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And having disappeared from the scene she'd kept well away from it. No real problem there, either. The pampered only child of wealthy parents, she and her baby would have been well taken care of. She had probably spent the last two and a half years with them at their villa in the south of France where her parents had repaired to spend their early retirement.
But she was back on the scene now, with a vengeance, and no, Charles couldn't have known of Harry's existence until he'd contacted her, explaining that as far as he was concerned his marriage was over. Nothing on earth would have kept his son from him, had he known. And nothing on earth would keep him from him now. Just as nothing would keep him apart from the only woman he had ever loved.
She was shaking all over as she reached her room and, childlike, she bunched her hands into fists and knuckled them to her mouth, biting down on the whitened skin, welcoming the distraction of physical pain. Somehow, somehow, she had to keep a hold on herself,
ride out the storm until Sunday afternoon when the weekend guests would leave. And just behind her Charles reminded coldly,
'I asked you to remain downstairs.'
He hadn't set foot inside this room since her miscarriage three months ago, had kept severely to the room they had once shared, the master bedroom, and his intrusion here, now, under these circumstances, was a violation of her space, her privacy, and the only way to combat an incipient breakdown was to keep her head, her dignity, to somehow fight fire with fire.
So she shrugged, just a little, maintaining a veneer of cool collectedness at enormous cost to her mental equilibrium.
'I'm quite sure you're perfectly able to greet your guests and settle them in.' Her voice, in her own ears, sounded strangely brittle. 'It's time I showered and changed.'
She forced herself to turn and face him then, her head rigidly high, her tongue feeling dry, too large for her mouth, as she dragged the words out, 'If I'm to make myself presentable, dispense drinks and small talk to your guests, and help Mrs Penny with the final touches to dinner—she can't make a successful mayonnaise no matter how hard she tries, bless her—then I don't have time to hang around waiting for late-comers. We don't want anything to upset the routine and ruin the weekend, do we?'
It was the longest speech she'd made to him in ages, and there was a warning there, if he cared to look for it. She would go to pieces when he told her he wanted a divorce, that he wanted to marry Zanna, the only woman he was capable of loving, to marry her and claim his son. And she would rather not have that happen until the weekend was over, their guests safely out of the house.
Just for a moment she thought she saw a flash of anger deep in the unrevealing smoke-grey eyes, but then it was gone, or perhaps it had never been, she decided as his habitually bland expression gazed straight back at her.
Her eyes dropped, the contact was too painful, and when she found herself hungrily watching his long, very beautifully sculpted mouth she dragged in a raspingly painful breath and turned away, walking over towards the generous hanging cupboard, making a show of sorting through the garments for something to wear.
The best way to rid herself of his presence was to begin to undress, ready for her shower, she informed herself cynically. He hadn't wanted to look at her, to touch her, in months. She hadn't known why, not until now.
Almost defiantly, she kicked off her shoes, lifting her hands to the buttons of her light cotton blouse, but her desperate ploy didn't work because he said tunelessly, 'Zanna Hall is here,' and Beth froze, her back to him, her heart pounding because this was crunch time. He was going to tell her something she didn't think she was strong enough to hear, and he went on levelly, his deep rough-velvet voice under strict control, 'With her son. Harry is two years old. They will be staying for a few days.'
'Oh, really.' If she sounded uninterested she couldn't help it. To pretend indifference was the only way she would be able to handle this.
In retrospect, she was thankful that he had never told her he loved her, said those words she would have given anything in the world to hear, the words that would have opened the dam of her own deep love for him, had her confessing the abiding strength of her passion. Had she been fool enough, unguarded enough, to do so then this weekend would have been even more humiliating, more degrading—if that were possible.
'Aren't you going to ask why?'
He had moved. She could tell by his voice that he was standing much closer now and she shivered, biting out, 'No,' tightly, very quickly, because she already knew why Zanna was here, with Charles's son; she didn't need him to spell it out.
Blindly, she dragged the first garment to come to hand out of the cupboard, still with her back to him because she couldn't bear to see the final rejection in his magnificent eyes when he told her that he no longer wanted her as his wife.
He swore then, softly, almost inaudibly, and, clutching the dress close to her chest like a piece of armour, she heard him say, the first intimation of strain in his voice, 'For some reason best known to herself, Mrs Penny refused to make a room ready for Zanna and young Harry.' Attuned to every last thing about him, she heard the softening of his tone as he mentioned the child. His child. The son he had wanted. The son she had been unable to give him. And he was going to ask her to do it, to make time to settle them in, make them comfortable. It was unbelievable! And she was proved right when he went on, a rare and raw emotion colouring his voice, 'I wonder if you'd mind—?'
'I've already said I'm pushed for time.' She was ready for him; she'd learned that particular trick ever since she'd made herself face the fact of his growing distaste for her. A useful defence mechanism. 'You invited them here, apparently. You find them somewhere to sleep—I don't care where. It's up to you.' And walked rapidly, rigidly, like a jerky puppet, across the bedroom floor towards the door of her bathroom, still clutching the dress in front of her.
Her voice had emerged coolly, and she didn't know how it could have done because there was a scream building up inside her and her heart was pattering hysterically beneath her breast, and she slammed the bathroom door behind her, ramming the bolt home, leaning against the smooth dark wood.
Not that Charles would have attempted to follow her, of course. He had lost what interest he'd ever had in her when she had miscarried their child. Nowadays they treated each other like strangers—only this evening had he broken the habit of distance that had been deepening ever since that dreadful night three months ago. And no prizes for guessing why, she thought on a flare of anger, dragging her clothes off with shaking hands.
'Are you all right?'
The last thing she had expected was this rare show of compassion, a softening of the austerely crafted, remote features. But then, she thought, sidestepping him, her hands tightening on the coffee-tray, he was probably sorry for her. His pity was the last thing she wanted.
'I'm fine. Shouldn't I be?' she challenged, then regretted the impulse because she didn't want to give him the opportunity to tell her exactly why she should be feeling so very far from 'all right'. Dinner had been an ordeal she would rather forget, with Zanna's vibrant beauty, her easy wit, making her the centre of attention. And heaven only knew what had been going on inside the Clarkes' heads! Donald Clarke had been Charles's company accountant for years, right through the time of his tempestuous affair with Zanna. She had lived here at South Park in those days, on and off, had acted as his hostess at many a weekend such as this. Donald and Mavis would be dying to retreat to the privacy of their room to chew over the scandal of Zanna's return. And they could hardly have forgotten the wild obsession of Charles's love-affair with the woman who, even then, had left a string of broken hearts in her wake, or forgotten his brooding desolation when she had finally walked out on him, too.
'I thought you might have had one of your headaches,' Charles said, a thread of tension running through the expressed concern. 'You have that pallid look about you.'
As he took the tray from her and waited for her to precede him through the kitchen door she muttered, 'Thanks!' meaning his unflattering description, and nothing to do with the way he'd appeared to help her with the unwieldy tray. True, since the road accident that had resulted in the loss of their child, she had suffered from violent headaches, a legacy not only from the concussion, but from grief. But did he really have to draw her attention to the fact that beside the glowingly vibrant beauty of his former lover, the mother of his child, she looked like a sadly anaemic mouse?
'If you'd like to call it a day, I'll make your excuses,' he offered as they walked through the vast hall together, and she glanced up at him quickly, suspicion narrowing her glittering green eyes. But instead of the suspected sarcasm, a desire to be rid of her, see her tucked up in bed and safely out of the way, she saw only compassion. And she looked away quickly, hot tears in her eyes. She had known she was losing him long before now, had tried to deny it, to hang on to hope, but his action in bringing Zanna here, and their son, meant that all hope was gone.
And he was standing too close, the tautly muscled length of him, his breadth of shoulder, the sexy narrowness of hips moulded by the fine dark suiting making the muscles around her heart clench with pain, and when she caught her breath on a strangled sob he put the tray down on one of the tables set against the panelled wall and cupped her face in his hands, the narrowed eyes dark with sympathy, his mouth tight as he told her, 'I'm so sorry, Beth. The last thing I ever intended to do was cause you pain.'
