Lindsay Armstrong - Having His Babies

‘Just coming up, Mr Hewitt. Stay there.’

It was just as well that he did, because while she was making the coffee that insidiously unwell feeling gripped her seriously, so much so that she had to dash for the bathroom where she painfully lost what little of her dinner she had eaten.

It had to be morning sickness, she told herself incredulously as she rested her cheek against the cool of the bathroom mirror. But at night? And tonight of all nights—she couldn’t believe it.

She waited for a couple of minutes but the nausea seemed to have passed and she cautiously went back to the kitchen. But Lachlan was still on the veranda, gazing out over the sea.

‘This is Blue Mountain coffee,’ she murmured presently. ‘Who knows? I could shortly be serving you Rosemont Premium Blend.’

‘Not shortly. It would take a few years, at least.’

They sat in silence over their coffee for a few minutes, Clare sipping hers carefully in case it made her nauseous. Added to this she was in a bit of a whirl as she tried to get to grips with the suddenly tension-shot atmosphere that seemed to have developed between them.

Without stopping to think, she said abruptly, ‘Do you ever see Serena when you’re in Sydney?’

He looked at her. ‘Sometimes. Why?’

‘I just wondered.’ She shrugged. ‘How is it going for her?’

He paused. ‘What brought this up?’

‘Nothing really. If you’d rather not talk about it that’s fine with me.’

‘Serena,’ he said deliberately, ‘is enjoying to the full the jet-setting life-style she believes I denied her.’

Clare blinked at him. ‘She didn’t enjoy...Rosemont? ’

‘No. She felt buried alive. So she said.’

‘That ... No.’ She looked away.

‘Say it, Clare.’

She took a breath and sat up straighter as a little flame of annoyance licked through her at his tone. If anyone had the right to be curious, surely she did, she thought. ‘It sounds to me as if a fuller investigation of your life-style preferences might have been a good idea before you got married,’ she murmured coolly.

‘How right you are,’ he drawled.

She just looked at him.

‘But if you’d ever met her you might have understood that at the time they didn’t seem to matter—particularly if you were a man.’

‘I ... I did see her once,’ she said involuntarily.

His eyes glinted with mockery—self-directed? she wondered. He said, ‘Then I may not have to spell it out for you.’

No, she thought, and coloured for some reason as she recalled sleek blonde hair, long-lashed cornflower-blue eyes, an aristocratic little nose and lots of smooth golden skin exposed in a mini-dress that did little to hide a sensational figure. Plus, she mused, a definite air of combined hauteur and come-hitherness that would be hard for most men to resist.

‘I see,’ she said at length.

He smiled unamusedly. ‘A very lawyerly comment.’

‘Lachlan—’ She stopped, and stopped herself from simply saying, I’m pregnant, Lachlan. That’s why I’m curious although I probably always have been. It’s my own fault that this happened but—what do you suggest we do?

‘Clare?’ he said after a moment.

‘I’m tired. I have got a big day tomorrow, that’s all.’

He looked at her ironically. ‘My marching orders in other words?’

‘I didn’t say so but if that’s how you want to take it, yes,’ she said bleakly. ‘We don’t seem to be...enjoying each other’s company much at the moment, do we?’

‘There’s an old saying about too much excitement and high spirits causing tears before bedtime.’

‘Don’t patronize me, Lachlan, I’m not in the same league as your seven-year-old son,’ she warned tightly. ‘Anyway, you started it.’

‘He’s eight now and you were more than happy to play along. However—’ he rose and kissed her lightly on the forehead ‘—before this gets out of hand and becomes a sordid little “domestic”, I’ll say goodnight, Ms Montrose.’

He stood over her for a long moment, staring down at her enigmatically. But Clare only gazed back at him mutinously. And he turned on his heel and walked out.

She lay on her bed, dry-eyed but distraught.

For once in her well-ordered life she had not so much as rinsed a dish or removed anything from the table on the veranda. The mere thought of anything to do with food, particularly leftover, cold food, was anathema to her. But the thought of how disastrously the evening had ended was worse.

A sordid little ‘domestic’, she thought bleakly. But what had really started it? Things had seemed to deteriorate before she’d mentioned Serena. So it went back to his trip to the States, she supposed. Yet he’d never before even suggested they go away together and he must have known a business trip for him wouldn’t particularly appeal to her—unless he’d decided he needed a more available, amenable mistress?

The thought shook her and chilled her to the bone.

But in line with his obvious distaste for any kind of domestic dispute as well as his clear reluctance to discuss his ex-wife with her, what else was she supposed to think? she asked herself sadly.

And just how would he react if he knew that what she really longed for at this moment was not some jaunt halfway around the world, but to be able to curl up next to him, feeling warm and safe, with no thought of work, no decisions to make other than what they were going to call this baby because he had everything else under control?

She sighed and, for the first time since she’d found out she was pregnant, let her mind wander...

A girl? Well, a girl would be ideal, seeing as he already had a boy, but then again Sean might prefer a brother. If she had to do this on her own, though, perhaps a girl would be easier—how crazy was that, Clare Montrose? she chided herself. She had no choice; the baby’s gender was decided. And, whatever happened, it was hers...

Valerie Martin popped in to see her a couple of mornings later, a Saturday. She had heard nothing from Lachlan in the interim and wasn’t even sure whether he was still in the country.

‘How’s it going, Clare?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Clare said cautiously. ‘Come in and sit down for a moment. I think I may have started this morning sickness bit but—it was at night and I had had some curry so—’

Valerie laughed. ‘Millions of Indian women have curry as a staple diet and morning sickness at night is quite common. Welcome to the club!’

Clare grimaced. ‘It just came on out of the blue; it was a pretty lousy experience but once it was over I felt fine again, well—relatively fine. It was also two nights ago and I haven’t actually been sick since although...’ She gestured.

‘That sounds par for the course. By the way, I forgot to tell you that your first scan should be at about eighteen weeks—I can make all the arrangements but if you’d prefer to transfer to an obstetrician I can refer you to one.’

Clare gazed at Valerie Martin, who had four children herself, she knew, and who was assuming the proportions of a lifeline as someone she respected and liked as well as someone who knew some of the background of this pregnancy. ‘Do I have to?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I’d much rather stick with you.’

She paused and contemplated the sudden and alien thought of scans, hospitals, the sheer invasion of physical privacy that was about to descend on her, and paled slightly.

Valerie’s face softened as she watched this knowledge come to Clare Montrose, who, she had no doubt, was a very private woman.

She said, ‘Here‘s what we could do. In case, just in case of any complications, we could engage an obstetrician to be on standby. I would handle the bulk of your pregnancy—no pun intended,’ she said humorously, ‘and he would see you a couple of times as well as conducting the ultrasound scans, and be on call for the delivery. That covers all eventualities but it’s quite likely he won’t be needed.’