Christmas Child

Explaining that she’d thrown his letters on the fire would bring forth some scathing, bitter comment from him. She didn’t want her baby to pick up any more of these bad vibrations.

They had left the town well behind and were heading into deep country, the lanes narrow and winding. Determined to relax, to stop tension transmitting itself from her to her tiny daughter, she tried to ignore him, imagine he was a complete stranger, a taxi driver maybe, and doggedly concentrated on thinking thoughts of the peaceful and happy variety.

She and Chloe would soon be home. Just the two of them. The doors firmly closed against the elements, the fire burning in the hearth, warm and comfortable.

It wouldn’t matter a toss if it was just the two of them; caring for her baby would keep her happy and occupied. And there was lots she could tell her, about the pale lemon and cream nursery that she’d papered and painted herself and decorated with a frieze of teddy bears, about the garden where, next summer, she could sit in her buggy and watch her mother weeding the vegetable patch, tend the hodgepodge of perennials that would transform what had been a jungle of weeds into a perfumed mass of colour, and—

‘We’re here,’ he said.

Mattie blinked, aware she’d been lost in her daydreams and that reality was now staring her in the face. The Jaguar was drawn up behind her second-hand very ordinary Ford, parked on the clinker driveway at the side of the thatched cottage.

She moistened her lips. This painful episode would soon be over. ‘If you’ll pass me my handbag.’ It was at her feet. She couldn’t reach it without running the risk of squashing her darling baby. ‘I’ll get my door-key. And thank you,’ she said as politely as she could, ‘for giving me a lift.’ And then more acidly, because she really couldn’t help it, ‘I won’t offer you a cup of tea. I’m sure you want to get back to Fiona as soon as possible.’

He gave her an unreadable look from those black-fringed silver eyes. ‘I have the key your father gave me. I stayed here with them last night. I slept in you

r bed. But I’ll use the spare room tonight since they’re not here to need it. We have things to sort out, you and I. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you chicken out of any one of them.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MATTIE followed James into the cottage that she’d so painstakingly turned into a home for her and her child. The living room was small, heavily beamed, cosy; the fire Emily had promised and James must have banked up before he’d left to drive to the hospital was burning brightly in the deep stone hearth.

She watched as he removed the fire-guard, stowing it at the side of the inglenook, just as she always did, remove his leather jacket and hang it on the hook on the door that opened onto the twisty wooden staircase.

His presence, as ever, dominated the space and she knew she should feel resentful over the way he appeared to be taking over, regard him as an intruder.

But she couldn’t, she thought miserably. His being here felt so right, as if the three of them were a real family. She couldn’t handle the feeling because it simply wasn’t true.

And she, poor sucker that she was, wanted it to be.

‘There really isn’t any need for you to stay,’ she said croakily. The sooner he was back in London, the sooner she could get back to normal, halt the dangerous regression to the time when they’d been happy, or had seemed to her to be—the time when she’d felt a part of him, had been a part of his life.

‘You need looking after.’ His reply was terse. ‘Sit down, you look like death.’

Did she? And was it any wonder? He had turned up when she’d least expected it, when she’d believed she was well on the way to getting over him. It was like sharing her home with an unexploded bomb.

‘You said there were things you wanted to sort out.’ She stood her ground. He wanted to talk about the divorce, presumably—she couldn’t think of any other reason for the way he’d sought her out. Though why he hadn’t gone through their solicitors, as he’d formerly advised, she was too dizzy-brained to fathom.

‘They can wait for a day or two, until you’re feeling stronger.’ His brows were a dark, frowning line. ‘That nurse told you to rest up, remember?’

Rest would be impossible while he was here, didn’t he know that? Mattie thought wildly. He was filling her space with memories, the impossible yearnings of a heart that had been irrevocably given to the wrong man.

But there was no point in arguing with him, she decided wearily. He was impossibly intractable when it came to getting his own way. Besides, there were too many things to be done.

The baby had worked her arms free of the shawl, her tiny fists punching the air, her rosebud mouth forming the shape of a square. Any moment now she would start bellowing. For such a small scrap of humanity she could make a remarkably loud noise.

‘She needs feeding and changing,’ Mattie said briskly, maternal instincts immediately taking over. ‘Would you hold her for me, please, while I get her things ready?’

She advanced towards him and he retreated, his face shuttered. ‘Put her down over there.’ His dark head tipped briefly towards the chintz-covered sofa Mattie had bought at a house-clearance sale shortly after she’d moved in here. ‘She won’t fall off it, not if you put one of the cushions between her and the edge.’ He backed through the door that led into the kitchen. ‘I’ll make you a hot drink.’

Mattie swallowed a spasm of outrage. But for heaven’s sake, what else had she expected? He couldn’t even bring himself to look at his own daughter, so how could she have imagined he would hold her?

Carefully, she placed the now red-faced bundle on the sofa and stripped off her coat, her throat hot and tight, deploring his cold-hearted attitude towards his innocent baby.

Nappies and baby wipes were in the suitcase James had carried in for her and, after calming herself down, she performed the changing operation without a hitch, more or less.

She was getting the hang of it, Mattie thought, deliberately blocking James out of her head. She settled herself in a corner of the comfy sofa, undid the top buttons of her tent-like maternity dress and held her baby to her breast, her eyes going liquid with mother love as her tiny daughter suckled greedily.

And they were still glowing as she raised them to James as he came slowly back into the room, as if she were inviting him to close the charmed circle of love, to make it complete.