilliance of the late afternoon autumn sun. Leaves from the trees in Cadogan Place had drifted up against the railings separating the private gardens from the pavement and Rose had a momentary childish desire to kick her feet through them to enjoy the crisp sound. Inside her head she could see herself as a little girl walking down the drive at Denham in the autumn, her hand placed trustingly in her aunt Amber’s hold as the two of them shuffled their feet through the crisp golden leaves that had fallen from the beech trees lining the drive. She could almost smell them now, their dry scent mingling with her aunt’s rose and almond perfume, the October sky bright blue overhead, and the sun shining down through the bare branches. She’d been off school with some childhood ailment–tonsillitis, Rose suspected, as she had been prone to it at one time–and so she had had the luxury of having her aunt to herself for a few precious hours. She could still remember how happy she had felt, so much so that she thought she could almost reach out and touch that innocent childhood joy. She had felt so safe then, with her hand in her aunt’s so secure, so sure that she had her love. Then! Now she would soon be seeing Amber. She had been on tenterhooks all week since she had made the decision to open her heart to her aunt and to beg her for her help and understanding.
She had known for weeks that she would have to do something. She was missing the bond she had shared with Amber dreadfully, and now with her aunt up in London there could be no better time for Rose to put aside her pride and admit to her how desperately confused and unhappy she was and how much she needed to know why her aunt had kept from her the fact that she and John might be brother and sister. Her need for her aunt’s love was, she recognised, greater than her desire to reject her.
She hurried into Sloane Square, pausing automatically to examine the window displays in Peter Jones before crossing to the King’s Road and heading for home. She had deliberately taken the long way, nervous about what lay ahead and wanting to delay it, whilst at the same time walking faster to bring it closer.
When eventually she turned into Cheyne Walk she said a small prayer under her breath that all would go well, that her aunt would understand, and that they could be close once again.
Unusually, the familiarity of the Chelsea house, with its dusty, faintly musty smell of old building and Thames water, overlaid with the scent of the girls, failed to comfort Amber as she sank into one of the sitting-room sofas and tried not to let herself think about Emerald. She desperately wanted to think of something she could say or do that would ensure that her daughter had her baby, not for her own sake–never that–but because with a mother’s conviction she knew that Emerald would suffer terribly if she did not.
Amber had seen what going through the termination of a pregnancy did to a woman’s body and her heart. She had seen it at first hand through a dear friend who had never quite recovered.
She heard the front door to the house being opened and sighed to herself. She loved her stepdaughters and her niece, but right now all she could think about was Emerald. If only Jay were here…
‘Aunt Amber.’
‘Rose.’ Amber gave her niece a distracted smile, as they exchanged hugs.
The familiarity of her aunt’s scent and the comforting warmth of her hold made Rose want to stay where she was, safe and protected, just as she had always believed she was as a child.
Was it her fault that Emerald was the way she was, Amber meanwhile worried. Had she given too much love to Rose and not tried hard enough to give just as much to the daughter who had always rejected that love? The burden of her own guilt was unbearably heavy right now.
‘Aunt Amber, I’m glad it’s just the two of us. You see, there’s something I want to ask you, something about my future. And…and my past.’
But before she could say more, her aunt had stood up and was shaking her head.
‘Not now, Rose, please. I’ve just seen Emerald and she’s…well, I’m just so dreadfully worried about her. In fact, I think I really ought to go and telephone Jay. Excuse me.’
Rose stared after her aunt as she went into the hall and picked up the telephone, feeling as though her heart had been turned to stone. No, not stone; stone didn’t feel anything and her heart felt as though it was being ripped apart.
Well, at least now she knew one part of the truth. She couldn’t blame her aunt for loving Emerald more than she did her, could she? After all, Emerald was her daughter, and she was…she was nothing.
Chapter Thirty
It was another month before Emerald finally put her mother out of her misery by announcing that she intended to keep the baby.
Amber broke the news to Ella, Janey and Rose on a wet early November afternoon. Rose had to swallow against her own bitter feelings. No wonder her aunt no longer had any time for her.
‘But Mama, won’t it be really uncomfortable for Emerald to have a baby and no husband?’ Ella pointed out anxiously.
‘Their marriage may have been annulled for religious reasons but that doesn’t alter the fact that Emerald and Alessandro were married,’ Amber answered, sticking to the line that she and Jay had already agreed upon. ‘Emerald will have her family to support her, and her situation won’t be so very different from that of the many young widows with small children the war left behind it. Now, you’ll all be coming home to Denham for Christmas, of course, and we shall have an extra special celebration this year with a new baby to welc
ome into the family in February.’
Rose dipped her head. The last thing she wanted to do now was spend Christmas at Denham.
