Page 65 of The Midnight Secret

‘Just think what we had to do to get here. To get off St Kilda first and then all the way over here – enduring conditions animals wouldn’t live in. Losing our freedom as we bide our time, patiently waiting to start living the rest of our lives together...No, there is no number. There’s nothing more you can give me – not beyond what you’ve already given.’

A smirk played on her lips, and Flora burst forth from the shadows.

‘You bitch!’ she cried, flailing like a fury as the worst curse she knew fell from her lips.

Mary staggered back in fright as Flora lunged for her son, but James caught her, holding her so that she fell a few agonizing feet short.

‘Darling, no!’

‘Give him to me! Give him to me!’ Flora cried as James struggled to restrain her.

‘Well, well, Flora, y’ came too, I see,’ Mary gasped, recovering. Her eyes travelled over Flora’s expensive coat, the plush fur collar. ‘He made a rich woman of y’ after all then, did he? Too bad he’ll never make a lady of y’.’

‘That’s enough!’ James barked, making both women flinch. Flora had never heard him raise his voice before. He staredat Mary with open disgust. ‘Where’s your compassion, woman? Can’t you see how unnatural this is?’

‘Unnatural?’

‘Yes! A mother separated from her child! You tricked her! You told her I was dead and convinced her that she had no way of supporting the child!’

‘And where’s the compassion forme?’ Mary demanded, the whites of her eyes showing, a vein in her forehead bulging as her rage finally surfaced. ‘Who’s ever cared about how I’ve suffered? Having to lie with a man who made my skin crawl! Having to endure his body on mine, when it was all for naught anyway? Who’s ever cared that I’ve had to hide the only love I’ve ever known? That the world – and God himself – would forsake me and think me diabolical if they knew the truth of what I am?’

She took several steps away from them, seeing how Flora grew limp in James’s arms, tears streaming down her beautiful face.

‘I’m not moved by her wretchedness. She’s a spoilt brat and always was, but she’s your problem now. If she wants a baby so bad, then give her another one – but you’re not taking mine. Because heismine. The law itself says so, and I’m never giving him back! I’m all he knows and I’ll die before I let you take him from me—’

And before they could even breathe, she had turned on her heel and was hurrying back down the stairs, disappearing into the building she had called home for the past five weeks.

‘No!’ Flora screamed, feeling her legs give out under her as her baby was taken away again. He had been there,right there, and she had still failed. She collapsed to the ground, feeling a wail erupt from her, an empty sound she had never known her body could even make, as James sank down besideher. His arms kept trying to scoop her up, but it was like holding water. She was undone, let apart at the seams. No stuffing, no shape, no form.

‘Flora, no, my darling. This isn’t the end,’ he cried, his voice thick and split with distress. ‘There’s still more we can do. There’s always another way.’

But she shook her head from side to side; she was unable to form words, but she knew Mary was right. There was nothing they could do to prove the baby was theirs. Flora had given him away and created a perfect cover story that even she could no longer disprove. These were the consequences of her own actions. She had no one to blame but herself.

Chapter Eighteen

There was no back-up plan.

From the moment they had left Paris, they had never once envisaged a future in which their child was not with them. Failure hadn’t been an option. Chase, hunt, pursue, capture...that was how it was supposed to have been. They had thought justice was on their side. Truth and fact. But it was all for nothing without evidence.

The burden of proof.

James had taken it badly. He was used to doing business, where money was king, but that held little sway over a woman from a barter economy; and appealing to her better nature was pointless when, in all the years Flora had known her, Mary had never once been reasonable nor compassionate. Too late, he saw he should have offered a bribe for Landon to take the baby: snatch him back under a lie, as he’d been taken from them. Instead, they had lost their only advantage of stealth, and Mary would be on full alert now. She knew they were here and why. She wouldn’t let the baby out of her sight for a second, and the patrolling guards and fences that were designed to keep her in were also now the protective measures keeping them out.

The if-onlys haunted them both. All the way across the Atlantic, James had bolstered Flora as she’d struggled withthe slow passing of days. The idea of his son had still been notional to him: he had never seen his face or looked into his eyes, never felt his warm, drowsy weight in his arms. But standing on that roof garden and seeing the tiny length of him, the sheen of his dark hair in the moonlight – the scale of their loss, everything Flora had gone through back then and every day since, had finally washed over him too.

Finally, they were united in their grief. They couldn’t sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time, barely ate. James had given Flora a brandy when they’d got back to take the edge off, but it had taken a lot more than one, and the bottle was soon half-empty as she cried and he lay in silence in ironed sheets.

Emotional and physical exhaustion overwhelmed them. James made one final visit to Landon, offering a small fortune to get him into the medical centre, but the Irishman was adamant it couldn’t be done. They had nowhere to go, no other routes to follow.

Flora sat at the window now, feeling nothing and seeing nothing. The city was lost to fog, the noise of the buses and trams muffled like lovers’ confessions under a blanket. She slumped against the glass, feeling the cool chill of the condensation against her skin. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there...

Distantly, she heard a knock at the hotel door, but she ignored it. James was dozing; housekeeping could come back another time. They didn’t care about clean sheets and fresh flowers right now.

But the knock came again.

And then a voice. ‘Mr Callaghan?’

James stirred at the sound of his name, but Flora jolted at the accent.

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