Reunited: Marriage in a Million

She had no doubt that finding Daisy’s father would be a lot more difficult than finding Daisy. That if anyone could do it, he could.

She shook her head. She had to do this on her own. Stand on her own two feet and, shrugging off his coat, she draped it around her sister.

‘I’ll help you, Daisy,’ she said. ‘Whatever you want. There are agencies who can help, who specialize in searching for people. Family members.’

‘Family? You’re not my family!’

Ivo saw Belle flinch as if struck. Open her mouth as if to speak but unable to find words to express her feelings, and he felt her pain to the bone.

‘Belle…Please,’ Ivo said, impatiently. ‘Both of you. Daisy? Why don’t you get in the car?’

Daisy told him in words of one syllable, just what he could do with his car.

‘There’s no point in standing here getting soaked,’ he said, letting it go. There was enough raw emotion flying about without him adding to the mix. Belle had made it more than clear that she wanted to deal with this herself, didn’t want him involved. ‘I’ll leave you to talk.’

‘Why would I want to talk to her? She abandoned me, left me, didn’t want to know!’

‘No!’

Belle’s cry tore at him. He’d heard enough and cutting off the torrent of abuse that Daisy unleashed upon Belle, he said, ‘That’s it. Enough. I’ll give you money for food, but I’m not going to allow Belle to stand here in the rain listening to your self-pitying rant-’

‘Allow me?’ Belle turned on him, blazing with fury. ‘Allow me?’

‘You won’t be use or ornament with pneumonia,’ he pointed out, doing his best to keep things on an even keel, but aware that sympathy would only fuel whatever was driving Daisy’s misery.

‘Don’t you understand? I don’t care about myself. I only care about her.’

‘I know, Belle. Believe me, I know.’

‘This isn’t about you. About us,’ she said, misunderstanding his meaning. Assuming he was referring to the fact that she’d left him for this. ‘If I walk away, where will she go?’

‘The same place she stayed last night, I imagine,’ he said, as gently as he could. ‘And the night before that. Why don’t you ask her?’

‘No.’ Belle felt the rain soaking through the lace and silk to her skin. Freezing rain. She’d been here before. Cold, wet, hungry. She knew all the dark places where frightened women hid from the night. ‘No,’ she said, talking to herself as much as Ivo, ‘I can’t take that risk.’

‘What risk?’ He turned his attention to Daisy. ‘She’s been hanging around your flat, ringing your number. Do you imagine it was a coincidence that she conveniently passed out in the street with your address in her pocket on the biggest night of your year? She’s making you run, Belle, making you chase her. She’s not going anywhere you won’t find her.’

‘What made you such a cynic, Ivo?’ she demanded.

Ivo was desperate. The rain was coming down steadily now, soaking into the sweater he was wearing, soaking into the girl’s miserable clothes, plastering Belle’s beautiful dress to her skin and her hair to her cheeks, her neck. She said she didn’t care about herself but he did and, despite everything, he cared more than he would ever have believed possible about her daughter too, simply because she was Belle’s flesh and blood.

‘I’m not a cynic, Belle,’ he said, but he knew what he was dealing with here and if he had to be the bad guy to get them somewhere safe and warm, he was prepared to do that for them both. ‘I’m a realist.’ He opened the rear passenger door and said, ‘What do you say, Daisy? A hot bath, a warm bed, good food. It’s got to be better than this.’

‘Stuff your hot bath. I don’t need her and I certainly don’t need you.’

‘You don’t get me,’ he assured her, hoping that humour might work where an appeal to sense had not. She didn’t move. ‘Suppose I throw in a hundred pounds?’ he offered. Money was the only inducement he had left. Money always talked.

‘Ivo!’

‘No? A thousand pounds?’ he persisted, ignoring Belle’s outrage.

‘I hate you,’ Daisy said, glaring at him. Then, sticking her chin out, ‘Five thousand pounds.’

He saw Belle’s face and something inside him broke. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of this…

‘I hate both of you,’ Daisy shouted, tossing off his coat, flinging it at Belle. It happened so quickly that while Belle was caught up in the coat and he was momentarily distracted, the girl disappeared. It was as if she’d melted away. Thin as she was, that clearly couldn’t be the case; obviously she’d ducked down one of the barely lit alleyways between the buildings.

He swore, furious with her, furious with himself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t how he’d imagined it. He’d been sure that when Belle had connected with her lost child, had that need fulfilled, he would be able to tell her the truth. From the time the policeman had arrived on his doorstep he’d known it wasn’t going to be that easy but, with all his experience with Manda, he should have done better than this.

It was as if he’d turned into his father overnight.

‘I’m so sorry, Belle.’

She shook her head. ‘Help me, Ivo,’ she begged. ‘Help me to find her…’

Her words should have made him the happiest man alive, but life was never that simple. All he had to be grateful for was that he was there, that she was still speaking to him.

They searched the nearest alleyway, then the rest of the street, calling her name, Belle alternately pleading with her and yelling at her to come back.

It was only when her teeth were chattering so badly that she could scarcely form the words that she finally gave in, allowed him to take her back to the car. Even then she insisted on driving around very slowly so that she could peer into shop doorways, hoping for a glimpse of Daisy. She didn’t bother to reproach him. She didn’t need to say the words.

They both hated him.

Which made three of them.

He’d wanted to protect Belle, but all he’d done was hurt her.

It was the early hours before he insisted on calling a halt, not because he was ready to give up, but because she couldn’t take any more.

‘It’s no good. I’m willing to search all night but if she doesn’t want to be found we haven’t got a chance.’

‘You said that she wanted to be found.’

‘She does, Belle. But maybe she doesn’t know it yet.’

Belle’s only answer was a long, painful shiver.

‘I’ll take you home,’ he said, far more concerned about her than the girl who was causing her so much pain. ‘I’ll carry on looking. I promise I won’t give up-’

‘No, you’re right. There’s no point. She knows where I am.’

He didn’t quite trust her quiescence but she waited patiently in the car while he fetched her bag from his house and, when they reached Camden, since she was shaking too much to connect key to lock, she surrendered it to him. He didn’t wait for an invitation, but followed her upstairs, turned up the heating and put on the kettle while Belle got out of her finery, now damp and muddied around the hem, and into a warm dressing gown.

‘Heat, a hot drink,’ she said as she curled up on the sofa and he placed a warm mug of chocolate liberally laced with brandy into her hands. ‘Daisy won’t have that.’

‘Her choice. She could have been here, Belle, but she wants to punish you. Wants to make you suffer,’ he said, kneeling in front of her so that he could wrap his own hands around hers on the mug to stop them from shaking. Holding it while she sipped from it, not allowing her to push it away even when she pulled a face.

‘She’s not the only one. What did you put in this?’

‘It’ll warm you. Drink it.’ Then, because he had to make her understand, ‘She believes that hurting herself will cause you more pain than anything else.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ he said, avoiding a direct answer. She nodded. ‘She’ll come back when she thinks you’ve