His head shot up. ‘Sorry for staring,’ he said, a dull flush staining his hard-cut features.
‘It’s all right.’
Hesitantly he walked to the bed, and sat down on the chair provided for visitors. ‘What are you going to call her?’ he asked softly, glancing from the tiny baby to Josie’s face and back again.
‘I thought Kathleen, after my mother; it’s from the Celtic and means dear to my heart.’
‘Kathleen. Yes, I like it.’ He looked up and caught the expression of pure love for her child in Josie’s eyes, and his own darkened in some unidentifiable pain.
Josie, completely wrapped up in her baby, didn’t notice. It was the next day, when her father and the Major arrived, that her euphoric world took a knock.
‘A girl!’ the Major snorted. ‘She looks nothing like a Zarcourt, though I suppose if Charles was alive he wouldn’t have minded. She is a pretty little thing.’
Josie’s eyes flew to where Conan was standing in the background. She saw him stiffen. His eyes were narrowed angrily on his father, and it suddenly hit her. Her troubles were not over with the birth of her child, but just beginning.
Her father, bless him, was much more enthusiastic. ‘She’s the image of your mother, Josephine, and I’m delighted you’re going to call her Kathleen.’
But for Josie some of the joy went out of her heart at the Major’s comment, and after the two older men left to travel on to Beeches she was too embarrassed to look at Conan.
‘Take no notice of my father,’ he said quietly, walking to the bed. ‘Subtlety was never his strong point.’
‘But he had the right to say it.’
‘No, he did not. It’s your baby and yours alone. No one has any right to the child but you.’ His words should have cheered her up, but the reverse was true. Obviously Conan wasn’t interested in the baby either.
Six weeks later Josie slid into the passenger seat of the sleek BMW and glanced at Conan sitting behind the steering wheel. Jeffrey was baby-sitting while Conan insisted on taking Josie to Dr Masters for her final check-up.
‘There’s really no need for you to accompany me,’ she said for the hundredth time.
‘I’m going with you and that’s final.’
Silently fuming, Josie sat back and let her mind stray back over the past few weeks, and inevitably to Conan. Domineering and dangerous to her health, he was never far from her thoughts, however much she wished it were otherwise.
Her baby was a constant source of pleasure, but Conan was the opposite. Since the day she’d returned from the hospital, the gap between them had widened to a chasm. Josie could not look at him without remembering the intimacy they had shared, and the most intimate act of all—he had been present at the birth of her child.
In fact Josie saw very little of him. He was either at work or locked in his study, and he slept in the dressing room...
But several times when the baby had awakened in the night crying, to Josie’s surprise Conan had appeared at the side of the crib, before she could even get out of bed. He’d cradled the child in his arms as if he really cared. Only last night Josie had finally put Kathleen to bed, and run herself a hot bath. Soaking in the tub, she’d thought she heard the baby cry and then there was silence. Five minutes later, dried and dressed in a towelling robe, she’d padded into the bedroom to find Conan, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, leaning over Kathleen on the baby-changer, changing her nappy.
‘You should have called me,’ Josie had dashed to his side. ‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Maybe I want to,’ he’d said quietly, and with a gentleness that was surprising in such a large man, he’d deftly dressed Kathleen, and, carrying her to her crib, laid her tenderly down to sleep. Straightening up, he’d turned back towards Josie, his dark eyes raking over her from top to toe, and back to linger where the vee of her robe revealed the soft swell of her breasts. ‘And you needed to relax, I think.’
She’d looked up at him and heat had flooded through her whole body at the sensual knowledge she saw in the blackening depths of his eyes. Her figure had snapped back to normal with remarkable ease. If anything she was thinner than before except for her chest, but having Conan studying her so intently had sent her pulse rate sky-high.
‘But nobody wants to change a nappy, certainly not a man like you,’ she’d spluttered, dropping her gaze only to find herself staring at his half-naked body.
His mouth had tightened. ‘What would you know about my wants?’ he’d demanded scathingly. ‘You believe I traded you for a lump of land; you don’t know me at all.’ And he’d walked out.
‘We’ve arrived.’ A harsh voice broke into her musing. Josie blinked and saw the car was parked outside the clinic.
Half an hour later Josie slid back into the car, her face scarlet with rage and resentment. Dr Masters had given her the all-clear, and had added that it was perfectly fine to resume normal sexual relations. Then Conan, his golden eyes glinting with devilment, had discussed the merits of different kinds of birth control with the doctor.
‘What the hell did you think you were playing at?’ she demanded, as soon as he got in behind the wheel, her eyes shooting flames. ‘I have never been so humiliated—discussing birth control with Dr Masters, as if I didn’t exist! You did it deliberately simply to embarrass me. We do not have a sexual relationship, nor will we ever again, as you know damn fine.’
He was silent for a long moment, his dark gaze penetrating. ‘If you believe that, then you really are blind. I saw the way you looked at me last night I know the sensual being that lurks beneath your Madonna-like exterior. Living together, it’s only a matter of time before we end up in bed together.’
‘Why, you arrogant swine!’ She struck out with her hand but she was hampered by the close confines of the car and he easily captured her wrist, and held it pressed to his thigh.