Читать книгу Sharon Kendrick Collection - Шэрон Кендрик, Sharon Kendrick - Страница 24

CHAPTER FIVE

AS CORMACK drove through the wrought-iron gates of St Fiacre’s, with their distinctive navy- and gold-painted crest, Triss thought that she had never seen the estate look more beautiful or more welcoming.

It was a brilliantly sunny early March afternoon, and clumps of daffodils swayed in bright yellow patches beneath the hundreds of trees which lined the roads.

Few of the houses were visible—protected by lush shrubbery and drives which seemed to go on for ever—but occasionally they caught sight of a drift of smoke from a chimney, or heard the muffled barking of a dog.

The happiness which settled upon her whenever she entered the serene green beauty of St Fiacre’s stole over her, and Triss found herself brightening in spite of everything that had happened. She thought of Simon and hugged her shawl round her shoulders excitedly, her eyes shining brightly at the prospect of seeing her baby again.

Cormack shot her a swift glance. ‘You’ve missed him.’

It was less a question than an astute statement, and Triss nodded. ‘Yes,’ she answered quietly. ‘I’ve missed him like crazy, if you must know.’

He opened his mouth to say something else, then halted as they heard the sound of an approaching engine, which even Triss—who was not remotely interested in cars—could tell powered one hell of a machine.

She almost smiled when she saw Cormack’s eyes narrow with male competitiveness. A long, low Aston Martin in dark and gleaming green slowed down as it passed them, before roaring off towards the main gates.

‘That’s just like your car!’ Triss pointed out in surprise.

Cormack’s expression tightened. ‘Now what the hell is he doing here?’

Triss craned her neck to make out who was driving and saw a handsome but disturbingly cruel face, set into grim and determined lines. And for some reason a shiver began to whisper cool fingers all the way down her spine. ‘Who?’

‘Dashwood,’ answered Cormack succinctly, a frown pleating his forehead above the dark sweep of his brows.

‘Not Dominic Dashwood?’ queried Triss, turning back to get a better look at him over her shoulder.

‘So you do know him?’

‘I know of him,’ Triss corrected him icily, not liking that judgmental look on Cormack’s face one little bit. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Surely not another member of the Dashwood fan club?’ came the sardonic jibe.

Triss fixed him with a long-suffering look. ‘When a man is that rich and that good-looking, most people get to hear of him.’

‘But Dashwood’s proximity naturally had nothing to do with your buying a house here?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Triss exploded. ‘Why should it?’

‘Husband-hunting, perhaps?’ Cormack suggested insultingly.

Taking a deep breath, Triss resolved to keep her cool. ‘I’m not in the market for a husband,’ she told him with icy emphasis.

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t know that I believe you, Triss,’ he accused softly.

She forced her voice to sound very faintly bored. ‘I’m afraid that your beliefs are your problem, Cormack. Nothing to do with me. You have to turn left here, by the way.’

He complied without a word, although Triss heard him draw in an appreciative breath when he caught his first glimpse of her thirties-style house, with its stained-glass windows and its oak door, and its red-brick walls covered with newly budding wisteria.

‘Is Simon here?’ he demanded as the car drew to a halt by the front door.

‘He’s next door at Lola’s. I’ll let you in, shall I, and then go and fetch him?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Cormack grimly. ‘I’m fascinated to meet this “friend” of yours, whom you see fit to entrust with the care of our son. You must think very highly of her, if you grant her a privilege you’ve denied me.’

‘I don’t want you coming in there with me if you’re intending to make trouble,’ Triss warned.

‘I just want to see him, Triss.’ His searingly blue eyes blazed a question at her. ‘Surely even you can understand that?’

His appeal came straight from the heart, and Triss felt utterly wretched at that moment. She nodded dumbly.

‘Then let’s go,’ he ordered quietly.

They walked silently, side by side, but that was their only concession to togetherness. The tension and the animosity sizzled between them like sparks crackling from a bonfire. They passed through Triss’s informal gardens and into the rather more elaborate plantings of Lola Hennessy’s house next door.

Cormack raised his eyebrows as he took in the imposing white building which made Triss’s house seem almost tiny in comparison. ‘This is some place,’ he commented drily. ‘Your friend Lola is clearly a successful woman. What does she do?’

Lola was an air hostess who had inherited the house from a wealthy man almost forty years her senior. But if Triss told Cormack that he would start leaping to all sorts of unsavoury conclusions! And, quite honestly, Triss was finding the situation difficult and fraught enough; without fanning the flames of his contempt even further.

Anyway, Lola was successful though not in the way that Cormack meant. She had a job she adored, a busy social life and the fulfilment of working with one of the country’s most popular charities. She also had an outrageously attractive Welshman named Geraint Howell-Williams hovering in the background, though Triss was aware that he had been giving Lola considerable problems.

They reached the front door, which was flung open before either of them had a chance to knock. In the hall stood a young woman in her twenties wearing leggings and a loose denim shirt. Her gloriously curly dark brown hair was tied up with a red chiffon scarf, although wayward curls were escaping everywhere, and her bright blue eyes sparkled like gems in the sunshine.

‘Triss, hi!’ she exclaimed, with a huge smile. ‘I saw you coming down the path! We just weren’t expecting you back so soon!’ She looked from one to the other, the smile dying as she must have registered the decidedly frosty atmosphere between the two of them.

‘We—we wanted to get back,’ stuttered Triss awkwardly. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Everything is fine—’

‘How’s Simon?’ asked Triss quickly.

‘Simon’s just wonderful,’ Lola reassured her firmly. ‘I can hardly bear to give him back to you. Come and see.’

Triss forced herself to try and act normally, though she found herself stupidly wondering whether it was obvious that she and Cormack had spent the afternoon in bed together. She could feel the unusually high colour in her cheeks which would not seem to fade. “This is Cormack Casey,’ she said, rather hesitantly.

Lola held her hand out immediately. ‘Hello, Cormack.’ She dimpled, as if it were every day that she met friends’ estranged lovers who happened to be world-famous scriptwriters! ‘I saw your last film three times! I loved it—especially the bit where she discovered that the letter had never been sent.’

Triss watched the stiff set of Cormack’s shoulders relax. She knew that he had been suspicious, and prepared to dislike Lola—and perhaps that was understandable in the circumstances—but no one could help but warm to someone who was so friendly and unaffected. And who was clearly a fan!

‘Did you, now?’ he queried, though his smile looked forced. ‘I’m Simon’s father,’ he told her bluntly.

Triss looked anxiously at Lola, who was already aware of this fact, but to her credit she merely nodded, as if people confided their paternity every day of the week, and said, ‘I see.’

‘How is he?’ asked Triss again. ‘How has he been?’

‘Wonderful! A textbook baby! But don’t just take my word for it—come and see for yourself! He’s been out for a walk,’ Lola informed them as they followed her across the magnificent entrance hall towards a set of carved-oak double doors. ‘Then he had a bottle. And my mother watched over him while he had his snooze.’ At Triss’s raised eyebrows she said quickly, ‘She’s upstairs at the moment, resting—I’ll tell you about it later. We were just thinking of giving Simon some tea. He’s in here...’

She pushed the door open and Triss felt all Cormack’s tension return as he saw his baby being cradled in the arms of a tall man who was a total stranger to him.

At the sound of the door being opened the man turned to face them, and Simon immediately let out a huge gurgle of joy when he saw Triss.

‘Oh, Geraint!’ laughed Lola, her voice sounding slightly dreamy. ‘He’s been sick all over your shoulder!’

Stormy grey eyes glanced dismissively at some regurgitated milk which had splodged over the shoulder of a black cashmere sweater, then the man shrugged. ‘It’ll wash,’ he drawled, in a distinctively Welsh accent.

Without another word he walked across the room, carrying a wriggling Simon who was holding his arms out and trying to launch himself out of Geraint’s grip. ‘Hi, Triss,’ he said gently. ‘Have your boy back.’ And he handed Simon over to Triss.

The baby locked his chubby arms around Triss’s neck and immediately began to squirm happily against her.

‘Hello, darling,’ Triss. whispered softly, closing her eyes briefly as she rubbed her chin against the delicate silk of his black hair, unaware that Cormack was standing across the room from her, watching her and watching Simon, his blue eyes narrowed and assessing.

An awkward silence fell, and Triss was wondering just what to do next when Geraint came to her aid by moving across the room to stand rather proprietorially beside her.

He held his hand out towards Cormack. ‘Geraint Howell-Williams,’ he said.

The two men eyed each other warily, like two prime predators sizing each other up, then shook hands—though Cormack continued to subject Geraint to a steady, curious stare. ‘Cormack Casey.’

‘I know who you are.’

‘Then you have the advantage over me,’ said Cormack, his normally lilting Irish accent sounding harsh and abrasive. ‘Because I don’t know you from Adam!’

‘I’m going to marry Lola,’ said Geraint, by way of an explanation, looking directly into Cormack’s eyes.

‘I don’t remember agreeing to announce it!’ protested Lola, though her smile was so wide it threatened to split her face in two.

‘Don’t you?’ queried Geraint in a teasing drawl. ‘Well, I do—but you clearly had other things on your mind, darling!’

‘Geraint!’. Lola blushed a deep scarlet, but the look which passed between the two of them was electric with warmth and love and an uninhibited sexual tension.

And we used to be like that, thought Triss, an unbearable sadness sweeping over her as she remembered a time when she and Cormack had both been incandescent with love. When just a shared look across a crowded room had been enough to make every other person fade into insignificance.

She had to get out of here before she did something unforgivable—like breaking down in tears in front of everyone. She hugged Simon even closer to her chest, and he gave a mildly protesting wriggle.

‘We’d better be going,’ she said quickly. ‘Thank you so much...’

But Lola was already gently pushing her in the direction of the door. ‘You don’t have to thank us,’ she said softly. ‘It was our pleasure. Just go,’ she whispered, so that only Lola could hear. ‘And sort some things out between you.’

Cormack did not say a word as the three of them walked back towards Triss’s house.

Triss sneaked a look at him. She had never seen him look quite so dazed. He was staring at the baby clasped closely against her chest with the same kind of rapt scrutiny he would have given a statue which had just been brought to life in front of him.

He looked, she thought, like a man taking part in a dream sequence—as though none of what was happening made very much sense to him.

Come to think of it, events had a pretty bizarre quality for her too.

Once inside the house, she went straight into the kitchen. ‘Here,’ she said, and handed the baby to him. ‘You hold him for a bit. Don’t worry, he’s very good; he often goes happily to—’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening with horror as she realised what she had been about to say.

‘Strangers?’ he supplied, with acid emphasis.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘Please don’t apologise,’ said Cormack, in a crisp kind of authoritative voice he had never used with her before. ‘It’s nothing more than the truth.’ And then he bent his dark head to concentrate all his attention on the warm, curious bundle in his arms.

He held Simon gingerly at first, as if he had been given an incredibly precious burden to carry. Then, after a little while, he sat down on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar, still clutching the child to him, and Simon just stared up at his father with interested, identical deep blue eyes.

Triss turned away and busied herself in an effort to stern the tears she found inexplicably pricking at her eyes. Of course they look the same, she told herself fiercely, swallowing down the infuriating salt taste at the back of her throat. But just because the two of them look as though they should be auditioning for a happy-families soap-powder commercial it does not mean that everything is now hunky-dory.

She boiled the kettle and made a pot of tea, then took some mashed potato and broccoli from the fridge and began to warm it through.

When the dish was prepared she looked round to find that Simon had lifted a podgy hand and was tugging at a strand of thick black hair which had flopped onto Cormack’s forehead. But it was the expression on Cormack’s face which turned her heart to stone.

For he had removed his tender gaze from Simon to stare across the kitchen at her, and the withering look of contempt on his face was like a knife-wound to the heart.

‘What right did you have,’ he asked slowly, each word seeming to be torn from somewhere deep inside him, ‘to deny me this?’

Her mouth wobbled, but she would not cry—she would not. ‘I don’t want a scene now,’ she told him, with a quiet dignity that cost her an effort. ‘Not now and not here. Not in front of Simon. It will only confuse him.’

His answering words were soft; only their meaning was as bitter and as abrasive as a physical blow. ‘And you don’t think you’ve confused him enough already?’ he accused her. ‘Leaving him with someone you barely know? You think it’s acceptable for Geraint Howell-Williams to hold him and to know him, do you, Triss? Some guy who has the most tenuous connection with his life? While I’m just left like the spectre at the feast-grabbing what small crumbs of him you see fit to throw my way?’

She felt unspeakably weary, as if her head had suddenly become too much for her slender neck to be able to hold. ‘I said not now, Cormack,’ she repeated, in a low voice which trembled unsteadily with strain as she watched Simon’s head turn from one to the other of them in bewilderment. Their voices had not been raised, but the bitterness behind their words was unmistakable. ‘Rowing in front of Simon is the last thing either of us wants or needs right now.’

He made a small sound of disgust. ‘Don’t you dare have the temerity to talk about my needs,’ he bit out, his finger instinctively touching the velvety smoothness of Simon’s cheek, ‘when they quite clearly come bottom on your list of priorities!’ Simon began to whinge, and wordlessly Cormack handed his son back to Triss, who managed to soothe him.

She tried to act normally. She settled Simon in his high chair, put his bib on and spooned his meal into him, all the while making the funny little noises which always made him giggle so much.

But all the time she was horribly aware of the accusing blue stare which her ex-lover directed at her. She had seen passion on Cormack’s face before, yes—many times—but never of this magnitude or this intensity. And this was not passion which was inspired by love or lust either, but a strong, barely contained emotion which had more to do with hate.

The tension and the bitterness emanating from him were almost palpable, and perhaps that disturbed even Cormack, for he stood up suddenly, his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. He strode over to the French doors which looked out over the gardens and stood there, silent and unmoving and very slightly menacing as he gazed sightlessly at the blaze of yellow daffodils which swayed in the breeze.

Triss finished Simon’s meal with some yoghurt and fruit and he lapped it up greedily as she spooned it into his mouth.

‘You like that, don’t you, darling?’ she cooed approvingly, then looked up to find that Cormack had silently turned and was watching them intently, as a cat might watch a defenceless little mouse just before it pounced on it.

‘Raspberries?’ he queried in surprise. ‘You’re giving him raspberries?’

He made it sound like arsenic! Triss thought. ‘Yes, I am!’ she said defensively. ‘What’s so odd about that?’

‘Out of season and very expensive,’ he observed.

Triss glared at him, resenting his judgmental tone and that critical look which was making his blue eyes glitter like sapphires. ‘Right on both counts.’

‘So do you spoil him, Triss?’ he asked. ‘By giving him everything he wants? Perhaps to make up for him not having a father?’

Triss glared at him again. ‘What if I do?’

He shrugged. ‘At five months it scarcely matters. But I would have thought that as a basic rule for bringing up a child then giving him everything he wants might make him spoilt and ungrateful as he gets older—’

Triss rounded on him. ‘You’ve only observed me with Simon for all of ten minutes!’ she spluttered. ‘So how dare you cast doubts on my ability to be a good mother?’

‘I was just pointing out—’

‘And what would you know about bringing up a child anyway?’ she demanded, her words tumbling out furiously—like water spilling from a washing machine.

‘Nothing at all!’ he returned calmly, the muscle working frantically in his cheek the only indicator of his anger. ‘Since you refused me the right to have any kind of say in Simon’s upbringing! But no more, Triss,’ he continued, with a fierce kind of determination. ‘No more will you succeed in keeping me out of his life!’

She lifted her chin up and her eyes looked very bright and very green at that moment. But her proud look masked a feeling of fear. ‘Are you trying to intimidate me, Cormack?’

Did he sense that she was close to breakdown? Was that why his voice softened as he shook his head? ‘No, I’m not. What good could come of that? I intend to be totally up front with you, Triss. No games. No secrets. I shall tell you exactly what I want when it comes to Simon.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘It’ll make things far more difficult for everyone concerned if you do—yourself included.’

She shook her head helplessly. ‘I just don’t know how we’re going to resolve this.’

He shrugged, and his voice became tinged with bitterness as he said, ‘Then perhaps, for the first time in our relationship, we might try a little compromise. Just because our love affair is finished it doesn’t mean we have to ruin Simon’s life into the bargain, does it?’

His words made her feel like crying. Or rather, one word in particular did. ‘Finished’. Their love affair was ‘finished’.

This was all most peculiar. She was the one who was supposed to be feeling a sense of triumph right now—with Cormack the distressed and injured party. So why the role-reversal? And why did she feel so empty all of a sudden?

Had she been holding onto some vague little hope in her heart that the sight of Simon might make Cormack want to try and rekindle their romance?

Well, she could kiss that hope goodbye.

For, no matter how well he adapted to being a father, she must never lose sight of the fact that she no longer had any place in Cormack’s life except as the mother of his child.