Liz Fielding - The Five-Year Baby Secret

Even now her father, having said what he thought she wanted to hear, had lost interest, returning to the perusal of the mail. He’d picked up an envelope that, in her rush, she hadn’t noticed and her heart sank as she saw the Hanover logo on the envelope.

‘Don’t they ever give up?’ she demanded, glad of a legitimate focus for her anger.

Any other morning she’d have sorted through the post and weeded it out, protecting him from harassment by a hate-filled woman whose sole ambition appeared to be driving them out of business. Out of the village. Off the face of the earth.

‘I’d sell out to a developer, let someone build houses on this land, before I’d let Katherine Hanover have it,’ she said.

‘Chance would be a fine thing. With Katherine on the Parish Council no one is ever going to get planning permission to build on Gilbert land,’ her father replied, as calm as she was angry, but then he’d never once got angry.

She wished he would. Rage. Shout. Give vent to his feelings. But he never would say anything bad about the woman. If he still felt sorry for her, she thought, his feelings were seriously misplaced.

‘Not when she wants it for herself,’ Fleur said bitterly.

There was a wonderful old barn on the edge of their land that hadn’t been used for anything but storage in years. It was perfect for conversion into one of those upmarket country homes she’d seen featured in the glossy magazines; selling it would have solved a great many of their problems.

The Parish Council, egged on by Katherine Hanover, had decided it was a historic building. They’d not only refused planning permission for conversion, but had warned them that if they allowed it to fall into disrepair they could be fined.

‘Maybe I should get involved in local politics,’ Fleur said. ‘I could at least cancel out the Hanover vote.’

‘That would be in your spare time, I suppose,’ he said, with a rare smile.

‘I could give up doing the ironing,’ she said, glad to have amused him. ‘It would be a sacrifice, but I could do it.’

‘That’s better. I thought you were going wobbly on me there for a minute.’

‘Who, me? Never.’

As he returned to the letter he was holding, his smile faded as if he didn’t have the strength to sustain it. Like his body, it had been worn away under a continual onslaught of betrayal, grief and financial worries, giving her reason—if she needed it—to hate the Hanovers just that bit more.

‘Don’t open it,’ she said. ‘Throw it in the bin. I’ll shred it and add it to the compost with the rest of them.’

‘There have been others?’

Caught out, she shrugged. ‘A few. Nothing worth reading.’

‘I see. Well, you can do whatever you like with this one since it’s addressed to you,’ he said, offering her the envelope. ‘It appears to have been delivered by hand.’

‘By hand?’ She reached for it and then shivered, curling her fingers back before they came in contact with the paper. ‘Why would Katherine Hanover write to me?’

‘Maybe she thinks that you can persuade me to stop throwing her letters away. Maybe she’s lost trust in the Royal Mail and that’s why she pushed it through the letterbox herself.’ Her father seemed to find that as amusing as the thought of Fleur taking up politics. ‘It’s good to see that she can still get things wrong.’ Then he shrugged, dropping the envelope on the table beside her. ‘Or perhaps she’s offering you a job.’

‘Oh, right. That’s going to happen.’

‘If she’s expanding her business she’ll need more staff.’

‘She’s got no room to expand.’ With roads on three sides she needed the Gilbert land to extend her empire. ‘And why would she need me, anyway? I’m a horticulturist, not a lawn-mower salesman. Hanovers haven’t been cultivating their own stock since…since—’

Oh, damn!

‘Since your mother ran off with Phillip Hanover?’ he finished for her. ‘You can say it, Fleur. It happened. Nothing can change that.’

‘No.’

In truth, it wasn’t the adulterous father but the memory of his faithless son that had caught her unawares. Abandonment was apparently inherent in the Hanover genes, and for a split second she felt a kinship with Katherine.

That was enough to jolt her to her senses.

Katherine Hanover was a vindictive and hateful woman, something that, despite good reason, Fleur was determined not to become.

But it was far better that her father believed she was protecting his feelings than that he should suspect the truth.

‘Katherine Hanover would have no use for me, Dad. Not since she paved over her husband’s land and turned the business into a gardening hypermarket.’

‘True. But she has been advertising for weekend staff for the checkouts in the local newspaper. Maybe she thinks you could do with the money.’

‘Whatever would give her that idea?’ The grey suit she was wearing—again—that she’d bought for her mother’s funeral and had been pressed to within an inch of its life? Or perhaps her go-anywhere black court shoes that had only survived so long because she didn’t. Go anywhere, that was.

‘Maybe she wants you to see for yourself how much money she’s making.’

‘You think?’ she asked. The new Mercedes, designer clothes, the kind of shoes that provoked envy in every female bosom in the village weren’t demonstration enough?

‘No, Dad, she’s not that stupid,’ she said, reaching for the letter, irritated that she could be intimidated at long distance by the woman. ‘Just imagine the chaos I could cause in the middle of the weekend rush.’ Before she could open it, the clock in the hall began to chime the three-quarters. ‘Oh, good grief!’ she said, stuffing it into her jacket pocket. ‘Tom!’

A five-year-old bundle of energy bounded down the stairs, dog at his heels, and grinning hugely said, ‘I’m all ready!’

Her heart caught in her mouth at the sight of him. He’d brushed his hair flat, had tried to fix his tie, which was stuck up almost behind his ear, and his shoes, with their little Velcro tabs, were on the wrong feet.

‘I did it all myself,’ he said.

‘Great job, Tom,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat as she picked him up and, despite the need for haste, hugged him until he squeaked and wriggled to be set down. Her little boy was growing up much too fast.

One shoe fell off and, laughing, she picked it up, then sat him on the kitchen table while she straightened him out, scrunching her fingers through his hair to make the curls spring back.

‘Don’t, Mum!’ he said, jumping down, flattening it furiously with both hands. ‘Curls are stupid.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, covering her mouth with her hand, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Then, ‘Have you got everything?’

‘Pencil case. Reading book. Indoor shoes. Lunch money.’ He went through the daily list, ticking the items off on his fingers.

‘What a genius. Do you want an apple for break?’ she asked, tucking one into his bag so that she could do a surreptitious check. ‘Quick now, give Granddad a hug while I get your coat.’

Matthew Hanover stood at his bedroom window, waiting for Fleur to appear. He hadn’t seen her in nearly six years. Not since their wedding night had been disturbed by the soft burble of her mobile phone.

He’d grabbed the wretched thing, determined to switch it off, shut out the world for as long as possible, but she’d seen the caller ID and they’d both known that a phone call from her father in the middle of the night could mean only one thing.

Trouble.

And trouble it had been.

He’d watched, helpless, as the joy, the laughter, had faded from her eyes at the news that her mother had been badly hurt in a road accident. That there was no time to waste.