Second Chance with the Millionaire(21)

Could her aunt be right? Lucy stamped firmly on the frail seed of hope  burgeoning inside her. Saul had made no attempt to get in touch with her  or show any interest in her at all since that fateful night. No, her  aunt was wrong. He cared nothing about her at all.

That evening over dinner her uncle suggested that for the time being they keep the news of Lucy's pregnancy to themselves.

'Not because we're ashamed or embarrassed, Lucy, but simply so that  you're not subject to unwanted questions. I suggest that, when the time  comes, we'll invent some fictitious father for the child, but we'll  think about that later.'

* * *

Later when Lucy was in bed and he and his wife were alone in the privacy  of their own bedroom Margaret asked her husband anxiously, 'Leo, what  are we going to do? Lucy, poor child, looks worn to a thread. She loves  him desperately, you know, and she's far too proud to do anything about  it.'

'Yes I know, and she won't thank us for any interference. I suppose old  Patterson the solicitor would be the person most likely to have his  American address? I'll give him a ring in the morning.'

'And if Lucy's right and Saul doesn't want her or the baby?'

'Then his loss is our gain, isn't it?'

* * *

'Fanny's on the phone for you,' Margaret announced to Lucy a couple of days later. 'She sounds very excited.'

Dr Carter had confirmed that Lucy was indeed pregnant, and although the  nausea continued her exhaustion seemed to be lifting. She went into the  study to pick up the receiver.

'Lucy, you'll never guess …  I'm getting married again!' The excitement  faded from the bubbly light voice as Fanny quite obviously remembered  that her deceased husband had been Lucy's father, but Lucy wasn't at all  upset by her news, especially when she learned that Fanny was to marry  their neighbour and friend, the colonel.                       
       
           



       

'He proposed to me at the weekend-we won't have a long engagement, only a  couple of months. Oliver and Tara are both delighted, and I must  confess that it will be a relief to share the responsibility for them  with someone else again.

'We're having a small engagement party this weekend at his house and, of  course, we both want you to be there. The children miss you.'

Of course she couldn't refuse to go, and besides what was there to stop  her from attending? After all, Saul wasn't going to be there.





CHAPTER EIGHT


'WELL that went off very well didn't it?'

Lucy, her aunt and her uncle were in the drawing-room of the Dower  House, drinking the chocolate her aunt had insisted on making on their  return from the engagement party.

Fanny and the two children were spending the weekend at Tom's house, and  Lucy had been pleased to see how well both children, but especially  Oliver, got on with him.

Before she left Tom had taken her on one side to tell her that he knew all about Oliver's true parentage.

'To be honest, I had wondered. He has a look of your father. I think  Fanny should tell him the truth and as soon as possible, but she doesn't  agree with me-at least not yet.'

Lucy did though and she had told him so. The sooner Oliver knew the  truth the less traumatic it would be for him, and she had every faith in  Tom's ability to make Fanny see the wisdom of telling, him.

Conventional to the last, Fanny was insisting on waiting until she had  been a widow for a full year before she and Tom married, which meant  that Lucy would have to shelve her plans for putting the Dower House on  the market, she decided as she prepared for bed. Her aunt and uncle had  assured her that she would always have a home with them, but she felt  that she could not stay cocooned in their protective love for ever.  Before the baby was born she would have to come to some decision about  their future. If she sold the Dower House, she could buy something  smaller and invest the remainder of the money to bring in a small  income-but would that be enough for them to live on? Her book would,  hopefully, bring her in some additional income. She wanted to be  independent, she realised, as she lay sleepless in her bed. She wanted  to prove that she was capable of supporting herself and her child. But  to whom? Saul?

Even thinking his name was like a sword in her flesh, the pain almost unendurable.

She was awake early-too alert to go back to sleep, but reluctant to  disturb her aunt and uncle whom she knew enjoyed a well deserved lie-in  on Sunday mornings.

Outside, the sun shone, dispersing the faint mist hanging over the  distant hollows in the landscape; an early warning that summer was  waning and autumn was on the way.

Autumn was normally one of her favourite seasons, but now she  contemplated its faintly melancholy nostalgia that mourned the loss of  summer with more acute sensitivity. Shivering a little she got up and  dressed, hurrying downstairs to the kitchen to make herself a cup of  coffee.

When she had drunk it, an impulse she knew she ought to master but could  not urged her outside, her feet automatically taking her along the  familiar path to the Manor.

She had walked this drive more times than she cared to remember, but  this morning the only journeys she remembered making along it were those  which had taken her to Saul.

The house stood, as it had always stood, solid and impervious, but for  once she looked at it without seeing all the countless generations of  people who had lived within its walls and instead saw only herself and  Saul. Like someone unable to resist the lure of something known to be  dangerous, she walked towards the house. The front door was open and  yielded easily to her touch, but there was nothing odd in that-it was  rarely locked.

Inside, the hall had that cold desolateness of houses without  inhabitants. The bowl for flowers which had always graced the hall table  was gone, a faint film of dust coating the mahogany surface.

Slowly Lucy walked into the drawing-room, mentally reliving the moment  when she had found Saul here and he had accused her of plotting against  him with Neville. There had been a time immediately after their quarrel  when she had hoped that his cruel words to her had been the result of  anger and jealousy caused by this belief, but she knew that if that had  been the case he would have come looking for her once his anger had  cooled.                       
       
           



       

The very fact that he had not proved beyond any doubt that he had never  really loved her. She could have forgiven those cruel, hurtful words of  his if she thought they had been flung at her in the heat of the moment  and then regretted-loving him as she did she could well imagine herself  reacting in a very similar way had their positions been reversed-but  Saul hadn't reacted in anger and primitive jealousy. He had acted  callously and cold-bloodedly, wanting to hurt and destroy her.

She shivered, placing a protective hand against her stomach. Whatever  else happened, she was not going to allow her child to suffer for its  father's omissions. Her child. Saul's child …  A child who would never  know its father.

'Lucy.'

For a moment she was sure she must be hallucinating, imagining that the  voice she heard was Saul's, and then she turned round and saw that she  was not.

He was standing less than ten feet away from her, just inside the door,  his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his face oddly sharp-boned.

She swallowed, fighting down an insane urge to rush into his arms, and  then as he took a step towards her, her composure shattered completely  and she stepped back, her whole world exploding in shock and pain as she  realised that he was real, that he was actually here, speaking to her  as unemotionally as though they were nothing more than distant cousins.

The now familiar wall of blackness roared up around her, her last  thought as faintness rushed sickeningly over her that she must somehow  contrive to stop behaving like the heroine of a Victorian novelette.  Fainting was the coward's way out, and ridiculously over-dramatic …  but  very, very effective, she thought tiredly as the darkness overwhelmed  her completely; very, very effective.

∗ ∗ ∗

When she came round she was lying on a sofa, her legs raised slightly by the cushions.

As she struggled to remember what had happened, Saul's voice from somewhere behind her right ear announced curtly,

'I've sent for the doctor; he should be here soon.'

She panicked then, trying to sit up and assure him that she was  perfectly all right, both at the same time. The resulting wave of  sickness that engulfed her warned her of the folly of trying to do  anything too abruptly. She felt extraordinarily weak and shaky, so much  so that she said nothing as Saul sprang forward and eased her gently  back on to the settee.

'What …  what are you doing here? I thought you were in America.'