Chapter Sixteen

The ice-cream bicycle had up-cycled a treat. Kate had managed to ride it around the grounds of the museum and then into the barn where it had been standing at the front of the agricultural display for the last few weeks. Doing the bike up had helped her focus her energy and not go over and over the fact that she had dumped Chris — although she didn't regret that for a moment — in the hope that she could slip neatly into a relationship with Theo Kent. Well, it just went to show.

She'd also had a sign printed that told her visitors how the bicycle would be starring in the Country House Party Weekend at the Hall. Cassie had excitedly brought a whole ream of advertising leaflets over for Kate to display, so they were now in the basket of the bicycle and in the container where the ice-cream would be stashed, and there was a fanned-out pile on the reception desk as well. They were going quite quickly and Kate hoped, for Cassie's sake, that the event would be a success. Also, of course, it might drive people to the museum that weekend, which would be very good. Kate had asked — no, insisted — that Jenna be fit for work the entire weekend; because of course Kate was manning — or woman-ing — the bicycle.

In truth, Cassie had been struggling to put all her ideas into practice, but then, luckily for her, help had arrived in the shape of Aidan Edwards, a fantastic civil engineer who had the added bonus of being drop-dead gorgeous and clearly smitten with his new employer. He seemed to delight in implementing her wild schemes, and it was pretty obvious that Cassie was in lust with Aidan too. Clearly a win-win situation.

It was about two weeks before the event, and Kate was looking forward to it. Elodie had managed to produce the twins at the end of July, a couple of weeks early much to her joy, and Kate was sure tiny LadyFreya and LordAlfie would be the star attractions, despite all the work Cassie and the divine Aidan had put into the weekend.

Kate walked back out of the barn and saw a figure walking towards her. It was a figure she recognised all too well, and she wondered if it was possible to turn around and run back into the barn; then escape through a loose panel in the back and run away, all the way to Ipswich, perhaps.

But too late — he saw her and raised his hand in an apologetic greeting. ‘Hey. Can I buy a ticket?' he tried with a half-smile. ‘I took a wrong turning in Derbyshire and somehow found myself down here.'

Kate shook her head. ‘No. Sorry, we're closing soon.'

‘Ah. I thought so. Just as well I don't really want to see the museum today after all. I'd rather see you.'

‘Would you now? Theo, this isn't a good time.' Her heart was rattling in her chest, so much so, that she wrapped her arms around herself.

‘It'll never be a good time for you, will it? Not after the way I left.' He dropped his head, looking embarrassed, then looked back up, a challenge in his eyes. ‘Are you back with Chris, then?'

‘No.' She stared at him silently for a moment, taking in the dishevelled look and the shadows beneath his eyes. ‘How's your daughter? And her mother?' She tasted bitterness in that word, but couldn't help it.

Theo shrugged. It was his turn to wrap his arms around his body. ‘That's what I came to talk to you about.' He looked away, beyond her, somewhere she didn't know existed. ‘I'd prefer to do it face to face. Is there anywhere we can go?' He brought his attention back to her and her heart stuttered a little.

‘Yes.' She was surprised to find herself agreeing after all. ‘We could go to the Dragon if you wanted. There's a beer garden. Well. Bob calls it the beer garden. It's three picnic tables and one umbrella between them, on a patch of grass that used to have a shed on.'

Theo's face broke into a grin and, reluctantly, Kate found herself grinning back. ‘I'll just lock everything up and then we can go.'

‘I'll be waiting,' he said softly, and despite herself, she felt thrills of desire prickling up her spine.

* * *

They had managed to get a table in the beer garden and sat now with two glasses of home-made lemon and elderflower pressé between them. Bob's micro-brewery, Kate told Theo, had recently expanded to make what Bob called ‘botanical drinks'. The story around the village was that Bob foraged the surrounding countryside for whatever he could use in them, for free, which was why, they joked, two drinks never tasted the same.

Whatever Bob put in them, the pressé was very good. But they weren't here to talk about drinks, Theo acknowledged, and so he stared at his glass, trying to think of the best way to tell her.

Eventually, he decided that he just had to say it. ‘Okay.' He looked up and saw her watching him. Her expression was still guarded, but at least she was here with him. ‘So, I have a daughter called Poppy, and she's two. But you already know that. And, obviously, Poppy has a mother. She's called Lori. We hadn't been together very long, when she told me she was pregnant. It was a bit of a shock, but we decided to have the baby and try to make the best of it. We'd try, we said, to be a proper family, and see where it took us. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out how we'd expected; and we don't live together anymore.'

‘Oh!' Kate's shoulders suddenly seemed to relax. ‘Why didn't you say—'

But Theo shook his head to stop her, and saw her tense up again. ‘It's not that easy. You see, I didn't realise Lori had a drinking problem until Poppy was about a year old. By then, we'd gone our separate ways, and I used to take Poppy on a weekend. I'd have taken her more often, but my work kind of negated that. A baby's not the best thing to be carrying around when you're trying to shoe a horse.' He tried to smile, but couldn't. ‘And then Lori told me Poppy wasn't mine anyway.' His brow furrowed, remembering. ‘It's not easy to think that you've been bringing up another man's child as your own. It turned out she'd been seeing someone else all the time she'd been with me.' He pushed his fingers through his hair.

‘That's when I threw myself into anything I could to make me feel better — to stop me feeling so numb. To fill the gap.' He shook his head. ‘That's when I did the dive up in Scotland with Maeve. Part of me probably wanted to be thrashed to bits on the rocks, but it never happened. Anyway. The guy she'd been seeing started to suspect Poppy wasn't his either.' He paused. ‘It was after Poppy's first birthday party that one of our mutual friends told me he thought Lori had a problem. And my reaction? So what? What the fuck has it to do with me?' He looked at Kate, gauging her reaction.

She just sat in silence, staring at him.

Then she managed to ask a question. ‘What had she been doing? At Poppy's party?'

‘What hadn't she been doing? I was told she was so drunk, she passed out in the bathroom and had to go and get her stomach pumped.' He pulled a face. ‘The guy she was seeing, who was supposed to be Poppy's father, had to look after the baby, and that cramped his style. And then it was everything to do with me, because apparently, at the party, she started arguing with this guy and taunting him, saying Poppy was mine anyway, you could tell just by looking at her. So.' Theo twisted the glass around. ‘I suspect that's when he decided Poppy wasn't anything to do with him. And just to complicate matters, Poppy was starting to look a lot more like me, and a lot less like either of those two. But by then, I'd missed out on so much. Obviously, Poppy's first birthday; and her first proper words, that sort of thing.'

‘Shit.' Kate looked stunned.

‘Very shit. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I went back to her after that. I felt I owed it to Poppy to try and make it work, but it was awful. Beyond awful.'

‘Did you live with her again?' Kate's voice was quietly horrified.

Theo nodded. ‘Yes. Until I realised she didn't want me around for me . She wanted an unpaid babysitter while she went out partying. So I walked away and she told me I'd never see Poppy again.

‘That's when I came here, to try and sort things out in my head. The first time I saw you, I started believing there might be a life beyond Lori — when I bumped into you in the street, that very first day.' He smiled down into his glass, remembering it. ‘So I came down again — and you went to break up with Chris, although I didn't know that, of course.' He looked up at her and she blushed, not meeting his eyes. ‘I'd been looking for you all day and was just about to give up when you came back. But my friend Jared messaged me. He told me Lori was up to her old tricks and she'd been spotted in a bar. And he thought that Poppy was in the house, on her own, because Lori was down the road, in a pub, with her tongue down some bastard's throat, telling everyone I was back again and Poppy was with me. Jared found out that wasn't true, so he called me.'

‘Dear God!' Kate reached out and squeezed his hand.

‘Oh, that's not all.' He grinned at her, so brightly it was entirely fake. ‘It was all fine, because she had the baby monitor with her, so she'd know if there was a problem. Oh. Forgive me.' He snapped his fingers, as if he'd forgotten something. ‘That's right. It was all fine apart from the fact that the monitor didn't reach further than 50feet and the pub was two blocks from her house, besides which she left it in the toilets of some bar, then she'd gone home with a guy she'd only just met.' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But she did it all the time, and Poppy was no worse off, so what difference did it make?'

‘She said that?' Kate's cheeks were scarlet with rage.

‘She did.'

‘Well why is Poppy still with her? It's neglect, pure and simple.'

‘I know. But she's calling it out again, saying Poppy's not mine and she doesn't know who she belongs to, but I've demanded DNA tests this time. It's awful and there's a social worker involved, and Poppy's being looked after elsewhere until they can establish parentage, which should be pretty conclusive with the tests. Lori doesn't have any parents, and mine obviously don't enter the equation because Lori's still insisting she's not mine. But if she does belong to me, I'll be fighting for her until I get her.'

‘And if she's not yours?'

‘If she's not, then God knows what will happen.'

‘It's rather . . . messy.' Kate said. She sat back and drained her glass, as if she wished it was something a lot stronger.

‘I'd say "messy" was an understatement. So that's where we are. I owed it to you to tell you why I ran off that day. But! On a positive note,' he smiled, genuinely, this time, ‘I hear they're having an event at the Hall for Bank Holiday.' He reached out and captured Kate's hand in his. He traced the shape of her fingers with his thumb. ‘I'm going to head over to the Hall now. I've got an appointment to see the Earl.' He flicked a gaze up at her. ‘We just need to finalise a couple of things I started with Cassie, but hopefully I should be around all of that weekend. I really hope you are too.'

‘But what about Poppy?'

‘She's safe for now. I just have to wait and see.'

‘And Lori? What if she snaps her fingers and asks you to go back? What if guilt gets the better of you? What if Poppy is yours after all?'

Theo sighed and released her hands. He drained his own lemon and elderflower, and studied something in the bottom of the glass which may or may not have been a twig. ‘I know I never want to be in a relationship with Lori again — but if I had to live in the same house as her for Poppy's sake, I'd do it.'

* * *

It certainly wasn't ideal. But it was an explanation, of sorts. Kate appreciated that, at least.

‘Thank you for telling me,' she said. ‘I'm not quite sure how I feel about any of that.'

‘Me neither.' He looked at her. ‘But I owed it to you to let you know. It doesn't alter how I feel about you though.' He dropped his gaze again. ‘When I came here the first time, it was all clear in my head. The part of my life that had included Lori was over, I'd brought up another man's child and I would never see Poppy again. That was the hardest thing about it.'

‘But now there's every chance she is yours. And every chance Lori will be in your life forever.'

Theo pulled a face. ‘If Poppy is mine, then they're a package. Sort of. Unless I can do anything about it.' He frowned and she wondered exactly what he meant.

‘It's ironic, isn't it, though?' She pushed her glass away with a sigh. ‘When we first met, you were free and I wasn't. Then I broke up with Chris and now you have other things piling up. You've sort of acquired a partner and child, which I didn't know at the beginning. And I got rid of my partner, because you walked into my life.'

‘I have a child, maybe. But not a partner. It's been off more than it's been on.' He reached out and took her hand. ‘It's all just a bit up in the air. Can you wait a while — bear with me — until I sort it all out?'

Kate looked into his eyes and saw the pain there. She couldn't imagine what it must feel like to have that sort of a relationship with a child. She wondered, briefly, if she should have to wait for long.

Then she found herself nodding. ‘I can wait. Just a little while. You need to be clear in your own mind what you want and how you want to deal with it all. I don't want to complicate things, or influence you.' Carefully, she drew her hand away. ‘And you shouldn't stay in Hartsford, because that will totally influence you.'

He smiled wryly. ‘I love Hartsford. It hasn't taken me long to work that one out, but my life at the moment is in Derbyshire and I can't predict the future.'

The unsaid words were, and Poppy is in Derbyshire .

She pushed the chair away from the table and stood up. ‘You might have responsibilities up there in the future. I understand that. You'll be here for the Country House Party, won't you? Let's just leave things as they are for now, and I'll wait until then.'

‘Can I—'

‘No.' She shook her head. ‘No. Don't contact me, Theo. Please. It's just too difficult. I'll see you in a couple of weeks.'

And with that, she turned and walked away before she made an even bigger fool of herself than she felt she had done already.