Baby on Loan. Liz Fielding

longing as she looked down at her infant nephew.

      His little face was screwed up into a man-sized frown as he tried to focus on her and, in an attempt to reassure him, she leaned closer. ‘Well, Bertie,’ she murmured as she stroked his downy cheek with the back of her finger. ‘This is a fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’

      It was a mistake. Jessie’s height and colouring was similar to Faye’s, but Bertie knew his mother’s voice. This wasn’t his mother. He opened his mouth, determined to let not just Jessie but the entire world know exactly how he felt about that.

      ‘Shh!’ she said. ‘Shh! Please, Bertie!’ Jessie knew very little about babies, but enough to understand that if she couldn’t keep him happy, and quiet, her days at Taplow Towers were numbered. She picked him up, put him to her shoulder. ‘I’ll find your mummy and daddy…soon. It’ll be fine. I promise.’ Bertie, for some reason, wasn’t convinced.

      Instinctively she began to walk back and forth across the thick, sound-deadening carpet, the way that Faye had done on Sunday. She had a momentary recollection of her sister-in-law’s pale and exhausted face. Kevin hadn’t looked much better and he had to go to work…

      And now some other nightmare must have befallen them. As she passed her desk, she grabbed her phone. She doubted that Kevin and Faye would be at home taking calls, but she could leave a message. They’d check for messages, surely? No matter what emergency had called them away?

      But she didn’t have to leave a message. They had left one for her.

      ‘Jessie, darling, we need sleep, I mean really need sleep, and Faye thought—we thought—since you’re not just Bertie’s aunt but his godmother, you wouldn’t mind—’

      Faye interrupted him. ‘There just wasn’t anyone else we could ask—’

      Ask? Ask? They hadn’t asked, because they’d known what the answer would be! They knew she couldn’t have a baby at Taplow Towers!

      ‘I’m taking Faye away for a few days, no phones, no babies,’ her brother concluded. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘We’ll do the same for you one day. Promise.’

      ‘Fat chance,’ she snorted. Then, horrified by the enormity of her problems, she stared at Bertie. Bertie stared back for a moment before gathering himself to let rip. ‘No, Bertie!’ she begged. ‘Please, darling!’ Bertie wasn’t listening.

      Everyone else was.

      ‘This is the final call for the British Airways flight to London, calling at…’

      Patrick took his boarding cards from the check-in clerk and headed for Departure. It was Carrie’s lucky day. Thanks to his client changing his plea—he’d almost certainly been paid handsomely to do so to protect people in high places—he was going home. Since there wasn’t any chance of him sharing his house with anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old girl, he would ‘lend’ her the money to join her friends in France in return for some serious promises regarding work. In twenty-four hours she would be free.

      ‘So? Will you take it?’

      Take it? Jessie had one hour before she was, to all intents and purposes, homeless. She would have been grateful for anything with hot and cold running water and a roof that didn’t leak; this was beyond her wildest dreams. More importantly, it was available immediately. Now. This very minute. It seemed almost too good to be true.

      ‘I can move in right away?’ She needed to reassure herself that she wasn’t simply hallucinating. Twenty-nine hours without more than twenty minutes of consecutive sleep and absolutely no peace of mind could do that to you.

      ‘Absolutely!’ Carenza Finch seemed rather young to be a householder on this scale but Jessie was beyond worrying about it. ‘I can’t leave the house empty, and besides, I’ve got to have someone I can trust to feed my darling Mao while I’m away.’ The cat, the one fly in the perfection of the arrangement, blinked at Bertie, who was perched on Jessie’s hip. Bertie stopped grinding his gums into her shirt and stared back. ‘I was at my wits’ end.’

      ‘Really?’ Was there an epidemic? Could you get immunised? Was she losing her mind?

      ‘Absolutely. So if you’re happy, I just need the rent,’ she prompted, ‘and the place is yours, lock, stock and whatsit for three months.’ She held out a pen. ‘All you have to do is sign on the dotted line.’

      Jessie fished her spectacles out of her pocket and, propping them on her nose, glanced at the lease with eyes gritty from lack of sleep. It appeared to be a standard form used by the agency she’d contacted. She signed it quickly and counted out the deposit and three months’ rent in advance. In cash. Neither of them had time to wait for a cheque to clear.

      Carenza Finch countersigned with a flourish, then she handed over the keys. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said, as she gathered up the money and stowed it carefully in a money belt concealed beneath her sweatshirt. ‘You will take really good care of Mao, won’t you? He likes liver and fresh cod—you have to break it up with your fingers in case of bones—and minced chicken. I wrote it all down for you…’ Jessie made a determined effort not to shudder. For a roof over her head, she’d mince chicken. ‘Oh, and the drill for looking after the plants is on the notice-board.’

      Oh, great. She’d try not to kill them, although anything tender was inclined to wilt if she went within ten feet of it. But she took her responsibilities seriously. Why else would Kevin and Faye leave their firstborn on her doorstep? They knew they could trust her.

      Maybe she should do something utterly disgraceful in the very near future, something bad enough to give them second thoughts about doing this ever again.

      ‘Have you left the vet’s telephone number?’ she demanded, following Carenza to the door. It wasn’t that easy to be irresponsible. She was going to have to work up to it. ‘And who do I call in the event of an emergency? Have you left your contact address?’

      ‘I don’t plan on having one for the next three months,’ Carrie said, picking up a heavy rucksack. ‘Don’t worry, nothing disastrous is going to happen.’ Wrong. It already had. ‘See you in three months.’

      Three months. Breathing space to find another Taplow Towers. Not so bad. This thing with Bertie was just a temporary situation, after all. Faye was a doting mother; Kevin loved his son to distraction. Even exhausted, they wouldn’t be able to live for more than a few days without him. And they must both know what this was doing to her life.

      They would return, shame-faced and horrified at the ramifications of their actions; things would return to normal and within hours her life would be back on an even keel, running like clockwork. The only thing that wouldn’t be the same was Taplow Towers.

      If they’d just phoned, explained, she could have moved into their home for a day or two. Instead they’d shipped all Bertie’s belongings to her by express carrier, along with a special delivery of disposal nappies. She knew what the parcel contained, because it was printed in large letters, all over the packaging. The porter hadn’t said a word when he’d brought it up. He hadn’t needed to. His mournful expression had been enough. She was doomed.

      Lack of sleep must have been fugging their brains, because if it had been their intention to get her evicted, Faye and Kevin couldn’t have made a better job of it.

      None of which was Bertie’s fault. She took a deep breath and dropped a kiss on his dark curls. Gave him a cuddle. She wasn’t sure what it did for Bertie, but it made her feel a lot better.

      ‘Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m going to have to put you down while I make a cup of tea.’ Bertie, his big round eyes still fixed on the cat, went into his buggy without complaint. The cat yawned. Bertie wriggled delightedly and smiled.

      Momentarily astonished by this phenomenon, Jessie paused and, for a heart-aching moment, she realised that her baby nephew was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

      Damn Graeme.

      The