Her Pregnancy Surprise. Barbara McMahon
a child, explained that she had gone to Paris for a break.
‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’ Megan asked.
‘I couldn’t say,’ came the less-than-forthcoming response.
Another time Megan might have pressed the subject, but she had other things to think about. Maybe she was reading too much into the way Elspeth spoiled and fussed over her during the weekend, or maybe the older woman had inherited some intuitive powers from her Celtic forebears; either way Megan wasn’t allowed to lift a finger. It was actually rather comforting to be fussed over.
The ancient walls of her childhood home had a strangely soothing effect upon her; the moment she walked through the door she experienced a strange sense of peace. Was it her condition that made her look at the beauty of her surroundings with different eyes? While she was walking in the woods one morning she came to a decision: she wanted her child to be brought up here where she had.
Laura returned on Sunday.
‘You look incredible,’ Megan told her as they took tea together in the pretty morning room. ‘I really like your hair that way.’
‘You don’t think it’s too…young…?’
‘You are young, Mum.’ Normally Megan would have picked up on her mother’s tension immediately, but on this occasion she herself was distracted. Should she just come out with it, or would it be better to let her mother have a good night’s sleep before she broke her news?
She took a deep breath…there was no good putting it off.
‘Mum…’
‘Megan, there’s something I have to tell you…’
‘Same here,’ Megan said with a strained smile. ‘After you…’
Laura got up and walked over to the low mullioned window. For the first time Megan registered her parent’s unease. ‘You know I went to Paris?’
Megan nodded. ‘Yes?’
‘I stayed with a friend.’
Her mother, her discomfort evident, was looking anywhere but at her. A knot of cold fear tightened in her stomach.
‘That was nice,’ she said, clenching and unclenching her white-knuckled hands as she worked up the courage to ask what she had to. ‘You’re not…ill, are you, Mum? If you are,’ she added quickly, ‘you mustn’t panic. We can cope with whatever it is.’
When Laura turned and saw her daughter’s face a grimace of self-recrimination crossed her own. The fear that lurked behind Megan’s composed expression, she had seen before. At her lowest ebb, during her husband’s illness and after his death, Megan had been a constant source of strength and comfort to them both, but sometimes Laura had seen that look…a shadow, really…It had made her feel guilty for relying so heavily on Megan.
‘Gracious, no, I’m fine,’ she assured Megan quickly.
Megan released a sigh of relief; nothing her mother had to say could be worse than what she had been imagining.
‘Well, that’s all right then. Who did you stay with? Anyone I know?’
Laura came and sat on the sofa beside her daughter. ‘Jean Paul Legrand, you remember him…?’
‘Tall, silver-haired, sexy French accent.’ Laura gave a strained smile as her daughter reeled off the Frenchman’s distinguishing characteristics. ‘The dishy lawyer whose wife Dad went to college with.’ Her brow creased. ‘Didn’t she die?’
‘Yes, three years ago.’
‘How is he?’ She only had the vaguest recollections of how he’d looked that weekend a few weeks earlier. A few weeks…it felt like a lifetime ago.
‘He’s fine. Actually…’ Laura sighed and caught Megan’s hands. ‘The thing is, darling, this isn’t the first time I’ve stayed with Jean Paul and actually what I’m trying to tell you…Oh, my, this is very difficult.’
‘Whatever it is it can’t be as difficult as what I have to tell you,’ Megan promised, her fingers tightening encouragingly around her mother’s.
‘Jean Paul has asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes.’
Megan’s jaw dropped. Her mother getting remarried—it had been the last thing she had expected to hear. It was the last thing she had expected to happen! For the first time for a week she stopped thinking about her own situation.
‘Marry…I didn’t even know you were seeing him!’ she exclaimed. Belatedly aware of her mother’s anxious expression, she expelled a gusty sigh and pinned a suitably pleased smile on her face. ‘But it’s marvellous!’ she cried, enfolding her mother in a bear-like hug.
Megan felt helpless when her mother began to cry.
‘You mean that?’
Megan nodded. ‘Of course I do.’
Laura released a shuddering sigh. ‘I was so worried that you’d think I was being disloyal to your father’s memory…I always said I would never get married again.’ She lifted her head from her daughter’s shoulder and accepted the tissue that Megan offered with a watery smile.
‘Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone, Mum,’ she said quietly. ‘He was the last person who would have wanted you to live in the past.’
Laura sniffed and searched her daughter’s face. ‘You really don’t mind?’
Megan shook her head. ‘Of course I don’t mind. I just want you to be happy. You love Jean Paul…?’ It felt incredibly strange to be quizzing her mother on her romantic life. She noticed her mother looked as awkward as she felt.
‘He’s a lovely man—’ Laura’s self-conscious smile faded as her manner became solemn ‘—but he knows…’ She shook her head. ‘I made it quite clear to him that I wouldn’t marry him if it upsets you.’
‘So you want my blessing—? There’s a bit of role reversal for you,’ Megan teased, but her mother didn’t smile.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then you have it.’
‘Thank you, darling. It isn’t the same as it was with your father…but, yes, I am very fond of him and he makes me laugh and feel young again.’
‘Then I already love him,’ Megan said fondly. ‘Have you set a date?’
‘We thought…well, there doesn’t seem much point waiting under the circumstances.’ She met her daughter’s eyes and blushed. ‘Neither of us are getting any younger…’ she added quickly.
‘So when…?’
‘Next month.’
Megan let out a soundless whistle. ‘Wow, you two don’t let the grass grow, do you?’ Despite her light-hearted tone Megan was beginning to be concerned that her mother was rushing into this.
‘The thing is, Megan, Jean Paul’s practice is in Paris. I’ll be moving there. This place…it’s such an enormous responsibility for you with your busy life.’
‘Paris isn’t very far, you mustn’t worry about this place,’ Megan said firmly. ‘Actually, I might be around a lot more. The company is relocating to nine miles from here, of all places. So I’ll be on hand to keep an eye on the old place.’ Head tilted to one side, she scanned her mother’s face. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
Laura nodded. ‘Yes, there is.’
Megan’s brows lifted. ‘Well, go on,’ she prompted, kicking off her shoes and drawing her knees up as she curled up cosily on the sofa. ‘It can hardly be any more shocking than learning I’m about to have a new stepfather.’
Laura sighed and placed her interlinked