Legally His Omnibus (13 page)

CHAPTER NINE

S
EAN
HAD
INSISTED
on a church ceremony, much to Kate’s surprise, and even more surprising was just how very much like a new bride she actually felt, standing in the doorway of the small church ready to walk down the aisle to where Sean was waiting for her.

The graceful dress she was wearing was cream, the heavy satin fabric rustling expensively as she turned to look down at Oliver. ‘Ready, Ollie?’ she asked him tenderly.

He had been so excited about today, but now that it was here he looked round-eyed and slightly over-awed.

John was going to give her away, but it was Oliver who was going to walk down the aisle with her. That had been her decision, and one that Sean had listened to in shuttered-eyed silence.

Inside the church, with the heat of the sun shut away, the timelessness of this place where people had worshipped century upon century cast its own special grace over them as Oliver reached up and slipped his hand into hers.

Together, as the sound of the organ music surged and swelled, mother and son walked towards the man waiting for them, and into whose care they were giving themselves.

They had almost reached him when Oliver tugged on Kate’s hand and announced in a loud stage whisper, ‘Mummy, I’m really glad that Sean is going to marry us.’

Kate completed the last few steps in a blur of tears, totally overwhelmed by her emotions.

The artfully simple bouquet of lilies and greenery she carried were removed from her by Carol, but when her friend went to take Oliver’s hand, to lead him away, Sean shook his head and took it himself.

Then, with Oliver standing between them and both of them holding one of his hands, the vicar began the service that would reunite them, bind them not just as husband and wife, but this time as parents as well.

* * *

‘Okay?’

As the bells pealed in celebration of their marriage and the sun shone down Kate nodded mutely. Surely she wasn’t still brooding on the perfunctory kiss with which Sean had acknowledged his new commitment to her, was she?

She had remarried him because he was Oliver’s father, and not for any other reason, she told herself fiercely.

Their wedding breakfast was being held in a private dining room at a very exclusive local hotel, and from there they were flying to Italy for a few days. Initially she had tried to protest, but Sean had overruled her, announcing that the three of them needed time together alone, away from their normal environment, to start establishing their new roles in one another’s lives.

Of the three of them, Oliver had certainly had no difficulties whatsoever in adapting. The word ‘daddy’ seemed to leave his lips with increasing regularity. In fact she could hear him saying it now, as he beamed up at Sean and told him importantly that he was now his little boy.

A small shadow touched Kate’s face.

‘I want to adopt Oliver legally,’ Sean had told her abruptly the previous week.

Kate had refused to respond. How could he adopt his own son?

* * *

Kate opened her eyes reluctantly, unwilling to abandon the dream she had just been having in which she had been lying in Sean’s arms, their naked bodies entwined. The huge bed in their hotel suite was empty of her husband, though. Last night, following their arrival, when she had seen the suite, she had unwisely exclaimed, ‘Are we all in the same room?’

‘I thought you’d prefer it that way,’ Sean had responded.

‘Yes. I do,’ Kate had agreed, but she knew that a tiny part of her couldn’t help comparing the circumstances of this, their second honeymoon, to the first one they had shared. Their surroundings might not have been anything like as luxurious, but even the air in the small room had been so drenched with the scent of their love and hunger for one another that it had been an aphrodisiac all on its own.

That had been then, though, and this was now!

And where was Oliver? The small bed Sean had insisted on having set up in their room was also empty.

Anxiously she pushed back the bedclothes and reached for her robe. They’d arrived so late in the evening that she had done no more than nod in acceptance of Sean’s description of their suite and its facilities, but now, as she pushed opened the door onto their private patio, she caught her breath in delight.

The hotel had originally been a small palace, and their suite was at ground level for Oliver’s benefit. From the patio Kate could see the still blue water of the hotel’s breathtakingly effective infinity pool. The sound of splashing water to the side of her caught her attention, and she froze as she realised that it was Oliver who was causing it, and Sean stood at his side in what was obviously a children’s swimming area, encouraging him to swim.

Encouraging him to swim! But Ollie couldn’t swim. She had done everything she could to get him to swim, right from him being a baby, but he had steadfastly clung on to his terror of the water. Until now... Until Sean...

Out of nowhere a feeling she just did not want to analyse struck her. She felt excluded, unwanted. She felt jealous, Kate recognised, angry with herself for having such feelings.

Sean had told her that he wanted to remarry her because of Oliver, but suddenly it was striking her exactly what that meant.

Sean had always wanted a son, and now, as a very successful businessman, no doubt he wanted one even more. Given his own childhood, Kate could see that creating his own dynasty would appeal to Sean. But that did not mean that he loved Oliver—and it certainly didn’t mean that he loved her.

Had she done the right thing in marrying Sean? Or had she given in to her emotions? Hadn’t there been somewhere deeply buried inside her a small, desperate hope that somehow Sean would come to recognise that Oliver was his son and that in doing so he would...?

He would what?

She could hear Oliver and Sean making their way back. Quickly she pushed her anxiety to one side.

The moment they walked onto the patio Oliver ran towards her, shouting excitedly, ‘Mummy—Mummy, I was swimming.’

As he launched himself at her Kate caught him up in her arms, closing her eyes as she savoured the echoes of his babyhood in the smell of his skin and its softness.

‘I can’t believe you haven’t taught him to swim,’ she heard Sean commenting grimly, and he reached out and took Oliver from her arms with the automatic action of a man who knew it was his right to hold his child.

Kate held her breath, telling herself fiercely that it wasn’t disappointment that filled her when Oliver went happily to Sean.

‘I tried.’ She answered Sean’s criticism defensively. ‘But right from being a baby Ollie has been frightened of water...’

‘Well, he isn’t frightened now,’ Sean announced. ‘Shower now, Ollie, and then breakfast,’ Kate heard him saying firmly as he put Ollie down.

Once he was out of earshot Sean said, ‘Perhaps he could sense that you were afraid for him? Children need to feel that they are safe.’

‘Thanks for the child guidance lecture,’ Kate snapped furiously. ‘But I’d just like to remind you, Sean, that I’ve been Oliver’s mother from the moment he was conceived.’

‘And I am now his father,’ Sean replied fiercely.

* * *

They were words which were constantly inside her thoughts and her heart over the following few days of their brief ‘honeymoon’, as Sean and Oliver formed a close male bond from which she felt totally excluded.

And now, with their holiday over, Kate couldn’t help observing as they walked towards Sean’s parked car that Oliver was even beginning to talk like his father.

Mrs Hargreaves was waiting to welcome them when they arrived home, and although Kate was vaguely aware of the conspiratorial look the housekeeper exchanged with Sean, she didn’t pay very much regard to it, or to the few private words she hurried to have with Sean.

Upstairs, she was turning to head for her bedroom when Sean stopped her.

‘I’ve asked Mrs Hargreaves to move your things into the master bedroom.’

Kate’s stomach muscles quivered. Angry with herself for the fierce stab of pleasure the thought of sleeping with Sean again caused her, she forced herself to object. ‘But that’s your bedroom.’

‘It was my bedroom,’ Sean agreed coolly. ‘But it’s now our bedroom.’

Their bedroom. The unwanted feeling intensified and spread. Kate knew that she was perilously close to giving in to her renewed love for Sean. He might want her sexually, but he had told her himself that he had remarried her for Oliver’s sake.

She wasn’t going to humiliate herself by offering him a love he didn’t want!

How long, though, would she be able to keep her feelings to herself if she was sleeping with him every night and all night?

‘I don’t—’ she began.

‘Not in front of Oliver,’ Sean checked her firmly, leaving her to wait to resume their conversation once Oliver had been introduced to and safely established in his own new bedroom.

‘That was ridiculously extravagant, Sean, buying him a computer games console,’ Kate protested when Sean had finished showing Oliver how to operate his new toy and they were back on the landing outside his room.

‘It will be good for his spatial dexterity,’ Sean told her without a glimmer of contrition. ‘Come and see how the master bedroom looks,’ he added, guiding her to the door.

The first thing Kate saw when he opened it was the huge new bed. And her concentration remained stuck on it.

‘It’s a double bed!’ she pronounced foolishly.

‘King-size, actually,’ Sean corrected her dryly.

Panic filled her. Double or king-size, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she would be sharing it with Sean and she knew, just knew, it would be impossible for her to stop herself from snuggling up to him and allowing herself the luxury of behaving as though they still were the loving couple they had once been.

Blindly she swung round, and then found that her exit from the room was blocked by Sean’s arm, Sean’s hand holding the door—a door which he promptly closed and leaned against, folding his arms as he watched her furious agitation.

‘I can’t sleep in that bed with you!’ Kate burst out.

‘Why not? We shared a room when we were away!’

‘That was different!’ Kate insisted, wishing he wouldn’t give her that look of slow, deliberate scrutiny that made her feel he could see right into her head.

‘We are married, after all,’ Sean reminded her. ‘And besides, the bed’s plenty big enough for us to keep our distance from one another, if that’s what you want!’

‘Of course that’s what I want,’ Kate lied quickly. He couldn’t have guessed how much it affected her to think of sleeping in the same bed with him, could he?

‘We’ve got to think of Oliver,’ Sean told her firmly. ‘What kind of impression is it going to give him if we have separate rooms?’

She had been outmanoeuvred, Kate recognised, unable to do anything other than retaliate furiously, ‘I saw the look Mrs Hargreaves gave you when we arrived, and now I realise why,’ she accused him wildly.

To her surprise her comment seemed to have a more powerful effect on Sean than she had anticipated, because he suddenly started to frown, and a look she couldn’t translate shadowed his eyes.

* * *

‘I’ve told Mrs Hargreaves that from tomorrow we’ll both have a light tea with Oliver at five o’clock, and then our own dinner later on, when he’s in bed. I think it’s important that we share his mealtimes with him. And I thought I’d take him over to the farm tomorrow—the pups are almost ready to leave their mother, and Mrs Hargreaves has told them we’re going to have one. Ollie can choose his own.’

It was nine o’clock at night. Oliver was already tucked up and fast asleep in his new bed, and she and Sean were eating the delicious meal Mrs Hargreaves had left ready for them before going home. Suddenly the last thing Kate felt like was eating.

‘Since when did you and Mrs Hargreaves make arrangements concerning Oliver without me being informed?’ Kate demanded ominously. As she spoke she stood up, throwing down her linen napkin and gripping the table in her fury.

‘He’s desperate to have a dog of his own,’ Sean told her. ‘You know that!’

‘I also know that I said I didn’t want him to have a puppy yet.’

‘Because he would be at nursery and you would be working. That doesn’t apply any longer,’ Sean pointed out firmly.

Kate was shaking with a mixture of anger and misery without really knowing why—other than that it had something to do with that large master bedroom and its huge bed, in which she and Sean were going to sleep—with most the bed between them...

‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ she told Sean angrily, pushing back her chair and almost running out of the room, ignoring his pleas to return.

‘Kate! Come back!’

Idiotically, it was the master bedroom she headed to for refuge, swinging round white-faced as Sean followed her into it, shutting the door.

‘What’s got into you?’ he demanded.

‘I’ve managed to spend five years bringing Oliver up without your assistance and without your interference, Sean. I am his mother...and I—’

‘And you what?’ Sean challenged her savagely. ‘And you shared another man’s bed in order to conceive him?’

The raw emotion in his voice shocked through her. She had never seen him so out of control, and the intensity of his unexpected outburst paralysed her.

‘Do you think I don’t think about that every single day, every damned hour? Hell, Kate, do you think that because I can’t father a child, because I’m not man enough to father a child, I’m not man enough to think about you and him and this?’ Silently they stared at one another.

Kate drew a ragged breath and demanded shakily, ‘What do you mean, you can’t father a child?’

Her mouth had gone dry and her heart was thudding in heavy, erratic hammer-blows. Even through her own shock she was aware of the look of sick, anguished despair in Sean’s eyes, and she could feel the intensity of his pent-up emotions.

When he started to turn away from her she reached out and took hold of his arm.

‘You are Oliver’s father, Sean,’ she said quietly.