The Baby Scandal(32)

"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.