by Penny Jordan
‘Quite some time.’ She didn’t qualify her statement.
‘So that response I got from you was based on physical frustration, was it?’
She wanted to scream at him that he was wrong, that she loved him, but pride and caution stopped her. Far better to let him think he was right. If she let him guess the truth she would lose him and the boys and the life she had here which she loved already. Logically she knew that it was unlikely that he would ever come to feel about her the way she did about him, but at least she would have…what?
‘Well?’
His curt demand cut across her thoughts.
‘I suppose it must have been.’ How husky and emotional her voice sounded; the voice of someone in pain. Trying to sound flippant she added shakily, ‘So now we know, frustration and anger make a pretty lethal combination.’
To her surprise his only response was a smothered curse, her mattress depressing as he got up and pulled on his jeans, not looking at her as he picked up his shirt and headed for the door. Once there he paused, with his hand on the doorknob, his voice harsh as he told her, ‘Fortunately, it’s a combination we’re not likely to repeat.’
And then he was gone, leaving her alone to dream of how it could have been if instead of disliking her he had loved her. She wouldn’t be alone now. Instead she would be wrapped in his arms, listening to his tender words of love and praise. Tears stung her eyes and she buried her head into her pillow, letting them fall.
* * *
THE NEXT FEW DAYS were purgatory. Jessica was torn between the fear that Lyle would tell her he wanted to end their marriage and the anguish brought on by the fact that he was quite obviously avoiding her. Even Stuart noticed it, commenting that his father never seemed to spend any time with them in the evenings any more.
At least she had achieved a measure of success where the boys were concerned, Jessica consoled herself one afternoon as she worked in the garden. Both of them were much more open now; much more ready to accept Lyle as their father, and from the tiny scraps of information they had unwittingly given her, she had discovered that their withdrawal from him had been caused, not by their attachment to their mother, but by their realisation that she neither loved nor wanted them and their fear that Lyle would feel the same.
It was something she wanted to tell Lyle and discuss with him, but she was far too afraid to approach him. She dreaded seeing him look at her with contempt and dislike, or having him think that she was using the boys as an excuse to force on him an intimacy he plainly did not want.
In addition, nagging at her conscience and compounding her guilt was the very real fear that she could quite easily have conceived—it would be a week or more before she could know, but already she shuddered to think of Lyle’s anger if she should discover that she had. There was quite simply no way he would want her to have his child, and yet knowing what she did about him, she knew he would never willingly consider an abortion, and neither was there any way she would want one, so that left her with the painful knowledge that if she was pregnant she would be inflicting upon him more worries and responsibilities, and that it was quite possible that he would allow the marriage to stand simply because of the child.
From there it was only a short step to the acutely unpalatable conviction that for a man who distrusted the female sex as much as Lyle did it was all too possible that he might conclude that she had deliberately engineered their lovemaking, intending to become pregnant thus ensuring that he would be forced to stand by their marriage and support her and her child. He might even guess how she felt about him, and suspect that she was using the child as a form of moral blackmail.
All these thoughts and more surfaced far too frequently for comfort, exhausting her emotionally and physically, and even the garden had lost its normal soothing effect on her senses. The boys were playing on the lawn, but Jessica checked suddenly, noticing the ominous silence. What on earth were they up to?
Putting down her trowel she headed in the direction of the lawn, coming to an abrupt and horrified stop as she saw James standing looking up into the branches of the ancient plum tree in the middle of the lawn, while all that was visible of Stuart was his legs, the rest of him cloaked in greenery.
It wasn’t so much the fact that he had climbed the tree that bothered her, but the knowledge that he had done so in direct contravention of Lyle’s wishes. The tree was old and dying, and he had already decided that in the winter it must come down because of its potential danger.
Even as she watched, Jessica heard the warning creak of the branch Stuart was sitting on. She heard James’s frightened shout, his face white as he called out a warning to his brother, and then with a dry, rending sound the branch tore free of the trunk, both it and Stuart hurtling to the ground.
Jessica didn’t remember running, but she must have done because she was there almost before the branch hit the ground, calling out anxiously to Stuart. He was lying among the foliage, his eyes closed, and his face white.
Beside her Jessica was aware of James’s thin, keening cry as he sobbed hysterically. ‘He’s dead! Stuart’s dead!’
Her stomach twisting in anguished knots, Jessica scrambled through the heavy leaves and small branches to reach the still figure of her stepson, not daring to move him as she bent over him, gently feeling for his pulse, trying to see if he was breathing.
It was only when she saw the even rise and fall of his chest that she was able to acknowledge how terrified she had been that James was right and Stuart had indeed been killed, but her relief was only short-lived. He might be alive, but he was still unconscious. Agonising twists of memory churned inside her, stories of children and adults for whom a blow on the head had resulted in a life that was no life at all, condemned to exist purely on a life-support machine.
She saw James scrambling towards her, reaching out to grab his brother’s arm.
‘No, don’t touch him.’
She saw the younger boy’s bottom lip tremble and wished she had not been so sharp, reaching out to comfort him as she explained. ‘We don’t know how badly hurt he is, James, so we mustn’t move him. He isn’t dead though.’
‘I wish Dad was here.’
The young voice trembled and grew shrill and Jessica desperately shared his wish, but Lyle was out on his afternoon calls and wasn’t due back for another couple of hours.
‘You stay with Stuart,’ she instructed, trying to appear calm, ‘I’ll go and ring for an ambulance.’
Over the telephone she explained what had happened as concisely as she could, and was told not to touch or move Stuart.
‘We’ll be with you just as soon as we can. Where are you again?’ the cool controlled voice of the emergency operator asked.
Slowly Jessica gave the address, hearing curiosity sharpen the disembodied voice as the woman asked, ‘You mean Dr Garnett’s house?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately my husband is out on call. I can ring him, but it would take him at least half an hour to get back and then there’s the drive to the hospital.’
‘Yes, you’ve done the right thing,’ the other woman assured her. ‘You can never tell with head injuries.’
The grave note in her voice only increased Jessica’s fear, but fifteen minutes later, just as the ambulance pulled into the drive, Stuart opened his eyes.
Her breath totally suspended, Jessica waited for some reaction from him, and then to her relief his eyes cleared, his voice groggy but recognisable as he demanded shakily, ‘What happened? My head hurts.’
‘You fell out of the plum tree, my lad, that’s what happened,’ Jessica told him sternly. ‘After your father had expressly forbidden you to climb it, too.’
‘Dad!’ Apprehension crossed the pale face. ‘Is he here? Does he know?’
Before Jessica could reply she was having to move back to allow the ambulance crew to get to him.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any damage,’ one of them told her, getting up from his knees. ‘But we’ll have to take him in f
or a check-up just to be on the safe side.’
‘I’ll follow you in my car,’ Jessica suggested. ‘I just want to leave a message for my husband first.’
She knew where Lyle would be and it didn’t take her long to find the number of the farm. The farmer’s mother-in-law who lived with them had severe diabetes which had resulted in ulceration of her legs. Lyle had gone out to check on her condition. The farmer’s wife answered the phone, and when Jessica asked tersely to speak to Lyle, she went off immediately to get him.
‘Jessica?’
Lyle’s voice was sharp, with impatience, no doubt, Jessica thought tiredly, gripping the receiver with fingers that were hot and sticky. James was standing beside her, almost clinging to her, and she reached down to touch his shoulder in reassurance.
‘Lyle, there’s been an accident.’ She had to raise her voice slightly to make herself heard above the static that had developed on the line.
‘What? Are you all right?’
Amazed that he should automatically assume that she was the one who had been hurt, Jessica swallowed the painful lump in her throat. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him huskily. ‘It’s Stuart. He fell out…had a bad fall. He was unconscious for a while, but he came round just as the ambulance arrived. They’ve taken him in to hospital, Lyle, and James and I are going to follow him down there.’
She heard him say something, but the static was now so bad that she couldn’t make out what it was. Raising her voice again, she asked him if he had been able to hear her.
‘Yes.’ Miraculously the line cleared, allowing her to hear every terse nuance of his voice, but then it crackled again just as she heard him saying, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Is Dad going to the hospital too?’ James asked anxiously when she had replaced the receiver.
He wanted his father to be there, Jessica saw, and her heart warmed a little. She smoothed the tousled dark hair so like his father’s back off his forehead and said reassuringly, ‘Yes, just as soon as he can.’
‘Stuart will be all right, won’t he?’ James demanded as they drove to the hospital. ‘He will be all right?’
Jessica smiled at him without committing herself; somehow she felt as though it might be bad luck to anticipate too optimistically, and so instead of replying she concentrated on her driving. Now that the first shock was over, she felt dreadfully weak and shaky, hardly fit to be in charge of a car. It would be the very last straw if she were to have an accident now. Fortunately they reached the hospital safely, hurrying into the casualty department where she gave her name to the nurse on duty.
‘Ah yes, Stuart. He’s been taken to the ward so that Mr Jeffries can examine him. Mr Jeffries is our Senior Consultant—luckily he happened to be with us today. If you’d like to go into the waiting-room.’
Jessica almost felt like screaming. She didn’t want to go into the waiting-room at all, she wanted to go to Stuart, but before she could say so, the swing door opened violently and Lyle strode in.
‘Daddy!’ Tearing free of her James hurtled into his father’s arms. Tears stung her eyes as Jessica watched the tender way Lyle bent towards his son, reassuring him.
He came over to her. ‘Where’s Stuart?’
‘Mr Jeffries is examining him,’ the nurse explained, overhearing. ‘If you’d like to see him, Dr Garnett.’
For a moment Jessica thought she was going to be left alone while James and Lyle went to the ward, but then Lyle turned and said abruptly to her, ‘Stuart will want to see you, I know. Will you come with us?’
Eagerly she hurried to his side, braving the nurse’s frown of disapproval.
They found Stuart lying in a side ward, looking very small and vulnerable on the high white bed. A tall grey-haired man was bending over him. He straightened up when he saw Lyle and smiled.
‘Nothing much wrong here,’ he said reassuringly, ‘just a large bump and an aching head.’
While Jessica hurried to Stuart’s side, the consultant drew Lyle away slightly, and as she smiled down into Stuart’s pale face Jessica could hear the faint hum of their conversation behind her. When it ceased she didn’t immediately turn round.
‘Your husband’s gone to check up on one of his patients.’ Mr Jeffries was standing beside her. ‘I think you can go home now, young man,’ he told Stuart, adding to Jessica, ‘I can’t see that there’s any need to keep him in overnight. Even so you were right to call out the ambulance. He was lucky, he might easily not have been. Not that we’re really equipped to perform brain surgery here, we would have had to take him to the special unit at Partington for that.’ He shook his head regretfully and then stunned Jessica by saying, ‘It’s a pity your husband won’t come back into surgery. He had all the makings of a very skilled neuro-surgeon. I had thought now that he was married that he might reconsider. Of course a consultant has to work very long hours.’
‘So does a GP,’ Jessica retorted indignantly, firing up at the implication that Lyle might have opted for the easier role in life.
Mr Jeffries laughed. ‘Yes, yes, I know. But Lyle had a very special skill, and it grieves me to see him waste it. I take it that you would have no objection to his returning to surgery?’
Frowning, Jessica shook her head.
‘Umm, I know how much it grieved him to give it up, but perhaps now…’
Would Lyle prefer to return to surgery? It was a question that occupied much of Jessica’s mind for the drive home.
James was in the car with her, Stuart travelling with Lyle where he would have more room. Although he was still subdued, his colour had been coming back by the time they left the hospital, and Jessica sent up a devout prayer of thanks that he had got off so lightly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE FIRST FEW DAYS after Stuart’s accident, Jessica was kept far too busy to dwell too much on her own private feelings. Stuart had to be kept quiet for the first couple of days, and this had proved quite a challenge. What had surprised Jessica a little was that whenever Lyle was at home he willingly took over her nursing duties for her.
It was the first time she had been able to observe Lyle, the doctor, at close quarters, and she marvelled at his gentleness and patience. Coupled with a firmness which he exhibited whenever Stuart threatened to become frustrated with his enforced inactivity, he had a knack of soothing his son that she herself seemed unable to match.
Once, watching his tenderness with Stuart, she felt tears sting her eyes. This was the side of him she had known instinctively must exist but had never experienced. Nor ever would, she recognised drearily. Something in his relationship with Heather had sealed away any tenderness towards the female sex for ever. Now when she recalled Justine telling her how the much younger Lyle had placed his young wife on a pedestal, adoring her almost blindly, she felt sick with envy.
And then to cap it all, the morning that Lyle pronounced that Stuart was fully fit, Jessica discovered that she was not after all to have a child.
Until that moment she had not guessed how deep had been her hope that she might. A child of Lyle’s to love and cherish as she would never be allowed to love the father? Once she would have openly mocked such sentimentality, but lately she had changed. The love she had once denied could exist was there, and she knew instinctively that it was no mere sexual chemistry or infatuation she felt towards Lyle, but something that went far deeper and would be with her all through her life.
What she had discovered from personal experience meant that she would have to amend large portions of the outline for her new book, and when Lyle had gone out on his morning calls she telephoned her publishers in London to speak with her editor.
The conversation was a long one, but luckily her editor had been very understanding about agreeing to extending her earlier time limit. It would be impossible now for her to do any real work until after the summer holidays when the boys would be back at school.
She was going to miss their company once they went back, but they needed the stimulus and c
ompanionship of friends of their own age unless they were to grow up solitary, and that was not what she wanted for them.
Andrea rang her during the afternoon, primarily to chat to her about the barbecue—how long ago that now seemed, Jessica thought wryly as she listened to her sister. She couldn’t quite overcome her sense of guilt every time she saw Lyle, and she had taken to quietly slipping out of a room when he entered it, dreading to find herself alone with him and perhaps forced to listen to him saying that he now considered their marriage should end.
Lyle was no fool. He knew quite well that she was deliberately avoiding him, she had seen that in the cold and deliberate way his eyes challenged her, but it was a challenge she no longer had the heart to meet.
‘One of the reasons I’m ringing is to ask you and Lyle to join us for dinner on Saturday evening,’ Andrea told her, and then, as though sensing the refusal hovering on her sister’s tongue, added coaxingly, ‘please, Jess, the other guests will be colleagues of David’s, and you know how much store he sets by having you as his sister-in-law. There’s a senior lectureship coming up that he badly wants, and…’
‘I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to come, Andrea,’ Jessica interrupted her sister. ‘I’m not sure if Lyle will be free. I’ll have to ring you back tomorrow and let you know.’
She had already decided that she wasn’t going to tell Lyle about the invitation. In her present vulnerable state it would be impossible for her to endure a full evening in his company without betraying herself, and the long drive to and from Andrea’s would give him ample opportunity to bring up the subject of their marriage. Her face burned, even though she was alone, as it did every time she thought about her passionate response to him. It seemed impossible that he could not have guessed how she felt, but luckily he seemed to think that she had merely seen him as a substitute for David. Or perhaps that was what he wanted to believe.
The following morning she was downstairs later than usual. James had been sick during the night and when she went in to wake him up she had found him looking very pale and sorry for himself. Suspecting that too much half-ripened fruit from the garden was the culprit, she suggested that he stayed where he was until he was feeling a little better.