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Finding her tottering around on that nursery chair, reaching for packages, had brought back bad memories of the accident that had caused her miscarriage, brought back the feelings of guilt he had no right to have. And when she felt the mattress dip beside her, his arms reach out for her, she knew why she had made no protest and snuggled herself into the protective curve of his body, promising herself that they both needed this one night out of time.
Tomorrow, she thought, as his deep and regular breathing told her that he had drifted immediately off to sleep, things would be back to where they were, because, knowing what they both knew, how could they be different?
CHAPTER TEN
Beth came awake quickly. She knew she was alone in the big double bed. She hadn't slept so deeply, so peacefully in months and she levered herself up, stacking the pillows behind her and leaning back.
A smile spread unstoppably over her features and she chewed on her lower lip to prevent it getting out of hand. Slowly, she admonished herself. Take it slowly.
But her thoughts were running around like mice, rushing onwards as if she'd pushed the fast-forward button in her brain. They wouldn't be stopped, so she let it all happen, all the tenuous hopes and needs coalescing into one great big beautiful whole.
Last night Charles had demonstrated that he was still capable of caring for her. Even if she wasn't Zanna, she was his wife, the soon-to-be mother of his child. And they had taken comfort and reassurance from each other, despite her stipulation that theirs should be a marriage in name only, despite the way their lives had been compartmentalised, never touching each other.
But it needn't go back to being that way, need it?
Daylight was struggling to get through the thickness of the lined velvet curtains but Beth was going to stay right where she was until she had everything sorted out in her mind.
She would have to have a long and serious talk with him, because maybe she'd been wrong to try to immure herself behind the wall of her own painstaking construction. If they could speak openly about his feelings for Zanna then maybe they could reach a better understanding.
Perhaps the wayward redhead's second desertion of him had killed his obsession? She could only hope and pray it had. Because if it had, and she was able to stop living on the knife-edge of wondering just when the other woman would walk back into his life, and take him away, then she needn't tell herself that her love for him was self-defeating, masochistic. She would have no need to try to kill it.
She had been afraid to question him before. He had known she knew the truth about Harry and Zanna, his desire to be with them, and digging down into it all would only have heaped more pain and humiliation on her head, and she hadn't been brave enough, strong enough to face that.
But the way he had been with her last night, so gentle, admitting his own vulnerability, his need for her comfort and reassurance, had given her an injection of courage, and, somehow, she had found more of the same inside herself. Enough courage to ask him to talk this whole thing through.
An extremely perfunctory tap on the door heralded Mrs Penny's arrival w
ith a breakfast tray, and, her thoughts disrupted, Beth beamed and called out a bright good morning.
She was actually feeling more hopeful now than she had ever done, even during the first months of their marriage when she'd been sure she could make him love her. Now, though, she wasn't asking for the moon, the sun and the stars. Just to reach a new understanding, a hope that they could build on the foundations of their marriage and, eventually, create something of enduring strength. So the moon alone would do for starters!
'Breakfast in bed, and you're to stay right where you are until noon. Charlie-boy's orders.' The housekeeper put the tray on her knees and rushed around pulling back the curtains. 'He's gone to the bank and he said to tell you he'll be back before lunch and you're to take it easy until then. And about time, too, if you ask me.'
'I'm not,' Beth responded wryly. 'Not that it matters. You'll tell me, anyway.'
'Too right. Eat your eggs.' Mrs Penny shot her a huffy look which was quite at variance with the gleam in her eyes. 'And while we're at it, I'm happy to see you back where you belong. I don't hold with married folks having separate rooms.' She planted her hands on her hips. 'It may be considered sophisticated and civilised in some circles but I call it plain unnatural! And mind you drink your orange juice.'
There wasn't much that escaped Mrs Penny's gimlet eye, Beth thought as she dutifully consumed scrambled eggs and toast. She would have tied her disappearance and her subsequent strained relationship with Charles up with Zanna's arrival, back in June.
And she'd made no attempt to hide her disapproval when she'd remarked on the unmissable likeness between Harry and his father. She'd been at South Park so long that she regarded herself as one of the family and wasn't afraid to speak her mind…
Beth put the tray to one side and slid out of bed. Looking over her shoulder, back into the past, wasn't going to help her attempts to build a new future with Charles. They needed to talk; she had to tell him that if she could be sure his obsession with Zanna was a thing of the past, with no danger of any future resurrection, then she was willing to forget everything that had happened and try to make their marriage something of value for both of them.
She had tried so hard to stop loving him, and had believed she had succeeded. But one show of tenderness from him, a night spent held so gently in his arms, had shown her how wrong she had been. She could no more stop loving him than stop breathing.
As if to reinforce her mood of hopefulness the weather had changed, producing a day that was the perfect harbinger of spring. Unable to settle to work or to take the rest Charles had prescribed, Beth slipped a coat over one of the light wool maternity dresses she'd bought in London and had not got round to wearing yet, and slipped outside.
The wind was chilly but light enough to be disregarded and the sun was shining, the sky an aching, beautiful blue, dotted with small, fluffy white clouds. It would be another month before the buds on the trees began to swell and unfurl their leaves, but there were already drifts of small wild daffodils spreading their gleam of golden promise beneath them.
Deciding to pick a few of the blooms and make an arrangement for the dining-room table—which, she acknowledged wryly, would help pass the time before Charles returned and they could have that talk, the thought of which was producing butterflies of nervous excitement inside her—she set off across the wide gravelled drive, only to leap for the safety of the grass verge as a small scarlet sports car howled round the bend.
Her bulk made leaping for safety both undignified and difficult, and she scrabbled up from her hands and knees, her face scarlet with outrage and humiliation as she brushed the clinging particles of damp grass and soil from her hands and coat, turning annoyed green eyes to the car which had jerked to a gravel-spattering halt just past her and was now reversing at a ridiculous speed.
Through the side-window of the low-slung sports car Beth could see an expensive piece of luggage on the passenger-seat, a glimpse of long, silk-clad legs, the soft emerald-green fabric of a suit skirt riding high on lush thighs. And she knew, she just knew, and she could only stare woodenly as the other woman slid quickly out from behind the wheel and tossed out over the low roof of the vehicle,
'I broke all speed records getting from Heathrow only to run you down on your own driveway! Mind you, your size makes you almost impossible to miss—I never did get that big carrying Harry!'
Disparaging, heavily made-up eyes swept over Beth, taking in the grass stains on the front of her coat. 'You didn't hurt yourself, did you?'
