A Secret Until Now

by Kim Lawrence

  The consultant’s final comments came back to her.

  ‘I cannot emphasise how important it would be for you to seek medical advice immediately, immediately, Miss Urquart should you even suspect you might be pregnant.’

  ‘If I did by some miracle get pregnant I’d need to be monitored.’

  Under his tan Alex paled. ‘By that you mean it would be dangerous for you to have a baby...as in life-threateningly dangerous?’

  ‘That,’ she said, dodging his gaze, ‘is an overstatement. If it did happen—’

  ‘No!’

  She gulped at his tone. ‘Yes, I know, like I said, the likelihood of it happening is a bit like winning the lottery.’

  ‘I mean you will not try.’ His hands landed on her shoulders and she could feel the tremors running through him. ‘Not now, not ever, will you put your life at risk that way.’ It would be just like Angel to pull some stupid stunt like that. ‘Do you hear me? Ever!’

  Hard not to hear him, not that he was yelling. His voice had dropped to a low bass rumble, the way she’d noticed it did when he was particularly annoyed, but there was nothing wrong with his projection.

  His blazing blue eyes burnt into her as he groaned and slid his big hands down her back. She could feel his fingers, warm through the fabric, as they came to rest on her hips, his thumbs on the indent of her waist. ‘I’ve only just found you again. Do you think I’d run the risk of losing you? It would be selfish—Jasmine needs her mother, she needs you.... I need you, Angel. There was a time when I thought about you as my weakness...now I know you are my strength.’

  Tears of emotion filled her eyes, spilling like crystal drops down her cheeks. ‘You need a woman who can give you everything. You need to wait. I know it might seem impossible now,’ she told him gently, ‘but one day you’ll love someone the way you did Emma. Imagine how awful it would be if, when that time came, you were tied to me. You need love in a marriage, Alex, and you deserve it. And you deserve babies with that person. I’ve seen you with Jasmine. You’ll want a family of your own one day and I can’t give it you.’

  ‘You stupid woman.’

  She blinked.

  ‘You really are a stupid woman!’ The insult was delivered in a voice that held so much love that her eyes filled. ‘You already have given me a family—you have given me Jasmine. You and Jasmine are all the family I want or need, my bolshy, belligerent, beautiful Angelina, my very own Angel. I love you.’

  She swallowed and covered the bottom half of her face with her hands. ‘But I’m not...’

  ‘You’re not second best.’

  Her eyes widened at this display of perception. ‘I loved Emma,’ he agreed quietly. ‘And I was glad I was there for her, but we barely had a relationship before I became her carer. We were never really a couple. I think if things had been different we could have been happy but you...you...’ He touched her cheek, wonder shining in the incandescent blue of his eyes as he bent to kiss her lips. ‘You are my soulmate.’

  Joy exploded through her. ‘I love you, Alex.’

  At the words the tension drained from him and he smiled. Taking her hand, holding her eyes with his, he placed it palm flat against his chest, against the beat of his heart. ‘If life took you away from me, it would break. I would break,’ he told her in a voice thick and throbbing with the strength of his emotions.

  Tears of joy seeping from her eyes, Angel took his hand and kissed the palm lovingly while she looked up at him, vision blurred with tears of joy. ‘I won’t let you break, Alex,’ she promised huskily.

  He brushed the tears lovingly away from her face with his thumb. ‘Marry me, my Angel.’

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

  His grin blazed as he bent his head to claim her lips. ‘Becoming the luckiest man on the planet!’

  EPILOGUE

  ‘DADDY!’

  It was a title he never tired of hearing. ‘Yes, Miss Jasmine?’

  ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Homework done?’

  Jumping up and down impatiently, Jasmine nodded vigorously. ‘I’ve been ready for hours.’

  Alex shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me—so have I. We’re waiting for your mother. Blame her.’

  ‘Blame me for what this time?’ Angel asked, walking into the room.

  ‘Keeping us waiting,’ Jasmine supplied.

  ‘What’s the hurry? The snow isn’t going to melt anytime soon.’ It had been one of the longest winters on record.

  ‘It might! The sun is shining and I want to show Daddy my snowman. He doesn’t believe it’s taller than him...nearly taller than him.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but getting this one ready is not a five-minute job.’ Angel looked down at the bundle in her arms who was barely visible beneath the layers he was cocooned in. His eyes were closed; his dark lashes lay like a fan across his cheeks. Looking at him it was hard to believe he had kept them awake half the night.

  Amazing to think now that when she’d first discovered she was pregnant she had really thought it might split them apart. It was the thing they had both agreed on: no more children. But it had happened anyway, her little miracle, and in the end it had drawn them closer than ever.

  She had been more worried about telling Alex than about the pregnancy itself, and she would never forget the look on his face when she had told him. She had never thought to see her big, bold, impossibly brave husband scared, but he had been. She never saw that look again, but she knew the fear was there and the memory of the terror in his eyes would stay with her for ever. Now though, when she thought of it, she was able to see it beside the expression on his face when he had held his newborn son for the first time.

  But Alex had been there for her every step of the way. She didn’t think she could have made it through those months with her sanity intact; his wildly overprotective instincts had been in overdrive.

  But if ever she became impatient with him when he wrapped her in cotton wool, Angel had reminded herself of that look.

  Appearing at her elbow, Alex twitched aside a fold of blue blanket to reveal his son’s face. ‘His first trip out.’

  ‘Are you sure he’ll be warm enough?’

  Alex’s rich warm laughter rang out. ‘In that lot he’s more likely to suffer heat exhaustion.’

  It still didn’t seem real to Alex that he had a son, and, while he loved little Theo more than life itself, the pregnancy itself had been the worst months of his entire life.

  The fear of losing Angel had never left him for a single instant. He had felt as though he were walking around with a stone in his chest. He had tried to hide his fears, for Jasmine’s sake he had struggled to maintain an illusion at least of a normal family life, but the strain had been immense.

  Angel had been amazing. She had sailed through the pregnancy serenely; despite two stays in hospital and intense monitoring she had never once complained.

  His wife was truly amazing. He kissed her, a long and lingering kiss that brought a flush to her lovely cheeks.

  ‘What was that for?’

  ‘A man has to take what he can when he can.’

  The reminder of the previous afternoon when they had not used the time to catch up with lost sleep but with lost lovemaking brought a deepened flush to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes.

  ‘Can I push Theo?’ Jasmine asked. ‘I’ll be very, very careful.’

  ‘We’ll take turns,’ Alex decided as he took control of the pram and zipped up the protective covering, then in a soft aside to his wife added, ‘My turn on top later, I think.’

  ‘Marriage is all about give and take.’

  And she had married a man who gave a whole lot more than he ever took!

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SEDUCTION NEVER LIES by Sa
ra Craven.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  OCTAVIA DENISON FED the last newsletter through the final letter box in the row of cottages and, with a sigh of relief, remounted her bicycle and began the long hot ride back to the Vicarage.

  There were times, and this was one of them, when she wished the Reverend Lloyd Denison would email his monthly message to his parishioners instead.

  ‘After all,’ as Patrick had commented more than once, ‘Everyone in the village must have a computer these days.’

  But her father preferred the personal touch, and when Tavy came across someone like old Mrs Lewis longing for a chat over a cup of tea because her niece was away on holiday, and who certainly had no computer or even a mobile phone, she supposed wryly that Dad had a point.

  All the same, this was not an ideal day for a cycle tour of the village on an old boneshaker.

  For once, late May had produced a mini-heatwave with cloudless skies and temperatures up in the Seventies, which had also managed to coincide with Greenbrook School’s half-term holiday.

  Nice for the kids, thought Tavy as she pedalled but, for her, it would be business as usual tomorrow.

  Her employer, Eunice Wilding, paid her what she considered was the appropriate rate for a young and unqualified school secretary, but she expected, according to the local saying, ‘her cake for her ha’penny’.

  But at the time the job had seemed a lifeline in spite of the poor pay. One small ray of light in the encircling darkness of the stunned grief she shared with her father at her mother’s sudden death from a totally unsuspected heart condition.

  He’d protested, of course, when she’d announced she was giving up her university course to come home and keep house for him, but she’d read the relief in his eyes, swallowed her regrets, and set herself to rebuilding both their lives, cautiously tackling the parish tasks that her mother had fulfilled with such warmth and good humour, while discovering that, in Mrs Wilding’s vocabulary, ‘assistant’ was another word for ‘dogsbody’.

  But in spite of its drawbacks, the job enabled her to maintain a restricted level of independence and pay a contribution to the Vicarage budget.

  In return, she was expected to put in normal office hours, five and a half days a week, with just a fortnight’s holiday taken in two weekly instalments in spring and autumn, and far removed from the lengthy vacations enjoyed by the teaching staff.

  And half-term breaks did not feature either, so this particular afternoon was a concession, while Mrs Wilding conducted her usual staff room inquisition into the events of the past weeks, and outlined the progress she expected in the next half.

  It was her ability to achieve these targets that had made Greenbrook School an undoubted success in spite of its high fees. Mrs Wilding herself did not teach, calling herself the Director rather than the headmistress, but she had a knack for picking those that could, and even the most unpromising pupils were given the start they needed.

  When she eventually retired, the school would continue to flourish under the leadership of Patrick, her only son, who’d returned from London the previous year to become a partner in an accountancy firm in the nearby market town, and who already acted as Greenbrook’s part-time bursar.

  And his wife, when he had one, would also have a part to play, thought Tavy, feeling an inner glow that had nothing to do with the sun.

  She’d known Patrick all her life of course, and he’d been the object of her first early teen crush. While her school friends giggled and fantasised over pop stars and soap actors, her sole focus had been the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Adonis who lived in her own village.

  Although it might as well have been one of the moons of Jupiter for all the notice he took of her. She could remember basking for weeks in the memory of a casual ‘Thanks’ when she’d been ball girl for his final match in the annual village tennis tournament. Could recall the excitement building as the university vacations approached and she knew he would be home, but also crying herself to sleep when he spent his holidays elsewhere, as he often did.

  But then real life in the shape of public examinations and career choices intervened and took priority, so that when she heard her father mention casually to her mother that Patrick was off to the States for some form of post-graduate study, the worst she had to suffer was a small pang of regret.

  Since that time, he’d come back only for fleeting visits, and the last thing Tavy expected was that he would ever return to live in the area. Yet six months ago that was exactly what had happened.

  And the first she’d known of it was when his mother brought him one afternoon into the cubbyhole which served as her office.

  She’d said rather stiffly, ‘Patrick, I don’t know if you remember Octavia Denison...’

  ‘Of course, I do.’ His smile seemed to reach out and touch her, as she’d seen it do so often to others in the past. But, until that moment, never to her. ‘We’re old friends.’ Adding, ‘You look terrific, Tavy.’

  She’d felt the swift colour burn in her face. Fought to keep her voice steady as she returned, ‘It’s good to see you again, Patrick.’

  Knowing that she had not bargained for precisely how good. And feeling a swift stab of anxiety in consequence.

  After that, he seemed to make a point of popping in to see her whenever he was at the school, perching on the corner of her desk to chat easily as if that past friendship had really existed, and she hadn’t simply been ‘that skinny red-haired kid from the Vicarage’ as one of the girls in his crowd had once described her, loudly enough to be overheard.

  Tavy had remained on her guard, polite but not encouraging, her instinct telling her that Mrs Wilding was unlikely to approve of such fraternisation. Not even sure that she approved of it herself, even if the bursarship gave him an excuse for being there.

  So, when Patrick eventually invited her to have dinner with him, her refusal was immediate and definite.

  ‘But why?’ he asked plaintively. ‘You do eat, don’t you?’

  She hesitated. ‘Patrick, I work for your mother. It wouldn’t be—appropriate for you to take out the hired help.’

  Besides I need this job, because finding another in the same radius is by no means a certainty...

  He snorted. ‘For heaven’s sake, what century are we living in? And Ma will be cool about it, I guarantee.’

  But she remained adamant, only to discover that he was adopting a similar stance. And, finally, at the third time of asking, and in spite of her lingering misgivings, she agreed.

  It occurred to her while she was getting ready, searching the wardrobe for the one decent dress she possessed and praying it still fitted, that she hadn’t actually been out with a man since those few short months at university when she’d had a few casual but enjoyable dates with a fellow student called Jack.

  Looking back, she could see that these might have developed into something more serious, if Fate hadn’t intervened with such devastating cruelty.

  Since then nothing—and no one.

  For one thing, there were few single and available men in the neighbourhood. For another, coping with her job, plus the cooking and housework at the Vicarage and h
elping out with parish duties left her too tired to go looking, even if she’d had the time or inclination.

  She could only hope that Patrick hadn’t tuned into this somehow and invited her out of pity.

  If so, he’d kept it well-hidden during an evening it still made her smile to remember. He’d taken her to a small French restaurant in Market Tranton where they’d begun with a delicious garlicky pâté before moving on to confit du canard, served with green beans and a gratin dauphinois, with a seriously rich chocolate mousse to complete the meal. All washed down with a soft, fruity Bergerac wine.

  A meal from the Dordogne region, he’d told her, and probably the only one she’d ever taste, she thought later, as she drifted off to sleep.

  After that, they’d started seeing each other on a regular basis, although when they encountered each other in working hours, it was always strictly business. And in spite of his assurances, Tavy wasn’t at all sure that her employer was actually aware of the whole situation. Certainly Mrs Wilding made no reference to it, but maybe that was because she considered it unimportant. A temporary aberration on Patrick’s part which would soon pass.

  Except it showed no sign of doing so, although so far he’d made no serious attempt to get her into bed, as she’d half expected. And, perhaps, wanted, having no real wish to remain the only twenty-two-year-old virgin in captivity.

  And while she knew she could not expect her father to approve, he’d been enough of a realist to impose no taboos in his pre-university advice. Just a quietly expressed hope that she would always maintain her self-respect.

  So, sleeping with a man with whom she shared a settled relationship could hardly damage that, she told herself. In many ways it would be an affirmation. A promise for the future.

  Although all their meetings were still taking place well away from the village.

  When, at last, she’d tackled him about this, he’d admitted ruefully that he’d been deliberately keeping the situation under wraps. Saying that his mother had a lot on her mind at the moment, and he was waiting for the right moment to tell her about their plans.