Angel of Darkness

‘Does sniping at me make you feel any better?’ he asked drily.

He hadn’t answered her questions. She threw up her head in open challenge. ‘As a matter of fact, it does!’

‘I think you should go to bed.’ Angelo rose gracefully from his chair. ‘This conversation ends here.’

She sprang upright, her cheeks flaming. ‘You haven’t answered me!’

‘And I’m not likely to...in the mood that you are in now.’

He walked out of the dining-room. She followed him to the door. ‘We’ve only been married for eight hours and I’m bored stiff!’ she flung.

He swung back, cast her a glittering, hard smile. ‘I would hate to be the only one suffering.’

That hurt. That hurt much more than she could have believed. She cried herself to sleep. What had she wanted? What had she expected? Reassurance, tenderness, affection. Only a man in love would give her those responses. And Angelo didn’t love her. It was their wedding-night, and because sex was out of the question he didn’t bother coming near her at all. Eight hours and already she was wondering if she had made the greatest mistake of her life.

He apologised over breakfast. Very smoothly. In fact, he had a positive spring in his step and he smiled several times over nothing in particular. He told her that he would be back for dinner, reminded her yet again that he could be reached at all times by his mobile phone, and strode out to the helicopter that had arrived to pick him up.

He was less stiff over dinner that evening. For some reason, he was in an utterly charming mood. He suggested outrageous names for the baby, informed her that he was taking time off to accompany her to all her check-ups and dragged her upstairs to view the room he had decided would best suit as a nursery. They argued amicably about that. She went to bed that night, frantically wondering what had brought about his altered mood and hoping that it would last.

It did. Over the next three weeks, Angelo took part in every aspect of preparing for a new baby. He looked at the wallpaper books, wandered through nursery furniture displays and was quite touchingly astounded at the tiny size of newborn clothing.

Four days after that, Kelda went into labour. She did not initially appreciate that the increasing ache in her back was anything to worry about. By the time that she did, it was too late to give Angelo sufficient warning to get back from Glasgow, where he was involved with an international conference.

She gave birth at the local cottage hospital and not the fancy clinic Angelo had expected her to use. Her labour only lasted two hours and she was delighted, only slightly miffed when she heard the middle-aged midwife say something about ‘good childbearing hips'! Angelo arrived long after the excitement was over.

‘Don’t you think you could have given me more warning?’ he drawled from the threshold of her room.

‘I didn’t get much warning either.’ She sat up, flushed and tired

but consumed with pride. ‘Look at her,’ she demanded.

Angelo was very pale. He tiptoed over to the side of the cot and peered in. Their daughter chose that moment to squall. ‘Terrific lungs,’ he murmured, searching the tiny infuriated face. ‘My hair, your nose...’

Her heart sunk. Was he searching for Rossetti genes? Was there still a shadow of doubt? Almost defensively, Kelda reached for her baby. ‘She’s got your eyes.’

‘I suppose you didn’t call me in time because you didn’t really want me here,’ Angelo asserted without a flicker of expression.

‘There wasn’t time!’

But she could see that he didn’t believe her. And, if she was honest, she wouldn’t have wanted him in the delivery-room. In the current state of their relationship, she would have shrunk from sharing something that intimate.

Was he disappointed that she wasn’t a boy? He sank down on the edge of the bed and reached for a tiny hand, awkwardly traced a little froglike leg. He studied their child intently and wiped quite unselfconsciously at his dampened eyes. ‘May I hold her?’

When he replaced her in the cot, he stared back at Kelda, fierce emotion unhidden in his golden gaze. ‘No matter what happens between us in the future...thank you for her.’

Kelda had to bow her head to hide her tears. She had somehow expected him to put his arms around her, maybe even kiss her, but he didn’t touch her at all. The only female in the room that Angelo couldn’t keep his hands off weighed less than seven pounds, and if she cried she got instant attention. Kelda had never experienced a more savage sense of rejection.

CHAPTER TEN

‘ALICE, my darling, you have it made!’ Gina exclaimed, taking in the full glory of the nursery suite with astonished eyes. ‘Is there anything you haven’t bought this child yet, Kelda? A solid gold toothbrush in waiting for the first tooth?’

‘Ask Angelo,’ Kelda suggested rather tightly, returning her daughter to her four-poster cot. ‘The world’s biggest shopper at Hamley’s.’

‘And you’re complaining? Some men don’t want anything to do with their kids—’

‘Nobody will ever angle that accusation at Angelo.’

‘Do I sense a sour note in paradise?’