Kate shook her head. ‘Nothing so dramatic. Elizabeth merely insisted I live with them in the new house in London. She wanted to make sure I took vitamins and received regular medical attention so that “her” baby would be a perfect, healthy specimen. She had no qualms about the father. She went off you big time when you married someone else, of course, but from a breeding point of view the Logan genes were perfectly acceptable.’
‘I’m so glad my pedigree came up to scratch,’ said Jack savagely. ‘Did you manage to keep working?’
‘Yes, thank God.’
Kate had always been slender. And, because morning sickness and misery over her situation killed her appetite, her shape altered so little her condition went unnoticed at work. She was passionately grateful for it. Her job was the only thing that kept her sane. She worked well into her sixth month, and by buying clothes a size or two larger than usual managed to disguise her not very considerable weight gain and keep her secret.
‘I managed to carry on keeping my secret,’ Kate told Jack, ‘because at that stage I developed a kidney infection and had to take time off. I also suffered from depression, and sank into such depths of hormonal despair Liz and Robert decided to move to another part of London where no one knew us.’
Jack frowned. ‘Surely neighbours must have noticed you were pregnant?’
‘I never met Elizabeth’s neighbours. Or wanted to. Besides, I was ill for quite a while, and even when I got better I never went out except to the antenatal clinic and for a daily walk in some park Liz drove me to, as far from home as possible. I felt like the skeleton in the closet!’ Kate smiled grimly. ‘It was around then that the sleepwalking started. Eventually Liz was so afraid I’d fall and harm the baby that Robert put a bed in the dining room on the ground floor, and I slept there until Jo was born.’
Jack closed his eyes for a moment. ‘God, what a life! You must have hated my guts.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Jack, I missed you and grieved for you, but I didn’t hate you. After all, I was the one who left you and opted for a clean break. I could hardly object when you found someone else. Anyway the sleepwalking phase didn’t last long because I went into labour a month early.’ Kate looked away. ‘I had a Caesarean section, which is why I wouldn’t let you undress me that day. I didn’t want you to see my scar.’
Jack grasped her hand so tightly she protested, and he lifted it to his lips in apology. ‘Go on, darling. Tell me the rest.’
Kate faltered slightly at the endearment, but went doggedly on to talk about the deal with Liz, which meant handing the baby over the moment it was born. But when Kate went into labour both Suttons had such heavy colds they were barred from the maternity ward.
Kate sighed deeply. ‘So I was the first to see her, and I loved her so much, Jack. I used to stand gazing at her for ages in the baby unit. She had to stay there for a while because she came early, and I had to go home without her. It was such a terrible wrench to leave her behind that I told Liz the deal was off. I wanted to keep my baby after all.’
‘What changed your mind?’ asked Jack with compassion.
‘Liz was the only mother I ever knew, remember, and a pretty forceful personality. She played on the guilt angle that responsibility for me had kept her from having a child of her own, and this was a perfect way to repay the debt.’
Kate tried to sound dispassionate as she told Jack how her sister kept hammering on that to support a child Kate would have to work full-time and pay a child-minder. If she did that, Liz threatened to wash her hands of her. Kate would be forced to bring up her baby on her own in some poky bedsitter and farm her out to strangers so she could keep working. At that point post-natal depression hit Kate so hard she was in a terrible state by the time Joanna was discharged and Elizabeth took full advantage of it.
‘I was in no condition to look after a child, physically, mentally or financially, she told me. She, on the other hand, could give my baby a good