Yet even though it was pointless, sometimes at night she couldn’t stop herself rememberinghispain. The unbearable bleakness on his face when he’d told her about the deaths of his mother and baby sister. The terrible weight of shame and guilt which had surrounded him had been almost palpable and she’d thought how alone he had seemed in that moment. Her heart had gone out to him, but the grim and unremitting expression on his face had warned her that he would not welcome her sympathy. But it had become instantly understandable why his behaviour had been so contradictory. Why he didn’t want a family of his own, because he had experienced the indescribable anguish of a child’s death.
Lizzie swallowed. Was that why he had been so protective of her? She remembered his face in the park when he had found her—raw and ravaged with pain, his words whipping through the icy air.
I thought I’d lost you.
And where had his father been during all the heartbreak he had suffered? He hadn’t mentioned that. Not once. There were so many questions she hadn’t asked him and would now never get the chance. So let it go, she told herself, as her hand rested on the curve of her baby bump. She wasn’t doing herself or little Freddy any favours, lying awake obsessing about a man who didn’t want her. A man who had suggested she go out and find someone else!
With no ties and a reasonable budget, she could afford to live pretty much anywhere she wanted, but the anonymity of a big city left her cold. Despite the bittersweet memories it invoked, she found herself drawn back to the Cotswolds, where she’d worked for longest as a housekeeper and which still felt like the closest thing she’d ever had to home. With no desire to move this side of Christmas, she started renting a cottage, joined a prenatal exercise class and met other mums-to-be. And even though she was the only person in the class without a partner, Lizzie convinced herself it didn’t matter. Her mood brightened considerably when the teacher asked if she could possibly paint a portrait of her mother’s Maine Coon and Lizzie cautiously agreed. She had never attempted painting a cat before, but she certainly wasn’t going to turn down a commission.
On Christmas Eve, she did what she had been wanting to do ever since she’d got back, even though it went against her better judgement. She drove past Ermecott Manor, expecting to see a giant Christmas tree blazing outside the Jacobean mansion, but to her surprise, the house was in darkness. Perhaps the family who’d bought it had gone back to Scotland for the holidays. For a minute she just sat in the car staring at it, but then she started up the engine and set off again. Why was she choosing the most emotional night of the year to remind herself that this was where it had all started?
It was almost dusk by the time she arrived back at the cottage and Lizzie had just switched on a string of fairy lights and lit the fire, when she heard a knock on the door. She froze, her heart beginning to race like a train as she was filled with the senseless hope it might be Niccolò. But it wasn’t. It was a driver from a local delivery company, struggling beneath the shape of a huge and cumbersome-looking package, which she hauled from the back of the van.
‘Let me carry it in for you,’ the woman said, after a cursory glance at Lizzie’s extended belly.
‘That’s very kind of you. There isn’t a lot of room, but over here would be lovely.’
After the woman had left, Lizzie unpacked the package with curious fingers, peeling back the cardboard wrapping to find an easel inside. For a moment, she just sat there and stared at it. It was handmade and very beautiful. The kind of thing she had always dreamed of owning. Running her hand over the smooth beech wood, she searched for the sender’s name—though she knew there was only one person who would have sent something like this. And yes. There it was.
She picked up the note.
Hopefully you’ll get a chance to use this before and after the baby is born. Niccolò
It was brief and typewritten, and for a moment she wondered if it was some kind of olive branch, until she forced herself to see sense. It had probably been suggested by Lois, and dictated by her. She mustn’t start reading things into a simple message. When they’d parted in Manhattan they had agreed to be civil and courteous, and this was obviously a demonstration that he intended to keep his word. It was a very kind gesture and she would send him an equally brief and polite thank you note in return.
But Lizzie couldn’t resist picking up the phone and telephoning him in America, her fingers trembling as the call connected too quickly to allow for a change of mind.
‘Niccolò?’
‘Lizzie.’
It was only weeks since she’d heard his voice but it seemed like a whole lifetime as his rich accent rippled over her skin like velvet. She closed her eyes. ‘Thank you for the easel.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s...beautiful.’ She hesitated as she studied her reflection in the mirror—the fecund woman who stared back—and imagined Niccolò in his sleek penthouse, with all the sleek people who comprised his friendship circle. ‘I haven’t bought you anything.’
‘I wasn’t expecting you to.’
‘Because you’re the man who has everything?’
There was a pause. ‘So they say.’
She drew in a breath, the pleasure of talking to him again almost cancelled out by the pain. Because that’s the reality, she thought bitterly. He might not have everything he needs, but he certainly has everything he wants.
‘Anyway, there’s the pencil drawing you did of me,’ he continued.
‘What did you think of it?’
‘It was...interesting,’ he concluded, without elaboration.
Wasn’t interesting one of those polite words people used when they didn’t like something? The silence stretched, and Lizzie thought about all the things they weren’t saying. The conversation which was going on in her head, which was so different from the one which was actually happening. She wanted to ask why he’d sent her this Christmas present out of the blue and whether he recognised that it ran the risk of sending out the wrong sort of signals to a woman who was missing him so much. She wanted to ask if he missed her, and if he’d slept with anyone else since she’d been back. But she said none of these things, just wished him happy holidays, and then hung up.
But she dreamt about him that night and the dreams were uncomfortably vivid and Lizzie decided that a half-life of communication was only going to hold her back. He could make contact about the baby whenever it suited him, but she was never going to ring him again, not even if he sent her a diamond necklace.
On Christmas Day she pulled crackers, ate turkey and manufactured having the best time with the kind couple from the antenatal group who had invited her to share their lunch. And in the quiet days which followed, she worked hard on her painting of Fluffy, the Maine Coon—whywerepeople so unoriginal when it came to naming their pets? she wondered.
Having an easel in the cottage was a real game-changer—even if it was always going to be associated with Niccolò. But at least painting had always been a distraction and never had she needed it quite as much as she did at the moment. Her brush dabbed rapidly against the canvas and Lizzie was so engrossed in getting Fluffy’s eyes just right that initially she mistook the knock for the branches of the climbing rose being battered against the door by the howl of the winter wind. But when the knock was repeated, some second sense made her grow still and a trickle of excitement whisper down her back. Don’t be so stupid, she thought as she opened the cottage door. Why would it be Niccolò?
