Chapter 44
When Nicky hammered on the front door mid-afternoon, Emma opened it and scooped her son up into a bear hug. “Don’t you want to come in?” she called to Allaine and Will as they stood outside on the pavement.
“I wanna!” Kaylee squeaked and Will shook his head.
“Thanks, but we’ve got stuff to do. Have a good weekend.”
Emma looked at Allaine and smiled. “Thanks for everything, guys. I really appreciate it.”
They waved and proceeded down the street into the growing gloom as daylight withdrew its services from the town early. Emma watched them with confusion in her face at Will’s sudden hostility. She feared Allaine might have broken her promise already and winced, hoping the policeman didn’t make problems for Rohan.
Nicky was full of where he’d been and what he’d done, chatting non-stop as he shed his outdoor clothes. At the sight of Rohan sitting on the sofa in the living room, Nicky squealed with delight and hurled himself at him. “Uncle Ro! I knowed you’d come back for me. I’m a wise man and I’m gonna make you laugh. Mummy said she didn’t knowed if you’d be back in time.” He looked accusingly at Emma as though she’d lied to him.
Rohan stayed seated and hauled the small boy onto his knee, wincing as Nicky’s feet caught the prosthetic leg. Emma’s brow knitted in concern. Rohan let her touch and kiss every inch of his body earlier as she sought to recapture their former intimacy, everywhere except his right leg. She understood his anxiety about it, but the fact it still hurt to that extent after almost seven years, seemed strange.
Nicky snuggled down into Rohan’s body and popped his thumb in his mouth. Emma watched the touching scene with fondness and a sense of disbelief. It was the stuff of her dreams and she waited for it to be ripped from her grasp.
Rohan took his reading glasses off and laid them on the coffee table, putting his energy into holding his son. Nicky’s body slumped with exhaustion and Emma smiled as he chatted around his thumb to Rohan. Their voices were a low, comforting hum.
“Hungry Nicky?” Emma asked from the doorway and her son shook his head.
“No fanks. Will fed me till I popped.”
“Ok, baby. Why don’t you go and have a lie down on Mummy’s bed for a while? You look shattered.”
“I’m not tired.” Nicky punctuated his sentence with a yawn and Emma laughed. “Mum?” Nicky squirmed around on Rohan’s knee so he could see his mother. “I’m not getting married ever. Kaylee just talked all night wivout stoppin’. She weared me out.”
Emma bit her lip and smirked at Rohan, whose blue eyes danced with laughter. “Know what you mean, mate. Girls wear me out too.” He gave Emma a wink which set her heart racing. Thinking about her hunger for Rohan raised another knotty issue and her smile faded from her lips. Rohan saw and his brow knitted. He cocked his head and asked with his face expression what was wrong. Emma shook her head and smiled reassuringly at him.
Later she laid on her bed with Allaine’s sheaf of notes, sifting through endless pictures and descriptions of common garden plants and the symptoms resulting from ingestion. Emma jumped at the feel of Rohan’s hand on her shoulder. “Budge up,” he whispered, sliding onto the bed behind her.
“Where’s Nicky?” Emma rolled over onto her back, lifting her head so Rohan could slip his arm under her neck.
“He fell asleep so I laid him on the sofa. Is that ok?”
Emma kissed the underside of Rohan’s stubbly jaw. “Of course it is. I knew he was tired, stubborn child.”
Rohan’s hand slipped underneath Emma’s sweatshirt and caressed her stomach. Emma stiffened involuntarily and inhaled. “What’s wrong? Are you having regrets?” He shifted so his face was above hers, the dusting of hair on his face adding to his rugged good looks. She shook her head and let her eyes study his, willing him to read in her brown irises what was wrong without her having to tell him. His eyes narrowed as he registered something but Rohan misunderstood, placing his lips over hers and fitting their bodies together like a jigsaw puzzle. Emma breathed out and let him play with her lips, enticing her deeper so she wouldn’t be able to back out. His tongue flicked the underside of her top lip and she heard herself moan as Rohan’s fingers sneaked higher.
Farrell barked downstairs and they both jumped apart like guilty school children, thrown backwards in time over a decade to another life.
“Gets me every damn time!” Rohan exhaled crossly and Emma giggled.
“Me too. Guilt is an amazing contraceptive.”
Rohan tutted and blew a raspberry on Emma’s neck and she sniggered and pushed him off. “Don’t wake Nicky, please?”
Rohan nodded and rolled off her. “Ok. I’ll take your lead, Em. He needs to know I’m his dad and you’re my wife though. I can’t cope with sleeping next door when you’re in here...alone...naked...” He trailed his fingers along the delicate skin of her ribs and Emma squeaked.
“Ok, ok. But if you’ve got any suggestions about how to drop this all on him, I’m keen to listen.” Emma shifted and the papers under her made crinkling sounds as she crumpled and bent them.
“What are you looking at?” Rohan reached under her and grabbed the top piece of paper. Emma stiffened, not quick enough to stop him and it tore, coming away without its heading. “Oh.” His face dropped as he read the first paragraph and peered at the picture of the green leaved plant with the vibrant blue flower. Emma tried to struggle away from him, but Rohan increased the pressure around her shoulders, clamping his other arm across her middle and dropping the paper between them. “No! I’m not letting this come between us, Em. It’s fine. You do what you think is right.”
“Oh, how can I?” Emma sat up and brought her knees to her chest, hugging them and rocking backwards and forwards. “I’m so deluded! There’s no way this can work, Ro. You’re going to do everything in your power to stop your mother going to prison and I’m doing the exact opposite. We can’t possibly build a relationship on that. Besides, today I found out that...” ”
“Oh, no.” Rohan leaned up on one elbow, leaving his arm possessively across Emma’s stomach. He sighed and Emma looked down at him. Rohan pointed at the plant half way down the page, tapping the paper. “It’s that one. I don’t remember it in Russia, but she’s grown it since we came to Britain. You must remember.” He turned the torn page for Emma to look at. “At your dad’s house it was at the bottom of the garden but after he died and we moved out of the vicarage, she kept some in a raised garden. It always looked like a weed to me but she seemed to like it.”
“It is a weed. Look.” Emma read the description. “Wolfsbane’s from the aconite family and can kill within six hours of consumption.” Emma peered at the attractive blue flowers and looked up at Rohan, her eyes registering surprise. “I thought they were lupins. But they were this stuff. Ro, look at the symptoms. Vomiting, diarrhoea, burning and tingling, numbness of the mouth and burning in the stomach. My father had those symptoms. Severe poisoning can result in motor weakness, what’s that?”
“Movement I think,” Rohan said, twisting the paper so he could read it too. “Didn’t he have problems with dropping things? Oh no, Em, look. Organ failure leads to death. I’m so sorry!” Rohan lay on his back and put his hands over his face.
“We all had stomach problems, didn’t we?” Emma’s voice sounded small. “Wolfsbane. So it was in the garden the whole time.”
“But a pathologist would pick it up in a post-mortem wouldn’t they? It’s a poison so it must linger in the body.”
Emma poked through Allaine’s notes, trying to remember what her friend told her about the toxins listed in the pages. “No, look. The Greeks called it the Queen of Poisons because it’s hard to detect and can be hidden in food. Anton and I knew it was the food but we never worked out how she did it.”
Rohan lay back and held his hand out for the other pages. Emma passed them over and their fingers touched. “I recognise some of these others.” He flicked a few of the pictures with his fingernai
l. “But not in the same way as the Wolfsbane. Mum was quite picky about it. I mowed over some by accident and she gave me the belt across my legs. Your dad pulled her off me.”
“What’re we going to do?” Emma’s face knotted with pain.
“Em, you told me Anton took you to Lucya to have the baby. Would you tell me about her?”
Emma stared at Rohan, her eyes wide with doubt. “Your grandmother, Ro? She was your father’s mother. Did you never meet her? She talked of you often. She gave Nicky all his middle names.”
“I don’t recall her.” Rohan sounded unbearably sad, his head low on his chest and his body slumped. “Tell me Nikolai’s names?”
Emma knitted her brow and stroked his hair back from his face, keeping her tone light. “Nikolai Rohan Davidovich Andreyev. Nikolai is your handed down name from your father, Rohan is for Nicky’s father and Davidovich was your grandfather. Lucya’s the reason Nicky knows so much Russian. She spoke it all the time to him. Your father brought her over from Russia and sorted out her residency but after he died, your mother sent her away. She ended up in Wales at the mercy of the state. Lucya was always adamant your mother killed her son, but being a foreigner felt she had no voice. It’s maybe why Alanya banished her. Are you sure you don’t remember her at all? She was gorgeous and incredibly outspoken; Anton took after her.”
“No.” Rohan shook his head. “Not one bit.” He sat up and leaned forward, mirroring Emma’s stance. “What a mess!”
Emma put her arm around his shoulders and kissed his bicep. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“How come Anton knew all this stuff? How come I didn’t?” Rohan shook his head in disgust at himself. “Geez, Em. No wonder you didn’t want my mother near Nicky. If we’d stayed together, she would’ve had access to my son and...I get why you ran now. I’ve been such a fool.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Emma smirked, realising as the expression lifted her lips, it was inappropriate. Rohan looked irritated and Emma slapped his arm. “We tried so hard to tell you, Ro. In the end you just became a liability so we protected you instead.”
“If Anton was such a hero, how come you didn’t fall in love with him?” Rohan sulked, his bottom lip protruding slightly.
“Because he was gay, idiot. Otherwise I would have.”
Rohan looked horrified and Emma laughed, the tension momentarily dissipating. “He really was like a brother. My love for him was completely different to my hankering after you. Anton was amazing, but apart from not liking girls at all, can you imagine the trouble we’d have caused in the world as a couple? It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Emma giggled with the memories swimming before her inner vision. In their childhood games, Anton always took the role of leader, directing the mischief in his creative inimitable way. “About Anton, Ro, he...”
“Oh, hell! What are we going to do about my mother?” Rohan closed his eyes and balanced his chin on his wrists, interrupted by the appearance of Nicky, who stumbled through the bedroom doorway rubbing his eyes.
“Oh no!” Emma hissed, waiting, her body stiff as her son opened his eyes and observed his mother and uncle sitting on the bed together. She waited for the awkward questions. Then Nicky yawned and the moment passed as he pushed his way in between them, crushing the papers underneath.
“Feel better, baby?” Emma asked, kissing him on his forehead. Nicky nodded.
“Mum, I like how Kaylee has a daddy. She has more fun ‘cause she has one. I want a daddy.” The child laid between the adults and Emma bit her lip, afraid of the chasm threatening to open up in front of her. Rohan turned towards his son and brushed the baby fine blonde hair from his eyes.
“I could be your daddy,” he offered, laying down on his side and leaning up on one elbow. “If you want. You have a think about it.”
“No.” Nicky took his thumb out of his mouth and Rohan looked devastated. Emma bit back a ready retort at her son’s rejection of his father, her heart clenching in agony.
“No?” Rohan’s voice wobbled.
“No. I don’t need to fink about it,” Nicky said. “I want you to be my daddy. I’d like that. Can I call yer Dad then?”
“Reckon so.” Rohan stroked the boy’s soft forehead and smiled at Emma, cuddling Nicky into him as the child popped his thumb back into his mouth. Over the top of the boy’s head Rohan spoke to his wife. “I’ll sort out that other thing tonight, ok?”
She knitted her brow and looked confused, mouthing, “What?” to him. There seemed so many things to still deal with. The threatening notion of Felicity floated across her inner vision, taking pot shots at Emma’s fragile happiness. She’d called twice more that afternoon, resulting in a screaming match in the street between Felicity and Rohan’s closed front door.
Rohan jerked his head towards the pile of crumpled papers. “That stuff,” he said. “I’ll sort it out tonight.” His eyes strayed to the blonde child cuddled sideways into his chest, sucking his thumb with obvious contentment.
Emma saw the look of determination cross her husband’s angular face and sighed, seeing also the level of sacrifice which hid behind it. His mother in exchange for his son.