James nodded as Tom pulled the door behind him.
‘Daisy, I would never stop you having children, I guess I just always hoped you’d have them with me.’
She sniffled, wiped her running nose with back of her cardigan sleeve.
‘I can’t hear any more of this,’ she said. She put her hands on either side of her face, closed her eyes momentarily, wishing to be somewhere else. ‘It may be too late, anyway.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ James looked at her intently and then realising what she was saying, his eyes widened. ‘You mean…? Is that why you’ve been staying in London? You went to the clinic?’
A single tear ran down her cheek and she nodded. ‘Yes, I had the embryos implanted today.’
James sat down hard on the Ottoman, put his head in his hands. ‘So you may be pregnant with Hugh’s child?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
He nodded, his face paler. ‘OK, wow, OK.’
‘You know I don’t have to justify that to you. Hugh was my husband up until recently and I never divorced him, he died, James. He died. I had no choice in that matter and then I’m given the opportunity to not only have children but have the child of the man I married.’ She clenched her jaw. ‘Can you blame me?’
James shook his head. ‘It’s just that I love you, Daisy.’ He stood, grabbed her hands and held them tight. ‘I love you so much, it hurts me. Do you know that feeling?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, more tears spilling over. ‘I do because when I saw you flirting and spending time with Annabelle, something happened. I realised that I felt such deep feelings for you and I didn’t know what to do.’
‘And then Alistair…’ James’s words tailed off. ‘Oh my goodness, what a mess.’
‘Well, is it? I mean why is it such a mess?’
He kissed the tops of her hands. ‘Because, just because.’
She withdrew her hands from his grip. ‘You mean, because I now may be carrying part of Hugh again you can’t love me? You couldn’t love his child?’
James just looked at her and in the silence that sat between them, she had found her answer. James had wanted her as she was, as she had been, when she needed him in her grief.
‘I think we should drive back tonight. We’ll get out of your way.’
‘No, Daisy, you don’t need to do that.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just not thinking straight.’
‘No, it’s fine, I think you’ve made your feelings quite clear.’ She moved towards the door to tell Tom they were leaving. ‘I just want to wait now and see the results and I am hoping and praying I am pregnant, James. This child, if he or she happens, is a part of me.’
James went to say something but stopped himself and Daisy walked quickly to the kitchen to fetch Tom. Less than half an hour later, she was sat in the car, Tom rattling on trying to diffuse the mood, but her mind had wandered to a life when Hugh might have been alive and seen his son or daughter.
Chapter 21
Daisy knew she had to wait two weeks before she could even begin to think about taking a pregnancy test so she filled her days with helping the Dream Team do the rooms and breakfast, and tending to the garden. She felt extraordinarily calm and she wanted to keep stress to a minimum whilst she hoped her body produced a miracle. It didn’t however remove the crazy sense of loneliness she felt. Her mind drifted constantly back to James and how happy he’d looked when he found out she wasn’t getting married. Every time Daisy thought about the way he’d said, ‘I love you’ with such tenderness, she thought she might cry. She checked her phone constantly but no messages, nothing. Occasionally she went to write a message to him but she was lost for words, she didn’t know what she wanted to say.
On the morning of the fourteenth day after her trip to London, she sat on the loo seat staring at a pack of highly sensitive ClearBlue and wondering if her life was about to change. She also knew that it might not have worked and that thought broke her heart. She reached for the box, put it back, thought about it again. Her hands were trembling and she was just about to unwrap the packet when there was a knock on her bedroom door.
She put the box down once again and walked back into the bedroom.
‘Yep?’ she called out.
Tom stuck his head around the door. ‘Um, Daisy, he’s downstairs, wants to see you.’
Her heart started to beat faster. ‘Who?’
‘Who do you think?’ He smiled kindly. ‘Mr Lover Boy.’
‘James?’
‘That’d be the one, unless you’ve got others hidden away.’ He realised what he was saying and snorted. ‘Actually, you might well have another Alistair somewhere for all we know!’
‘Ha ha, very funny.’ She looked in the wardrobe mirror and pulled a face. ‘God, I look so tired and horrid.’
‘No, you don’t, silly. You look beautiful.’
‘Can you tell him to come up here? But give me a couple of minutes?’
Tom nodded and left, as Daisy ran back to the bathroom to apply blusher, lip gloss and a squirt of her favourite perfume. Whoever said women should go au naturel clearly hadn’t realised the power of make-up and scent. Moments later came another knock on the door. She gave herself one last look in the bathroom mirror; Daisy thought she looked like the same tired woman but now with overdone plum-stained cheeks.
‘Just give up,’ she said to herself trying to blend the colour into her cheeks. ‘You look like a sad clown, face it.’
She opened her bedroom door and there he stood. His eyes lit up at the sight of her.
‘Daisy.’
‘Come in.’ She stood back and as he moved passed her, the smell of his laundry detergent and cologne hit her and she felt the familiar tingling of attraction and such a deep love all mixed together. ‘Sit wherever. By the window, if you like.’
He nodded and sat in the bay window seat, gazing outside. ‘The garden is looking beautiful.’
‘I’ve been working on it over the last couple of weeks.’
He nodded. ‘You look good, the sun’s brought out your freckles.’ James smiled softly. ‘I love your freckles.’
She smiled. ‘Took me years to love them.’
‘Always the way. If only we knew better when we were young.’ His face momentarily saddened. ‘I found these.’ He withdrew an envelope and handed it to her.
She took them uncertainly and sat by his feet in the bay window. Carefully she opened the envelope and took out a bunch of photos. As she went through them, her eyes grew hazy with tears. There was photo after photo of her on holidays they had taken with James, on the day she had entered an art exhibition, from every single occasion that James had been a part of.
‘There’s no Hugh,’ she realised aloud, and looked up.
‘Oh, I have plenty photos of Hugh but I often took ones of just you. I got them all developed and would look at your beautiful face over the years.’
‘Oh James.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘You know Hugh hated taking photos or having his photo taken. I never understood why but I think it was probably something to do with a fear of losing face. The lack of control over it.’
‘Yes,’ James agreed. ‘I think that’s right. I think the only photos I ever saw of you two alone were either at your wedding, the professional ones, or that one of him on that bridge in Amsterdam.’
‘Yes, I took that one.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘It feels like a lifetime ago. He proposed to me that day.’
‘Did you know straight away you wanted to marry him?’
‘Yes and no,’ Daisy answered honestly. ‘I knew he was a decent man, the right sort of man but, when I think about it now, I was too young. I remember in the moment he asked me having all those thoughts but there you go…’ She paused, and looked up from the photo. ‘How come you never married?’
He shrugged, smiled shyly. ‘Well, other than having always been madly in love with you, you mean?’
She smiled.
‘Never met the right woman
. I almost married this woman from Surrey in my early thirties, someone my parents had found for me but ironically enough she, Diane, called it off.’ He laughed. ‘I think she did us both a huge favour.’
‘I never knew about that!’
‘No, not something I wanted to broadcast to anyone.’
‘Why have you come here, James?’ Daisy searched his face and he grabbed her hand.
‘I came here because I love you and I’ve wanted you for all these years, I’m not going to let the possibility of you carrying Hugh’s child be a reason to stop me from trying.’
Daisy winced at his choice of words. ‘If I do have Hugh’s child, that child will be a part of me. If you cannot love my child, then really you cannot love me.’
She knew she should not have got her hopes up when she heard he had come back.
‘In fact, I was about to take a test.’
‘Oh.’ James stood, her hand still in his. ‘Do you want me to go?’
‘You can stay if you want?’
‘OK, I’ll wait here.’ He looked suddenly nervous, his gaze fleetingly caressing her body.
She nodded, let go of his hand and walked to the bathroom. Once again she took the box off the side and removed one of the sticks, wondering how something so small and plastic had the power to change a woman’s life in an instant. She waited the two minutes, not daring to look at the test.
‘Are you OK, Daisy?’ James’s voice filled with concern and nervousness all at once.
She picked up the stick, not looking at it and opened the door. ‘You look for me.’
‘What am I looking for?’
She kept her eyes on his. ‘It says right next to the window.’ Daisy grew exasperated. ‘Thank God men don’t have to go through this stuff.’
‘Alright, alright.’ He peered more closely at the stick and said slowly, ‘Well, um, I think, um…’
‘James,’ she warned.
‘Well, I think, you are.’
‘I am?’ She flipped the stick around and sure enough, there were two very definite lines. ‘I am!’ She threw the stick onto the bed and hugged James tight, squealing with delight. After a minute or so, she held James in front of her by the shoulders. ‘You haven’t said anything.’
‘I can’t believe it.’ He shook his head. ‘Amazing.’
‘But you also mean you can’t love me now.’
He removed her hands from his shoulders and kissed them all over, and then very tenderly dropped butterfly kisses along her arm and down her front to her tummy.
‘Hello,’ he whispered, and when he looked up he was beaming. ‘Daisy, I love you so much. Please let me be a part of your life.’ He looked at her with such deep passion and intent. ‘Both of your lives.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes welled with tears of joy. ‘Really?’
‘I came here today to tell you that if you are carrying Hugh’s child, I want to be here for you and for them, boy or girl.’
James leant in towards Daisy and she immediately felt every inch of her body tingle with anticipation. Very gently, almost too gently as it belied the urgency she felt deep in her groin, he kissed her lips and then with greater passion, his tongue moved around her mouth. Their eyes locked in lust and love.
He pulled away and Daisy was alarmed at the abruptness of his gesture. She watched him gulp hard and Daisy recognised that look, the same look Hugh had given her all those years ago on that bridge in Amsterdam.
Then, as if her life had taken on a dream-like quality, he got down on one knee and took her hand. His own hand was trembling and from his left jacket pocket he withdrew a box, a velvet purple box.
‘My darling Daisy, please will you do me the biggest honour and become my wife?’
She gasped, her head reeling with the suddenness of it all but then as she gazed down at the man in front of her, his mouth twitching with nerves and the look of abounding love in his eyes, she smiled and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ He looked up and she nodded quickly. Carefully, he slipped the most beautiful of rings on her finger: a rose gold ring with a simple diamond. She gasped at its beauty as he jumped to his feet.
‘Yes!’ She planted her lips on his once more and he responded with urgency, his hands moving from her shoulders and down the length of her body, skimming her curves until he came to rest on her hips. She felt her stomach somersault at his touch and then he gently started to lift her dress above her head. She slowly unbuttoned his shirt and as he kissed her passionately moving back towards the bed, removed his trousers. He lay on top of her, holding his muscular body above her; even the slightest touch of his skin sent shivers all over her skin. He kissed her hair, her face, down her neck and to the very tips of her toes. She thought she might have died and gone to heaven.
With every touch, the feeling of yearning inside her grew and grew. He kissed his way back up her body and moved to her mouth once more.
‘I want you,’ she breathed deeply.
He took off his underwear and then hers before he slipped himself inside her causing her to gasp with delight. She looked into his eyes and he searched hers with such intense want and love, she felt tears roll down her cheeks. He gently kissed them away.
‘Shall we stop?’ he asked quietly. ‘Are you OK?’
She nodded. ‘Don’t stop. Please.’
As they moved against each other, it wasn’t long before they reached the dizzying heights of making love and they lay entwined in each other’s arms, a sheen of sweat covering them delicately like a cloth. Their breathing was deep and quick as they nestled into one another, Daisy’s heart only just beginning to slow.
James leant across her and picked up the pregnancy test. He beamed. ‘You are going to be the best mother. Hugh would be so proud of you.’
Daisy took his other hand and held it against her cheek. ‘I love you, James.’
He smiled and rolled towards her to kiss her gently on the lips. ‘And I have always loved you, Daisy and now, you, too, little Daisy.’ He kissed her bare stomach and gently, ever so gently, they made love again.
Chapter 22
A year on and the guesthouse looked as glorious as ever. Only today the garden was laid out with row upon row of white folding chairs, at the very front of which stood a double arch of pale pink peonies. The trees rustled with white linen bunting flags and the dance floor and area for the band were all ready for the evening’s festivities.
Daisy looked out at the garden from her bedroom and then down at the two little people she now loved more than she ever thought possible. They were happily swishing her long dangling diamante earrings with their small pudgy hands, the first sign of a proper smile from both of them, and not just the smile that came from relief from wind.
Her mother bustled in, knocking as she entered, wearing a sky-blue dress and jacket.
‘You look beautiful, Mum,’ Daisy remarked as her mother efficiently took the twins off her. ‘Really beautiful.’
Her mum, never one to handle compliments well, brushed it aside. ‘You mean, not bad, for someone who has spent her life amongst cow udders.’
Daisy laughed. ‘Not quite what I was thinking.’
Her mother very ably jigged one twin on either hip. ‘You need to get ready, darling girl.’
‘I know, I know, I need someone to help me with the zip.’
‘Let me pop these two down here and then we’ll get you ready.’
The boys were gently popped on the bed, with cushions either side of them. ‘Right, Oli and Jack, be good for Grandma Jenny.’ She lost herself in looking at her grandchildren with such fondness; she had to shake her head to remind herself what she was doing. ‘Ah yes, the dress.’
Daisy stared at her post-pregnancy body in the mirror: she had worried about her curves and cellulite before, but now she really knew the meaning of how hard it was to keep weight off and the everyday hunt for a remedy against the orange peel. But despite all that, she was more proud of her body than ever before.
‘You
look beautiful,’ her mother said in the mirror’s reflection as she stood behind her daughter. ‘I know you’re being self-critical, but I can’t understand why. You are all women; you are what women are meant to look like. I’d do anything to have looked like you.’
‘Mum, you don’t have to just say that.’
She smiled. ‘I’m not.’ Very carefully she manoeuvred the dress over Daisy’s head and let the weight of the fabric fall into position over her daughter’s body. ‘Oh wow, wow.’
Daisy looked at herself as her mother did the zip up. She did adore the dress. It had a gorgeous boat-shaped neck and long sleeves, the dress hugging her frame to her waist where it flared out slightly in a long A-line of ivory silk.
A small knock at the door caused her to look around. ‘Come in.’
Lisa walked into the room and they simultaneously shrieked with delight. Lisa looked like an angel. She wore a very straight white dress with lace sleeves.
‘Lisa!’ Daisy wiped away tears. ‘You look beautiful.’
‘You look gorgeous.’
They held each other’s hands, tears running freely down their faces.
‘Oh, you two, come on…’ interrupted Jenny. ‘I’ve only just done your make-up. Here, sit on the edge of the bed and I’ll touch it up.’
Lisa walked up to the bed and leant over the twins, cooing at them. ‘Hello my gorgeous godchildren.’ She smiled. ‘They really are the spitting image of Hugh.’
‘They really are,’ Daisy agreed and came up to the other side of the bed to kiss her darling boys on their foreheads. They gurgled and blew bubbles in her direction. ‘If they had come out reading the Financial Times, I wouldn’t have been surprised.’
At first she had been shocked by how much they looked like Hugh, and then worried that James would have a change of heart.
But, in actual fact, James had looked down at them with such love and swore to them both to protect them forever more.
‘They look just like Hugh,’ he had said, crying. ‘Just like him. I’m so glad. They’re beautiful, darling girl.’ He had leant over and kissed her so fondly on the lips she knew, just knew, everything would be OK.
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