When Only Diamonds Will Do (15 page)

N
EARLY
eight months later, Darcy said, ‘Wow, Kim, she’s really,
really
tiny!’ as he gingerly held a baby wrapped in a pink shawl.

‘They usually are,’ Reith murmured.

‘Well,
I
knew that but—oh, she’s going to cry. Here.’ Darcy handed the little bundle hastily back to Kim, who was sitting propped up in bed in the same hospital where her friend Penny had had her baby—a baby that had, in a sense, thrown Kim Theron and Reith Richardson together.

Kim laughed as she took her newborn daughter back. ‘No, she’s not, she’s just pulling a face.
OK
, guys! What are we going to call her?’

Reith looked down at her with his lips twitching. ‘If I’m any judge, you’ve decided that yourself.’

Kim grimaced. ‘
I
do have some ideas but I’m open to suggestions.’

Darcy looked at his father. Reith looked at his son.

Darcy said, ‘We might as well let her decide. Saves time.’

‘Yep,’ Reith concurred.

Kim sat up, looking indignant. ‘If you’re suggesting that I always like to get my own way—’

‘Always,’ her husband and stepson broke in to agree.

Her expression defied description for a moment but the baby made a soft little gurgle and Kim looked down at her with a different expression entirely, one of such warmth and radiance that it nearly took Reith’s breath away.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suspect you’ll attract a lot of names, sweetheart,
like
sweetheart, sweet pea, honey bunny, sugar bush, gorgeous—but to me you look like a Martha.’

Three months later, Martha Richardson was fast asleep, just, in her cot under the watchful eye of Mary Poppins, when her mother, dressed in a strapless sapphire gown that matched her eyes, descended the staircase at Clover Hill.

There was a spontaneous round of applause from the people grouped in the lounge. It was her birthday and her parents were there, Fiona in poppy-pink and looking
young and almost as elegant as her daughter; Frank Theron looking distinguished in a dinner suit.

Damien was there with the same blonde, Lavinia, Kim had seen him with at the races. They’d recently married and Lavinia wore the most amazing silver dress that moulded, and hid very little of, her figure. Her hair was dyed platinum, her nails and lips were painted black and she wore a quantity of rhinestones in flamboyant jewellery. In spite of all this, she and Kim had made friends and Kim had decided that she was a shrewd, practical person and she certainly seemed to have turned Damien round.

Reith and Damien could not be described as mates, as Reith had predicted, but at least they mixed with an apparent lack of hostility nowadays, and it was the same with her father and Reith. Her mother, who’d always had plenty of respect for Reith, was now completely won over.

Pippa Longreach was there, in all shades of peacock-blue. She’d ditched Lachlan and gone to the other extreme, a man thirty years older but with a lot—make that a
lot
, she’d assured Kim—of money.

Bill and Molly Lawson were there.

Darcy was there, combed and ferociously clean.

And there was Reith, looking impossibly, darkly attractive in his dinner suit and snowy shirt, watching her come down in a way that made her stumble slightly.

How does he do it? she wondered. How does he still manage to make me feel sexy just by looking at me?

‘Sorry,’ she said lightly, ‘I didn’t mean to keep you waiting but Miss Martha has only just decided to go to
sleep. Hello, Mum.’ She walked up to her mother and hugged her. ‘You look wonderful.’

‘So do you, sweetheart, happy birthday!’

It was a happy dinner.

Mary Hiddens had forgiven Reith and moved over to Clover Hill, and she excelled herself on Kim’s birthday dinner.

Then, just after the dessert had been cleared, Martha woke up, but not because she was cold, wet or hungry. So Kim brought her downstairs, where she put on, for a three-month-old, a bravura performance, smiling, gurgling and absolutely captivating all the guests.

‘I’m not sure that this is such a good idea,’ Kim said rather ruefully to Reith.

He looked down at her, ‘Well, I’ve got the feeling she’s going to be as much of a show-stopper as her mother.’

‘I am not,’ Kim denied.

‘You are and I adore you for it,’ he said quite casually, as if he was talking about the price of eggs. ‘For example, if you hadn’t danced into the middle of the road exposing your legs, I might never have met you.’

‘You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?’

He shrugged. ‘Possibly not. Look at that,’ he added with a smile in his voice as he gestured.

Kim looked in the direction he’d indicated and her eyes fell on Darcy, now holding his half-sister with a lot more confidence. If there was one person Martha loved above all, it was Darcy.

Kim felt a wonderful, warm glow flow through her
as she watched the baby and the boy. Now that’s an achievement, she thought.

‘What’s this?’ she said to Reith when all the guests had gone home, when Darcy was asleep and Martha was too, and Mary had closed herself into her own quarters.

‘You may not have noticed but I didn’t give you a birthday present,’ he replied.

They were sitting on the veranda in the moonlight with the heady scent of the roses around them, having an Irish coffee. They had a candle in a glass on the table beside them.

‘You’ve given me so much, Reith! I don’t need a birthday present.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he contradicted. ‘You need this, anyway.’ And he put a velvet box tied with silver ribbon down on the table beside her.

Kim drew a careful breath, untied the ribbon and flicked open the box.

It was a ring, an exquisite square sapphire surrounded by diamonds on a gold band.

Reith got up and took the ring out of the box. Then he lifted her left hand and slipped it onto her ring finger on top of her wedding band.

She stared down at it, then looked up at him, and she didn’t resist when he pulled her to her feet.

‘Thank you,’ she said huskily. ‘It’s beautiful.’

He drew her into his arms and said against her hair, ‘I wish I could tell you how much I love you.’

‘You have. You do.’

‘So that you believe me, I mean. So that you never feel you have to run away because I don’t love you.’

‘Reith, I believe you,’ she said, then smiled up at him. ‘I really,
really
believe you.’

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

^®
and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with
^®
are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Lindsay Armstrong 2012

ISBN: 978-1-408-97445-2