Count Toussaint’s Pregnant Mistress by Kate Hewitt Page B

middle.
    Even as realization slammed into him, Luc found himself thinking, why is Abby in London? What had happened? What was she doing?
    He read the article in a matter of seconds; it was spurious speculation about the ‘Piano Prodigy’s sudden retirement’, her disappointing reviews last year and then her mysterious reappearance in London this week.
    It only took up a few inches of space on the third page of the arts section. Abby, Luc realized, was hardly news any more.
    Yet she was, it seemed, pregnant. And he knew without even a flicker of doubt that, if there was indeed a baby, then it was his.
    He pushed the paper away, unfocused, unseeing, his mind spinning with thoughts he could barely articulate. The coffee at his elbow grew cold and the sun rose in the sky, casting longer and longer shadows on the floor.
    Finally, as if shaking himself from a dream, Luc rose. He reached for his mobile phone, flicking it open and punching buttons. When his assistant answered, he spoke tersely. ‘I need the jet. This morning.’
    ‘It’s in Avignon, and it’s already noon.’
    Impatience bit at him. ‘Have it brought to Paris by four o’clock. I want to be in Cornwall by six.’
    ‘Oui, Monsieur le Comte.’
    Luc snapped his phone shut and gazed out at the RiverSeine winding through the city. The cherry trees were just beginning to blossom. Then, turning away from the charming sight, he prepared to pack for his trip to England…to find Abby.
    Cornwall was in the throes of early spring. The hedgerows were budding with sorrel and bluebells as Luc made his way along the narrow coast-road into Carack. He’d rented a onebedroom flat in a large Edwardian villa; Corner Cottage was already let. Perhaps that was better, Luc thought starkly, for surely the past could not be retrieved or recaptured?
    What they’d had was past, gone. He’d felt the truth of it echo in his empty heart when Abby had left their bed six months ago. Her departure had been an eloquent, silent farewell—a choice, Luc knew, that had been best for both of them. It had to be.
    Except, if she truly was pregnant with his child, then that changed everything. How, Luc could not quite yet envision or articulate. He couldn’t marry, couldn’t give, couldn’t love. Yet he also knew his responsibility was to his child, and he would not shirk it. Not this time. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He needed to find the truth. He needed to find Abby.
    Dusk was falling soft and violet over the sea as Abby let herself into the cottage where she rented a bedroom. Although basic accommodation, it was cozy and picturesque. After years of living in hotels, Abby found she preferred this comfortable room in a tiny thatched-cottage, with its fluffy double-bed covered with a patchwork quilt, an old dresser and a washstand in the corner.
    Upstairs in her bedroom, she let out a long, weary sigh and her hands went instinctively to her lower back, to rub the insistent dull ache that had lodged there since she’d first learnedshe was pregnant over three months ago—three long, bewildering, uncertain months.
    ‘Hello, Abby.’
    Abby let out a gasp of surprise and whirled around, her hands dropping to her sides.
    Luc sat in the battered chair in the corner, one leg neatly crossed over the other, his fingers steepled under his chin. In the twilit gloom, Abby couldn’t read the expression on his face, but she knew it wasn’t anything good. His voice too was terribly neutral.
    ‘Luc!’ She struggled to find something to say, to make sense of the emotions coursing through her in a tangle of feeling. Then she narrowed her eyes. ‘How did you get in?’
    ‘The locals are very friendly, especially when I told them I was surprising you…being the father of your child, you see.’
    Abby groaned aloud and reached for her bedside tablelamp, switching it on, grateful for its comforting, normal glow. Her mind was spinning, and she was torn between fury, fear and a