ite managed to kill off might rear to shocking life and rend her with the pain of all that would-be forgotten love? She simply couldn't trust herself enough to run that risk.
Love didn't die to order; you couldn't switch it off because you had been hurt and humiliated.
But she was getting there.
So, as January drew to its storm-swept, bleak close she devised other methods of distancing herself.
Her mother was more than happy to agree to her suggestion of a week in London, buying new maternity clothes, but still she said, 'You won't want too many, surely? Only a couple of months to go and if you're anything like I was… after you were born, I couldn't wait to donate those dreadful tents to the vicar's jumble sale! Mind you, I felt guilty afterwards because they might have come in again. But, as it turned out, you were the only one—we did so want you to have a brother or sister. But, with any luck, you and Charles will have lots of babies—South Park needs filling, don't you think?'
Beth closed her eyes on the pain of that artless remark. The child she was carrying would be the only one. That her marriage to Charles was in name only, physical intimacies relegated to the past, was her bitter secret. South Park's empty rooms would remain so.
Nevertheless, her chin came resolutely up. As an only child herself she had never felt deprived or lonely. She'd always had lots of friends in the village and at school and she would make sure that her child had them too.
And of course the week away stretched to just over two. There were plenty of shows Beth suddenly found she had to see, exhibitions which would be a pity to miss.
'Pity not to pamper ourselves now we're here,' she told her mother when she pointed out that their week was up. 'It's nice to see all we want to see in a leisurely fashion. You're not fretting about Dad, are you?'
'No, of course not.' Molly Garner smiled up at the hotel waiter who had brought a rack of fresh toast to their breakfast table. 'He manages very well on his own. He probably enjoys the silence. He's always accusing me of talking too much! No, Beth, it's you I'm worried about. Is everything all right?'
'Of course!' she answered, too quickly, and made a great production of buttering toast she didn't want. Beneath the prattling inconsequentiality of her mother's conversation there was an astute mind. And she'd always been a little over-protective of her only offspring. She would do well to remember that. So she tacked on offhandedly, 'Whatever makes you ask?'
'You've changed. I can't quite put my finger on it. But there's a sadness in your eyes that sometimes makes me want to cry.'
'Idiot!' It was an effort to achieve a light tone, to force a smile. If her mother had remarked on a new hardness, she would have privately agreed with her and silently congratulated herself on the achievement of her aims. But sadness?
Did what she had gone through really show that much? Did her eyes say one thing even as her brain was saying another? Had she still such a long way to go in her determination to wrench all that ill-begotten love for her husband out of her heart? It didn't bear thinking about. So she smiled resolutely at her troubled parent and passed it off.
'You're imagining things. You're looking at a woman who has backache, frequent heartburn, puffy ankles and bruises to show where a certain little monster is playing football with its mother's insides! Now, what shall we do today? The exhibition of Victorian jewellery? Or shall we go back to Harrods to look at that suit I almost talked you into buying on Wednesday?'
But she couldn't stay away forever, and, certainly, Charles gave her no indication that he had missed her. But, then, why should he? They had stopped pretending when his feelings for Zanna had been brought out into the open.
Besides, she had plenty to occupy herself. She had the excuse of the agency work to catch up on and so was able to shut herself in her office each day, emerging to share a hasty and largely silent dinner with Charles, going immediately after to her room on the pretext of tiredness.
Not that it was a pretext, of course. She was tired, her body ached with it. But her mind wouldn't let her rest. And, one early March night, with the icy rain lashing her window panes, she gave up all attempt to capture elusive sleep, pulled a wrap over her increasing girth and waddled as quietly as she could to the nursery.
Although Charles had said nothing—one raised brow had been enough to tell her he thought her crazy but was willing to pander to the whims of the pregnant—she had insisted on having the room redone.
It was here that Harry had slept—not that she blamed the little innocent, but she couldn't forget how she had seen his parents hovering over him as he lay in the cot that had been bought with such excitement for the baby she had lost.
And even now, if she allowed the forbidden memory over the wall she had built in her mind, she could see Zanna in that clinging satin nightdress, Charles holding her, hear again those fervent words of welcome for the child she had brought him…
Wandering around, touching things, she felt herself begin to relax and sat down on the edge of the single bed she had had one of the gardeners bring into the room. She would sleep here for the first few months of the baby's life as she had every intention of feeding it herself and no intention whatsoever of asking Charles to vacate the adjoining master suite.
The thought of him, now, lying sprawled in the huge double bed, did nothing to help her determination to relax so she thrust it unceremoniously away and hauled herself back to her feet.
Mrs Penny had insisted on carrying up the packages of baby clothes she'd spent an extravagant small fortune on in London, saying, with some justification, that there was enough stuff here already to clothe an army of infants before pushing the new consignment on to the top of the series of open shelves that ran down one side of the cream-painted nursery cupboards.
They had been there for weeks now and needed sorting, placing on the right shelves, and, even standing on tiptoe, Beth couldn't quite reach. Not willing to give up the attempt, she caught hold of the low nursing chair and dragged it across the floor. Clambering up on it, she could just reach, her fingers closing around the piles of tiny, tissue-wrapped garments, the boxed baby toys she hadn't been able to resist.
And the first intimation she had that she was not alone was the rough sound of a crude oath and the strength and warmth and power of the male arms circling her body.
'Just what the hell do you think you're doing?' His voice cracked like the lash of a whip and her whole body went on fire as his arms tightened, swinging her gently down from the chair and setting her on the ground. He was still holding her, but loosely, and she twisted round within the circle of his arms and then wished she hadn't.
He was wearing one of his short towelling robes, hastily tied, and she knew from experience he would be naked beneath it. He never wore anything between the sheets. And just looking at him, at the severely carved angles and planes of his unforgettable features, the dusting of crisp body hair that coarsened the olive-toned skin of his exposed chest and long, firmly muscled legs, her heart began to thunder and her thought processes lay down and died.
'Well?' he demanded, his eyes flaying hers, making her lower her thick lashes very quickly to deny him the knowledge of the effect he could still have on her.
Pushing her tongue over her dry lips, she managed, 'I still haven't sorted out the baby things I bought in London.' She had to stay calm, she had to. Now wasn't the time to throw a wobbly. But after months of conducting limited conversations in tones of lightly veiled sarcasm or, what was probably worse, with polite boredom, his sudden anger, that show of real emotion, had her running scared, unsure of how to handle it.