Starting Over (15 page)

'Haslewich,' he had commented, asking doubtfully,

'Are you sure that's a good idea. Oh, I know your father thinks I'm a silly overprotective old fool,' he had continued whilst Sara had remained silent.

Although on the surface her father and grandfather got on well, Sara knew from what her mother had told her that Gramps had been something of an overprotective parent to her and that there had been arguments and discord when she had first met Richard Lanyon.

'That's why someone like Tania is the ideal person for him,' Sara's mother had confided. 'Dad needs someone he can cosset and cherish, someone who won't feel overwhelmed and constrained by that kind of love as I'm afraid I did. I once accused him of always wanting to keep me as his little girl, which was both unfair and untrue, but my mother, your grandmother, was very similar to Tania.'

After that conversation Sara had been even more grateful to her own father for his robust parenting which had involved encouraging her to both act and, even more importantly, think independently.

Even so she still had a soft spot for her grandfather who had been the donor of many very enjoyable childhood treats and a shoulder to cry on when she had felt the need.

Perhaps she had inherited from him a watered-down version of his own desire to protect because she, too, felt very sympathetic to and protective of her stepgrandmamma.

'Have you told Tania where I've ended up?' she had asked her grandfather.

'No, and I don't intend to,' had been his prompt response. 'It would only upset her, arouse unhappy memories for her.'

'Tania has a son and daughter living in Haslewich,'

her father had reminded Sara during their own telephone conversation. 'If you were to meet them you could find yourself in a potentially difficult position.

No child enjoys being deserted by its parent.'

'Tania
didn't
desert them,' Sara had defended fiercely. 'You know that, Dad. She
wanted
to see them but her ex's family made it too difficult for her and she felt, especially with her son, that he was at an age when it wasn't fair to him to disrupt him and cause him any conflict of loyalties...'

'Mmm...' had been her father's brief but telling response.

The Crightons. She had sworn before she met them that it would be impossible for her to like them—and now...

And now what...? She
liked
Nick Crighton. Sara made a taunting face at her reflection as she walked past a mirror.
Like
was hardly the word to describe the maelstrom of emotions
Nick
aroused within her.

No, maybe not, but a lot of them began with
L

didn't they?
Longing... lusting... loving...

Loving! No. No way did she feel that. Admitting to the lusting bit was bad enough!

A short, sharp, sexual fling. A hot, sweet, mad, self-indulgence. A wild, wanton abandonment of her old teenage fantasies and beliefs that loving someone and wanting them could only go hand in hand. No it was unthinkable, impossible and yet, she only had to close her eyes to see Nick in her mind's eye: strongly muscled arms, broad shoulders, a very male torso—and he would look even better undressed than he did dressed, she suspected.

A soft little groan that was almost akin to an aroused-female growl escaped her lips. Guiltily she looked over her shoulder and then derided herself. She was alone in the flat, wasn't she, and Nick Crighton, whatever other skills of legerdemains he might possess did
not
have the power to simply materialise in front of her.

Not in person, perhaps, but he was quite definitely exerting a very strong pull on her senses and he certainly had the ability to 'materialise' to devastating physical effect in her imagination.

A short sexual fling! She must be mad to even contemplate such a thing. But she
wasn't
contemplating it. No. Not for one minute, even though she strongly believed that women were as entitled to acknowledge the sexual side of their natures as any man, even if she herself had never previously indulged in such a freedom.

She knew girls who had, though. Girls who quite openly and unashamedly stated that they had slept with a man simply because they had desired him physically, and so far as Sara had been able to judge, they had emerged from the experience not just totally emotionally unscathed but shockingly and almost enviably glowing with pleasure and self-satisfaction.

No, it was often the girls who swore that for them sex could only go hand in hand with love who were the ones who seemed to suffer the most traumas, investing so many hopes and dreams in their relationships that the discovery that their partner did not share them was a humiliating and devastating experience.

At least a sex-only fling could be ended cleanly and tidily with a 'Thank you, I've had enough now and goodbye.'

And she
would
be glad to say goodbye to Nick Crighton, glad to say that she had totally burned out any desire for him. But, of course, it wasn't going to happen. She wasn't going to get any more involved with Nick Crighton than she already was—was she?

'YOU'RE VERY preoccupied,' David commented lovingly to Honor as he brought her the cup of herbal tea he had just made for them both. 'Is something wrong?'

'Not
wrong
exactly,' Honor said slowly.

Frowning David put down his own tea untouched.

Honor had not been her normal self for several days and now his concern showed in his voice and face as he insisted, 'But something
is
bothering you? What is it, Hon? Are you having second thoughts about Father Ignatius being with us?'

'No, no...' Honor smiled immediately. 'I love having him here. He was telling me a fascinating story the other day about some of the remedies people use in Jamaica—and as for him being
here...
He's spending more time up at Fitzburgh Place than here. He and Freddy have really hit it off together.' She gave an amused smile. 'It's obvious they've got an awful lot in common.'

'An agnostic and a Jesuit. Yes. I suppose they must have,' David agreed wryly before adding, 'Stop trying to change the subject. What's wrong?'

Honor gave him a rueful look before warning him,

'You're not going to like this.'

'There isn't anything you could do I couldn't like,'

David told her truthfully. 'You've given me so much, Honor. First and most importantly your sweet, delicious, wonderful self, but as well as that you've given me back my self-respect by accepting me, loving me as I am.... You've helped me grow, too, into a new better self. Because of you I've begun to build bridges between myself and my family. You've given me two wonderful stepdaughters...'

'Ah...' Honor intervened, her voice trembling slightly, 'Not just two stepdaughters, David.' She paused whilst he waited, puzzled.

'I think I'm pregnant,' she told him shakily. 'Well, not so much
think,'
she amended, talking quickly and slightly nervously. 'The symptoms are exactly the same as those I had when I was carrying both girls and I've done a test. I know how shocked you must be. I was myself and...'

'Not shocked,' David denied, walking over to her and taking her in his arms. His voice was muffled as he held her against his body. Honor wasn't sure which of them was trembling most—David or herself.

'Are you annoyed with me?' he asked her gruffly.

'You have every right to be, I know. I should have taken more care.'

'Me—cross with
you?'
Honor checked him. 'You mean you don't mind?'

'Mind...? I can only think of one thing that could make me happier than I feel right now,' David told her emotionally.

As she looked at him Honor knew that he was thinking of Olivia, but before she could say anything David was wrapping his arms gently around her and holding her tenderly as he told her softly, 'For you to have my child is surely far, far more than I could possibly deserve. He or she may not have been planned,' he continued as he raised one hand and gently stroked her face, 'But I can assure you that he or she will be very much loved. Oh, Honor...' His control broke and tears filled his eyes. 'For you to give me a child when you have already given me
so
much...'

'I still can't properly take it in myself,' Honor admitted, happy tears of her own filling her eyes. 'I thought I'd be too old and I know that the girls will certainly think so! We're going to have to make some sort of an official announcement, I suppose. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to invite everyone round.... I just wish...' She stopped, not wanting to upset David by saying that she was concerned that Olivia's refusal to have anything to do with them was going to make it difficult for them to give her any advance warning of what was going to happen. By rights, as David's daughter, she should be one of the first people to know, Honor believed.

She stopped speaking as David started to kiss her with passionate tenderness.

'I love you so much,' he whispered huskily to her, but as his eyes started to cloud a little Honor guessed what he was thinking.

'This is going to be very difficult for Olivia, isn't it?'

'I hate knowing how much she's hurting and not being able to do anything to help her,' David admitted as he released her. 'I can't blame her for feeling the way she does and I don't, but I just wish she'd let me talk to her.

'Just thinking about how much I want this baby,
our
baby, makes me feel like hell knowing how little either Tiggy or I wanted Olivia. Her conception was an accident and then somehow or other I convinced myself that she was going to be a boy. Dad wanted her to be a boy, of course, and...

'I can remember taking her to Dad's once. She wasn't feeling very well. She was screaming and feverish. I suppose she'd have been about ten months old. Tiggy and I had had a fight about who would go to her and whilst we were arguing Jon went and picked her up and took her over to Jenny. The moment Jenny held her she stopped crying.... I've never forgotten the look Jon gave me—a look I thoroughly deserved. Poor Livvy.'

'Yes,' Honor agreed. She hadn't expected to conceive and the timing couldn't have been worse but she could see in David's eyes that already, like her, he loved the child they had both created, even though their shared joy was shadowed by their knowledge of Olivia's pain.

'No, DON'T you dare move,' Max warned Maddy as he brought the car to a halt outside the front door to Queensmead. He had picked her up from the hospital half an hour earlier and of the two of them, the doctor had remarked sardonically that Max looked more trau-matised by the experience they had just been through than Maddy.

'You know what the doctor said,' Max reminded her as he opened the passenger door of his car for her.

'Totally, absolutely, no way are you to do anything other than rest....'

'That doesn't mean that I can't walk,' Maddy protested laughing as Max insisted on lifting her out of the car and carrying her into the house.

She had never seen him so emotionally affected by anything, not even when they had both thought their marriage had to end and it made her ache with love for him to know how much he cared.

The children and Jenny were waiting to welcome her home and tears filled Maddy's eyes as she saw the way her sitting room had been rearranged to provide room for a pretty day bed.

'From now until the baby arrives I'm going to be working quite a lot from home,' Max informed her firmly after Jenny had swept the children back to the kitchen for something to eat. 'Ma will be on hand as well if we should need her. Between us we'll sort out the school runs and everything else. All you have to do is to make sure that you follow the doctor's instructions and rest!'

Maddy waited until he had finished before saying softly, 'Max, I'm not so fragile that you can't kiss me, you know.'

Emotionally she could see how much he loved her but physically he had been oddly and unfamiliarly distant with her and she had noticed, too, how much he was avoiding even looking at, never mind touching the bump that was their child.

She had wanted to ask him if anything was wrong but the journey home had tired her more than she wanted to admit. For their baby's sake she had to do as the consultant had instructed.

As he watched her and listened to her Max knew that their lives together could never be the same. The burden of the guilt he felt lay too heavily against him for that. Maddy would hate him if she were ever to know what he had thought, wished for, when he had feared that he might lose her.

Anxiously Maddy studied him. She had never known him so remote and withdrawn. Even in the early years of their marriage when she had felt he hated her, his reactions had still been blazingly passionate. Was he perhaps angry about the disruption her condition was causing? Things had not been entirely easy for him since David had returned. Did he perhaps secretly wish that this fourth child had not been conceived?

'Max,' she began huskily.

But he shook his head telling her firmly, 'You stay here and rest. I've got to go and help Ma get the kids ready for bed.'

JACK TRIED to focus on what his uncle Jon was saying to him. They were eating supper together, just the two of them because Aunt Jenny was still at Queensmead and Jack was heavy-heartedly aware of just how little progress he had made with his plans during the day.

Annalise had insisted on going to school. He had met her afterwards, not from school but on the river path because she didn't want anyone to see them together.

'Annalise, we
can't
keep what's happening a secret for much longer,' he had warned her gently, hating himself when she had burst into tears. It seemed unbelievable that they were going to be parents.

Sympathetically Jon watched Jack. It was obvious that the lad had his mind on other things. Teenage love could be traumatically painful, especially when it went wrong.

THE PAIN WAS SO strong that it brought Annalise out of her deep sleep of emotional exhaustion. At first her mind blurred; she simply lay in her bed suffering the waves of sharp cramping discomfort then, as the fog-giness of her sleep cleared she realised what they were and what was happening.