Triss Alexander clasped her pale hands together, for all the world as if she was about to utter a fervent prayer, and then turned her beautiful eyes on Lola and said the most extraordinary thing.
‘By the way, I want you to know that I have a—baby,’ she stumbled over the words, her whole face lighting up with a fierce kind of pride, and for the first time Lola could see why so many men considered her exquisitely beautiful.
‘But that’s wonderful,’ said Lola. It was instinct more than curiosity which made her gaze flick to Triss’s left hand, to see that her wedding-ring finger was quite bare.
‘When you’re reasonably well known—or have been—well, people think they have a kind of right to you, and I’m very nervous for his safety,’ Triss told them, her expression almost hypnotic as she looked at first Lola and then Geraint, as if committing their faces to memory. ‘That’s the main reason I moved to St Fiacre’s—because security is so tight.
‘No one really knows about him—the Press certainly don’t know! My sister-in-law delivered him—she’s a doctor. He’s my secret,’ she said, and hugged her arms tightly against her chest, as if her baby were there in her arms.
‘I’m telling you all this because you’re my immediate neighbours, and my mother once told me that if you placed your trust in neighbours then they would never let you down. Is that very naive of me, do you think, Geraint?’ She turned her extraordinary blazing eyes towards him, her generous mouth softening as she said his name in a way that made Lola’s chest inexplicably clench with fear.
‘I think it’s very clever of you,’ he answered drily. ‘And your mother. No trust so charmingly placed could ever be abused. Your secret is quite safe with me.’
‘He’ll be well protected on St Fiacre’s,’ said Lola encouragingly. ‘There are quite a few babies and toddlers living on the estate; you should be able to get to know some of them—’
‘No!’ Triss shook her shorn head with sudden emphasis. ‘I don’t want to! Not yet, anyway. The thing is. . .’ She chewed on her lip like a nervous exam candidate. ‘If anyone should come looking, or asking, for me—or for—Simon. . .’
‘We know nothing,’ said Lola comfortingly, and looked up to see the oddest expression on Geraint’s face—a mixture of anger and defiance that she could not for the life of her work out.
‘Are you in trouble?’ he demanded suddenly.
Triss hesitated, seemed about to speak and then changed her mind. ‘No,’ she answered firmly. ‘I’m not. I’m going to be just fine. And now I must go. I’ve left Simon in his pram—see.’ And her face became animated as she gestured to the drive behind her, to where a huge, old-fashioned coach-built pram stood parked on the gravel.
Lola’s eyes brightened. ‘Can I have a peep at him?’
‘Well. . .’ Triss beamed with maternal pride, Lola’s eagerness too infectious to resist. ‘He’s asleep. . .’
‘Just for a moment!’ urged Lola. ‘And I promise not to wake him!’
Triss gave a wry, crooked smile. ‘Actually, he’s so gorgeous I don’t really mind if you do!’ she confided.
Lola grinned. ‘You shouldn’t have said that!’
‘I know!’
Lola ran out into the crisp, early spring afternoon, slowing down to a stealthy creep as she quietly approached the pram.
Inside, bundled up in a white bonnet and soft, fleecy white shawls to protect him against the sharp March air, lay a baby, fast asleep, his chubby cheeks all rosy, a beatific little smile fixed to his mouth.
Lola stared down at him. People brought babies onto the aircraft every day, but somehow this was different. Seeing a baby fast asleep in the grounds of her own home made her experience a sudden ache, a primitive desire to have her own baby to hold in her arms.
It took every bit of will-power she had not to straighten his blanket or adjust his bonnet in the hope that he might wake and she would be able to pick him up!
Lola heard footsteps behind her, but didn’t bother turning round. ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous, Triss!’ she sighed blissfully. ‘Absolutely gorgeous! I could eat him up for breakfast! You lucky thing!’
‘It isn’t Triss,’ came an oddly strained voice, and Lola turned round to find that it was Geraint who had come up behind her, while Triss remained on the doorstep, bending down to retrieve one of Simon’s bootees, which had obviously fallen from her duffle-coat pocket.
Geraint’s eyes were unreadable. ‘I’m beginning to see what it is about you that made a wily businessman like Peter Featherstone leave you this house,’ he said unwillingly, in a voice which was almost bleak and held some indefinable note of tension. “There is something really rather irresistible about a woman who loves children so much.’
Their eyes met, and Lola felt as though she could lose herself for ever in that grey gaze. Her heart beat faster as she recognised that he had paid her the greatest compliment of her life. It would be so easy, she thought, much much too easy to love Geraint.
‘Here comes Triss,’ said Geraint suddenly, his voice breaking into the tense silence like a brick dropped on ice.
Triss moved towards them with a catwalk model’s natural grace. The March sun was pale and golden and it brought out the tawny highlights of her shorn hair as if an artist had carefully painted them in by brush. With her big eyes and rangy limbs, she looked like some exotic jungle animal that had wandered into a suburban garden by mistake.
Triss’s pale face was animated as she peered into the pram. ‘He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ she cooed, her question directed more at Geraint than at Lola. ‘Though I know I’m slightly biased, of course!’
Geraint smiled back at her and glanced down into the pram indulgently. ‘That’s understandable. I think I would be too!’
Lola experienced the sour and bitter taste of jealousy as she watched them beaming into each other’s eyes as if the rest of the world did not exist. And at that moment she could have cheerfully wished Triss Alexander a million miles away.
She gave the other woman a level stare. ‘Your husband must be as delighted as you are,’ she observed neutrally, and then felt stricken with guilt, for the smile died like a withered leaf on Triss’s face.
‘I have no husband,’ she answered woodenly. ‘And no partner, either!’ she added, with a spirited touch of defiance. ‘I’m completely on my own.’
Lola was aware of the furious look which Geraint was directing at her, but even that could not possibly make her feel worse than she already did. Imagine making a mean comment like that to a mother on her own—even if she was a beautiful ex-model!
Geraint shot Lola one final glare before turning to Triss and saying soothingly, ‘Please don’t feel you have to explain your private life—certainly not to us. You don’t have a monopoly on convoluted relationships, that’s for sure!’ He absent-mindedly tucked in a stray corner of Simon’s blanket. ‘But any time you feel the need to call on a man—if your lights fuse—’
‘I can just about manage to mend a fuse, thank you, Geraint!’ retorted Triss crisply.
He smiled. ‘I’m sure you can. But if you’re worried about anything—anything at all—then call me. Please. Here’s my card.’ From the back pocket of his jeans he extracted a small cream-coloured card and, to Lola’s surprise, handed it first to her.
‘You write your number on it too, Lola,’ he suggested. ‘Then Triss knows she has allies on both sides of the