CHAPTER TEN
WHATWERETHEodds of a pregnancy occurring in so short a time? Jude asked himself, thinking of his grandfather, who had fathered only one child even though he had had three wives, and his own father, who had cast his sperm even more liberally and had still only managed to produce one child. And he got a conception in the space of a couple of months. Isidore would be jubilant, any kid, boy or girl, figuring as a virtual miracle in his eyes. In other circumstances, Jude might have been jubilant as well, especially if he could picture a baby like Posy, except with Tansy’s hair and maybe Tansy’s smile. Or a little boy. It wasn’t as though he had any preference…
But for now he had to make the best of things, particularly because he had got what he had asked for, what he had bargained so hard to have. Where had his wits been? Why had he not foreseen what might happen? What might go wrong?
Later that morning, Tansy toyed with the idea of saying several tart things to Jude once they were ensconced in the private jet and flying to Italy. But in the end she said nothing about the baby she was carrying, noting instead the frequency with which Jude’s gaze rested on her stomach while realising that, in spite of his silence, he was hugely conscious of her pregnancy. And since that was the case, why did he have so little to say about it? In fact, it seemed as though her little announcement had utterly silenced him. Or was it that Jude was not looking forward to introducing her to his mother, who was, by all accounts, a challenging personality?
Tansy could only suppose that Jude was brooding because he now appreciated that everything he had done had been for nothing. He had gained a wife, a child in Posy and conceived another, radically altering his lifestyle for no good reason. In the end, after all, Isidore had handed his grandson everything he wanted on a golden plate. Yet, angry and hurt as Tansy was with Jude, she could not judge him harshly for striving to protect his mother. Conceding how hard she had worked to protect her little sister from harm, she had no right to judge anyone.
‘How did your mother meet your father?’ Tansy asked Jude abruptly.
‘She was the gardener at a house he visited in Florence. He said it was love at first sight.’
‘But from what you’ve said it was a love at first sight that only lasted about five minutes,’ Tansy qualified ruefully.
‘According to him, he told her before he married her that even though he loved her he could never be faithful.’
‘When did he tell you that?’
‘Shortly before he died when I was eighteen. I don’t think Clio ever got over him. She still keeps a portrait of him in her cottage, which is a little strange if you consider the level of animosity there was between them.’
Tansy frowned. ‘She lives in a cottage? I thought she lived in some big villa.’
‘She did up until she lost custody of me. After that she moved into a house on the Bardani estate because she said she didn’t want to owe the Alexandris family anything.’
‘But presumably the cottage belongs to your family as well.’
Jude shrugged in dismissal of that point.
‘I imagine developing a world-famous garden doesn’t come cheap in execution or maintenance either,’ Tansy murmured curiously. ‘Who finances all that?’
‘I cover her expenses, but the gardens are now open to the public and more or less pay for themselves.’ Jude grimaced. ‘The prenup she signed was so tight that she was left flat broke after the divorce. My father was needlessly punitive because she demanded a divorce that he didn’t want and she had no family of her own to fall back on for support.’
‘I can imagine that she didn’t want to fall back on the sister who had slept with her husband,’ Tansy said with distaste.
‘Clio’s still very much a loner.’
‘What age were you when she had her breakdown?’ Tansy pressed curiously.
‘Six.’
‘Did you find her after her…attempt?’ Tansy asked tautly.
Jude nodded. ‘The memory of it still haunts me. She was lying in a pool of blood, unconscious, and it was the staff’s night off.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tansy breathed heavily as she attempted with an inner shudder to picture how such a scene would have affected a six-year-old. ‘What did you do?’
‘I phoned Isidore.’
‘Not your father?’
‘No, I knew he was partying in his yacht on the other side of the world because Clio had shown me the photos that day in a newspaper. I think even at that age I suspected that he wouldn’t be much good in an emergency. Isidore sent help to the villa and then flew straight to Italy. He took care of everything and brought me back to Greece with him. It was two years before I saw Clio again because she was in a rehab unit for a long time and when I finally did, she and my father had a massive row, which just made everything worse. He had remarried by then and she couldn’t cope with that. Their relationship was toxic long after the divorce.’
‘I hope that when we part we can, at least, stay friends,’ Tansy muttered tautly.
His brilliant dark golden eyes hardened and took on a glittering intensity that seared her. His lush black lashes swiftly screened his expression. ‘I’m the last person likely to make the relationship difficult after the way I grew up,’ he parried stonily. ‘The children’s security must come first.’
‘I think you’ll miss Posy when we split up,’ Tansy forecast, feeling very brave in making that comment and admiring the steadiness of her own voice, but she felt the need to continually remind herself that their marriage was only temporary. ‘I miss her now.’