Conan looked across at her, his expression inscrutable. ‘Why?’
‘To get away from you,’ she shot back, but it wasn’t true. Studying him through her lowered lashes, she realised Conan looked as tired and depressed as she felt, and she had an overwhelming urge to reach out to him and smooth the worry-lines from his broad brow.
That was really why she had to get away from him. If she didn’t she was in danger of falling at his feet and begging him to love her.
Conan stood up and walked around to where she sat, and knelt by her chair, his head on a level with her own. She was so astonished that when he reached out and caught her hands in his she let him.
‘Josie, I know you hate me, and you think you have good reason, but everything I have done, I have done for you and the baby.’
‘Including sleeping with me?’ she said coldly.
‘And that’s what bothers you most, isn’t it? You can’t forgive me for making love to you, but, worse, you can’t forgive yourself for enjoying it.’
She tried to push back her chair and stand up. She did not need to hear this. But Conan’s hands tightened on hers, his expression darkening angrily.
‘You’re not a child, although you’ve been behaving like one for the past few weeks, and I’ve let you get away with it because of your condition. I do understand how you feel, and I want to help. Tomorrow you have an appointment with Dr Masters. If the doctor agrees I’ll take you down to Beeches this weekend when your father and the Major are due back. But only for a few days. Then you return here with me.’
‘Your prisoner,’ she snorted.
‘No, your protector. I’m not an ogre, Josie, I’m your husband, and you’re expecting your first baby in a few weeks. You’re excited and afraid, and you need someone. That someone has to be me.’
‘But...’ Josie said huskily, touched against her will by the concern in his tone.
He captured her open mouth, stopping her objection, and started to kiss her tenderly, his tongue exploring her mouth with erotic delight, before he finally sat back on his haunches, his eyes smiling into hers.
‘No buts... Nothing is as bad as it seems,’ he said quietly, and stood up. ‘Now go to bed before I forget my good intentions and carry you there.’
Josie’s Thursday appointment with Dr Mas
ters went without a hitch. Her blood pressure was a bit high, the doctor informed Conan, but was nothing to worry about, and while Josie struggled back into her clothes the doctor and Conan decided she could go to the Cotswolds for the weekend.
‘Nice of the pair of you to consult me,’ she sniped sarcastically at Conan on the drive home.
‘Stop complaining, Josie; I’m not in the mood.’
She cast him a speculative look. His dark brows were drawn together in a deep frown, and he looked about as solitary and approachable as a tiger.
‘Sorry if I’ve spoilt your day but you didn’t have to come with me.’
‘Yes, I did,’ Conan said curtly as he stopped the car, and slid out. Walking around to the passenger door, he opened it, took her arm and helped her out. ‘You may not want my help but you need it,’ he declared, glancing at her protruding belly as he ushered her into the house. ‘So no more arguing. I’m taking tomorrow off and we’ll leave in the morning. Tonight I have a dinner engagement, which should cheer you up. You won’t have to suffer my company any more today,’ he snarled, and marched into his study, slamming the door behind him.
But for once Conan was wrong. Seven hours later Josie lay propped up in the delivery room of St Martin’s clinic with Conan by her side, exhorting her to give one more push, and her baby was born.
Dr Masters placed the child in Josie’s arms. ‘Three weeks early but perfect. This little girl was certainly in a hurry to see the world.’
Josie lay back against the pillows and cuddled the infant to her breast, staring in awe and wonderment at the tiny face with a shock of black hair. Her daughter... She glanced up at Conan, standing by the bed, his gaze fixed on the infant in her arms. He looked out of place in the hospital, dressed in a black dinner suit.
‘Thank you, Conan,’ she said with heartfelt gratitude for his support, then, inexplicably shy, she added formally, ’I’m sorry Jeffrey called you away from your dinner.’
It had all happened so quickly; one minute she’d been in the bathroom getting ready for bed, the next her waters had broken, and she’d been panic-stricken. She had called for Jeffrey, and he had ordered the ambulance, and called Conan on his mobile phone.
‘She’s beautiful; I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ Conan murmured. ‘A miracle... An absolute miracle.’ He had been saying much the same thing all the time he had held Josie’s hand in the delivery room, and insisted she remember her breathing exercises. ‘She looks exactly like you, Josie. May I?’ He leant forward and touched a gentle finger to the baby’s cheek. ‘Perfect.’
‘She is, isn’t she?’ Josie agreed, yawning wildly, and with her eyes closing Dr Masters took the sleeping baby from her mother and handed her to Conan. Josie never saw the tears in her husband’s eyes as she fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.
When Conan walked into the room on Friday evening Josie was feeding the baby at her breast. She looked up as he entered. He was dressed casually in jeans and sweatshirt, and he stopped inside the door, his dark eyes fastened on the baby suckling on Josie’s breast in stunned fascination.
‘Conan.’ Josie said his name softly.