And Mother Makes Three

By LIZ FIELDING

Stand-in mother

When Bronte Lawrence reads a letter from a little girl claiming to be her daughter, she knows there has been a mistake. There hasLucy Fitzpatrick's letter has reached the wrong Lawrence sister!

Her career-minded sister might not have wanted her child, but Bronte is ecstatic at the thought of meeting a niece she'd never known existed. Only, Bronte looks practically identical to her sister and James Fitzpatrick mistakes her for the mother of his child!

Bronte finds it all too tempting to slip into the roleand it isn't just for Lucy. Fitz is tall, dark and handsome, and he's a great dada compelling combination. But what will happen when Lucy and Fitz discover that Bronte isn't quite who she seems?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Release date: Jul 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781459252844

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. Eight of her titles were nominated for the Romance Writers' of America Rita® award and she won with The Best Man & the Bridesmaid and The Marriage Miracle. In 2019, the Romantic Novelists' Association honoured her with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Book preview

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.’

‘I will be.’

‘Good.’ She held onto his hand for a long moment, her head slightly on one side. ‘You haven’t asked who she picked out for her mother, Fitz. Aren’t you in the least bit curious?’

Claire Graham, Fitz realised, like Lucy’s friends, had made the mistake of believing that she was lying. Perhaps, under the circumstances, that was just as well. ‘I’d rather pick out my own fantasies, thanks all the same, Claire. I’ll see you on Friday.’

‘Such a shame that Brooke couldn’t make it home in time for the funeral. We don’t see much of her these days.’

‘I haven’t been able to speak to her, let her know about Mother,’ Bron said, for what seemed like the hundredth time that afternoon. Had anyone come to the funeral simply to pay their respects to her mother? Or was this huge turnout simply in hope that her famous sister would put in an appearance? She dredged up her hundredth smile. ‘She’s filming in Brazil. In the rainforest. A thousand miles from the nearest telephone.’ Although surely not from the nearest satellite uplink? She’d have got the message, she was just too busy doing her earth-mother bit to get in touch.

‘That is so sad.’ Bron was dragged back to the present. ‘You’ve taken on the burden of caring for your dear mother all these years and now you have to go through this alone, too.’

‘It can’t be helped.’

‘No, I suppose not. And she’s doing so much to help save the earth that we just have to excuse her.’ The woman smiled. ‘She’s made me think twice these days before I use the car and I’m recycling all my newspaper and glass now and when we needed a new door I wouldn’t let Reggie buy mahogany, although how she copes with the snakes and the spiders... I practically faint at the sight of one in the bath—’

‘Oh, Brooke is just the same,’ Bron, close to screaming herself, interrupted. ‘Yells blue murder at the sight of one. I have to put them out of the window for her. And earwigs give her nightmares.’

‘Really?’ Bron immediately felt guilty. She shouldn’t tease this kindly woman who had no way of knowing what Brooke was really like. ‘There’s hope for us all, then. Would you like me to stay and help you clear up, dear?’ There was a touch of anxiety in the woman’s voice as she surveyed the fine china and crystal glasses scattered about the living room.

Bron raised a wry smile. Her inability to wash a cup without the handle falling off was legendary. ‘Mrs Marsh has kindly offered to clear up for me.’ Even as she spoke that lady began to load a tray with a speed and deftness of touch that left Bron awestruck with admiration.

‘But you will call me if I can do anything, if there’s anything you want?’

Bron made up for her earlier lapse from grace with a generous smile. ‘I’d be glad of someone to help me sort through Mother’s things one day next week. I’m sure you’d know what would be the best way to deal with them,’ she said. ‘That would be such a help.’

‘Of course, just give me a call.’ She looked around. ‘What will you do now? Sell the house, I imagine. I know your mother would never have wanted to leave, but you’d be much more comfortable in a nice little flat.’

A nice little flat with no room to swing a cat and no garden. She’d loathe it. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to Brooke about that when she gets home.’

‘Well, there’s no rush. Take a holiday before you decide anything—you’ve had a rough time of it these last few weeks.’

Weeks. Months. Years.

An hour later, Bron finally shut the front door on Mrs Marsh, leaned against it, eyes closed, and the silence swept back like a wave bringing with it a feeling of utter loneliness, the realisation that there was no more cushion against the darkness. Her mother was gone and now it was just the two of them: she and Brooke.

And deep down she knew that she was glad that Brooke hadn’t come racing home. Her appearance would inevitably have turned the whole thing into a media circus. It wasn’t as if her sister were the kind of woman to put her arms around her and offer the comfort she needed. She’d simply have pointed out that their mother was no longer suffering. Brooke had always been able to see things in black and white. They were so alike on the outside it seemed impossible that they could be so different in every other way.

It took an enormous effort to push herself away from the door. She felt utterly drained. Empty. Maybe everyone was right, maybe she should go away for a few days, get right away and decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

Rest of it? That was a joke. Twenty-seven years old and she had never had a life. Maybe she wouldn’t have noticed the lack quite so painfully if she hadn’t had her sister to measure herself against.

It shouldn’t have been like that. She and Brooke had been different in character, different in every way except for their looks and their brains. She had been all set to pack her bags and follow her sister to university when their mother had been diagnosed with the illness that had finally killed her.

So she had stopped making lists of the things she would need. Called the university and told them that she wouldn’t be coming after all. What else could she have done? There had been no one else to look after her mother. One of them had had to stay at home and Brooke had already started her degree course. The assumption had always been that once she had graduated she would come home and then it would be Bron’s turn.

But with the ink scarcely dry on her degree Brooke had been offered the kind of job that only came along once in a lifetime.

‘You do see, Bron?’ she’d said, with that winning smile. ‘I just can’t let this go.’ Well, of course she’d seen. It would have been unreasonable... ‘And you’re so good with Mother. I couldn’t do what you do for her. She’s comfortable with you.’

But she loves you best. She hadn’t said it out loud, but she’d thought it, known it to be true. It was so much easier to love someone who was beautiful, successful. Loving the daughter who saw you day in, day out, struggling with pain, at your most vulnerable, was not so easy.

So, she had never had a life—or, at least, nothing that her sister would have called a life. No career, no holidays, no adult relationshp with a man. If it hadn’t been for a surfeit of champagne on her eighteenth birthday, coupled with a determination not to be the last girl in the sixth form to taste the forbidden delights of the flesh, she would probably have been that saddest of things: a twenty-seven-year-old virgin.

Probably? Who was she kidding? Who was interested in a woman whose life was devoted to nursing an invalid mother? A five-foot-eleven-inch woman, all feet and elbows, whose life was devoted to nursing an invalid mother?

And as her peer group had left town, gone to university, married, moved away, what little social life she’d been able to maintain in the early years had gradually dwindled away to visits from her mother’s friends, women who ran the WI and the Mother’s Union and did good works and