‘No joke. It’s true. There’s been an accident. Charles is dead,’ he affirmed, his glittering dark eyes holding her own.
She stared at him in disbelief, all the colour draining from her face. ‘An accident?’ Josie repeated parrot fashion. There certainly had been an accident, and she was carrying it. Nervously she licked her dry lips. Charles dead! It was unthinkable and, raising the glass to her mouth, she downed the rest of her juice.
She hardly noticed Major Zarcourt’s, ‘Thank God for small mercies,’ before darkness enveloped her, and for the first time in her life she fainted.
Her eyes fluttered open minutes later; she wasn’t sure where she was, or what had happened, only aware of the strong arm around her shoulders and the comforting feel of the broad chest her head rested upon.
Then her memory flooded back. Someone had said Charles was dead. But he couldn’t be; she was pregnant with his child. She stiffened guiltily. Horrified at her purely selfish thought and raising her head, she jerked out of Conan’s protective hold to sit tensely on the edge of the sofa, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. She glanced at her father sitting beside her, his elbows resting on his knees, head in hands. She turned back to Conan. She did not need to ask the question. The answer was there in the compassion that was evident in his dark eyes.
‘Is it true?’ she demanded unevenly.
Conan covered her hands with his own large hand and squeezed lightly as he replied. ‘I’m sorry, Josie, so sorry, but yes.’
She wanted to cry—she should cry—but the tears would not come, not yet...
‘Don’t think about it now, Josie. Are you all right? That’s the important thing,’ he prompted.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine, but please, I want to know,’ she demanded, her glance sliding from one man to the other in her agitation. Major Zarcourt was sitting in the hard-backed chair behind his desk, while Conan, her father, and herself were seated in a row on the sofa—like the Three Stooges, she thought wildly, before her eyes were drawn back to Conan’s face, waiting for his answer.
‘I think I should let my father explain. I’m sure he can tell you the correct story much better than I,’ Conan drawled cynically, lounging back against the arm-rest, his long body angled towards her, dark eyes ranging slowly over her small face and down over her slender body perched on the edge of the seat.
Josie felt the colour rise in her cheeks, and for a second she remembered the last time she’d seen Conan. But now was not the time to give way to embarrassment, and deliberately she turned her attention to the Major. Then she listened in mounting horror as he confirmed Charles’s death.
Two days ago, while travelling in a Jeep, Charles had driven over an unmarked landmine. He’d died instantly. The family had been informed at lunchtime, but as Josie had not been at work all afternoon they hadn’t been able to contact her.
A lump lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her. Her lovely eyes glistened with unshed tears as the Major’s voice droned on.
‘It was the way he would have wanted to go. On active service with his regiment. He was a hero.’
She heard the words, but all Josie could think of was poor Charles. All her doubts about him were put aside as the desperate horror of his death hit her. Charles—blond, blue-eyed, handsome Charles—was dead. It was unbelievable. So swamped was she by the enormity of what had happened and all its ramifications, she saw nothing odd in the Major’s next words and answered him without thinking.
‘Tell me, Josie, is it true? Are you carrying Charles’s child? Is it confirmed?’
‘Yes, I was at the clinic this afternoon; that’s why you couldn’t find me,’ she explained, her tears overflowing and slowly running down her soft cheeks.
‘My God! Father, can’t you see the girl is in shock?’ Conan prompted scathingly. ‘Are you really so desperate that you have to question the poor girl at a time like this?’
Poor girl indeed! Conan’s comment was just what she needed to stop herself wallowing in self-pity. She might have just lost her boyfriend, and be pregnant, but no one was going to call her a ‘poor girl’, and certainly not an arrogant devil like Conan.
‘I’m taking her home.’ Conan’s voice penetrated her chaotic thoughts. Raising her head, she saw the derisory glance he flicked at her father before he added, ‘She is your daughter, Mr Jamieson. Instead of sitting there as if the weight of the world rested on your shoulders, you could try looking after her. She sure as hell needs someone to.’
‘No. No.’ Josie finally found her voice and, jumping to her feet, she brushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
She was a small girl, just five feet tall, but perfectly proportioned. Her blue-black hair hung in a profusion of curls down past her shoulders. Her violet eyes were large and outlined with thick sooty lashes, her nose was small and straight, her mouth full-lipped and gently curving. Dressed in a simple blue cashmere sweater, a colour-coordinated short straight skirt that ended some four inches above her knees, and her feet encased in classic navy blue high-heeled pumps, she had no idea how lovely she looked, or how courageous, to the three men whose startled eyes were fixed upon her.
‘You’re in shock, Josie.’ Conan unfolded his impressive length from the sofa, and in one lithe stride was beside her. ‘Let me take you home; your father is in no state to drive.’
Her father might not be, but no way was she letting Conan take her home. She remembered the last time he had driven her to the farmhouse all too clearly. He had made it very obvious he didn’t approve of her relationship with Charles, and she didn’t need his false sympathy.
‘No thank you. I am perfectly capable of driving.’ Turning to look at her father, she added, ‘Come on, Daddy. I’ll drive us home.’
A large hand curved around her upper arm. ‘Don’t be stupid, Josie; you’re in shock. Let me...’
‘Let go of me!’ she cried, and violently she pulled her arm free from Conan’s grasp, staggering slightly as she did so. ‘I don’t need your help.’ Again turning to where her father still sat, she added, ‘Please, Dad. I want to leave.’ The trauma of the last few weeks, the doctor’s confirmation of her pregnancy this afternoon, and the ultimate irony—the death of Charles—were threatening to make her break down completely. She had to get away from Beeches Manor, and more importantly she had to get away from Conan.
Luckily her father, finally sensing her real need to leave, agreed.
How she drove the old Ford car home she would never know. Tears blurred her eyes, but whether they were for herself or Charles she wasn’t completely sure.
Later that night, Josie lay in her small bed, unable to sleep. The events of the past few weeks flickered through the windmills of her mind in a series of brief pictures, ending with the tragic death of Charles Zarcourt. Their engagement was supposed to have been made official this weekend. But Josie knew, if she was honest with herself, that she’d had every intention of cancelling the arrangement. Within days of Charles’s departure, she had realised she didn’t love him. Like thousands of girls before her, she’d been blinded by a romantic ideal and had made a stupid mistake. It was only when she’d begun to suspect she might be pregnant that the full enormity of her mistake had been brought home to her. Even so she’d decided there was no way she was marrying Charles. Her plan had been to explain to Charles in person when he arrived tomorrow—Friday—and hope he would understand. But not any more. He was dead... But from deep in her subconscious a devilish little feeling of relief surfaced. She’d been spared the arguments that refusing to marry Charles would have