Sins (55 page)

Her mother’s Walton Street shop still retained its long-standing and loyal clients, but the younger, more modern buyers had moved on, leaving the shop and Denby Mill’s fabrics distanced from the excitement garnered by their more ‘with it’ rivals. Her mother needed someone younger to take up the mantle of responsibility for the design side of the business but there was no one; Rose refused to leave Sussex, Polly was glued to her Italian husband and his family, and Cathy would no doubt scorn the mere designing of fabric patterns as unworthy of her creative muse.

February. How she hated English winters. By rights
they should have been at Courchavel skiing–Robbie was–but Dr Steptoe had warned her against taking any kind of risk, and besides, she needed to be within easy reach of the Lancashire hospital where he was based in order for the revolutionary treatment she was undergoing to take place.

Her heart gave a flurry of anxious thuds, the threat of nausea gathering in her stomach and clogging her throat. Beneath the protection of the bedclothes she put her hand on her flat stomach. She had already had one son, and then two daughters; why couldn’t she produce for Drogo, for the dukedom, that all-important son? Just thinking about her failure to do so filled her eyes with angry tears. She had tried hard enough, in the early years expecting with every month that she would conceive, and becoming increasingly angry and frustrated when she did not. Emerald hated not achieving the goals she set herself. And then when, two years after they had married, she had finally become pregnant it had simply never occurred to her that she would not have a boy. The mere thought of daughters appalled her. But daughters were exactly what she had had. Two of them, delightful, clever girls, but what good were they since they could not continue the family line?

Their births, two years apart, had caused her to redouble her attempts to produce a son. Drogo had complained that sex had become more of a chore than an expression of their love for one another. Emerald had refuted that claim, telling him passionately that it was because she loved him so much that she wanted to give him a son. But she had not conceived again. Next year
she would be forty. Time was running out for her. For her, but not for Drogo. Now the true cause of her fear was laid bare. Somehow during their marriage, she had succumbed to the vulnerability she had always sworn would never claim her and she had fallen in love–with her husband. Drogo might say that she mattered far more to him than having an heir, but one day he would mind, she was sure of it, and when that day came he would look past her and see that there were other younger women who could easily give him the son she could not.

She had been at her lowest ebb, filled with the bleakest despair and most bitter anger and resentment when she had heard about the Lancashire doctor who was involved in the development of so called ‘test tube’ babies.

She had driven up to the hospital where he was based, without saying anything to Drogo, and had demanded to see him, too impatient to waste time by writing and not wanting to risk being put off by telephoning. He had explained to her that his research was still in its infancy and that whilst he had been able to implant into women’s wombs the embryos that had been developed outside them, none of those pregnancies had gone anything like full term or resulted in the birth of a living child. He had, though, admitted under pressure from Emerald that he was continuing with his research and that he was putting in place a programme he was hoping would lead to the successful birth of a living child. Emerald had then insisted that she wanted to join that programme as one of his potential mothers.

When she had told Drogo, though, he had been vehemently opposed to the whole thing.

‘I want to give you a son,’ Emerald had told him passionately. ‘I want that more than anything else, Drogo.’

‘We already have Robbie and our girls,’ he had answered her.

‘They cannot inherit the dukedom,’ Emerald had pointed out, knowing what Drogo’s reaction would be. It was an old worn issue between them, after all, and, true to form, Drogo had told her, ‘You matter far more to me than having an heir, Emerald; you know that. This Steptoe chap says himself that he has not as yet had any real success and that there are risks attached to the procedure.’

She had refused to give in, though, and eventually and reluctantly he had given way. That night she had rewarded him–in bed–and had been surprised by how much she herself had enjoyed having sex with him again simply for the pleasure of having sex. It had been a long time since she had thought of sex as anything other than a means of conceiving a son.

That night had created a new sexual intimacy between them, but it would be short-lived. Once her treatment started that would be the whole focus of her attention. She didn’t intend to allow anything to prejudice its outcome.

Later on this morning she would drive up to the northern hospital to begin the round of tests and procedures that would ultimately lead to the eggs that would be harvested from her resulting in live embryos, which could be transplanted into her womb to produce the son she so longed for. There was no way of guaranteeing that she would have a boy, of course, but if the procedure
could result in a successful pregnancy then she would repeat it until she did produce a son, such was her determination.

Dr Steptoe had been reluctant at first to allow her on to his programme, insisting that he didn’t want to interrupt it to accommodate her, but then another woman had dropped out and she had received a telephone call from him informing her that there was this window of opportunity if she was free to take it. If she was free…Nothing would have stopped her from making sure that she was free.

The sudden sharp unexpected ring of the telephone cut across her thoughts, making her nerves jump and jangle.

The ringing telephone had woken Drogo, who was switching on his bedside lamp and reaching out for the receiver. He slept naked–they both did–and his movement disturbed the covers, revealing the tanned flesh of his muscular back. He still had a good body, taut and masculine in a way that still aroused and excited her, and she moved closer to him whilst he answered the call.

‘John! Jay’s had a heart attack?’ Drogo’s voice was strained with shocked disbelief.

Emerald stiffened. Her stepfather was a fit and healthy man–how could he have had a heart attack? She leaned closer to the telephone, one hand on Drogo’s bare shoulder to balance herself as she tried to listen in to the conversation.

‘He’s in Macclesfield hospital and Amber is with him. Have you spoken to Amber herself? No. Are you and Janey on your way to the hospital now? Did they give any indication of the severity of the attack? I see, so they’re waiting for the test results then. Yes, the first twenty-four hours are the most dangerous. We’ll let Robbie and the others know, that way you can get off to the hospital without any more delay. Give Amber our love and tell her that we’re thinking of her.’

As Drogo replaced the telephone receiver, Emerald demanded, ‘Jay’s had a heart attack?’

‘Yes. According to what the Hospital have told John, it happened in the early hours and the Hospital either
can’t or won’t say yet how serious it was. I’ve said that we’ll let the others know.’

‘Yes, I heard you. Janey will be going to the hospital?’

‘Yes. John said that he’d ring us from there just as soon as he’d got any news.’ He was swinging his legs out of their bed. ‘The others’ telephone numbers…’

‘They’re in the book in the top right-hand drawer of my desk. Drogo, you know it’s today that I have to go and see Dr Steptoe?’ Emerald reminded him.

‘Yes.’

He was pulling on his robe. Outside the sky was still dark, as reluctant to cede its darkness to the morning as the citizens of the sleeping city would be to cede the comfort of their beds to the misery of the raw February weather. The central heating must have come on because she could hear the familiar gurgling of the system cranking up to warm the house.

‘I suppose you think I should drop everything and rush to Macclesfield?’ she accused him sharply.

‘It isn’t what I think, but what you feel,’ Drogo answered her gently before heading for the bathroom.

She couldn’t go. She
had
to keep her appointment with Dr Steptoe. If she didn’t the opportunity to harvest her eggs would be lost and she would have to wait until he was ready to begin a new programme, which wouldn’t be for many months. Drogo knew that. Jay wasn’t her father and she wasn’t the ‘child’ whose support her mother would most want. All the old familiar bitterness diluted by the intervening years suddenly resumed its full strength. Why should she sacrifice the chance to provide Drogo with an heir simply to be with her mother?
What had Amber ever done for her to deserve that kind of sacrifice? The old emotional wounds, which for years now had seemed healed, had begun to ache again beneath the scar tissue, inflamed by fear and panic.

Drogo was coming back out of the bathroom bringing with him the scent of clean skin and rubbing at his damp hair with a towel. She loved him so much, and she knew what he would want her to do.

Inside her head she had a mental image of the man she still truly thought of as her father–Robert–smiling lovingly at her. He had given her so much love, so much more than just his name and legitimacy. His moral code might seem old-fashioned by modern-day standards but Emerald knew full well what he would have expected of her, and somehow it was important that she didn’t disappoint him or let him down, even whilst a part of her raged furiously that she could not lose this opportunity to begin her treatment. Jay was next to nothing to her, whilst the baby that could potentially become the future duke was everything. Surely Robert and Drogo could understand that?

But even as she opened her mouth to tell Drogo that she intended to keep her appointment she knew that she couldn’t.

‘I suppose I’d better go to Macclesfield.’ Her voice was tight with the effort it took to control what she was really feeling. ‘It isn’t what I want to do, but I know that I have to.’

Drogo put down the towel.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, and although he didn’t say it, Emerald knew that he had been hoping that she would make that
choice. She could see his love for her in his eyes, and her own filled with tears.

‘Why now, today of all days, Drogo?’

‘I don’t know, but I do know how much it will mean to your mother to have you there.’

‘Jay isn’t even my father.’

‘No, and it’s because of that that she will need
you
, Emerald, and not just Amber but everyone else will as well. They will need your strength and your support. And as for this business of a son, how many times do I have to tell you before you believe me that I have all that I want, in you and the children we have–Robbie and the girls? You alone would be more than enough—’

‘No, Drogo. You say that but it isn’t true. You are the Duke of Lenchester. You need a son of your own to pass the title to.’

‘Emerald, I know how important that is to you but it never has been to me. Perhaps it’s because of the way I grew up–as an Aussie not knowing about the dukedom–I don’t know.’

‘You say that now, but what if you change your mind? What if you stop loving me because I haven’t given you a son?’

‘That will never happen. I will never stop loving you.’ He drew her close to him and wrapped her in his arms.

To everyone else who knew her Emerald was someone they thought of as formidable, but Drogo knew that hidden behind that outer defence was an Emerald who had grown up believing herself to be unloved and unwanted and who had reacted to that by being difficult and demanding, even arrogant and sometimes
actively unkind, rather than let others know how alone and afraid she really felt. He knew too how much it mattered to her that she provided the dukedom with an heir. Sometimes he feared that that mattered more to her than anything else, including her own happiness.

‘I’d better go and ring the others,’ he told her, releasing her.

Rose wasn’t in bed when the telephone rang. She rarely slept much beyond six o’clock, and she never slept deeply any more. Her senses were too attuned to the need to listen, a habit she had developed in the early years of her marriage, waiting anxiously for Pete to return from the pub, and then counting the stages as they passed safely.

First, the sound of the car coming up the drive, her breath held tightly in her chest until he had stopped the car and she knew that there hadn’t been an accident. Then waiting for him to come in, knowing from the time it took him to get his key in the door how much he was likely to have had to drink. At first she had waited up for him, often falling asleep downstairs in a chair, having previously lost the battle to persuade him not to go out, not to drink and, if he did, not to drive, but then gradually–so gradually she hadn’t even realised that the habit had crept up on her until it was established–she had taken to going to bed when midnight came and went and he still wasn’t back. It was nothing for Pete to return at one or two in the morning and then to stay downstairs drinking even more.

Once he was safely home the other anxieties began: that he would drink more, that he would fall over and hurt himself, that he would fall asleep downstairs and then be sick in his sleep and choke to death. To protect him from those fates she had to be constantly on guard, on duty, to cajole and coax him upstairs to bed, half supporting his weight, half dragging him up the stairs, collapsing sometimes under his dead weight, her heart filled with a mixture of burning anger, shame and despair, streaked with pity, guilt and her instinctive need to try to love him despite everything.

Perhaps if they had had a child, children, things might have been different, but Rose had been too afraid to take the risk for that child. It would have been difficult enough for him or her to deal with the reality of Rose’s own background and everything that meant, without further burdening the child with an alcoholic father. That had been the emotional reason she had stuck so determinedly to taking her contraceptive pill, but there had been practical reasons as well, once Pete’s drinking and consequent dependence increased. How could she look after a baby when she already had a husband who needed looking after like a child?