Her uncle looked slightly discomfited and Neil, who had said nothing to her about it since the morning he found her being sick in the hall, got up and hugged her tightly. ‘We’ll do all we can to help,’ he promised her. ‘Bags I be godfather! Just wait until I tell Rich!’
His twin was away in Australia working for a mineral exploration company, and Heather felt her mood lighten, tears stinging her eyes as she thought of how lucky she was in her family.
‘Uncle Roy, I want to buy a small house—I think it’s better if I move away—not too far away,’ she promised her aunt, ‘but it’s bound to be embarrassing for you.’
She bit her lip, unable to continue, laughing shakily when her aunt said robustly, ‘Nothing of the sort. My dear Heather, it’s positively trendy these days to have a daughter, sans husband but very much with child, about the place.’
* * *
‘What will you do about Jen?’ Neil asked. ‘You know what a blabbermouth she can be,’ he added with brotherly candour. ‘I take it she does know who the father is?’
They were on their own in the garden, Heather having gone there for a breath of fresh air, and he had followed her.
‘What makes you think I know?’ she asked dryly, and was rewarded by a flash of anger in the dark blue eyes.
‘It’s Neil, Heather, remember?’ he said brusquely. ‘I know you, and I know damned well that until you met this man you were still a virgin. Oh, come on,’ he said softly when she blushed. ‘I grew up with you—remember? You were always a princess dreaming in an ivory tower, inviolate and pure. Whoever he is, he must be quite someone.’
‘He is,’ Heather agreed on a sigh, ‘but someone who doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about him.’
In the end her dilemma with regard to Jennifer was solved when the latter appeared at the weekend with Terry in tow. They had come down to announce their engagement, and Jennifer took Heather on one side to tell her that she had done the right thing in leaving London.
‘He’s currently escorting Lady Davinia Fane and they’re making all the gossip columns, but I’m betting it won’t last. I’m sorry, Heather,’ she apologised, ‘but I thought he genuinely cared about you. You did the right thing to leave. If you’d stayed looking the way you do at the moment you might just as well tell the whole world how you feel about him. By the way,’ she added curiously, ‘what’s got into big brother Neil? He always did have a watch-dog approach towards you, but now….’ she pulled a wry face and said, ‘he’s already been cross-questioning me about you, who your friends are, etc., etc.’
Heather realised she would have to tell her cousin the truth. ‘I’m pregnant, Jen,’ she announced baldly. ‘Everyone else knows, but I haven’t told them the name of the father.’
‘Pregnant?’ Jennifer’s eyes were like saucers. ‘What are you going to do? Get rid of it?’ Heather winced and saw Jennifer pull a wry face. ‘Yes, I know, hardly delicate, am I? and knowing you, I was crass too—of course you won’t. I take it you don’t intend Race to know?’
‘What would be the point?’ Heather asked tiredly. ‘He didn’t want me before, and he’s even less likely to want me now. No, this baby is mine, Jen, my responsibility, mine completely….’
‘Except for the fact that Race fathered it,’ Jennifer pointed out mildly, ‘and I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you. You say he won’t want the baby—I’m not so sure. I think you could find he has very strong views about his child.’
‘If he does I’m hardly likely to find out. Please don’t meddle this time, Jen,’ she warned. ‘I don’t want him to know. Give me your word you won’t say anything.’
Not until Jennifer gave it was she satisfied. The knowledge that Jennifer could be right when she said Race might have strong views about any child he fathered made her feel uneasy. This child was hers, the only thing she had left, and she intended to keep it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BOTH her aunt and uncle firmly refused to allow her to look for anywhere else to live, and their warmth and love were so comforting that Heather soon ceased to fight against them. Contrary to her expectations there were no whispered comments when she walked through the village, even when the flatness of her stomach began to blur, and her shape in the thin cotton dresses she had taken to wearing as spring drifted towards summer was quite distinctly that of a pregnant woman. She felt oddly contented; time seemed to merge and although she was aware of pain, of loneliness and heartache because there was no Race, nature, ever protective of her handiwork, gave her a layer of insulation against the pain. The baby started to kick and she smiled tremulously to feel the small arms and legs moving angrily, convinced that the child must be a boy. Neil teased and petted her, refusing to let her hide herself away, insisting that she accompany him to their local pub, taking her out to dinner, until she was forced to tell him gently that people would begin to think the child was his.
‘No way,’ he assured her softly, placing his palm against her rounded stomach, its warmth making the baby kick hard. ‘If this was mine you’d be wearing my ring, Heather—and sometimes I wish to God you were,’ he told her forcefully. ‘I know it’s useless, and I’ve had a long time to learn acceptance. I think I first fell in love with you when I saw you sitting up in the apple tree, covered in scratches because you’d gone after a kitten. I wanted to take you in my arms then and make you better.’
‘Instead of which you bawled me out until I cried,’ Heather remembered. ‘Oh, Neil, I never knew….’
‘I never intended you to,’ he said steadily. ‘I’m a realist, Heather, and I accept that I love you because I haven’t yet met the girl who can displace you. One day I hope I will. Until then, believe me, I have no objection to the whole world thinking that’s my child inside you.’
He raised her fingers to his lips, kissing them lightly, leaving her with an aching sense of waste and futility. Neil loved her, and she had never known, might never have known. And it was all such a waste, because she could never love him back, not in the same way.
As the year blossomed so did her body. May was warm with soft blue skies and light breezes, and her aunt commented that never had the adjective ‘blooming’ had such an apt application. ‘Don’t become too wrapped up in this baby, though, Heather,’ she warned her niece as they sat in the shade of the chestnut tree in the garden, the lawn scattered with remnants of the pink blossom. ‘Leave room in your life for other people.’
Heather knew her aunt meant another man, but she didn’t say anything. There would be no other man, at least not one who could come anywhere near taking Race’s place in her heart, she was reasonably certain of that.
Neil arrived just as they were finishing their tea. He flopped down on the lawn at Heather’s feet, leaning back, supporting his head with his interlocked hands. ‘I think I’ve sold the Radford place,’ he told them. ‘It’s been on the market for just over eighteen months, but it looks very much as though we’ve found a buyer.’
‘Your father will be pleased,’ his mother agreed.
‘Umm, I certainly am. It was beginning to become something of an albatross. Fancy celebrating with me?’ he asked Heather.
‘In this condition?’ she laughed down at him.
‘Why not? You aren’t in purdah, merely pregnant. I know you’re not ashamed about the baby, so that must mean you’re ashamed of being seen with me. What’s the matter? Aren’t I good enough to be considered its father?’
He got up and strode angrily into the house, and although the sun still shone Heather felt as though a shadow had fallen across the afternoon. She looked at her aunt. She was very still, unhappiness in her eyes. ‘He’s wrong,’ Heather told her huskily, ‘it’s not that, it’s just….’
‘That you don’t love him the way he loves you. I know, my dear, and I’m glad you have the honesty to tell him. Oh yes, I know how he feels about you.’ Lydia smiled wryly. ‘Mothers generally do.’
‘It would be much better if I found somewhere else to live,’ Heather sai
d unhappily, ‘If I wasn’t constantly under his feet….’
She noticed that although her aunt shook her head, she didn’t argue with her. It was bad for Neil having her living in the same house with him, and she suffered with him, knowing all too well the pain of unrequited love. But Neil was a man and essentially more practical than any woman could ever be. If he could find someone else he would forget her…. But he wouldn’t allow himself to find someone else. His attitude towards the coming baby was getting distinctly proprietorial, and Heather knew she was going to have to look for somewhere else to live. Affording her own home was no problem, but she liked living with her aunt and uncle; she enjoyed their company, and Neil’s.
She was being selfish, she told herself later that night as she prepared for bed. Dr Barnes had told her that she was underweight the last time she went for a check-up, although he had been quick to assure her that the baby was fine. ‘Better too little than too much,’ they had said at the hospital, meanwhile encouraging her to eat a little more.