‘Mummy!’ he wailed, running to her and throwing himself at her knees, and Harry felt racked with guilt because he’d suggested it and it had failed and now the boy was upset. Damn. Could he do nothing right?
Em looked up at him with an apologetic smile. ‘There’s a cake ring in the drawer under the oven,’ she told him. ‘It should just about fit over the castle. You could use that and fill it with water.’
So they went back up to the kitchen, and found the cake ring, and with a bit of adjustment they fitted it over the sandcastle and filled it with water, and even found a stick to make a drawbridge and floated a leaf in it as a boat.
And the look on Freddie’s face was priceless. ‘Boat!’ he said, and ran to his mother yet again, his eyes alight. ‘Mummy, boat!’ Ook!’
Emily looked, admired it dutifully and threw Harry a smile over Freddie’s head, then stood up. ‘I have to get Beth,’ she said, ‘and I think this little one needs her daddy’s attention.’
There was a spreading stain below her nappy, and Harry’s heart sank. He wasn’t sure if there was a washing machine in the house, and she’d only got a few clothes. Clearly, at this rate he was going to have to buy a whole lot more!
‘Fancy company? If I change her quickly, could I come, too? And afterwards, if you were feeling really kind, you could point me in the direction of the nearest supermarket or baby shop so I can buy her more stuff.’
‘Sure. I was going to walk, but we can take the car. I’ll give Georgie a ring and warn her we might be late.’
He nodded, took the baby from her gingerly and went through the fence. She was starting to fuss, but she settled once he’d changed her and put her in the carrier, and he met Emily on the drive just as she was putting Freddie into his seat.
‘Can we squeeze this in?’
‘This?’ she said with a chuckle, taking the carrier from him. ‘Poor baby, what a way to talk about you! He’s a bad daddy.’
She hoisted it into the car and strapped it in, then got behind the wheel. He slid in beside her, shifting so he could watch her. ‘So where are we going?’
‘A friend’s—actually, Georgie Cauldwell. Do you remember her? Her father’s a builder—we used to go and crawl around on the building sites when we were kids.’
He nodded. ‘I remember her—small but fiery. Brown hair, green eyes, lots of personality?’
She shot him a look. ‘You do remember her. Very well. Did you have a thing about her, Harry?’
He laughed softly. ‘Hardly. You were more than enough trouble for me.’ He looked away. ‘So what’s she doing now?’
‘She’s married to a guy from London with pots of money. He’s a darling. They’ve got three kids that were his sister’s, but she was killed on the way home from hospital when she had the last one. It was awful. Anyway, they’ve adopted them and Georgie’s pregnant now, so it’s just as well they’ve got this big house.’
She swung into the drive of a huge Victorian villa overlooking the sea and cut the engine. Two boys came running over with a little girl he knew instantly must be Beth. She was every inch her mother’s daughter, from the soft dark curls that tumbled round her shoulders to the twinkling, mischievous eyes that reminded him so much of Em when he’d first met her.
And behind them came Georgie, older of course but still essentially the same, a baby in her arms. He unfolded himself from the seat and stood up, and with a little cry of welcome she hugged him with her free arm, her smile open and friendly.
‘Harry! Emily said you were back—oh, it’s so good to see you again. Welcome back to Yoxburgh. Come on in and meet Nick—Oh, and this is the baby!’ she added, peering into the car. ‘Oh, Harry, she’s lovely!’
The baby in her arms was pretty gorgeous, too, and when she burrowed her head in her mother’s shoulder and then peeped at him and giggled, he couldn’t help responding. ‘So who’s this?’ he asked after a moment or two of pee-boo-ing and giggles.
‘Maya,’ Georgie said. ‘Aren’t you? She can say her name now. Tell Harry who you are.’
‘Harry,’ the baby said, swivelling round and pointing, and burrowed into her shoulder again. Still smiling, he followed the direction she’d pointed in and met a challenging stare.
‘You’ve got my name,’ the boy said, his head tilting to one side. ‘I’m Harry.’
Harry grinned. ‘Is that right?’
He nodded.
‘Well, in that case I think you must have my name, since I had it about twenty something years before you needed it, but hey, that’s cool, I don’t mind sharing. It’s a good name, it would be mean to keep it to myself.’
They swapped grins, and then he was introduced to Dickon, Harry’s younger brother, and Em’s daughter Beth.
So many children—and now it was his turn. He got the carrier out of the car, turned it towards them all and said with a curious feeling of rightness, ‘This is Kizzy. She’s my daughter.’
‘Is Emily her mummy?’ Dickon asked, puzzled, and Harry shook his head.
Should he say this? Hell, these kids had lost their mother only a year or so ago. Was it really fair to dredge it all up?
Yes. Because life wasn’t fair, and the truth would come out at some point, he was sure, so he shook his head again and said gently, ‘Her mother died.’
‘Our mummy’s dead,’ Dickon said matter-of-factly. ‘Georgie’s our new mummy. Is Emily going to be Kizzy’s new mummy?’
Emily laughed, the sound a little strained to his ears, and started towards the house. ‘Heavens, no! I’ve got enough on my plate with Beth and Freddie, haven’t I, darling?’
Beth slipped her hand into her mother’s and snuggled closer. ‘Babies are nice, though. Georgie’s having a baby.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Em said firmly. Too firmly? He didn’t know. All he knew was that all this blatant fecundity should have sent him running—and it didn’t. And the idea of Emily being Kizzy’s new mummy was suddenly extraordinarily appealing…
‘Lovely house.’
Nick looked around and smiled the smile of a supremely contented man. ‘It is, isn’t it? Georgie and her father did the work for us, and we love it. I thought it was ridiculously big at first, but with all the kids and another on the way and my mother living with us and working here, and me working from home at first, frankly if it was any smaller it wouldn’t be big enough.’
For a man who’d evidently been a bachelor a little more than a year ago, he seemed extraordinarily happy with the way things had turned out. They were in the garden, sitting in the shade of a big old tree and looking out over the sea, and every few seconds his eyes would stray to his family, an indulgent smile touching his mouth.
Harry could understand that. His own eyes kept straying to Em and her children, her revelation about their father still ringing in his ears.
He walked—well, ran, actually. I haven’t seen lightning move so fast.
Bastard. Fancy leaving them. Although maybe it had been better to leave them with Emily who clearly adored them than to stay and make them feel unloved and unwanted, and then at the first opportunity pack them off to boarding school and to their grandparents in the holidays…
‘So where are you staying? Georgie said something about your grandmother’s house.’
He wrenched himself back to the present and gave a rueful smile. ‘Well, that was the idea, but it’s had tenants since she died ten years ago and I haven’t been