Two Loves Read Online Free Page B

up her hand to shield her face. ‘And … well, that was that. Quite unpremeditated. Not that that excuses us, I know.’
    Rosamund sighed as she thought of that stormy night, all the pleasure she’d be giving up.
    Eliza laid the baby back in the pram.
    â€˜Don’t you wind him after his feed?’ Rosamund asked.
    Eliza gave her another angry look, but disdained to answer. She came back to her chair and sat down rather heavily. And then, with no sort of warning, she started to cry – great shuddering sobs, one after the other as though she would never stop.
    Rosamund started to tremble. ‘Oh, it’s terrible, I know,’ she said, as soon as she could make herself heard. ‘But I’ll give him up, I promise you. I honestly didn’t realise how much you needed him. You see, I always thought you had someone else, someone connected with your work, someone more your type, more exciting. I suppose I wanted to think that, needed to. I’m very, very sorry. Honestly.’
    Eliza’s sobs gradually subsided and became deep intakes of breath. ‘I was sacked,’ she said at last. ‘We had a new boss and he must have seen me as a threat because I’d been there nine years – longer than anyone else – and had all the relevant information at my fingertips. He called me into his office one Monday morning and said he was reorganising the business and had to make some changes.’
    She broke down again and there was another bout of anguished sobbing. ‘I was sacked,’ she said again, ‘and my PA, a girl of twenty-six, with no business degree, no experience, no personality, was appointed in my place. I gave my all to that company. I built up my department from nothing and it became the power base of the whole organisation. Everyone said so.’
    â€˜You’ll get another job,’ Rosamund said, beginning to regret her promises. ‘You’ll build up another department, be a director of a firm again.’
    â€˜No, no. Things are getting tougher all the time. I’m too old to start again. I haven’t the stomach for it, haven’t the fight. I’m too old now, almost forty. That’s why I decided to have a baby. From pique, I suppose, or to feel there was something still left to me, that I wasn’t quite finished. I really need Thomas now as I’ve never needed him before. Oh, Rosamund, you must give him up. I’m so afraid he’ll leave me and go to live with you. You’re so much nicer than I am. I’m in such a state, always shouting at everyone or sobbing my heart out.’
    There was a long, heavy silence. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be better when the baby’s six weeks old. It’s post-natal depression, that’s all. Thomas has never even suggested coming to live with me.’
    Rosamund got to her feet. ‘He’s never even suggested coming to live with me,’ she said again, rather sadly, as she left.
    *   *   *
    Thomas came by that night; the first time he’d called since the baby was born. It was gone ten o’clock and Joss should have been in bed and asleep, but he wasn’t, he was running a sudden high temperature and leaning up against Rosamund on the sofa, drinking hot lemon and honey. He was very miserable, his face flushed, his black hair lying in sweaty streaks on his forehead. ‘My throat’s burning,’ he wailed when he saw Thomas, ‘so don’t tell me to go up to bed.’
    â€˜Thomas never does,’ Rosamund protested. ‘I’m the one who’s always chasing you upstairs.’
    â€˜You and Thomas,’ he insisted in a hot little voice. ‘I always have to go to bed whenever he comes.’
    Thomas and Rosamund regarded each other guiltily, failing to say anything in their own defence. ‘Perhaps you’d better go,’ she told him. ‘This may be something infectious. I’ve heard