Her mouth felt slightly woolly, either from the plum drink or…
Or from all the kissing. Her chin had a telltale red stubble burn.
How did she feel about the kissing? Less than twenty-four hours ago Adam had been her enemy. Now what was he? A casual boyfriend? A one night stand-to-be? The man who may have run away with her credit card?
Lost in her thoughts, she missed the sound of the carriage until Rovena rushed to the door. Sure enough, the Du Montfort horse-drawn cart was rumbling down the country lane towards them. On board behind the driver sat Adam surrounded by a lot of packages. It looked like he’d purchased everything in the village, not just the pharmacy.
Evans, the driver, pulled the reins to a stop just outside the cottage. “Morning, Miss.” He nodded to her. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said to Rovena. “No one knew who was ‘aving the baby so I went roun’ all the houses until the doctor turned up at the village.” He had Adam’s medical bag next to him on the seat. He also had Laura’s phone charger. Mrs B or whoever had obviously realized her battery was dead.
Adam himself jumped down and started unloading things: a basket of bread, cheese, sausages, jars of preserves.
“Oh my dear, there is no need for all this.” Rovena looked very worried. “You spend too much.”
“I didn’t spend a thing,” he said. “Half of this stuff was sent from Mrs B at the Hall. The rest are gifts from the people here. As soon as I spoke to the pharmacist, she got on the blower and people started coming over with...” He indicated the masses of baby clothes. Mostly it was used but clean and wrapped prettily with little letters of congratulations.
“Can you manage?” he said, extracting a bag with the pharmacy logo on it then reaching for his own leather medical bag. “I’d better check on mother and baby.”
“She’s finding the breast-feeding hard,” Laura told him.
He nodded and went inside leaving her and Rovena to unload the cart with Evans.
Someone had sent a basket full of toiletries, baby soaps and creams. Another had given a Moses basket with a hand-knitted baby blanket in blue and white, and a stack of pretty towels tied with a blue ribbon. There were toys, cuddly bears and model airplanes. Laura was about to laugh when she noticed Rovena’s face crumple.
A large box of nappies fell from her suddenly limp hand as she burst into tears on Laura’s shoulder. “So kind. I can’t believe it. We have nothing. We have no money. People are so kind.” She hiccuped.
“You’d have had help sooner if you’d said you were expectin’ a baby.” Evans coughed in that way some men did when feeling awkward around crying women. “La Canette is a small island but we look after our own,” he said. “Besides, Lord Du Montfort has let it be known the women of the Casemate are to be looked after.”
Well, well, well. Good old lord Rottweiler had a good side, who’d have thought it?
Maybe she was being unfair to him.
A little while later, bending down to unwrap a baby plate and spoon set, she felt a warm hand on her back. Adam. It was amazing how she recognized his smell.
She stood up. “How is the new mother?”
“She’ll be fine. I got her some nipple guards. Both she and the baby are doing well.”
His eyes were warm on her as he handed her back her credit card. “I didn’t use it in the end.”
“Didn’t you buy anything?”
“I ordered a new mobile phone,” he said. “After last night, I think it’s irresponsible not to have one. The post office mistress said she’d deliver it to the house this afternoon.”
“I can’t believe how generous people have been.”
He nodded but seemed preoccupied. “Will you be OK to stay here for a while? I have to go back. Lord M seems to have taken a turn for the worse last night. Evans is waiting for me.”
She looked towards Tirana’s room.
“I’ll look in on them tomorrow,” Adam said, “but call the house if you need me.”
They were not alone, so she just nodded and smiled as he left. If there was a splinter of disappointment that he was going without her, she pushed it down. There were more important things today.
This, she thought grimly as she packed away baby clothes into a chest of drawers and helped Rovena organize things in the kitchen. This was why relationships were a bad idea. She’d barely had a few hours with a man and already she was missing him.
Best not to think about him, to keep busy. Certainly there was a lot to keep busy with. People kept dropping by all day. At lunch time, a group from the Casemate arrived bringing food. The manager herself brought a folded beautifully woven piece of jade-green damask. It was large enough to make bed-spreads for mother and baby and curtains for the entire house. “You may as well give it to them. It’s not like were going to be able to sell it,” she told Laura sourly.
“Why not? It’s gorgeous.”
