For some reason Ellie found she had a huge lump in her throat.
‘And this is the master bedroom, ma’am,’ Mrs Harris announced proudly, and with good reason, Ellie acknowledged, as she stepped into the elegantly proportioned bedroom. Not the room where she and Gideon…where he had…not that room, Ellie noted thankfully.
She had been dreading returning to this house, but a little to her own surprise she had discovered that being there was not having the traumatic effect on her she had anticipated.
Her nose twitched as she caught the smell of fresh paint.
As though she had guessed her thoughts the housekeeper said, ‘The master has had it specially decorated and refurbished. And a brand-new bathroom put in for you, ma’am. He’s designed it himself!’
A little dizzily Ellie followed her across the beautiful Chinese carpet and into the bathroom, unable to stop herself from giving a small gasp of awe.
‘Had the porcelain specially brought over from France, Mr Gideon did,’ Mrs Harris announced proudly. ‘And that door there,’ she added, nodding in the direction of a second door in the room, ‘goes through into a little nursery he’s had made, just until the baby’s old enough to go upstairs into the
nursery proper. It’s not been furnished yet,’ she added as she showed Ellie the room. ‘Mr Gideon said as how you would want to choose everything for it yourself!’
As they returned to the bedroom Ellie couldn’t help looking at the huge bed. Was she expected to share that with Gideon?
‘And this is the door to the master’s dressing room, ma’am,’ the housekeeper was saying as she showed Ellie the comfortable-sized room off the bedroom, in which Ellie was relieved to see there was a bed.
By the time she had finished her tour of the house, Ellie was tired and longed for nothing so much as to have a nap. But Maisie and Henrietta both needed reassuring about their new surroundings, and Ellie intended to speak to Gideon and insist that a small bed was put in the nursery for Henrietta, so that she and the coming baby could move into their new quarters together!
‘You look tired. It’s been a long day – why don’t you go to bed?’
Ellie tensed as she heard Gideon’s terse words. She had just come from the kitchen where she had gone to make sure that Maisie had settled in happily. Gideon was right, she was tired, but she was also worried about what married life held in store for her and what Gideon’s expectations were. She knew that he didn’t love her, but he was still a man and…
As though he had guessed her thoughts, he said abruptly, ‘I shall be sleeping in my dressing room, but –’
Ellie went white.
‘What is it?’ Gideon demanded.
Ellie shook her head, unable to tell him that his words had suddenly reminded her painfully of Henry. Instead, she bent to pick up Henrietta, who had refused to be parted from her and who had fallen asleep on the sofa.
‘I’ll do that,’ Gideon told her gruffly, but as he reached for her, Henrietta woke up. Gideon’s right hand was on her arm, and as she looked at it he stiffened and snatched it back. ‘Better not frighten her with this before she’s had time to get used to me,’ he announced curtly.
‘Frightened? Henrietta won’t be frightened, Gideon,’ she told him firmly. ‘She’s already asked me about your hand and I’ve told her that it is a very special hand that you have because you did a very special brave thing. Indeed, if anyone is frightened by it, I think it is you and not Henrietta,’ she added perceptively.
The little girl was still looking at him with huge dark eyes. Grimly Gideon picked her up. That was a fine thing Ellie had said to him after the way she had recoiled from him with such pity!
Henrietta was a soft warm weight in his arms as he carried her upstairs. On the landing, when he would have taken the next flight, Ellie stopped him.
‘You cannot expect a child as young as Henrietta to sleep alone in an unfamiliar room, Gideon. I have asked Mrs Harris to put a small bed in the little nursery for Henrietta, and until then she will share the bed with me.’
‘Share your bed?’ Gideon queried grimly. ‘Is that for her sake or for yours, Ellie? If you are thinking that having her in your bed will keep me out of it –’
‘I thought no such thing,’ Ellie countered sharply.
Hostilely they looked at one another.
‘What about this wallpaper for the nursery, Ellie?’
Despite the nagging ache in the small of her back, Ellie’s mouth twitched as she looked at the sample Gideon was showing her. The little trains on it quite plainly revealed his hopes!
‘It is very nice, Gideon,’ she agreed, ‘but if I were to have a little girl…’
To her amusement Gideon actually looked slightly shame-faced.
Ellie was surprised at how easily she had settled into the Winckley Square house. And how easily she had settled into marriage with Gideon! Too easily, perhaps, given the real situation! Gideon had married her out of necessity, and despite the taunting comment he had made the first night of their marriage he had made no attempt whatsoever to share either the intimacy of the master bedroom with her, or the intimacy of its bed! Which should not have been a problem – far from it, but…
Warily Ellie examined her thoughts. By rights
she ought to feel nothing but anger and bitterness towards Gideon, but somehow, despite all her strenuous efforts to reject it, a tiny tendril of something soft and yearning had begun to bind itself around her heart. She had caught herself studying Gideon when she thought he would not notice, finding heart-aching similarities between the man he was now and the youth he had been.
‘I suppose it will have to be this one then.’ Gideon’s voice broke into her thoughts, as he showed her a wallpaper sample in softest lemon, decorated with little lambs.
Gravely, she agreed, but her eyes were dancing with laughter, and as he closed the book, she couldn’t stop herself from teasing his straight face.
‘We could always decorate your dressing room, or even the study, with the other wallpaper, if you are so attracted to it, Gideon.’
The look he gave her tore at her heart.
Disbelievingly Gideon looked at Ellie, the amusement in her voice, the playfulness of her manner, the fact that she was treating him as though…as though…His heart was somersaulting inside his chest and banging so loudly against it that he felt sure Ellie must be able to hear it. Only he knew how difficult he had found these last weeks, and how radically his views, his beliefs and his desires had changed. He was overwhelmed by a sudden urgent need to take hold of Ellie and beg her to give him a second chance, to forgive him for the past, and let him show her just how much…
Deriding himself for his impossible hopes, he told her instead, drily, ‘The dressing room, maybe, but somehow I doubt it would be a good idea to change the silk panels in the study for it.’
As Ellie laughed, Henrietta came rushing up to them, begging Gideon to pick her up.
‘I want to see your special magic hand,’ she told him imperiously.
Over her head Gideon looked at Ellie, his heart turning over as he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. If anything should go wrong – if he should lose her as Ellie herself had lost her mother…Suddenly the most terrible fear and pain gripped him. If that should happen his life would not be worth living!
Ellie gave a small sigh. Her back had begun to ache and she reached behind herself to rub the ache.
She had decided to walk round to the Kershaws’ to see John and to thank Marianne Kershaw for her recommendation of a good midwife. Gideon had been fussing about getting in a special doctor from London, as well as an expensive monthly nurse. A little bleakly Ellie reflected that by rights she ought to have been looking to the women in her family to support her at this time – her aunts and her cousins, and her sister.
There was still no word from Connie, or about her, and Ellie was becoming increasingly concerned. She had written to Cecily, informing her
of her marriage, but as yet she had heard nothing back from her cousin.
The ache in her back had intensified and she decided that perhaps the walk might help to ease it a little. Henrietta was upstairs in the care of the smiling young nursemaid Gideon had insisted on hiring.
As Ellie stepped out into the street she hesitated, realising that their aunt was crossing the square. Ellie had not forgotten the way her Aunt Gibson had ignored her when she had seen her outside Booths. Her chin firmed. Let her Aunt Gibson refuse to acknowledge her if she wished. Ellie did not care.
But instead of walking past her, her aunt came up to her, her face an angry shade of crimson.
‘How can you shame us like this, Ellie? Remarrying before you are out of mourning! What your poor mother would think…After all she did for you…for all of you.’
‘I love Mama and I always will,’ Ellie replied fiercely, ‘but I am an adult now, Aunt, and not a child, and I can tell you this. Never, ever would I want to inflict on my children the pain my mother has unintentionally inflicted upon us – separating us in the way that she did, taking us away from our father and from each other.’ Angry tears filled Ellie’s eyes but she dashed them away.
‘You dare to question her decision?’ her aunt breathed. ‘She only wanted what was best for you.’
‘Best for me? I have come to believe that my poor
mother was overly influenced by the opinions of her sisters, and that because of that –’
‘What! How dare you say such a thing?’ her aunt stopped her furiously. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Ellie, and not just for your criticism of your poor mother! You have not yet been widowed a twelve-month and yet here you are remarried, and to Gideon Walker of all men.’
Neither of them were aware that Gideon, who had been working in his study, had come outside and could hear what they were saying.
‘And pray what is wrong with that?’ Ellie challenged her aunt. ‘I would have you know that I am proud to call myself Gideon’s wife, and that I wish more than I can say that I had had the good sense and the strength to follow my own heart years ago, Aunt, and accept his proposal.’
‘Oh, how can you be so ungrateful? When I think of the advantages you have had, Ellie. Your Aunt Parkes, my sister, took you into her home and gave you the very best of everything, and her husband, Mr Parkes –’
‘Mr Parkes!’ Ellie wondered what her aunt would say if she told her the truth about him! ‘Gideon is worth a dozen of him – no, a hundred,’ Ellie corrected herself passionately. ‘And I can tell you this, Aunt, I would far rather have married Gideon when he had nothing and known the happiness of that marriage than been given a hundred times more than my Aunt and Uncle Parkes gave me. And what is more –’ Ellie had to stop speaking as a sudden
surge of pain caught her unawares, making her gasp and hold her side.
‘It is just as I have always thought,’ her aunt told her bitterly. ‘You and your sister both have no Barclay in you. You are all Pride. And as for Connie –’
‘Don’t you speak against my sister,’ Ellie warned her. ‘Foolish she might be, but at least she has had the courage to stand up for her love. You cannot know how much I wish that I had done the same,’ she added in a low voice. ‘Gideon is –’
As another pain tore at her, she gave a sharp gasp.
‘Ellie?’
Gideon could feel his emotions choking his throat. There was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he wanted to show her, but suddenly she gasped and clutched her body, and his longing to tell her how much he loved her was banished by his fear for her.
Relief filled Ellie to find that Gideon was there.
‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know. There is a pain in my side and my back.’ Beads of sweat had begun to form above her top lip and against her hairline.
Amelia Gibson had already turned her back on them both and walked away.
Anxiously, Gideon reached out to support Ellie, aware of the fierce tremors galvanising her body, and immediately fearful for her. If he should lose her now…But no; he must not think like that, even though the fate of her mother was haunting him!
‘Gideon, I think it might be the baby,’ Ellie told him anxiously. ‘Help me inside, please.’
The pains came in waves, sometimes receding but always returning, until her whole world was a fiery red-hot torment of them. She was a girl again, hearing the sounds of her mother giving birth to Connie and then John, and then…
Ellie cried out sharply as an extra fierce surge of pain gripped her. What if she should die like her mother? What if…? The pain surged and grew and she cried out against it. Someone stroked her damp hair back from her forehead and tried to soothe her. She could hear the midwife urging her to push.
A primeval urgency gripped her, and she began to pant. Everything was pain; a hot-red mist of it that clawed and tore at her, but something was urging her to keep on, to deliver the new life that was demanding to be born; that need was stronger than her fear, stronger than anything else she had ever experienced.
Downstairs, where he had been banished by the midwife, Gideon paced the floor, praying as he had never prayed in his life – not for himself and not even for his child but for Ellie. Ellie, his beloved Ellie, his love, his life. Please God…He tensed as he heard her agonised cries, tears running down his face.
‘Ellie…Oh, please God, let her be all right.’
Determinedly Ellie battled with the pain, willing her child to be born. There was a sudden rushing surge of pressure, a pain that gripped and coiled itself around her and then suddenly a swift release.
As she lay drained and exhausted, she could hear the thin newborn cry of her child. Tears of joy and release filled her eyes.
‘It’s a boy – aye, and a right fine one too,’ the midwife was saying.
‘Give him to me,’ Ellie demanded urgently and possessively, struggling to sit up and take the baby from her as she finished cleaning him.
Unsteadily Ellie reached out and touched him – her son. Gideon’s son. A fierce shock of intense maternal love surged through her. He had his father’s eyes, and his nose too, and his unnerving, unwavering stare. Her heart jumped and skittered as girlishly as it had done that first time she had seen Gideon himself. A feeling of helpless adoring love filled her. Tears momentarily blinded her as she gently explored the small body.
How could she have ever not wanted this precious wonderful new life, this precious wonderful child? The intensity of her feelings awed her, choking her of breath, filling her with emotions she could barely comprehend.
All the time the midwife was working, Ellie clung to her child, refusing to let him go. The most profound sense of pride and fear consumed her. How could she ever bear to let him out of her sight? He was so precious.
Gideon couldn’t endure it any more. The silence after that gut-wrenching cry he had heard Ellie give was killing him. He had to see her, had to be with her.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he thrust open the door, ignoring the indignant cluckings of the midwife.
Over her head Ellie smiled proudly at him, and lifted up the tiny bundle she was cradling as she said softly, ‘Gideon, come and see your son.’
She was laughing and crying, and so too, Gideon realised, was he. His hands trembled as he held the baby, but his hungry gaze was for Ellie and not for his son. Still holding the baby, Gideon leaned over and kissed Ellie passionately on the mouth. For a second they looked at one another in silence. Never to him had Ellie looked more beautiful than she did right now, her still-short hair clinging to her face in damp wisps, her eyes brilliant with exhilaration and exhaustion, her lips curving in a warm, proud maternal smile, Gideon decided. The baby cried, and instinctively Ellie took him from Gideon, lifting him to her breast.
The midwife was still tutting but Gideon ignored her. His heart felt as though it would burst with love and pain. He so much wanted to tell Ellie everything but now was not the time.
Ellie’s eyes burned with disappointed tears as Gideon got up and left the bedroom. When she had seen that look he had given the baby and
then her she had so much hoped…How foolish of her. His love for her had died long ago, she knew that.
‘We shall have to register the birth.’
Ellie managed to stop gazing adoringly at her son for long enough to look at Gideon’s stiff back. He was standing in front of her bedroom window with his back to her. Tenderly she nursed her son, smiling indulgently as he tugged fiercely on her nipple. He had been a good weight and the monthly nurse had told her that she had never seen a healthier male child.
There was no mistaking the resemblance between father and son. The little one was every inch his father’s child, and no mistake!
‘Yes, we shall,’ Ellie agreed.
‘We shall name Henry as his father, of course,’ Gideon announced curtly.
Ellie froze. ‘No,’ she told him tersely.
Gideon turned round. ‘What are you saying, Ellie? We have no option, not unless we want the whole world to know that –’
‘I don’t care about the whole world,’ Ellie told him. ‘What I care about is our son and the fact that I want him to grow up knowing who his father is and not believing…He is your son, Gideon, and if you are ashamed of acknowledging him as such –’
‘Ashamed! Never. But there will be gossip, Ellie, and –’
‘There is always gossip of some sort or another.’
A strange sensation was running through his body, a feeling of weightlessness and joy. ‘You are sure about this?’ he questioned.
‘Yes!’ Ellie confirmed vehemently. ‘And I thought,’ – she hesitated, her skin colouring up – ‘I thought we might call him Richard, for your father.’
Gideon discovered that he was looking at her through a haze of tears. Turning away, he wiped his hand across his eyes. ‘Aye, if you want to,’ he responded, shrugging as though he had no real interest in the matter, but Ellie had seen his quick secret gesture, and her own heart lifted.
‘Cecily has sent a lovely dress for the baby,’ she told Gideon conversationally, ‘and Iris has written me the most cross letter demanding to know why I didn’t tell her about the baby so that she could deliver him herself. I should like very much to ask her to be Richard’s godmama, Gideon.’ Her face clouded. ‘I should also have liked to have asked Connie. I am so worried about her. No one knows where she has gone, and John said she and Kieron had talked of emigrating to America!’