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More than anything else she wanted to stay where she was, here in bed, to pull the duvet over her head and shut out the world and her problems but she couldn’t. She had responsibilities … duties … two children … a job…. Mentally she started to list the day’s tasks. There was the washing, the girls’ school uniforms for tomorrow, her own case notes to read … food to buy … meals to cook … the house needed cleaning. Her heart was thudding even more frantically now as anxiety-induced adrenaline shot through her veins.
‘Mummee …’ Alex persisted. ‘I’m hungry … I’m starving.’
Olivia could feel the scream building up inside her but she knew she must not give voice to it. It wasn’t Alex’s fault she was feeling like this. She had no right to be feeling like this. She was a woman … a mother … a wife … No, not a wife any more … not now …
Caspar … Suddenly her whole body started to tremble.
‘Mummy,’ Alex had started to cry and Olivia could see the fear in her eyes. More than anything else children needed security and love. No one knew that better than Olivia herself.
‘It’s all right darling,’ she reassured her. ‘I’m going to get up now. You go downstairs and wait for me.’
Caspar … Caspar … Why hadn’t he understood …? Why hadn’t he helped her …? Why hadn’t he loved her …? No one had ever loved her….
As she walked into her bathroom Olivia raised an unsteady hand to her face to wipe away her tears. Her—crying? But she never cried …
It was five o’clock in the morning and still dark outside. Caspar lifted his head from his pillow. Next to him lay a small toy, one of Alex’s. He had found it after she had gone. Gently he touched it with his fingertips. He ached with the pain of missing his daughters—and his wife? His mouth compressed grimly. Olivia might be his wife but she wasn’t the woman he had married, the woman he had fallen in love with and who he had believed loved him.
Ultimately they were going to have to sit down and talk. There was no way he intended to be merely a weekend father to his kids, but right now … right now, locked up in the garage of his half-brother’s house where he was spending the night was the gleaming Harley-Davidson motorbike he had bought the previous day and tomorrow he was going to start out on the journey he had first promised himself he would make when he was still in high school, right across America from coast to coast.
‘You’re going to do what?’ his father had asked in disbelief, adding, ‘Hell, Caspar, a man of your age can’t ride something like that. It’s for kids.’
He shifted uncomfortably in the too soft, too big bed that felt even bigger and emptier without Olivia’s presence at his side, her body tucked close to his.
Tucked close to his. It was one hell of a long time since they had shared that kind of night-time intimacy.
Closing his eyes he tried to think back to exactly when it had been, certainly before Alex’s birth. She had been a colicky, light-sleeping baby causing Olivia to get up so many times during the night to her in the first weeks after her birth that eventually Olivia had started sleeping in the nursery with her. They had both agreed that it would be unfair to Amelia to bring Alex’s cot into their room. And after that? After that Olivia had spent so much time working that when she did go to bed it was purely and simply to sleep.
Was that when sex had ceased to become a shared pleasure between them, turning instead into a reluctant exchange on Olivia’s part which he had had to barter for?
Caspar started to frown. Loving someone wasn’t just about sex. But Olivia didn’t want his love any more than she wanted his body. Bleakly he closed his eyes.
‘Jon …’
Jon smiled as he saw his twin waiting for him when he got out of his car at Fitzburgh Place.
‘I had to come up to collect some plants from the greenhouses for Honor so I thought I might as well hang around and wait for you,’ David explained as they exchanged affectionate hugs.
‘Olivia and Caspar were due back yesterday, weren’t they?’ David asked with such deliberate studied carelessness that Jon’s heart went out to him. ‘I expect she’s already been round to see Jenny to tell her all about their trip….’
Jon frowned.
‘No … she hasn’t.’ There was no easy way for him to tell David what had happened.
‘Livvy’s come back David, but Caspar hasn’t. They’ve separated,’ he told his twin bluntly.
‘What …?’
Jon could see the shocked disbelief in David’s eyes. ‘But I thought they were so happy together.’
‘They were,’ Jon agreed heavily, ‘But … look, I don’t know the full details.’
‘I’m going to go and see her,’ David announced starkly, ‘She’s my daughter … I’m …’ He stopped, his face twisting with unhappiness. ‘I was going to say that I’m her father but of course, I don’t deserve to be considered fitting for that role—not really.’
‘Look, I know how you must feel,’ Jon tried to comfort him. ‘But why don’t you wait until Jenny’s been to see her?’
‘Has she brought the girls back with her, do you know?’ David asked him.
‘Yes,’ Jon confirmed.
David let out his breath in a leaky sigh. He ached to get closer to his granddaughters, to be for them all that he had not been able to be for their mother. Just watching Jon with Max and Maddy’s children brought out such a yearning in him to hold his own granddaughters in his arms that it was almost a physical pain. Right now he felt that same urge, that same need, to hold Olivia—adult though she was.
‘Oh, by the way, I ought to warn you that Dad isn’t too pleased about the fact that you’ve invited Father Ignatius to live with you,’ Jon told him ruefully.
‘I know, he told me,’ David acknowledged without adding that Ben had actually hinted to David that if he and Honor were to move into Queensmead with him he would make the house over to him.
‘Queensmead! You’ve already promised Queensmead to Max,’ David had reminded his father grimly. ‘Maddy has spent a fortune of time and effort on the place and—’
‘More fool her. I never asked her to,’ Ben had returned surlily.
Honor had been both shocked and angry when David had told her what Ben had said.
‘When I think of the way Maddy has looked after him,’ she had exclaimed. ‘He really is the most thoughtless, chauvinistic man….’
‘All that and more,’ David had agreed wryly. He was working himself up into a real royal fury. ‘What’s wrong?’ he had questioned when Honor had started to frown.
‘Well, although for his age he’s relatively healthy, he does have a heart condition. He told me and I checked with Maddy,’ Honor informed him.
‘Just how serious is it?’ David had asked her.
‘Well, it isn’t going to do him any good if he overdoes things and that includes working himself up into a furious temper. He’s well into his eighties, David,’ she had added gently.
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ David had agreed, ‘But just because he’s got a heart condition that doesn’t mean he can be allowed to get away with hurting other people, especially someone like Maddy.’
‘He can’t hurt Maddy,’ Honor had assured him gently. ‘She’s far too well protected by Max’s love.’
No, he couldn’t hurt Maddy but he had hurt Olivia. Olivia who should have had his, her father’s love, to protect her.
‘I won’t come up to the house with you if you don’t mind,’ David told Jon abruptly.
Jon shook his head guessing that David wanted to talk over what he had told him about Olivia with Honor.
David found Honor in the kitchen with Father Ignatius who was peeling the potatoes for their meal.
‘I went to early communion this morning,’ the priest told him. ‘I like your church.’
David waited for him to finish before turning to Honor to tell her, ‘I’ve just seen Jon up at Fitzburgh Place. Olivia and Caspar have separated.’
‘Oh, David!’ Honor exclaimed, coming over to him.
‘I want to go and see her, Honor … talk to her … help her …’
‘Oh, David,’ Honor protested in a different tone. ‘I don’t think …’
‘She won’t want me. Jon’s already told me that,’ David agreed flatly.
‘Perhaps I could go and see her,’ the priest suggested gently.
David laughed mirthlessly and shook his head.
‘She’d be as reluctant to see you as she would me. You’re tainted by association,’ he told him. ‘Your association with me. I’m sorry,’ he apologised to them both. ‘I know I’m over-reacting.’
‘Give her time,’ Honor had counselled him earlier, but suddenly as she listened to him Honor sensed intuitively that Olivia no longer had that time.
Her heart ached for the woman who was now her stepdaughter and she longed to be able to help her for Olivia’s own sake just as much as David’s.
Like the priest, she too had a need; a mission to heal and repair the damage that life could inflict on her fellow men and women, but she suspected that Olivia was dangerously close to shutting herself away from anyone’s help.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_cc5d000b-7542-5e5c-837c-aa51a6a0a18c)
‘BUT I CAN’T stay in hospital, I’ve got a family, three children, a husband and my father-in-law….’
Maddy’s shocked outburst broke the silence of the small consulting room.
‘I’m afraid there is no other option—not at this stage,’ the obstetrician told her gently. ‘Your blood pressure is high and there is protein already showing in the tests we’ve done.’
He and the nurse exchanged glances.
‘It’s a pity you weren’t able to make your last appointment. Had we discovered what was happening then …’
Maddy bit her lip. She could hardly take in what she had been told. Of course she had been aware that she was putting on more weight with this pregnancy than she had with her others and that she was suffering badly with swollen ankles and legs, but this … the appalling news the doctor had just given her that she was exhibiting all the classic early signs of pre-eclampsia and that for her own and the baby’s sake she would have to stay in hospital whilst they brought her blood pressure back down to normal had shocked her rigid.
‘Why don’t you ring your husband?’ the nurse suggested gently.
Max was in the middle of a conference meeting with a client’s solicitor when Maddy’s call came through.
As she tried to tell him what had happened he could hear in her voice her fear and distress. He felt as though a knife were being turned in his heart. Maddy was ill … his Maddy, and she was frightened as well.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told the solicitor swiftly. ‘But I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave. My wife isn’t well.’
The solicitor, a sophisticatedly elegant thirty-something with a high-profile reputation and a prestigious client list, thinned her carefully made up mouth. She had travelled up especially from London for this meeting and she was not accustomed to dealing with Counsel who put their wives before their clients.
At the back of her mind was something a little more than professional irritation. Max was stunningly attractive and even more stunningly male. She was certainly not the sort to indulge in seedy one-night stands with good-looking business associates but the thought of suggesting to Max that they share dinner together after their meeting had crossed her mind. As had her mentally wondering if she possibly had the time to pay a visit to that very chic designer store she had just happened to notice as she walked through Chester this morning before her appointment with Max. Now, though, she wouldn’t need to pick up something alluring to wear this evening.
It took Max twenty minutes to reach the hospital. He found Maddy sitting anxiously on her bed in a small private room off the main ward.
As he crossed the room and took her in his arms she burst into tears.
‘What is it? What’s happened? What’s wrong?’ Max asked her anxiously as he smoothed her hair back off her face and cupped it, his gaze searching hers as his heart hammered against his ribs.
She was so precious to him, so very much beloved, the bedrock on which his life was now built.
Whilst Maddy tried haltingly to explain the situation Max tried and failed to comprehend how he could possibly endure his own life if he were to lose her. All the sins of his own past came back to him; this was his deepest and most secret dread; this fear that somehow the same fate which had given him so much, forgiven him so much, should choose with savage and inescapable malignancy to punish not him but those he loved most; and of all those that he did love, Maddy was his most beloved.
In his more logical moments he knew his fears were unfounded and illogical, but the same change of heart which had shown him the error of his old ways and opened the locked door in his heart to show him the true meaning of love, had also opened that same door to show him fear; fear, not for himself but for those he loved.
He could hear Maddy telling him something.
Above the fierce pounding of his own heartbeat he could hear Maddy’s voice. Determinedly he focused on it and on what she was saying.
The obstetrician had told her that she was suffering from pre-eclampsia, a condition which could, if left untreated, threaten the life of both her and her baby. In order for them to treat it she would have to stay in hospital where her progress could be monitored and she would not be allowed to return home until they were satisfied that she was well enough to do so.
A nurse appeared in the room giving Max a frowning look as she reminded Maddy that she must try to keep calm.
‘Can I see Mr Lewis?’ Max asked her.
She pursed her lips.
‘He’s with another patient at the moment and I don’t know how long he will be.’
‘I’ll wait,’ Max told her in a tone of voice that said he wasn’t going anywhere until he had spoken to the consultant.
‘Oh, Max, I’m so afraid,’ Maddy confessed. ‘And I feel so guilty. If I hadn’t missed my last antenatal appointment they would have found out then what was happening but Ben wasn’t well and—’
His grandfather! Max closed his eyes and willed himself not to over-react.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ he tried to reassure Maddy as he held her tightly, ‘Both you and the baby.’
Ten minutes later, having told her that she wasn’t to worry about anything and having promised that, yes, he would get in touch with Jenny and, yes, he would pick the children up from school and bring a bag of things into the hospital for her, Max kissed his wife and followed the nurse who had come to tell him that the consultant was ready to see him.
‘… and there’s nothing you can do?’
‘In the sense of making the condition completely disappear, no,’ the man agreed. ‘But in the sense of getting it under control, yes. Our first priority is to bring your wife’s blood pressure down and for that we need to keep her here in hospital. Once we are satisfied that it is safely under control then she will be allowed to return home but only on the understanding that she does not overdo things.’
‘And if you can’t bring her blood pressure down?’ Max pressed.
The consultant stood up and walked over to the tiny window of his office, keeping his back towards Max as he said quietly, ‘That shouldn’t happen….’
‘But if it does?’ Max persisted.
There was a long pause before the consultant replied.
‘If the condition runs its course unchecked in the final three months of pregnancy it can lead to the mother suffering from fits and to the deterioration of the placenta which obviously affects the baby. Ultimately—” he paused and looked at Max “—when this happens the mother can suffer from convulsions which in a worst-case scenario causes brain damage for mother and child and potentially death.’
Max stared at him in white-faced disbelief, and sensing his feelings the other man assured him, ‘These days the risk of that happening is minimal. As I’ve explained, now that we’ve detected the problem we should be able to bring your wife’s blood pressure back to normal and keep it there.’
‘You say should,’ Max interrupted him grimly. ‘What if you can’t?’ he demanded, his heart hammering against his ribs.
There was a long pause before the doctor told him carefully, ‘If we were to consider that there was any threat to your wife’s life then we should need to discuss with her terminating her pregnancy.’
