And Mother Makes Three

And Mother Makes Three
Liz Fielding

Dear Miss Lawrence, (#ub3cf6b3c-c8cc-5c1f-a1cc-28738bf3aff7)About the Author (#u937c789e-c9f5-5edd-afae-c70fc7905455)Title Page (#u2a9a7535-f6e2-5051-b690-61c82d4e6bfe)CHAPTER ONE (#ub3c79da0-458e-5a1e-81cb-29b2e0439899)CHAPTER TWO (#u7400e8fd-e176-5511-9543-c0759d6758cc)CHAPTER THREE (#ud124dffc-3dac-5605-a378-d5e2bc978542)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Dear Miss Lawrence,

It is my school sports day on Friday, June 18th, and I am writing to ask if you could possibly come.

When I told my friend Josie that you were my mother, she didn’t believe me. And now all the girls in my class are saying I made it up about having a famous mother.

I know you’re really busy saving the rain forest and the poor animals, and I don’t want to be a nuisance, but if you would just do this I wouldn’t ask anything ever again. I promise.

Your loving daughter,

Lucy Fitzpatrick.

Bronte turned over the envelope for a moment, wondering if she’d misread the name. Miss B. Lawrence. Then the penny dropped. “A famous mother...saving the rain forest...” The letter was not meant for her but for her sister, Brooke. Brooke had a daughter—and she, Bronte, had a niece!

Born and raised in Berkshire, England, Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve when she won a hymnwriting competition at her convent school. After a gap of more years than she is prepared to admit to, during which she worked as a secretary in Africa and the Middle East, got married and had two children, she was finally able to realize her ambition and turn to full-time writing in 1992.

She now lives with her husband, John, in West Wales, surrounded by mystical countryside and romantic, crumbling castles, content to leave the traveling to her grown-up children and keeping in touch with the rest of the world via the Internet.

And Mother Makes Three

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘FITZ, thank you for stopping by. I know how busy you are.’

James Fitzpatrick took the small, perfectly manicured hand extended to him. ‘Any time, Claire. I’m never too busy for anything that concerns Lucy, you know that.’ But Claire Graham’s response to his smile was the closest she ever came to a frown. More trouble, then. ‘Has she broken another window?’

‘Nothing so simple.’

‘A window and a washbasin?’ Lucy, tall for her age, with arms and legs that seemed to have a life of their own, had been causing chaos since she had first discovered that she could climb out of her cot. She didn’t mean to break things, it was just that anything within a three foot range of her was likely to spontaneously disintegrate.

‘Not even the drinking fountain. It’s been a peaceful term.’

‘It’s not over yet.’

‘Please, do sit down, Fitz.’ Beneath her slightly prim and spinsterish exterior, Claire Graham was as soft as butter and could usually be teased to a smile; after a school governors’ meeting with a glass of sherry inside her she could even be teased to a blush, but not today it seemed.

‘So. What’s she done?’ Fitz enquired, lowering himself gingerly onto the elegant chair fronting her desk. He’d come with his cheque-book in his back pocket, prepared for a catalogue of Lucy’s latest string of accidents; Claire Graham’s reassurance about school property, far from easing his mind, suggested that this summons boded something far worse. ‘Her last report suggested that she was doing well enough,’ he said, ‘so I don’t imagine this is about her schoolwork.’

‘Lucy is a bright child. She has a particularly vivid imagination, as I am sure you know.’ Claire’s confirmation of something he already knew only increased his uneasiness. ‘You’ve done a good job, Fitz.’ Then she paused, as if searching for the right words. ‘I’ve never asked you this before, but under the circumstances I think I have to now. Is there any contact at all between you and Lucy’s mother?’

The apprehension took form and, despite the summer heat that was drying up the playing fields beyond the window, balled like ice in the pit of his stomach. ‘None.’

‘Could you contact her? If you had to?’

‘I can think of no reason that would make any contact between us likely.’

‘Not even for Lucy’s sake?’

‘She has no interest in Lucy, Claire. If it had been left to—’ He stopped himself from even thinking the name. ‘If it had been left to her mother, Lucy would have been adopted.’

‘Then this is going to be very difficult.’ She regarded him with steady grey eyes. ‘I have to tell you, Fitz, that Lucy has begun fantasising about her mother.’

‘Fantasising?’

‘She’s been making up stories about her, pretending that she’s someone famous.’

The ice ball swelled like a snowball rolling down a hill but he couldn’t let his concern show. He attempted a smile. ‘You did say that she has a vivid imagination.’

‘Yes, I did, but this isn’t like her usual flights of fancy. She’s very intense about it. You haven’t noticed anything?’ He shook his head and Claire Graham regarded him sympathetically. ‘Under the circumstances I’d have to say that this is a fairly normal response. It’s something that most adopted children will go through—’

‘But Lucy is not adopted.’ Did he sound as desperate as he felt?

‘I realise that, but in the total absence of the birth mother, the situation becomes somewhat similar.’ Fitz was too busy searching his mind, trying to think how his daughter could possibly have discovered what he had taken such trouble to hide, to respond to the sympathy in the woman’s voice. ‘It’s the same longing,’ she continued, ‘the need to believe that the unknown mother is someone special, that only some great drama or tragedy could have caused her to give up her precious child. Where there is no information children will fill the vacuum with fantasy, creating a situation where the mother is someone exciting, someone admired—’

‘I see,’ he said, stopping her before she could continue.

‘Do you?’ Claire Graham looked doubtful. ‘You mustn’t be angry with her, Fitz. Her curiosity, her longing, is quite natural.’

He finally gave her his full attention as an escape route was dangled tantalisingly before him. ‘If it’s normal,’ he asked, ‘what’s the problem?’

Claire Graham sat back, lifted her hands in a small gesture that invited his understanding. ‘The other girls are the problem. They think she’s putting on airs, trying to make herself special. I’ve spoken to Lucy, suggested that she would be wise to keep her stories to herself, but perhaps if you could try and talk to her about her mother, show her a photograph if you have one so that she would have an image to fix her feelings on. Maybe even try and arrange a meeting, if that’s at all possible. I’d be happy to help in any way I can. As a neutral party I might make a suitable go-between—’

Fitz stood up, putting an end to the discussion, needing to get out of the hot, stuffy little office so that he could think. ‘Thank you for letting me know what’s happening, Claire. I’ll deal with it.’

‘You can cut off contact, Fitz, you can destroy every physical memory, but you can’t stop a little girl wanting to know about her mother. There is a need, an unbreakable bond.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. She may not have wanted Lucy, but her mother too must be wondering what she’s like, how she’s grown up. Maybe she would welcome the chance to know her. It would be quite natural.’ Except that Lucy’s mother had been anything but natural. Claire walked with him to the door. ‘School breaks up soon—are you going away for the summer?’

He wanted to tell her to mind her own business, the way he’d been telling the world ever since he’d brought Lucy home and had been confronted with the massed ranks of health visitors, social workers, caring citizens who all wanted to know who would be looking after this little girl, convinced that a mere man was incapable of such a thing. But Claire Graham’s expression was kind, she was doing what she thought right, so he was polite. ‘Yes. We’re spending the summer in France.’

‘Then that might be a good time to talk to her. Let her ask questions, and try to be fair. A child needs to love both her parents even if they don’t love one another.’ But what if the mother didn’t love the child? Didn’t want to know? ‘For Lucy’s sake it’s something you are going to have to face, Fitz, no matter how painful it is for you.’

But not yet. Lucy was eight years old, far too young to have her precious dream-world shattered... ‘I’ll talk to her. Soon.’

Claire never frowned, but her forehead creased in something very close. ‘It would be better if she got it out of her system before school begins next autumn,’ she warned as they reached the main doors. Then, having said her piece and recognising a brick wall when she was faced with it, she changed the subject. ‘Will we see you at sports day, Fitz?’

‘Sports day?’

‘It’s on Friday. Didn’t you get the letter? I’m surprised Lucy isn’t full of it. She’s doing the high jump and the fifty metres. She’ll certainly win the high jump—if she doesn’t demolish the jump first. It would be a pity if you weren’t there.’