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.‘I don’t need your help, Etienne.I’m fine and I certainly don’t need you carrying me up any more stairs!’He was affronted.‘If I wasn’t a gentleman I would laugh at the suggestion that something might happen today.I would never take advantage of a sick woman.’‘I keep telling you, I’m not sick! It’s nothing.It’ll pass off.It always does.’‘You mean this has happened before?’‘Once or twice, maybe.’ She shrugged like an insolent child.‘Really? So exactly how long has this been going on?’‘I don’t know!’ She pushed her curls back irritably from her forehead.‘A couple of weeks? Maybe longer.I haven’t been taking notes.I’m too busy working.As I’ve told you before, I don’t have the time to be ill.’Etienne’s personal doctor was there within minutes.He took one look at Gwen and frowned.‘We have not met before?’‘No, I’m Etienne’s business partner.’Gwen waited for the man to laugh or make some suggestive comment.Instead he smiled quite innocently before asking if there was a Mr Williams.For the first time, Gwen felt fear.She looked at Etienne with terrified eyes.‘Next of kin, you mean? Oh, my God! It’s that serious?’‘Not necessarily.’ The doctor was quick to smile.‘If it was anyone but you who had called me in, Etienne, I’d start by asking Mademoiselle Williams the obvious question.’‘Which is?’ Gwen looked from one man to the other.She was really scared now.‘I’d merely enquire if there’s any way you could be pregnant, Mademoiselle Williams,’ the doctor said in a matter-of-fact way.Gwen stared at him.He smiled back, his expression gently prompting.It was the one cause Gwen flatly refused to acknowledge.She had made a million excuses to herself and tried to ignore all the signs, but this was the showdown.She felt like the SS Titanic, steaming towards a giant iceberg labelled disaster.‘I—I don’t know.’ Shocked, Gwen appealed to the doctor with her eyes.But he had turned away, preparing to take a blood sample.‘It’s a question I ask all young women as a matter of course, that’s all.When they present with bouts of sickness but are otherwise fit and healthy, it’s the most natural thing in the world to suspect pregnancy.’She blinked at him, lost for words.Etienne was equally staggered.‘What? But I can’t see how you could possibly be pregnant,’ he said faintly.‘That’s staff for you, Etienne.’ The doctor grunted.Gwen was appalled at his bedside manner and in other circumstances would have called him on it, but she was too shocked by the possibility of pregnancy to say anything.She looked away quickly as the blood started to flow from her arm and into the vacuum container.There was silence in the room.It was broken only by the warble of birdsong outside, floating in from the garden.The doctor wrote Gwen’s name on the phial of her blood, his pen scratching through the tension.Finally Etienne walked over to the window.Hands on hips, he stared out across the valley.His voice, when it came, was as parched as the landscape.‘It’s impossible.We only spent one night together.’It was the doctor’s turn to stop and stare.‘You mean you and Mademoiselle Williams…’ Frowning, he turned his full attention on Gwen, aghast.Gwen sprang up to defend herself, but Etienne was already there.Whirling away from the window, he caught her by the shoulders.The look in his sloe-dark eyes was enough to silence her.‘It can only be me.That’s right, isn’t it, Gwyneth?’He called her by her full name.Gwen shuddered.She had thought she was in trouble.This confirmed it.The doctor looked distinctly uneasy.‘That’s ridiculous.’‘But why should you automatically think Etienne wasn’t the father of this…’ her nerve almost failed her, and she took several attempts to force the word out ‘…baby?’It wasn’t the doctor who answered, but Etienne himself.‘The doctor knows my views.I think a child should have two responsible parents,’ he said stiffly.It was an answer.Whether it was the whole truth, Gwen wasn’t sure.She couldn’t help but think about the baby Angela Webbington had aborted.Which part of that unhappy couple had been the irresponsible one?‘What can I say?’ The doctor shrugged, addressing his gesture of exasperation to Etienne.‘Nothing.Don’t say a thing, Doctor.If Gwyneth is pregnant, then she and I will sort this out together, between us.’His smooth reply sounded almost practised.The icy calm was certainly enough to freeze Gwen’s blood.Alerted to the possibility she might be carrying Etienne’s child, the doctor carried out the rest of his examination with that in mind.All the signs were there, he told them, but official confirmation would have to wait.‘That’s fine.You have the number of my mobile.Ring the moment you know.I’ll deal with everything here,’ Etienne said, hustling the doctor out of the room.A cold knot of dread tightened inside Gwen.She had a horrible suspicion she knew exactly what he meant.She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor.Her hands were clasped so tightly together the knuckles ached.She heard Etienne and the doctor muttering outside her window.She couldn’t hear what they were saying, and didn’t care.Her whole life had stuttered to a halt.From now on she would have to exist at second hand.All her time and energy would have to be devoted to the little life growing inside her.She could feel motherhood closing in on her like the walls of her room.Several centuries later, she heard a car drive away.It was only one car, and it lacked the high-class purr of Etienne’s pulling machine.She waited, expecting him to leave too.Instead, she heard slow, heavy footsteps come up the stairs.He was coming back.She braced herself for a confrontation.It was only a matter of feet across the landing to her bedroom.Gwen did not move as she sensed Etienne reach her threshold.There was no point.He would have a face like thunder, and the smallest movement from her would unleash his fury.She tried to concentrate on the hum of bees, busy in the thyme flowers growing on the sun-drenched terrace.It was supposed to be a diversion.Instead it reminded her of the buzz of disapproval this news would provoke among all her relatives back home.‘How do you feel?’Gwen’s head jerked up before she could stop it.She had expected anger.Strained compassion was the last thing she anticipated.His expression was impassive.She knew he must have been fighting to keep his true feelings under control, exactly as she was.‘Terrible.I’ve ruined everything,’ she muttered, dropping her gaze back to the rag rug.She heard him take a step towards her.The room wasn’t very big, but he was still as far away from her as it was possible to be while still sharing the same space.After a pause, he took another step, and then a third.Now the tips of his leather shoes intruded into her narrow field of vision.She waited.Eventually, a shadow moved and she felt his touch.It fell lightly against her shoulder.When she did not move, he dropped its full weight on her, stiff and unyielding.She couldn’t be sure if it was meant as a comforting gesture.His fingers felt like wood
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