"Not that I knew what possessed you to go along with the idea in the first place," she swept on, caught on an unstoppable current of recrimination. Things are complicated enough without them being further complicated!"
Will you let me finish?" The ferocity of her com¬mand threw him for six, and he literally took a step backwards before looking at her narrowly, the amusement back in his eyes as he absorbed the quivering angel in front of him.
He wasn't going to let her go. He was never going to let her go. And if she didn't love him, then she would learn to. Because she was the only woman he had ever loved and the only one he ever would. He would use the physical hold he knew he had over her and he would work until her defenses were broken.
The decision left him with a feeling of calm. Let her rant and rave; her fate was sealed. He was her fate just as she was his, and his pride was not going to stand in the way of something as big and overwhelm¬ing and wonderful as this.
"So now you just intend to walk away and leave me to pick up the pieces behind you... !P
"Well, there would be no pieces to pick up if it weren't for you in the first place..."
"There's no point harking on about what was done..."
"Why are you so against the idea of a blessing, any¬way?" Franco asked, swerving away from the topic of his departure, which appeared more pointless and rash as the minutes ticked by.
"Because it doesn't seem right," Ruth muttered, an¬gling her body up to him.
"It's no less right than the fictitious marriage we're supposed to be enjoying!" he bit back with grim logic. "You know what I mean," Ruth was obliged to counteract stubbornly, and he shook his head in won¬derment, as though thoroughly bemused by her illogic. "No, I don't! I don't damn well know what you mean! And I'm sick to death and utterly fed up with all of this!" Where was he going with this?
He stalked across to the suitcase and began pelting clothes out, back onto the bed, where they collected into a hideously untidy mound. Her mouth had dropped open, which was mildly satisfying.
"I'm staying! Do you hear me? I'm not going any where? I'm in love with you and you'll damn well accept that and start loving me back if it's the last thing you do!"
As a declaration of devotion, he was forced to admit it left a great deal to be desired, but he was beyond caring.
"And will you stop looking at me as though I've turned into a three-headed alien? You're pregnant with my child..." even in the midst of his roaring anger he couldn't prevent a note of pride from creeping into his voice "...and if you think that you're going to selfishly waltz out of my life now, then you're wrong! We're man and wife..."
"But we're not really..." Ruth interrupted meekly. "Well, we will be! We're getting married. We're going to be a family! Do you understand me?"
"Because you love me?" She gazed at him, adoring the sullen lines of his mouth and loving him for the strength she knew it must have taken for him to broad¬cast his feelings when he was uncertain of the re¬sponse.
"Yes," he muttered grimly. "Adore me, even?"
A slow smile began to tug the corners of his mouth. "Even that," he agreed.
"Would worship be too big a word?"
"Not big enough..."
Ruth smiled. "Ditto."
CHAPTER TEN
Ruth felt as though she was swimming. Swimming up to the surface of the water, where she would be able to take a huge gulp of air and breathe again. That would have been very nice, were it not for the fact that she didn't want to regain consciousness. She couldn't quite think why, but she knew that floating around in her present dreamlike state was infinitely better than waking up to reality.
She opened her eyes tentatively to find Franco star¬ing down at her. She was lying on a bed in a very small room with white walls and a television inappro¬priately set on brackets against the wall. Around her was a scrunched-up mass of white sheets. Fear and panic flooded her, and she felt the desire to cry well up inside her like an unstoppable tidal wave.
In the space of a few seconds everything, every emotion, every word and every thought, carne back to her with nightmarish clarity.
She had been standing in the finished nursery at their newly bought London mews house. Her parents had been deeply impressed because all the decorating had been contracted out to professionals. Someone had come in and, in the space of a week, had turned the high-ceilinged room with the gorgeous bay window into a wonderful green and yellow nursery.
Of course Ruth had muttered about the expense, through sheer habit, and Franco had squashed her reluctance with raised eyebrows and an amused, teasing remark about the impossibility of climbing ladders and hanging wallpaper when her stomach was the size of a large beach-ball.
"It's decadent." She had grinned back at him with a sigh. "You're a very, very decadent man, and I'm sur¬prised the local vicar gave you his blessing to be in¬volved with me."
"The local vicar," he had murmured seductively, "has no idea how deliciously decadent his daughter can be when the mood takes her. Or, for that matter, how often the mood does take her!"
At that point in time, with the sunshine streaming through the window and with only five weeks of her pregnancy left to go, there had been no clouds on the horizon.
No clouds, at least, until she had felt the rapid onset of contractions when none were yet due. She had made it to the telephone, even as her waters had broken, and had managed to get through to Emergency, but Franco had been at a meeting in the depths of Wiltshire and she had had to leave a breathless and urgent message with his secretary.
The worst thing she remembered were the ominous words, The baby's showing signs of distress. We'll have to perform a Caesarean. To her untrained ears that had sounded like a death sentence on her baby, and the anaesthetic delivered to knock her out had come as a blessing.
"Ruth..." Franco began, now leaning towards her, and she turned her head away and bit her lip.
"No, don't say it. Please don't say it."
"You silly girl." When he lifted his hand to stroke her hair she could feel it trembling, and she looked at him. His face was haggard. He looked as though he hadn't slept for a week.
"The baby..." She found that she couldn't get the words out properly. The rest of the unfinished sentence stuck somewhere at the back of her throat and she had to rely on her pleading, tear-filled eyes to complete what her mouth could not say.
"Is in the Special Case Unit." He smiled at her, and Ruth closed her eyes and felt her entire body go limp with relief. The relief, however, was short-lived. "We had a girl, my darling, and she's beautiful."
"Are you sure?" Ruth whispered. Was he lying? Was he lying because he felt that she was too weak for the truth? She looked straight into his eyes, anxiously try¬ing to prise the truth out of him, and he kissed her on her forehead.
"I think I know enough to recognize the difference between a boy and a girl."
"I know, but you know what I mean..."
"She's absolutely fine, Ruth. Small, but the doctors have said that there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to take her home in the next couple of weeks. She just needs a bit of feeding up, and they want to make sure that her lungs are functioning to full ca¬pacity before they let her go." He kissed the comer of her mouth. "They'll be in to tell you all this themselves in a little while, and as soon as you're up to it we'll go and have a peep at her."
"Mum and Dad...?"
"Know, and are on their way down." He exhaled a long, shaky breath, squeezed shut his eyes, and when he re-opened them they were suspiciously shiny.
"Don't ever scare me like that again, Ruthie," he said unsteadily. "I want to tell you this before the doctors arrive and I'm shooed out.