Matilda Next Door - Kelly Hunter Page 0,35

don’t you dare whinge,’ he muttered when finally he put Rowan in the pram and set about putting the porta cot up.

But Rowan did dare, and she was still screaming several hours later no matter what Henry did to try and calm her.

A walk around the house paddock hadn’t stopped the screaming, although it did help soothe his frayed nerves. Feeding time had been a debacle. He’d figured an open mouth was an invitation to put food in it, but how wrong could he be? The tiny she-devil had spat mushy apple and pumpkin everywhere and screamed all the louder. The bottle, no. Putting her to bed, no. Doing that cradling two-step thing his grandfather did with her—hell no. Music, no. A bath? He didn’t even want to think about dipping that slippery, squirming body into water. A beer?

Heaven help him he could use one.

Six-and-a-half hours after dropping Tilly off at the door to what she euphemistically called her self-contained apartment—but that actually looked a lot like the western side of the main house—he was pulling up in next door’s driveway again. The verandah lights were off, but the kitchen ones were on and he left the baby in the car and the radio blaring as he cleared the steps in two bounds and lifted his hand to rap on the door frame.

Tilly’s mother opened the door before he’d even had a chance to knock.

‘Henry! What a surprise.’

‘You don’t sound that surprised.’ Yup, that there was a bona fide smirk.

‘We heard you coming.’

‘I’m after Matilda if she’s around.’

‘She’s right here. Come on in.’

‘Can’t. There’s a screaming baby in the car. Somewhere underneath all that music. She won’t settle. At all.’

‘Oh, the poor darling. No wonder she’s out of sorts. So much upheaval for a baby to bear.’

Henry nodded, not trusting his words, which went something along the lines of, Her? HER? What about me?

‘Henry! Come in.’ Now Tilly’s father was at the door. ‘Want a beer?’

‘Please don’t make me weep.’ He couldn’t have a beer ever again. Not and look after a baby as well. Spirits were out. Wines and liqueurs. He would never be able to drink again.

‘They’re teasing you.’ Tilly was in there somewhere, because that was her voice. ‘Come on in.’ And then Tilly slipped past them all and out the door and headed for the car. ‘I’ll bring Rowan in.’

Five minutes later, Henry was on his second beer and Rowan was snuggled up against Tilly’s chest, fast asleep. He thunked his head down on the tabletop and stayed there, fully aware of his wrinkled shirt and unruly hair and those white blobs of milk stains on his crotch that looked like something else, and thank God he was sitting down. He thought longingly of his apartment overlooking Trafalgar Square, with his wine racked in alphabetical order and his clothes all clean, pressed and lined up in neat rows. Could be he’d started to whimper.

‘There, there.’ Someone was patting him soothingly on the back, and it was Tilly’s touch, he’d know it anywhere, and how come she could keep his baby quiet and multitask elsewhere? He sat up with a glare.

Three pairs of eyes regarded him with various levels of amusement. ‘Where’s the sympathy?’

‘Oh. You want sympathy too? I thought you came here solely for the childcare.’

‘Matilda, please. Gloating is so unbecoming,’ admonished her mother.

‘Yeah,’ muttered Henry, feeling all of five years old himself. ‘Unbecoming.’

Tilly snorted and gloated some more. ‘If you want me to come back with you and help tag team your fretful daughter tonight you’ll put up with my gloating and make me an offer I can’t refuse. Like bacon and eggs in the morning and bread fresh out of the oven.’

He wished. ‘I’m good for whatever I can cook in a frypan. Also, teasing and gloating is even more unbecoming.’

‘Also twice as satisfying,’ she informed him.

‘Anyway,’ he began stuffily, because he was a stuffed-shirt ninety-nine per cent of the time and so be it. ‘I need your help. I can offer money, willingly. I can be your delivery pack horse if ever you need one.’ What else could he do? ‘A place to stay whenever you’re in London again.’

‘And don’t forget the car,’ her mother said.

‘Which I’ve already said I can’t accept and you agreed,’ said Tilly indignantly to her mother. ‘It’s too much.’ The baby in her arms stirred.

‘Shhh!’ hissed Henry, and held his breath.

‘To be fair, you phoned me six times on your first night with Rowan,’ Tilly’s mother told her