‘You should have told us,’ Manda said.
‘I thought maybe his mum would come back for him. Sometimes they just get out of their heads for a while, but then they come back. Like my mum did.’
Until, eventually, she didn’t, Manda thought.
‘But she didn’t.’ Rosie’s shrug was a mixture of defiance and pleading. ‘I waited a week and then I thought, since you can’t have kids of your own, he should come and live with us. I’ll need a brother,’ she added a little defiantly.
‘Does he have a name?’ Nick asked.
‘He’s called Michael.’
‘Rosie,’ Manda cut in as gently as she could, ‘you know it’s not that easy. I’ll have to call Social Services. He may have a family…’
‘The kind that leaves him on the street. I had family like that too.’
‘Even so.’
‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘There are rules and stuff. But you can fix it. You and Nick can fix anything and, besides, you said it was a pity Jude wasn’t old enough to be a page-boy.’
‘So I did,’ Manda said, turning helplessly to the gorgeous man who’d swept her up in a whirlwind of love, made her a family of her own. ‘Nick? Do you have any thoughts about how we can handle this?’
He grinned and said, ‘I always think best with a bacon sandwich in front of me.’ He looked at the child in his arms. ‘Michael?’
And Manda felt Rosie’s hand creep into hers.
Five days later, Miranda Grenville and Nicholas Jago were married in a centuries-old London church that had been designed by Christopher Wren.
It was one of those rare perfect June days when, even in London, the flower-filled parks still wore the freshness of early summer.
As Miranda emerged from a vintage Rolls Royce on her brother’s arm, she paused for a moment while Belle and Daisy, her attendants, straightened the train of the simplest, most elegant ivory silk gown, giving the paparazzi time to take their photographs. This was, after all, the society wedding of the year.
Nothing could have been further from the circumstances of their meeting in Cordillera. Everything pristine, perfect.
Rosie, gorgeous in primrose and white organza, was almost beside herself with excitement. Michael, his hand clutched firmly in hers, was bemused in a tiny kilt and ruffles.
The plan had been to go back, visit their pool, light their fire but they’d put their honeymoon on hold until they’d settled Michael’s future.
‘Ready?’ Ivo asked.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘Not quite. I just wanted to say…’ She had a load of words, but in the end it came down to two. ‘Thank you.’ She didn’t have to say what for. They both knew. ‘Now I’m ready.’
Rosie and Michael led the way, scattering rose petals before them as, to the strains of Pachelbel’s
She saw nothing, was aware of nothing but Nick waiting for her, his smile telling her that he thought he was the most fortunate man in the world.
Him, and the warm, spicy scent of the huge trumpet lilies entwined along the altar rail. Cordilleran lilies.
‘You had them flown in especially?’ she murmured as he took her hand.
‘We couldn’t go to Cordillera, so I brought it to us and tonight I’ll light a fire that will keep us both warm for as long as we both shall live.’
Liz Fielding
Liz Fielding was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain-with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days she mostly leaves her pen to do the traveling. When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favorite authors and spends a lot of time wondering “What if…?” For news of upcoming books-and to sign up for her occasional newsletter-visit Liz’s Web site at www.lizfielding.com.
