Christmas Child

by Diana Hamilton

  His matter-of-fact tone hit a raw nerve. Several raw nerves! He thought he was so darned clever, so superior. Patronising beast!

  ‘Too right, it did! I don’t know how you dare to think anything else!’ Anger injected her with bristling life, put hectic spots of colour on her pale cheeks. ‘You’ve never stopped loving her and don’t try to tell me any different. And you’d throw me out like a shot the minute she told you she’d thought things over and didn’t mind being childless because you were still crazy about each other. Especially with me being pregnant—you’d do what you’d threatened to do to her. Throw me out! And there the two of you were—laughing and smiling—it made me ill just to look at you!’

  She was incoherent, and knew it. There were tears pouring down her face. She wasn’t crying, though, of course she wasn’t! It was outrage, and anger, and a warped kind of relief to be getting it all off her chest. ‘And there she was, the very next morning, wearing something disgustingly small, telling me to go away, I wasn’t wanted around the place—and you’d told her to say that, say that our solicitors would deal with everything!’

  She gave a huge, inelegant sniff. ‘Something to do with Fiona?’ she parroted. ‘Go right to the top of the class!’

  ‘Mattie, shut up.’ He took the mug she was in danger of grinding to dust from her clenched fists, moved it out of harm’s way. ‘You’re not making a whole lot of sense. Just when did this enlightening conversation take place between the two of you?’

  His voice had softened. It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. She ground out crossly, ‘Where do you think? That charity thing. The one I hadn’t wanted to go to because I’d found out I was pregnant and was going to have to tell you, and she comes wiggling up and tells me—’

  His finger across her lips was a highly effective silencer. Just the touch of his finger and the wild anger drained right out of her. She was reduced to a quivering mass of near idiocy. She would never get over him. Never!

  ‘I think I’m beginning to get the drift. So straight after that, you saw us together? Sure I was laughing. In her face, right? She was obviously determined to flirt, making the sort of immoral suggestions I won’t sully your ears with. And I took enormous pleasure telling her she was wasting her time. I had a wife who satisfied every possible need.’

  One straight dark brow quirked upwards. ‘And because of what she’d said, you felt bound to ask me if I’d told her I didn’t want a family, yes? And because of your inexplicable low self-esteem you frightened yourself into believing that everything she’d said was gospel truth. She’d been trying to break us up, surely you can see that? And she succeeded. You left me and gave me the worst six months of my entire life.’

  She gave him a stricken look. ‘Do you mean that? Have you really stopped loving her?’ Every nerve in her body was as tense as piano wire. She so desperately wanted him to answer in the affirmative, but didn’t know if she could believe him if he did.

  ‘I never loved her, Mattie,’ he answered soberly. ‘It doesn’t reflect well on me, but try to understand. I’d reached the conclusion that it was time I settled down, took a wife, someone who would fit in with my lifestyle, a social asset, if you like. I didn’t fancy the idea of being completely alone in the years to come. Fiona fitted the bill, or so I thought. I proposed to her with my head, Mattie, not my heart. I told her I wasn’t interested in having a family, but she said she had no problem with that. She said she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body.’

  He shrugged shoulders made even hunkier by the chunky sweater he was wearing. ‘She was already beginning to irritate and bore me by the time I overheard her telling some Hooray Henry at a party that she could put up with marrying someone like me providing the income had plenty of noughts behind it. Mattie, despite what she said in that interview she gave to the press, I broke the engagement, not the other way around. Do you believe me?’

  She wanted to, she really did. But she had to ask, ‘Then what was she doing in our home? Delivering the Sunday papers?’ She glanced across at him, her mouth sulky, her eyes full of a misery she couldn’t hide. ‘I knew I’d overreacted, dashing out the way I had. Hormones acting up, I suppose. I came back the following morning so we could talk. She opened the door, with those hateful messages from you.’

  His eyes fixed on her face, he reached out and took her hands. Her breath went. The lump of emotion that was stuck in her throat felt as big as Everest. ‘I didn’t give her any messages to pass on, and that’s God’s truth,’ he told her rawly. ‘I had no idea you’d been near the house. You must have arrived when I’d been through at the back. Mrs Briggs had come to me in a panic—the washing machine hose had got blocked and was flooding the place. And Fiona was there because I’d asked her to come—no, don’t flinch, Matts.’ His fingers tightened around hers. ‘Because you’d mentioned her the night before, just before you said you wanted a divorce, I thought the spiteful madam might have had something to do with it and I wanted to know what. I’d seen her talking to you, and after that everything changed. What had been wonderful for us became a nightmare.’

  ‘Was it a nightmare? For you, too?’ she asked softly, wondering if she could believe the evidence of her own ears, not quite daring to, not quite yet.

  A sudden bleakness clouded his eyes. ‘You’d better believe it. I could get nothing out of Fiona and sent her packing. I phoned your father’s apartment, left messages—nothing. I had no idea where you were. I was nearly out of my mind when I finally got hold of Edward and he told me you’d been in touch, were safe and well.’ His eyes held hers firmly. ‘I want you to come back to me.’

  There was a moment, just a moment, when elation flooded through her, leaving her dizzy with joy. Then reality moved in. It wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough, not any more.

  She gently withdrew her hands from his and stood up. She was steadier now. Stronger. He had never been in love with Fiona, she believed him implicitly. He wasn’t capable of giving his heart to anyone. Their baby needed to be loved, and, dammit all, so did she!

  She looked at him steadily, refusing to let the lines of strain around his compressed mouth touch her tender heart. She had always loved him and always would. But she couldn’t live with him, knowing her love would never be returned. She wouldn’t let herself be used again, the way she’d been used before.

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘There would be too much missing.’ She turned away, swallowing hard.

  Earlier, much earlier, before she’d come down, he’d put the turkey in a roasting tin ready for the oven. Not a big bird, and he’d put rashers of bacon over the breast. She was being practical and sensible. It was the only way to go forward. She put the bird in the oven. The backs of her eyes stung with unshed tears. She was capable of thinking logically, of doing the right thing.

  Straightening, she felt his hands on her shoulders and forced herself to stay rigid, unyielding. She could do it; she knew she could.

  He turned her, slowly, and she said woodenly, ‘I think we should try to make things as normal as possible, just for today.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’ He gave her a gentle shake, his eyes glittering into hers, his breathing shallow.

  Briefly closing her eyes, she tried to gather her strength. Turning him down had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. But it had been the right thing. ‘It would be a pity to waste good food, we have to eat—’

  His hands dropped away. ‘Don’t push it, Matts,’ he advised tersely. ‘You know what I mean. Tell me what you think would be missing that wasn’t there before.’

  Her eyes clashed stubbornly with his before dropping away. She pulled in a raggedy breath. He did deserve to know exactly how she felt. It would draw a line under their relationship. Being all logic and no heart, he would appreciate that.

  Sure it would mean letting him know she loved him, and he would feel sorry for her. But she had learned to cope with so many things, she could cope with his pity.

  ‘OK.’ She gave a
tiny shrug. ‘I’ll tell you what would be missing. Just bear with me.’ She felt old and tired and drainingly unhappy as she crossed the floor to the sink, filled the kettle and plugged it in. She needed the stimulation of more strong, hot coffee and keeping her hands occupied would help her get through this. ‘You said you proposed to Fiona with your head,’ she reminded him sadly. ‘I can understand that. You can’t let yourself get emotionally involved because of the way you were brought up. You must have learned very early in your life that loving someone brought the pain of rejection. You programmed any kind of emotion out of your life.’

  He said nothing to contradict her, but she hadn’t expected him to. She reached two mugs from the Welsh dresser and spooned in coffee granules. ‘Being a good man, an honourable man, you were determined never to have children because of the way you are—’ Her voice wobbled. She swallowed hard. Then pushed on, ‘When you suggested we marry I admit to thinking it was to pay Fiona back for dumping you so publicly. And when—’ She pulled in a sharp breath and wished to heaven she hadn’t started this. ‘When you said you wanted to have sex with me—’ God, how cold and clinical that sounded ‘—I did wonder if you were using me to help you forget her. But that wasn’t the case, was it? You never did love her, the way I thought you did, because you couldn’t. When you proposed to me, it was with your head, too—’

  ‘No, Mattie,’ he interrupted softly. He was directly behind her now. The kettle was boiling its head off. He reached over her and unplugged it. ‘You were always in my heart. A soothing presence. Innocent, trusting, unconsciously funny and totally endearing. When I proposed to you it was because I needed everything you were right in my life. Look at me, Mattie, and believe what I say.’

  Hardly daring to breathe, let alone think, in case she let her heart rule her head all over again and allow her to think the impossible, she turned reluctantly. He needed a shave, she noted with the part of her brain that was functioning analytically. The dark shadow on the tough jaw made him look dangerously sexy, she thought with the part that was rapidly turning to mush.

  He cupped her face tenderly between his two hands. ‘Ours was supposed to be a marriage of convenience, two people—two friends who knew, liked and respected each other—rubbing along together for mutual advantage. That was why the subject of our remaining childless cropped up. For all I knew, you might have wanted half a dozen. And I was off women and meaningless sexual relationships,’ he told her dryly. ‘Only it didn’t work out that way, did it? It got to the stage where I couldn’t look at you without wanting to make love to you. You were beautiful, addictive, and I was so damned pleased with myself.’ His eyes darkened with self-condemnation. ‘I was the man who had everything,’ he said with flat derision. ‘It was only when you left me that I cottoned on to what had happened. I’d fallen deeply, irredeemably in love with you. For the first time ever I’d given my heart. Unreservedly. And you filled it. I couldn’t bear the thought of getting through the rest of my life without you.’

  The balls of his thumbs were stroking the line of her cheek-bones and there was no doubting the sincerity of his words. A huge wave of happiness engulfed her; it left her weak and shaken, utterly speechless. She could only raise glittering, golden eyes to his as he said unevenly, ‘If you really do want a divorce, you can have it. But, Mattie, if you come back to me, you’ll be loved more than any woman has been loved before. I promise you that.’

  ‘And Chloe, too?’ she questioned raggedly.

  She knew his answer would be deeply important, her heart soaring into the stratosphere when he replied succinctly, ‘Both the females in my life will have all the love I’m capable of. Can we start over? Please, Mattie?’

  She had never seen him look so vulnerable. It would have broken her heart if it hadn’t already been bursting with joy. ‘Of course we can!’ she whispered huskily, then giggled hysterically as an angry wail from the baby alarm broke the magical moment.

  With a smothered groan, he caught her to him, pressing her urgently against the solid wall of his chest. But when he released her he was grinning. ‘I guess this is what being a parent is all about! Stay right where you are, I’ll fetch her. And then I’ll tell you how happy you’ve made me!’

  He loped to the door, his energy suddenly boundless, and she followed, calling after him as he pounded up the twisty stairs. ‘James, I love you, too. I always did!’

  Every last doubt about his commitment to his baby daughter was swept away as she watched the way he descended the stairs so carefully moments later. Chloe was held next to his heart, her downy head tucked under his chin, and his proud and loving smile would have lit the midnight sky.

  ‘I can’t offer to feed her,’ he said softly as he handed the precious bundle over. ‘But I can go and get all those things you seem to need. Mattie, tell me, did you mean what you just said?’ he asked as she settled into the corner of the sofa with the now-squirming Chloe. ‘You do love me?’

  She laid a gentle hand on his cheek. It felt like sandpaper. ‘You need a shave.’ The look she gave him was shamelessly provocative. ‘Of course I love you. How could I not? I’ve been stuck with it since I wore my hair in pigtails and had legs like knobbly sticks under my gym slip.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said simply and bent to kiss the side of her mouth, running a forefinger down the swollen side of her breast and the suckling baby’s velvety cheek. ‘Thank you for that.’

  One moment he was there, cocooning her and their baby with his love, the next she could hear him moving around upstairs and when he came down again he looked sheepish.

  ‘I brought this.’ The carry-cot, piled high with all the baby-changing paraphernalia he had been able to lay his hands on. ‘I thought if she slept down here we could share her first Christmas Day with her. And I could show her the tree, and I could change her while you baste the turkey. I’ve got to learn, haven’t I?’

  ‘She’s all yours.’ Mattie couldn’t stop smiling as she handed the infant over. The baby gave a satisfactory burp against his shoulder and stared at her father with unfocussed blue eyes.

  Mattie went through to the kitchen on winged feet. James loved her; he loved their little daughter. She had never been happier in the whole of her life!

  The fire was burning low in the hearth. The shiny baubles on the tree reflected the last dancing flame. Chloe was sound asleep in her carry-cot, her rosy lips pursing now and then to blow tiny bubbles.

  Mattie snuggled more deeply into James’ shoulder, drugged with love. Christmas Day was almost over but the perfection, the magic of it, would stay in their hearts until they were both old and grey. ‘James,’ she asked sleepily, ‘the cottage is ours. What are we going to do with it?’

  How silly she’d been to be frightened off by a plain brown envelope. His answer, she knew, would be entirely satisfactory.

  It was. ‘You know me, I plan for every contingency.’ He ran a finger down the neat line of her nose. ‘If you had wanted nothing more to do with me, I’d at least have known you had a secure home. But if, as I’d hoped and prayed you would, you came back to me, then I thought we could build on at the back—there’d be no problem with planning permission, I checked that—and put Mrs Briggs here as permanent housekeeper.

  ‘I sounded her out, and she’s all for it. We could come down at weekends, or whenever we wanted to. Chloe will love the freedom when she gets old enough to toddle about. We’ll find someone younger and more capable back in London. Someone who can help you with any entertaining we need to do and turn her hand to babysitting when we need her to. I’m not going to let you wear yourself to a frazzle. You and I have a lot of living to do.’

  ‘And loving.’ She smothered a yawn. ‘You really do have an answer to everything, don’t you?’

  ‘You’d better believe it. On both counts. Bedtime, Mrs Carter.’ He stood up, taking both her hands and drawing her to her feet. He folded her into his arms. ‘I’m going to hold you all night,’ he said, his voice thick with love. ‘And i
f the little lady gets hungry and wakes, I’ll fetch her to you. And do the changing bit. And bring you breakfast in bed in the morning. How does that sound?’

  ‘Bliss,’ she said, her head against his heart, her arms twining around his neck. ‘Utter, perfect bliss!’

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0045-6

  THE CHRISTMAS CHILD

  First North American Publication 2001.

  Copyright © 2000 by Diana Hamilton.

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