Woman to Woman (63 page)

“She’s fantastic Mark said in awe, staring at her as though he’d never seen a baby before.

“A daddy’s girl already,” said Jo with a smile.

Half an hour later, the baby was sleeping peacefully in her crib when Claire came into the brightly painted hospital room Jo had been wheeled into.

“You need to get some rest,” she told Jo.

“I’m exhausted,” Jo admitted, ‘but could I have a cup of tea, please?”

“Yes. Do you want one too?” Claire asked Mark.

“I’d kill for some tea,” he replied gratefully.

“She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” Jo gazed into the cot beside her bed where the baby lay sleeping.

“How could she be anything else when she’s got the most gorgeous mother in the world?” Mark sat on the edge of the chair beside Jo’s bed and leaned over towards her.

“I had this all planned,” he said.

“We were going to leave the Shelbourne early and get the limo to drive us up to the cottage, where I have candles, champagne, flowers and the CD player with your favourite Mariah Carey CD all ready to swing into action. And then,” he paused and looked at Jo intently, his grey eyes warm with love, “I was going to ask you to marry me.

So will you marry me?” he asked softly, so as not to wake the baby.

“I think this is the perfect moment, with our daughter asleep beside us.”

He fumbled around the inside pocket of his dinner jacket which lay on the chair behind him. A moment later he produced a small navy leather box, opened it, and offered it to Jo.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” she breathed, stunned by the square-cut emerald surrounded by tiny diamonds. As she moved the box, the little diamonds twinkled in the light.

She looked up at Mark.

“Oh Mark, thank you so much. I do. I will. Whatever!”

She’d never loved him more than at this moment, with stubble darkening his jaw, eyes red-rimmed, his face pale with tiredness and strain. He’d been with her for the birth of the baby, their baby. She was Mark’s child, there was no doubt in her mind about that. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the mouth.

“I’m so glad. I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time, but it had to be the right moment.”

Jo grinned tiredly as she lay back on her pillows.

“I think we can safely say that we’ll never forget this moment she said.

The door swung open and Claire arrived in with a small pot of tea and two cups.

“Your friend is still outside. She can come in for a moment if you’d like.”

“Mark, go and get Aisling,” said Jo. Tell her we’ve some news for her. “

Do I look OK?” Jo twisted and turned in front of the mirror in her bedroom. Did her bum look too big in the cream brocade suit? The slim fitted jacket flattered her curves and the combination of the long straight skirt and high-heeled cream boots made her look like an elegant Edwardian lady. Or at least it had when she tried it on in Amanda Wakeley’s shop in London. But now she wasn’t so sure.

It wasn’t the traditional wedding dress, but as she and Mark weren’t having the traditional church wedding, she preferred a low-key outfit to go with the simple civil service. A ceremony attended by their close family and a small reception in the beautiful estate in Enniskerry’s Powerscourt was what they’d both wanted.

The ceremony was at three. It was still only half one, there was plenty of time for last-minute panic attacks about whether her outfit looked all right and would she have to insist that Ralph, the photographer, doctor the wedding pictures to make her look slimmer.

Jo examined herself in the mirror. She was still a little pale, even though she’d used at least half a ton of bronzing powder.

But at least she’d lost most of the weight she’d put on carrying Isabel.

If only her bum was as slim as it had been before she’d got pregnant, then she’d be totally happy. But you couldn’t really tell thanks to those lycra-panelled knickers that sucked everything in.

Her dark hair was piled up on top of her head. A few tendrils clustered around her face. Jo fiddled with these curls restlessly.

“You look great, stop worrying.” Aisling looked up from the bed where

she was trying to undo Isabel’s baby gro to change her nappy. At three months old, Isabel Ryan was a very energetic young lady and enjoyed nothing more than wriggling madly when she was having her clothes put on or taken off, kicking the undresser in lots of painful places.

“Let me, Ash.” Jo got down on her knees beside the bed and took over from Aisling.

“How’s my Isabel?” she cooed, kissing her daughter’s snub nose. The baby squealed with delight and kicked harder as Jo tried to ease her tiny feet out of the cream to welling outfit.

“Don’t kick Mummy in the tummy, pet. Now you’ve got to be very, very good while Mummy gets ready to marry Daddy,” murmured Jo, as she expertly undid the baby gro and unfastened the nappy.

“Won’t you be good, Isabel?” she asked.

Isabel responded with another couple of uncoordinated kicks and a happy gurgle.

“She’s a love.” Aisling sat on the edge of the bed and watched, with more than a hint of longing in her own voice.

“Isn’t she just?” Jo said proudly.

“We’ve been so lucky with her. When I went to the creche for the first time last week, three of the mothers there couldn’t believe it when I told them how good Isabel is. I think they think I’m making it up to make them jealous.”

“Not many babies sleep solidly-for eight hours at night.”

Aisling opened her handbag and pretended to search for her lipstick. She had to get over the maternal feelings which tore at her heart every time she held Jo’s little daughter in her arms.

The twins were awful for sleeping. I’d get Phillip off to sleep when Paul would wake up, or vice versa.”

Aisling outlined her lips with lip pencil and then applied the deep pink colour which went perfectly with the fitted dusky rose wool trouser-suit she was wearing.

It was just as well she’d worn the long-sleeved pale pink body underneath, she thought. It was the coldest day in February, freezing

winds whipped around Jo and Mark’s cottage in the Dublin mountains. “Come on, darling, help Mummy put your dress on,” Jo was saying softly.

“I’ll help,” Aisling offered, seeing the difficulties Jo was having trying to slip the cream silk overdress, the same colour as her own elegant suit, over Isabel’s head. By the time Jo finally managed to put the cream bonnet with the silk ribbons on her daughter’s dark hair, Isabel looked like a baby from an eighteenth-century French painting.

“All we need are Marie Antoinette’s shepherdess’s dresses, bonnets and a couple of sheep and we’re all set to be hung in the National Gallery,” Aisling said with a laugh before extracting a camera from her handbag.

“Smile!”

“We’ve got half an hour before the car comes so I decided to open one of the bottles of champagne Mark left in the kitchen.” Laura Ryan appeared at the bedroom door with a tray, three glasses and a bottle of Cristal.

“Champagne.” cried Jo in delight.

“My favourite. Mum, I didn’t know there was any champagne in the house.”

“Your husband-to-be is highly organised,” her mother replied with a smile.

“He told me about the case before he left and said he’d hidden a Chocolate Orange in the cupboard under the sink for you to go with it.”

“Oh.” Jo sighed appreciatively.

“He knows I love Chocolate orange.”

“With champagne?” asked Aisling.

“With anything.” Jo and her mother laughed at exactly the same time. Aisling was struck again by how alike the two women were. There was no way you’d ever think that the lithe and darkhaired Laura Ryan was a grandmother, never mind the mother of grown-up children.

“Let me take Isabel.” Laura picked up her granddaughter with delight. Isabel gurgled happily and blew bubbles at her adoring granny.

Jo draped a towel across her mother’s shoulder so she could cuddle Isabel without ruining her wedding outfit with dribbles.

“Granny has to look good in front of your daddy’s relatives,”

Laura explained as she adjusted the towel.

“You look fantastic, Mum.” said Jo sharply. “There won’t be anyone there to hold a candle to you. Anyway, I told you that Mark’s family is very nice. His sister, Denise, is lovely, although I have no idea where she got that little bitch Emma from,” Jo added thoughtfully.

“She’s the only one I was worried about. I could picture her making snide remarks all day, but not any more. She knows what side her bread is buttered on now Jo added vehemently.

Tell me, what’s happened?” demanded Aisling, agog.

Jo abandoned all pretence of putting on her eyeliner.

“Well,” she said with a definite glint in her eye, “I went into the office last week with my copy and I had Isabel with me, of course. That little cow was there, sitting in my seat as cool as a cucumber and she’d dumped all my stuff on top of my filing cabinet. She didn’t expect to see me, I can tell you.” Jo grinned triumphantly.

“She went puce and started moving her stuff off the desk quickly. I went in to talk to Rhona and when I came out she was on the phone bitching about me.”

“I don’t believe it.” said Aisling.

“How stupid can she be, talking about you like that when you were there.”

Jo shrugged. That girl is a real mystery to me. Sometimes she’s so smart and bitchy, and other times she comes across like a complete fool. Anyway,” she took a sip of champagne, “I waited until she was off the phone, let Rhona take Isabel, then I called Emma into Rhona’s office. I told her that I knew exactly what sort of person she was, and I said that even though I didn’t believe in throwing my weight around normally, she’d better watch out when I came back to work.

“You may be Mark’s niece,” I told her.

“But I’ll be his wife. You figure it out.” That shut her up.”

Aisling and Laura howled with laughter.

“Well done Laura said, “I’m proud of you.”

That’s priceless. I’d have loved to have seen her face said

“You will. She’s going to be at the reception Jo pointed out.

“But just wait till you see how nice she is to me. She didn’t think I had it in me to be hard, but she knows better now.”

“You could never be hard, Jo.” Aisling said.

“Not in a million years.”

Jo considered this as she screwed the lid off her mascara tube.

“I’ve wise ned up, maybe that’s it.”

“Haven’t we all?” Aisling thought of the past year and all the changes it had brought to her life. In a short period of time, she’d gone from being a depressed married woman to being a fulfilled working mother who’d managed to set up her own company, and hold down another job, and look after her beloved twin sons on her own into the bargain. She’d certainly toughened up.

, She’d even managed to exorcise Michael’s memory thanks to Sam. The affair had been wonderful at first. It had turned into a bit of a nightmare at the very end. Aisling cast her mind back to the day after the charity ball, the day she’d told Sam to get out of her life for good.

She’d just got home after dropping some things into the hospital for Jo and was about to start dinner when the doorbell rang. It was five in the afternoon, the boys were watching TV and she wasn’t expecting any visitors.

“It’s Sam announced Phillip. He stuck his head around the kitchen door.

Just what she didn’t need. After last night’s confrontation, she could do without another one. She was sick and tired of Sam Delaney. She opened the freezer to see what she could defrost for dinner and waited for Sam to come looking for her.

When he didn’t appear, she went into the sitting room.

“Where is he?” she asked in a puzzled voice.

“Outside,” Phillip said innocently.

Aisling glared at him.

“Why didn’t you open the door?” she demanded. Before Phillip could answer, the doorbell rang again.

“I thought you weren’t going to let me in Sam said, when she opened the front door.

That was just Phillip playing games she said tiredly, leading the way into the kitchen.

“Little brat.” Sam’s voice was harsh.

Aisling whirled around in fury.

“Don’t you dare call my son names. Who the hell do you think you are?” she yelled.

“Jesus, Aisling. Don’t fly off the handle,” Sam said, taken aback.

“It’s only a comment, I’m sorry. Look, I’m here to apologise for last night, so why don’t I do a double apology?

Sorry for flying off the handle last night and sorry for saying your son is a b … sorry,” he said lamely.

“What’s wrong, Mum?” demanded Paul, rushing into the kitchen with Phillip on his heels. The pair of them stared at Sam accusingly.

“What’s he said now?” Phillip’s furious face was so like Michael’s, it was uncanny.

“Will we throw him out, Mum?” asked Paul.

Aisling felt her heart burst with pride. Her little heroes, ready to take on a grown-up three times their size just to protect her. She went over and hugged them both. They were growing up so quickly, in a couple of years they’d be as tall as she was.

“No, boys, it’s OK.”

Paul relaxed at her words, but Phillip’s body was still tensed as if he was ready to fight. He moved out of her embrace and looked up at Sam steadily.

“Our dad isn’t here, but don’t think you can boss Mum around,” he hissed.

“We don’t like you. Why don’t you go back to America?”

“Yeah, why not?” said Paul.

Aisling was stunned. She had no idea that the twins disliked Sam so much. She’d thought they got on all right with him.

But when she cast her mind back over the few times when the four of them had been together, she realised that when they all went to McDonald’s or the cinema, both boys sat on her side, never beside Sam. Funny, she’d never thought about that before.

“It’s all right, boys,” she said.

“Everything is fine, everything is going to be fine.” She smiled at Phillip.

“Go on and watch the TV. We’ll have dinner in an hour. “As they left, Sam dragged out a kitchen chair from the table and sat down with a thump.

“You’re ruining those boys, ruining them because you’re guilty about being separated he said in his mid-Atlantic drawl. Aisling realised that she hated the way he spoke, his American twang suddenly sounded so false.