Baby on Board: Secret Baby, Surprise Parents / Her Baby Wish / Keeping Her Baby's Secret

Now, as he gazed down at this small miracle, she waited, heart in her mouth, for his reaction. For the inevitable question.

How could she do it?

How could she have felt the first tiny movements, watched that first scan, listened to the squishy beat of her heartbeat, cherished the baby growing inside her for nine long months, only to surrender her to her sister and his brother?

Other people had asked.

Not friends, true friends. They had understood. But a reporter from the local paper who’d somehow picked up the story had called her, wanting to know the whys, the hows, the financial deal she’d signed up to. If the woman had done her research, she’d have known that anything but expenses was against the law and Grace hadn’t needed or wanted even that. It was the people who didn’t know them who’d seemed most indignant that she could do such a thing. People who clearly had no concept of unselfish love.

None of those people had mattered, but she so wanted Josh to understand. Even though he disapproved of what she’d done, she needed him to understand, without asking, why she’d done it.

Don’t, she silently begged him. Please don’t ask….

‘Michael rang me minutes after Posie was born,’ he said, after what felt like an eternity. ‘He was almost incoherent with joy.’ For a moment he too seemed to find difficulty in speaking. ‘I was in the back of beyond somewhere, the line was terrible but even through the static it came through loud and clear. His world was complete.’ He looked up, looked at her. ‘You gave him that, Grace.’

She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. He understood.

Then, catching up, ‘Michael phoned you?’

‘He didn’t mention it?’

She shook her head. Why wouldn’t he have told her? Had Phoebe known?

‘What did you say to him, Josh?’ she demanded.

‘I asked him if you were all right and, when he assured me that you had sailed through the whole thing, I asked him if he was sure you had no doubts about giving up the baby. Urged him not to rush you…’

She waited, sure there was something else, but he shook his head.

‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘He didn’t.’

Why had it mattered so much to him? And why wouldn’t they have told her that he’d cared enough to ask about her? Had been concerned that she was all right. Hadn’t Phoebe known how much it would have meant to her?

Or was that it?

Had her sister suspected what had happened between them all those years ago? Had they been afraid that, in the hormonal rush after Posie’s birth, a word from Josh might have been enough to change her mind?

Not wanting to think about that, she crossed to the crib, picked Posie up, cradled her briefly, cherishing the weight of her in her arms, the baby scent of clean hair, warm skin. Then she turned and offered her to Josh.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take her. Hold her.’ When he didn’t move, she looked up to find him staring, not at the baby but at her. ‘What?’

He shook his head. ‘I thought you’d be married to your Toby by now, Grace. With a home, children of your own. Wasn’t that what you always wanted?’

‘You know it was.’

She’d wanted what her sister had wanted. A settled home, a good man, children. She also wanted Josh Kingsley and the two were incompatible. No one could have everything they wanted.

Her sister had never borne the children she had yearned for.

And she had never found anyone who could erase her yearning for a man for whom risk was the breath of life, the horizon the only place he wanted to be.

‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘life isn’t that simple.’

‘Maybe men just have it too easy these days. All of the comforts with none of the responsibility.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, it wasn’t for lack of choice, was it? You appeared to be dating someone different every time I came home.’

‘Not every time, surely?’ Her well-schooled, careless tone was, she knew, ruined by a blush.

‘You don’t remember?’

She remembered.

Given a few days warning of his arrival, it hadn’t been difficult to drum up some hungry man from the crafts centre who was glad of a home-cooked meal. Camouflage so that it wouldn’t look as if she was living in limbo, just waiting for Josh to come home and sweep her up into his arms, tell her that he’d been a fool. Pick up where they’d left off.

These days, only Toby was left. He’d been brighter than most, quickly cottoning on to what she was doing and apparently happy to play the possessive suitor whenever Josh came home.

Why she’d still been going through the motions after so long she couldn’t say. Unless it was because she still wanted it so badly. That it was herself she was fooling rather than him….

Whatever, she could hardly get indignant if he’d been fooled by her deception. Assumed that she’d fallen into bed with every one of them as easily as she’d fallen into his.

‘Maybe they could sense the desperation,’ she said, burying her hot cheeks in Posie’s downy head, before holding her out to Josh. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the baby in his arms. ‘Say hello to Phoebe Grace Kingsley. Better known as Posie.’

Josh held her awkwardly and Posie waved her arms nervously.

‘Hold her closer to you,’ she said, settling her against Josh’s broad chest, taking his arm, moving it, so that it was firmly beneath the baby. ‘Like this. So that she feels safe.’

She was desperately anxious for him to bond with this little girl who would never know her real father. For whom Josh, no matter how reluctantly, would have to be the male role model.

‘She has a look of Michael, don’t you think?’ she suggested. ‘Around her eyes?’

‘Her eyes are blue. Michael has… had brown eyes.’

‘All babies have blue eyes, Josh, but it’s not the colour.’ The tip of her finger brushed the little tuck in Posie’s eyelid. ‘It’s something about the shape. See?’

She looked up to see if Josh was following her and found herself looking at the same familiar feature, deeper, stronger in the man. Remembered the still, perfect moment ten years ago when, after a long, lingering kiss, a promise that all her dreams were about to come true, she’d opened her eyes and that tuck had been the first thing she’d seen.

Josh felt as if he were carrying a parcel of eggs. Just one wrong move and they’d be crushed. Maybe Grace was just as anxious because she’d kept her arm beneath his, laid her long, slender fingers over his hand, as if to steady him.

This was so far from anything he’d imagined himself doing. He’d never wanted children. Had never wanted to be responsible for putting children through the kind of misery he’d endured. The rows. The affairs. The day his father had walked out and his mother had become someone he didn’t know.

After a while, as he became more confident, Grace stepped back, leaving him holding this totally unexpected baby, who bore not the slightest resemblance to his brother.

If she looked like anyone, it was Grace, which was strange since she didn’t much resemble her sister. He’d always assumed that they were half-sisters, although Michael had said not. The little tuck in the eyelid was familiar though, and he said, ‘So long as she hasn’t got Michael’s nose.’

Grace laughed at that and the sound wrapped itself around his heart, warming him, and he looked up.

‘I wish…’ he began, then stopped, not entirely sure what he was wishing for.

‘Michael never gave up hoping you’d turn up for the christening,’ she said. ‘He so wanted you to stand as her godfather.’

‘He knew why I couldn’t be there.’

‘Too busy conquering the world?’ Then, when he didn’t answer, didn’t say anything, ‘Here, let me take her,’ she said, rescuing him. ‘I’ll change her and put her to bed while you have a shower. Then we’ll eat.’

He lifted his head and, glad of a change of subject, said, ‘Actually, something does smell good. How long have I got?’

‘Oh, half an hour should do it,’ she said, not waiting to see whether he took her advice, but heading for the stairs and the nursery.

Josh let the shower pummel him, lowering the temperature gradually until it was cold enough to put the life back into his body, wake up his brain.

Doing his best to forget the moment when he’d come so close to breaking the promise he’d made to his brother. A promise he’d refused to free him from. Would never be able to free him from.

To forget the look on Grace’s face as she’d looked up, and for just an instant he could have sworn that she’d seen the truth for herself.

He stared in the mirror. He favoured Michael—no one would have doubted they were brothers—but there were not by any means identical. Still he could have sworn she’d seen something.

He tugged on an old grey bathrobe that had been hanging behind the bathroom door for as long as he could remember, waiting for him whenever he was passing through London and could spare a little time to visit Maybridge, see his family.

He tied the belt and crossed to the alcove that still contained the desk he’d used when he was at school. Where he’d plotted out the future. Where he’d go. What he’d do.

His old computer was long gone, but the corkboard was still there. He reached over and pulled free a picture, curling with age, that Phoebe had taken of Michael and him building a barbecue in the garden years ago, when his brother had been about the same age he was now.

The likeness was striking, but Michael had more of their mother, her brown eyes.

He tossed the photograph on the desk and, turning to the wardrobe, hunted out a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight, a sweatshirt that didn’t betray his adolescent taste in music.

Then he checked his new BlackBerry for messages, replied to a couple that wouldn’t wait. By then it was time to go back upstairs—to Grace, and to the miracle and disaster that was Posie.

Grace took her time putting Posie to bed.

She hadn’t been so close, so intimate with Josh in years and she needed to put a little time and space between them. Get her breathing, her heart rate back under control.

She didn’t hurry over changing her, washing her hands and face, feeding her little arms and legs into a clean sleep suit, all the time talking to her, tickling her tummy, kissing her toes. Telling her that she was the most beautiful baby in the world, just as Phoebe would have done.

Using the sweet little smiles to distract herself from vivid memories of Josh, naked in the shadowy light from a single lamp. His grey eyes turning molten as that first kiss had turned into hot, feverish, desperate need.

He’d been so beautiful. So perfect…

Posie waved a foot at her and she caught it, kissed it, peered into her eyes. Did all babies really have blue eyes? People said that, but was it true? Weren’t Posie’s a little bit grey? Then she saw the tiny flecks of brown and smiled.

‘You’re a beautiful, clever girl,’ she said, doing up the poppers, then picking her up and nuzzling her tummy before putting her in the cot, ‘and you’re going to be just like your daddy.’

She carried on talking to her as she wound up the musical mobile, teasing, laughing and, once she’d set it gently turning, singing to her, very softly.

Upstairs, Josh stopped at the open door to his brother’s small study. As always, it was immaculately tidy, with only his address book and an antique silver photograph frame on the desk.

He picked it up, stared at the picture of Phoebe cradling her new baby daughter. It looked perfect, but it was all wrong. A lie.

Even his perfect brother, who everyone had loved and thought could do no wrong, had one, unexpectedly human, frailty.

He carefully replaced the picture and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Later. He’d go through his papers later. Not that it would take long. He knew that all bills would be paid, life insurance up to date, will filed with the family lawyer.

Then he frowned. Had he changed it since Posie had been born? There hadn’t been much time but Michael had never, in the normal way of things, believed in leaving a mess for other people to clear up. But playing fast and loose with life, keeping secrets, even with the best of intentions, had a way of coming back to bite you. And that tended to make things very messy indeed.

Whatever he’d done, it seemed likely that Grace would be the person most affected.

He wondered if she had the least idea how her life was about to change. How, on top of the loss of her closest family, she might also lose the home she loved. The baby who she’d so selflessly surrendered and yet hadn’t totally surrendered, knowing that she would always be close to her. That she would still be hers to comfort. To hold.

He wiped those thoughts from his mind, took a breath, pushed open the kitchen door.

‘Sorry,’ he began. ‘I had to make…’

He stopped. Looked around. He could have sworn he’d heard her talking to Posie but the kitchen was empty.

He shrugged, crossed to the cutlery drawer, planning to lay the table. He’d barely opened it when he heard her again. ‘Night-night, Rosie Posie…’ she said, laughing softly. ‘Daddy’s gorgeous little girl.’

He spun around, then saw the baby monitor on the dresser. Was it two-way? Could she hear him? No, of course not. But even so he stepped away from the drawer, planning to escape before she came down and found him eavesdropping on her private conversation with her baby.

There was the sound of something being wound up, the gentle tinkling of a lullaby.

‘Night-night, sweetheart. Sleep tight…’

His imagination supplied the vivid image of her bending over to kiss this very precious baby.

And then she began to sing and nothing could have torn him away.

CHAPTER THREE

GRACE came to an abrupt halt at the kitchen door. The table was laid. A bottle of red wine had been uncorked. A jug of water beside it on the table. Everything ready for them to eat.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said. ‘Have you been waiting long?’

‘I guessed you were still busy and made a start, that’s all’ he said, pulling out a chair. ‘Sit down. I’ll get the casserole.’

‘No, I’ll do that…’

‘I’m here to help, not add to your burdens, Grace.’ He picked up a cloth, took the casserole out of the slow oven and placed it on the heatproof mat. ‘Did Posie go off to sleep?’ he asked, looking up.

‘Like a lamb. Until her next feed.’

‘And when is that?’

‘Whoa… Enough,’ she said as he heaped the meat and vegetables on her plate. Then, answering his question, ‘Around ten. There are jacket potatoes in the top oven.’ She leapt up to get them, but he reached out and, with a hand on her shoulder, said, ‘Stay. I’ll get them.’

She froze and he quickly removed his hand. It made no difference. She was certain that when she took off her shirt, she would see the imprint of his fingers burned into her skin.

He turned away, took the potatoes from the oven, placed one on each of their plates.

‘No—’

‘You have to eat,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, but…’

But not this much.

She let it go as, ignoring her, he fetched butter from the fridge, then picked up the bottle of wine, offering it to her. She shook her head and he beat her to the water, filling her glass.

‘Michael told me that Posie was sleeping through the night,’ he said when, all done, he sat down, picked up a fork.

‘She was, but she’s started waking up again. Missing her mother.’ Then, not wanting to think about that, she said, ‘Michael told you?’

‘He e-mailed me daily bulletins. Sent photographs.’

Why was she surprised? That was Michael. Josh might have walked away, but they were brothers and he would never let go.

‘He wanted you to share his happiness, Josh.’

‘It was a little more complicated than that.’

‘Your understanding, then,’ she said, when he didn’t elaborate.

‘I understood.’

‘You just didn’t approve.’

‘No.’

‘Why? What was your problem?’ She hadn’t understood it then and didn’t now. ‘He didn’t pressure me. Neither of them did. It was my idea. I wanted to do it.’

For a moment she thought he was going to explain but, after a moment, he shook his head, said, ‘When did you have your hair cut?’

Her hair? Well, maybe that was better than a rerun of a pointless argument. Although, if the general male reaction to her cutting her waist-length hair was anything to go by, maybe this was less a change of subject than a change of argument.

‘About six months ago,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive. Every man she knew seemed to have taken it as a personal affront. She, on the other hand, had found it liberating. ‘When did you grow the beard?’ she retaliated.

‘About six months ago.’

‘Oh, right. It’s one of those clever/dumb things, then.’

He thought about it, then shook his head. ‘No. Sorry. You’re going to have to explain that one.’

‘Whenever someone does something clever, in another part of the world another person does something stupid to balance it out,’ she said, as if everyone knew that. She shook her head and then, unable to help herself, grinned. ‘Sorry. It’s just a ridiculous advert on the television that drove Phoebe…’ She stopped.

‘Say it, Grace. Talking about her, about Michael keeps them with us.’

‘That drove Phoebe nuts,’ she said slowly, testing her sister’s name on her tongue. How it felt. It brought tears to her eyes, she discovered, but not bad tears. Thinking about her sister being driven mad by Michael, them both laughing, was a good memory. She blinked back the tears, smiled. ‘Michael used to tease her with versions he made up.’

‘Like you’re teasing me?’

‘Oh, I’m not teasing, Josh. I’m telling it the way I see it.’

‘Is that right? Well, you’re going to have to live with it. But while I’m not prepared to admit that the beard is dumb, I have to agree that your new style is clever. It suits you, Grace.’

‘Oh…’

She picked up her fork, took a mouthful of casserole. Touching her hair would have been such a giveaway gesture—

‘I really, really hate it,’ he added, ‘but there’s no doubt that it suits you.’

—and much too soon.

‘Pretty much like the beard, then,’ she said. And, since the food hadn’t actually choked her, she took another mouthful.

‘Grow your hair again and I’ll shave it off.’

It was an update of the arguments they’d used to have about the clothes she’d worn. The girls he’d dated. The music she’d listened to.

‘If you hold shares in a razor-blade company, sell them now,’ she advised.

Perhaps recognising that step back to a happier time in their relationship, he looked up, smiled.

And it was as if he’d never been gone.

For a moment they allowed the comfortable silence to continue, but finally Josh shifted, said, ‘Do you want to tell me about the funeral?’

She sketched a shrug. ‘Michael and Phoebe had left instructions…’ She swallowed. ‘How could they do that? They were much too young to be thinking about things like that.’

‘I imagine they did it for one another. So that whoever went first wouldn’t be faced with making decisions. What did they want?’

‘A simple funeral service in the local church, then a woodland burial with just a tree as a marker for their grave. I imagine that was Phoebe’s choice. Your father wasn’t impressed, but there was nothing he or your mother could do.’

‘One more reason for Michael to lay it all out in words of one syllable.’

‘Josh… He was their son,’ she said helplessly.

‘Not in any way that matters. His mother is living in Japan with someone she isn’t married to. His father is in Strasbourg, raising his second family. He hadn’t spoken to either of them in years.’

‘You’re their son, too. Have you spoken to them?’

‘We have nothing to talk about.’

She said nothing. What could she say? That they had both been dealt rubbish hands when it came to parents?

In a clear attempt to change the subject, Josh said, ‘How are you coping with your business? I heard your answerphone message cancelling your classes for the time being and obviously Posie needs full-time care at the moment, but what are you doing about the craft centre workshop? Private commissions?’

‘Beyond asking someone to hang a “closed until further notice” sign on the workshop door?’ she asked. ‘Not much.’

‘Have you actually been out of the house in the last few days? Apart from the funeral?’

She shook her head.

‘Go into Maybridge tomorrow. Pick up your post, at least. You need to keep some semblance of normality in your life.’

‘Normality?’

How on earth did he expect her to think about something as frivolous as jewellery at a time like this?

‘It’s all you can do, Grace. It’s what Michael and Phoebe would want.’

Of course it was. She didn’t need Josh to tell her that. But knowing it and doing it were two entirely different things.

‘I’ll drop you off there when I go into town tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I have to talk to Michael’s lawyers. I spoke to them from the car on the way from the airport. They’re expecting me first thing.’

‘Right. Well, I suppose I should go to the workshop. Process what orders I can fill from stock, send notes to people about anything that’s going to be delayed, give them the chance to cancel.’

‘Maybe you should think about taking someone on to help out for the time being,’ he suggested. ‘Who takes care of things when you’re gallivanting off to the Isle of Man?’

‘I wasn’t gallivanting. The craft centre received an invitation from a fair being held over a holiday weekend and a group of us went.’

‘You’re getting very adventurous.’ Then, ‘A group?’

‘I wouldn’t have gone on my own, but Mike Armstrong sent some of his smaller pieces of furniture, there was a candlemaker, Toby took some of his toys and one of his rocking horses and there was—’

‘So who took care of the shop while you were away?’ he asked, cutting her off.

‘Abby. She started as one of my students. She’s very gifted.’

‘Then call her. You can’t afford to turn down business.’

‘That’s the tycoon speaking. I’m sorry, Josh, but the world won’t end if Baubles and Beads is closed for a few weeks. I promise you it’s never going to trouble the FTSE 100.’

‘No? You don’t see yourself as a franchise operation with a shop in every shopping mall five years from now?’ he asked, with a smile that she remembered from the days when he’d been planning to be the world’s youngest billionaire.

Did he make it?

‘Er… No.’ She liked the way things were. Controllable. Totally hers.

‘No surprise there,’ he said.

Did he look a touch disappointed in her lack of ambition? He was the one who, when she had made jewellery for college fund-raisers, her friends, had pushed her into taking a Saturday stall at Melchester market. It was Josh who’d printed flyers on his computer, handed them out, called the local press who’d sent out a photographer to take pictures. He’d gone out of his way to prove to her that it wasn’t only friends and family who would pay good money for something original, different.

‘I’m not into mass production, Josh. People come to me because they know they’ll never see anyone else wearing the same pair of earrings. The same necklace.’

‘Then you need to find some other way to grow. A static business is a dying business.’

‘Possibly, but not now.’ Then she groaned.

‘What?’

‘I promised Geena Wagner that I’d make a wedding tiara for one of her brides. It’s almost done. I can bring it home, finish it here.’

‘No,’ he said, and she looked up, startled by the insistence in his voice. ‘I really don’t think that’s wise.’

‘But Posie…’

‘You need to keep your work and your home life separate.’ Again he had the look of a man with something on his mind.

‘Easy to say. Elspeth would take care of her, but Posie needs continuity, Josh. She’s already confused. Leaving her with anyone who has an hour to spare just so that I can keep working won’t do.’