A Question of Pride (22 page)

Clea was very still in the warm protection of his arms, trying to stop her hungry heart from reading too much into what he was saying. Yet all the clues were there, just begging to be correctly interpreted.

'I love you, Clea,' he admitted huskily, his voice low-pitched and deeply anxious. 'I loved you before I went to Devon. I loved you on sight, I think,' he ruefully added. 'I came back from Devon with the single purpose of putting our relationship on a firmer footing, then failed the ultimate test of my so-called love at the first hurdle ... I've spent the ensuing months trying to make amends for that error. I hoped I was succeeding?' The question in his tone revealed his uncertainty. 'Your suggesting you live with me was meant to scare me off, I know that.'

Clea laughed huskily into his shirt, and Max dropped a smiling kiss on the top of her bowed head for it.

'But you had no idea how unwittingly you'd played into my hands. I'd been considering suggesting the same thing myself, but couldn't work up the courage to ask—you're a terrifying lady when your tongue gets started, Clea Maddon,' he teased softly. 'I wondered sometimes just what was hitting me when you started your character assassinations.'

'I was hurting.'

'I know,' he soothed. 'And I deserved it. I have been hoping that your coming to live with me would be a natural step towards the kind of permanent relationship I really want for us. I was willing to be patient, wait until you were ready to believe me when I admitted loving you. Tonight James has forced me into reviewing my plans somewhat, but the sincerity is still true. I want us to get married, as soon as we can, and not only for the baby's sake, but mine also, because I want to tie you to me before I go quietly out of my mind.'

James turned to look back into the shadows of his lanterned garden, picking out the two closely entwined figures, deep in serious conversation. And he sent a silent prayer up to the heavens that his ploy had worked. Clea had needed waking up from her stubborn blindness to Max. It had taken just one look at Max Latham, the day they had first met, for both himself and Amy to realise just what Max's feelings for Clea were. It made him want to kick himself for not forcing a meeting sooner, then maybe the unsatisfactory situation would not have gone on so long unresolved.

He turned, going in search of his wife to warn her of what he had done, and to expect a little hostility from her future son-in-law when they next saw him ...

'Let's go home, Max,' Clea said softly, leaning feebly against him, 'I don't want to be here any more. I want to be alone with you. I want to go home.'

'Home,' he sighed. 'Have you any idea how wonderful that sounds to me? Clea?' He groaned, pulling her closer.

She lifted her face at last, daring to search those urgent blue eyes for the sincerity she'd heard in his voice, and found it, blazing down on her with no cloaks to hide behind.

'I love you, Clea. Will you marry me, please?'

A sob rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down, smiling shakily at him, eyes bright with happy tears.

'Oh, Max!' she choked, and his chest heaved on an unsteady sigh. Then they were kissing fiercely, the need so dire that it held them lost in each other for a long time. The darkness at the bottom of Amy's garden, the pretty lanterns swinging gently from the trees just beyond, a perfect setting for their silent pledge.

'You haven't answered me,' Max murmured as their mouths broke apart reluctantly.

'About marrying you, you mean?' she teased, but softly, and with no cruelty. She kissed him on the mouth, just a gentle, loving kiss that said so much. 'Yes, please, Max. Oh, yes, please!'

Max wandered back into the bedroom with a cream towel slung low on his hips. He was rubbing his wet head with another towel.

'Come on, Clea!' he muttered. 'We'll be late if you don't get up and get ready!' Clea yawned and stretched lazily in the rumpled bed, a smile widening her generous mouth as a feeling of
deja vu
swept over her.

'I like it here.'

Max grinned, one of his white-toothed, devastating smiles that rippled her heart. 'I know you do,' he said wickedly. 'But we're supposed to be getting married in an hour, and I don't think you, in your condition, can afford to be late!'

'Better late than never!' claimed the caustic Mrs Margaret Latham as she kissed Clea's cheek in congratulation an hour and a half later. 'I never thought my son slow on the uptake, but popping the question he had warned me about a whole four months before it happened is slow in anyone's books!'

she glibly announced, then walked away, leaving Clea with her mouth hanging open in mute amazement.

'Your mother is crazy!' she said to Max later, when they stood in their apartment, alone at last. 'She actually had the cheek to imply that you informed her about your intention to marry me on your trip down to Devon!'

Max looked gravely at her astounded face, and said nothing. Clea blinked. 'It was true?' she gasped.

He nodded slowly.

'Oh, Max!' she said. 'What a pair of absolute idiots we've been!'

'Amen to that,' murmured Max, and drew her to him.

'Clea—?' Max leaned over her sleeping form, smiling indulgently to himself at the room she now took up in their bed.

She turned on to her back, reluctantly opening her eyes to squint up at his attractive face.

'James has just rung,' he informed her softly. 'I'm afraid your mother has beaten you to the winning post.'

'What?' She shot upright in the bed, blinking like an owl. 'You mean my mother—?' A hand went dramatically to her brow. 'What time is it? When did she start in labour? How is she? I have to get up!'

'It's five o'clock in the morning,' Max told her patiently. 'Amy went into labour two hours ago. And she's doing fine. Easy, darling!' he warned as she hauled her heavily pregnant frame to the edge of the bed.

'I must go to the hospital,' she muttered, excitement and an odd panic making her feel confused. She stood up, swaying slightly, so Max had to steady her with a hand on her arm. 'I want to be there when she gives birth. I want to—aah!' she cried, as a sharp pain lanced through her lower body, arching her back in protest, sending her head flying back in a teeth-clenching reaction.

'Oh, hell!' groaned Max, catching her to him. 'Why in heaven's name did it have to choose now?'

Master James Laverne Junior was born just twenty-five minutes before his nephew Master Dominic Latham. Both babies were healthy and well—like their mothers.

'I love you, Clea,' Max whispered later. He was sitting beside the bed, searching her exhausted face with a mixture of deep pride and tender concern. 'I love our son. Thank you for him.'

'Think nothing of it,' she teased, smiling sleepily into his face, which still showed the strain witnessing their son's birth had placed on him. 'Poor Max,' she murmured softly. 'I think you suffered more than I did.'

'It was the sheer impotency I felt that hurt the most.'

'I can't see how you can claim impotency when I have actual proof of the opposite!' Clea argued, tongue in cheek, deliberately misinterpreting his meaning.

Max gave a rueful shake of his head. 'Still able to find the clever remark, even when half-asleep, Clea!'

'I may bore you otherwise,' she teased.

'Oh, never boring, darling,' Max denied huskily. 'I count my blessings every single day since we married.

I haven't felt one regret.'

'Good,' she said, and fell asleep with a serene smile about her mouth that made Max have to kiss it.

'It's a good job one of them is blond and the other dark-haired,' James remarked about the two baby boys the next day, when he came to visit Clea. 'Because they both possess a matching pair of purple eyes that will drive the ladies wild when they grow up.'

'Rakes!' Clea instantly predicted. 'Just like their disreputable papas! It'll be bred into them, you mark my words. They'll pattern themselves on their lecherous daddies, and cause mayhem wherever they go!'

'You mean us?' chimed two aggrieved voices.

'Models of respectability, we are,' Max pronounced innocently.

'Hah!' said Clea.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

About this Title

This eBook was created using ReaderWorks™Publisher Preview, produced by OverDrive, Inc.

For more information on ReaderWorks, visit us on the Web at "www.readerworks.com"