AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Tea.’ He put the cup and saucer on a low table within easy reach. ‘There’s more in the pot if you want it.’ His voice was bleak as he fetched his jacket, the expression on his face making her feel utterly wretched.
The sight of her feeding their baby had filled him with what had to be disgust. She didn’t think she could bear it but knew she had to. The man was so anti-children he had even threatened to end his relationship with the only woman he had ever loved if she went against his wishes and fell pregnant.
The sound of the outer door closing behind him was almost a relief. He was leaving. He should never have come. As she heard the Jaguar’s engine purr into life tears poured helplessly down her face.
She and her baby filled him with such revulsion he couldn’t stand being around them for a moment longer. He had left and she didn’t have the remotest idea why he’d come here in the first place.
All she knew was she wished he hadn’t. He’d opened up wounds that had at last begun to heal over. The result was more painful than she could have believed possible.
Life had to go on, Mattie told herself as she closed the nursery door on the sleeping infant. For six months she’d known that her future and James’ were to run along separate tracks. And she’d got on with it, hadn’t she?
There’d been a few minor hiccups, like the time when she’d had to change a fuse and hadn’t known how to do it. It had taken her hours of trial and error to manage it. But on the whole she’d surprised herself by her ability to cope with things that had demanded she haul the almost non-existent practical side of her brain into use when it had come to the crunch.
So she would cope again. Put James’ brief and unheralded appearance down to one of those brickbats life had the habit of throwing at you from time to time and settle down to healing her battered heart all over again.
This time it would be easier because she had their baby to claim her time and attention, she decided staunchly as she changed into a man-sized sweatshirt and a pair of jogging pants that had that mercy of mercies, an elasticated waist. The huge bump had gone, of course, but as far as her waist was concerned there was still a way to go.
Thankfully James had changed the bedlinen. The duvet cover smelled of the fabric softener she used. She couldn’t face the thought of having to wrestle with bedding herself right now and she wouldn’t have slept a wink if his tantalising male scent had kept her company.
As it was, the knowledge that he had slept in her room, in her bed, sent prickles tumbling all over her skin and she wouldn’t let herself remember what it had been like when they’d shared a bed for so many long, ecstatic nights.
She would not!
Lunch was toast and some pâté she’d found in the well-stocked fridge. She wasn’t really hungry but knew she had to eat. She had her daughter to care for and Chloe’s welfare was paramount. It would be the worst kind of betrayal if she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity.
At least she wouldn’t have to go shopping for supplies for a week or more; her father and Emily had stocked up with enough food to feed a small army. And before then she’d have to work out how to fix the baby seat into the back of her car. It had an alarming number of straps and buckles and the diagrams and instructions that had come with the contraption looked unintelligible to her.
If James had still been here she would have swallowed her pride and asked him to do it for her.
But he wasn’t.
The afternoon passed in a hectic round of feeds, nappy changes, de-burping sessions, culminating at teatime with a gentle all-over wash in the plastic bath on the kitchen table and yet another feed.
By five o’clock Mattie was exhausted. Too done in to even think about beginning to cook for herself, she threw a few more logs on the fire, sank into the welcoming depths of the sofa and began to have serious doubts.
Was she really capable of taking on the sole responsibility of caring for this new little life? And what if little Chloe became ill? Would she recognise the difference between a wail of hunger and a cry of pain? Was she fit to be a mother at all?
Exhaustion was clouding her mind, dragging her down. She might have felt more positive if her father and Emily had stayed around as they had said they would, keeping her company, lending a hand.
But she really mustn’t blame them. They would have thought they’d been doing the right thing when they’d asked James to collect her, stay with her for a while, fondly imagining that he’d take one look at his baby daughter and be overcome by a rush of sentimentality to the head and that they’d all live happily ever after.
They were normal, good people. They would never imagine that he’d be so revolted by the sight of mother and baby that he’d drive back to London and Fiona as if all the demons in hell were on his tail!
She was too tired to cry, almost too tired to register the sound of the key turning in the lock. She stared at him dully as he walked across the room taking off his coat.
‘Sorry to have been so long,’ he apologised tightly as he hung the leather jacket on its accustomed peg. ‘With the shutters closed you won’t have noticed, but it’s practically a white-out out there. A couple of times I thought I’d have to abandon the car and walk back.’
‘I thought you were on your way back to London,’ Mattie said thinly, pulling herself into a more upright position, clasping her hands around her knees.
James bit back an angry expletive. Did she have that much contempt for his character? He pushed his hands through his snow-dampened hair. Now wasn’t the time to pick a fight. When she was stronger the truth was going to come out; whatever it took, he’d get it from her. The time for waitin
g and watching was damn near over, the time for laying his bitter soul bare was almost here.
But right now she looked too frail to take even a breath of contention.
He said, more or less smoothly, ‘I had things to do. It took longer than I’d expected, and the road conditions, particularly in the lanes, held me up. Have you eaten?’ He changed the subject, firming his mouth when she didn’t answer. Her head was bent, her eyes downcast, the flickering firelight making her cheek-bones seem more prominent. Her hair had grown since he’d last seen her. It was scraped back into a kind of band. If it was loose, he guessed, it would reach her shoulders. She looked achingly vulnerable. ‘Then I’ll fix something for both of us,’ he said tightly, swung round on his heels, headed for the kitchen, then turned back.
Something was missing. For once she wasn’t clutching her baby with the fierceness of a mother tiger with her cub. ‘Is the child asleep?’
