Loe raamatut: «The French Count's Pregnant Bride»

The French Count’s Pregnant Bride
Catherine Spencer

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Coming Next Month

PROLOGUE

8:00 p.m., November 4

FOR once, Harvey arrived at the restaurant ahead of her, already settled in their favorite corner. She left her satin-lined cashmere cape with the hat-check girl, smiled at the sweet-faced, very pregnant young woman perched on a bench near the front desk and threaded her way through the maze of other diners to where he sat. Twenty-eight red roses, one for each year of her life, and a small package professionally gift-wrapped in silver foil and ribbons, occupied one end of the linen-draped table; a bottle of Taitinger Brut Reserve chilling in a silver champagne bucket and two crystal flutes, the other.

“Am I late?” she asked, lifting her face for his kiss, when he rose to greet her.

“No, I’m early.” Ever the perfect gentleman, he waited until she made herself comfortable on the plush velvet banquette, before reclaiming his own seat.

“What, no last minute emergencies?” She laughed, happy to be with him. Happy that he’d made the effort not to keep her waiting on her birthday. So often, he was delayed, or called away in the middle of whatever they’d planned, be it dinner, the theater, or making love. So often, he seemed preoccupied, distant, tense. Lately he’d even paced the floor some nights, then ended up sleeping in the guest room, worried he’d disturb her with his restlessness. She supposed that was the price a wife paid for being married to such a dedicated, sought-after cardiothoracic surgeon.

“Not tonight,” he said. “Ed Johnson’s covering for me.” He took the bottle of champagne, filled their flutes two-thirds full and raised his in a toast. “Happy birthday, Diana!”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” The wine danced over her tongue, light and vivacious. Not too many years ago, the best they could afford when it came to celebrating special occasions was a bottle of cheap red wine and home-cooked spaghetti. Now, the only things red at the table were the long-stemmed roses, and there was nothing cheap about them.

Lifting the damp, sweet-smelling petals to her face, she eyed her husband mischievously. “These are for me, aren’t they?”

“Those, and this, too.” He pushed the foil-wrapped box toward her. “Open it before you order, Diana. I think you’ll like it.”

What was there not to like about a diamond and sapphire bracelet set in platinum? Speechless with pleasure, she fastened the lobster-claw clasp around her wrist, then tilted her hand this way and that, admiring the way the lamplight caught the fire and flash of the gems. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned,” she murmured, when she could speak. “Oh, Harvey, you’ve really gone overboard, this year. How am I supposed to compete with something like this, when your birthday comes around?”

“You won’t have to.” He smiled and gestured to the leather-bound menu in front of her. “What do you fancy for dinner?”

She studied the list of entrées. “I’m torn between the rack of lamb and the Maine lobster.”

“Have the lobster,” he urged. “You know it’s your favorite.”

“Then I will. With a small salad to start.”

He nodded to the waiter hovering discreetly in the background. “My wife will have the mesclun salad with lemon vinaigrette, followed by the broiled lobster.”

“And you, sir?” The waiter paused, eyebrows raised inquiringly.

Harvey lightly tapped the rim of his champagne flute. “I’m happy with the wine, thanks.”

“You’re not going to eat?” Perplexed, Diana stared at him. “Why not, sweetheart? Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Never felt better,” he assured her, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a credit card. “The thing is, Diana, I’m leaving you.”

Why a chill raced up her spine just then, she had no idea. But in less time than it took to blink, all her warm fuzzy pleasure in the moment, in the evening, evaporated. Striving to ignore it, she said, “You mean, you’re going back to the hospital? But I thought you—?”

“No. I’m leaving you.”

Still not understanding, she said, “Leaving me where? Here?”

“Leaving you, period. Leaving the marriage.”

Heaven help her, she laughed. “Oh, honestly, Harvey! For a minute there, I almost believed you.”

There was no answering smile on his face. Rather, pity laced with just a hint of contempt. “This is no joke. And before you ask why, I might as well tell you. I’ve met someone else.”

“Another woman?” Her voice seemed to come from very far away.

“Well, hardly another man!”

“I suppose not.” Very precisely, she set her champagne glass on the table, careful not to spill a drop. “And this woman…how long…?”

“Quite some time.”

When she was six, she’d fallen into the deep end of her family’s swimming pool and would have drowned if her father hadn’t been close by and promptly hauled her to safety. Even so, she’d never forgotten the soundless, suffocating sensation that had briefly possessed her. Twenty-two years later, it gripped her again.

Floundering to find a lifeline in a world suddenly turned upside-down, she blurted, “But it won’t last. These things never do. You’ll get over it, over her…and I’ll get past the hurt…I will, I promise! We’ll pick up the pieces and go on, because that’s what married people do. They honor their wedding vows.”

He reached across the table, took both her hands firmly in his and gave them a shake. “Listen to me, Diana! This isn’t a passing affair. Rita and I are deeply in love. I am committed to a future with her.”

“No…!” She struggled to pull herself free of his hold. To shut out his words, and the cool, clinical dispassion with which he uttered them. As if he were wielding a scalpel on a comatose patient. As if she were incapable of feeling the pain. “You’re in love with me. You’ve said so, a hundred times.”

“Not for a very long time now. Not for months.”

“Well, I don’t care!” Distress and shock sent her own voice rising half an octave. “I won’t let you throw us away. I deserve better than that…we both do.”

He released her hands and sat very erect in his chair, as though to put as much physical distance between himself and her as possible in that intimate little corner of that intimate little restaurant. “Stop making a spectacle of yourself!” he hissed.

She clamped her mouth shut, but inside, every part of her was weeping—every part but her eyes. For some reason, they remained dry and hot and disbelieving. Still clutching at straws, she said, “Then what’s all this about? The champagne and roses and bracelet?”

“It’s your birthday.” He shrugged. “I’m not completely without affection for you, you know. I wanted to give you something memorable to mark the occasion.”

“And you thought telling me our marriage is over wouldn’t do it?”

He regarded her pityingly. “Oh, come now, Diana! I can’t believe you’re entirely surprised. You must have realized things between us weren’t the same anymore—that something vital had died.”

“No. I sensed a change in you, but I put it down to stress at the hospital.” She looked at the roses, at the gleaming sterling cutlery, at the platinum wedding ring on her left hand, and finally, at the man she’d married almost eight years ago. Then she laughed again, a thin, hollow, scraping sound that clawed its way up from the depths of her lungs. “But then, they do say the wife’s always the last to know, don’t they?”

“I can see that you’re shocked, but in time you’ll realize that it’s better we make a clean break and end matters now, rather than wait until things deteriorate to the point that we can’t speak a civil word to one another.”

“Better for you, perhaps.”

“And for you, too, in the long run.” He drained his glass, and pushed back his chair. Again like the perfect gentleman he prided himself on being, he bent and kissed her cheek. “Enjoy your lobster, my dear. Dinner’s on me.”

Then he made his way across the restaurant to where the pregnant woman waited. She rose to meet him. He put his arms around her, gave her a lingering kiss full on the mouth, then ushered her out of the restaurant as carefully, as tenderly, as if she were made of blown glass.

Pregnant…

The woman he was leaving her for was having the baby he’d refused to give his wife. And at that, something really did die in Diana…

CHAPTER ONE

4:00 p.m., June 12

AIX-EN-PROVENCE was stirring from its afternoon siesta as Diana eased her ancient rental car onto the road that would take her to Bellevue-sur-Lac, fifty-three miles northeast of the town limits.

Aix-en-Provence: a beautiful city, rich in history, culture and art. The city where, twenty-nine years ago, a seventeen-year-old French girl allowed an American couple in their late forties to adopt her out-of-wedlock baby.

The city where Diana had been born…

Bellevue-sur-Lac, the village where she’d been conceived…

The names, the facts, the minute clues, were etched so clearly in her memory, she could recite verbatim the letter she’d found in her father’s study, after her parents’ death, two years previously.

Admittedly her husband’s desertion had pushed them to the back of her mind for a while. A thousand times or more in the weeks after he left, she questioned where she’d gone wrong. Asked herself what she could have done differently that might have saved her marriage. But in the end, she’d been forced to accept that there was nothing. Harvey had fallen out of love with her, made up his mind he wanted to spend the rest of his life with someone else and that was that. She was alone, and he was not.

Seven months, though, was long enough to mourn a man who’d proven himself unworthy of her tears, and just over a week ago, she’d awoken to the realization that, little by little, her despair had melted away. Without her quite knowing when or how, her resentment toward Harvey had lost its bitter edge and sunk into indifference. If anything, she was grateful to him because, in deserting her, he’d also set her free. For the first time in her life, she could do exactly as she pleased without worrying that she might upset the people closest to her.

Which was why she now found herself in the south of France, heading toward a tiny lakeside village surrounded by lavender fields, olive groves and vineyards; and where, if the gods were on her side, she’d rediscover herself, now that she’d been legally stripped of her title and status as Dr Harvey Reeves’s dutiful but dull little wife.

“You can’t possibly be serious!” Carol Brenner, one of the few friends who’d stuck by her after she found herself single again, had exclaimed, when she learned what Diana had planned.

“Why ever not?” she’d asked calmly.

“Because it’s crazy, that’s why! For Pete’s sake, haven’t you gone through enough in the last seven months, without adding this?”

Shrugging, she said, “Well, they do say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Carol shoved aside her latte and leaned across the coffee shop’s marble tabletop, the better to make her point. “I’m not convinced you are stronger. Quite frankly, Diana, you look like hell.”

“Oh, please!” she said ruefully. “Stop beating about the bush and feel free to tell me what you really think!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. You’ve lost so much weight, you could pass for a refugee from some third world country.”

Diana could hardly argue with that. Once she no longer had to prepare elegant dinners for her husband, she sometimes hadn’t bothered preparing any dinner at all. As for breakfast, she’d skipped it more often than not, too. Which left lunch—a sandwich if she had any appetite, otherwise a piece of fruit and a slice of cheese.

“You’ve been like a ship without an anchor, the way you’ve drifted through this last winter and spring, not seeming to know what day it was, half the time,” Carol went on, really hitting her stride. “And now, out of the blue, you announce you’re off to France on some wild-goose chase to find your biological mother?” She rolled her eyes. “You’ll be telling me next, you’re joining a nunnery!”

“It’s not out of the blue,” Diana said softly. “This is something I’ve wanted to do for years.”

“Diana, the point I’m trying to make is that I’m one of your closest friends, and I didn’t even know you were adopted.”

“Because it’s always been a closely guarded secret. I didn’t know myself until I was eight, and even then, I found out by accident.”

Obviously taken aback, Carol said, “Good God, who decided it should be kept secret?”

“My mother.”

“Why? Adopting a child’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It wasn’t shame, it was fear. Apparently mine was a private adoption, and although my father made sure the legalities were looked after, the arrangement wasn’t exactly…conventional. Once my mother realized the secret was a secret no longer, things at our house were never the same again.”

“How so?” Carol asked.

Diana had rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in her hand, the events of that long-ago day sufficiently softened by time that she’d been able to relate them quite composedly….

She’d raced home from school and gone straight to the sunroom where her mother always took afternoon tea. “Mommy,” she burst out breathlessly, “what does ‘adopted’ mean?”

Even before then, she’d understood that her mother was, as their cleaning lady once put it, “fragile and given to spells,” and she realized at once that in mentioning the word “adopted,” she’d inadvertently trodden on forbidden territory. The Lapsang Souchong tea her mother favored slopped over the rim of its translucent porcelain cup and into the saucer. “Good heavens, Diana,” she said faintly, pressing a pale hand to her heart, “whatever makes you ask such a question?”

Horrified at having brought on one of the dreaded “spells,” Diana rushed to explain. “Well, today Merrilee Hampton was mad at me because I won the spelling bee, so at recess she threw my snack on the ground, so I told her she was stupid, so then she told me I’m adopted. And I told her it’s not true, and she said it is, because her mother said so, and her mother doesn’t tell lies.”

“Dear God, someone should staple that woman’s mouth shut!”

Happening to come into the sunroom at that precise moment, Diana’s father had flung himself into a wicker chair across from her mother’s and said cheerfully, “Who are you talking about, my dear, and why are you ready to string her up by the thumbs?”

“Mrs. Hampton,” Diana had informed him, since her mother seemed bereft of words. “She told Merrilee that I’m adopted, but I’m not, am I, Daddy?”

She’d never forgotten the look her parents exchanged then, or the way her father had taken her on his lap and said gently, “Yes, you are, sweet pea.”

“Oh!” Terribly afraid she’d contracted some kind of disease, she whispered, “Am I going to die?”

“Good heavens, no! All being adopted means is—”

“David, please!” her mother had interrupted, her voice sounding all funny and trembly. “We decided we’d never—”

“You decided, Bethany,” he’d replied firmly. “If I’d had my way, we’d have dealt with this a long time ago, and our child would have learned the truth from us, instead of hearing it from someone else. But the cat’s out of the bag now, and nothing you or I can do is going to stuff it back in again. And after all this time, it can hardly matter anyway.”

Then he’d turned back to Diana, tugged playfully on her ponytail and smiled. “Being adopted means that although another lady gave birth to you, we were the lucky people who got to keep you.”

Trying to fit together all the pieces of this strange and sudden puzzle, Diana said, “Does that mean I have two mommies?”

“In a way, yes.”

“David!”

“But you’re our daughter in every way that counts,” he went on, ignoring her mother’s moan of distress.

Still unable to grasp so foreign a concept, Diana said, “But who’s my other mommy, and why doesn’t she live with us?”

At that, her mother mewed pitifully.

“No one you know,” her father said steadily. “She was too young to look after a baby, and so, because she knew we would love you just as much as she did, and take very good care of you, she gave you to us. After that, she went back to her home, and we brought you here to ours.”

“Well, I can see why you’d want to learn more about this woman,” Carol said, when Diana finished her story. “I guess it’s natural enough to be curious about your roots, especially when they’re shrouded in so much mystery. What I don’t understand is why you waited this long to do something about it.”

“Simple. Every time I brought up the subject, my mother took to her bed and stayed there for days. ‘Why aren’t we enough for you?’ she’d cry. ‘Haven’t we loved you enough? Given you a lovely home, the best education, everything your heart desires? Why do you want to hurt us like this?’”

“Uh-oh!” Carol rolled her eyes again. “I realized she was a bit over the top temperamentally, but I’d no idea she stooped to that kind of emotional blackmail.”

“She couldn’t help herself,” Diana said, old loyalties coming to the fore. “She was insecure—very unsure of herself. I don’t know why, but she never seemed to believe she deserved to be loved for herself, and nothing I said could convince her that, as far as I was concerned, she and my father were my true parents and that I adored both of them. In her view, my wanting to know about my birth mother meant that she and my father had failed. So eventually I stopped asking questions, and we all went back to pretending the subject had never arisen. But I never stopped wanting to find answers.”

“Then tell me this. If it was that important to you, why didn’t you pursue the matter after she and your father died, instead of waiting until now?”

“Harvey didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Why ever not?”

“I think he was…embarrassed.”

“Because you were adopted?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

Carol made no effort to disguise her scorn for the man. “What was his problem? That you might not be blue-blooded enough for him?”

“You guessed it! ‘You’re better off not knowing,’ he used to say, whenever I brought up the subject of my biological mother. ‘She was probably sleeping around and didn’t even know for sure who the father was. You could be anybody’s brat.’”

“And you let him get away with that kind of crap?” Carol gave an unladylike snort. “You should be ashamed, Diana, that you let him walk all over you like that!”

“At the time, what mattered most was my marriage. I wanted it to succeed, and Harvey was under enough stress at the hospital, without my bringing more into our private life, as well.”

“A fat lot of good it did you, in the end! He walked out anyway, and left you an emotional wreck.”

“For a while, perhaps, but I’m better now. Stronger, in some ways, than I’ve ever been.”

“Enough to stand the disappointment, if you don’t find what you’re looking for?”

“Absolutely,” Diana said, and at the time, it had been true.

The car coughed alarmingly and clunked to a halt at the foot of a hill. It serves you right, Carol would have said. If you’d taken the time to book ahead, you wouldn’t have been stuck with an old beater of a car no right-minded tourist would look at.

With some coaxing, she got the poor old thing running again, but as she approached a fork in the road, and found a sign pointing to the left, showing Bellevue-sur-Lac 31 kms, panic overwhelmed her and, for a moment, she considered turning to the right and heading for Monaco and a week of reckless betting on the roulette wheel, rather than pursuing the gamble she’d undertaken.

What if Carol was right, and she was inviting nothing but heartache for everyone by chasing her dream?

“The chances of your finding this woman are slim to nonexistent, you know,” her friend had warned. “People move around a lot, in this day and age. And even if you do find her, what then? You can’t just explode onto the scene and announce yourself as her long-lost daughter. You could blow her entire life apart if she’s married and hasn’t confided in her husband.”

“I realize that. But what’s to stop me talking to her, or even to people who know her, and trying to learn a little bit about her? I might have half brothers or sisters, aunts and uncles. Grandparents, even. She was seventeen when she had me, which means she’s only forty-five now. I could have a whole slew of relatives waiting to be discovered.”

“And how will that help you, if they don’t know who you are?” Carol asked gently.

It had taken all her courage to admit, “At least I’ll know I’m connected to someone in the world.”

“You have me, Diana. We might not share the same blood, but you’re like a sister to me.”

“You’re my dearest friend, and I’d trust you with my life, which is why I’m confiding in you now,” she replied. “But first and foremost, you’re Tim’s wife and Annie’s mother.” She opened her hands, pleadingly. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Carol said, and her eyes were full of tears suddenly. “But I care too much about you to want to see you suffer another disappointment. You give your heart so willingly, Diana, and sometimes people see that as an invitation to trample all over it. Hotshot Harvey’s done enough damage. Please don’t leave yourself open to more. Don’t let anyone take advantage of your generosity. Just once, think of yourself first, and others second.”

The advice came back to her now as the car rattled around another bend in the road, and crossed a little stone bridge above a wide stream that burbled over brown rocks. Bellevue-sur-Lac 25 kms, a sign said.

What if she found her birth mother destitute? Abandoned by her family for her adolescent indiscretion? How could any decent person not lift a finger to help?

“I’ll find a way,” Diana promised herself, thumping the steering wheel with her fist. “I’ll buy her a house, clothes, food—whatever she needs—and donate them anonymously, if I must.”

It was the least she could do, if she was to live with herself, and heaven knew, she could afford it. Within reason, she could afford just about anything money could buy. In his eagerness to be rid of her and married to his mistress before the birth of their child, Harvey had been generous. Added to what she’d inherited from her parents, it added up to a very tidy sum. But would it be enough?

Probably not, she thought. When all was said and done, money never could buy the things that really mattered.

The car wheezed around another bend in the road. In the distance, she saw tidy rows of grapevines climbing a steep hillside. In the valley below, a subdued purple touched the earth. Lavender fields just bursting into bloom.

Another sign post, painted blue with white lettering. Bellevue-sur-Lac 11 kms.

Hand suddenly clammy with sweat, Diana eased the car over to the side of the road and rolled down the window. Wild-flowers grew in the ditch, filling the air with their scent.

“Let me come with you,” Carol had begged. “At least you’ll have me in your corner if things don’t go well.”

Why hadn’t she taken her up on the offer?

Because this was something she had to do by herself, that’s why.

Reaching into her travel bag, she pulled out the single sheet of stationery she’d hoarded for so long. Spreading it over her lap, she smoothed out the creases, searching as she had so often in the past for any clues she might have missed that would help her now. The ink was faded, the script elegant and distinctly European.

Aix-en-Provence

December 10

Dear Professor Christie,

I write to inform you that Mlle. Molyneux has returned to her native village of Bellevue-sur-Lac. From all accounts, she appears to have put behind her the unhappy events of this past year, the nature of which she has kept a closely guarded secret from all who know her. I hope this will ease any concern you have that she might change her mind about placing her baby with you and your wife, or in any other way jeopardize the adoption.

I trust you are well settled in your home in the United States again. Once more, I thank you for the contributions you made to our university program during your exchange year with us.

With very best wishes to you, your wife and your new daughter for a most happy Christmas,

Alexandre Castongués, Dean

Faculty of Law

University Aix-Marseille

Did Mlle. Molyneux ever regret giving up her baby? Wonder if her little girl was happy, healthy? Or was she so relieved to be rid of her that she never wanted to be reminded of her, ever again?

There was only one way to find out.

Refolding the letter and stuffing it back in the side pocket of her travel bag, Diana coaxed the car to sputtering life again, shifted into gear and resumed her journey. Seven minutes later, the silhouette of a château perched on a cliff loomed dark against the evening sky. Immediately ahead, clustered along the shores of a long, narrow lake, buildings emerged from the dusk of early evening, their reflected pinpricks of light glowing yellow in the calm surface of the water.

Passing under an ancient stone arch, she drove into the center of the little village.

Bellevue-sur-Lac, the end of her journey.

Or, if she was lucky, perhaps just the beginning?