Judith McWilliams - Another Man's Baby

Ginny stared at Lydia in horrified disbelief. Daughter! Last daughter! Creon not only had a wife tucked away in Greece while he was seducing Beth, but he had children!

“Umm, Ginny...” Philip began, not liking the glint in Ginny’s eye.

Ginny ignored him. “How many daughters do you have, Lydia?”

“Three,” Lydia said. “Maria is three, Ianthe is two, and little Jasmine is just five months old.”

One month older than Damon! Impotent fury poured through Ginny. If she could have somehow gotten her hands on Creon, she would have cheerfully throttled him.

“Damon looks very Greek,” Lydia observed with a sideways glance at Philip.

Philip winced at the accusation he could see in Lydia’s eyes. He didn’t want his sister to think that he was the kind of heedless, selfish man who would get a woman pregnant and allow his child to be born a bastard. But the alternative was to tell her what Ginny was claiming, and that was unthinkable.

Telling himself that once he had pried the real name of Damon’s father out of Ginny he would tell Lydia the truth, he took a deep breath and forced out the lie. “I think he looks a lot like me.”

As if on cue, Damon emitted an angry howl.

Ginny gave Philip a limpid smile. “He certainly acts like you.”

“Poor little thing,” Lydia sympathized. “He sounds very unhappy.”

“He needs to be changed, some food and a nap—in that order,” Ginny said.

“If you’d feed him something with a little bulk to it, he wouldn’t always be hungry,” Philip muttered.

Lydia ignored him. “I will take you to the nursery. It should have everything you need.”

Ginny followed Lydia, feeling as if she’d done nothing but trail along behind people since she’d arrived in Greece. Unable to resist the impulse, she glanced over her shoulder at Philip. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, although with the window at his back, she couldn’t tell if he were watching them or not. He was simply a large, dark form looming in the middle of the room.

Like Nemesis. Her own personal Nemesis. Ginny resisted the childish impulse to stick out her tongue at him.

Lydia glanced from Ginny back to Philip and said, “You must love him very much.”

“My feelings for your brother are very strong,” Ginny said with absolute sincerity.

Lydia patted Ginny’s arm comfortingly. “Do not worry. He will do his duty by you. I will call the family.”

“The family?” Ginny said weakly, not liking the sound of that. This scenario needed less players, not more.

Lydia nodded emphatically. “Mama and my sisters. They will talk to Philip.”

He had mentioned sisters when he’d explained the nursery in his apartment, Ginny remembered. At the time she’d been too tired to wonder about it. “How many sisters do you have?”

“Five. We are all older than Philip.”

“I can imagine that he would have been enough to deter your parents from trying again.”

Lydia looked at Ginny uncertainly as if not sure how she was supposed to respond. Finally, she gave an unsteady gurgle of laughter—as if laughing weren’t something she did very often. As it probably wasn’t, Ginny thought. Having been married to a man like Creon would have squelched even a confirmed optimist’s sense of humor.

“Please don’t call the family, Lydia.”

“But Philip must do his duty toward you,” Lydia protested.

“I most emphatically don’t want a man to ‘do his duty toward me.’” Ginny wrinkled her nose in distaste at the idea.

Lydia sighed. “Yes, duty is cold comfort. But if you do not want to marry Philip then why did you come to Greece?”

Ginny felt like screaming in frustration. How could such a simple thing like going to see Damon’s grandfather have evolved into such a complicated tangle of lies?

For once, Ginny was relieved when Damon started to cry, because Lydia seemed to forget her question.

“Come. The nursery is this way. I will introduce you to Nanny who looks after Jasmine. Miss Welbourne is the older girls’ governess, but she and they are spending a few weeks in Paris with my mother.”

Ginny felt anger bubble through her. Lydia had a nanny and a governess and, undoubtedly, a staff of servants to run this palatial villa, while poor Beth had had to move in with Ginny because she couldn’t afford to keep her own apartment while she wasn’t teaching. Ginny glanced over at Lydia’s sad face and her anger deepened, becoming all the stronger because she didn’t have anyone to vent it on. None of this mess was Lydia’s fault. In a way, she was as much Creon’s victim as Beth was.

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