The Love-Child. Kathryn RossЧитать онлайн книгу.
Or perhaps she should say curiouser and curiouser. Mike Johnson wasn’t going to believe her luck. And obviously her editor’s information had been quite correct. Jody Sterling’s child was here.
Pearce led her swiftly down a long corridor and it was then that she first heard the muffled cry of a child. As they approached the room at the end the crying grew louder until—when he opened the door—the full wail of the infant’s lungs ripped the air apart.
The room was primrose-yellow, the sprigged white muslin curtains moved gently in the soft breeze from the open window and in the centre of the room a middle-aged man was bending over a cot, trying to soothe a distressed child. When they entered he turned towards them a relieved look on his lined face.
‘Au secours, ça suffit!’ He spoke in deep rapid French, his eyes darting from Pearce to Cathy, his manner clearly agitated.
‘Don’t worry, Henri. You did what you could and I am most grateful. But the nanny is here now, and she will take care of things.’
Pearce’s voice was rich, dark and hypnotically authoritative. Cathy looked behind her to see where the nanny was. Anyone who could quieten this child had her full admiration. Suddenly her spirits sank as reality dawned. He was talking about her! Somehow he had mistakenly taken her for the child’s nanny!
‘Well don’t just stand there.’ Pearce Tyrone’s voice lifted derisively as the child seemed to bellow even more furiously, her breath catching painfully.
It crossed Cathy’s mind to just come clean with the truth—tell him that she didn’t know anything about babies and that she was from the press.
She looked into Pearce Tyrone’s eyes. They seemed to have darkened to deepest midnight, his lips set in a grim, uncompromising line. Maybe the truth could wait, she countered hastily. Once told, her feet wouldn’t touch the ground, and before leaving she should at least try to find out something about this situation. Get some angle for a good story.
As the older man left the room, still noisily bemoaning his failure with his charge, Cathy moved over to the side of the cot and looked down at the child—trying to guess what was causing her so much distress. Perhaps she was hungry or needed to be changed?
Cathy racked her brains. She had done an article on modern-day child care not so long ago; she had done a lot of research for it, but unfortunately it had been more theoretical than practical.
‘She has cried almost continually since she arrived today,’ Pearce informed her, an edge of strain clear in his voice. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’
Cathy glanced at him, an expression of genuine sympathy in her eyes. She remembered her sister telling her how distressed she had felt when her young daughter had suffered from colic and had cried almost continuously.
The infant let out a particularly loud wail and Pearce Tyrone crossed to stand next to her at the cot. ‘I’ve tried holding her over my shoulder, feeding her, changing her, and still she cries.’ He raked a hand through the thickness of his dark hair. ‘I’ve never felt so damn helpless.’
Cathy’s eyebrows lifted a little. It was amazing that one small baby could reduce such a powerful, dominant male into making such a statement. She was willing to bet her last franc on the fact that nothing had ever made Pearce Tyrone feel helpless before.
Tentatively Cathy put out a hand and gently stroked the infant’s brow. Magically the sobbing lessened as though the child had recognised the touch of her hand. Quick to press her advantage, Cathy leaned down and crooned close to her ear. ‘What’s the matter, then, sweetheart?’
The little face turned briefly to look at her. It was red from crying and Cathy felt a rush of tenderness that almost choked her. Almost at once the child started to cry again with renewed vigour, pushing the back of her small dimpled hands into her eyes.
Poor little thing, Cathy thought sadly. She had expected to see her mother and instead she had found another stranger.
‘Would you like to come out of that nasty cot and have a little cuddle, then?’ Cathy coaxed gently and reached in to gather up the wriggling flurry of cherubic arms and legs. Carefully she supported the child’s back and head until she had her safely in her arms. The crying stopped almost immediately and a pair of speedwell-blue eyes, fringed with dark curtly, lashes, looked up into Cathy’s face in astonishment. The relief of silence was heady.
‘What was all that noise about, then?’ Cathy asked softly, placing a playful finger under the baby’s chin. She was only about nine months old and very beautiful. Immediately the child’s small fingers encircled Cathy’s and held on for dear life, as though frightened she was going to be left alone once more.
For a moment the importance of getting a story from Pearce Tyrone paled under the awful fact that this child might lose her mother. Jody Sterling was in a coma in hospital in Paris and might never recover. Perhaps this was a contributing factor to Tyrone’s obvious distress.
She had obviously caught the man in a rare unguarded moment of stress, otherwise she would never have got past the front gate. With a bit of luck she could admit to him now that she wasn’t really a nanny and he would be so grateful to her that he would grant her a full interview.
‘Poppy seems to have taken a liking to you, Miss...?’
Cathy hesitated just a fraction of a second before giving him her real name. ‘Fielding ... Cathy Fielding.’
He frowned and the handsome face took on a very stem expression, the sort of look that—in Cathy’s experience—preceded being forcefully ejected from a situation.
‘That’s not the name the agency sent... I was expecting someone called Mabel ... something or other.’
There was the briefest pause before Cathy found herself lying blatantly. ‘Mabel is my real name, but I never use it.’ She opened her eyes in a wide, coquettish way. ‘I don’t think it’s very attractive, do you?’
He looked at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads. ‘Frankly, I haven’t the inclination to ponder on things of such magnitude,’ he told her derisively.
His tone, his expression, was like a cool slap across the face. Feeling totally put down, Cathy felt a flare of anger rise. This man took himself far too seriously.
‘All I care about is whether you are as highly qualified as the agency has led me to believe,’ he continued briskly.
Qualified to write a story that would open the public’s eyes to the real Pearce Tyrone, she told herself firmly. Given just a little time inside this house, she might gather enough information to warm Mike’s heart. A gleam of devilment lit the wide beauty of her eyes. ‘Oh. I’m very highly qualified,’ she assured him.
The baby wriggled slightly in her arms and then reached up one little hand and grabbed at a loose tendril of Cathy’s hair with a grip that was surprisingly strong.
‘Ow!’ It took a moment to gently extricate herself and then Poppy reached her arms towards Pearce, a sweet smile on her little face.
Looking over at Pearce, Cathy noticed that the remote countenance with which he had regarded her had softened to tenderness as he studied the child.
‘So, why didn’t you behave for me and Henri?’ he asked Poppy playfully. ‘How come you only respond to a woman?’
The child chuckled and looked as if she understood every word that he spoke.
Cathy smiled and then risked commenting, ‘Perhaps I remind her of her mother? We’ve got the same colour hair, haven’t we?’
Cathy knew at that moment how Pearce had got his name. Those eyes seemed to slice through her. He made no effort to reply and the silence and the way he was looking at her was very unnerving.
Was this the moment when he threw her bodily from the premises? she wondered. Well, she wouldn’t go without giving this her best shot. ‘I ... I know I’m not as glamorous as Jody Sterling; she’s very beautiful. Poppy