His Baby!

Daisy stooped to pick up the bear Sophie had dropped, and when she straightened up it was to find Matt staring at her again, an almost imperceptible disquiet shadowing the narrowed grey eyes.

Mrs Hamilton was looking from one to the other of them with an expression very like bemusement, and she shook her head slightly as she stood up. ‘I have to ring Harry down in the village to check what time he’ll be delivering the champagne for Christmas morning. Don’t forget that the hordes will be arriving for drinks, will you, darling?’ she asked her son.

Matt pulled a face and Sophie giggled. ‘Will I be allowed to forget?’ he murmured.

‘No, you won’t,’ answered Mrs Hamilton firmly as she breezed out of the room. ‘It’s a family tradition!’

Matt scooped Sophie further up his chest, so that she was looking with perky interest over his shoulder, and then he indicated a hold-all he’d brought in. ‘Would you mind unpacking that bag for me, please, Daisy?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t mind!’ Pleased to have something to do other than try not to keep staring at that peculiarly disapproving face, Daisy crouched down on the floor to unzip the bag, taking out cotton-wool balls and lotion and all the other mysterious baby paraphernalia which lay inside. She could sense that he was still watching her, and it made her conscious as never before of the blue denim clinging to her bottom.

There was an odd kind of silence in the room, which even Sophie’s occasional glug couldn’t dispel. Daisy could feel more of that self-conscious colour stealing into her cheeks and the increased thud of her heart as she acknowledged the unique tingle of self-awareness which Matt seemed to have bestowed on her like an electric charge. Rather desperately she hunted around for something neutral to say.

‘Somehow I can’t really imagine you changing a nappy, Matt!’ she commented, but she saw the sardonic twist of his mouth and knew that she had not succeeded in lightening the mood at all.

‘Why ever not?’ he queried, in a mocking drawl. ‘These are the nineties, after all, and fathers are hands-on these days. Or did you imagine that rich, successful tycoons don’t behave like other fathers?’

There was something so cynical about the way he spoke that Daisy sat back on her heels and looked up at him in bewilderment, wondering what had happened to make his grey eyes shine with that brilliance which was as cold and as hard as a diamond. Was that what bereavement did to you?

‘I—didn’t mean anything like that,’ she said in confusion. ‘I don’t know any fathers of your age, for one thing. And for another you’re not some “rich, successful tycoon”, as you put it—you’re just Matt to me. The same Matt you always were.’ Which sounded so naïve that she bit her lip as she said it, wishing that she’d learnt to think before opening her mouth.

But Matt smiled then, and his real smile, too—not some pale masquerade of the real thing. ‘Of course you didn’t mean it. Take no notice of me, Daisy. I’m tired and I’m jet-lagged and Sophie’s teething—’

‘And you’re still not over Patti?’ she prompted gently, praying that he might confide in her. She might have once felt jealous of the woman who had captured Matt’s heart, but Patti was now dead, and Daisy would have done anything to be able to take that bleak, haunted look from his eyes. ‘Oh, Matt—it must have been absolutely awful—I kept thinking about you. That letter I wrote was painfully inadequate.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Your letter meant a lot to me.’

‘I wanted to come to the funeral, and I know that your mother did too—but since it was being held in New York and you didn’t really seem that keen . . .’ Her words tailed off because she could see the sudden, warning tension in his body.

His mouth tautened as though she’d said something obscene, and Daisy was shocked by the expression which hardened those beautifully angular features. ‘Daisy ...’ He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘I know that you mean well, but I have to tell you that I don’t want or intend to discuss Patti with you. Dwelling on her death will not help anyone, and certainly not Sophie. I have a new life to make for myself, and I have to let go of the past. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Daisy stiffly, and for a moment she felt a fleeting pang of sympathy for his dead wife. Who would ever have dreamed that Matt could be such a cold fish as to dismiss the woman he had married as though she were some troublesome item on an agenda Daisy had been proposing?

What was more, he’d never spoken to her like that before. Never. Not in that curt, abrupt, dismissive manner.

Inevitably Daisy’s mind drifted back, took her to the last time she’d seen Matt Hamilton, eighteen months ago, before his life was to alter irrevocably . . .

He was due back from the States for a short holiday and his mother had decided to throw a summer ball in his honour at Hamilton House. Since he’d gone to live in New York after graduating his visits had been few and far between and they’d all missed him terribly, Daisy especially.

She was over the moon with excitement. Her first ball, and, much more importantly, Matt was to be there . . .

She was in a real panic about what to wear, and eventually her mother sewed her a dress, made from an old ballgown of her own. Her first really grownup dress.

Daisy twirled around in front of the mirror, admiring the pale blue gauzy voile of the skirt which floated over a stiffened petticoat down to her slim ankles. The bodice of the dress was in the same silvery blue, but made of satin, and it was strapless and clung to the faint swell of her burgeoning breasts. It wasn’t a particularly fashionable dress, but she loved it.

The strappy silver sandals were borrowed from a schoolfriend and her hair swung neatly to her small chin in a glossy bob, two boot-lace strands of silver ribbon catching it up at the sides so that it didn’t fall all over her face. She wore a lick of mascara which emphasised the dark lashes which framed her hazel eyes, and a brush of gloss on her lips. For a girl who had never dressed up she felt like Cinderella as she waited for Matt to arrive.

But Matt was late; he phoned from the airport to say that his flight was delayed, and Daisy, who’d been hovering by the door waiting for him, took the call, her heart plummeting with disappointment when she heard his words.

‘I’ll try and be there by ten,’ he promised.

She looked up at the grandfather clock in the hall, biting her lip as she did so. Ten! But that was nearly two hours away!

She tried to make the time go faster. She ate some salmon and then some strawberries and cream which she didn’t really want. She drank one glass of champagne, danced with all kinds of young men she had no desire to dance with, and all the time her gaze darted anxiously to the door, just waiting for the moment when Matt would appear, and he would see her and . . .

Well, she wasn’t sure what would happen then, because in her innocently youthful fantasies she had never got beyond that particular moment when his eyes would light up with delighted fascination as he saw just how much she’d grown up . . .

As it happened, he arrived without her seeing him. She was at the far end of the room when she heard a split second’s silence, followed by a buzz of excitement, and Daisy turned around to see the tall, elegant figure in a superbly cut dinner jacket which emphasised the breadth of his shoulders, the light from the chandeliers setting the ruffled dark hair gleaming.

He must have sensed that someone was staring at him, because the brilliant grey eyes sought her out immediately, and they narrowed for a moment with an appreciative yet frowning intensity which for some reason made her skin come out in goose-bumps. She honestly thought that she might run the full length of the room and into his arms when something stopped her.

He wasn’t alone.

By his side stood the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She looked astonishingly and disturbingly familiar, thought Daisy, frowning as she tried to think of when or where she’d seen her before.

The woman had a riot of shiny blue-black curls snaking exotically all the way down her back, and eyes which were greener than an avocado. Her unbelievably tiny-hipped body was clothed in a long, tight sheath of emerald sequins, so that she resembled some fresh and slim blade of grass. The dress was completely backless and slit on both sides right up to the woman’s thighs, leaving no one in the ballroom in any doubt that she had the most superb body that most men would ever see in a lifetime.

Daisy heard a shocked choke from behind her as one of the guests almost spat his champagne out to exclaim, ‘Good grief! Trust Matt Hamilton to have all the blasted luck! That’s Patti Page with him, isn’t it?’

Daisy stared even more and so did everyone else in the room, drawn to that startling, exotic beauty like moths to a light bulb. No wonder the woman had looked so familiar, but also no wonder Daisy had failed to recognise her. Because you didn’t expect to see a world-famous rock singer attending what was simply a provincial summer ball!

Matt began to move forward, introducing the beauty on his arm to all and sundry, and Daisy turned away and stumbled out onto the moonlit terrace, knowing that the overwhelming disappointment she felt was totally unreasonable, but unable to shake it off all the same.

He was twenty-seven, for heaven’s sake, and she was seventeen. He lived and worked in New York, and she was at the local school. He was a sophisticated, successful man of the world who had always had legions of women clamouring for his attention, and she had never even had a single boyfriend. So what had she been expecting? That Matt would take one look at her in her finery tonight and then tell her dramatically that he would wait for her, for just as long as it took?

‘Hello, Daisy,’ came a deep, familiar voice, and Daisy whirled round to stare longingly up at that magnificent face.

‘H-hello, Matt,’ she stumbled.

‘You’re looking very beautiful tonight,’ he said gravely as the grey eyes slowly looked her up and down. ‘Although I expect that a lot of people have already told you that.’

No one else who mattered, she thought. ‘Wh-where’s—your girlfriend?’ she managed, and in all the best fantasies Matt would have said, with a frown, ‘My girlfriend? Oh, Patti’s not my girlfriend—she’s going out with my best friend/colleague/the man I met on the plane ... ’

The trouble was that he didn’t say any of those things. ‘Patti?’ He smiled, and Daisy was old enough to recognise the speculative sexual glint which came into his eyes. He’s sleeping with her, she recognised, with a pain that kicked her in the stomach with the force of a sledgehammer.

‘Oh, Patti’s gone to repair her make-up. That generally takes something in the region of half an hour, so I just thought I’d come and steal a dance with you while I was waiting.’

He didn’t even give her a chance to say no, although afterwards she wished he had. Because one moment in Matt’s arms was enough to give her a taste of a forbidden paradise, and she knew that she would never be quite the same again.

Just for that one dance, Daisy closed her eyes and let herself go, drifting with him in time to the music and letting her feelings guide her rather than her judgement. She melted into his embrace, entwined her arms around his neck as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And she found that her body was drawn so sinuously close to his that it was difficult for her to breathe.

She could feel him stiffen with a sudden tension, and she was tightening her arms ecstatically around his neck when she heard him say, very abruptly, ‘Easy, Daisy. Easy,’ he repeated, frowning, a glimmer of surprise and remonstration in his voice as he loosened his hands, which had been holding her waist. And then the spell was broken.

‘Matt?’ It was a drawled, sexy American accent, and Matt and Daisy drew apart to find the green goddess standing next to them, scrutinising them with those magnificent avocado eyes. ‘My, my, Matt,’ came her acidly amused comment. ‘What’s this—cradle-snatching? She’s just a little young for you, isn’t she, honey?’

Matt laughed easily and let Daisy go, taking hold of the American woman’s strong, slim hand and lifting it briefly to his mouth. The gesture stabbed at Daisy’s heart like a stiletto. ‘This is Daisy,’ he smiled, ‘whom I’ve known since she was a little girl—she’s my honorary sister, aren’t you, Daisy?’

Daisy tried not to grit her teeth with frustrated rage as she nodded obediently.

‘And I’d like you to meet Patti Page,’ said Matt.

‘H-hello,’ stammered Daisy, feeling as flat as she always did the day after her birthday.

‘Hi,’ said Patti, her superb lips twisting with barely feigned amusement as she took in Daisy’s very obviously home-made dress. ‘Honey,’ she purred into Matt’s ear, ‘I’m absolutely starving. Something or someone’s given me the biggest appetite.’ And here she winked suggestively at Daisy. ‘So can we please go eat something?’

‘Of course we can,’ he answered, and Daisy saw the American woman’s hand slide possessively underneath his jacket, could see it moving sensuously beneath the soft, dark cloth in a gesture which just shrieked of sexual possessiveness, and Daisy knew a very real desire to scream out loud.

‘I’ll see you later, Daisy,’ Matt told her.

But she didn’t see him later, not to talk to, though she found him watching her across the ballroom from time to time, that curiously intense look on his face again. All Daisy saw was Patti creeping out of his room at dawn, and the following morning they both drove off very early, and at great speed.

And within weeks came the news that Matt and Patti were married and were expecting a baby . . .

Slowly and reluctantly, Daisy came back to the present to find Matt watching her, his elegant dark brows quizzically raised.

‘Such pensive daydreams, Daisy,’ he mocked softly, in a knowing voice. ‘Care to share them?’

Had he guessed? Could he tell by her face that she’d been thinking about him? Was she really so transparent—or was it just that Matt was uncannily perceptive where she was concerned?

Daisy pushed a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes and rose to her feet. She had to get out of here. Matt’s presence had awakened too many confused feelings within her. ‘Please excuse me,’ she said politely. ‘I want to go and wash my hair.’

‘Oh?’ came the arrogant query. ‘It looks fine to me.’

‘Not fine enough,’ she corrected him stiffly, and then, as if to prove to him that she was no longer a child, she added, ‘I’m going to a dance tonight.’

‘A dance?’ Daisy might have been suggesting a solo space mission, from the look on his face.

‘Yes, a dance!’ she retorted. ‘Don’t sound so surprised, Matt. This may not be New York, but we have quite an active social life here in Cheriton.’

‘Do you really?’ he murmured, and Daisy got the distinctly annoying feeling that he was laughing at her.

CHAPTER TWO

ALONE, in the sanctuary of her bedroom, Daisy piled her newly washed hair on top of her head. Did that make her look more sophisticated? She peered at herself critically in the mirror. Not really. Sighing, she reluctantly pulled the pins out and the golden-brown hair spilled in satin tendrils over her breasts.

Which meant that it was going to take what she wore to convince Matt Hamilton that she was not some wayward little schoolgirl he could patronise like mad, but a living, breathing adult!

Her wardrobe wasn’t exactly extensive but she had something to suit most occasions, and one dress in particular which would score very high in the razzle-dazzle stakes. Black and slinky, it was the most outrageous garment she possessed. She slithered into it and surveyed herself in the bedroom mirror again. Perfect! Absolutely perfect!

In black Lycra, it clung like a second skin and skimmed to midway down her thighs. She wore it with opaque black tights and understated black pumps and then completely went to town on her make-up. When she’d finished she was satisfied; the glitter of green shadow emphasised the flecks in her golden eyes and the rose lip-gloss the full curve of her mouth. Her hair she left falling unfettered, so that it swung in a scented golden-brown curtain all the way down her back.

The only vaguely festive jewellery she owned was some glittery stuff which had been fashionable last year, and she clamped on the big, dangly earrings and the matching bracelet, and was just coming out of her bedroom when she almost collided with Matt coming out of his.

He had obviously just been putting Sophie to bed, since he had removed his black cashmere sweater and there were damp patches spattered all over the front of his grey shirt. Evidence of a playful bathtime, she thought with a sudden wistfulness, wishing that he’d asked her to help him.

His mouth curved into a disdainful imitation of a smile as his eyes slowly flicked over her with all the judgemental deliberation of a sergeant major inspecting the troops.

‘Well, what do you know?’ he murmured sardonically. ‘Here we have another illustration of Daisy’s sartorial elegance. And this time we find that the fairy has fallen off the top of the Christmas tree and landed right here in front of me.’

She kept the smile pinned to her lips. ‘And if that’s supposed to puncture my confidence,’ she told him sweetly, ‘then I’m afraid you haven’t succeeded, Matt. Better luck next time!’

He ignored her remark. ‘So where are you really heading tonight, Daisy? To some tacky strip-joint where you’re the star turn?’

‘And you can keep your cheap comments to yourself!’ she snapped back at him, furious as a cat who’d been confronted by water. ‘You obviously know absolutely nothing about women and what we like to wear.’

He gave a cool smile, and a spark of challenge lit the bright grey eyes. ‘You don’t think so?’ he murmured. ‘Well, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disabuse you of that opinion, my dear Daisy. I happen to know enough about women to advise you that if you have it, then it’s definitely best not to flaunt it. Unless you’re aiming for the trampy look.’

A slow flame of anger began to build inside her, and all the pent-up hurt she’d felt when he’d gone off and married Patti came bubbling to the surface. ‘But Patti flaunted it, didn’t she?’ she taunted recklessly as she remembered that backless dress with the slits all the way up the side which had revealed her magnificent body. And then she stopped, appalled at herself as she realised what she’d said. ‘Oh, Matt,’ she began remorsefully. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it—’

His mouth was a hard line as he moved a little closer. ‘But you did mean it,’ he contradicted her, in a voice soft with menace. ‘You know you did, Daisy.’

Suddenly, this was no longer the Matt she knew and remembered—the combination of protector and childhood hero. This Matt was altogether more threatening—dark and brooding and exuding something, some indefinable something, which sent a shiver of excited recognition all the way down Daisy’s spine. She bit her lip, feeling way, way out of her depth. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken ill—’

‘Of the dead?’ he put in.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘But it’s the truth, Daisy, and we’re taught to speak the truth. Patti did flaunt herself. She was beautiful, and she knew it. Her career as a singer capitalised on the flaunting of that beauty. But you’re no rock singer,’ he finished, and his eyes hardened. ‘And what you’re wearing I would have thought was a little unsuitable for a hop at Cheriton Village Hall. I don’t quite think the locals are ready for it, do you?’

He gave his old, familiar smile then, and Daisy recognised the gesture immediately. Matt thought that he was about to get his own way and so he was laying on the charm with a trowel.

Well, he darned well wasn’t going to get his own way, not this time! Daisy pursed her lips together indignantly. ‘And what gives you the right to come back here and start dictating what I should or shouldn’t be wearing?’

‘Right?’ He looked genuinely perplexed, the harshness having momentarily fled from his face. ‘Why, the right of friendship, of course. I thought we were friends—and friends look out for one another, don’t they?’

Daisy stared at him and felt a sudden sadness overwhelm her. Friends?

No.

She and Matt were no longer friends. Something had happened to friendship along the way, and it had become something far less innocent ... Somewhere along the way, her girlish crush had matured into a tugging pull of desire. Her innocent fantasies had blossomed into real needs. Because when she looked at Matt now it was with the acknowledgement of his potent sex appeal, the earthy charisma which he exuded like an aura around him. She found herself wondering what it would be like not just to kiss him but to lie naked beside him, to have all that virile strength embracing her ... enfolding her . . .

She shivered slightly and pushed the disturbingly erotic thoughts away as she met his steady gaze squarely. ‘And now, if you’ve finished your little lecture, please may I be excused?’

‘Be my guest.’ He gave her a humourless smile. ‘And how do you propose getting to this—er—dance?’

‘I’m getting a lift, actually.’

‘A lift?’

He made it sound as though an alien spacecraft was about to land on the lawn outside. ‘Yes, a lift. You remember, Matt. Car draws up to house. Driver gets out, opens door. Daisy gets in. Car goes “broom-broom!” and roars off at speed!’

‘Don’t be so damned flippant!’ he snapped.

‘Then don’t be so damned autocratic!’ she retorted, with a shake of her head which set her hair shimmering, ridiculously pleased as she saw him watch the movement with reluctant fascination.

‘And just who’s giving you this lift?’ he enquired silkily.

Daisy opened her mouth to reply, but at that precise moment the doorbell clanged. ‘See for yourself,’ she told him sweetly, and ran downstairs.

‘Oh, I shall,’ he said softly, from just behind her.

Daisy had been rather pleased when Mick Farlow had invited her to the village dance, since he happened to be flavour of the month. And no wonder. At a towering twenty-one years old, with a thatch of thick blond hair and the kind of shoulders which could support at least two women sitting on them, Mick was the local dreamboat. Even Daisy had agreed that. But that had been before she’d known that Matt was coming home . . .

So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that as Matt un-smilingly opened the door to her would-be suitor Mick Farlow should suddenly pale into complete and utter insignificance beside the tall, dark man who seemed to dominate the spacious hallway. It was like comparing a candle’s light to a flaming beacon.

Daisy thought how boyish Mick looked compared to Matt. How smooth and shiny his skin was, when contrasted with Matt’s virile and shadowed jaw. He even looked ill-at-ease in his best suit, the tie sitting awkwardly on his broad neck. Matt, who was casually dressed in black jeans and a grey shirt, somehow managed to look more elegant than Mick in all his formal clothes. All of a sudden, Daisy heartily wished that she weren’t going to the dance.

‘You’ve come to collect Daisy, I believe?’ asked Matt.

‘Er, that’s right—sir.’

Daisy closed her eyes in despair. Sir? Oh, for heaven’s sake—now Mick was sounding positively feudal!

‘You’ll not be drinking, I hope?’ And it sounded more like an order than a question, thought Daisy indignantly. Of course he wouldn’t be drinking.

‘N-no, sir.’

‘And what time do you propose having her home?’

At this point, Daisy thought, she would explode with rage. He was acting like some sort of jailer, for heaven’s sake! ‘Go and get in the car, Mick,’ she instructed. ‘I’ll be out in a moment.’