by India Grey
‘Of course he was,’ said Orlando bitterly. ‘Because he’d won. Everything we ever did was in competition with each other, and suddenly it was over. I was out. Defeated. He was the winner, so he could afford to be bloody good to you.’
‘It wasn’t like that! He was devastated too. He looked up to you so much, Orlando, and the thought of you being…weakened, being reduced, was almost more than he could bear! I wasn’t surprised when I heard that he was dead. He shouldn’t have been flying. He was still too upset.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, spare me the guilt trip! I’m supposed to believe now that Felix’s death is due to my selfish, embarrassing weakness? Jeez, Arabella—does it not enter your stupid, self-absorbed head that it’s bad enough knowing that I’m here, sentenced to this bloody awful half-life, while Felix has been robbed of a useful, long, full one? Don’t you think that’s bad enough without you telling me it’s actually my fault? Don’t you think I’d change places with him without a second’s hesitation? The only thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge that wherever he is now, he’s laughing because he won. From here to eternity he’s a hero, for God’s sake!’
She raised her head, and it was lucky that Orlando couldn’t see the look of cruel triumph on her face. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That destroys you, doesn’t it, Orlando? Felix died a hero, while you’re living the life of a hermit.’
Above the drumming of blood in his ears, Orlando heard the sound of Arabella unbuckling the straps of the baby seat, and the soft sigh and whimper of the child as she picked him up. ‘It’s a bit of a come-down, isn’t it, darling, after the accolades and the adulation? Just as well Felix did his bit to uphold the family name. Just as well he’s a good role model for your son. That’s why I called him after his brave uncle. Meet Felix.’
Orlando felt the blood drain from his face. The room was very still, very quiet. The sounds of the party were coming to them as if from a parallel universe, not merely from the other side of a closed door. Eventually Orlando spoke. His voice was hollow.
‘Why? Why did you do that?’
‘Because I did everything to make you love me,’ Arabella hissed venomously. ‘I was perfect. You have no idea how much effort it took to be perfect all the time, and it still wasn’t enough. You didn’t love me. You didn’t need me. You had everything and I was just an accessory. But in all that time we were together I came to understand you, and I knew the one person who could really touch your impenetrable heart was Felix. You loved him, but you hated him, too.’
He had to hand it to her. Her aim had been to inflict the maximum amount of pain and she had succeeded. She was right, and he’d underestimated her. She’d made sure in the most subtle, agonising way possible that he would never be allowed to forget Felix’s victory. Felix’s heroism. His own fallibility.
‘Well done,’ he said bleakly. ‘It seems you’ve won too. What now?’
‘I haven’t bloody well won. I’m the loser in all this, Orlando. It’s destroyed my life, my career, my relationship, my body, for God’s sake.’ She was pacing briskly back and forth across the room, bouncing the inert bundle in her arms with alarming ferocity. ‘It’s harder than it looks, this parenting thing. No sleep. No going out. No time do have a bath or talk on the phone or go shopping. It’s suffocating. Everybody’s always on at me not to drink and smoke—as if I hadn’t already given up enough.’
Orlando felt the sweat break out on the back of his neck as this insight into the early weeks of his child’s life was starkly revealed. He stepped forward, his hands in his pockets so she couldn’t see his clenched fists, but she was too wrapped up in herself to notice anything else.
Her voice had taken on a slightly hysterical edge. ‘I can’t do it any more, Orlando. I need a break. I’m going to Paris, and I’m leaving the baby with you.’
With huge effort Rachel forced a smile for the merchant banker whose hand was creeping rather too low down her back as he whisked her round the drawing room in a clumsy waltz. It was as if Arabella possessed some kind of supernatural power to slow down time, and was making the seconds drag by like hours as Rachel waited for Orlando to emerge from the library.
Not that there was anything to wait for, she thought despairingly. Orlando had only been using her to fill the gap left by Arabella’s absence. She’d known that already. If she was any kind of a decent person she’d be happy for him that he’d got his great love back. And, not only that, that he’d got a baby…
She closed her eyes against the sudden rush of tears, but felt them ooze out from under her lids as she pictured Orlando’s big, strong hands holding the baby, the lips that had so recently brought her to the brink of ecstasy dropping the tenderest of kisses on that tiny, downy head. And his eyes…his astonishing, glacier-green eyes…looking down into the face of his own child and being softened with helpless love.
As a child she had never known her father, and his absence had caused her to construct an elaborate image of the kind of person she would have chosen to fill his role. A perfect hero: strong, fearless, handsome, honourable. Like Orlando.
She buried her face in the shoulder of the merchant banker while she tried to puncture the misery that was ballooning inside her, but was unable to contain her moan of hopelessness. Unfortunately the merchant banker mistook the sound for pleasure, and instantly tightened his grip, dropping his head to breathe hot, whisky-scented fumes into her ear.
Her eyes flew open in panic and she tried to pull away, but his palm was damp and heavy on her bare back, pushing her body harder against his, so she could feel the pressure of his arousal. It was just like Carlos all over again—and for a second she felt the room tilt and swim as panic swamped her.
‘My turn now, I think,’ said a cold voice.
Instantly the merchant banker released her from his insistent embrace and melted away. Rachel stood in the centre of the floor, looking dazedly up at Orlando.
His face was ashen, utterly drained of colour and emotion, and his eyes were dark and haunted. For a moment they gazed at each other in wordless agony, before he very slowly placed his bandaged hand on her back and drew her into his arms.
He had rescued her again.
She felt so good. So sweet and uncomplicated after Arabella’s savage guile.
The enormity of Arabella’s allegation was like a boulder on his chest. It crushed him, so that he wanted nothing more than to thrust it away with all his strength. He didn’t trust her.
‘Boy or girl?’ Rachel whispered.
He held his head very upright, for fear that if he felt her hair brush against him he would be lost.
‘Boy.’
‘How old?’
‘Ten weeks.’
The music of the string quartet was soft and innocuous. Rachel moved with absent-minded fluidity in his arms, so that he could feel her spine flexing beneath his hand. Holding her so close was almost unendurable. Her voice was soft and distant.
‘What’s his name?’
Orlando’s hand tightened convulsively on hers. He closed his eyes briefly.
‘Felix.’
He felt her move her head, tilting it backwards so she could look into his face.
‘Your brother would be pleased about that, wouldn’t he?’
He laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, yes. Extremely pleased.’
‘Congratulations.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Don’t say that.’ He gave a crooked, humourless smile and echoed her words from yesterday. ‘It’s not a “congratulations” situation.’
‘How can it not be? You have a child…’
‘I only have Arabella’s word that he’s mine.’
He’d always been careful. In those days he’d never been without a wallet full of condoms. Had always used one. Always.
In those days. But not last night. He hadn’t used one then.
He swore softly.
Rachel stopped, standing still in the centre of the other dancing couples, in roughly the same bit of floor wh
ere he had lain her down less than twenty-four hours ago and lost himself in the miraculous softness of her skin, the evocative rose scent of her hair, the caress of her brilliant hands. Then she had been so uncertain, so vulnerable, but now he could sense her strength.
‘She wouldn’t lie about something like this, Orlando. Not in these days of…of DNA tests and everything. You’re shocked just now—who wouldn’t be?—but you have to believe her. You mustn’t deny your child a good father. He deserves better than that.’
Neither of them moved. Orlando’s face was like granite as he stared straight ahead. His narrowed eyes had darkened to the colour of winter seas, and were opaque with fathomless emotion.
‘You’re right.’ he said slowly, letting his hand fall away from her back. His other hand still held hers, and for a moment he smoothed his thumb across her palm, sending sparks of desire shooting up her arm.
‘Thanks for the advice.’
And then he very carefully let her hand go. Without looking back, focusing all his energy on making it to the door, he walked away, taking her words with him as certainly as if she had just carved them on his heart with a rusty nail.
She was right. So right. Little Felix deserved a great father. Which was why Orlando was going to have as little to do with him as possible.
CHAPTER NINE
THE party was coming to an end.
As Orlando walked through the dining room the caterers were clearing tables, and it dimly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Lucinda all night to thank her. He’d had more urgent matters on his mind.
Like his son.
Arabella was in no fit state to look after a goldfish, never mind a baby. The ball-breaking alpha-female whose chilling competence had always terrified the designer pants off the men she worked with had simply collapsed, leaving Orlando no choice but to pick up the slack. Baby Felix would have to stay at Easton while she got herself straight again, and, knowing Arabella, it wouldn’t be long before she was with another man…
He stopped beside a table, leaning against it for a moment. He hoped to God it would be someone decent…someone who would stick around. Someone reliable and kind, who would kick a football around with Felix, teach him card games and read him stories. Someone who would be the sort of father Orlando could never be.
He would do everything he could for the child, of course—see that Felix was generously provided for, both in the short term and in his will, ensure that he received the best care and education. But he would do it at a distance. Felix would never have the burden of knowing his blind father.
On the table was a Chinese vase of his mother’s, which had stood in the same place for as long as he could remember. Now it held a dramatic arrangement of tall branches entwined with tiny, twinkling lights. Absent mindedly he reached out and touched one of the branches, thinking it must be something artificial Lucinda had brought from London.
It was rough and brittle. Real. Suddenly he remembered Rachel struggling through the door that afternoon, her arms full of cumbersome branches…
Had she done this? He’d sneered at her at the time, but maybe he’d underestimated her.
Briefly he cupped one of the tiny snowflake-shaped lights in the palm of his hand, feeling its warmth, able to see the glow it cast on his skin. It was only small, but the light was surprisingly powerful, and it transformed the stark branches into something beautiful. Something useful.
He closed his hand tightly around it, and the light went out.
For a moment he held it like that. And then he let it go and walked on to say goodbye to his guests.
By the time she finally climbed into bed Rachel ached in every bone of her body, and her face hurt from smiling.
Switching out the light, she lay in the darkness, willing sleep to come but feeling her eyes sting with the effort of keeping them closed. Her breathing seemed too loud, her heartbeat too fast, and her brain couldn’t seem to stop endlessly repeating the same tortuous loop of thought, like a faulty recording. She longed for the release of oblivion.
She didn’t know how long she lay there before she heard the unmistakable sound of the door clicking open, and watched as a thin sliver of faint light fell across the floor.
‘Rachel?’
It was Orlando’s voice, and as she replied she knew her own was suffused with a terrible, obvious hope.
Slowly his face swam into focus, a long way above her, ghostly and remote. ‘I need your help.’
The hope died instantly. ‘Of course…’ She got out of bed, noticing that he had carefully stepped backwards to allow her to pass. She swallowed her humiliation and misery. ‘What…what’s happened?’
As they went out into the corridor she became aware of the distant crying of a baby, which got louder and more insistent as he hurried her through the darkness. As they turned into the front-facing landing it sounded unbearably distressing, and Orlando’s fingers, trailing along the wall, fell back to his side and stiffened slightly as he approached a door halfway along the length of the corridor.
He hesitated, as if steeling himself for what lay beyond it, then pushed it open.
Inside, the light was on, and the sudden brightness after the shadowed corridor made Rachel blink. The room was in chaos, and as she stepped over the clothes dropped on the floor she recognised them as Arabella’s—the tight black trousers and thin chiffon top she had been wearing earlier. One stiletto-heeled boot lay at an angle beside the bed, as if it had been thrown there hastily as she’d fallen into the bed.
Or been pulled?
With massive effort Rachel averted her mind from the image, and her eyes from mass of dark blonde hair fanning out across the white pillowcase, focusing instead on the scarlet, screwed-up face of the baby beside Arabella. The cries had reached feverpitch, but she slept on, oblivious.
Rachel stood there helplessly, momentarily unable to think clearly. The noise was all-consuming and urgent, like a police siren, and she cast a panicky glance at Orlando.
He was leaning against the door, his head tipped back, his face utterly expressionless. It was as if he had been turned to stone. Her mouth opened to speak, but she was too shocked to find the words, too distracted by her desperate compulsion to stop the crying. Without thinking she went over to the bed and picked up the baby, holding him awkwardly at arm’s length for a moment, before folding him into her body, cradling his head, rocking him, crooning.
‘There…there…shhh…shhhhhh…’
Gradually, miraculously, the tiny red face relaxed and the ferocious cries subsided into gulping bleats. Still rocking, still whispering soothing nonsense, Rachel watched the baby’s dark eyes fix on her, following the movement of her mouth, watching her intently as fat tears wobbled on his spiky dark lashes.
He was beautiful. She’d never seen a small baby at such close quarters before, and was taken aback by his perfection. Wonderingly she let her gaze travel over his ruff of soft black hair, the slanting, watchful eyes and the lovely mouth that were so heartbreakingly similar to…
‘Thank God for that,’ said Orlando coldly from the door.
Rachel was unaware that she’d been smiling until she felt that smile die on her face as she looked up at him.
‘Oh, my God…’ she breathed. ‘You bastard. You were so keen to pick up where you left off with her—’ she tossed a contemptuous look at the inert figure of Arabella in the bed ‘—that you forgot you had a child to consider. How could you? How could you?’
Orlando took a step forward into the room. His face felt like a mask—a hard, brittle mask, behind which he was slowly disappearing. Rachel had totally misunderstood the situation, but there was little point in enlightening her.
‘Not easily,’ he said coldly, ‘when he makes a noise like that.’
‘He just needed to be picked up!’ Rachel hissed furiously. Orlando saw her lift one hand, shielding the baby’s head as if she could protect him from the tension that spat and crackled in the room. ‘He probably needs to be fed, for
God’s sake. Did that not occur to you? Or her?’ She made a dismissive gesture at the champagne bottle that Arabella must have brought up with her while he was downstairs, dancing with Rachel in his arms. ‘Or are those the only bottles she’s interested in?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he said tonelessly, picking up a large black leather bag. ‘Milk and bottles are in here, I think. As well as nappies and whatever. Could you do it? I have something important to see to.’
‘Important?’ she repeated quietly, taking the bag from him. ‘Important? Bloody hell, Orlando, you amaze me. I thought you were…’ Awkwardly she hoisted the bag onto her shoulder, trying not to disturb the baby. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I can see how wrong I was. You’re not worthy of being a father. Your heart is made of stone.’
She stormed past him, and when she’d gone he shut the door quietly behind him and went to stand at one of the windows on the landing, looking down into the courtyard below. The candles had all burned out, leaving nothing but shadow. Panic and despair rose inside him, swift and choking, taking him by surprise so that he had to gasp for air.
She was right about one thing. He wasn’t worthy of being a father. How could he be when he couldn’t see to make up a bottle, couldn’t trust himself to carry his tiny son downstairs? But she was wrong about the other. His heart was not made of stone. How much easier everything would be, he thought with savage desolation, if only it was.
A rose-pink dawn was creeping over the snow-covered lawns and stretching tentative fingers into the shadowy kitchen. Sitting uncomfortably in the big Windsor chair, Rachel struggled to keep her eyes open.
In her arms Felix slept peacefully, his pinched face now softened and replete. For long hours she had gazed at it, watching his eyelids flicker, his exquisite mouth twitch into a miraculous tiny replica of Orlando’s ironic, crooked smile. His skin was pale, transparent, warmed now by the soft light of the new day, but it was his hands that captivated her most. She watched them flex and curl, as expressive and eloquent as those of his father.
