The Millionaire's Love-Child. Elizabeth Power

her, Annie dragged her gaze away from the vase.

      ‘It’s beautiful,’ she uttered with an awkward smile and for something to say, only fully alive to her queasy anticipation and the impatience in the deep voice on the other side of the room.

      ‘Yes.’ Brant’s mother inhaled sharply. This whole situation was a strain for her also. ‘Yes, it was my…daughter-in-law’s choice.’

      Tensely, Annie nodded, noting the slight hesitancy in the woman’s voice. As though it still hurt to speak about Brant’s wife. As though she preferred not to in his presence.

      And this room, Annie wondered, with its high, ornate ceiling, its silvery brocades and pale Georgian hues, had this been Naomi’s choice too? Or had she and Brant chosen things together like any normal couple setting up home for the first time? In unison. In harmony. In love.

      ‘It hasn’t been easy for my son,’ that cultured female voice beside her commented, and then more softly, ‘what with…losing Jack’s mother so…’ She didn’t finish, only added, ‘And now this.’

      And me. Does anyone think it’s easy for me? Annie wondered, her features drawn tight with anguish. She didn’t even realise how militant she looked until she heard Felicity’s request.

      ‘You will consider Jack, won’t you?’ Beneath the elegant poise, her eyes—the only thing about her that resembled Brant—seemed to be begging, Please don’t take my grandson away! ‘This is the only home—only family—he’s known, as it will have been for your little boy. We have to consider them. We can’t pull their worlds apart, as we would if we decided to switch them back.’

      ‘There’s no question of my wanting to switch them back, or of my ever giving Sean up,’ Annie stated, adamantly, just as Brant came off the phone.

      ‘Ready?’ he enquired, his arm extended.

      There was a calculating watchfulness about him, she sensed, noting the contrasting, fleeting smile he directed at his mother. Which said what? she wondered as he led her through the imposing hallway, up to the second storey. That he would do what he had to, what was necessary? But surely he would feel the same way about Jack as she felt about Sean?

      Her heart was pounding like a steam-hammer when he opened the door to what was obviously the nursery, with its eggshell-blue paintwork and brightly patterned walls, and the toys scattered over the floor. Across the room, a window-seat offered a view of the billiard-table lawns, of high, professionally cultivated hedges.

      ‘Monsieur Cadman…’ Someone was coming out of an adjoining room. ‘You want to see Jack. He has just finished lunch. He wash his own face. He is a big boy now.’ Blonde, full-busted and naturally pretty, she had an accent as alluring as the long, swishing hair, Annie noted, as the French girl laughed up at Brant, and spared Annie no more than a passing glance before giving her attention to her employer again with an intensity that was painful to watch. ‘Do you want me to stay, monsieur?’

      ‘No, I’ll call you, Elise.’

      ‘Oui, monsieur.’ The girl almost bobbed at him before leaving the room.

      Somewhere in her subconscious, Annie wondered if the girl’s transparent adulation amused him, or even if he’d considered doing anything about it, because Elise certainly wanted him to, but at that moment she was too distracted to care. All her attention was on the toddler who, at the sound of his father’s voice, had come tottering out of the bathroom. In a tiny red shirt and miniature combat trousers, he was now flinging his arms around Brant’s long, immaculately clad leg.

      ‘Hey, hey, Jack!’ With playful ease, Brant swung him up into the air, making the boy squeal in delight before setting him down on his feet again. ‘Jack, I want you to meet Annie,’ he said softly, clasping the infant’s little hand in his. ‘Annie, this is Jack.’

      Moved beyond her wildest imagination, Annie could only stand there for a moment, aware of Brant’s gaze lancing across her face, aware as she crouched down to say, ‘Hello,’ of those shrewd eyes still watching her, missing nothing. Not the way she stared, transfixed, at the little mop of thick, dark hair falling forward just as hers did, or those deep brown eyes that gazed curiously back at her, like wide, dark mirrors of her own. His face was rounder than Sean’s, still in the final stages of babyhood, but unlike Sean, there was no shyness here, just a broad, toothy smile that tugged at Annie’s heart, tugged at everything in her that was maternal.