Connie’s Courage (45 page)

Immediately her face crimsoned. What on earth had she told him Lyddy's full name for, as though … as though she wanted him to know that she had named her in part for him?

‘Mavis says that Josie has told her that she is very pretty. She must take after you, Connie.

Was he really complimenting her, or was he just being polite?

‘Ellie, my sister, says she's a true Barclay – my mother's family, Connie explained dizzily.

She could hardly take her eyes off him, and
it bemused her to see how tanned and well he looked, his skin several shades darker than she remembered, emphasising the colour of his eyes. His shoulders were surely broader too, his jaw leaner, harder. A man's jaw now.

‘And this must be your son? she said quietly, trying not to look at the squirming child Harry was holding in his arms. She did not want to give away how agonisingly jealous she was that another woman had given him his child.

Harry hesitated. The truth was that he was pretty sure that Christopher was not his son.

‘Yes. This is Christopher,' Harry agreed, ‘he hasn't really got used to being with me yet I don't think, he apologised, as the little boy suddenly started to scream and contorted his body into a rigid arc.

‘That's all right, Connie tried to comfort him. ‘We've got a lot of little ones here who haven't got used to their dads yet. How is … How is your wife?

She could hardly bring herself to say the words, but good manners dictated that they had to be said.

Harry looked away from her. ‘Rosa and I are to be divorced. ‘Divorced!

Connie couldn't conceal her shock. It was virtually unheard of for anyone, other than the titled and wealthy, to divorce.

‘But Mavis said. I thought …

‘Our marriage was a mistake from the outset,' Harry told her quietly. Rosa is to marry her cousin just as soon as she is free to do so, and they intend to emigrate to America. Christopher, of course, will stay with me.'

‘Oh, Harry …'

It's all right,' he told her hardily, hearing the shocked compassion in her voice. To be honest, Connie, I'm as glad to be free of the marriage as Rosa is. If not more so,' he admitted. I suppose you think it ungentlemanly of me to say that, but I can't see the point in lying.'

Before he could continue, Christopher kicked him in the stomach, driving the breath out of his lungs.

‘Oh dear. Give him to me, Harry, and you sit down and get your breath back,' Connie urged him, quickly taking the angrily resistant little body from him and holding the boy deftly.

How old is he now?' she asked, gently but firmly binding Christopher's hands into his body, and holding him in such a way that his struggles to hit out at her were defeated.

He was two in January,' Harry told her, ruefully admiring the calm way she was dealing with Christopher's aggression.

‘Two? He's a good size for his age then, I've got boys here nearly six months older than him and nothing like his size,' Connie told him.

Harry made no response. Mavis had also commented on Christopher's size, but for him to have
fathered the boy, Christopher would have had to have been conceived on the one solitary occasion he and Rosa had been intimate in the six months before he left for the Front.

And if he wasn't Christopher's father, as he was beginning to suspect, he thought he had a very good idea who might be, which made Rosa and Gerald's callous decision to leave the child behind when they emigrated, even more shocking.

Harry had seen for himself how Gerald had treated the little boy, and he had decided that whether or not he had physically fathered Christopher, he meant to be the best parent to him that he could.

I was sorry to hear about your sad loss, Connie.'

The stilted, formal words hung in the air between them, and it pierced his heart to see how the colour left her skin.

‘You must have loved him a very great deal?'

He had meant the emotional words more for himself than for her, but Connie gasped as though he had struck her.

‘I can't take your son, Harry. We're already full.' She was speaking too fast, and too betrayingly, Connie knew, but she just couldn't stop herself. She wanted him to go before she betrayed herself any further. She wanted him to go so that she could give way to the tears she could feel burning behind her eyes. She wanted him to go before she flung herself into his arms and begged him to stay.

There was a loud knock on the parlour door,
and before she could say anything, the door itself opened and two men came in. They pushed past the little tweeny Connie had hired more out of pity than anything else.

The moment she saw them, Connie knew who they were, and the blood ran cold in her veins with helpless fear.

‘Out you! one of the men ordered Harry, holding open the door, whilst the other walked over to Connie.

‘What's going on? Harry demanded immediately, recognising Connie's shocked terror.

‘This is none of your business, and if you know what's good for you, you'll do as you re told, the man by the door responded, spitting a plug of tobacco onto Connie's immaculate floor.

‘Please go, Harry, Connie begged him white-faced, handing Christopher to him.

He could hardly stay if Connie didn't want him to, but Harry had no intention of going very far. Not when he could see how afraid she was.

Quietly he walked into the hall, and then instead of leaving went into the garden. He had no idea what or who it was that had brought that look of tension and fear to Connie's face, but he intended to find out.

Like a lot of men returning from the War, Harry had discovered that he was now in many ways a different Harry to the one who had left England to fight for his country.

For one thing, since his return home he had
discovered within himself an unfamiliar strength, allied to a sense of purposefulness, and determination to live his life as he wished to live it, and not as others dictated.

Connie, he had sensed immediately, shared those feelings. They were, he felt, a part of a new generation who having gone through the War shared a special awareness of the frailty of life. And a special need to preserve it and nurture it, where and whenever they could.

Everything he had heard about her since his return, had not only strengthened his love for her, but had added admiration and respect. All this meant that, in his estimation, if she felt afraid then there was a very good reason for that fear.

He could see a man digging fiercely at the bottom of the garden as though his life depended on it, and Harry began to make his way toward him. Connie could send him away as many times as she wished, but whilst he felt she might need his help, he intended to return, and to go on returning.

Alone in the parlour with her visitors, Connie lifted her chin and faced them as calmly as she could.

‘We've come from Mr Connolly,' one of the men told her.

She had guessed as much, of course, having recognised them as the thugs who had beaten up poor Davie. Bill Connolly must be getting very sure of himself and his power if he felt able to
have his name spoken publicly by his men, Connie acknowledged.

Although she was struggling not to let them see it, she was seized with ice-cold dread. She could feel the frantic thud of her heartbeat, and the sick panic caused by her own fear.

So far as she knew, she was well outside the area Bill Connolly had marked out as his territory. Were his men here because he was planning on extending that territory, or for an even more sinister purpose? Had Kieron's uncle somehow realised who she was?

If her relationship with Kieron ever became public knowledge, she would be ruined, Connie acknowledged. And not just financially.

‘Mr Connolly thought as how you would like to know about this business service he runs, protecting people from having their property damaged by some of these rogues that are about, the man continued, watching her slyly.

Connie waited in silence, already knowing what was coming next.

‘Mr Connolly reckons as how you must be making a tidy bit o' money here, and because you re a woman, he's prepared to be generous. Twenty per cent is normally what he charges for protecting his customers. He told us to say as how he will just take the ten from you. First Friday in the month we calls for it. In cash if you please … And seeing as we are halfway through March already, he's said as how he'll only charge you for half of this month, and he
won't collect until the end of next month. Thirty pounds that u'll be, when we comes for it!'

Thirty pounds! Connie stared at them, anger swamping her fear.

I can't pay you that much! It's impossible. I

don't …'

Don't give us any of that. Mr Connolly knows what you charge, and how many brats you've got here. Thirty pounds the last Friday next month, otherwise you'll be getting a taste of what happens to people's property if they don't appreciate Mr Connolly's generosity to them. Nice house you've got here. It ‘ud be a shame if anything was to happen to it …'

When Connie made no response the second man, who so far had remained silent, demanded grimly, ‘You do know who Mr Connolly is, don't you?'

Yes, Connie wanted to respond, he's a murderer and a thief, but of course she couldn't, instead she answered quietly, I hadn't realised he had extended his interests to this part of the city.'

The first man laughed. ‘Aye, well, Mr Connolly knows how to spot a good business opportunity when he sees one, and he's already got a couple of properties hereabouts. It's thirty pounds, don't you go forgetting – Mr Connolly doesn't like customers who forget what's owing to him.'

From his vantage point in the garden where he had been talking with Davie, and more informatively
with Nora, who had come down to see who was with her brother, Harry watched Connie's visitors leave.

Then, re-claiming Christopher who had struck up an immediate friendship with Davie, he headed purposefully for the house. Thanks to Nora's good offices, he was not only able to leave Christopher safely in her hands, but also to make his way to the parlour via her kitchen.

Connie could not make up her mind what to do.

Ordinarily with any kind of problem, she would have turned immediately to her brother-in-law Gideon, and without the potential added complication of Bill Connolly recognising her, she would have done so.

But, although Gideon and Ellie knew about Kieron, they did not know all the facts, and the truth was that she felt so ashamed of, and so shamed by, them that she did not want them to know.

The book she had been reading the previous evening lay on a small table beside her chair, and more for something to keep her occupied than anything else, she picked it up and pulled out a set of library steps, intending to restore the volume to its correct place on the top shelf of the elegant mahogany cupboard.

She had opened the glass door and was just perching on the top of the library steps, when she heard someone knock on the parlour door.

Her immediate fear was that Bill Connolly's men had returned.

At the same moment as Harry entered the parlour, Connie turned anxiously toward the door, forgetting that she was on the steps. The book fell to the floor first, and would have been followed by Connie herself had not Harry raced across the room to catch her.

She felt as light as thistledown in his arms, Harry thought achingly, and her eyes were the most magical colour he had ever seen. Even her tears could not disguise their beauty. He wanted to gaze into their deep green depths for ever.

When had Harry become so powerfully muscular? He was holding her as easily as she might have held a child. The warm, male scent of him surrounded her and there was a look in his eyes as his hot gaze held hers that turned her heart over.

Connie!'

Her name seemed to be wrenched from his throat as though it hurt him to say it, and then shockingly, but oh so sweetly, he was kissing her. Not a hesitant, uncertain, youthful kiss this, but a man's kiss. Immediately Connie responded to it and to him, letting her love speak for itself.

Connie, Connie … I have wanted you so. Loved you so …' The words thick with longing and need tumbled from his lips between the passionate kisses he pressed on hers – the sweetest of balms to her aching heart.

She wanted to stay held safe like this within his arms listening to his words of love for ever.

Upstairs one of the children fell over and cried out, bringing then both sharply back to reality; but even though Connie drew back from him, Harry continued to hold one of her hands.

‘Throughout my darkest hours, it has been you and your sweetness, and my unending love for you, that I have thought of most often, Connie. It was my memories of you, and my longing to live to see you again, that sustained me when I would have given up hope.

The simple words caught at her heart, reminding her of all the things she would rather have forgotten.

‘If that is true, then you had no right to do so, she answered him immediately. ‘You had a wife to think of and to love.

Harry shook his head. ‘No. I can say this now without guilt – I never loved Rosa.'

‘But you married her!

Connie froze as she heard the betraying pain in her own voice.

‘I had no choice, Harry told her quietly, adding when he saw the white-faced look of shock Connie couldn't quite conceal, ‘Rosa had made public announcements to the effect that we were to be married even though there was no intimacy of any kind between us, other than inside her head.

‘I thought that perhaps you had fallen in love with her because I had … after you had realised
that you did not, after all, care for me,' Connie told him painfully.

If you are referring to the fact that you, very properly, chided me for my forwardness, then I have to tell you, Connie, that all that did was make me all the more determined to woo you,' Harry told her drily. But I know I should not be speaking to you like this. You may be the only woman I have ever loved; the only woman I shall ever love …'