The Baby Verdict

by Cathy Williams

  ‘It’s true. I’m pregnant.’ There was nothing to be gained by lying. She might get rid of him temporarily, but she knew that he would return, over and over, waiting to see her swelling stomach, waiting to see his accusations verified. And she could hardly move house in an attempt to escape him, could she?

  ‘I thought...’

  ‘That it was the perfect ploy to find yourself a husband?’ he sneered, and she flung her head back, shocked and furious at where his thinking was carrying him.

  ‘How dare you...?’

  ‘How dare I what...Jessica? Push you into a corner?’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘Or else what? You’ll throw me out? Hardly.’ He laughed coldly, and she struggled to match this ice-cold stranger in front of her with the sensuous, witty man who had made her laugh and made love to her, and changed the course of her life.

  He was still looming over her, so close that his face was almost touching hers. ‘Was that the plan? A carefully orchestrated weekend of lovemaking, with just enough protests about independence to stave off any worries I might have had about your becoming clingy, and a pregnancy at the end of it? Pregnancy and marriage? Was that the idea, Jessica?’ His voice had grown steadily harsher, and as she looked at him in horror she could feel herself breathing quickly.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she finally whispered. ‘How could you imagine for a minute that I planned this pregnancy?’ She gave a bitter, shallow laugh.

  He couldn’t have been further from the truth. She closed her eyes and relived that weak, collapsing feeling as she had stood in her bathroom and stared as two blue lines had appeared in their little windows on that tester. She couldn’t begin to explain the emotion that had swept over her, but at no time had she felt the slightest inclination to tell him what had happened. From the start she had seen it as uniquely her problem.

  ‘Are you denying it?’

  ‘Does it matter one way or the other? You’re going to believe what you want, anyway.’

  ‘Answer me! Dammit!’

  She almost expected him to get hold of her and shake her, but his hands remained gripping the sides of the chair, his white knuckles a testimony to what he was feeling. Fury, she guessed, suddenly weary with the whole thing. His mind was probably working overtime as well at the thought of how he could wriggle out of the situation. As far as she was concerned, he had nothing to worry about on that score.

  ‘You’re a sick man if you think that I would get myself pregnant for the sole purpose of trapping you into marriage. I made a mistake, it’s as simple as that. I calculated that I wouldn’t be in a fertile period, and my calculations were wrong, probably only by a couple of days, but a miss is as good as a mile in this instance, isn’t it?’ His breath fanned her face and she had to steel herself to meet his eyes. ‘I know you think there’s a huge female contingent out there, gasping for the privilege of trapping you into marriage, but I’m not one of them. Whether you believe me or not is up to you. I’m sorry you found out—’

  ‘Because, fired as you are with moral ethics, you had no intention of telling me.’ His mouth twisted angrily, and she flinched.

  ‘This is my problem,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘And nothing whatsoever to do with me?’

  ‘That’s right!’

  ‘An Immaculate Conception. The Pope would be interested.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Explain it to me, why don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Jessica muttered. ‘One minute you’re raging at me because you think I’m a conniving gold-digger. The next minute, you’re raging at me because you think I’m not.’ Their eyes met and she held his narrowed stare, even though it was hard.

  She was the first to look down, and it was a relief when he pushed himself away from the chair and went to sit on the sofa.

  ‘You made it quite clear what sort of man you are,’ she said, pausing in between her words to harness her thoughts into some semblance of order. ‘Fast lane with work, fast lane with women. Wasn’t one of your complaints that your last girlfriend was getting a little too cosy for your liking?’ She stared mutinously at him, daring him to contradict her, but he remained silent. ‘I respect that. The last thing I intended to do was push you into a corner, force you into premature responsibility with someone you barely know.’

  ‘So your plan was...what? Exactly?’

  ‘To cope on my own,’ she told him. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

  ‘And coping on your own starts by your handing in your notice, thereby cutting off your income.’

  ‘I had no choice,’ Jessica said through gritted teeth.

  ‘So now you have no job...what then?’

  ‘I intend to find another job.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘The same sort of thing I was doing before,’ she snapped tensely.

  ‘Oh, but correct me if I’m wrong. Permanent jobs are a bit thin on the ground for women who are pregnant, aren’t they? Don’t employers look askance at women who will only be available for work for a matter of a few months?’

  ‘Temp work, then,’ she said uncomfortably.

  ‘Does that pay well?’

  ‘I’m sure I could find something...’ Her voice dwindled off and she stared down at her fingers, frowning.

  ‘Filing? Typing? Temp workers get the dregs of the work and they’re paid relatively little. A pittance when you consider that you intended to cover some substantial costs. Of course, you might have a large amount of savings stashed away somewhere, for just such a rainy day as this...’

  ‘I could make do...’

  ‘Without money and without family support...’

  Jessica glared at him, wishing that she had never let slip confidences which were now being used against her.

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘And your problems don’t cease with the birth of the baby, do they?’ he carried on relentlessly. She could feel tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and she blinked them away. ‘You’ll have to get your act together and find yourself a damn good job once the baby’s born if you’re to cover the costs of what...childcare? Nursery? And all that on your own.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that I... terminate this pregnancy?’ She could barely form the words. The thought of doing any such thing disgusted her and if that was the route he was heading down, then he could walk right out of that door and carry on walking.

  Not once had she contemplated an abortion. Her initial response had been one of confusion and fear, but she couldn’t deny that from the start she had also felt a certain wild thrill at the thought of bringing a baby into the world. It hadn’t been part of her plan, but she wanted this baby with an intensity she would never have thought possible. So much for the biological clock she had always assumed she didn’t have.

  ‘You insult me,’ he told her with freezing disdain. ‘I would no more think of suggesting such a thing than I would advise you to jump off a cliff.’ He paused and appeared to turn his thoughts over in his head, like someone swilling a mouthful of fine wine, tasting, rolling it over on his tongue.

  Eventually he said, ‘So we’ve agreed that bringing up a baby on your own is as good as impossible.’

  ‘We agree on no such thing! Thousands of women do it and cope quite satisfactorily.’ She would never have admitted it, but he had managed to shake some of her self-confidence. She knew that she had deliberately adopted a rosy view of what lay ahead, more as a method of self-defence than anything else, but he had forced her to stare at all the pitfalls, and she hadn’t liked what she had seen.

  ‘In most cases because they have no choice.’

  ‘And I do?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly. ‘You most certainly do.’

  She didn’t like the look in his eyes. It unsettled her.

  ‘And what’s my choice?’ she heard herself ask, even though she knew that the answer to the question was not something she wanted to hear.

  ‘You marry me.�
�

  Jessica stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘Marry?’ she asked, on the verge of hysterical laughter. ‘You?’ She couldn’t help it She could feel the laughter rising out of her stomach. Her mouth began to twitch, and the more she acknowledged that that would be an unacceptable reaction, the less capable she felt of controlling the urge.

  She began to giggle, and then a flood of emotion took over. All the confusion and stress and uncertainty seemed finally to find an outlet, and she heard herself laughing. Laughing until she thought she would never stop. Laughing until the tears came to her eyes, but somehow she knew that the tears were not of jollity, but stemmed from something else.

  When he slammed his fist down on the table, the noise was so loud and so incongruous that she jumped back with a gasp.

  ‘Stop it! Now!’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’m laughing at your ridiculous suggestion.’

  ‘You’re laughing because you know that if you don’t you’ll crack up,’ he told her grimly.

  Jessica looked at him dumbly. He was right. She could feel tears of anxiety and worry begin to collect in the corner of her eyes and she glared at him with savage resentment. She had managed to build a little cocoon for herself and along he had come and destroyed it in one fell swoop.

  ‘You’re going to marry me because you have no real choice in the matter.’

  ‘How dare you...?’

  ‘I have no intention of relinquishing my responsibility, nor do I intend to politely knock on your door once a week on a Saturday, so that I can see my child. I hadn’t banked on fatherhood, you’re damned right about that, but fatherhood has managed to come along and find me and I have every intention of doing my duty.’

  ‘Doing your duty...? This is the twentieth century!’

  ‘No child of mine is going to grow up a bastard,’ he said quietly, and Jessica flushed.

  ‘You ought to hear yourself, Bruno Carr! You sound positively medieval! Well, we’re not in the Middle Ages now, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to many you just because you say so!’

  ‘I could make life very difficult for you, Jessica...’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Jobs, for a start.’ He stood up and began pacing the room, pausing every so often to inspect something, even though she knew that his mind was utterly focused on what he was saying. ‘My connections are widespread,’ he said casually, as though discussing how many pairs of socks he possessed. ‘I know everyone. Word gets around...’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare! You would never jeopardise your own child’s financial future by jeopardising my earning power. That makes no sense at all.’ She was barely moved by this threat because she knew that it was empty. What frightened her was the motivation behind it. Bruno Carr did not relinquish what he felt belonged to him, and this child would belong to him.

  He paused and turned to face her, his eyes narrowed. ‘You can’t win on this, Jessica.’

  ‘I won’t marry you for the wrong reasons! It would be unfair on us both, and on the child! Can’t you see that?’

  ‘All I see is a very selfish woman who would sacrifice her child’s life for the sake of her own.’

  ‘How can you say that? How can you imply that...?’

  ‘You would rather scrimp and save and go without than marry me? And tell me, how do you think our child will feel about that when he’s old enough to understand—?’

  He had managed to hit her on a vulnerable spot, and one which she had never considered.

  ‘Aside from closing the door on any possible future you might have, you’d merrily close the door on a child’s future as well. For what? To hang on to your independence?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with that...’ she protested, but her voice had weakened.

  ‘Absolutely nothing...when you are the only one involved.’

  ‘But you don’t love me...’ she said, horrified at the desperate tone that had crept into her voice.

  ‘Who’s talking about love? We’re talking about an arrangement. A business arrangement, so to speak... You’ve said often enough that romance is not for you. Well, I’m offering the perfect solution.’

  ‘I can’t...’

  ‘Oh, you can,’ he said silkily, his eyes steel, ‘and you will. Believe me, you will.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BRUNO CARR always got what he wanted. Hadn’t he mentioned that to Jessica in passing somewhere along the line? She should have paid a bit more attention. She certainly should never have allowed a weekend’s worth of charm to blind her to the man she had glimpsed at their very first meeting. A man who expected the world to dance to his tune.

  Two days ago he had left her in a state of confusion and now, as she arranged herself in suitable clothes to meet him at a restaurant in Covent Garden, she stared glumly at her reflection in the mirror.

  Her stomach was still flat, showing no indication of what lay ahead.

  She still hadn’t worked up the courage to telephone her mother and let her know of these latest, overwhelming developments in her life. Similarly, she had put her friends on hold, unable to face the barrage of questions that would greet her announcement. They had all cheerfully given up on her and the institution of marriage.

  They would have to iron out the details of their little arrangement, he had informed her. As though her life, from now on, were nothing more than a piece of cloth, to be pulled and stretched and straightened into whatever shape he desired.

  I can’t imagine why you’re not enamoured of the idea, he had told her coldly. Wasn’t an arranged marriage the ultimate in control? She had heard his words, and watched his mouth as he formed them, and had felt anything but in control. Her life had never seemed so wildly disordered and unpredictable.

  She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, sectioning it off into three, and absent-mindedly plaiting it in one long, thick braid down her back.

  She knew, somewhere, that a part of her was being unreasonable.

  After all, she had felt shock at the discovery of her pregnancy, but the shock had soon been replaced by a certain nervous elation. So why did something less significant fill her with such terror?

  With absolutely no time to spare, she made it to the restaurant, to find him sitting on the far side with a drink in front of him.

  ‘I wondered whether you’d chickened out of meeting me,’ were his first words, though with no smile to accompany them.

  ‘And if I had?’

  She sat down, pulling the chair towards the table, and then relaxed back with her arms folded, in the classic pose of self-defence.

  ‘Oh, I would have come and found you. And just in case the thought of running away ever crosses your mind, forget it. There would be no rock I would leave unturned to get you.’

  ‘To get your baby, you mean,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘I stand corrected.’ He gestured to the waiter for two menus, and she grabbed a few minutes’ reprieve from looking at him by concentrating on the jumble of words in front of her. Salmon, steak, sauces and parcels of vegetables, whatever. She couldn’t care less what she ate. A hearty appetite and the presence of Bruno Carr were two things that did not go together. Not now.

  ‘You haven’t put on much weight,’ he said, settling back in his seat.

  ‘Is that remark intended to put me at ease?’

  ‘Is that what I’m supposed to do? Put you at ease?’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Jessica said acidly. ‘Marriages are best conducted in a state of cold war.’

  She fiddled with the stern of her wineglass and missed the glimmer of a smile that tugged the corners of his mouth for a few seconds.

  ‘So I take it that you’ve resigned yourself to the prospect...’ He waited until a glass of wine had been placed in front of him and a glass of orange juice in front of her, and then leaned slightly forward. ‘There’s a lot to be sorted out.’

  ‘You’re a cold-hearted bastard, aren’t you?’ she answered.

  ‘On the contrary,’ he
said smoothly. ‘If I were a cold-hearted bastard, I would have allowed you to handle the entire thing on your own, as you had stupidly planned to do. The fact is, whether you like it or not, I have no intention of relinquishing my responsibility and I also have no intention of lurking on the sidelines, watching any child of mine grow up without my input. As I’ve told you before.’

  ‘So you have.’

  ‘Why aren’t you looking pregnant?’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Bruno? That you doubt me? That you think I’ve made the whole thing up?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He Bushed and looked away uncomfortably. ‘I’m asking if you’re all right. Physically, I mean. Things doing what they should be doing?’ He looked at her briefly from under his lashes, and she was momentarily thrown by that glimmer of boyish charm that had captivated her.

  ‘“Things doing what they should be doing?”’ She raised her eyebrows expressively. ‘What a medically oriented question. Don’t you know anything about pregnancy?’

  ‘Well, having just been pregnant the one time...’

  Jessica felt a sudden urge to smile and clicked her tongue with irritation instead. After all the defensive, hostile feelings he had recently aroused in her, she was stupefied that she could suddenly find anything he said remotely amusing. It wouldn’t do, she told herself sternly. It wouldn’t do at all. She couldn’t let herself forget that, beneath any charm, this man would do whatever he wanted to get his own way. He would marry her for the sake of the baby and then what? Lifelong fidelity? Hardly. He didn’t love her and it would simply be a matter of time before his sexual urges took him to newer hunting grounds. Because he occasionally had the knack of making her laugh meant nothing. It certainly didn’t mean that a union between them wouldn’t be a union on paper only.

  ‘I doubt I’ll show for another few weeks or so.’ Her cheeks were burning and it was a relief when the food came and she had a chance to catch her breath.

  ‘But you’ve been to the doctor...had checks...I mean, whatever checks you should have had...’

  ‘Quite soon, but not just yet,’ she informed him.

  ‘Oh.’ He appeared to digest this piece of information. ‘Then how do you know...?’