Their Secret Baby (16 page)

And then, at last, he found her.

She hadn’t been able to go far. With only one shoe and hampered by the elegant dress, she had only managed to get partway across the churchyard to where a small stone bench stood in the shade of a huge oak tree. And there she sat, huddled in a corner, her face turned away from him, looking impossibly small, impossibly delicate, impossibly forlorn.

And it was the ‘forlorn’ that gave him hope.

If she had truly wanted never to marry him—if she wanted nothing more than to be free, to get away from him and live her life without him, then now she would feel relief, the sense of a weight lifted from her shoulders. She would be scared of the future, with the baby on the way, apprehensive about how she would cope.

But she would never be forlorn.

Not his Caitlin. His strong, brave, caring, coping Caitlin. The Caitlin who had seen her fiancé betray her and move in with another woman. Who had taken that other woman’s child in and cared for it as her own, not caring if it had been the result of her own betrayal. Who had fought like a tiger to defend that baby.

And who finally had been prepared to let Fleur go, no matter how much it might have pained her, if the baby was to be with her real father.

‘Caitlin…’

Her head jerked up at the sound of her name. She half turned, then looked away again, staring past him, golden eyes still hidden by that ridiculous veil, fixed on space. Unseeingly, he was sure.

‘Go away!’

It was fierce, but not strong. The sound of someone who was determined to say something, and by sheer force of will-power kept their voice level and clear.

So he dismissed it easily.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t go away. Not until we’ve talked this through.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

She kept her face stubbornly averted, even when he came and sat beside her on the weathered stone bench.

‘I think there’s plenty to talk about,’ he insisted. ‘Like why you ever came here in the first place if you didn’t mean to marry me. Why you got as far as the altar. Why—’

‘I thought I could!’

She flung it at him in desperation, wanting only to shut him up. She had never dreamed that he would come after her. Had prayed that he would be so shocked, so furious at the way she had publicly humiliated him, that he would stay right where he was, never wanting to see her again.

‘I thought I could go through with it—OK? I came here to marry you as I promised. I came to say my vows and sign the registry. To arrive here as Miss Caitlin Richardson and leave as Mrs Caitlin Morgan!’

And be so, so proud to have his name as her own.

‘I meant to do it!’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘I couldn’t. When it came to the point, I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t promise to honour and l-love when…when…’

‘When what, Caitlin?’ he asked when she faltered, swallowing down the words with the tears that were streaming over her cheeks, soaking into the veil. ‘Tell me.’

Oh, what harm could it do now? No doubt he had guessed anyway. Why else would she have run from the church rather than go through with a marriage she had already agreed to on the terms he offered?

‘When it wasn’t true! When it would all have been a lie!’

‘What?’

To her horror, his hands closed over her shoulders, bringing her round to face him.

‘What would have been a lie?’

But she didn’t have the courage to repeat the words. Biting her lip hard, she could only shake her head, unable to answer him.

‘Caitlin…’

With a gentleness that twisted in her heart, Rhys took both sides of the lacy veil in his hands and lifted it carefully away from her face, folding it back over the coronet of flowers. Blinking hard in the cruelly brilliant sunlight, she could only pray that he would take the sheen in her eyes as being caused by the blinding effect of its brightness.

‘Oh, Caitlin.’

Her heart stopped in shock as she felt the delicate pressure of his mouth on her face, kissing away the trails of the tears, caressing her skin…

‘I always knew,’ he murmured against her cheek.

‘Kn-knew what?’

‘That you don’t love me. That your love was given to Joshua all the time. It doesn’t matter. I have enough for both of us.’

She really had to be hearing things. The sun had to have affected her brain. She was hearing things that just weren’t true. Things that she dreamed of, longed for.

But things that just couldn’t be happening.

She shook her head in a desperate attempt to clear her thoughts and saw him smile in a way that she could only describe as resigned—and terribly sad.

‘I don’t ask for you to love me back. I’ll never ask for that, if it’s something you can’t give me. If you’ll just be in my life so that I can see you, care for you, love you with all my heart, I won’t even ask for marriage if that’s something you can’t give.’

‘L-love…’

She had to say it, though she knew it couldn’t be right. She wasn’t hearing what she thought he was saying. So she had to ask.

‘Are you saying that you
love
me?’

He actually laughed, though there was a strained, ragged edge to it.

‘What else do you think I’m saying, my love? Why else do you think I asked you to marry me?’

‘For—for the babies’ sakes. No?’ she questioned as he shook his dark head.

‘No—well, yes. Yes, if marrying me for the babies’ sakes was the only reason you would say yes. But also because I love you…I more than love you—I adore you. I was so desperate to keep you with me that I would have taken any way out; any way that would get you to promise to be with me, live with me…’

‘Love you?’ Caitlin inserted softly and saw him close his eyes briefly in an expression of such immeasurable longing that it tore at her already tender heart.

‘I wish!’ he said fervently.

And there was only one answer she could give him.

‘Your wish is granted.’

His lids flew up, brilliant, bewildered, blue eyes blazing into hers, endless questions in their depths.

‘Cait?’

Leaning forward, she pressed her hand against his cheek, looked deep into his eyes and smiled with all the love that was in her heart.

‘I love you,’ she said slowly and confidently. ‘There—is that clear enough for you? I love you with all my heart. It was never truly love I felt for Josh—I see that now. Now that I know what loving you feels like. When I know how deep and strong and perfect love can be.’

‘Oh,
Cait
!’

He gathered her into his arms. Kissed her hard with all the love and the longing and the need that she had seen in his face. But then, just as she wanted to kiss him back, he stopped her, very gently.

‘Wait.’

And as she watched, bewildered, he eased himself away from her, moved from the stone seat and went down on one knee on the grass before her.

Taking her hand in his, he held it while he looked up into her face, his love, his devotion open there for her to see.

‘Caitlin, my love, my life, will you marry me, here and now? In front of everyone? Will you let me tell you how much I love you? Let me promise to care for you, honour you all the rest of my life. Please, my darling. Please tell me that you will be my wife—for my sake and mine alone.’

There was only one answer she could give him and words were not enough. So she answered him with a kiss that held all her heart inside it.

And after a few more sun-soaked, private, loving moments there in the quiet churchyard, she let him slip her shoe back onto her foot and lift her to her feet.

And then, with the strength of his hand in hers and his love in her heart, she went back into the church with him, knowing that now she could repeat her vows with all the joy and honesty and trust that she was capable of feeling because she had no doubts at all that they both meant them and that they were an expression of a love that would last for all of their lifetimes.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-6714-9

THEIR SECRET BABY

First North American Publication 2004.

Copyright © 2003 by Kate Walker.

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