fingers tightened on her gloves. ‘Yes,’ she said abruptly. She knew what the question was, but she hadn’t tried it out in her head. She had been too busy concentrating on not fainting. ‘What about our … married relationship? Might it be dangerous for the baby to … to … Surely that would stop until afterwards?’
Mr Hardwicke leaned forward reassuringly. ‘Your married life can certainly continue as long as it is comfortable and pleasurable for you both. Some young couples stop in the last few weeks, others continue right up until the time of confinement. It’s a matter of personal choice.’
Isabel stared at him. She had been certain that she would be able to take her pregnancy back home with her like a shield.
‘But … I’d be afraid. For the baby, you know.’
The doctor was looking at her more carefully now. ‘There really isn’t any need to worry. Mother Nature has arranged things as logically as she always does. But if you do feel particularly anxious perhaps the best thing would be to discuss it with your husband, explain what you feel, and ask him to be extra gentle with you. It is his baby too, remember. Or would you prefer it if I spoke to him? I couldn’t recommend months of complete abstinence for a newly married couple.’
‘No,’ Isabel said hastily. ‘No, I’ll talk to him myself, of course.’
Automatically she reached for her handbag and pulled her fur around her shoulders.
‘Are you quite happy,’ the doctor asked gently, ‘with the physical side of your marriage?’
Isabel stood up. Her chair rocked precariously for a moment before she reached to steady it. ‘Yes. Perfectly happy.’
Mr Hardwicke’s smile had faded a little as he walked round his desk to open the door for her. ‘It does take a little time, you know.’
As he stood there, kindly and familiar, with his fingers not quite touching the doorknob, Isabel almost told him. She opened her mouth and moistened her lips, and saw his eyebrows go up a fraction as he waited. But his expectancy touched her reserves of pride and she squared her shoulders against him.
‘Like all kinds of other things in life,’ Isabel said brightly.
The doctor nodded, as if conceding a point, and opened the door for her. Isabel went down the wide, carpeted steps to the street, pulling on her gloves and smoothing the leather over each finger as if the fit of them was her most important concern.
*
Peter was home early, for once. Isabel was finishing her five o’clock cup of tea in the drawing room when he came in. He stood awkwardly in his City clothes, his newspaper in one hand, not quite looking at her and waiting to see how she would receive him. It was as if part of him wanted to apologize for the night before, but his stubborn truculence wouldn’t allow it. If Isabel was prepared to be civilized and pretend that nothing had happened, then he could do the same, but if she was still angry he could use that as an excuse to let his own anger flare up again.
Looking at him in the coolness of her new detachment, Isabel thought it was odd that Peter could handle his constituents and colleagues so expertly in his overbearing way, yet had no idea how to deal with his own wife.
Isabel smiled. ‘What sort of day did you have today?’ she asked him.
Peter shrugged with relief. So last night hadn’t happened.
‘Quietish. I may have to fly to Berlin tomorrow for a day or so to close a piece of business.’
Isabel nodded. She knew that Peter’s trading on the metal market was currently concerned with armaments, but she didn’t enquire beyond that.
‘Shall I ring for a fresh pot of tea?’
‘No, this will do.’
‘Cream?’
She gave her husband his cup and watched him sit down opposite her. The paper, already folded to the financial pages, lay beside him. She knew that he was itching to pick it up, but he was prepared to extend the truce a little further.
‘What about you?’ he asked stiffly.
Isabel looked down at her rings. ‘I have something to tell you. I went to see Mr Hardwicke this morning, and he says that I am two months pregnant.’
The clatter startled her and she looked up. Peter had put down his cup and stumbled forward from his low chair. Now he was half-kneeling, half-crouching in front of her. She saw that the polished black toe of his shoe had rucked up one corner of the pale rug.
‘Oh, darling. A baby?’ His big hands hovered and then came down over hers in her lap. Isabel looked at him and saw that his face was suffused with simple pleasure, all the self-sure imperviousness gone for the moment. She hadn’t expected that he would be so pleased.
‘In November, he says.’
Peter’s hands tightened over her fingers. ‘And is everything all right?’ After the shock of pleasure had come anxiety. Not for her directly, Isabel saw, but for the baby. It was his baby that would be important. Isabel had guessed that was how it would be, but she had underestimated how much it would mean to him. Now she revised the full value of what she possessed. She lifted her chin and stared straight into Peter’s eyes.
‘Mr Hardwicke says that I must be very careful.’
The anxiety in him intensified at once. ‘Careful? What’s wrong? If there’s anything, we’ll get the top man …’
‘Nothing’s wrong, Peter,’ she said smoothly. ‘He just talked about rest.’
‘Rest? Of course you can rest. You don’t do anything …’
‘And he forbade any kind of physical stress. Anything like that, until after the baby is born.’
Peter met her stare now, and his hands were heavy on hers. He was no fool, Isabel knew that. He understood at once what she was saying. She was offering his heir, whether or not the doctor’s warning was genuine, in exchange for her physical inviolacy.
For a long moment they went on looking at each other. It occurred to Isabel that they were locked in position like a tableau of a Victorian proposal, and her irrational desire to laugh was vaguely disturbing.
At last Peter stood up. ‘If there’s anything not quite normal, I think we should see a specialist. Hardwicke’s no more than a GP.’
‘I don’t think there’s any need for that,’ Isabel said firmly. ‘Mr Hardwicke has looked after us since we were babies, and I trust him absolutely.’
‘I see,’ Peter said, and she knew that he did. He turned away abruptly and Isabel felt confidence waking up and beginning to grow inside her again like the baby itself. Her hand rested protectively over her stomach. ‘We shall have to abide by Mr Hardwicke’s strictures, of course. Somehow or other,’ he added threateningly. Isabel suspected that he would go looking for physical gratification elsewhere, if he wasn’t doing it already, and in the relief of her first victory she couldn’t have cared less. The longing to laugh grew even stronger.
Then, with his characteristic ability to put what he didn’t choose
