Her throat thick with emotion, she said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Romily, that’s my honest answer. If I give the baby away, how could I ever live with myself having cast it aside? What would my parents have thought of me doing that? Giving away their grandchild? They gave me life, not once, but twice. First when I was conceived and born, and then again when they handed me over to Hope to bring me here to safety. If they hadn’t done that, I would have been murdered just like them. And then there’s what Hope is going to think of me. I told her yesterday. I ... I felt I had to confess to her while I still could. Now I wish I hadn’t. It was selfish of me. Why couldn’t I have left well alone; if she’s not going to make it I should have let her die thinking well of me. Or if she pulls through she’s going to say I’ve carelessly thrown away every chance she’s given me. She and Edmund will be so disappointed in what I’ve done.’
Romily tutted. ‘Don’t write Hope off too soon; she’s a fighter, and if anyone is going to survive what she’s gone through, it’s her. And I implore you to stop worrying about what others may or may not think of you. This is your life, nobody else’s.’
‘That’s easier said than done.’
‘I’ve always had a golden rule,’ Romily said, ‘and that’s never to give a damn what others think of me. You’re a person in your own right, and you’re allowed to make whatever decisions and mistakes you want to. What other people think of that is up to them. Those who truly love you will continue to love you no matter what.’
‘This might sound odd, but part of me, the cowardly bit, was glad that Hope wasn’t able to respond to my confession. But another part of me hoped that if she really could hear, like Edmund says she can, that she would be so shocked it would jolt her out of the coma.’
‘That would certainly have been worth the pain of confessing,’ Romily said with a faint smile. ‘And who knows, it may yet happen. Maybe the thought of a grandchild might spur her to pull through. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’
‘That’s a nice idea, but you and I both know that Hope may devote her life to writing for children, but the actual human specimen is not entirely to her liking.’
‘It’s always possible she may regain consciousness with a new perspective on life.’
Somehow Annelise couldn’t imagine that. But then she couldn’t imagine so many things, like how she had managed to get herself into such a mess. Well, she knew the reason for her being pregnant, of course she did, but it was the sheer wanton carelessness of her behaviour that she couldn’t comprehend. Loving Harry had made her reckless, something nobody in the family would have predicted of her.
‘I mean no disrespect to my cousin,’ she said, ‘but if it had been Isabella who had got herself into this fix, nobody would have been very much surprised. Actresses lead such rackety lives, they would say, but academics are supposed to know better.’
‘Goodness me,’ Romily said with a shake of her head, ‘you must feel so giddy up there on that pedestal.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Annelise with a frown.
‘I mean stop imagining that you’re not as flawed as the next person. Nobody is immune from falling in love. Or getting something wrong.’
‘I know one person who has put me on a pedestal,’ she said quietly.
‘Ah, that would be Stanley, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s adored you all his life, but I wouldn’t say he’s put you on a pedestal.’
‘Aren’t the two one and the same?’
‘Absolutely not. Adoring a person means you love them with all their flaws.’
‘Do you know what he said this morning, while we were out walking and I told him about the baby? ’
‘Go on.’
Once more tears filled Annelise’s eyes. ‘He said I should marry him so that the baby would have a father and I could continue with my work. Can you believe he would say that?’
‘I can. Stanley is a decent man who always believes in doing the right thing.’
‘But this wouldn’t be doing the right thing for him.’
‘Why not? And I’d like to point out that Elijah did much the same in marrying Isabella’s mother, Allegra. They had very little in common on the face of it, but they made each other happy.’
‘That was different. Allegra loved Elijah.’
‘There are many shades of love. What you felt for Harry in Oxford was one variation, and the feelings you have for Stanley, another. With the benefit of hindsight, which do you trust more? Passion for a man prepared to cheat on his wife and lie to you, or—’
‘But Stanley is like a brother to me,’ she interrupted.
‘Could you regard him differently, in time?’
When Annelise didn’t answer her, Romily continued. ‘I’ve known you both since you were children and I’ve never known the two of you to fall out.’
