‘No.’ Giving up Haverton Manor was the easy bit. Losing Bella was the thing that gutted him the most. What had he been thinking? Had he been thinking? What would the rest of his life be like if she went off and married someone else? What if she had their children instead of his? How could he bear it? He wanted her. He loved her. He adored her. She was his world, his future, his heart. But it was too late. He had hurt her terribly. She would never forgive him now. He didn’t dare hope she would. He was already preparing himself for the disappointment. It was best if he took himself out of the picture and let her get on with her life. He had never belonged in it in the first place.
‘But what about Fergus?’ Mrs Baker asked.
‘Bella can look after him,’ he said. ‘He’s her father’s dog, after all.’
‘But that old dog loves you,’ she said. ‘How can you just walk away?’
He gave her a grim look. ‘It’s for the best.’
* * *
Bella spent the first few days at the orphanage in a state of deep culture-shock. She barely ate or slept. It wasn’t that the children weren’t being cared for properly, more that she couldn’t quite get her head or her heart around the fact that the little babies and children she played with daily had nobody in their lives other than the orphanage workers. She spent most nights sobbing herself to sleep at their heartbreaking plight. Each day from dawn till late at night she gathered them close and tried to give them all the love and joy they had missed out on. She showered them with affection and praise. She played with them and read to them; she even sang to them with the few nursery rhymes she remembered from her own early childhood before her mother had left.
‘You will exhaust yourself if you don’t take a proper break now and again,’ Tasanee, one of the senior workers, said during Bella’s second week.
Bella kissed the top of an eight-week-old baby girl’s downy head as she cradled her close against her chest. ‘I don’t want to put Lawan down until she goes to sleep,’ she said. ‘She cries unless someone is holding her. She must be missing her mother. She must sense she’s never coming back.’ And I know what it’s like to feel so alone and abandoned.
‘It is sad that her mother and father died,’ Tasanee said as she touched the baby’s cheek with her finger. ‘But we have a couple lined up to adopt her. The paperwork is being processed. She will have a good life. It is easier for the babies; they don’t remember their real parents. It’s the older ones who have the most trouble adjusting.’
Bella looked across to where a group of children were playing. There was a little boy of about five who was standing on the outside of the group. He didn’t join in the noisy game. He didn’t interact with anyone. He just stood there watching everything with a serious look on his face. He reminded her of Edoardo. How frightening it must have been for him to feel so alone, to face daily the horrible abuse from a vindictive stepfather. Bella ached for the little boy he had once been. She ached for the future she so desperately wanted with him but now could never have. She determined she would do all she could for each and every one of these children so that they would not suffer what he had suffered.
‘Miss Haverton?’ Sumalee, another one of the orphanage helpers, came across to Bella once she had put Lawan down for her nap. ‘This came for you in the post.’
Bella took the A4 envelope. ‘Thanks.’ She peeled it open and took out the document inside. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw what it was. ‘I think there’s been a mistake...’
‘What’s wrong?’ Sumalee asked.
Bella gnawed at her lip as she shuffled through the other papers that had come with the deeds to Haverton Manor. ‘I think I might have to go back to Britain to sort this out...’
‘Will you come back soon?’ Sumalee said.
Bella tucked the document back inside the envelope and gave the young girl a quick, reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she said. ‘I have to see a man about a dog.’
* * *
Edoardo was loading the last of his things in his car when he saw a sports car come speeding up the driveway. Fergus got up from the front step and started wagging his tail, a soft whine sounding from his throat. ‘For God’s sake, don’t gush,’ Edoardo said out of the side of his mouth. ‘She’s probably only back to argue over some of the fine print.’
Bella got out of the car and came towards him, bringing the scent of spring flowers with her. ‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked, waving a sheet of paper at him.