And really, for the sake of the good times they had shared surely he would leave her alone if she asked if he could see how much it meant to her?
It wasn't as though she was the beginning, the middle and the end of his universe. However intense their relationship had been, it had been brief, and if she had emerged scarred from the experience, then he was intact.
If she could somehow persuade him not to let his curiosity get the better of him then perhaps he would go away quietly and she could keep her secret safely hidden.
"Now, why would I do that?" he asked pouring himself the remainder of the wine from the wine bottle which her father had left on the coffee table in front of the sofa, "when things here are so riveting?"
"Because," Ruth said, meeting his relentless blue eyes without flinching, "it would please me. I'm sorry I lied to them, it was a mistake, but if you would just leave and not look back, then it's a mistake that can be remedied."
A dark flush spread through his face and he swallowed the contents of his glass savagely, then banged the glass on the table and looked at her.
"No," he returned coldly. "My name's been played, with and I am owed an explanation. And if you won't provide it, then I'm sure your parents would be more than happy to oblige." He began standing up and Ruth feverishly pulled him back down.
"Okay. I'll tell you." She looked at him tremulously.
"I'm pregnant."
The word dropped between them like a hand grenade. Ruth, eyes squeezed tightly shut, waited for the fall-out.
When there was no loud explosion of raga she tentatively opened her eyes and immediately realised that an explosion would have been preferable to the shocked stillness of the man sitting next to her. Her revelation had rendered him speechless in the worst possible way.
A tear drizzled to the comer of her eye and she wiped it with the back of her hand. There was to be none of that. It mattered not that any number of horrendous complications could ensue from his awareness of the situation...the first involving her parents, who sere currently innocently chatting in the kitchen, unaware of what was to come.
"You're pregnant," he said flatly, standing up and walking across to the bay window. Putting, she thought bleakly, as much distance now between them.
"I wasn't going to tell you..." Ruth began in a shaky voice. "It was a mistake..."
"But we were using contraception," he said harshly.
"But not the first time." She got up and quietly shut the door to the sitting room. The last thing she needed was for her parents to witness unnecessarily a slanging match between their daughter and so-called son-in-law.
"I know that maybe I should have told you..."
"No." His voice dripped with glacial sarcasm. "Why should you? The fact that you're carrying my baby is only a minor detail that really hasn't got much to do with me at all, isn't it."
"Can you blame me?" Ruth's eyes flashed with sudden anger.
"Yes, I damn well can, as a matter of fact!" His eyes smoldered with rage. She could feel it emanating from him across the length of the room, suffocating her.
"Why? Why?" she cried leaning forward. "What's so difficult for you to understand?"
"Are you a fool?"
"Non I'm not!" She could barely speak because her voice was so unsteady. "As far as I was concerned I was doing you a favor!" She glared at him, and all of a sudden the strange calm that had carried her along for the past few weeks shattered into oblivion. The starkly grim reality of what was happening to her was like a blow to the stomach.
This was no ordinary situation. With the best possible intentions in the world, she had lied to her parents and had stupidly involved Franco in the lie. Now he could blow the whole thing apart. They lived in a small village where the parishioners would not be backward in passing judgement on the vicar and his unwed, pregnant daughter. Not only would she suffer, but so might her parents, two people who had done nothing but believe the story their daughter had fabricated.
"When first we practice to deceive..." Why, oh, why hadn't she remembered that at the time? She should have told him everything. Now, in trying to conceal it all, she risked the worst possible outcome.
"You and I...we had a fling. A baby was not part of the agenda, and when I found out that I was pregnant, I suppose I just...panicked. I couldn't imagine that you would want a baby in your life and I had no intention of...getting rid of it. I just thought that the easiest thing to do would be to leave, let you get on with your life.
"I lied to my parents because I was a coward … I am a coward. It would have broken their hearts if they had known...the trust, that I was pregnant and unmarried. I know it happens all the time, and they wouldn't have flung me out the house and told me never to darken their door again, but they're old-fashioned, and it would have been tough on them what with Dad being the vicar."
"And what did you intend to tell your parents when your husband failed to make an appearance? Misplaced your address, perhaps! Had second thoughts about the whole thing? Or maybe you painted him as some kind of inveterate bum whom you'd idiotically married on a whim?"
"I hadn't thought that far ahead." Ruth whispered.
"I suppose I night have killed you off."
"Killed me off?"
"Well, you were involved in a dangerous line of business."
"What? What line of business?" He came back to the sofa and sat down heavily.
"Reporting from war zones."
"What?" He resisted the urge to burst out laughing.
There was nothing funny about the situation, but her ingenuity amused him. "Any in particular?" he asked pleasantly. "Or just the most life-threatening?"
"I hadn't specified. What are you going to do?" She raised her eyes to his and looked at him steadily.
"Well, here's what I'm not going to do," he informed her bluntly. "I won't be walking away from my responsibilities; that's the first thing. So, whether you like it or not, you'll be seeing me on a regular basis from now on. You lied to your parents about my fictional hair-raising occupation, so you can un-lie your way out of that one. As for our status as husband and wife-well, I'll have to think about how I decide to deal with that..."
"But..." She frowned as the innumerable complicated permutations of that particular lie sprang to mind. "You can't hang around...people will wonder why we don't live under the same roof if we're married."
He shrugged. "Well, you can work on that, can't you? You're so gifted in the art of fabrication, you should be able to come up with something..." He stood up and flexed his muscles, rubbing the back of his neck. "So why don't we go and see your parents? They'll be thrilled when they realize that I won't have to go rushing off after all, won't they?"
He politely allowed her to lead the way, maintaining a telling silence, while his brain whirred with the con¬notations of what she had just told him.
He was going to be a father. He was going to be a father! He didn't know whether he felt deliriously happy or abjectly terrified, or whether he just felt bloody confused, but the one thing he did know was that the ground had very neatly been pulled out from under his feet.
When he thought of the fact that none of this would have been revealed had he not made the journey to find her, he felt the blood rush to his head. He was consumed by a rage that was so pure and undistilled that it seemed to have enough force to blow him off his feet.
His baby! So what if he had never indicated an in¬terest in fatherhood? So what if he had always implied that his life was just too full for the responsibilities that came with a family? Was that any reason for her to keep the fact of her pregnancy hidden?
She turned to give him a brief, hesitant look as the sound of her parents' voices reached their ears, and he frowned coolly at her.
They would have beautiful children.
A beautiful child. He instantly corrected the errant thought.
"Franco. Have you come to say goodbye? Such a shame that you have to disappear just when we were getting to know one another." Claire walked over to where he was standing by the doorway and reached out her hands to him in a gesture of warmth and ac¬ceptance.