with him.
‘I’ll arrange for you to be moved to a side room,’ he said stiffly, and left the treatment room.
‘Is everything OK?’ Annabelle asked, coming over to him as he strode through the department.
‘With the baby? Yes.’
She frowned. ‘Is Ella all right?’
‘She needs to be moved to a side room and kept in overnight for observation,’ Oliver said. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Oliver—’
‘Not now,’ he said, and headed for his office. And for once he actually closed his door. Usually he was happy to be interrupted by any member of staff who needed him, but right now he needed to lose himself in paperwork and not have to deal with another human being.
He was halfway through a pile of admin when his phone buzzed; he glanced at the screen.
Darrington Hall.
Why were his parents calling him?
For a moment, he thought about just ignoring the call. But then again it might be important. With a sigh, he answered.
‘Oliver. I was just checking if you were coming home for Christmas,’ his mother said.
He nearly laughed. Darrington Hall hadn’t been ‘home’ for a long, long time. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty.’
‘Can’t you change it?’
‘No,’ he said. But something was eating at him. Had his mother really had a fight with Ella outside the bathroom? He’d thought at the time that Ella had been gone a long while. And she’d been very cool with him after that. If his mother had just warned her off him, that would explain why she’d gone cold on him. ‘Mama—did you tell Ella you wanted her to have a paternity test?’
‘I… Why would I do that?’
He noticed that his mother hadn’t denied all knowledge of Ella being pregnant. He was pretty sure that Ella wouldn’t have volunteered the information willingly, the way she had with her own family. And he knew exactly what would’ve driven his mother to talk about a paternity test. ‘Justine,’ he said succinctly.
‘Well, I don’t want to see you trapped again.’
It was the nearest his mother would get to admitting what she’d said. ‘Ella isn’t trying to trap me,’ Oliver said. She’d just refused to marry him. He paused. Now he thought about it, that stuff about Darrington babies having a position to maintain sounded just like the sort of thing his mother would say. ‘What position does a Darrington baby have to maintain?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
That definitely sounded like bluster. ‘Mother, I’m not the heir to Darrington.’
‘You will be if Edward and Prudence don’t get their skates on and produce a boy.’
He let that pass. ‘And, for the record, I have no intention of suing Ella for custody.’
‘Custody?’
‘Yes. Did you tell her we wanted custody? Because Darrington babies have a position to maintain?’ he repeated.
‘I—Oliver, you know it would be for the best. We could hire a nanny. There’s plenty of space here—’
‘No,’ he cut in. ‘Ella is the mother of my child, and the baby stays with her.’
‘I see.’ His mother’s tone became frosty.
He sighed. ‘Mama, I know we don’t see eye-to-eye about my job. But I’ve been either a medical student or a qualified doctor for seventeen years now. Half a lifetime, almost. I’m not going to change my mind about what I do. And you need to start trusting me, because I’m doing what’s right for me.’
‘But, Oliver, Ella’s—’
‘Ella’s lovely,’ he said, ‘as you’d know if you actually gave her a chance, the way Ned and Prue did. Think about it. Yes, things went wrong with Justine. On paper she was the perfect match, and you pushed us together—and it went wrong. This time, I’m making my own choice. I don’t care if Ella’s parents don’t have the same pedigree that you do. It doesn’t matter where you come from, Mama—what matters is who you are and how you treat other people.’
And he hadn’t treated Ella very kindly just now.
‘I’m going to be a father,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’d like my baby to know both sets of grandparents. Properly. I’d like to build some bridges with you and Papa. But in turn you need to respect that I’m old enough and wise enough to make my own decisions.’
‘And your own mistakes?’ the Countess asked coldly.
‘Ella isn’t a mistake,’ he said. ‘And neither is my career.’
‘So you’re giving me an ultimatum?’
‘No. I’m giving you a chance to get to know the woman I love, and our baby,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to happen overnight and we’re all going to have to learn to compromise a bit, but I guess that’s part of what being a real family means.’
‘Oliver…’
‘I’m on leave at New Year,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could start with lunch. Something small, informal and friendly. Just you, Papa, Ned and Prue and the girls, and us. Nobody else. Just family. You can get to know Ella a bit better—and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Just family, New Year,’ the Countess echoed.
‘A new year and a new beginning,’ he said softly.
For a long time, she said nothing, and he thought she was going to throw it all back in his face.
But then she sighed. ‘All right.’
‘Good. I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said.
But, more importantly, he needed to talk to Ella. To apologise for ever having doubted her. He wasn’t going to take her an armful of flowers—apart from the fact that there was a ban on flowers while the vomiting bug was still around, flowers weren’t going to fix things. The only way to fix things was by total honesty.
He just hoped that she’d hear him out.
When he went back onto the ward, Annabelle was there. ‘Which room is Ella in?’ he asked.
‘I’m not entirely sure I should tell you,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘At the moment, Oliver Darrington, I’d quite like to shake you until your teeth rattle.’
He blinked, not used to his head nurse being so fierce. ‘What have I done?’
She scoffed. ‘Are you really that dense? You made Ella cry.’
He winced. ‘I need to talk to her.’
