‘Think about it.’ He put his cup on the table and stood up. ‘I’ll pay you a visit tomorrow morning.’
After he had gone she sank back onto her chair and stared sightlessly in front of her, thinking about what he had said.
She didn’t think of herself as a child, but she could understand what Oliver meant. She had behaved impulsively with him, and with foolish naïvety had found herself in a situation that was going to catapult her into maturity whether she liked it or not.
It would worry her father knowing that she would be bringing a baby into the world without the security of a family unit. She had been born into a great deal of love, and if she had been the daughter of a single-parent family herself then it hadn’t been his choice.
She also worried about how her father would cope with having a newborn baby in the house. He wasn’t an old man, but sleepless nights could tire the most vigorous individual and he would feel obliged, she knew, to do his fair share—not out of duty but out of love.
When Oliver knocked on the door the following morning at eight o’clock Francesca looked as tired as she felt.
‘Have you had any sleep?’ he asked immediately, and she stepped back to let him in.
‘Not much,’ she admitted. ‘Did you expect me to, after our conversation last night? I’ve been thinking about it, wondering what to do.’
‘Have you had any breakfast?’ he asked, changing the subject, and she shook her head.
‘So in other words you’re behaving in exactly the sensible manner any doctor would heartily recommend. No sleep, no food.’
It was Saturday so he wasn’t dressed for work. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a cream shirt, and she hurriedly looked away so that he wouldn’t see the pull of attraction on her face.
‘Come on,’ he said, chivvying her along, she thought sullenly, like a recalcitrant child. Had he treated Imogen like that? she wondered. No chance.
‘Let me get you something to eat.’ He settled her into the chair and she obediently remained there because she was feeling rather faint and sick—as she had been for what seemed to be an eternity. Presently she heard the sound of pans and cutlery, and he emerged after a while with a plate of scrambled egg and toast. Then he sat down and watched while she ate the lot. Making sure, she thought, that she didn’t tip it all into the plant next to the chair, no doubt.
‘Thank you,’ she said when she had finished. ‘That was very nice.’ She walked into the kitchen and looked round her in disbelief.
‘How many pans did you use to concoct this?’ she asked incredulously.
‘I mentioned I could cook,’ he murmured, closer to her than she’d expected. ‘I never said anything about being a tidy cook.’ He took the plate from her and began washing up in a fairly slapdash manner, stacking the crockery onto the draining-board in an inelegant heap, so that she had to grab a teacloth and hurriedly dry it to prevent breakage.
‘Now,’ he said when they had finished, ‘get dressed and let’s go and pay your father a little visit.’
‘He’ll be out.’
‘No, he won’t. I telephoned him to tell him that we were coming over. He’s been worried, waiting for you to get in touch. He was delighted.’
‘What?’ She stared at him, aghast. ‘How could you?’
‘You have to tell him sooner or later about the pregnancy,’ he replied evenly in that voice of his which she had come to recognise from working with him—the voice that implied that arguments were useless.
‘Of course, and I intend to! I just don’t need pushing.’
‘You do,’ he said mildly. ‘You needed pushing to get a job and you need pushing to do this, or else you’ll put it off until it overshadows every waking moment. You stormed out on your father over a piece of nonsense and you can’t face the thought of returning with this revelation. That’s how family feuds develop.’
Francesca ground her teeth together. The fact that he had a point only made her angrier.
Why had her life suddenly become so complicated? She might not have spent her time in the past single-mindedly heading towards a goal; she might have been somewhat ingenuous in her outlook that dilemmas were things that happened to other people, and that she could merrily trundle through life without too many worries to disturb the flat surface, but why had things now gone so completely awry?
She would dearly have liked to blame him, but that was impossible, and she was not enough of a believer in fate to blame that either.
Perhaps her father’s enormous wealth had insulated her even more than she could ever have imagined. She had never had to face any hard knocks in her life and now she found herself in a situation with which she could scarcely cope.
Still, that didn’t mean that Oliver Kemp was entitled to push her around, did it?
‘I might as well tell you that I haven’t made any decisions about…about what we talked about. Or rather what you talked about,’ she said once they were inside his car and heading towards her father’s house. ‘So I have no idea why you want to come along with me to see Dad.’
He averted his attention from the road briefly to glance at her, and there was an unyielding expression on his face.
‘I don’t trust you to tell him,’ he said bluntly.
‘Stop interfering in my life!’
‘You opened the door, Francesca,’ he told her.
‘Are you trying to tell me that this is all my fault?’ she asked, on the verge of tears. ‘Oh, isn’t that typical of a man?’
‘Stop being a fool,’ he said, shoving his handkerchief across to her, and she blew her nose noisily into it.
‘I’d feel happier explaining things if you weren’t hovering there in the background. This is a very personal thing.’
‘And one that concerns us both,’ he reminded her grimly.
He swung his car through the gates that led up to the courtyard outside the house and then waited for her, his hands in his pockets, the stiff, cold wind blowing his black hair across his face, giving him a dark, rakish look.
Her father was waiting for them in the sitting room. Bridie bustled them through, casting suspicious glances in Oliver’s direction whenever she thought herself unnoticed, wondering what this stranger was doing in the house.
‘Hello, darling,’ her father said hesitantly. ‘I’m so very glad you’re here.’ He came across, and Francesca smiled automatically, but she felt dreadfully nervous inside. She had had enough time to steel herself for the inevitability of this, but now that the time had actually arrived she felt as desperately anxious as someone standing on a platform about to address hundreds of people only to find that she’d lost her notes.
‘Oliver,’ her father said, shaking his hand, ‘what’s this all about? Sit down the both of you.’ He gestured vaguely to the sofa and Oliver sat down, patting the spot next to him, which made her father’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. ‘Would you like some tea? Coffee?’
He didn’t wait for an answer. He went across to the door, shouted for Bridie, who obviously was close at hand because she appeared within seconds, and asked her to fetch some coffee, ‘and a few croissants.’
‘Dad…’ Francesca said in a faltering voice. ‘I’m sorry about…about what happened. I accused you of things and…and I apologise.’
‘It’s already forgotten,’ he said briskly, but there was a sheen in his eyes. ‘Now,’ he continued, once they were sorted out with something to eat and drink, ‘whatever is this all about? I hope you haven’t come to tell me that Francesca isn’t up to the job, Oliver.’ It was as if, she thought, that uncomfortable silence between them had never existed. If only everything could be resolved as painlessly as that.
‘I think,’ Oliver said calmly, ‘that Francesca would like to break the news to you herself.’
He sat there, she thought, sipping his coffee, not looking in the slightest bit nervous. Was he made of steel? she wondered resentfully.
‘News? What news?’ her father asked a little more sharply, t
urning to her, and Francesca tried a soothing smile.
‘Nothing to get excited about, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s just…quite simply…that…’ Oh, God, she thought, taking refuge in her coffee which tasted quite revolting to her. She could feel their eyes on her and her stomach gave a lurch. ‘What I’m trying to say here, Dad, is that…’
She looked helplessly at Oliver, who said calmly, ‘Francesca has resigned.’
‘What?’
‘Dad!’ She could feel herself in deep water now, without a lifebelt in sight. ‘I… Yes, I’ve resigned.’
‘Why?’
‘Ah. Why?’ she said, pointlessly playing for time. ‘I don’t quite know how I’m going to tell you this,’ she continued, in the manner of someone looking for divine inspiration and not finding it, ‘and I know that you’re going to be shocked and disappointed…’ at this point, she didn’t dare meet her father’s eyes, because the last thing she wanted to see was his shock and disappointment ‘…but I’ve been rather silly…’
‘Not from my point of view,’ Oliver murmured from next to her, and she felt the brush of his arm as he extended it along the back of the sofa behind her.
Her father wasn’t looking too shocked or disappointed at this juncture. He just looked bewildered.
‘Dad,’ she blurted out, ‘I’m pregnant.’
There was a deathly silence, and when she sneaked a glance at her father she saw that his mouth was half-open. It would have been comical in any other situation.
‘And before you collapse on the spot,’ Oliver said smoothly, taking it all in his stride, as though breaking news like this was a daily occurrence, ‘we’re going to get married.’ He bent across to kiss the side of her face, and she went scarlet.
‘I haven’t—’ she began.
He cut in swiftly. ‘No, we haven’t set a date yet, but it’ll be sooner rather than later. Won’t it, darling?’ he said, and she could feel from the warmth of his breath on her face that he had turned to her.
Her father had still not come up for air, but eventually he said, ‘Frankie? Pregnant? Getting married? What has been going on here?’
She began to splutter out that yes, she was pregnant, but that no, marriage was not on the cards, but she hardly had time to formulate a coherent sentence when Oliver said, still in that controlled, unfazed tone of voice, ‘We’re both a little surprised at how things have turned out, but we’re also delighted, aren’t we, darling?’
She wasn’t so stunned that she couldn’t detect the note of warning in his voice. All of a sudden she felt as though she had completely lost the reins on her life. Things were lurching about wildly—a surreal situation that made everything spin around her.
‘Well,’ her father said, releasing his breath. ‘Well, well, well. I don’t quite know what to say.’ He still looked dazed. ‘Of course, I’m stunned; it’s all so sudden, isn’t it?’
‘These things can be unpredictable, can’t they, Francesca?’ Oliver said lazily, and she threw him her own dazed look.
‘Of course,’ her father was saying, with some semblance of having re-entered planet Earth, ‘your mother and I knew within minutes of meeting that we were meant for one another. I guess it was the same for you.’
‘Exactly,’ Oliver said smoothly, with a smile in his voice, and Francesca felt faint.
‘Well,’ her father said again. ‘Frankie, darling. Too late, I suppose, to tell you about the birds and the bees? Bit like shutting the door after the proverbial horse has bolted.’ She could see that he was coming round to the idea, and she realised with panic that Oliver had been right—the prospect of marriage between them had taken the sting out of the situation. Oliver was a brilliant catch—the biggest fish in the sea—and just the sort of man her father would have wanted for a son-in-law.
He had also put her in an awkward position. How could she tell her father that she didn’t want to marry Oliver?
For the next thirty minutes or so she listened with a swirling head while they chatted, but as soon as her father had gone she turned to Oliver and said coldly, ‘Thank you very much.’
She stood up and walked across to the huge patio doors and stared, unseeing, out towards the impeccable stretch of manicured lawns. A gardener came twice a week to look after the garden. Her father had once told her that when he’d first been married he had been used to doing a lot of gardening—her mother had loved it—but that when she’d died he’d lost the heart for it.
Francesca had never mowed a lawn in her life.
‘I never told you that I wanted to marry you!’ she said in a high voice, and the tears were pricking the back of her eyes. ‘It’s wrong,’ she continued, turning around to face him.
He lounged against the mantelpiece, his mouth taut. ‘Why? Why is it wrong?’
‘You don’t love me,’ she said bitterly. ‘We don’t love each other!’ Saying that made her wince inside, but she continued to look directly at him. ‘People don’t get married nowadays for the sake of a baby.’
He walked towards her, taking his time, and there was scathing disgust in his eyes. ‘Listen to yourself,’ he said tightly. ‘Do you really believe that a child should pay for our mistake?’
‘No,’ Francesca answered, feeling cornered and resenting his implication that she was somehow without morals. ‘But you’d end up hating me for having put you in a situation where you felt compelled to marry me,’ she said, holding her ground and looking up at him.
‘Don’t try and analyse me,’ he said harshly, and he reached out to hold her shoulders. He looked as though he wanted to shake the living daylights out of her, but she refused to be intimidated.
What would it be like? she thought with despair. Living with him, married to him, bringing up their child, and having to hold her love deep inside her day after day?
‘I’m not,’ she whispered. ‘But it would be a mistake. We have nothing in common.’
‘It’s too late in the day to start drawing up lists of what we have in common and what we don’t,’ he said, but the harshness had left his voice and his fingers weren’t gripping her quite so fiercely. ‘You and that Rupert character had a lot in common. Would you rather the mistake had happened with him?’
‘Rupert?’ That almost made her laugh. ‘I wouldn’t have been so stupid.’
Oliver’s brows met. ‘There’s no point debating the issue,’ he said shortly. ‘Unless, of course, you want to tell your father that you’ve decided to go it alone.’
‘You shouldn’t have forced my hand,’ Francesca whispered stubbornly.
‘Is that what you find most upsetting?’ he asked coldly. ‘The fact that I forced your hand?’
‘No one likes to be pushed into a corner.’
‘Life isn’t always about doing what you like,’ he said in a hard voice, and she felt a rush of tears. She made a helpless, shrugging motion with her shoulders, and he drew her towards the sofa with a sigh.
‘Look,’ he said, sitting her down and then settling himself next to her and dabbing her streaming eyes with a handkerchief, ‘you’re going to have to stop finding hidden meanings behind everything I say.’
‘I can’t,’ she said in a trembling voice, taking the handkerchief away from him and doing a better job of wiping her wet face. ‘I know how you feel about me. You’re critical of me, of everything I represent. I know that life isn’t about just picking out the things you like and pretending that unpleasantness doesn’t exist, and I know I haven’t had much practice at facing lots of things that other people have to face, but I can’t bear the thought of being married to you.’
‘I see,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘Why did you make love to me, Francesca?’ he asked.
‘Because…’ she struggled to think of how she could explain it without giving herself and her feelings away in the process. ‘Because you’re an attractive man.’
‘If you really can’t face the thought of marrying me, then I won’t force you.’
‘No.’ She tried to fee
l relieved at that and couldn’t.
‘But then sit back and try to think clearly of the alternative. Bringing up a baby isn’t going to be a piece of cake, however much money your father has.’
‘I know that,’ she said in a small voice.
‘You can look at any marriage we go into as a business arrangement,’ he said flatly. ‘You may well bitterly regret what’s happened, but you should have thought about that before. That fact is that what’s happened has happened, and we both have to accept it and do whatever is going to be best for the baby.’
‘How can you be so calm about it all?’ she demanded in an anguished voice.
‘Because I don’t see the value in hysterics,’ he told her bluntly. ‘You’re pregnant, I’m the father—and I’m not about to relinquish my responsibilities.’
Francesca listened to him but her thoughts were on herself, on the enormity of raising a baby without help. He’d said that she could consider any marriage they went into as a business arrangement, which said a lot about how he felt about her, but he was right—she wasn’t the one at stake here.
‘All right,’ she said tiredly, defeated. ‘I’ll marry you.’
‘I’ll arrange it,’ he said, sounding neither relieved nor overjoyed.
‘I don’t want a big wedding. Dad will try and get us to have a grand affair, but I won’t have it. That would be too much of a farce. I just want a register office, and I won’t wear white.’
‘No one’s asking you to,’ Oliver murmured, his eyes veiled. ‘You can wear screaming scarlet for all I care.’
‘Good!’ she said, as though she had scored a point.
He stood up and looked down at her. ‘Shall I drop you back at your flat?’ he asked, and she shook her head slowly.
‘I’ll stay here for a while,’ she said. ‘I’ll make my own way back.’
He hesitated for a while, but finally he shrugged his shoulders and told her that he’d be in touch on Monday. ‘We’ll get it all sorted out by the end of next week,’ he said, and she gasped and raised her eyes to him. ‘Then you’ll move in with me. How much notice do you have to give your landlord?’
To Tame a Proud Heart Page 12
