A Question of Pride (8 page)

'I don't think it is at all the done thing at my age. But—well, it's happened, and really ... '

Once started, it seemed Amy couldn't stop her self-conscious tongue, and she ran on while Clea sat, stunned, trying desperately to come to terms with what her mother was telling her.

She felt like giving in to hysterical laughter. There was a distinct buzzing going on inside her head, and all she could do was stare across the space separating them, shocked into complete immobility. She knew her face had drained of all colour, because she felt it happen—just as she knew if she didn't get rid of the glass from her hand she was likely to snap its delicate stem.

She dragged her eyes away from her mother, and with a studied care set the glass down beside her, all the time aware that James was watching her with narrowed eyes. The sky was falling in! she found herself thinking with tragic fancy.

'Will you mind, Clea?' she heard her mother ask anxiously, and made a concerted effort to pull herself together.

'Of course I don't mind!' she exclaimed, managing to sound convincing because it was the truth. She thought it was the best thing that ever could have happened to them. 'I think it's marvellous news!

Nothing—nothing could be more complete than for you and James to have a baby of your own!'

'I'm thirty-eight years old!' said Amy balefully. 'To—to be quite frank, I feel a fool!'

Clea blinked, glancing furtively at James who was still watching her with a narrow intensity that hinted at anger. What was he thinking, she wondered, to make him look at her like that? Amy's free hand was fluttering nervously, and Clea returned her attention to her mother, realising that whatever was bothering James would have to wait, because she could see her mother was looking pretty frantic.

'Don't you—want the baby?' she asked bemusedly. They had so much to give a child, she couldn't believe it was possible that they weren't over the moon about it.

'Of course we want it!' James answered sharply, and the anger she'd seen in his eyes showed in his voice now, though he tried to contain it when he spoke again. 'Your mother is feeling a trifle—vulnerable just now, that's all.'

Clea struggled to pull her ragged thoughts together, her stunned mind grappling with the irony of it all.

'When is it due?'

'October...'

October!

She saw, through a frantic haze, her mother smile shyly. 'October the fifth or thereabouts—you know how it is.'

Oh, she knew how it was all right! She was going to get a new brother or sister, and become a mother herself, all in a space of a few days!

'Well—' She made herself get up and squat in front of Amy and James, her limbs stiff and trembling in shocked reaction, taking a hand from each and squeezing them urgently, her smile brilliant enough to blind. 'I think it's wonderful!' she said. 'Accept my congratulations.'

Damn yourself, Clea! she inwardly berated herself. And damn Max Latham, too!

By the time Clea escaped to privacy of her own room that night, she felt emotionally shattered. It had become obvious from the moment her mother had told her about the coming baby that Clea could not spoil their pleasure by blithely saying, 'Snap!' And, as her shock dimmed and she'd begun taking note of Amy's nervous anxiety about her condition, she had to determinedly thrust all her own problems aside to set about convincing her mother and James that having a baby now would be wonderful for them.

James was quiet, and coolly withdrawn. And Clea knew he had sensed something in her attitude, seen, maybe, her initial reaction and was angrily puzzled by it. James adored Amy, but he was still vulnerable enough in his feelings to be highly sensitive to others' opinions of his new role—especially Clea's opinion.

For, if James valued anyone's blessing, then it was his stepdaughter's because he was very much aware of how close mother and daughter were.

What a mess! She had come here for the express purpose of baring her conscience, so that she could then get herself in hand before having to face Max. Now all she seemed to have done was add to her own troubles, and her head ached with the weight of them.

It was ridiculous, she sighed, leaning back in her bed to stare at the darkened ceiling. Like living on a balance scale, she likened with bitter humour. One minute up, the next down. Surely things couldn't become more complicated than this? Soap operas, eat your hearts out! she scorned.

She was becoming a nervous wreck. Quiet, level-headed Clea Maddon was learning that the Fates could rock anyone's self-possession—except Max's, maybe. Clea couldn't think of a single thing that could manage to shake him!

I'm having a baby! God, what was she going to do? And how many times had she asked herself that question recently?

It was just gone eight o'clock when Clea crept silently down the stairs, dressed in jeans and a warm V-necked jumper over a brushed cotton blouse. It was unusual for Amy and James to be up at this time on a Saturday, and she hoped to be able to make herself a pot of very weak tea before having to face them. She was, therefore, brought up short on entering the kitchen, to find James already there, seated at the table with the morning newspapers scattered about him.

He glanced up and smiled at her. 'Tea's fresh in the pot,' he invited. 'Your mother is staying in bed a while longer—the dreaded morning sickness, you know.'

Oh, Clea knew! She had personal experience of it.

'I've got into the habit of taking her a tray up with the statutory slice of dry toast and pot of weak tea,' he admitted, with a touch of rueful mockery meant for himself. It must feel rather strange to James to find himself in this position at his age, but Clea had an idea that he was thoroughly enjoying his new role of prospective father.

'Does it work?' she enquired as she pulled out a chair next to him and sat down.

His grin was wry. 'It makes the—er—giving up a whole lot easier, I think,' he quipped, then shrugged.

'Amy believes it helps and, in the end, that's all that matters.'

Clea studied him over the rim of her cup. He really was pleased with himself; it showed in every word he spoke—no matter how flippant he was being. 'I suspect it's the pampering she's getting from you that does more good.' She wished there was someone who would pamper her, love her as much as James loved Amy ... Her gaze dropped to her cup; James was forgotten for the moment while she drifted off into a miserable world of her own.

James watched her thoughtfully, his grey gaze flickering over each strained feature on her pale face.

'Come for a walk with me,' he invited suddenly, getting up from the table and tapping her hand to gain her attention. 'Come on,' he insisted when she looked reluctant. 'It's cold but fresh outside. It may do us both good.'

Clea complied, seeing no way out of it without offending him. It was certainly cold outside, and she huddled into her leather blouson, the collar turned up around her ears, hair caught in a high ponytail so that the heavy tresses swung as she walked in easy silence for the length of the beautifully laid-out garden.

James indicated to a garden seat set beneath an early-blooming blossom tree, and they sat down.

'It's nice here,' Clea sighed, glancing dully around her. 'I like the house. It has a sturdy, dependable look about it.' It was built in red brick, and had attractive, domed bay windows with criss-cross leaded glass.

She felt James humph on a grimace. 'Add "like me", and I think I'll have to slap you,' he muttered, then let out a sigh of his own. 'Sometimes I feel my age.'

'Forty-six isn't old, James,' Clea dismissed wearily. Her gaze was trained on the house, her body slouched in the seat, hands lost in her jacket pockets. 'I wonder, sometimes,' she went on in the same tone, 'if my visits here are solely for the benefit of convincing you two love-doves that you are not over the hill!'

James was watching her, his expression grave as he followed the drawn line from high cheekbone to turned-down mouth. She was tall and beautifully formed, her long legs, stretched out before her in tight jeans, only emphasised her sleek shape. 'You came here this weekend to find solace, I think,' he remarked quietly.

Clea threw him a guarded glance. 'Like—flying back to the nest when "the little black rain cloud" settles over one's head?' she mocked grimly, then slid her gaze back to the house. 'Not bad, James,' she congratulated a trifle bitterly. 'No wonder you speculate in the City so successfully.'

'But instead of finding your much-needed solace,' he went on, refusing the warning she'd just issued in her tone. 'You find yourself further bogged down with—little surprises!'

'The pun is in the word "little", I presume.' Despite herself, Clea had to smile.

'Does it bother you?' he enquired. 'To be getting a brother or sister at your age?'

'No,' she answered abruptly, and honestly, proving it by looking directly into his eyes.

James accepted this with a grimace. 'Then it must be your love-life that's bothering you,' he assumed levelly.

'Define "it" for me, will you?'

He smiled at that. '"The little black rain cloud," ' he mocked. Then, more seriously, 'Something is certainly troubling you, Clea. I thought, last night, when I noted your reaction, that it was our news that had hurt ... And I have to admit, that made me angry. I thought that you maybe saw your mother's condition as being somehow unfaithful to your father's memory.'

'No!' she denied hotly. 'Never! James, how
could
you think such a thing? How could you think I'd be so petty?'

A grim smile twisted his mouth. 'She's mine,' he stated flatly. It was he who was avoiding Clea's affronted look now. 'I acknowledge that your father has a place in her heart that I can never trespass on.

But she's mine now, Clea,' he repeated harshly. 'And I ...' the smile twisted again, and he dipped his head to stare at his shoes '... I'm very touchy about hanging on to every bit of space left.' 'Oh, James ...' Clea's heart went out to him, and she touched a gentle hand to his arm in understanding. 'Mummy loved Daddy,'

she said gently. 'I can vouch for that. But when you came along that same unstinting love was transferred to you! Forgive me when I claim to know her better than you do as yet. My father was a fine man, and we both loved him dearly—and missed him terribly when he died. But what happened to Mummy when you came into her life will always be, to me, the finest thing that ever could have happened to her ...' She looked fondly on his hard, handsome, yet vulnerable, face, and swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

'And James—I
know
Mummy loves you now more deeply than she ever did my father.' His head snapped around at that declaration, utter surprise forcing him to search her face for sincerity. He found it.

'That wasn't easy for me to say,' she admitted solemnly. 'But it's the truth, none the less. Her love for my father was of the young and innocent and rose-tinted kind. She was never disillusioned by it because my father adored her enough to ensure the glasses stayed in place. Her feelings for you go far deeper—believe me.' She smiled wanly. 'What she and my father felt for each other made the chances of any other man taking his place a virtual impossibility, yet you did, James. And to me that shows that Mummy's feelings must go deep—for how else could you compete with a ghost? She loves you, James.'

Clea patted his arm firmly. 'And you can be sure that Daddy has simply swapped places with you in her heart—or why else would she have married you? She could have lived the rest of her life on just the memories of that first love, but she didn't.'

James stared at her, a flush colouring his lean face. He shook his head wryly, and covered his embarrassment with a mocking smile. 'You sometimes completely throw me, Clea,' he murmured, then lapsed into a brooding silence while Clea returned her attention to the house—and her own heavy thoughts.

'Thank you,' he said after a while.

She shrugged indifferently. 'For what? It was only the truth, after all.'

'And who has come along to eat his way into Clea's heart to make her so perceptive of others' feelings?'

he probed softly, noting the slight stiffening in her body. 'It wouldn't be the infamous Max Latham, would it?'

Clea's hand left his arm to be thrust back into her pocket, her generous mouth tightening a little. 'How much do you know about Max and me?' she asked tightly, not looking at him.

James sighed and shook his head. 'Only that you see a lot of each other, and that the—er—relationship seems—close.'

'By that,' she muttered 'I suppose you assume we are lovers!'

'Well, if it isn't Latham,' James persisted, 'it has to be some man who's managed to turn you into a woman since I first met you. You were an innocent then, Clea,' he stated gently. 'I haven't lived this long without learning to recognise innocence when I see it.'

Clea made a sound of impatience. 'Does my mother know?' She didn't bother denying it. James was too clever by far, and he was going to find out the rest of it soon enough, anyway.

James let out a husky bark, startling several small brown sparrows into flight. They fluttered away, twittering in protest, and Clea watched them absently. 'Amy?' he laughed. 'You're her little girl, still,' he told her drily. He let out another bark of amusement as a thought came into his mind. 'When she informed me that she had a young daughter at home, I imagined a sweet little pigtailed angel formed in her mother's piquant image. Imagine my feelings, Clea, when I saw you!'

Clea couldn't help but join in the humour of the situation. It must have come as a ridiculous surprise to him, for Amy did have a way of describing Clea as her 'little girl'. And her appearance had always been a source of amazement to others when they saw her with her mother. She and her father used to delight in the notoriety, because Amy was always so baffled by people's surprise.

'I remember thinking, "My God! I've fallen in love with the wrong Maddon." '

'James!' Clea protested, shocked.

He threw her a speaking glance. 'I'm not blind, Clea,' he informed her a trifle witheringly. 'You are a very beautiful and sexy lady—not—' he continued when she gasped at his choice of words '—the child your mother sees. And, even being fathoms deep in love with Amy as I am, it doesn't stop me from appreciating a lovely woman when I see one. Max Latham isn't blind, either,' he added carefully.