made, it should be quick and clean.’ No, had she confessed her true identity, Ben might have been removed from her care even sooner.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER a sleepless night, Freddy rose early the next morning.
Every last minute she had to spend with Ben now seemed so impossibly precious. She sat watching him eat his favourite breakfast of a boiled egg with toast soldiers for dipping and her throat closed up so much, it physically hurt. She studied his rounded little face below his dark fluffy curls, the twin crescents of his long lashes, the smooth baby skin still flushed from sleep, and she honestly thought that her heart was going to break.
The night before, she had let herself get all worked up about a stupid kiss probably because it had been easier to concentrate on that foolishness than to face and deal with the loss of the child she loved. But Ben wasn’t hers and he never would be hers and somehow she had to learn to accept that and step back. The pain she was feeling now was entirely her own fault. During her training, she had been warned not to make the mistake of forgetting that the child in her care had a mother and that she was only a temporary carer who would inevitably move on to another family. But she had not been able to abide by that rule. Ben had looked to her for love and she had given it to him, rationalising that in Erica’s absence, Erica’s very unwillingness to make that commitment, someone had to compensate Ben and give him what he needed to thrive.
It had been Freddy who had sat by Ben’s incubator hour after hour during the first worrying weeks of his life, Freddy who had ultimately named him after their paternal grandfather when Erica had said she couldn’t care less what her son was called. Eyes watering as she forced a smile for Ben’s benefit and washed his face and hands, she found herself thinking back to her earliest memories of Erica.
When her widowed father had taken her orphaned cousin into their home, Freddy had been a lonely eight year old. Even then, Erica had been an incredibly pretty girl with an elfin face, catlike eyes and silky dark brown hair. She had had enormous charm as well. She had had the power to make Freddy’s dour father laugh and had been wonderful at teasing him out of his bad moods. Admiring Erica for her vivacity and confidence, Freddy had been happy to take a back seat. She had had to get much older before she’d appreciated that, beneath all that superficial sparkle, Erica was quite incapable of being happy for more than a couple of hours or of ever feeling truly secure.
Seven years later, there had been a huge scandal when Erica had run away with a neighbour’s husband. Freddy’s father had raged at the embarrassment of it all for days on end. Only weeks later, the erring husband had slunk back home again and Erica had attempted the same feat, only to have the door slammed in her face by her uncle. Freddy had been heartbroken that awful night. She had seen the shock and disbelief on Erica’s face, Erica who had never ever thought of consequences or of how her actions might have impacted on other lives.
But the following year, Erica had come to see them again. Looking very glamorous and impossibly penitent, she had soon won her uncle’s forgiveness and had told them stories about her exciting life as a successful model in London. Stories full of whopping fibs, Freddy had later appreciated, for the truth that Erica had depended on her lovers to keep her would scarcely have been acceptable.
At nineteen, Freddy had gone to college to train as a nanny and, for some time afterwards, contact with her cousin had dwindled to the occasional phone call. However, when Freddy’s father had died, Erica had come to the funeral, wan and pregnant and indeed looking anything but well. The cousins had had an emotional reunion and Erica had asked Freddy to come and live with her in London and help her get through the remainder of her pregnancy.
Freddy had not had to think twice about that decision. At the time she had just completed her first job as a nanny and, in the wake of her father’s death, she had been ready for a change. Erica had been genuinely ill, suffering from continual nausea and the constant threat of a miscarriage. Her cousin had spent the last weeks preceding her son’s birth lying flat on her back in a hospital bed, her only visitor, Freddy.
So, to some degree, Freddy had understood Erica’s refusal to relate to her tiny child in his incubator. In so many ways, Erica had never really grown up. Like a kid just let loose from school, Erica’s only thought after her delivery had been to regain her figure and reward herself for all those months of sick and joyless boredom. In her mind, Ben had already had too big a slice of her life.
‘Why do you think I brought you down here to look after me?’ Erica had asked when Freddy had tried to remonstrate with her cousin. ‘I know you’ll do what I ought to do. You can be his substitute mum.’
‘But he needs you to love him.’
‘I think the only person I have ever loved is you,’ Erica had quipped.
Freddy was dredged from her painful memories by the buzz of the doorbell. It was barely nine in the morning and the nanny had arrived to collect Ben much earlier than Freddy had hoped she would. The young woman introduced herself in perfect English as Alula. A slim brunette in her twenties, constrained in her manner and reluctant it seemed to even look Freddy in the face, Alula immediately centred her attention on Ben.
Freddy hovered and answered questions about Ben’s dietary preferences and routines that were asked with reassuring professionalism. She scolded herself for feeling uneasy at the brunette’s total lack of friendliness. ‘Where are you taking Ben?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.
‘I haven’t yet received instructions.’ Alula knelt down on the floor to study Ben much as if he were one step narrowly removed from divinity and practically begged for the toy he was holding. ‘He is a most beautiful child.’
Ben was by no means untouched by the tidal wave of almost reverential appreciation coming his way. Beaming, he bestowed the toy on his admirer. Freddy felt like a fly on the wall and tried to tell herself that she was delighted that Alula was so marvellous with children. Some time later when she had gained Ben’s trust, Alula turned and opened the front door again for herself. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, holding Ben’s hand in hers. ‘Say goodbye, Ben.’
‘Bye…’ Ben breezed and then he suddenly pulled free of the brunette, startling her as he ran back to Freddy to demand, ‘Kiss Ben!’
Swallowing hard, Freddy hugged his warm, squirming little body close. ‘If he’s upset, please call me. I can advise you,’ she said unevenly.
With a nod that might have signified agreement, Alula walked out onto the landing. Freddy stared out at the two tough-looking men with the cropped haircuts who must have been standing out of view when the other woman had arrived. Bodyguards, she assumed, and they already had the lift open and waiting. As Ben stepped into the lift, he glanced back over his shoulder and grinned at her, patently proud of his own independence.
How trusting a confident child was, Freddy thought wretchedly as he disappeared from view and she retreated back into the apartment, almost blinded by the tears swimming in her eyes. She ought to be proud of herself. She had taught him to be confident, taken him to a playgroup from an early age and encouraged him to mix with other children as well as the nannies she had met up with from time to time.
It was the slowest, longest day of her life. She kept on trying to concentrate on how she could best explain her brief masquerade as Erica to Jaspar al-Husayn. Would he understand the shock and anxiety which had initially persuaded her into that pretence? Would he recognise and radically disapprove of the special bond between her and his nephew? And would he be reasonable? Or would he walk right back out again with Ben, shorn of any fear of her interference?
As the afternoon crept on, a tight knot began to form in Freddy’s hollow stomach. She had only eaten a morsel of toast at breakfast and had not been able to face lunch. Well, Jaspar al-Husayn had said that his nanny would be spending the day with Ben and it seemed that the entire day was going to run its course. In her heart she was glad that Ben had not become upset and had not had to be brought home early, but she was also surprised. He was not accustomed to doing without her and as he got tired he usually became very clingy. But then no doubt Alula had laid on a feast of attractions to keep him distracted, or possibly