Christmas Child

by Diana Hamilton

  At least it disguised the havoc of a practically sleepless night. Sleepless, thinking of him. Of what he’d said. He’d accused her of not asking what his wishes were, and he’d been right. She hadn’t. Why should she have done when she’d already known what they were?

  He’d told her himself that he didn’t want children, and if that weren’t enough Fiona had confirmed it without having been asked. So getting his knickers in a twist because she hadn’t meekly asked what his wishes were made him one big hypocrite.

  Yet, on the up side, he’d shown genuine feeling when he’d said he couldn’t afford to bond with his baby because her mother might disappear off the face of the earth again. Somehow she was going to have to reassure him that that wouldn’t happen, that she would be happy for him to make time for his child in his life.

  Her mouth set in a determined line, she set off down the twisty, uncarpeted oak staircase, pushed open the door at the bottom and froze, her eyes going wide.

  A fire was blazing in the hearth. She’d been right about that but wrong about everything else. He didn’t look even vaguely irritated or bored out of his skull. He was grinning at her reaction to what she was seeing.

  A dream of a Christmas tree stood just to one side of one of the windows, gold and silver satin-finish baubles caught and reflected the glow of firelight, scarlet satin ribbons twined through the dark green branches and the touches of artificial snow were as glittery as the real stuff she could see outside.

  The sun was rising, turning her garden, the fields and woods beyond into a magical fairyland, the sky a thin, pale blue. A perfect Christmas morning. If only everything weren’t so wrong.

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said huskily. She wanted to tell him he was beautiful too. Wearing narrow-fitting dark jeans topped by a chunky Aran sweater, his dark hair rumpled, the austerity of his features erased by that charismatic white grin, his eyes smiling for her, made him her idea of male perfection.

  She said instead, controlling the wobble in her voice by sheer will-power, ‘Where did the tree come from?’

  ‘Dorchester. I had things to do yesterday afternoon, remember? The tree was one of them. The bits and bobs another. I wanted to surprise you. Hey—’ his voice flattened ‘—don’t go weepy on me. It’s Christmas Day, it’s special so we pretend to be happy, OK? Though I did read that new mothers tend to live near the waterworks!’

  Had he really taken an interest in the subject? Had he actually read books on pregnancy, childbirth and the aftermath? Somehow she couldn’t imagine it. And his ‘pretend to be happy’ had struck a sour note.

  But he was determined to do his part, if the beautifully decorated tree was anything to go by, and when he asked, ‘Is Chloe asleep?’ she decided she would pretend, too, even if it killed her.

  ‘Soundly. And I have the baby alarm.’ Her sudden smile was dazzling, unforced. He had actually called his daughter by her name, for the very first time. Things were definitely looking up in that department. Somehow she was going to have to convince him that she would never, ever deny him access to his child. But carefully. It would be terrible if she frightened him out of the beginnings of parental interest and concern.

  ‘The tree was a lovely surprise,’ she told him. ‘You must have been up for hours. So you relax while I make breakfast.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  He followed her into the kitchen and she had mixed feelings about that. If he’d stayed in the sitting room she would have had a breathing space.

  She could be what she was, a single parent, working her way round the needs of her child. On the other hand, and probably stupidly, she wanted to have every moment of time with him that was on offer. A commodity that wouldn’t be hers to have for very much longer. A day or so.

  She didn’t ask what he wanted, she knew. She slid rashers of bacon and tomato halves under the grill, opened a carton of orange juice and put bread in the toaster. Putting a mug of fresh coffee down on the table in front of him, she avoided his eyes. This pretence was beginning to embarrass her and she would have thought that he, more than anybody, would have wanted to cut through to the nitty-gritty, get the details of the divorce settled.

  She turned back to the cooker. Perhaps she should be the one to get real, tell him what she’d wanted to say before Fiona had turned her away. That when the divorce came through she would claim nothing in the way of a settlement, that she hoped they could remain friends. Distant friends.

  But when he said, ‘You’re pretty capable around the kitchen these days,’ the warmth of his approval made her feel as if her insides were melting.

  Reality could wait. It was good to feel as if they were back in the old days, as if they were friends, even if it was only down to paying lip service to this special day. Even opposing armed forces had been known to call a truce on Christmas Day.

  ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’ she quipped, dividing the bacon and tomatoes equally onto the plates she’d put in the warming oven. ‘I even fathomed out how to change a fuse. And unblock a drain.’ She handed him his plate and slid into the chair opposite him. ‘And I know you’re not going to believe this, but I can even use the washing machine without constantly referring to the book of words!’

  Was she trying to tell him that she could manage on her own, that she’d changed, that she was no longer a complete idiot where the practicalities of ordinary day-to-day living were concerned? Maybe. Whatever, he didn’t appear to take her new independence amiss, emphasising his acceptance when he asked, ‘You’re working again?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t take on as much as I used to. Just enough to keep me solvent without touching capital. I couldn’t work full-time before Chloe was born—’ she didn’t know why she was saying all this, her tongue was running away with her and she couldn’t stop it ‘—because there was so much to do around the cottage, and the garden—’

  ‘Yes, I know. Emily told me. And I was relieved to hear that you got that retired farm worker in to do the heavy stuff—digging, painting ceilings, that sort of thing.’

  He’d finished eating, was looking at her with unreadable eyes and Mattie’s stomach flipped over. He’d kept close tabs on her through the past six months. Emily had relayed all the little details. It could only mean that he did still care something for her, that he had felt some sense of responsibility when she’d believed he’d washed his hands of her entirely.

  It made her feel warm all over, so warm and relaxed that when he said, ‘You’ve made an enviable home here. How did you find it?’ the warmth over-flowed into a low gurgle of laughter.

  ‘Believe it or not, before I left London I bought that second-hand elderly Ford and a map. I meant to head north.’ She wasn’t going to say that she’d intended to get as far away from him as she could without leaving England. She wouldn’t risk shattering this easy, relaxed mood. ‘I reached Dorchester before I realised I was going the wrong way. I couldn’t bear the thought of turning round, so I stayed. I found the cottage through a letting agency.’

  His mouth twitched and his eyes were dancing with laughter. ‘That figures! You mean to go north and you end up almost as far south as you can get—your sense of direction was always nil. Instruct you to turn left, and you invariably made a right! Matts,’ he said, serious now, ‘I worry about you, I really do. Put you behind the wheel of a car and anything can happen.’

  Mattie’s eyes glowed. She didn’t have to pretend to be happy now. He’d said he worried about her. It had to mean she still did mean something to him. The feelings he’d once had for her, based on friendship, long association and male lust, weren’t completely dead.

  Hope, long atrophied, began to bloom. Maybe things between him and Fiona hadn’t worked out—which would explain why he didn’t mind spending Christmas away from London. Maybe he wanted his wife back. Why else had he gone to the trouble of providing a tree if it hadn’t been to impress her?

  She would never be the love of his life, she knew t
hat, but maybe, for Chloe’s sake, they could make their marriage work.

  If he did want her back, could she forgive his infidelity?

  The answer to that was a sobering ‘Yes’. She had loved him for so long that she would do anything, forgive anything, to be part of his life again.

  Her eyes followed him; was she reading too much into this? He had left the breakfast table and was taking something from the dresser. Hope was such a scary thing, it could be so easily shattered. She was going to have to ask if he wanted her back in his life. Find out what had happened between him and Fiona. She couldn’t bear not knowing.

  But he forestalled her. He put a large brown envelope down on the table in front of her and stood behind her. ‘For you. Happy Christmas, Matts.’

  There was a flatness about his voice that worried her. A sense of foreboding settled around her heart and her fingers shook slightly as she lifted the flap and withdrew the documents.

  She was holding the deeds to the cottage, in her name, and she was glad he was behind her and couldn’t see the sheer desolation in her eyes.

  ‘How generous.’ Her voice was hard and tight. Of course he didn’t want her back. He wanted her here, out of his way. He was salving his conscience by making sure she had her own roof over her head.

  She’d been such a fool to hope it had been otherwise. Worse than a fool. A total wimp, willing to do anything to stay with a man who didn’t want her.

  Despicable!

  ‘Not at all.’ She heard the tug of his indrawn breath. ‘When I heard you’d fallen in love with this place and were happy making a home here, I contacted the owner and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Knowing you, I didn’t expect you’d have the common sense to have a watertight lease drawn up. I didn’t want you, or the child, to be thrown out on a landlord’s whim.’

  ‘How thoughtful.’ The acid in her tone would have etched through rock. She pushed the deeds back into the envelope, stood up and moved away from him. She was on her own now. She had to be strong.

  But she didn’t feel strong. She felt nauseous. His presence had turned her into a child crying for the moon, always wanting something she could never have.

  ‘Mattie.’ His voice flowed over her, tugged at something deep inside her. She turned unwillingly. While he was here she would never get back to being the sane and sensible woman who had made a whole new life for herself. Somehow she would have to make him go.

  ‘Do you really want a divorce?’

  The look in his eyes, the soft tone of his question, tore her to pieces.

  Of course she didn’t want a divorce! In a perfect world divorce was the very last thing she wanted. But this was far from being a perfect world. Fiona was in it. And she wasn’t going to hope that he wanted her to say so. No way would she go down that track again, and if she was even remotely tempted she only had to look at that brown envelope on the table!

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I see.’ His face went rigid.

  Mattie pulled in a deep breath. Everything inside her was shaking in reaction. ‘I think it would be better if you left as soon as the roads are passable.’

  He folded his arms across his chest. He looked like a man who was definitely staying put. ‘Just tell me one thing. Why?’ His voice was abrasive. ‘One minute you seemed to be perfectly happy, the next you were telling me you were pregnant and wanted a divorce. And the next thing I knew you’d high-tailed it to God knows where,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious!’ she flung at him, all the pain she had suffered making her voice harsh. ‘I knew you didn’t want children, and I knew why because you’d told me. And I knew what would happen if I got pregnant because Fiona told me. You’d throw me out! So I got in there first! And I knew it was her you wanted, not me. You didn’t waste a second before you moved her in.’

  For a split second there was a deathly silence, and then he said, his face white with anger, ‘My God, your opinion of me is rock-bottom, isn’t it? You think me capable of that?’

  His hands were bunched into fists at his side, as if he was having a hard time stopping himself from punching the wall. Mattie had never seen him so angry. ‘Just as yesterday you thought I’d left you here to cope alone? Or was all that garbage just a convenient excuse?’ His mouth tightened and the coldness of his eyes withered her soul. ‘I was right all along, wasn’t I? There are names for women like you, women who take, and scarper when they’ve got all they want. But you were right in one thing, it’s past time I went. I just hope you can live with yourself!’

  ‘James!’

  But he’d gone. She heard the front door slam. She wanted to run after him, to ask him to explain what he’d meant. Her legs wouldn’t function, though, giving way beneath her. She sank to the floor and buried her head in her hands.

  Had she read everything wrong? Had what she’d seen, heard and deduced been nothing but an illusion? Had she lost the only chance of happiness she would ever have?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MINUTES later, when Mattie heard the outer door open and close again she got heavily to her feet, her heart thudding painfully. James. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  She expected to hear him going upstairs to collect his gear. He’d been in such a blistering rage he would have forgotten the things he was leaving behind. It would save her the trouble of sending them on, she thought dully.

  But the door to the kitchen opened. Mattie couldn’t look at him; she hadn’t the strength. She had never felt so drained, so dispirited, in all of her life.

  The silence was like a heavy grey blanket. She couldn’t bear it. Keeping her eyes on the debris of what had been a cheerful breakfast—with laughter, even, over her abysmal sense of direction—she mumbled, ‘Forgotten something?’

  ‘My common sense,’ he came back heavily. ‘One of us has to access some of the stuff. You never had much at the best of times and mine got flooded out by emotion. Which, I might tell you, is something of a first.’

  Emotion? If he was talking about his white-hot rage then it was an emotion she could do without. She couldn’t take any more. Wearily, she began to clear the table, her fingers clumsy.

  ‘Leave that.’ In a series of loping strides he was at her side, relieving her of the tottery pile of cups and saucers. ‘Sit down while I make coffee. We could both use a cup.’

  In a few deft movements he had cleared the table, leaving the baby alarm and the wretched brown envelope that cruelly reminded her that he had no intention of having her or their baby back in his life. And what common sense had to do with anything, she was too burned out to try to imagine.

  Mattie could hear him stacking the dishes in the sink, running hot water over them. The kettle was coming to the boil. She didn’t know how he could concentrate on practicalities when everything was so dreadful.

  But the mug of hot black coffee he put down in front of her did seem like a good idea. She pushed at the lock of hair that had fallen over her face with the back of one hand as he took the chair opposite. His mouth was straight, his jawline determined, but the silver glitter of his eyes told of some internal battle.

  She knew it was a battle he would win when he told her, ‘Logic—not emotion—that’s what I work on, you know that. Mattie, when you sprang pregnancy and divorce on me in the space of two seconds I was shell-shocked. Then logic kicked in, told me to let you sleep on it, simmer down, and we could talk rationally in the morning. But by then, of course, you’d gone.’

  She shuddered. She didn’t want to go over this. It was in the past; she’d spent the last six months putting it there. She cradled the coffee-mug in both hands and he said, ‘Well? Nothing to say? Look, I’m going to get to the bottom of what went on inside your head, so let’s push it along, shall we? If our daughter stays asleep for another ten minutes we might just get there.’

  Nothing but soft little snuffles came from the baby listener. Mattie almost wished for a hungry wail to give her the excuse to get out of
the corner he’d pushed her into. Unfortunately, he seemed to take her tongue-tied silence for a willingness to be marched down a road she didn’t want to travel.

  ‘I’ve waited for this for six long, hard months, and I’ll be damned if I’ll wait any longer. I’ve known where you were, ever since you settled. But I didn’t come demanding answers for the same reason I’d had your father pass on my letters—I was afraid you’d take off again. So I waited. Waited until I’d acquired this place in your name, waited until our child was born.’

  The look of determination on his strong features told her he wouldn’t wait any longer. ‘I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know,’ she mumbled defeatedly.

  ‘Try me. No? Then let’s come at it from a different direction. Out there, ten minutes ago, I was set to break all records back to London—snow or no snow. Do you know what stopped me?’

  Mutely Mattie shook her head. How should she know? He probably wanted to bawl her out some more, and she simply couldn’t take it.

  ‘I’ve had months to look at the facts, and that’s what I’m good at,’ he said flatly. ‘I came up with two possible explanations. One, you were financially secure—the trust fund Edward set up for you years ago, the shares in the business, your earning capability—you didn’t need me to provide for you. You’d entered into a marriage of convenience, which had changed. The change meant that you conceived a child. So you left, having got what you now knew you wanted—the baby I’d let you believe you would never have.’

  He impaled her with steely eyes. ‘Or two, Fiona had something to do with it. Her name kept cropping up. Out there common sense told me that anger wouldn’t solve anything. I’ve known you long enough to be certain you don’t have a mean or self-serving bone in your body. You don’t make practical, hard-headed decisions unless you’re forced to. Your behaviour was driven by emotion. And my guess is it had a lot to do with your low self-esteem and Fiona.’