Christmas in Bluebell Cove by Abigail Gordon Page B

you’ve waited until you are almost four months pregnant before telling me? Yet I shouldn’t have needed telling. Your listlessness and pallor during the first months and then a sudden blooming should have made me realise.
    â€˜I presume that you kept it from me because I’d misled you about the reason for me being in Paris that weekend. Because you still think I was only there for the sex.’
    â€˜You presume wrongly,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t tell you because I was devastated at the thought of us bringing another child into a marriage that would soon be over. Obviously you would find out sooner or later, but I kept putting the moment off because I wasn’t sure how you would react when you knew.
    â€˜I realised it wouldn’t be long before you took a long hard look at me and tuned in to what was happening. No one else knows I’m pregnant. Even the children don’tknow. It would have been unforgivable to tell them before I’d told you.’
    â€˜I find it incredible that you had doubts about my reaction when I found out,’ he said with his expression softening, ‘and to set your mind at rest, here you have it.’
    As she observed him warily he took her in his arms. ‘I’m delighted,’ he murmured with his lips against the soft chestnut hair, ‘and I’m going to cancel the divorce proceedings first thing tomorrow.’
    She shook her head. ‘No. Don’t do it for that reason, Ethan. It would have to be because we are both of the same mind about the future that we call it off, and we’re not, are we? I don’t want this child to become a bargaining source between us. Do you understand? ’
    â€˜Only too well,’ he replied flatly, ‘but don’t make any plans about taking the baby to live in Paris permanently, Francine. Two of us were involved in creating this new life, and two of us are going to be involved equally in its future, divorce or not.’
    He was getting to his feet and looking down at her, sitting unmoving and white faced, said, ‘I’ll walk you home, it will be dark soon.’ And without speaking she rose obediently and fell into step beside him.
    No words passed between them as they walked the short distance to Thimble Cottage but their thought processes were working overtime and when they arrived he said, ‘You weren’t wrong when you said we have to talk and now is as good a time as any. Not here, though. We don’t want Kirstie and Ben to find out they’re going to have a new brother or sister from something they overhear in conversation. I’ll phone Lucas to say I can’tmake it and if you come across in five minutes, we’ll have the house to ourselves.’
    â€˜What have you done about antenatal care?’ was his first question when they’d settled themselves on opposite sides of the sitting room.
    â€˜Hunter’s Hill has me booked in for the birth and I’ve been attending the clinic there, which fortunately hasn’t coincided with my working hours at the practice.’
    â€˜And is everything proceeding to plan?’ he asked, feeling like a total outsider with regard to a momentous happening in his life
    â€˜Er, yes, so far, though there is one important matter we need to make a decision on, but not tonight Ethan, I’m tired.’
    He didn’t pursue that in the light of what she’d just said. Instead he referred to what they’d discussed earlier by asking, ‘And you say the children don’t yet know they’re going to have a little brother or sister?’
    â€˜That is so,’ she informed him, feeling that his questions were being fired at her like bullets from a gun. ‘I want us to tell them together.’ She managed a smile. ‘At twelve coming on thirteen I expect Ben to be rather embarrassed, and at eleven Kirstie to want to be a second little mother to the baby, but we shall see,