‘You kept Jake and I apart by denying me all knowledge of his existence. As a result, my son was forced to go without many advantages that I believe he should have enjoyed from birth,’ Christien enumerated coldly. ‘How can you expect me to think in terms of being fair to you? Were you fair to him?’
‘There is more to life than money. Our son has always had love.’
‘A very selfish love,’ Christien pronounced with lethal derision. ‘Both I and my family would have loved him. You have also deprived him of his cultural heritage-’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Tabby was staring fixedly at him but her throat was convulsing with tears held at bay only by will-power.
Christien dealt her a grim appraisal. ‘He speaks neither the Breton language nor French. He is the only child born to a proud and ancient line in this generation. He will mean a great deal to my family-’
‘Are you so sure of that? Are you sure they’ll be pleased to hear that you have an illegitimate son and that his mother is Gerry Burnside’s daughter?’ Tabby cut in painfully.
‘In France, children born outside marriage have the same rights of inheritance as those born within it. My family are more likely to be shocked that I should have a son who only met me today, a son who speaks not one word of our language and who does not know what it is to be a Laroche,’ Christien completed with icy conviction.
A chill ran down Tabby’s spine and then spread into her tummy to leave her feeling both cold and hollow. Lashes screening her pained and confused gaze from his, she surveyed them both: the man and the little boy with the same distinctive colouring. She watched Christien smooth back Jake’s mop of curls and, noticing that his hand was not quite steady, appreciated that he was not as in control as he would have liked her to believe.
‘He looks so like you,’ she could not help muttering.
‘I know.’ Christien sent her a blistering look of condemnation. ‘How could you do this to us?’
‘Christien-’
‘No, you listen to me,’ he broke in, low and deadly in tone, for he did not need to raise his voice to make her shiver. ‘From the hour he was conceived, he deserved the best we both had to give. His needs transcend your wishes and mine. You should have recognised that before he was even born. But now that I am part of his life, you will not be in a position to forget who and what comes first again.’
That sounded threatening. Tabby wanted to argue with him and demand to know exactly what he meant. However, she did recognise that he had voiced sufficient grains of hard truth to give her pause for thought. But, regardless, he was a man and she reckoned that there was no way he could really understand how fearfully hurt and humiliated she had been on the day of that accident enquiry when he had acted as though she had never meant anything to him. He had made her feel about an inch high and fiercely protective of Jake. She had assumed that Christien would have been even more scornful had she announced that she had given birth to their child. After all, he had demonstrated a complete lack of respect or caring towards her, so why would she have credited that he would react with any greater generosity to his young son? But then he had believed she had started seeing another guy and she had to make allowances for that.
When Tabby woke up, she was lying fully dressed on top of her bed with a bedspread pulled over her. After she’d fallen into a doze, Christien must have carried her through to her own room. It was already after nine in the morning and she scrambled out of bed. Jake’s tumbled bed was empty, his pyjamas lying on the floor. Frowning, she sped down the stairs and discovered that she was alone in the cottage. Panic tugging at her as she recalled how Christien had accused her of being no better than a kidnapper in keeping him and his son apart, she was almost afraid to read the note that she saw lying on the hearth. Christien’s abominable scrawl informed her that he had taken Jake out for a drive in the Ferrari. Slowly, she breathed again. What could be more natural than Jake getting a run in his father’s boy-toy car? Christien doing something so predictable and male made her feel a little more secure.
It was a beautiful hot sunny day and she took a green sun-dress from the wardrobe and went for a shower. Christien was so angry with her, so bitter. Would he ever get over that? Would he ever look at events from her point of view and appreciate that she had done what she believed was best? Was Jake to be their only link now? Well, at least Christien seemed keen to form
a relationship with Jake, she told herself bracingly. Really that was what was most important. But her eyes ached and burned with unshed tears.
When she heard a car outside, she hurried straight to the door and was surprised to see Manette Bonnard walking up her path with a gaily wrapped parcel clasped in one hand. ‘I wanted to thank you for your kindness and understanding yesterday. I hope you have no objection but I have brought a small gift for your son,’ the older woman said tautly. ‘May I talk to you, mademoiselle?’
In bewilderment, Tabby tensed and then, with a rather uneasy smile of acquiescence, she invited her visitor in.
‘I’m afraid that I concealed my true identity from you yesterday. I was too embarrassed to admit who I was,’ the blonde woman confessed in a troubled rush. ‘My name is not Manette Bonnard. I lied about that. I am Christien’s mother, Matilde Laroche.’
Tabby was betrayed into a startled exclamation.
‘I drove over here to spy on you,’ Matilde admitted tightly, discomfited colour mantling her cheeks. ‘I thought you had no right to be in this house. I thought you had no right to be with my son.’
As Tabby wondered if the older woman was aware that Christien had spent the night with her that weekend that she had first visited her inheritance, never mind passed the night before under the same roof as well, she could no longer look her visitor in the eye. Worst of all, she could not think of a single thing to say to her either.
‘Although I knew nothing about you and had never met you, I told myself four years ago that I hated you because…well, because of who you are-’
As Matilde’s eyes filled with tears Tabby took her trembling hand into a sympathetic hold. ‘I understand…I really do understand-’
‘I was mad with grief and it twisted me. But perhaps I was also afraid that I was on the brink of losing my son to a young woman when I was least willing to part with him,’ Matilde breathed shakily. ‘But that is not an excuse. When I saw how very young you were yesterday, I was surprised, but I was shocked when I met your little boy.’
Christien’s mother removed a photograph from her bag and extended it. Tabby studied the snap of Christien as a child of about five or six with a fascination she could not hide.
‘Jake is the living image of his father,’ Matilde commented.
Thinking of the gift that Matilde Laroche had brought and the acceptance of Jake that that telling gesture conveyed, Tabby just smiled. ‘Yes, he is.’
‘I am so ashamed of the way I have behaved. I felt my punishment when I recognised my grandson, who is a stranger to me,’ Matilde admitted with deep regret. ‘For how long has Christien known about Jake?’
Tabby winced. ‘I’m afraid that I only told him last night.’