The Marchese's Love-Child

Mrs Fairfax gave her a tragic look. ‘But I’ve got Charlie’s favourite ice-cream for dessert. He’ll be so disappointed.’

Only because you’ve already told him, Polly thought without pleasure.

Aloud, she said, ‘You really mustn’t spoil him like that.’

Her mother pouted. ‘It’s a sad thing if I can’t give my only grandchild the occasional treat.’ She paused. ‘Why not leave him here—if you’re going to be busy this evening?’ she coaxed. ‘It’ll save you time in the morning if you have a plane to catch.’

‘It’s a kind thought.’ Polly tried to sound positive. ‘But I really look forward to my evenings with Charlie, Mum. I—I see so little of him.’

‘Well, that’s something your father and I wanted to discuss with you,’ her mother said with sudden briskness. ‘There’s a lot of unused space in this house, and if we were to extend over the garage, it would make a really nice flat for you both. And it would mean so much less disruption for Charlie.’

She emptied the carrots she’d been scraping into a pan. ‘We’ve had some preliminary plans drawn up, and, if you stayed, we could look at them over supper perhaps.’

Polly supposed, heart sinking, that she should have seen it coming—but she hadn’t. Oh, God, she thought, is this the day from hell, or what?

She said quietly, ‘Mum, I do have a flat already.’

‘An attic,’ her mother dismissed with a sniff, ‘with a room hardly bigger than a cupboard for Charlie. Here, he’d have room to run about, plus a routine he’s accustomed to. And we’re in the catchment area for a good primary school, when the time comes,’ she added. ‘I think it’s the perfect solution to all sorts of problems.’

My main problem, Polly thought wearily, is prising Charlie out of this house at the end of the working day. Of staking a claim in my own child. She’d seen trouble looming when her own former bedroom was extensively redecorated and refitted for Charlie, despite her protest that he wouldn’t use it sufficiently to justify the expense.

Her mother must have had this in mind from the first.

She rallied herself, trying to speak reasonably. ‘But I need my independence. I’m used to it.’

‘Is that what you call the way you live? You’re a single mother, my girl. A statistic. And this glamorous job of yours is little better than slavery—running around all over the place at the beck and call of people with more money than sense. And where did it lead? To you making a fool of yourself with some foreigner, and ruining your life.’ She snorted. ‘Well, don’t come to me for help if you mess up your life a second time.’

Polly’s head went back in shock. She said unsteadily, ‘That is so unfair. I made a mistake, and I’ve paid for it. But I still intend to live my life on my own terms, and I hope you can accept that.’

Mrs Fairfax’s face was flushed. ‘I can certainly see you’re determined to have your own way, regardless of Charlie’s well-being.’ She sent her daughter a fulminating glance. ‘And now I suppose you’ll take him with you, just to make your point.’

‘No,’ Polly said reluctantly. ‘I won’t do that—this time. But I think you have to accept that I do have a point.’

‘Perhaps you’d send Charlie indoors as you leave.’ Her mother opened a carton of new potatoes and began to wash them. ‘He’s getting absolutely filthy out there, and I’d like him to calm down before he eats.’

‘Fine.’ Polly allowed herself a small, taut smile. ‘I’ll pass the message on.’

As she went into the garden, Charlie headed for her gleefully, strewing twigs and leaves behind him. Polly bent to enfold him, the breath catching in her throat as she inhaled his unique baby scent. Thinking again, with a pang, how beautiful he was. And how painfully, searingly like his father …

Her mother had never wanted to know any details about his paternity, referring to Sandro solely as ‘that foreigner’. The fact that Charlie, with his curly black hair, olive skin and long-lashed eyes the colour of deep topaz, was also clearly a Mediterranean to his fingertips seemed to have eluded her notice.

But it was the details that only Polly could recognise that brought her heart into her mouth, like the first time her son had looked at her with that wrenchingly familiar slow, slanting smile. His baby features were starting to change too, and she could see that he was going to have Sandro’s high-bridged nose one day, and the same straight brows.

It would be like living with a mirror image before too long, Polly told herself, thinking forlornly that nature played cruel tricks at times. Why couldn’t Charlie have inherited her own pale blonde hair and green eyes?

She smoothed the hair back from his damp forehead. ‘Gran wants you to go inside, darling,’ she whispered. ‘You’re sleeping here tonight. Won’t that be fun?’

Her father came to join them, his brows lifting at her words. ‘Will it, my love?’ His voice was neutral, but the glance he sent her was searching.

‘Yes.’ Polly cleared her throat, watching Charlie scamper towards the house. ‘It—it seems a shame to uproot him, when I have to start work early tomorrow.’

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘She means it all for the best, you know, Poll,’ he told her quietly.

‘He’s my child, Dad.’ Polly shook her head. ‘I have to have an opinion on what’s best for him, too. And that doesn’t include moving back here.’

‘I know that,’ her father said gently. ‘But I’m also aware how hard it must be raising a child without any kind of support from his father—and I’m not simply talking about the economics of it.’

He sighed. ‘You were so precious to me, I can’t imagine a man not wanting to involve himself with his own flesh and blood.’

Polly’s lips moved in a wintry little smile. ‘He didn’t want to know, Dad—about either of us. It was best to leave it that way.’

‘Yes, love,’ he said. ‘So you told me. But that hasn’t stopped me from worrying—or your mother either.’ He gave her a swift hug. ‘Take care.’

Polly’s thoughts were troubled as she rode home on the bus alone. Her mother’s attempts to totally monopolise her grandson was becoming a seriously tricky situation, and she wasn’t sure she had sufficient wisdom to resolve it.

The last thing she wanted was for Charlie to become a battleground, but even a mild suggestion that she should enrol him at a local nursery for a few hours a week so that he could mix with other children had provoked such an injured reception from Mrs Fairfax that she hadn’t dared raise the subject again.

Her mother’s hostile attitude to her work was a different thing.

Safe Hands had proved the job of her dreams, and she knew, without conceit, that she was good at it.

The people who made use of the company were mainly female and usually elderly, people who needed someone young, relatively strong and capable to deal with their luggage, guide them through airports and escort them safely round unfamiliar foreign cities.

Polly was the youngest of Mrs Terence’s employees, but she had a gift for languages, and her brief career as a holiday rep had taught her patience and tolerance to add to her natural sense of humour—qualities she soon found she needed in abundance.

She knew how to diffuse potentially explosive situations with overseas Customs, find restaurants that were sympathetic to delicate digestions, hotels in peaceful locations that were also picturesque, and shops prepared to deliver purchases to hotels, or post them on to addresses abroad. She could also discover which art galleries and museums were prepared to arrange quiet private tours for small groups.

And she never showed even a trace of irritation with even the most high-handed behaviour from her charges.

After all, she was being paid for acceding to their whims and fancies, and part of her skill was in making them forget that was how she earned her living, and persuading them that she was there for the sheer pleasure of their company.

But with the Contessa Barsoli, it had been a struggle from day one.

Polly had long accepted that not all her clients would like her, but she did need them to trust her, and, from the start, her senses had detected an inflexible wariness, bordering on hostility at times, in the contessa’s attitude which she was at a loss to account for.

Whatever the reason, there had never been any real warmth between them, so Polly had been genuinely astonished to hear that the contessa had specifically requested her services again for the homeward leg of her journey to southern Italy, and was prepared to pay her a generous cash bonus too.

Surprised—but also alarmed enough to ask herself if the money was really worth the damage to her nervous system.

Her previous visit—the first and last—had left her scarred—and scared. And there was no way she’d have dared risk a return, if there’d been the slightest chance she might encounter Sandro again. But the odds against such a meeting must run into millions to one. But irrational as it might seem, even the remotest possibility still had the power to make her tremble.

They said time was a great healer, but the wound Sandro had dealt her was still agonisingly raw.

She’d tried so hard to block out the memories of that summer in Sorrento three years ago. The summer she thought she’d fallen in love, and believed she was loved in return. But the images she’d hoped were safely locked away forever had broken free, and were running wild in her brain again.

Her room, she thought, wincing, during the hours of siesta, the shutters closed against the beat of the sun, and only the languid whirr of the ceiling fan and their own ragged breathing to break the silence.

And Sandro’s voice murmuring soft, husky words of passion, his hands and mouth exploring her naked body with sensuous delight. The heated surge of his body into hers at the moment of possession.