High Society (31 page)

An hour later she was tucked up in one of her great-aunt’s spare beds, in a large chilly bedroom, while her own mother, Marcus’s mother and Beatrice all vied with one another to say excitedly that they had had their suspicions but of course hadn’t wanted to say so.

Lucy lay motionless in the cold bed, trying to come to terms with what her great-aunt’s doctor, summoned from his house around the corner, had just told her.

A baby. She was having Marcus’s baby. Why hadn’t she guessed?

‘Of course I was just the same,’ Lucy heard her mother pronouncing. ‘Just the same with both Lucy and Piers. So I had already guessed.’

‘Well, I felt sure the moment I saw Lucy at Midnight Mass,’ Marcus’s mother insisted, not to be outdone. ‘She had that unmistakable look about her.’

Lucy closed her eyes and let the tears seep out from under her eyelids. She felt so tired, so shocked...and Johnny’s comment about Andrew Walker had—

Andrew Walker!

She struggled to sit up.

‘Lucy, dear, do lie down.’

‘Where’s Marcus?’ she demanded.

‘Dr Holland said that you were to have a rest and that you must eat a little more.

‘A good nourishing soup is what she needs.’

‘Chicken broth.’

‘Oh, yes. Nanny always used to say that chicken broth cured anything.’

Miserably, Lucy closed her eyes and let sleep claim her. The next time she woke up Marcus was seated beside the bed.

‘Oh, Marcus...’

More tears. It must be her hormones. Marcus was holding one of her hands with both of his own.

‘Marcus, we’re going to have a baby.’

‘Yes, I know.’

Still more tears.

‘How do you feel about it?’ he asked her.

Lucy looked at him.

‘I...I’m glad that I’m having your baby. How do
you
feel about it?’

‘I feel that I want to take you in my arms and hold you there for ever,’ he told her simply. ‘I love you.’

‘Marcus!’ Lucy stared at him in disbelief. Surely she must be imagining she had just heard him say those words?

‘You love me?’ she said shakily. ‘But...’

‘Yes, I love you, Lucy. Even if I’ve been too much of a fool to recognise what was happening to me, never mind admit it. I love you so much. I want to beg you to let me show you how much. I know you’d rather be with Blayne—’

‘No! Never!’ Lucy interrupted emphatically. ‘I still can’t believe that you love me, Marcus. I knew you wanted me in bed...’ Her face suddenly turned pink. ‘Nick might have said that I was sexless and boring because I was a virgin, but you made me feel like a woman, Marcus.’

She looked longingly at him, and then said huskily, ‘Oh, Marcus, I don’t want to divorce you—and I certainly don’t want to be with Nick.’ She gave a small shudder. ‘It gave me such a shock when I saw him at the airport. I hoped that he hadn’t seen me, but then he came over and he said—’ She broke off and bit her lip.

‘I’m glad it’s just you here with me,’ she told him. ‘I felt so tired when our mothers and Beatrice were here. They all said that they had guessed—but I hadn’t. I thought I felt so sick all the time because...’

‘Because of Andrew Walker?’ Marcus prompted her.

‘Oh, Marcus! I haven’t told you... I haven’t explained...’

‘It’s all right, Lucy. I know what’s been going on. At least, I think I do,’ he told her gently. ‘I’ve just been having a long talk with your cousin Johnny, and he told me about how Walker asked him to introduce you to him, and how he wanted to invest in Prêt a Party.’

‘Is he really going to go to prison for a long time?’

‘A very long time, according to George. It seems that the authorities have known what he’s been up to for a while, but they’ve had to wait to get enough information together to convict him and the other members of the gang.’

‘George? What does he know about it? I thought he was a civil servant.’

‘He is—he’s a mandarin in the Home Office. That’s the department responsible for granting work visas and immigration documents,’ he added dryly.

Lucy gave him an old-fashioned look.

‘I do know that. I’m not dumb. Marcus, I’ve been so scared. Andrew Walker wanted Prêt a Party so that he could use it to launder money and give work to the illegal immigrants he was bringing into the country. Nick was involved as well...’ Lucy shuddered.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Was it because you wanted to protect Blayne?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t care what happens to Nick,’ she told him, bluntly and truthfully. ‘I should never have married him, Marcus. I only did because...’

‘Because what?’

‘Because I loved you so much and you didn’t want me, and I was scared that I might do something silly, like burst into your office and beg you to make love to me. I thought that if I had a husband it would make me start behaving like an adult and not like a teenager with a silly crush. And besides, I’d felt such an idiot still being a virgin, because I didn’t want to do it with anyone else but you... Marcus?’ she whispered shakily. ‘You’re crying.’

‘Lucy, Lucy.’ He was holding her tightly, his voice muffled against her hair as he rocked her in his arms.

‘Well, you wouldn’t have liked me still being a virgin,’ she told him practically. ‘Nick didn’t. And marrying Nick didn’t work at all—it just made me want you even more. And when Nick didn’t want to have sex with me I was glad.’

‘Lucy, why didn’t you tell me about Walker?’

‘It didn’t seem important. Not at first. And then...then it was too late. I didn’t realise what he was involved in or what was going to happen until Dorland told me—and even then I just thought that once I’d told Andrew Walker I wasn’t interested in a partnership with him... But he wanted Prêt a Party, and he told me that he wasn’t going to let anything or anyone stand in his way. Not even you...especially not you.

‘He knew about Prêt a Party before Johnny told him, too. Nick had told him. When Nick saw me at the airport when we came back off honeymoon, he told me that Andrew Walker and he had sent that video. Oh, Marcus. I was so frightened.’

‘And I saw you with Blayne and I thought...’

‘I would have thought the same thing.’ Lucy tried to comfort him when she saw how angry with himself he looked.

‘I thought you’d decided that you wanted him and not me,’ Marcus told her ruefully.

‘No. Like I said, I never wanted him.’

‘And you married him because of me,’ Marcus couldn’t stop himself from saying bleakly.

‘Yes, I did,’ Lucy admitted. ‘And that was a dreadful thing for me to do, Marcus, because I was cheating on him just as he went on to cheat on me. I knew I could never love Nick the way I do you when I married him. I met Nick and he seemed to like me and I just thought... But it never worked, and that was my fault. Because I never loved him. I just married him because I didn’t want to be a nuisance to you. And then I wanted to protect you from Andrew Walker. He told me that he’d arranged for you to be mugged in Leeds. He said that he would kill you unless I left you and let him have a partnership in Prêt a Party... Oh, don’t, Marcus,’ Lucy protested as she saw the shine of emotion in his eyes. ‘Please don’t...’

‘Lucy, I’m the one who is supposed to protect you. Not the other way around. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, my sweet little love.’

‘Your love?’ Lucy repeated wonderingly.

‘My love—my one and only and for ever love,’ Marcus agreed tenderly. ‘And before we go any further just let me tell you one thing. Regardless of anything else—Andrew Walker, Nick Blayne, even our baby—I love you. I know that now. And I know too that I always will love you. Nothing can ever change that, and nothing will ever change that.’

‘Oh, Marcus!’

EPILOGUE

One year later.

‘S
O
,
LET
me propose a toast, to my wife, Lucy, Business Woman of the Year, mother of my son—and holder of my heart,’ Marcus added in a lower, deeper voice that only Lucy could hear as all around them everyone else raised their glasses and cheered.

‘I would never have had the courage to set up a new business if it hadn’t been for you, Marcus,’ Lucy told him lovingly.

‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Lucy. You are an extremely talented woman. Junior Prêt a Party proves that.’

‘I wonder what Andrew Walker would think if he knew how I’d used his idea,’ Lucy said mischievously. ‘It had never occurred to me before he suggested it to even think of franchising event hire, and yet really it was so obvious. And with a baby of my own, I could see that there was a real need for women to help one another organising children’s parties and christenings, and for passing on not just their expertise but also practical things, like marquees, clothes, party costumes, everything. It just makes so much sense for mothers to gather together and share the cost of everything they need for parties and to plan them together in a group. That way every child within that group gets the party they want and every mother knows she has a team of supporters she can turn to.’

‘And all for a very modest annual payment.’

‘Well, it was a real brainwave of yours to ask Carly and Ricardo to get involved, and Julia and Silas. With the charity funding Ricardo and Silas give us, and the young people from Ricardo’s orphanages who we help to train as nursery and ancillary workers, we’re not just providing parties for children but we’re providing education and work as well.’

‘Like I said you are a very clever woman,’ Marcus repeated.

‘I was certainly clever enough to fall in love with you.’ Lucy agreed.

* * * * *

ISBN: 9781459245600

HIGH SOCIETY
Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Books S.A.

The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:

EXPECTING THE PLAYBOY’S HEIR
Copyright © 2005 by Penny Jordan

BLACKMAILING THE SOCIETY BRIDE
Copyright © 2005 by Penny Jordan

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