it when he’d hugged her in the car park at the clinic earlier today, before he’d known it was his baby. It was just that she was pregnant, he told himself, and conveniently ignored the fact that he’d felt this way about Emelia since the first time he’d seen her…
‘So what did they say when you told them you were leaving?’ he asked, getting back to the point in a hurry.
She shrugged. ‘Very little. I think to be honest I saved them the bother of asking me to go.’
‘So—if you hadn’t got hold of me, where were you going to stay tonight?’
She shrugged again, her slight shoulders lifting in another helpless little gesture that tugged at his heartstrings. ‘I have no idea. As I said, I didn’t really give it any thought, I just knew I had to get out. I’d have found somewhere. And I didn’t have any choice, so it doesn’t really matter, does it, where else I might have gone?’
Oddly, he discovered, it mattered to him. It mattered far more than was comfortable, but he told himself it was because she was Emily’s friend—and a vulnerable pregnant woman. That again. Of course that was all it was. Anybody would care about her, it was nothing to do with the fact that this delicate, fragile-looking woman, with the bruised look in her olive green eyes and a mouth that kept trying to firm itself to stop that little tremor, was swollen with his child. That was just a technicality. It had to be. He couldn’t allow it to be anything else—and he certainly wasn’t following up on the bizarre attraction he was feeling for her right this minute.
‘You’re done in,’ he said gruffly, getting to his feet. ‘Come on, I’ll show you to your room. We can talk tomorrow.’
He led her up the broad, easing-rising staircase with its graceful curved banister rail, across the landing and into a bedroom.
Not just any bedroom, though. It had silk curtains at the windows, a beautiful old rug on the floor, and a creampainted iron and brass bed straight out of her fantasies, piled high with pillows and looking so inviting she could have wept.
Well, she could have wept anyway, what with one thing and another, but the bed was just the last straw.
He put her case on a padded ottoman at the foot of the bed, and opened a door and showed her the bathroom on the other side.
‘It communicates with the room I’m using at the moment, but there’s a lock on each door. Just remember to undo it when you leave.’
‘I will.’
‘And if there’s anything you need, just yell. I won’t be far away.’
Not far at all, she thought, her eyes flicking to the bathroom door.
‘I’ll be fine. Thank you, Sam. For everything.’
He gave a curt nod and left her alone then, the door closing with a soft click, and she hugged her arms and stared at the room. It was beautiful, the furnishings expensive and yet welcoming. Not in the least intimidating, and as the sound of his footfalls died away, the peace of the countryside enveloped her.
She felt a sob rising in her throat and squashed it down. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t. She was going to be fine. It might take a little time, but she was going to be fine.
She washed, a little nervous of the Jack-and-Jill doors in the bathroom, then unlocked his side before she left, turning the key in her side of the door—which was ludicrous, because there was no key in the bedroom door and he was hardly going to come in and make a pass at her in her condition anyway.
She climbed into the lovely, lovely bed and snuggled down, enveloped by the cloud-like quilt and the softest pure cotton bedding she’d ever felt in her life, and turning out the light, she closed her eyes and waited. Fruitlessly.
She couldn’t sleep. Her mind was still whirling, her thoughts chaotic, her emotions in turmoil. After a while she heard his footsteps returning, and a sliver of light appeared under the bathroom door. She lay and watched it, heard water running, then the scrape of the lock on her door as he opened it, the click of the light switch as the sliver of light disappeared, and then silence.
How strange.
The father of her child was going to bed in the room next to hers, and she knew almost nothing about him except that he’d cared enough for his brother to offer him the gift of a child.
A gift that had been misdirected—lost in the post, so to speak. A gift that by default now seemed to be hers.
And now he was caring for her, keeping her safe, giving her time to decide what she should do next.
Something, obviously, but she had no idea what, and fear clawed at her throat. Her hand slid down over the baby, cradling it protectively as if to shield it from all the chaos that was to follow. What would become of them? Where would they go? How would she provide for them? And where would they live? Without Sam, she had no idea where she would have slept tonight, and she was grateful for the breathing space, but her problem wasn’t solved, by any means.
‘I love you, baby,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll see. I’ll take care of you, there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ll find a way.’
A sob fought its way out of her chest, and another, and then, with her defences down and nothing left to hide behind, the tears began to fall.
He heard her crying, but there was nothing he could do.
She was grieving for the child she’d never have, the man she’d lost forever with this last devastating blow, and there was no place for him in that. All he could do was make sure she didn’t come to any harm.
He didn’t know how he could protect her, or what she’d let him offer in the way of protection.
His name?
His gut clenched at the thought and he backed away from it hastily.
Not that. Anything but that. He’d been there, done that, and it had been the most painful and humiliating mistake of his life. He couldn’t do it again, couldn’t offer the protection of his name to another pregnant woman. The first time had nearly shredded him alive and he had no intention of revisiting the situation.
But there was a vital difference. He knew this child was his. There was no escaping that fact, however shocking and unexpected, and he couldn’t walk away. Didn’t want to. Not from the child. He’d do the right thing, and somehow it would all work out. He’d make sure of it. But Emelia—hell, that was a whole different ball game. He’d have to help her, whatever it cost him, because he couldn’t see a pregnant woman suffer. It just wasn’t in him to do so. But his feelings for her were entirely inappropriate.
He nearly laughed. Inappropriate, to be attracted to a woman who was carrying his child? Under normal circumstances nobody would think twice about it, but these circumstances were anything but normal, and he couldn’t let himself be lured into this. It would be too easy to let himself fall for her, for the whole seductive and entrancing package.
Dangerously, terrifyingly easy, and he wasn’t going there again. Even if she would have had him.
So he lay there, tormented by the muffled sobs coming from her bedroom, wanting to go to her and yet knowing he couldn’t because she wasn’t crying for him, she was crying for James, and there was nothing he could do about that. And when finally the sobs died away, he turned onto his side, punched the pillow into shape and closed his eyes.
She must have slept.
Overslept, she realised as she struggled free of the sumptuous embrace of the bedding and sat up.
Sun was pouring through a chink in the curtains, and she slipped out of bed and padded over, parting them and looking out onto an absolutely glorious day. Everything was bathed in the warm and gentle sunshine of spring, and in the distance, past the once-formal knot garden on the terrace below with its straggling, overgrown little hedges, and past the sweeping lawn beyond, she could see gently rolling fields bordered by ancient hedgerows, and here and there a little stand