to soothe a fractious baby. Even more importantly and impressively, Maria had also managed to get Josh to feed steadily and happily.
‘It is because the little one know that I know what is right,’ Maria had told Julie firmly, when honesty had obliged Julie to confess how much she worried about Josh’s refusal to take all his feed.
‘He puts up the fuss because he is scared—because he knows that you are scared,’ Maria had unbent enough to tell her.
‘I just want to do what’s best for him,’ Julie had responded emotionally, so relieved to see Josh take all his bottle that she forgot that Maria’s loyalties would lie with Rocco Leopardi. ‘I love him so much.’
Maria’s watchful expression had softened a little then, and she had shaken her head, telling Julie calmly, ‘He knows that you love him. And he loves you. He watches for you all the time.’
They had exchanged tentative and cautious smiles, their relationship now on a shared footing of wanting to do their best for Josh.
What with wanting to make the most of the unexpected opportunity to get some valuable baby-raising tips from an expert, and the pleasure of watching Josh lying kicking and gurgling happily on his changing mat—a totally different baby from the fretful child she was used to—Julie hadn’t realised what time it was until Maria had reminded her, pointing out that the doctor would soon be arriving.
Realising that she only had half an hour to shower and dress, Julie had nodded her head gratefully when Maria had offered to take charge of Josh and take him downstairs with her so that Julie could get ready speedily.
Dr Vittorio had been shown up to her room at ten on the dot by Rocco, who had introduced them and then said that Maria would bring Josh back upstairs for his DNA test once the doctor had let Rocco know that he was ready.
When Rocco had described Dr Vittorio as their family doctor Julie had anticipated that he would be an older man, not someone who at the most was only in his very early thirties, a similar age to Rocco himself, although thankfully with a very different and kinder personality.
His kindness and his excellent English had put her completely at her ease.
So much so, in fact, that now that he had given her his early diagnosis of the cause of her symptoms she was able to shake her head and marvel in relief, ‘Is that all? I felt so dreadful that I was beginning to worry it could be something serious.’
‘Anaemia is serious,’ Dr Vittorio told her firmly. ‘Rocco tells me that you have not been eating?’
‘He has only known me a matter of hours, so how he can think he has the right to make that kind of assumption about me?’ Julie began heatedly—only to stop self-consciously when she remembered that Dr Vittorio was the Leopardi family’s doctor, and that meant his allegiance would be to them, and with it his sympathy.
‘You are a single mother with a young child. For Rocco that alone would be enough to bring to the fore his most protective instincts.’
The doctor was speaking as easily and openly as though what he had just said was the most acceptable comment in the world—so much so that Julie wondered if she might have misheard him.
But, as though he sensed her confusion, the doctor continued, ‘The death of the Princess shortly after Rocco’s birth affected all three of her sons, naturally, but especially Rocco. I can understand that you will feel that his concern is overly protective, and perhaps even an unwarranted interference,’ he acknowledged, ‘but the death of their mother has left its mark on all her sons.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Julie was forced to agree, swallowing against her own unwanted sympathy as she added, ‘I hadn’t realised that that was the case.’
The doctor gave a small, dismissive shrug.
‘There was perhaps no reason for Antonio to tell you. He was not, after all, close to his older brothers.’
In those few short words the doctor’s contempt and dislike of the dead man was made quite plain.
‘As for your anaemia, it is not unusual for a new mother to suffer from such a condition. The child was delivered several weeks short of full term, I understand?’
‘Yes,’ Julie agreed. ‘He was. He was delivered by Caesarean section.’
James had pleaded with Judy not to go ahead with the early Caesarean she had insisted she wanted, having claimed that ‘everyone’ had their baby a month early to avoid putting on too much weight, but she had refused to change her mind.
‘There were complications?’
Julie was getting into deep and dangerous waters now.
‘No, not really,’ Julie made herself admit.
‘So it was more a matter of convenience?’ The doctor made it clear that he disapproved with his small frown. ‘Such a major operation can affect the health of both mother and child, but I shall know more once I have the results of the blood tests.’
DrVittorio had been thorough; Julie had to give him that. He had taken enough blood from her to fill several small phials, taking swabs from inside her mouth as well—presumably because she had told him that she had had a heavy cold.
He had been professional and courteous, apart from that brief lapse when she had admitted that Josh had been delivered in a non-medically necessary pre-full-term Caesarean. He had to know, of course, that she was not sure if Antonio was the father or not, and that must colour his view of her even if he hadn’t shown it.
Unlike Rocco Leopardi, who had made it very plain what he thought of her morals—or rather what he assumed was the lack of them.
Was she being selfish in hoping that Josh would not turn out to be Antonio Leopardi’s child? No matter who had fathered Josh, she would still love him every bit as much as she did now, but for James’s sake she so much hoped that he was Josh’s father, and that in that way a little of him would live on in Josh. James had been such a kind, loving person, with so much to give. Even though he had fallen so desperately in love with Judy he had always been kind and caring towards her, Julie, never wanting to hurt her. But he had hurt her.
Julie didn’t want to think about that. It was easier and safer to focus on the anger Rocco aroused in her rather than the pain James had caused her. She could never imagine someone like Rocco Leopardi being so gentle with an unwanted ex-lover. He would have no compassion for a woman he no longer wanted in his bed or in his life, and yet when he did desire a woman Julie sensed that his desire would burn white-hot, driven by the kind of sensual sexuality that was still a mystery to her. But then she wasn’t really the kind of woman who ignited that kind of desire in a man, was she? She and James had been friends—good pals, who had enjoyed one another’s company, whose friendship had grown into love. With James Julie had felt safe from the awkwardness and the dread of mockery and rejection she had experienced so much growing up in Judy’s shadow.
During their teens she had had to learn to accept that boys wanted Judy and found her desirable, and that she paled in comparison—just as she had had to learn to put a brave smile on her face when Judy had mocked her publicly in front of those boys for her lack of allure and sexual experience.
When she had gone to university and Judy had gone to train as a beautician Julie had carried with her the hangups of her teens. Julie had met James when she’d started a postgraduate course. He had been doing the same course, but had been a year ahead of her—twenty-four to her twenty-two. He had laughed gently at her when she had explained self-consciously and uncomfortably to him that she was still a virgin and why.
Their lovemaking had been tender and caring, but somehow Julie had always felt conscious of trying not to overwhelm James with her own passionate need. She wondered now if that might have been because she had sensed deep down inside herself that, despite the fact that he had said that he loved her, his love had been more the feelings of a friend than a lover? Because she had feared even whilst she was in his arms that somehow she was not good enough, not