When Max showed no reaction to her tentative caress, Maddy quietly withdrew her hand.
Was he perhaps angry because of the disruption this new pregnancy was causing? It had been his decision to continue to work mainly from home until after the birth. Maddy had not asked him to do so, but she knew how much she needed his input into the day-to-day running of their domestic fives at the moment. It was true that he had not shown any signs of being irritated by the demands that were being made on him but she could think of no other reason for the tension she could sense in him.
'Stop worrying,' he instructed her whenever she tried to talk to him about her feelings. But how could she when something was so obviously wrong?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DESPITE THE WARMTH inside her car, Olivia shivered violently as she stopped outside David and Honor's house. She had been feeling ill all day, feverish and shivery, her throat sore with a dull persistent headache.
There was a particularly virulent strain of flu going round and she prayed that she wasn't about to go down with it.
From where she sat in her car she could see into the sitting room. Her father was seated in a chair, Amelia crouching next to him whilst Alex sat curled up on his knee. He was reading to them and the three of them were so engrossed in what they were doing that they were totally oblivious to her own arrival.
As she watched them and witnessed the closeness between them, a pain seared right through her. Never once during her own childhood could she remember her father reading to her, never mind exhibiting the loving closeness he was showing her own daughters.
As she watched, Alex started to laugh and as David bent his head to say something, Amelia reached up and flung her arms round him, hugging him tightly.
A huge lump of pain and anguish ached in Olivia's throat. A mixture of resentment and joy. Resentment on her own behalf and joy on her daughters' that they should so obviously and trustingly be enjoying their grandfather's company—and receiving his love?
No one else would know just how hard she had found it to allow her children to be with her father, how much she had hated having to ask for his help, but there was no denying that they were thriving on the situation. Every day they came home full of what they had done with their grandfather. Every morning they couldn't wait for her to drop them off with him.
Already Honor had become 'Grandma' to them, their faces lighting up when they talked excitedly of the time they spent with the older couple.
Alex in particular was fascinated by the priest who it seemed had a fund of exciting stories to tell them, and their conversation was full of references to Grandma's herbals and Gramps's workshop.
The evening they had come out to the car proudly carrying the cakes they had made for her, Olivia's eyes had filled with tears.
Alex and Amelia were now having a play fight over which of them should sit on David's knee and when he resolved it by reaching out and wrapping an arm around each of them Olivia had to look away.
Never once could she remember him ever being so affectionate and loving with her—because she had not been a child who was worthy of being loved?
Bleakly she tried to push the thought away. Now was not the time to allow herself to be re-tormented by what should be vanquished spectres.
'For God's sake, Livvy,' Caspar had accused her in exasperation during one of their rows. 'Forget the past and try living in the present.'
Forget the past! If only she could, but right now she felt like a little girl again; a little girl looking enviously at the happy loving domestic scene from which she was excluded.
As she told herself grimly that she was adding to her own pain, she heard someone rapping on her car window.
Her colour rising, she turned away from the scene which had been engrossing her to find Honor standing at the side of the car smiling at her.
Feeling almost as though she had been caught out in something illicit Olivia opened the door.
'I'm just on my way inside. I've been working in my greenhouse trying to make sure everything is properly protected from the frost,' Honor explained easily.
'Why don't you come in with me?'
Olivia started to refuse but then, for some reason, found that instead of doing so she was actually getting out of the car.
Honor's pregnancy was only just beginning to show. It was hard for Olivia to get her head round the fact that the baby Honor was carrying would be her own half-brother or -sister.
Caspar would have liked more children but she had refused. How could she possibly have another child when she was working full-time?
They had reached the house now and Honor was pushing open the kitchen door and ushering Olivia inside. Unlike the kitchen of her own childhood, this one smelled warm and welcoming, causing Olivia to suffer a sharp pang of guilt. She had always promised herself that her children would have the kind of childhood, the kind of home life she had been denied; that they would come home to a mother who had the time to listen to them...a mother who would cook proper meals for them instead of vaguely telling them to get something out of the fridge.
She did cook, of course, but with one eye on the clock, her thoughts more on the next step in her evening routine than on enjoying the moment.
Honor, she sensed, would enjoy and relish each moment, each pleasure of life as it happened.
'I went to see Ben today,' Honor told her as she removed her outdoor coat. 'He isn't at all well.'
Olivia stiffened. If Honor was going to give her a lecture about Ben then Olivia just didn't want to hear it
'He's his own worst enemy, of course,' Honor continued, 'and I just wish I could do more to help Maddy with him but...' She paused and looked at Olivia.
Honor had told herself that she wasn't going to interfere in David's relationship with his daughter but there was something that she had to say.
'Sadly David is still regarded within his family as someone who isn't to be trusted, which is a shame because—'
'If he's treated like that then perhaps it's because it's what he deserves,' Olivia cut across her bitterly.
'Grandfather virtually deified Dad—no one else apart from Max ever really mattered to him and Dad.' Olivia stopped, her jaw clenching.
'I know how strongly you feel about the past, Olivia,' Honor conceded, 'but...'
She stopped speaking as the kitchen door was pushed open and Amelia came rushing into the room telling her excitedly, 'Grandma, I go
t top marks for my spelling today and—' She stopped as she saw Olivia, looking uncertainly from her mother's set face to Honor's gently encouraging one.
Deep down inside her most vulnerable part of herself Olivia felt something crack and splinter—a pain that seemed to radiate out to every single part of her body as she recognised that Amelia, her beloved precious firstborn child, was looking at her with virtually the same look of hesitancy and apprehension with which she had once regarded her own mother. Olivia had seen that look in her daughter's eyes once before, but it hadn't hit home nearly as painfully. Before she could do or say anything, Alex and David were also in the room, Alex still too young to be aware of the adult tension surrounding her, running over to Olivia and beaming up at her.
'Grandad's going to ask Father Christmas to bring me a pony,' she told Olivia excitedly.
'Er...I did say that we would have to ask Mummy about it first,' David interrupted her ruefully.
A pony. Olivia closed her eyes. She could still remember how desperately she had once wanted one but Tania had been horrid. 'A pony. Oh, no, darling, you'll grow up all horsey and horrible.... No...'
As she looked at her father Olivia could see both remorse and concern in his eyes but before she could say anything a spasm of coughing overtook her.
'Are you okay?' Honor asked her.
'I'm fine,' Olivia fibbed brightly, turning away from her to demand sharply, 'Hurry up and get your things please, girls....'
'MUMMY...'
Olivia tensed as she heard the note in Alex's voice.
She had just turned into their own drive and her whole body ached for the soothing comfort of a deliciously hot bath.
'Mummy...I wish Daddy would come home.'
Olivia's heart sank.
'Alex, you know what I've told you,' she began.
'Yes,' Alex agreed crossly. 'But I want him to come home and so does Amelia.'
Olivia gave a brief look at her elder daughter's downcast head. Why were things always so much harder than you envisaged they would be? She had truly believed that separating from Caspar would help to put an end to her problems and remove the worst source of friction from her life, but instead...