‘That is very interesting, Ben,’ she heard Jed respond.
She opened her eyes and saw he was watching her in the driving mirror.
‘Out of the mouths of babes, Phoebe?’ he mocked, and the gleam of bitter triumph in his eyes chilled her to the bone.
‘I am not a baby. I am nearly five and a big boy now,’ Ben stated, saving her from responding. Thankfully Jed’s attention was diverted from her back to Ben.
Phoebe stared blindly out of the window as the lights changed and Jed drove on. Ben was a miracle baby, and her mind drifted back to the past as the familiar landscape sped by.
She had been back living with Aunt Jemma for nearly two months when she had finally told her aunt about her disastrous love affair and the miscarriage she had suffered. The reason being that a week earlier she had visited her local GP because she had still been suffering from slight nausea and a bloated feeling, and she had been worried something was wrong. She had told her GP she had suffered a miscarriage seven weeks earlier, but she couldn’t recall the name of the London hospital, only Dr Norman. She’d seen no point in mentioning Jed or Dr Marcus, though privately she had been worried she had been too hasty leaving London without having the D&C procedure.
Phoebe could still remember the sense of awe and wonderment after her GP had asked a few pertinent questions and then examined her and sounded her stomach as well as her chest. She had told her she was about sixteen weeks pregnant, and the baby was fine. He’d arranged for her to have an ultrasound scan at the local hospital and told her she had nothing to worry about. It was a rare occurrence, but originally she must have been carrying twins—not identical—and had lost only one.
PHOEBE considered herself lucky that five years ago she had failed to keep her appointment with Dr Marcus for the D&C procedure after all…But she didn’t feel lucky now as she walked out of Ben’s bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. He was fast asleep, her beloved innocent child, but she knew she would get no sleep tonight, with Jed’s threat still ringing in her ears.
When they had arrived back at the cottage earlier Ben had thanked Jed for the ride in his car, then added, ‘It is a super car, but I like the colour of Uncle Julian’s better. His is bright red.’
Phoebe had had to smile at the look of masculine pique on Jed’s handsome face.
‘So, Ben, you like red and Uncle Julian, hmm?’
‘Yes—he is my friend and Mum’s, like you,’ Ben had replied happily as they’d walked up the path to the door.
‘I will remember that,’ Jed had offered as he’d said goodbye to Ben.
Phoebe’s smile had vanished when his dark head had bent towards her.
‘Uncle Julian be damned! I will be back later, and you’d better have some answers ready,’ he’d hissed with sibilant softness, before walking off.
Thinking about Jed’s threat was doing her no good at all, Phoebe decided as she entered her bedroom and removed her now damp clothes—bathing Ben was a lively operation at the best of times. She dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a blue shirt and, picking up a brush from the dresser, pulled out the few pins remaining in her once elegant topknot. She gave her a hair few vigorous strokes before flicking the long length behind her ears and fastening it with a simple band, then left the bedroom.
Quietly she descended the stairs and turned towards the kitchen at the back of the cottage. A soothing cup of tea that was what she needed. There was no point stressing over a knock on the door that might never happen, so she picked up the kettle, took it to the sink, filled it with water and switched it on. She opened one of the kitchen cupboards and took out a mug, a faint smile curving her mouth. It had been a present from Ben last Christmas, with the help of Aunt Jemma, and the inscription on the white porcelain proclaimed the owner to be the ‘Best Mum in the World’.
A timely reminder! Her position was clear, and if Jed Sabbides turned up again all she had to do was remember she was a great mum and tell him to take a hike…
Phoebe carried the mug of tea into the sitting room and sank down on the long, large soft-cushioned sofa that curved into an open end, in a modern take on a chaise longue, and faced the fireplace. Her aunt had insisted on buying the sofa, saying she had spent sixty years with old-fashioned furniture and wanted something different. Actually, it worked quite well—though Ben spent a lot of time perched on the open end because it was closest to the television…
She took a sip of her tea and thought of lighting the log fire, but it wasn’t worth it this late, she decided. Picking up the remote, she switched the television on, flicking through the channels, but there was nothing that captured her interest.
Sighing she glanced around the room. She loved this house—her home…It had originally been a nineteenth-century stone-built semi-detached farm labourer’s cottage, two up and two down, belonging to her aunt. When the cottage next door had come on to the market four years ago, with the help of a diamond necklace and some other unwanted jewellery Phoebe had bought it.
With Aunt Jemma’s agreement she had converted the two into one good-sized detached house. Consequently the entrance hall was surprisingly spacious, with a single new wide oak staircase. On one side was the sitting room, which stretched from front to back, and on the other side the original front room had been left to provide a dining room that doubled as a study. At the rear was a large L-shaped family kitchen, and upstairs there was a bathroom and three double bedrooms—her aunt’s with an en-suite bathroom—a family bathroom, her own room, and the third bedroom over the hall: Ben’s room…A gravel drive ran down one side of the house, and with a new garage built at the bottom of the garden the conversion was complete. And a great success Phoebe thought, glancing contentedly around.
A big armchair stood at one side of the fireplace, with a tall standard lamp behind it and a mahogany bureau against the wall. On the other side was the television. In the centre was a coffee table, and a Persian rug in shades of turquoise was spread in front of the fire, providing a nice contrast with the oak wood floor. Beneath the front window was an antique desk and chair of her aunt’s, and beneath the back window an old sailor’s trunk Phoebe had picked up at a car boot sale that was ideal for storing some of Ben’s toys. Maybe not the height of fashion, but in the soft glow of the standard lamp it was warm and welcoming—a real family room.
Unfortunately she had a sinking feeling that her happy home might be about to change, if Jed had his way. Draining her mug of tea, she rose to her feet and headed back to the kitchen.
She was worrying for nothing, she told herself deter-minedly. Jed could not take her child unless she let him, and she was not that dumb. She rinsed out the mug and put it back in the cupboard, and with a last look around the kitchen decided to mark papers for a while.
Ensconced in the study over an hour later, she was chuckling over an essay Elizabeth Smith—one of her sixteen-year-old students—had written. According to her, the French Resistance fighters in World War II had used the internet to publicise their cause!
Then she heard the knock on the door. She toyed with the idea of not answering, but she didn’t want Ben disturbed and reluctantly got to her feet. Moment of reckoning, she thought as she walked down the hall, rubbing her suddenly damp palms down her slender thighs. It could only be one man.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.
It was dark out, but the light from the hall illuminated the tall figure of Jed, his hand raised as if to knock again—but then patience had never been one of his virtues, she recalled. When he wanted something, be it a business deal or a woman, he went straight for his objective with all the skill and guile at his disposal. As