The Perfect Match (14 page)

'You're pregnant!' He said the words almost instinctively, intuitively, without pausing to analyse his thoughts before giving voice to them, but he knew the moment he saw Chrissie's face that he was right.

A flash-flood of complex emotions swamped him—

shock, pain, joy, anger, pride and love...most of all love.

Chrissie looked away from Guy, compressing her lips, her heart sinking.

'Chrissie,' she heard Guy demanding urgently.

'I don't have anything to say,' Chrissie responded with shaky hauteur.

'So you
are
pregnant,' Guy breathed, 'with
my
baby
...my
child....'

'No,' Chrissie denied vehemently, spurred into action by his words.
'This
baby, if there
is
a baby, has
nothing
whatsoever to do with
you.
This baby is
mine
and only
mine.'

'I doubt a court of law would take that view,' Guy challenged her harshly, too caught up in emotion to be cautious. He had never had any particular cravings for children, fatherhood—even though he had always got on well enough with his nephews and nieces, so why did he have this intense and atavistic sense of pride, of involvement...of possession almost immediately he discovered that Chrissie was carrying his child?

Chrissie stared at him.

'A court of law?' she protested. 'But—'

'A father has rights,' Guy informed her.

A
father.
Chrissie opened her mouth and then closed it again before declaring bitterly, 'I doubt fatherhood was very much on your mind when you...when I...when we...'

'Was motherhood on yours?' Guy challenged her.

There wasn't anything that Chrissie could say.

'We need to talk,' Guy said tersely, but Chrissie shook her head.

'Leave me alone, Guy,' she told him bitingly, turning her back on him and starting to walk swiftly down the street.

Angrily Guy began to follow her, catching up with her and taking hold of her arm to pull her round to face him.

'Let go of me,' Chrissie demanded furiously.

'Not so long ago you were begging me never to let you go,' Guy reminded her mercilessly.

Chrissie flushed hotly but managed to fight back, telling him cuttingly, 'And you were telling me that you loved me, but we both know...'

She paused and she could feel Guy's grip on her arm tighten slightly as he grated, 'We both know what, Chrissie?'

Chrissie shook her head. She felt tired and weak and cross with herself for wasting her fragile strength on arguing with Guy when her baby needed it so much more.

'My car's just round the corner. I'll take you home,' Guy commanded grimly. 'Don't argue with me, Chrissie. You look as though you're about to col-lapse.'

She
felt
it, too, Chrissie acknowledged whilst she mentally berated herself for her weakness in allowing him to dictate her actions to her.

'When did you find out...about the baby?' Guy asked curtly once they were in the car.

'Does it matter?' Chrissie responded wearily, unwilling to tell him that she would probably still be in ignorance about her impending motherhood even now if Ruth hadn't enlightened her.

She closed her eyes. She really did feel quite unwell, and then she opened them again abruptly. This wasn't the way to her uncle's cottage. It wasn't the way to anywhere
she
knew at all.

'Where are you going? Stop the car at once. I want to get out,' she demanded furiously, reaching for the door handle only to discover that Guy had activated the central locking system.

'What are you doing? You have no right to do this!'

she cried out. 'You—'

'I have my right as a father to protect the health of my unborn child,' Guy returned determinedly.

Chrissie couldn't find the words to respond.
His
right as a
father.

She really did feel unwell; the motion of the car wasn't agreeing with her at all.

'Guy, I think I'm going to be sick,' she announced in a small voice.

'Right now?'

Chrissie nodded her head slowly.

Guy showed commendable promptitude and dex-terity in stopping the car so swiftly and in refusing to display any male annoyance or distaste she might have expected in her nauseous condition, she decided ten minutes later when she was beginning to feel a little better.

'I want to go home,' she told him plaintively.

'You
need
to go somewhere where you can be looked after,' Guy responded dryly, 'and
that
is exactly where I am taking you. Come on....'

As he led her back to the car, Chrissie told herself that she was a fool for not taking her chance to escape from him whilst she had it, not, she suspected, that he would have let her get very far and she certainly didn't feel well enough physically to even
try
to out-run him.

As they got back in the car and he started the en-gine, she realised that he was driving away from the town. 'Where are we going?' she demanded again, uncertainly.

'I've just told you,' Guy responded calmly. 'Somewhere you and
our
baby will be looked after.'

Our
baby... She wanted to protest that
her
baby had nothing whatsoever to do with him but she was too drained to make the effort. They were in the country now, driving down narrow lanes bounded by high hedges, and then Guy was turning off the main road and into a narrow dirt track, through a farm gate and towards the farm itself.

Chrissie's eyes widened as she saw it. Unable to stop herself, she turned to Guy and exclaimed feebly,

'This was my grandparents' farm....'

'Yes,' Guy affirmed. 'My sister and her husband bought it last year,' he went on to explain. 'It isn't a working farm any more. All the land had been sold off and all that was left was a couple of paddocks.

My sister teaches disabled children to ride and so they needed the land for the ponies.'

'Your sister... How many have you got?' she asked him faintly.

'Five,' Guy told her dryly.

'Five!'

'You'll like her.'

'But you can't drive up and expect her... She won't—'

'She can and she will,' Guy corrected her, refrain-ing from adding that he had helped his sister and her husband buy the house with an interest-free loan or that even apart from that act of generosity he knew that his sister with her generous heart would never turn away someone in need.

'Is that her?' Chrissie asked nervously as she saw the tall, dark-haired woman emerging from the front door of the farmhouse as they drove up.

'That's her,' Guy confirmed laconically.

As Guy stopped the car, she came running towards it and immediately Chrissie could see the family resemblance between them. They shared the same strong bone structure and dark hair, and despite the fact that she was obviously in her early fifties, Guy's sister still had an enviably slim and fit-looking body.

'Guy,' she exclaimed fondly as he opened the car door. 'What a lovely surprise. Oh, and you've brought someone with you, as well. You must be Chrissie.'

She smiled as Chrissie looked uncertainly at her. 'I've heard about you from Frances.'

'Mmm...well, there's something that Frances
won't
have told you,' Guy began, but Chrissie placed her hand on his arm, pleading with her eyes for him not to say any more.

'Chrissie and I are not exactly the best of friends at the moment,' he told his sister calmly, 'as I'm sure she'll lose no time in telling you. But right now, she isn't feeling very well. She's been living in that wretched hovel of a cottage that Charlie Platt used to own. The walls are running with damp and I've never been convinced that the old cesspit those cottages were built over was ever sealed off properly.'

'Mmm...it always used to smell rather odd down there on hot summer days,' his sister mused whilst Chrissie listened to them in growing anxiety.

The cottages were old enough to have been built in the days when jerry-builders had thrown up houses as cheaply as they could and she herself had been aware of an unpleasant mustiness about the air in the cottage, which she had previously put down to the damp.

But supposing it was not. Supposing it was something more sinister...more dangerous and potentially harm-ful not just for her but for her baby, as well.

'You
do
look pale,' Guy's sister sympathised.

'Come inside and sit down. My name is Laura, by the way. Rick, my husband, is away at the moment trying to buy more ponies.'

'Guy said you taught disabled children to ride,'

Chrissie commented as she walked to the house, flanked on one side by Laura and on the other by Guy.

'Yes, I do, and we desperately need some more, but it isn't easy to find the right kind of mount.'

As Laura opened the front door, Chrissie hesitated, looking round at her surroundings.

'Chrissie's grandparents used to own the farm,'

Guy explained to his sister.

'Oh...' Laura frowned and then exclaimed, 'But that means—'

'That I'm a Platt,' Chrissie supplied with a tight smile. 'Well, yes, actually my mother
was
a Platt.

Charlie was her brother,' she added, holding her head up high, her chin jutting out firmly as she dared either of them to make a critical comment.

'Oh yes,' Laura remarked, but instead of looking disapproving, Laura's face lightened in a warm smile.

'Yes, of course,' she agreed. 'I remember your mother from school. She was completely different from Charlie, very quiet and studious.'

'Yes, she was, she still is,' Chrissie acknowledged, quietly refusing to give in to the temptation to look at Guy to see how he was reacting to this confirmation of her mother's character.

'Look after her for me,' Guy told his sister half an hour later when she saw him out to his car, leaving Chrissie in the house.

She raised a querying eyebrow, but when Guy simply shook his head, she knew better than to press for an explanation.

It was obvious that they had quarrelled and equally obvious, too, that Chrissie was both unwell and un-happy, and Laura was simply not the kind to pry into other people's unhappiness or to demand confidences, but the white-faced, hollow-eyed young woman who had accompanied her equally grim-faced brother this afternoon bore no resemblance whatsoever to the cou-pie Frances had described as being practically incan-descent with love for one another.

As Guy drove away, she retraced her steps to the farmhouse. She found her visitor where she had left her, staring out of the sitting-room window at the farm land beyond.

'I'm sorry that Guy has dumped me on you like this,' Chrissie apologised awkwardly to Laura. 'If could just call a taxi, I'll take myself off your hands.'

'It's more than my life's worth to let you do such a thing,' Laura countered humorously, adding more seriously, 'and besides, no matter how much we as women might quarrel with Guy's absurdly male high-handed behaviour, it
is
rather obvious that you aren't very well. We have plenty of room here, and in all honesty, I get lonely when my husband is away. You would be doing me a favour if you did stay for a few days. Guy's right about there being something pol-luted in the atmosphere in those cottages,' she remarked, shaking her head. 'I had a friend who lived in one and she was always ill.'

'I'm not ill,' Chrissie told her quietly. 'I think I'm pregnant. You must be shocked,' she added when Laura made no comment. 'I hadn't intended to tell you, but—'

'No, I'm not shocked,' Laura interrupted her, 'just rather envious. Rick and I have never been able to have children,' she explained, 'Of course, I'm too old now and well past the sharp unbearableness of the pain it used to cause me. My work has helped me with that and time.... Is the baby the cause of the problem you and Guy...?'

'No...not as such,' Chrissie replied, shaking her head. 'Although...' She stopped. Perhaps now was not the time to tell Guy's sister that she suspected it could be a problem later if Guy insisted on claiming his rights as a father as he had already threatened he would. 'No, the problem is that...' She took a deep breath before continuing. 'The problem is that we both rushed into a relationship without knowing enough about one another,' she said sadly.

'And now that you do, what you thought was love has turned out to be...not love...?' Laura guessed.

Chrissie gave her a painful smile and told her wryly, 'I
wish.
I'd rather not talk about it if you don't mind,' she said tiredly.

I don't mind in the least,' Laura assured her. 'I'll take you upstairs and show you where everything is, and then perhaps later when you're feeling a little more rested, we can drive into town and collect your things.'

'I t h o u g h t if you were feeling up to it, we might drive over to Fitzburgh Place this morning,' Laura commented.

'Why?' Chrissie demanded suspiciously.

'It was the official opening of the Antiques Fair yesterday, and I rather thought it might be fun to rifle through a few bric-a-brac stalls,' Laura said encouragingly.

'Yes, it would,' Chrissie replied truthfully.

She had been staying with Laura for two days now and had to admit that she couldn't have had a better hostess. They were both on the same wavelength, sharing a rather dry sense of humour. Laura supplied the relaxed and unselfconscious mothering that Chrissie knew she needed at the moment and in other circumstances she recognised that in Laura she would have found a friend she would want to keep for life.

But Laura was Guy's sister.

'No ulterior motives,' she challenged her.

'Not a single one,' Laura promised, adding, 'Guy
will
be there, of course, and if you feel you'd rather not go...'

Chrissie glanced through the kitchen window. It was a bright, sunny morning. She had woken up today without feeling sick and why should she deny herself and Laura a treat just because Guy was going to be there? Jon had almost completed the work on her late uncle's estate. It wouldn't be long before she would be able to return to her own life and, once there, she need never have to see Guy again.