His Love-Child. Jacqueline Baird

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СКАЧАТЬ your position. So let us say no more about it; the matter is closed.’

      ‘That is very generous of you,’ Willow said softly. Her blue eyes met with Judy’s shimmering brown and there was no doubting the sincerity in the older woman’s compassionate gaze. ‘But I doubt if Theo thinks the same way.’

      ‘Someone taking my name in vain?’

      Willow jerked upright in her seat at the sound of Theo’s deep drawl. He came to a stop a foot away, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle in instant awareness. Reluctantly she turned her head to look up at him. He was dressed in a casually cut linen suit and a white open-necked shirt and he was pulling out the chair next to hers.

      ‘So?’ he prompted with a brief smile for her and a brilliant one for his mother as he sat down. Stephen, now dressed in khaki shorts and a crisp white tee shirt, had been following along behind his father and quickly scrambled back into his seat.

      ‘What does in vain mean, Mum?’ Stephen asked, grabbing her attention.

      ‘It usually means,’ Judy responded, with her gaze narrowed on Theo, rather than Stephen, ‘that when you listen in to other people’s conversation and hear your name mentioned, invariably the people concerned are not speaking well of you.’

      Willow turned puzzled eyes back to Theo, and to her utter amazement she watched as a dull tide of red swept along his high cheekbones. He was actually embarrassed. That had to be another first…

      ‘I was just reassuring Willow that I don’t hold her responsible for keeping me apart from my grandson. She must have been very young and very frightened.’

      ‘Mum was eighteen when she had me,’ Stephen cut in, and for once Willow wished he were not quite so bright or so inquisitive.

      ‘Eighteen?’ Judy gasped and the look she gave her son could have stripped paint. ‘Oh, you poor child,’ she said, her sympathetic gaze settling on Willow. ‘But no doubt your family helped you?’ she prompted.

      ‘We don’t have any family. My grandmother and my great-grandmother both died the year before I was born,’ Stephen continued. ‘We live in Great-grandma’s house now and we have tons of photographs of them and things.’

      It was getting worse by the second. ‘Really, Stephen, I don’t think anyone is interested,’ Willow admonished.

      ‘Yes, do go on, son,’ Theo encouraged him, his attention suddenly fully arrested.

      ‘Well, Tess, our neighbour, knew them both; in fact everyone in the village knew them. Isn’t that right, Mum?’

      ‘Yes.’ What else could she say?

      ‘It is sad to lose one’s grandmother, but to lose your mother at the same time must have been devastating. Was it an accident?’ Judy asked quietly.

      ‘No, well, yes. Half and half,’ Willow said, clenching her hands tightly on her lap. She wished everyone would drop the subject.

      ‘Half and half is no answer,’ Theo opined flatly and, flicking him a sidelong glance, she saw the distaste in his dark eyes.

      What had she expected from the man—sympathy, compassion or at the very least some tact? She must be mad; the man hadn’t a grain of sensitivity in his soul.

      ‘You’re right, Theo, of course.’ She smiled thinly. ‘My grandmother died of natural causes at Easter time and if you remember I visited my mother in India the same summer.’ The bitterness in her blue eyes was only for him. To the other two at the table she was still smiling. ‘Mum got caught up in a riot in India, the week before she was due to come home in the September, and she was killed by a stray bullet.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Theo murmured.

      She tore her gaze away from his. Too little, too late, she thought scathingly, and she did not see the colour drain from his face or the shock in his dark eyes.

      ‘Oh, you poor girl,’ Judy murmured.

      ‘Yes, well, it was a long time ago, and Stephen and I manage very well on our own.’ She reached out and touched her son’s arm, more for her own comfort than his. Then to her amazement Judy directed what sounded like a tirade in Greek at Theo.

      ‘Forgive my lapse in manners.’ Judy finally resumed speaking in English. ‘But you understand, Willow, you are a mother yourself—sometimes a son needs to be lectured, whatever their age.’ With a lingering glance at Theo’s stony face, she smiled at Stephen and added, ‘Now, young man, how would you like to visit the biggest toy shop in Athens?’

      ‘Not so fast, Mother,’ Theo said firmly. ‘Stephen.’ He turned his dark gaze on the boy, and at the same time he curved his arm around Willow’s shoulder. His touch caused a jolt of awareness through her slender body but what followed left her speechless.

      ‘If you agree, Stephen, you and your mum will never have to manage on your own again.’ He was throwing her own words back in her face, Willow thought incredulously. ‘You see, your mother and I want to get married, as soon as possible, so we can all live together as one happy family.’

      ‘Really?’ Stephen questioned. ‘We will be just like a proper family.’

      Willow tried to jerk away from Theo’s hold, but his long brown fingers merely shifted to curve around the nape of her neck. His dark head bent towards her. ‘Isn’t that right, darling?’

      Stephen was incandescent with joy. It was his dream come true, and, leaping out of his chair, he flung his arms around Willow’s waist. She looked down into her son’s eyes, and saw the hope and longing there. With a sinking heart she realised that, while she had no trouble at all in refusing Theo’s proposal of marriage, she could not bear to disappoint Stephen. She was left with no choice.

      ‘Yes, Theo.’ She bared her teeth in a smile, her blue eyes fastening on him, cold fear and fury in the sapphire depths. The ruthless devil had done it again, used her son and emotional blackmail to get exactly what he wanted. Well, he might think he had forced her into marriage, but if he thought for one second she was going to play the obedient little wife, he was in for a rude awakening. ‘Eventually,’ she qualified.

      But her ‘eventually,’ was drowned out by Judy’s shouting. Marta and Takis appeared with glasses and a bottle of champagne, and Judy proposed a toast to long life and happiness. Willow smiled and pretended she was happy, but inside she was fuming, her mind racing to find a way out of her dilemma.

      But the biggest problem was Stephen. One glance at his beaming face and there was no mistaking his sheer delight at the thought of having his mother and father together, in his own words, a proper family…

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