FORGOTTEN LOVER, Carole Mortimer [chrysanthemum read aloud TXT] 📗

you said you would be marrying once Jerard got his divorce. Then that letter arrived,’ he sighed heavily. ‘And about the same time you realised you were pregnant. Anthony still wanted to marry you, and so—’

‘And so I took advantage of that love and married him!’ she finished disgustedly. ‘Because I was too much of a coward—’

‘No!’ her brother’s voice was sharp. ‘You wanted to bring the baby up on your own. I’m afraid it was the pressure Anthony and I put on you that finally made you give in.’

‘I don’t believe—’

‘It’s the truth,’ Simon rasped. ‘At the time I thought I was doing the right thing by persuading you to marry Anthony. No matter what they tell you about illegitimacy being accepted nowadays, there’s still a stigma attached to it. But I don’t think you and Anthony were ever husband and wife in the true sense of a marriage.’

‘You don’t think?’ Velvet exploded.

‘All right, I know you weren’t,’ he sighed. ‘You were still in love with Jerard, and then there was your pregnancy.’

‘Just how premature was Tony?’ she asked shrewdly.

‘Six weeks,’ he muttered.

‘And not the three months I thought.’ Her mouth twisted.

Simon drew in a deep breath. ‘When you came back from Florida this time and said you’d met Jerard again, and that he was free, I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Do you have any idea what he’s going to do when he finds out what I’ve done?’ she choked. ‘He’s going to hate me.’

‘No—’

‘Yes!’ She glared at him. ‘I gave his son another man as his father. Jerard loves me now, but once he knows the truth he’ll hate me. And he’ll take Tony away from me,’ her voice broke emotionally.

‘He wouldn’t—’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ she demanded tautly. ‘Put yourself in his place. He loved me, and yet because his wife was seriously ill he had to stand by her and his daughter. And because I was pregnant by him I married someone else, I denied him all knowledge of the child we’d made together. Yesterday I was the happiest girl in the world, today—today, I feel in the depths of hell!’

Simon’s expression was agonised. ‘I had no idea his wife was ill—you never told us that, only that he could never marry you. I thought—I assumed he’d taken his fun and was now backing out of the relationship.’

‘You’ve had that letter for two years now, Simon, maybe you should have read it, or maybe I should have shown you it in the first place. Jerard didn’t want to give me up—he had to.’

‘I didn’t know,’ he groaned. ‘None of us did.’

‘No,’ she agreed heavily. ‘And I have no one else to blame but myself for marrying Anthony, my own cowardice in telling the world I’d loved a man without being married to him. I was a stupid little fool.’

‘It seemed as if everything was going to work out okay when you said you were going to marry Jerard this time,’ Simon said dully.

‘Yes. But didn’t you think I should be told he was Tony’s father before I married him?’ Velvet asked in exasperation. ‘He had a right to be told.’

Simon sighed. ‘I just didn’t know what to do for the best.’ He shrugged. ‘Jerard was going to be Tony’s father anyway—’

‘He is his father,’ she cut in firmly. ‘I’m going to see Tony now, it might be the last opportunity I have to be with him.’

‘Velvet—’

‘Don’t say any more, Simon,’ she shook her head sadly. ‘I realise that it was ultimately my decision to marry Anthony, even if it was the wrong one. But you should have told me.’ She moved to kiss Janice on the cheek.

‘Don’t go like this, Velvet,’ her sister-in-law pleaded. ‘Stay and we’ll talk—’

‘It’s much too late for talking,’ Velvet said dully. ‘I must go now. I—I’ll call you.’

She took a taxi to Jerard’s mother’s house, as her car was still at the flat; her parents were using it for their visit. Sarah was up too, and looked as if she had been for hours.

‘Velvet!’ she exclaimed her relief. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here, my dear,’ and she hugged her.

‘Jerard?’ Velvet asked apprehensively, frightened he was still here.

‘Been and gone, back to the house, I think.’ Sarah frowned. ‘I don’t know what my son has done—’

‘Nothing,’ Velvet choked. ‘He’s done nothing.’

‘He seemed to think he must have done,’ Sarah said gently.

‘No,’ she shook her head.

‘But he woke up in the night and you’d gone!’

She swallowed hard. ‘I’ve never meant to hurt Jerard, Sarah,’ she looked at her mother-in-law pleadingly. ‘Please believe me when I say I love him above life itself.’

‘I know that, my dear,’ Sarah nodded. ‘And he loves you in the same way. He’s ill with worry about you,’ she added searchingly.

Velvet sat down abruptly, feeling ill herself. ‘I’ve done him a terrible wrong. I’ve done something so bad—’

‘Nothing you do could be so bad he won’t forgive you. He loves you so much, Velvet,’ she told her softly. ‘For two years I watched him suffer with loving you, watched him die a little each day. The change in him after meeting you again is enough to tell me that nothing you do will ever kill that love.’

‘But I’ve denied him his son!’ came Velvet’s anguished cry.

Sarah was silent, although her bottom lip trembled emotionally. Velvet looked at her searchingly, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ she choked as Sarah said nothing.

‘Yes,’ Sarah nodded.

‘Well?’

Sarah seemed to be choosing her words with care. ‘You’re talking of Tony, of course?’

‘Yes!’

Sarah nodded. ‘I thought so.’

Velvet frowned at her calm attitude. ‘You don’t seem—surprised?’

‘I’m not. Oh, my dear, I already knew!’

‘You did?’ she gasped.

‘Of course.’

‘But I—How?’ It couldn’t be because of any facial likeness to Jerard, Tony looked nothing like him.

‘I’ve bathed him, Velvet,’ Sarah explained gently. ‘All the Daniels men have that birthmark. I would have been a fool not to know Tony was my own grandchild.’

‘And you don’t hate me?’ Velvet’s eyes were wide.

Sarah’s expression was one of understanding, not one of