Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

Which would have meant—she glanced down at Ben’s fair head—she would have known who had got her pregnant.

But she did not know and now she would never know.

She paused in her tuneless singing. Further back down the lane she could hear the sound of a car engine. Instinctively she tucked the buggy closer to the verge. There was a passing place further along, but she doubted she could reach it before the approaching vehicle did. Wishing it weren’t quite so dusky, she paused, half lifting one set of buggy wheels on to the verge, and warning Ben that a car was coming along.

Headlights cut through the gathering gloom and swept up the lane, followed by a powerful vehicle. It slowed as the lights picked her out, and for a moment Lizzy thought it was going to stop. Then it was past them, and accelerating forward. As it did so, she frowned slightly. The lane she was walking along led inland, whereas the road back to the seaside town ran parallel to the coast. Little traffic came along this lane. Well, maybe the occupants were staying at a farm or a holiday cottage inland. Or maybe they were just lost. She went on pushing the buggy up the final part of the slope, and then around the bend to where her cottage was.

As she finally rounded the curve she saw, to her surprise, that the big four-by-four had parked outside her cottage.

A shiver of apprehension flickered through her. This was a very safe part of the world, compared to the city, but crime wasn’t unknown. She slid her hand inside her jacket and flicked her mobile phone on, ready to dial 999 if she had to. As she approached her garden gate she saw two tall figures get out of the

car and come towards her. She paused, right by her gate, one hand in her pocket, her finger hovering over the emergency number.

‘Are you lost?’ she asked politely.

They didn’t answer, just closed in on her. Every nerve in her body started to fire. Then, abruptly, one of them spoke.

‘Miss Mitchell?’

His voice was deep, and accented. She didn’t know what accent. Something foreign, that was all. She looked at him, still with every nerve firing. His face was shadowed in the deepening dusk; she just got an impression of height, of dark eyes—and something else. Something she couldn’t put a name to.

Except that it made her say slowly, ‘Yes. Why do you want to know?’

Instinctively she moved closer to the buggy, putting herself between it and the strangers.

‘Who are those men?’ Ben piped up. His little head craned around as he tried to see, because she’d pointed the buggy straight at the gate to the garden.

She heard the man give a rasp in his throat. Then he was speaking again. ‘We need to speak to you, Miss Mitchell. About the boy.’ There was a frown across his brow, a deep frown, as he looked at her.

‘Who are you?’ Lizzy’s voice was shrill suddenly, infected with fear.

Then the other man, more slightly built, and older, spoke.

‘There is no cause for alarm, Miss Mitchell. I am a police officer, and you are perfectly safe. Be assured.’

A police officer? Lizzy stared at him. His voice had the same accent as the taller, younger man, whose gaze had gone back fixedly to Ben.

‘You’re not English.’

The first man’s eyebrows rose as he turned back to her. ‘Of course not,’ he said, as if that were a ridiculous observation. Then, with a note of impatience in his voice, he went on, ‘Miss Mitchell, we have a great deal to discuss. Please be so good as to go inside. You have my word that you are perfectly safe.’

The other man was reaching forward, pushing open the gate and ushering her along the short path to her front door. Numbly she did as she was bade. Tension and a deep unease were still ripping through her. As she gained the tiny entrance hall of the cottage she paused to unlatch Ben from his safety harness. He struggled out immediately, and turned to survey the two tall men waiting in the doorway to gain entrance.

Lizzy straightened, and flicked on the hall light, surveying the two men herself. As her gaze rested on the younger of the two, she saw he was staring, riveted, at Ben.

There were two other things she registered about him that sent conflicting emotions shooting through her.

The first was, quite simply, that in the stark light of the electric bulb the man staring down at Ben was the most devastatingly good-looking male she’d ever seen.

The second was that he looked terrifyingly like her sister’s son.

In shocked slow motion Lizzy helped Ben out of his jacket and boots, then her own, then folded up the buggy and leant it against the wall. Her stomach was tying itself into knots. Oh, God, what was happening? Fear shot through her, and convulsed in her throat.

‘This is the way to the kitchen,’ announced Ben, and led the way, looking with great interest at these unexpected visitors.

The warmth of the kitchen from the wood-burning range made Lizzy feel breathless, and the room seemed tiny with the two men standing in it. Instinctively she stood behind Ben as he climbed on to a chair to be higher. Both men were still regarding him intently. Fear jerked through her again.

‘Look, what is this?’ she demanded sharply. Her arm came around Ben’s shoulder in a protective gesture. The man who looked like Ben turned briefly to the other man, and said something low and rapid in a foreign language.