She had also told Jack that Belle’s continuing morning sickness, weight loss, pallor and head pain were all quite natural.
Jack didn’t believe her.
Two weeks ago, Belle had travelled all the way up to London with his mother in order that she could accompany him to a second opinion appointment with an eminent obstetrician in Harley Street.
During the second opinion with the eminent Harley Street obstetrician, Jack was told the precise same thing.
Jack didn’t like it but he believed him.
This, as well, was not what made him angry.
One week ago, Belle, her mother and her grandmother had, as promised, moved into his home.
Upon her arrival, he was pleased both to note and be told by Rachel that Belle was feeling much better. The head pain was gone as was the morning sickness.
Jack saw with his own eyes that the colour had come back to her face. She’d even seemed to gain weight and was beginning to form a small baby bump.
However, since she’d moved in, even though she was living under the same roof as him, Jack had barely seen her. Furthermore, the two weeks prior, he’d found it difficult to contact her.
Although he owned and ran two large conglomerates that necessitated him having a personal assistant, a personal secretary and a four-person administrative pool at his command, Belle was busier than he.
If she was not at her shop in St. Ives, she was in the workshop above her shop in St. Ives.
If she was not in her shop or workshop, she was off having coffee or shopping with her mother, grandmother or his mother or a combination of the three or, indeed, the whole lot of them.
If she was not in her shop or workshop or with any of the women, she was out on a walk and over the past week, she took Baron and Gretl.
Belle, Jack noted, walked a good deal.
If she was not in her shop, workshop, with the women or walking with his dogs, he could often see her from countless windows in the house sitting on one of the rocks by the sea surrounding The Point. She did not read. She did not write. She did not sew. She just sat, staring out to sea like not only could it speak to her but it was explaining the meaning of life and she was serenely accepting this knowledge as if it was her due.
If she was not in any of those places, she was asleep.
Belle, Jack noted as well in the last three weeks, slept a good deal.
So much so, yesterday, he’d phoned Dr. Flanagan with no small concern and asked why on earth that was happening.
He was assured this was entirely natural.
Then he’d called the eminent obstetrician in Harley Street who also assured Jack this was entirely natural.
Pregnant women, apparently, slept.
Quite a bit.
Therefore, Jack’s goal of spending time with her while his child was developing in her womb was not coming to fruition.
This made Jack angry.
For he knew, without doubt, regardless of how much pregnant women slept, she was avoiding him on purpose.
That made Jack incensed.
And he would not allow it.
Not for another day.
Therefore, he and his dogs were walking to the stables to confront Belle.
Both of his dogs, incidentally, had defected to Belle without the least indication of the years of loyalty they’d offered Jack.
Jack had even caught Baron being shooed out of Belle’s room last night.
He’d been walking to his own room and seen her door open. She’d actually had to scoot the dog out with her hands on his rump, so resistant was Baron to her efforts to remove him from her room.
Then she’d caught sight of Jack, her cheeks went pink, she’d given him a barely there wave, called goodnight and closed her door before he’d had a chance to open his mouth.
Baron, for his part, had the grace to look ashamed.
If Jack had been in any other mood, he might find this amusing.
In his current mood, he did not.
He opened the door to the stables not caring that Lila was with Belle.
Although Rachel seemed to be friendly and gracious (albeit a bit strange) both to Jack’s mother and to Jack, Lila was not.
Lila obviously liked his Mum.
Lila just as obviously detested Jack.
And she made this abundantly clear any chance she got which, as she was living with him, was rather a lot.
Jack had over one hundred thousand employees and day-to-day (even hour-to-hour), he made decisions for the betterment of the business that angered many of them. Some of them he angered enough that they wrote Jack very scathing letters or sent equally scathing e-mails. Usually this was right before they resigned, if not, it was before they were sacked.
However, he didn’t have to live with any of them.
At that moment, he would happily take on Lila Cavendish. He didn’t care if she was going to be great-grandmother to his child.
He didn’t have to wait for this opportunity, though it would not come to fruition.
As he entered the stables, Lila was climbing down the ladder to the loft wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, both of them old, worn and covered in paint.
A quick glance around showed Belle was nowhere to be found.
“She’s in the loft,” Lila said quietly and Jack’s eyes went to her and then to the seemingly empty loft.
Lila’s announcement that Belle was in the loft surprised him. When he’d taken her up there, she’d acted frightened as a rabbit.
“She’s sleeping,” Lila went on and Jack’s gaze went back to her. “I’m glad you’re here,” she further surprised Jack by announcing. “I have to go to the house to call New York. I didn’t want to leave her up there because when she wakes she’ll go nuts and won’t be able to get down without me with her. It was an actual miracle I got her to go up there in the first place. But I have to make this call. Now, you can hang out and help her down if she wakes before I return.” She gave Jack a look that he couldn’t read and finished, “I’ll probably be a while.”
With that and without another word or inviting Jack to say one, she walked by Jack and his dogs and left the stables, quietly closing the door behind her.
Jack looked back to the loft.
Then he went to the ladder and climbed up.
Once there he saw Belle was sleeping on her side on a pile of old blankets. She had one hand under her cheek, the other arm curved around her face, palm up and resting by her forehead. Her legs were curled into her stomach and her face was soft in sleep. Some of her hair was spread on the blankets but mostly it was bunched against her neck and falling in her face.
He had, he realised, never seen her sleep.
She looked about twelve years old.
With some ease, he quelled the desire to bend and pull her hair away from her face and neck.