Angel of Darkness

Next week—the wedding that Kelda was dreading.

‘Tomaso wanted to buy your apartment but it went very quickly, didn’t it?’ Daisy sighed. ‘I assumed it would be on the market for ages and I was wrong—’

Kelda bent her head, not knowing where to look. She had found a rented flat in Highgate before she went to New York and her mother had promised to supervise the removal of her personal possessions when Kelda had discovered that she wouldn’t be back in London in time to make the move herself.

‘I want you to have the cottage back. After all, you bought it for me,’ Daisy stressed.

‘A very generous gesture on your income.’ Tomaso dealt her a warm approving smile. ‘I will always be grateful that you looked after your mother when she wouldn’t allow me to look after her.’

‘I don’t need anybody looking after me,’ Daisy muttered a shade tartly, but she beamed at Tomaso all the same.

The cottage. Kelda hadn’t even thought about it. But she was driven back there. Her own cushions adorned her mother’s chairs. And Daisy’s display of ruby glass in the lounge had been displaced by the ornamental frogs Kelda had been collecting since childhood. Her mother squeezed her elbow. Kelda blinked back tears.

The cottage had two dormer bedrooms, both with en-suite facilities, a lounge and a cosy dining-room open on to the kitchen as well as a small but very private garden. All of a sudden she had a home of her own again. She sat down on the edge of the bed and then tore into her holdall for the test.

‘What do you want for dinner?’ Daisy called upstairs brightly.

‘I’m not hungry!’

‘Rubbish!’

Forty minutes later she knew, but she sat on the side of the bath simply staring at the kit, telling herself that maybe she had done the test wrong and re-reading the instructions. She felt terribly sick and even more terribly scared. She felt just like a teenager, not like an adult at all. Pregnant. It was a black joke. She couldn’t believe she was, couldn’t credit that one mistake could lead to such frightening consequences.

Three days later, her mother found her being sick in the bathroom for the second morning in succession. ‘You’ve caught some bug,’ Daisy muttered anxiously. ‘This time, I’m not listening to you, I’m calling the doctor!’

‘No!’

Ignoring her protests, her mother marched over to the phone.

Kelda was already under sufficient stress ‘Don’t!’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Daisy continued to dial.

‘For goodness’ sake, I’m not sick...I’m pregnant!’ Kelda suddenly sobbed in frustration and then a silence, utterly unlike any other, fell as Daisy stared back at her in disbelief and Kelda realised what she had said. She had not intended to tell her mother until she returned from her honeymoon.

It took an hour to calm Daisy down.

Her own eyes as swollen as her parent’s, Kelda whispered, ‘I didn’t want you to know yet.’

‘How am I going to tell Tomaso?’

‘Don’t you dare tell Tomaso!’ Kelda gasped.

‘He’s going to have to know some time! Kelda...how could you go to bed with some man you hardly know at a party?’ Her mother broke down in tears again.

That seemed the worst aspect of it all in her parent’s eyes. Kelda turned her head away, wishing that she could have told the truth but in the circumstances that was impossible. She didn’t sleep a wink that night. Tomorrow, Daisy and Tomaso were getting married. And she had ruined her mother’s wedding for her with the sort of news few parents wished to hear. Her conscience was in agony. And as if that wasn’t enough, she knew that tomorrow she would have to face Angelo again.

Would she tell him? How could she tell him? The right words for such an announcement evaded her. Af

ter he had seen Russ strolling out of her bedroom half naked, why should he even believe that her baby was his? Too exhausted to even think any more, Kelda lay there in the darkness, wrapped in turmoil.

When she came down for breakfast, Daisy was astonishingly all smiles and buoyance. ‘You could get a nanny and we could keep the baby when you had to be away overnight. Tomaso loves children. He’ll probably be delighted when he gets over the...the surprise,’ Daisy selected tactfully. ‘After all, society has changed. Single parenthood is much more acceptable these days. Would you like one rasher or two?’

‘Mum, I—’ Kelda hesitated and then abruptly found herself wrapped in her mother’s arms. ‘The smell of that bacon makes me sick,’ she confided with a tiny catch in her voice.

The wedding was at a register office. The first person Kelda saw was Angelo, and the effect of Angelo sheathed in a superb light grey suit was powerful. She stumbled in the doorway, briefly unable to take her eyes off him. Dear lord, the ground beneath her feet seemed to tilt and her skin was damp and her heart was racing. Eyes of gold deep enough to drown in, ebony hair that felt like silk against her fingertips. A welter of erotic imagery she had locked tight within her memory banks suddenly overwhelmed her.

‘That’s Fiona,’ her mother hissed. ‘I forgot to mention that she’d be coming. Gorgeous, isn’t she? Tomaso thinks she’s been the most promising yet. She’s a banker and she has two degrees—’