‘There’s no chance that you might be wrong?’
‘I did two tests.’
‘But you haven’t been seen by a doctor yet?’
‘Scott is arranging all that privately. We’re going to be married, no matter what anyone says!’ she added forcefully. ‘We love each other.’
Claire sank into the nearest chair, searching her mind for some way of getting through the barriers that Jill was putting up against her. ‘How did you meet in the first place?’ was all she could come up with.
‘Scott likes discos,’ came the answer, as if that explained everything. ‘He’s a terrific dancer!’
A typical teenage accolade, thought Claire wryly, recalling a time when she might have considered such a talent of prime importance herself. Jill was still so young in many ways.
‘Did you know he was going to tell his brother about all this?’ she asked, and saw her sister’s face cloud again.
‘He said he was going to tell them all as soon as he got back this afternoon.’
‘You were with him this morning?’
‘Yes.’ The defiance was back. ‘He took me into Buxton, so I didn’t lie.’
‘And that makes everything hunky-dory, does it?’ Claire caught herself up, recognising the futility of lashing out in that way. What was done was done. What remained was to make the best of the situation.
‘I’m afraid his brother doesn’t see marriage as the obvious answer,’ she said on a quieter note. ‘I’m not sure I do either.’
Jill sat up straighter, expression determined. ‘It isn’t your or his decision to make! We’re both of an age to choose for ourselves!’
‘Of an age, perhaps, but there are other factors to be taken into account.’
‘Such as what?’ On her feet now, face flushed, hazel eyes flashing green lights, Jill looked ready to take on all comers. ‘You’d rather I got rid of it?’
‘No, of course not.’ Claire put everything she knew into keeping an even tone. ‘There are other alternatives.’
‘Like swelling the single-parent ranks, for instance?’ Deeper in colour than Claire’s, and falling straight as a die to her shoulders, Jill’s hair swung as she shook her head emphatically. ‘Scott wouldn’t settle for that even if I would. He wants this baby. We both do!’
‘You’re too young to know what you want,’ Claire protested. ‘I’m sure Scott is too.’
‘Scott isn’t just a boy. He’s twenty-two.’ From the way she said it, it was obvious that that made him mature enough for anything in her estimation. ‘If it’s money you’re worried about, you don’t need to. He can well afford to get married. He has investments left him by his grandmother, as well as his company shares.’
‘I hadn’t even got that far,’ Claire admitted. She hesitated, studying her sister’s mutinous face. ‘Do you think you’d feel the same way about him if he was just an ordinary, working man?’
‘Of course I would! It’s him I love, not the money!’ Jill made a sudden small gesture of appeal. ‘You’ll like him too, Claire. I know you will!’
He would have to be vastly different from his brother to make her like him, Claire reflected—a thought which brought an unpleasant reminder of Ross’s parting promise.
‘Ross Laxton is coming here with him in the morning,’ she said. ‘I doubt that his attitude is going to change overnight.’
‘Scott is coming over tonight,’ countered Jill. ‘He wants to meet you.’
‘Having left you to do the telling on your own.’
‘Only because I wanted it that way. He’s no coward!’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’s a regular paragon!’ Claire instantly regretted the tart remark. Whatever her opinion might turn out to be, Jill wasn’t going to be swayed. All the same, she couldn’t find it in herself to retract the words. ‘What time are you expecting him?’ she said instead.
Whatever her thoughts, Jill was keeping them to herself. ‘I told him around seven. He won’t have eaten, by the way. He’s still living at home, and they don’t have dinner till eight.’
Claire bit back the instinctive comment. It was gone half-past six now. She did a hasty mental review of their food stocks. There were half a dozen local rainbow trout in the freezer, presented to them by their neighbour, who owned fishing rights on the river. They could be cooked from frozen on the microwave’s sensor setting without losing too much flavour.
She had made a salad before leaving for the shop that morning, and had prepared a pan of new potatoes ready for the hob, intending to grill some steak to go with them. With apple pie and cream to follow, and cheese if required, there should be enough.
‘Then we’d better get moving,’ she said, putting everything else aside for the moment. ‘Perhaps you could start setting the table.’
‘OK.’ Jill got to her feet with an alacrity that brought a faint, ironic smile to her sister’s lips. ‘I’ll fetch a cloth.’
They normally ate most meals at the kitchen table, where a cloth wasn’t needed. Obviously it had to be the dining-room for Scott.
Claire left her to it, going through to the small but well-equipped kitchen to start on the meal. The trout would no doubt be a poor substitute for the kind of dinner served at the Laxton homestead, but she wasn’t going to allow that to concern her. Unexpected visitors took pot luck.
Unexpected was certainly the word. She could still hardly credit that this was really happening. A bare hour or so ago all she’d had to worry about was finance!
The trout weren’t all that large. She sprinkled all six with lemon juice and black pepper, added a few dots of butter, then covered the dish in cling film. The potatoes and fish should be ready about the same time; the apple pie they would eat cold. She briefly contemplated opening a bottle of wine, but decided that that might be overdoing things a little. This was hardly a celebration.
Jill had used the silver, she noted, when she went to check the small oak-beamed dining-room. She had also left off the cloth, laying the woven place-mats directly on the polished surface of the table and placing a vase of flowers from the sitting-room in the centre. It looked nice, Claire was bound to admit.
The sound of a car turning into the drive drew her eyes to the window. Long and silver, the Mercedes came to a stop behind her Panda, and the engine was switched off.
Claire felt her heart jerk painfully as the driver unfolded his length from the vehicle. Ross’s arrival could only mean that Scott wasn’t coming. Which left Jill where?
THE
