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‘Strangers?’ he supplied, with acid emphasis.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘Please don’t apologise,’ said Cormack, in a crisp kind of authoritative voice he had never used with her before. ‘It’s nothing more than the truth.’ And then he bent his dark head to concentrate all his attention on the warm, curious bundle in his arms.
He held Simon gingerly at first, as if he had been given an incredibly precious burden to carry. Then, after a little while, he sat down on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar, still clutching the child to him, and Simon just stared up at his father with interested, identical deep blue eyes.
Triss turned away and busied herself in an effort to stern the tears she found inexplicably pricking at her eyes. Of course they look the same, she told herself fiercely, swallowing down the infuriating salt taste at the back of her throat. But just because the two of them look as though they should be auditioning for a happy-families soap-powder commercial it does not mean that everything is now hunky-dory.
She boiled the kettle and made a pot of tea, then took some mashed potato and broccoli from the fridge and began to warm it through.
When the dish was prepared she looked round to find that Simon had lifted a podgy hand and was tugging at a strand of thick black hair which had flopped onto Cormack’s forehead. But it was the expression on Cormack’s face which turned her heart to stone.
For he had removed his tender gaze from Simon to stare across the kitchen at her, and the withering look of contempt on his face was like a knife-wound to the heart.
‘What right did you have,’ he asked slowly, each word seeming to be torn from somewhere deep inside him, ‘to deny me this?’
Her mouth wobbled, but she would not cry—she would not. ‘I don’t want a scene now,’ she told him, with a quiet dignity that cost her an effort. ‘Not now and not here. Not in front of Simon. It will only confuse him.’
His answering words were soft; only their meaning was as bitter and as abrasive as a physical blow. ‘And you don’t think you’ve confused him enough already?’ he accused her. ‘Leaving him with someone you barely know? You think it’s acceptable for Geraint Howell-Williams to hold him and to know him, do you, Triss? Some guy who has the most tenuous connection with his life? While I’m just left like the spectre at the feast-grabbing what small crumbs of him you see fit to throw my way?’
She felt unspeakably weary, as if her head had suddenly become too much for her slender neck to be able to hold. ‘I said not now, Cormack,’ she repeated, in a low voice which trembled unsteadily with strain as she watched Simon’s head turn from one to the other of them in bewilderment. Their voices had not been raised, but the bitterness behind their words was unmistakable. ‘Rowing in front of Simon is the last thing either of us wants or needs right now.’
He made a small sound of disgust. ‘Don’t you dare have the temerity to talk about my needs,’ he bit out, his finger instinctively touching the velvety smoothness of Simon’s cheek, ‘when they quite clearly come bottom on your list of priorities!’ Simon began to whinge, and wordlessly Cormack handed his son back to Triss, who managed to soothe him.
She tried to act normally. She settled Simon in his high chair, put his bib on and spooned his meal into him, all the while making the funny little noises which always made him giggle so much.
But all the time she was horribly aware of the accusing blue stare which her ex-lover directed at her. She had seen passion on Cormack’s face before, yes—many times—but never of this magnitude or this intensity. And this was not passion which was inspired by love or lust either, but a strong, barely contained emotion which had more to do with hate.
The tension and the bitterness emanating from him were almost palpable, and perhaps that disturbed even Cormack, for he stood up suddenly, his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. He strode over to the French doors which looked out over the gardens and stood there, silent and unmoving and very slightly menacing as he gazed sightlessly at the blaze of yellow daffodils which swayed in the breeze.
Triss finished Sim
on’s meal with some yoghurt and fruit and he lapped it up greedily as she spooned it into his mouth.
‘You like that, don’t you, darling?’ she cooed approvingly, then looked up to find that Cormack had silently turned and was watching them intently, as a cat might watch a defenceless little mouse just before it pounced on it.
‘Raspberries?’ he queried in surprise. ‘You’re giving him raspberries?’
He made it sound like arsenic! Triss thought. ‘Yes, I am!’ she said defensively. ‘What’s so odd about that?’
‘Out of season and very expensive,’ he observed.
Triss glared at him, resenting his judgmental tone and that critical look which was making his blue eyes glitter like sapphires. ‘Right on both counts.’
‘So do you spoil him, Triss?’ he asked. ‘By giving him everything he wants? Perhaps to make up for him not having a father?’
Triss glared at him again. ‘What if I do?’
He shrugged. ‘At five months it scarcely matters. But I would have thought that as a basic rule for bringing up a child then giving him everything he wants might make him spoilt and ungrateful as he gets older—’
Triss rounded on him. ‘You’ve only observed me with Simon for all of ten minutes!’ she spluttered. ‘So how dare you cast doubts on my ability to be a good mother?’
‘I was just pointing out—’
‘And what would you know about bringing up a child anyway?’ she demanded, her words tumbling out furiously—like water spilling from a washing machine.
‘Nothing at all!’ he returned calmly, the muscle working frantically in his cheek the only indicator of his anger. ‘Since you refused me the right to have any kind of say in Simon’s upbringing! But no more, Triss,’ he continued, with a fierce kind of determination. ‘No more will you succeed in keeping me out of his life!’
