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‘I was the one who was careless,’ Lacey pointed out wryly.
‘You must despise me for what I felt…for the way I reacted. I did want Jess to consider being sterilised…but then when she came to see me…and I saw her and realised that this was my daughter…my child…The wonder of it…the awe—I can’t describe how I felt. It was like stepping out from beneath an immense cloud, the darkness and weight of which had become so much a part of my life that I scarcely even recognised that they were there any longer. I had become so used to being alone…to keeping my friends in the dark about the real reason I wasn’t married…didn’t have any family. Suddenly there was someone I could be open with…share things with. And suddenly once again there was you.
‘I’ve never stopped loving you, Lacey, and I’ve no right to ask you this, but could you…would you…is there any possibility of our starting again…marrying again?’
‘Only if you promise that never, ever again will you keep anything from me…no matter how painful it may be—to either of us.’
It was only when he kissed her that she realised that they were both still naked.
OVER AN HOUR LATER, Lewis protested huskily against her ear, ‘If we stay out here much longer the dew will come down and we’ll both end up with rheumatism. Why don’t we go inside? The house isn’t exactly warm and cosy, but at least it does have a large double bed.’
Lazily Lacey gathered up her clothes and put them on, laughing a little when she saw the look in his eyes. ‘Think of all the fun you’ll have taking them off again later,’ she teased him as they walked arm in arm towards the house.
‘Really? I thought you were the one who was going to have fun taking mine off,’ Lewis teased her back.
The first thing she saw as she walked into the bedroom was the silver photograph frame. She walked to the side of the bed and looked at it, her eyes widening in surprise as she recognised the photograph inside it.
It was one of herself and Jessica.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it, but I couldn’t resist,’ Lewis apologised, coming to stand beside her. ‘Forgive me, Lacey.’
As she held him in her arms, Lacey knew it wasn’t the theft of the photograph he was asking forgiveness for.
‘I forgive you,’ she whispered as he kissed her. ‘I forgive you, Lewis.’
‘WHY ARE YOU CRYING?’ the small page-boy asked Lacey curiously.
‘Because she’s Jessica’s mother, and mothers always cry at weddings,’ one of the older boys told him loftily.
Over their heads, Lewis shot her an amused smile and said softly, ‘I must admit, I feel like shedding the odd tear or two myself. Our eldest daughter married…’
‘Mm. She and Tom are so well-suited, and he says he’s thrilled with the idea of being the head of an all-female family. No competition from any other men, or so he claims, and a bevy of beautiful women to spoil him.’
‘Mm. Well, I don’t want to disillusion him, but when I see what a pair of tomboys our two youngest have turned out to be…’
Lacey laughed.
‘Well, they don’t look like tomboys today,’ she pointed out, glancing over to where their twin daughters were standing with the other bridesmaids, their blonde hair caught up with flowers, their peach dresses emphasising the soft purity of their six-year-old complexions.
‘Looks can be deceptive,’ Lewis said wryly. ‘I caught the pair of them daring the page-boy to climb up that oak tree over there ten minutes ago.’
Lacey laughed, leaning her head against him and watching him lovingly.
It had taken a good deal of persuasion before he had agreed to have his vasectomy reversed, and then had come all the trauma and problems of the in vitro fertilisation process which would ensure that only eggs resulting in the birth of female children were returned to her womb.
The decision to opt to have twins had been a joint one, neither of them wanting a solitary child who might feel isolated in having older parents, and it was a decision neither of them had ever regretted, no matter how exhausting the twins could be at times.
In the early days of their marriage the realisation that Jessica had inherited his flawed gene had weighed very heavily on Lewis, more heavily on him than it had done on Jessica herself, Lacey recognised, but then two years ago Jessica had met Tom. She had brought him home with her and they had known instantly that the pair of them were in love.
The next time they had come to see Jessica’s parents, it had been to announce that they were getting engaged. Lewis had asked Jessica if she had warned Tom of the problems they were going to encounter, and Lacey had secretly been amused at Jessica’s insouciant, almost airy response to Lewis’s question as she’d informed him that the moment she had known how she felt about Tom, which had just happened to be the day she’d met him, she had told him that she could only have female children.
‘Why else do you think I want to marry her?’ Tom had said with a grin later on that evening when they were all discussing the subject. ‘I took one look at her mother and her sisters, and that was it. I’m going to be known as the man with those beautiful daughters, and I want at least a half a dozen of them.’
Over on the other side of the churchyard there was a small, busy flurry of activity.
‘Oh, no…look at that!’ Lacey protested in amusement as she watched an exasperated father rescue his small son from the lower branches of the oak tree. Not very far away her own two daughters exchanged smug smiles of female conspiracy. ‘You can’t let them get away with it,’ Lacey told her husband. ‘It’s not fair that he should be punished while they put him up to it.’
‘You’re right. I’ll go over and speak to them.’
