Oh…God…
Bella could feel the touch of his hand. She could feel the warmth of it and it was all she could do not to tilt her face so that it was cupped by his palm. And he was leaning closer so that he could see what he was doing. So close that Bella could feel his breath on her face. She could feel the intensity of his gaze even before she raised her eyes to meet it.
‘You’re beautiful, Bella,’ Oliver said softly. ‘I want to kiss you.’
Bella’s mouth went as dry as the sand further up the beach. ‘No, you don’t.’ Desperation made her words come out with a faint hiss.
Oliver’s eyes widened as if she’d slapped him but he didn’t move away. If anything, he dipped his head slightly. His mouth was close enough…close enough to kiss, heaven help her.
‘Your m-mother’s here,’ she stammered. ‘And half the consultants from St Pat’s. It’s not…not appropriate, remember?’
‘I don’t think I care,’ Oliver murmured. ‘I still want to kiss you.’
Good grief…this wasn’t a part of any fantasy Bella had been able to conjure up about them both being dressed up and at a wedding. It could have been, except that it was far too much to have hoped for, even when she was trying to make herself irresistibly attractive.
She couldn’t let it happen. How embarrassed would Oliver be if he made his interest in her public—in front of so many of his colleagues? Things were hard enough now. Too hard, in fact. Bella couldn’t live with the lie any longer.
‘I’m inappropriate,’ she said with increasing desperation. ‘Irresponsible.’
‘Not from where I’m standing,’ Oliver said. ‘In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone being quite so responsible about their job as I’ve seen you being in the last few weeks. My mother thinks you’re an angel. She adores you.’
‘She doesn’t know how irresponsible I am.’ Bella could actually feel the blood draining from a part of her brain. Leaving it very empty and clear. She knew what she had to do. ‘I lied to you, Oliver.’
‘Sorry?’ He did step back now and the look he was giving her was bewildered. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Bella?’
‘I lied to you about being on the Pill.’
She could see the way Oliver became very still.
‘Well, I didn’t lie exactly…but I didn’t correct you when you made the wrong assumption and I should have.’
Bella knew she was babbling but the way he seemed to draw into himself until he was standing there like a stone statue was so horrible. The warmth had gone from his eyes completely. No admiration or desire there now. The look Bella was getting was cold. Fierce, almost.
‘What are you trying to tell me, Bella?’
It was now or never. Her voice came out as a strangled kind of whisper.
‘I’m pregnant, Oliver.’
He still looked fierce but she could see that the news hadn’t sunk in. He didn’t understand the implication.
‘Oliver, it’s your baby I’m pregnant with.’
‘Oh, my…’ The soft cry came from just behind Oliver and it made them both turn. How on earth had Lady Dorothy managed to get out of that chair all by herself?
It must have been difficult. Time consuming. But somehow she had managed it. And she had timed it so that she couldn’t help but hearing the fateful words despite how softly Bella had spoken.
Oh, God, what had she done? Just gone ahead without thinking of the repercussions and this was going to ruin Kate’s special day. Bella felt a wave of nausea so powerful she had to press her hand against her mouth.
‘Oh…’ Lady Dorothy’s gasp was deeply concerned. ‘You’re so pale, dear. I think you’d better sit down.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bella managed. ‘I didn’t mean you to hear that. I didn’t want—’
‘This is neither the time nor the place,’ Oliver cut in. He looked as pale as Bella clearly was. ‘Go and sit down, Bella. Would you like me to get you a glass of water?’
‘N-no, thank you.’
A wave of misery washed over Bella at Oliver’s tone. The kind of tone she had heard many times before. When she was an unimportant junior cog in the wheel of his operating theatre. She knew he had to be in shock but this was exactly like speaking to that intimidating neurosurgeon, not the man she’d come to know. And love. This was Oliver in professional mode. Taking control of a situation that was both unexpected and potentially calamitous. The man who had looked, such a short time ago, as though he wanted nothing more than to kiss her senseless seemed like a figment of her imagination.
‘I’m going to take my mother home,’ Oliver continued in that calm, expressionless voice. ‘When you’re finished here, I suggest you come and join us. Obviously, we need to talk.’ He had his hand under his mother’s elbow, turning her, but Lady Dorothy was looking torn. She bit her lip, turning her worried gaze from Bella to Oliver. And then she looked around her, at the milling guests and the bride and groom who were now walking back towards the gathering.
‘We’re not going to make a scene and spoil Kate and Connor’s wedding, Oliver,’ she said decisively. ‘In fact, I’d like a glass of champagne, please. And I think a glass of water for Bella is a very good idea.’
Oliver was looking stunned that he was being outbid for control of the situation.
‘This is a very special occasion,’ Lady Dorothy continued. ‘Not only because it’s such a lovely wedding but it’s the first time I’ve been dressed up to go out for months. The first time I’ve been to a beach for years.’
Lady Dorothy was smiling at Bella now and the message was clear. A kind of ‘keep calm and carry on’ message. She looked as though everything in her world was absolutely fine and she certainly hadn’t overheard any shattering news. She also looked as though she’d done this before. As if she was employing a well-practised skill. She patted Bella arm.
‘Help me back to my chair, dear, while Oliver goes and gets those drinks for us.’
The photographer was rounding up all the members of the Graham family now. Bella would need to join them for a group photograph soon.
Walking slowly and assisting Lady Dorothy, Bella watched Oliver’s back as he stalked towards the marquee. She sighed.
‘He’s very angry,’ she said quietly. ‘And I can’t blame him.’
‘He’s shaken up, that’s all,’ Lady Dorothy said calmly. ‘He needs a bit of time to get used to the idea.’
The look she gave Bella was, amazingly, almost mischievous. It made Bella remember the things Lady Dorothy had said when she’d been trying to persuade Bella to take the position as her private nurse. The startling admission that her son was a bit ‘stuffy’. That it would do him good to be ‘shaken up a little’.
Surely she wasn’t relegating the fact that Bella was pregnant into the ‘shaking someone up a little’ category? This was more than a little shake. It was a ‘turn the world upside down and rattle it as hard as you can’ kind of movement. But Lady Dorothy settled calmly into the chair, nodding her head as though affirming her words.
‘Running away is never a good way to deal with anything.’
Bella’s eyes were still widening as she regarded this extraordinary woman who was old enough to be her grandmother. ‘I thought you’d be angry, too.’
‘Angry? Good heavens, no. Surprised, yes, but I know what’s been going on, dear.’
Bella could feel herself blushing. ‘But—’
Lady Dorothy made a tutting sound. ‘I may be old but I’m not senile, Bella. Or blind. Anyone could see the way you two have been watching each other. Heavens above…that day I was out in the garden, Oliver couldn’t take his eyes off you when you were walking back into the house. And you had to have one more peek before you disappeared.’
Bella couldn’t deny it. She had felt that stare. And she’d seen him t
urning to his mother when she couldn’t resist looking back. What she hadn’t seen was that Lady Dorothy had been watching her.
‘I was hoping something might happen between you,’ Lady Dorothy continued. ‘But I wasn’t expecting this, I have to admit.’ The look she gave Bella was serious. ‘My son isn’t a man to shirk his responsibilities. He’ll do the right thing.’
‘Bella?’ Kate was calling her. ‘We need you for the family photos.’
With a nod, Bella went to join the group. The ‘right thing’.
What was that?
Did Lady Dorothy mean that he would offer to marry her?
Because it was the ‘right thing’ to do or because he wanted to?
She’d never know, would she?
* * *
Oliver handed his mother the glass of champagne but Bella wasn’t there to accept the water. She was in the group of people that clustered around the bride and groom. Quite a large group.
Lady Dorothy took a sip of her champagne. She was watching the group being arranged as well.
‘What a lovely family,’ was all she said.
Oliver tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t cooperate. Neither would they focus on any member of the Graham family that wasn’t Bella. She still looked a little pale perhaps, but not enough to attract attention. And she was smiling. He saw the way her mother touched her cheek and how her younger sisters, who looked to be in their early twenties and were obviously twins, were jostling for the prime position of being next to Bella.
Twins in the family. Good grief…
I can’t marry her, he thought desperately.
‘Why ever not?’
Oh, God, the words must have escaped.
‘She…’ What was that word Bella kept throwing back at him? ‘She’s… It’s not appropriate.’
Lady Dorothy made a snorting sound. ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say, Oliver. It will be a lucky man indeed that gets chosen by Bella. She’s adorable.’ Her mouth twitched. ‘It’s pretty obvious that you like her. At least I hope it is.’
Oliver was silent. Partly because it was excruciatingly embarrassing to have his mother comment on his sex life at all, let alone suggest that he would be taking a woman he had no feelings for at all to bed. And he couldn’t deny that he liked Bella, although like was far too insipid a word for any feelings that Bella Graham stirred in him. It would have to do for the moment. He certainly couldn’t think of another one while he was still feeling so shocked by this…betrayal?
‘She’s…’ Again, Oliver was lost for a word. How did you sum up someone with Bella’s exuberance? Her confident, bubbly, devil-may-care, let’s-break-the-rules approach to life? One that inevitably led to disaster? ‘She’s flighty.’
Worse, she was untrustworthy.
She’d lied to him. OK, it was his fault as well. He’d been just as irresponsible, hadn’t he? And maybe that was what was making him feel so angry. He’d wanted to be just like Bella and embrace the freedom of ignoring consequences. And he’d known it was a stupid thing to do. The one time he’d decided to take a leaf out of someone like Bella’s book and not step away from such overwhelming temptation, and look where it had led. People were going to get hurt by the repercussions.
‘She’s a joy,’ his mother corrected him.
Oliver did manage to close his eyes for a moment now. Yes…that was a much better word. Joy implied happiness. Light. The kind of brightness that Bella left in a room even after she’d gone somewhere else. With a sigh, he opened his eyes and looked at her family again and this time, he was aware of an odd, unsettling, yearning sensation. That feeling of missing out again, without being able to articulate precisely what it was he was missing out on.
Except that this time it was easy. It was the close bonds evident in this group of people. The picture of a family.
‘She wants something out of life that I could never give her,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Overseas travel. Fun. A dozen kids.’ And a man who could keep up with her and embrace a life of chaos. A lucky man, his mother had said. And she’d be right.
A man who would end up raising Oliver’s child?
Now, that was a very disturbing thought.
His mother was silent for a long moment. Then she asked quietly, ‘What is it that you want, Oliver?’
To get off this emotional merry-go-round, he thought vehemently. It was too much. It was confusing. He needed something solid to cling to and wasn’t that a lesson he’d learned long ago? That feelings that hurt could be controlled if you could push them far enough away. Bury them with the things that you could control. Things that might not bring happiness but would, at least, bring satisfaction.
‘To do my job to the best of my ability,’ he said aloud. His words echoed in his own ears, sounding like he was reading from a manifest or job description or something. It wasn’t enough, was it? He searched for something he could add to satisfy himself as much as his mother.
‘To do the right thing,’ he heard himself say. Maybe he could add that he wanted to be successful. To know that he’d contributed in a positive way to the lives of people around him and not caused any harm. Oliver cleared his throat to add his final thought.
‘To carry on the kind of contribution to society that you’ve always done through your charity work.’ Good grief, now he sounded positively pompous. Stuffy. Exactly like the impression everybody had of him anyway?
‘Is that all?’
Oliver blinked. ‘Isn’t it enough?’
‘No.’ Lady Dorothy drank the last of her champagne and looked up at her son. ‘You’re being given the chance to have something that I was never able to give you, no matter how much I wanted to.’
‘Which is?’
‘A family,’ Lady Dorothy said softly. ‘A real family.’
Oliver could hear the undertone of sadness in her voice and it added a different kind of hurt to the emotional ride still trying to whirl him around. He’d tried, for as long as he could remember, to make his mother happy. To make her proud of him. To make up for the empty place his father had left in their lives and their hearts. He hadn’t succeeded, had he?
‘You know what it’s like to have a father who didn’t care enough,’ Lady Dorothy said, even more quietly. ‘Is that a legacy you’d want to pass on to your own child?’
That sadness was palpable now and part of it was his own. Of course he didn’t want to pass it on. Maybe the determination that he never would was why he’d never found someone he would consider marrying. How long would he have kept up the half-hearted search? Long enough for the choice to be taken away? It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he could have found himself alone and childless in years to come because he’d put off taking a risk, knowing what the repercussions might be from making the wrong choice.
‘I think we could probably leave soon, without it being seen as impolite,’ Lady Dorothy said. ‘I’m suddenly feeling rather tired. And you’re right. This is neither the time nor the place for you and Bella to be talking. There’ll be plenty of time for that.’
* * *
The photographer had finished with the more formal pictures now. He was ready to capture the social part of the occasion and the closest guests were the old lady in the chair and the man standing beside her, looking far too sombre.
‘Let’s have a smile,’ he suggested. ‘This is a wedding after all.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHO ever said that tomorrow never came?
It was here now and it was the hardest thing Bella had ever done, returning to the Dawsons’ house.
‘We’ll talk tomorrow’ had been Oliver’s parting words when he’d taken his mother home from the wedding.
Kate and Connor had left this morning, for their tropical isl
and honeymoon in Rarotonga. Her family had gone home as well, with Bella assuring them that she was fine. She would have to tell them the truth very soon but not just yet. Not until had spoken properly to the father of this baby she was carrying.
But she felt very alone now.
And very scared.
She let herself into the Dawson mansion by a side door near the kitchen that she had a key for. The kitchen was empty and, being a Sunday, the housekeeper was having her day off. It was supposed to be Bella’s day off as well, because it was the day of the week that Oliver was most likely to be at home and available if his mother needed assistance but, as often as not, in the last weeks he would be called in for some emergency and Bella hadn’t minded. She was being paid quite well enough to be expected to be here twenty-four seven.
She knew where she’d probably find her employer. On a quiet Sunday morning, Lady Dorothy loved to sit in a corner of the conservatory and listen to a radio programme that featured hymns.
‘I’ve always loved getting dressed up and going to church,’ she’d told Bella. ‘Not that I’ve done it nearly often enough in recent years.’
Maybe she’d decided to do it today after the pleasure in dressing up to go to Kate’s wedding yesterday. If she had, then Oliver would have accompanied her.
But Lady Dorothy was in her usual spot amongst the potted palm trees. Her face lit up in a smile as she saw Bella approaching. The smile widened when her gaze dropped and she saw what Bella was carrying.
‘Oh…you’ve brought Bib. I’m so pleased.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Bella crouched beside the plastic carry cage. ‘She’s not really a kitten any more and she can be quite demanding if she doesn’t get the attention she wants.’
‘Can’t we all?’ Lady Dorothy murmured. ‘All the more reason to bring her here while Kate and Connor are away on their honeymoon. She might have got lonely with you only popping over a couple of times a day. How awful would it have been if she’d run away?’
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