Christmas At Pemberley. Katie Oliver

him since they’d first slept together.

      ‘You were gone for quite a while,’ he remarked as he reached over and stroked the hair back from her face.

      Shit. Nothing escaped Colm, including her lengthy absence. ‘The shop in the village was closed,’ Helen improvised, ‘so I had to go all the way into Northton Grange. I should’ve called to let you know,’ she apologized. ‘Sorry.’

      He shrugged. ‘It’s no matter. I was a wee bit worried, that’s all.’

      ‘How sweet! But you needn’t worry about me.” She hesitated. “Colm,’ she ventured as she nestled closer to him and rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart, ‘can I ask you a question?’

      ‘Aye, I reckon so. I can’t say as I’ll answer it, though.’ He glanced down at her with a smile.

      She hesitated. ‘Tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers? Sisters? Do they live hereabouts? I know so little about you.’

      His smile faded. ‘I have no family to speak of. No brothers, no sisters.’

      ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Helen rested her head back on his chest, hardly daring to look at him. ‘So your mother and father are dead?’

      There was a lengthy silence, and she feared she’d pushed him too far. He was so damned prickly when it came to any mention of his past...

      He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I was adopted. The McRoberts were good, decent people, and they gave me a roof and fed me. But when my adoptive mother died suddenly, Mr McRoberts was shattered, and so was I. I acted out, got in with a bad lot, and he couldn’t cope with me. I was placed in a series of foster homes, each one worst than the last, until I ran away at fifteen.’

      Helen clasped him tightly. ‘Oh, how awful. I’m so sorry you went through all that. But at least your adoptive parents were kind. At least you had that.’

      ‘Aye, but no matter how kind they were,’ he said as he stared up at the rough beams of the ceiling, ‘I couldn’t help but wonder about my real family sometimes.’

      ‘Do you know anything about them?’ Helen asked as she propped herself up on one elbow. ‘Anything at all?’

      ‘Nae, nothing,’ he said, and reached for his shirt and pulled it back on, ‘and I don’t care. They didn’t want me, that was plain enough; so I’ve no use for them now.’

      ‘But don’t you ever wonder who your real mother was?’

      ‘No,’ Colm said again, firmly. ‘I don’t.’

      He thrust his leg into his jeans, and as he did, she noticed a long, puckered scar running up the length of his thigh. She let out a soft gasp and lifted her eyes to his.

      ‘Colm,’ she whispered, ‘that scar! My God...what happened?’

      He glanced down, his expression unreadable. ‘This? It happened on one of the freighters I crewed. Twenty-seven stitches.’ He shrugged. ‘It looks worse than it is.’ He zipped up and lifted his brow. ‘Now, lass,’ he said as he leant over to kiss her again, ‘get up and help me put those groceries away, afore the perishables perish.’

      Not wanting to bring a scowl back to that angular, ginger-stubbled face, Helen kissed him back, and got dressed.

       Chapter 35

      Dr McTavish looked up from his desk on Monday morning as Natalie and Rhys entered his office and invited them to sit down. He held a folder in his hand.

      ‘You were absolutely right, Mrs Gordon,’ he told Natalie as he opened the folder and flicked through the pages. ‘You’re not pregnant. The urine test you took on Friday confirms it.’

      ‘I knew it,’ she said in a small voice. Rhys reached over and took her hand, and squeezed it reassuringly.

      ‘Why didn’t you schedule a proper test and come into my office a few weeks ago?’ he asked as he eyed her over the top of his half-moon glasses. ‘If you’d done that, we could’ve cleared this up straight away. You went and took one of those over-the-counter pregnancy tests instead, didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said with a trace of defensiveness. ‘And why not ‒ they’re generally very reliable! And the test definitely showed I was pregnant. There was a blue line, and everything.’

      ‘Did you follow the directions? With some of these kits, you have to wait at least a week after your last missed menstrual period before you take the test, you know.’

      Natalie stared at him in dismay. ‘Oh. Well, no, it hadn’t been a week. More like, erm, a couple of days. And I didn’t bother reading the directions. I thought all one did was wee on a stick.’

      McTavish smiled at her. ‘Well, it’s no matter. You’re not pregnant this time. But there’s no reason to think you won’t be ‒ whenever you and your husband are ready to have a child, that is.’

      ‘I hope so,’ she said wistfully. ‘I want a baby so badly.’

      ‘At least now we’ll have a bit of time to prepare for it,’ Rhys observed as he stood up.

      ‘I want to do up the nursery when we get back to London. I was thinking yellow – but a pale, buttery yellow, not a bright, sunny yellow,’ Natalie decided. ‘And white trim for the chair rails...and what do you think about some lovely Jessie Wilcox Smith prints for the wall over the baby’s dressing table?’

      ‘I think,’ Rhys said as he placed his hand at the small of her back and ushered her towards the door, ‘that perhaps we should wait until we know we’re actually having a baby before we start making all these plans.’

      ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ she protested. ‘Why leave everything until the last moment? We can at least get the nursery sorted. Pale yellow is a nice, neutral colour, perfect for a boy or a girl, don’t you think?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but glanced back at the doctor and waggled her fingers. ‘Goodbye, Dr McTavish. Thank you.’

      ‘Goodbye, Mrs Gordon,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Gordon.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Rhys replied as Natalie went ahead of him and out the door. ‘I think I’m going to need it.’

      ‘What do you think, Tark,’ Wren mused later that morning as she eyed the tower room, ‘about turning Andrew’s study into a nursery?’

      Tarquin paused by the narrow window and turned to look at her. ‘A nursery?’ he echoed. ‘Well, we’d need to talk to my mother about the possibility first,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘She’s very...possessive of this room. Andrew spent a great deal of time here, and his books and travel souvenirs are all she has left of him. That’s why everything’s remained untouched.’

      ‘I know that,’ Wren said, ‘but life does go on, Tark. Even Pen admitted at dinner not long ago that after eighteen years, it was time to move on. This room is perfect for a baby – it’s small, but not too small, and quiet...and it’s not that far from our own room, it’s just round the corner and up a quick flight of stairs.’

      ‘But wouldn’t you prefer a room on the same floor, one a bit closer to us? Think of all those midnight feedings, stumbling up and down the stairs. Besides, the tower room is too isolated for my liking.’

      ‘I don’t agree.’ Wren crossed her arms against her chest. ‘We’ll get a baby monitor, Tark. That way, we can hear every sound the baby makes, and be upstairs in an instant, if necessary.’

      ‘It isn’t only the room that’s got me concerned.’ He frowned. ‘It’s my sister.’

      ‘Caitlin? Why? What on earth do you mean?’

      ‘I mean,’ Tarquin said firmly, ‘that I don’t