Baby on Loan

Patrick held out his arms for the baby. “Shall I take a turn?”

“Oh, but—”

“You look exhausted, Jessie. Go back to bed.” And he took Bertie from her. “Come on, Bertie,” he murmured. “Your mommy’s a busy lady. If she doesn’t get a proper night’s rest she won’t have any energy for house hunting in the morning, will she?”

There was a small but eloquent noise from Jessie, and then Patrick heard her climb into bed. He smiled into the baby’s soft curls, kissed them and then went back downstairs, where he stretched out on the sofa with Bertie.

He was beautiful. Big dark eyes, peachy skin, a smile sweet enough to break his heart. Which was surprising, because Patrick had believed his heart was already broken, smashed beyond repair.

Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve, when she won a writing competition at school. After that early success there was quite a gap—during which she was busy working in Africa and the Middle East, getting married and having children—before her first book was published in 1992. Now readers worldwide fall in love with her irresistible heroes, adore her independent-minded heroines.

Visit Liz’s Web site for news and extracts of upcoming books at www.lizfielding.com.

In 2001, Liz Fielding won the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for The Best Man and the Bridesmaid!

Baby on Loan

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

‘IT’S awful. Like a mausoleum. You couldn’t pay me to live there.’

‘It’s quiet. Jessie needs to be quiet to work.’

‘No children, no pets, no music loud enough to escape through the walls. It’s not natural.’

‘Jessie doesn’t like cats, is terrified of dogs and has no children.’ Kevin didn’t add ‘lucky woman’ because, although that was the way he felt right now, he was fairly sure that lack of sleep was warping his point of view.

‘She never will have any children if she doesn’t get out from behind that computer and get a life.’

‘Is it compulsory?’

‘Don’t be flippant. Jessie thinks she’s making the right decision but we can’t let one rat of a man do this to her. And working from home doesn’t help. At least if you go out to work you’re forced to talk to people, interact with them, face-to-face…’ They exchanged a helpless look. ‘You could die in the quiet of Taplow Towers and no one would ever notice.’ The baby, who had been quiet for all of thirty seconds while he gathered breath, resumed his anguished protest against the imposition of teeth upon his tender little gums.

‘No chance of that here.’

Faye ignored her husband, murmuring soothing noises of comfort to their infant son. It made no difference. He was suffering and he intended that the world should suffer with him. ‘Did you see the look that woman in the lobby gave poor Bertie when we were leaving?’ she continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted. ‘As if he was contagious or something.’ She paused to wipe the dribble from her darling’s mouth. Then she said, ‘I thought Jessie would be over Graeme by now. She was too calm about it, too controlled… She needs to let rip, get really angry—’

‘Fall in love again?’

‘Exactly! And the sooner the better. Cutting herself off like that isn’t normal—’

‘This isn’t normal.’ Giving up any hope of sleep, Kevin rolled out of bed, took his small son from his wife and couched him under his chin, with scarcely a break in the stride pattern that was beginning to wear a path in the carpet.

‘He’s teething. It won’t last,’ Faye assured him as she collapsed into bed.

‘You said that last week.’

‘We just need a good night’s sleep.’

‘A good night’s sleep? What is that, exactly? I have this dim recollection—’

‘Stop complaining and think while you walk. We’ve got to do something to help your sister. She’s about to sign a five-year lease on that horrible place—’

‘It’s not horrible. It’s a very nice apartment. Safe.’

‘She’s too young to want “safe’’. It won’t be good for her, Kevin.’

He caught the reflection of himself as he passed a mirror. Dark shadows, grey complexion. ‘This isn’t good for me. I need to sleep. Not just for a night. For a week.’ He turned to his wife; she didn’t look any better. ‘So do you.’

‘Yes, I do. We do.’ And then she smiled, drowsily. ‘That’s it, then. Problem solved.’

CHAPTER ONE

‘PLEASE, please, please, Patrick! Everyone’s going. There won’t be a soul left here in London—’

Patrick Dalton resisted, without much difficulty, the urge to smile. ‘Just you and the other seven million—’

‘Don’t laugh at me! I’m being serious!’

Laugh? She had to be joking. He wasn’t in the mood for laughing. Or indulging his niece. The way things were going, she’d be off the hook soon enough; meantime, it wouldn’t hurt her to behave herself for once.

‘So am I, Carenza.’ The formal use of her name was usually sufficient warning that she was pushing her luck. ‘You seriously promised to look after the house while I was away. And I seriously trusted you to keep your word or I would have used my usual house-sitting service.’

‘I thought you said they couldn’t find anyone at such short notice?’

She was so sharp it was a wonder she didn’t cut herself with her own tongue. ‘I believe I said it would be difficult for them to find anyone at such short notice.’

‘Oh, don’t be so…so…lawyerish!’

‘Don’t knock it, Carrie, it pays the bills. Quite frequently they have your name on them.’

Unabashed, she changed tack. ‘You could call the house-sitters now and ask if they could find someone. Couldn’t you?’ Even the hollow echo from the communication satellite couldn’t disguise the wheedling tone that was supposed to have him twisted around her little finger.

‘Now? Correct me if I’m wrong but, whilst it’s the middle of the day here, I’m pretty sure that it’s the middle of the night in London. I don’t think the agency—’

‘Later, then,’ she pushed, her keenness apparently undiminished by his obvious lack of enthusiasm. ‘You could call the agency later.’

‘I could,’ he agreed tersely, ‘but what would be the point?’ A fraud case that he’d put weeks of work into and was scheduled to be in court for a minimum of three months was collapsing about his ears, which left him disinclined to submit to the wheedling of his eighteen-year-old niece. ‘You haven’t got the money to go gallivanting around Europe or you wouldn’t be spending your summer in London house-sitting for me and, by the way, using my phone to call me long-distance.’

‘It’s the middle of night,’ she reminded him. ‘Cheap rate. And actually that was the other thing.’

‘What was?’

‘Money. I thought maybe you could lend me some until Mummy comes to her senses.’

‘To go backpacking around Europe for the summer? Are you crazy? Your mother would have a fit.’

‘I wouldn’t tell her if you didn’t.’ She gave a little-girl laugh that didn’t fool him for one minute.

‘Nice try, sweetheart, but forget it.’ Europe was going to have to remain a dream for her this year. ‘Get better grades when you do your resits in November and I’ll give you a nice fat cheque so that you can go skiing at Christmas. Meantime, I suggest you use the long, friendless weeks ahead of you to revise, revise, revise.’

Carrie said something very rude about revision. ‘How can you be so mean?’

‘It takes practice, angel.’ And he’d had a lot of practice. Some women refused to take a gentle hint. ‘Tell me, how are my precious, er, ficus? You’re not forgetting to spray them, I hope?’ Her response, as he had anticipated, was brief and alliterative. ‘Luke-warm water, don’t forget,’ he responded, mildly.

‘Okay,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I’ll do it now. I’ll spray them with luke-warm water and then I’ll take them out of their pots and cut off all their roots.’ And then she hung up.

Patrick laughed, feeling a great deal better for the exchange. He certainly wasn’t worried about the wretched house plants; they had been her mother’s idea, as was the complicated care routine that she’d invented for them. His sister had prevailed upon him to ask the child to house-sit for him while he was in the Far East. What Carenza needed, Leonora had asserted firmly, was some responsibility, something to make her feel trusted, something to keep her in London and her mind on her resits. Against his better judgement, he’d agreed.

And he’d had to have someone. He couldn’t leave the house empty for the length of time he’d anticipated this case would take. But two weeks of spraying house plants had clearly taxed Carrie’s capacity for responsibility to the limit, especially now her friends were deserting her for the pleasures of Europe.

Tough.

Jessie turned off the shower. Someone was ringing her front-door bell and it appeared to be stuck. If it wasn’t stuck, someone was going to need a very good reason for making such a racket.

‘All right! I’m coming!’ she called as she reached for her bathrobe, wound a towel around her dripping hair and headed for the door. As she drew back the bolt the clangour abruptly stopped, although by now it had probably woken up half the residents of Taplow Towers which would not make her Miss Popular at six-thirty in the morning.

She slipped on the chain, turned the dead-lock and opened the door a few inches. There was no one there. Then she looked down. Looking back up at her, with eyes that could melt ice, was Bertie.

She melted momentarily, then because Bertie, clever though her adorable nephew undoubtedly was, couldn’t have rung the bell himself, she undid the chain. ‘Faye? Kevin? What’s wrong?’ she asked, flinging back the door.

Her brother and sister-in-law were noticeable only by their absence. There was just a little yellow note in Kevin’s handwriting, stuck to the gleaming woodwork. She peeled it off, held it up to her face and squinted at the words. Certain that she must have misread them, she fumbled for the spectacles in the pocket of her robe. The words leapt into bright focus. ‘Please take care of Bertie for a few days,’ she read. ‘We’ll explain when we get back. Love, Kevin and Faye.’

Get back? Get back from where? Something had to be wrong! Very wrong!

Three floors below she heard the lift door opening. ‘Kevin!’ She edged round Bertie’s buggy and headed for the stairs. ‘Wait!’ She was halfway down the first flight of stairs when she was stopped by the disapproving voice of her neighbour from the floor below.

‘Is something wrong, Miss Hayes?’

In Jessie’s ordered world nothing was ever wrong. She anticipated practical problems and dealt with them before they could develop. And these days she was careful to avoid emotional ones.

A few feet above her Bertie snuffled in his buggy, gave a little whimper and, with a horrible sinking feeling, she acknowledged that she might have been getting complacent. Far below her, the front door banged shut. This was practical and emotional and she was in deep trouble.

Taplow Towers was a haven of peace and tranquillity. No loud music, no pets and definitely no children, apart from brief visits confined to the hours of daylight.

Dorothy Ashton, chairperson of the Residents’ Association, with ears as finely tuned as those of a bat, glanced up as Bertie whimpered again, in what Jessie feared was a prelude to something much louder. ‘What was that?’ she demanded, suspiciously.

‘Nothing.’ Jessie cleared her throat, loudly. ‘I’m just a bit wheezy, that’s all.’ She gave a little cough to demonstrate. ‘I’m sorry about the noise. I was in the shower and I couldn’t get to the door in time.’ But not by chance she was certain. The reason for the early-morning visit was to ensure that she’d being wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a frown and wouldn’t be able to pursue her brother to demand an explanation.

And it had worked. Better than he could have hoped, because pursuit was now further hampered by the necessity of getting Bertie into her apartment without Dorothy Ashton seeing him.

She waved the note as evidence of her probity as she backed up the stairs. ‘It was Kevin. My brother. He left a note.’ Then, coughing again and clutching at her robe to discourage any inclination the woman might have to follow and press home her complaint, she said, ‘Please excuse me, I think I left the shower running.’ She smiled, apologetically.

Lady Ashton was not to be moved by a smile. ‘You know we will not tolerate noise nuisance, Miss Hayes. You’re still on a probationary tenancy. Your visitors on Sunday were very loud—’

‘I know and I’m sorry, but Bertie’s teething. I did take him out for a while.’ She’d offered to take him for a walk to give her neighbours a break, holding his warm body close as she’d walked the path around the little park in the centre of the square. Kevin and Faye, poor loves, had both been asleep on the sofa when she’d got back. ‘It won’t happen again,’ Jessie added, quickly. ‘I promise.’ Nothing…nothing was going to ruin her chances of staying at Taplow Towers.

It was peaceful. Quiet. Utterly predictable. Taplow Towers wasn’t the kind of place where good-looking men knocked on the door when they ran out of coffee. She should have realised that someone who could flirt as skilfully as Graeme must have had a lot of practice. And, sooner or later, would run out of coffee again.

At Taplow Towers she could work all day, and all night when she wanted to, at her computer without the slightest risk of disturbance. She’d had all the disturbance she could take…

Not that it had been easy to get in. The Residents’ Association felt safer with ladies of ‘a certain age’ but her somewhat disingenuous statement that she had ‘lost’ her fiancé had been received with a tactful change of subject and, apparently reassured that her heart was broken beyond mending, she’d been given a probationary tenancy. It still had a month to run. One false move and she’d have twenty-four hours to vacate the premises. It was in the rules and she’d signed on the dotted line without a qualm.

A little grovelling might be wise, she decided. ‘I’m truly sorry to have disturbed you, Lady Ashton.’

‘Very well, Miss Hayes. We’ll say no more. This time.’ And she finally smiled. ‘Everyone is allowed one mistake.’ Behind her the snufflings were getting louder and Jessie’s cough took on epidemic proportions as she continued to back up the stairs. ‘You should take some honey and lemon for that cough, dear.’

‘Yes.’ Cough, cough. ‘I will.’ Cough. ‘Thank you.’

The moment that Dorothy Ashton retreated into her own apartment Jessie turned, grabbed the handles of Bertie’s buggy and wheeled him inside, shutting the door very quietly behind her.

Then she turned and leaned against it, pulling the towel from her hair, swamped by warring feelings of exasperation and longing as she looked down at her infant nephew.

His little face was screwed up into a man-sized frown as he tried to focus on her and, in an attempt to reassure him, she leaned closer. ‘Well, Bertie,’ she murmured as she stroked his downy cheek with the back of her finger. ‘This is a fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’

It was a mistake. Jessie’s height and colouring was similar to Faye’s, but Bertie knew his mother’s voice. This wasn’t his mother. He opened his mouth, determined to let not just Jessie but the entire world know exactly how he felt about that.

‘Shh!’ she said. ‘Shh! Please, Bertie!’ Jessie knew very little about babies, but enough to understand that if she couldn’t keep him happy, and quiet, her days at Taplow Towers were numbered. She picked him up, put him to her shoulder. ‘I’ll find your mummy and daddy…soon. It’ll be fine. I promise.’ Bertie, for some reason, wasn’t convinced.

Instinctively she began to walk back and forth across the thick, sound-deadening carpet, the way that Faye had done on Sunday. She had a momentary recollection of her sister-in-law’s pale and exhausted face. Kevin hadn’t looked much better and he had to go to work…

And now some other nightmare must have befallen them. As she passed her desk, she grabbed her phone. She doubted that Kevin and Faye would be at home taking calls, but she could leave a message. They’d check for messages, surely? No matter what emergency had called them away?

But she didn’t have to leave a message. They had left one for her.

‘Jessie, darling, we need sleep, I mean really need sleep, and Faye thought—we thought—since you’re not just Bertie’s aunt but his godmother, you wouldn’t mind—’

Faye interrupted him. ‘There just wasn’t anyone else we could ask—’

Ask? Ask? They hadn’t asked, because they’d known what the answer would be! They knew she couldn’t have a baby at Taplow Towers!

‘I’m taking Faye away for a few days, no phones, no babies,’ her brother concluded. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘We’ll do the same for you one day. Promise.’

‘Fat chance,’ she snorted. Then, horrified by the enormity of her problems, she stared at Bertie. Bertie stared back for a moment before gathering himself to let rip. ‘No, Bertie!’ she begged. ‘Please, darling!’ Bertie wasn’t listening.

Everyone else was.

‘This is the final call for the British Airways flight to London, calling at…’

Patrick took his boarding cards from the check-in clerk and headed for Departure. It was Carrie’s lucky day. Thanks to his client changing his plea—he’d almost certainly been paid handsomely to do so to protect people in high places—he was going home. Since there wasn’t any chance of him sharing his house with anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old girl, he would ‘lend’ her the money to join her friends in France in return for some serious promises regarding work. In twenty-four hours she would be free.

‘So? Will you take it?’

Take it? Jessie had one hour before she was, to all intents and purposes, homeless. She would have been grateful for anything with hot and cold running water and a roof that didn’t leak; this was beyond her wildest dreams. More importantly, it was available immediately. Now. This very minute. It seemed almost too good to be true.

‘I can move in right away?’ She needed to reassure herself that she wasn’t simply hallucinating. Twenty-nine hours without more than twenty minutes of consecutive sleep and absolutely no peace of mind could do that to you.

‘Absolutely!’ Carenza Finch seemed rather young to be a householder on this scale but Jessie was beyond worrying about it. ‘I can’t leave the house empty, and besides, I’ve got to have someone I can trust to feed my darling Mao while I’m away.’ The cat, the one fly in the perfection of the arrangement, blinked at Bertie, who was perched on Jessie’s hip. Bertie stopped grinding his gums into her shirt and stared back. ‘I was at my wits’ end.’

‘Really?’ Was there an epidemic? Could you get immunised? Was she losing her mind?

‘Absolutely. So if you’re happy, I just need the rent,’ she prompted, ‘and the place is yours, lock, stock and whatsit for three months.’ She held out a pen. ‘All you have to do is sign on the dotted line.’

Jessie fished her spectacles out of her pocket and, propping them on her nose, glanced at the lease with eyes gritty from lack of sleep. It appeared to be a standard form used by the agency she’d contacted. She signed it quickly and counted out the deposit and three months’ rent in advance. In cash. Neither of them had time to wait for a cheque to clear.

Carenza Finch countersigned with a flourish, then she handed over the keys. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said, as she gathered up the money and stowed it carefully in a money belt concealed beneath her sweatshirt. ‘You will take really good care of Mao, won’t you? He likes liver and fresh cod—you have to break it up with your fingers in case of bones—and minced chicken. I wrote it all down for you…’ Jessie made a determined effort not to shudder. For a roof over her head, she’d mince chicken. ‘Oh, and the drill for looking after the plants is on the notice-board.’

Oh, great. She’d try not to kill them, although anything tender was inclined to wilt if she went within ten feet of it. But she took her responsibilities seriously. Why else would Kevin and Faye leave their firstborn on her doorstep? They knew they could trust her.

Maybe she should do something utterly disgraceful in the very near future, something bad enough to give them second thoughts about doing this ever again.

‘Have you left the vet’s telephone number?’ she demanded, following Carenza to the door. It wasn’t that easy to be irresponsible. She was going to have to work up to it. ‘And who do I call in the event of an emergency? Have you left your contact address?’

‘I don’t plan on having one for the next three months,’ Carrie said, picking up a heavy rucksack. ‘Don’t worry, nothing disastrous is going to happen.’ Wrong. It already had. ‘See you in three months.’

Three months. Breathing space to find another Taplow Towers. Not so bad. This thing with Bertie was just a temporary situation, after all. Faye was a doting mother; Kevin loved his son to distraction. Even exhausted, they wouldn’t be able to live for more than a few days without him. And they must both know what this was doing to her life.

They would return, shame-faced and horrified at the ramifications of their actions; things would return to normal and within hours her life would be back on an even keel, running like clockwork. The only thing that wouldn’t be the same was Taplow Towers.

If they’d just phoned, explained, she could have moved into their home for a day or two. Instead they’d shipped all Bertie’s belongings to her by express carrier, along with a special delivery of disposal nappies. She knew what the parcel contained, because it was printed in large letters, all over the packaging. The porter hadn’t said a word when he’d brought it up. He hadn’t needed to. His mournful expression had been enough. She was doomed.

Lack of sleep must have been fugging their brains, because if it had been their intention to get her evicted, Faye and Kevin couldn’t have made a better job of it.

None of which was Bertie’s fault. She took a deep breath and dropped a kiss on his dark curls. Gave him a cuddle. She wasn’t sure what it did for Bertie, but it made her feel a lot better.

‘Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m going to have to put you down while I make a cup of tea.’ Bertie, his big round eyes still fixed on the cat, went into his buggy without complaint. The cat yawned. Bertie wriggled delightedly and smiled.

Momentarily astonished by this phenomenon, Jessie paused and, for a heart-aching moment, she realised that her baby nephew was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Damn Graeme.

The cat, meowing to be let out, distracted her from the yawning pit of self-pity. Bertie watched him as he sauntered down the garden, then whimpered as he disappeared into some bushes. Then howled.

‘Oh…’ She glanced at Bertie and bit back the word that sprang to her lips. ‘Mao!’ she called. But he’d gone. Suppose he never came back? Two hours ago she wouldn’t have cared, but if Bertie liked him she would buy free-range chicken from Fortnum’s and mince it to paste for the precious creature. Maybe there was a picture of a cat somewhere…

Carenza picked up a discarded newspaper, using it to shade her eyes from the glare off the sea.

‘Isn’t that your uncle’s case?’ Sarah said, turning her head upside down to read the headline. “‘FAR EAST FRAUD TRIAL.’’ Yes, look, there’s a picture of him.’ She snatched the paper and grinned. ‘Wow, but he’s sexy!’