The Emma Harte 7-Book Collection: A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, To Be the Best, Emma’s Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards, Breaking the Rules. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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his hands plunged deep into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. He stopped at the window and gazed out, and when he eventually turned his head his eyes focused on Emma with intensity. He observed her reflectively, his face troubled.
Finally, he said, ‘I don’t understand why you didn’t ask Arthur for a divorce, Emma. I really don’t. I thought we had agreed you would seek your freedom immediately. Why are you procrastinating? Is it because Constance won’t divorce me? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you know that I intend to be with you always? I would like an explanation, Emma.’
‘Come and sit down next to me, darling,’ Emma said gently.
Paul joined her on the sofa and she took his hand in hers. ‘Of course I trust you, Paul. My decision had nothing to with your situation. I know you are doing everything you can to rectify it. And I will divorce Arthur. But not until after the baby has been born, registered, and christened. I want the baby to have a name, Paul. I don’t want the birth certificate to show that it is illegitimate.’
‘What you are actually saying is that you want my child to be brought up as Ainsley’s! I don’t like that, Emma. I’m not sure I will stand for it!’
Emma stared at him in surprise. This was the first time he had ever spoken harshly to her. She must make him understand her motives. ‘I know how you feel,’ she placated. ‘But we must think about the child, Paul. You see—’
‘I am thinking about the child. I want it to have the benefit of my love and protection and all the other things I can give it, and I don’t want it growing up not knowing me. Furthermore, I want my child reared under my influence and not another man’s. I won’t have it living under Ainsley’s roof under any circumstances. You know my opinion of him. I thought I had made myself clear about all this, Emma.’
‘Yes, you did, darling. I told you the baby would remain in London. But I must protect the child. It must not carry the stigma of illegitimacy all of its life.’
Paul sighed impatiently. ‘My money will protect the child, Emma. Give it immunity from scandal. Besides, I told you I would adopt it immediately. Please, Emma, you must consider naming me as the father on the birth certificate. I wish to acknowledge paternity.’
‘No! We can’t do that!’ Emma cried fiercely, her eyes flaring. Instantly recognizing the hurt flickering on his face, she brought his hand up to her lips and kissed it. She looked at Paul long and hard. She drew a deep breath and very slowly, in a sure voice, she told him.
She told him first of her confrontation with Edwina the preceding day, and of the way she had handled Arthur. She told him about her early life as a servant at Fairley Hall. She told him about Edwin Fairley, her pregnancy, his repudiation of her, and her anguished flight to Leeds as a terrified young girl. She told him about her struggles and her poverty, her deprivations and the punishing days of toil she had endured. She told him of Gerald Fairley’s attempted rape of her. She told him everything there was to know, and she spoke with candour and with eloquence, and she neither embellished nor dramatized. Very simply, she gave him the facts without any show of emotion.
Paul listened attentively, his eyes riveted on her face, and he was moved as he had never been before by anyone. When she had finished he took her in his arms and stroked her hair, and pulled her closer to him, overwhelmed by feelings of protectiveness and abiding love.
‘Whoever passed around the ridiculous story that this is a civilized world we live in?’ he murmured into her hair, and kissed her forehead. He fell silent and then he said softly, ‘Oh, Emma, Emma. I have to make up for so much – all the pain you have suffered over the years. And I will. I promise you that.’
Paul held her away from him and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Why ever didn’t you tell me all this before?’ When she dropped her eyes and did not answer, he continued gently, ‘Did you think it would have made any difference to the way I feel about you?’ He bent forward and kissed her on the lips. ‘You don’t know me very well if you think your past matters to me. I love you all the more for what you have made of yourself, what you have become. And for your indomitability and enormous strength. You are a very special woman, Emma.’
‘I didn’t deliberately avoid telling you,’ Emma said quietly. ‘There just never seemed to be the right opportunity.’
Paul gazed at her, his heart bursting with his love. He thought: Oh, my darling, what cruelties and humiliations you must have endured and how bravely you have dealt with life.
Emma said, ‘You do understand now, don’t you, Paul? I mean about my not divorcing Arthur just yet. I don’t want our child to turn on me one day. I couldn’t bear a repetition of yesterday’s scene with Edwina.’
‘That would never happen. Not with our child. But yes, I do understand,’ he said, ‘I will do whatever you want, Emma.’
Their child, a girl, was born early in May of 1925, at a private nursing home in London. It was Paul who paced the waiting-room floor. It was Paul who took Emma in his arms after the delivery. It was Paul who chose the baby’s name. She was to be called Daisy after his mother.
The following day Paul visited Emma, his face wreathed in smiles, his arms filled with flowers and gifts. ‘Where’s my daughter?’ he asked.
‘The nurse will bring her in momentarily,’ Emma said, smiling radiantly.
He settled himself on the edge of the bed and embraced Emma. ‘And how’s my love?’
‘I’m wonderful, Paul. But you must stop spoiling me.’
‘You might as well get used to it. That’s the way it is going to be from now on.’ He took her hand in his and to her amazement he pulled off her wedding ring before she could protest, opened the window, and threw it out.
‘Good heavens, Paul, whatever are you doing?’
He did not respond. He reached into his pocket and took out a platinum wedding band. He slipped it on to her finger and then he added the great square-cut McGill emerald which had belonged to his mother and his grandmother before her.
‘We may not have had the benefit of clergy, but as far as I’m concerned you are my wife,’ he said. ‘From this day forward until death do us part.’
Since his return to England in 1923, Paul McGill had made his feelings for Emma obvious in every way. He was passionately in love with her and his emotional involvement transcended all else in his life. He admired her as well, and was filled with a sense of pride in her achievements. After the birth of their daughter these feelings were only intensified. She and their child became the core of his life, his reason for living. They gave shape and meaning to everything he did, to the way he ran his life and his enormous business enterprises. Old disappointments and defeats, and the hurts which had accumulated over the years, were swept away and he was filled with burgeoning hopes for the future. Daisy might not bear his name, but she was his child, of his blood, and in her he saw the continuation of the McGill line and the dynasty founded by his grandfather, the Scottish sea captain who had settled in Coonamble in 1852.
In all truth, he worshipped Emma and Daisy and he had no intention of letting either of them out of his sight, or his presence, for very long, despite the complications of their lives and the obstacles presented by their marital entanglements. He took matters firmly into his own hands in the late summer of 1925, when he purchased an unusually beautiful mansion in Belgrave Square, immediately giving the deeds of ownership to Emma. He then set about remodelling it into two flats, sparing no expense. The smaller bachelor quarters on the ground floor he retained for himself. The three floors above became an exquisitely appointed maisonette for Emma, Daisy, a nanny, a housekeeper, and a maid, whom he engaged. To the casual observer the two flats were entirely separate and self-contained, each having its own entrance. But they were linked by a private interior elevator.
They lived together, but discreetly so, with an eye to all the proprieties, for Emma was reluctant to flaunt their relationship in view of her other children and her responsibilities as a mother. Paul was constantly astonished at the duality in