Roberta Leigh - It All Depends on Love

by Roberta Leigh

  'I intend to. But before I do, I want to tell you you're completely wrong about Mr Anderson and myself.'

  'I'm not interested.'

  'I think you will be.' Her mouth curved in a smile that only she was aware was false. 'As a matter of fact, I'm Mr Anderson's——-'

  'Patrick!' The door was flung open and Mike tore into the room, face ashen, eyes wild. 'Come quick! Ingrid fell downstairs. I think she's dying!'

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Flinging back his chair, Patrick rushed from the room and down the corridor, Tessa hard on his heels.

  Entering the main house, she saw Ingrid crumpled on the floor at the foot of the wide, sweeping staircase. She was unconscious, her right leg twisted awkwardly beneath her, the left one bleeding so heavily that it was a mass of scarlet from the knee down. Her arms were out-flung and pieces of shattered glass glittered around her, from a vase she had knocked off a table at the foot of the stairs. Some had penetrated the bodice of her dress and blood was seeping through it.

  Patrick bent over her, his skin taking on a greenish tinge. 'I think—I think she's dead!'

  Pushing him aside, Tessa felt for the girl's pulse. It was thready and erratic. 'No, she isn't, she's alive. But we have to get her to a hospital at once. Has anyone called an ambulance?'

  'I have.' It was Jenna, her voice shaking. "They said it might take half an hour.'

  'Like hell!' Tessa exploded. 'I'll call them myself.'

  'I'll do it.' Patrick rose and strode to the phone that stood on a console-table near a suit of armour.

  Tessa bent closer over Ingrid and gently unbuttoned, the bodice to see the extent of the damage. A long shard of glass had penetrated the chest, causing a narrow but deep wound. Blood was oozing from it, and carefully Tessa eased out the glass.

  Her heart was thumping in her throat. This was the stuff of which nightmares were made!

  'Ingrid's bleeding fast!' she called across to Patrick. Tell them it's urgent!'

  As she spoke, she motioned Mike to take off his shirt. Hastily he complied, and she folded it into a pad and pressed it hard against the seeping wound.

  'Hold it there for me,' she ordered, taking Mike's hand and placing it in the best position to staunch the red flow.

  'Anything I can do?' Jenna asked.

  'Is there a first-aid box?'

  ‘I’ll get it.'

  'I'd also like some wide sticks to make a splint,' Tessa called, and Tom Donaldson rushed after his wife.

  In less than a minute, they were both back, and Tessa pulled out the widest bandage and methodically applied a tourniquet to Ingrid's leg. The girl moaned, but didn't regain consciousness, which was a good thing for she would have been in considerable pain.

  'Keep pressing that chest wound as hard as you can,' Tessa reminded Mike, disturbed that the cotton pad was soaked brilliant red.

  'I can't press any harder.' Mike was pate round the mouth. 'Do you think she'll make ft?'

  Tessa wasn't sure, but deemed it wiser not to say so. Her hands deftly moulded a pile of lint into another pad, and she removed the one Mike was holding and replaced it with the fresh one.

  'Keep pressing,' she repeated, rising and going to Patrick, who was still hanging on to the telephone.

  'When will the ambulance be here?'

  'In half an hour, they think. They're all out on call, and they're trying to locate one.'

  'We'll have to take her by car.'

  As Patrick went to speak into the receiver, Tessa reached for it.

  'There's no need for us both to talk,' he said. I'm quite capable of——-'

  Wrenching the receiver from him, she shouted into it. 'Put me through to the surgical ward. Don't argue. Do as I say!'

  She paused, waiting to be obeyed, vaguely conscious of the astonishment on the faces around her. The telephone returned to life, a loud, firm voice saying an ambulance would be with them as soon as one was available.

  'We can't wait.' Tessa's voice was equally firm. 'My patient has to be operated on immediately. I'm bringing her in myself. If there's no surgeon available when we arrive, 'I’ll operate. Of course I'm qualified. Check with St Andrew's Hospital. I'm Tessa Redfern, Sir Denis Denzil's registrar.'

  Cutting short the profuse apologies coming from the other end, Tessa put down the receiver.

  'We can take Ingrid in the station-wagon,' Patrick said in a voice she hadn't heard before.

  She met his eyes briefly, long enough to register then’ incredulity, but not long enough to decipher more, for she turned away to take the bundle of wide rulers Tom had brought in.

  ‘I’ll make a splint for Ingrid's leg,' she said, busy doing so, 'but will someone take down a door for me? We'll use it as a stretcher.'

  Ten minutes later they were on their way to Iverton, Patrick's foot hard on the accelerator, Mike's hand hard on the profusely bleeding wound, and Tessa doing her best to staunch the blood seeping from Ingrid's mangled leg.

  Her misgivings about the hospital, which was tiny compared with St Andrew's, disappeared at the manner in which their arrival was dealt with. With minimum fuss, Ingrid was placed on a trolley and wheeled to the emergency-room, where a registrar examined her while an X-ray machine was rolled in.

  While pictures were taken, and a blood transfusion was being arranged, the surgeon arrived. He had spoken to Sir Denis and was more than happy for Tessa to assist with the operation. She was glad, but hid it. Ingrid's condition had deteriorated, and the gaping wound in her chest and her broken limb had to be attended to speedily if she weren't to bleed to death.

  Tessa doubted whether the surgeon—able though he was—had sufficient experience to work at the speed required. Without conceit she knew she had, and to the man's credit he recognised it and handed over to her in the operating theatre.

  It was dusk by the time they emerged, and not until she had doffed her operating gown did Tessa become conscious of the outer world, and her deep fatigue. She was always like this after a long session in the theatre, but today, having seen Patrick's grey-faced anguish as he watched Ingrid being wheeled away from him, she was more than ever aware of tiredness, and an enervating depression at what she had lost. If one could ever lose what one had never had!

  Patrick was pacing the corridor as she came down it. His hair was mussed, his tie awry, but he had never looked handsomer, and it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and rest against his chest.

  'How is she?' he demanded.

  'She'll be fine. She's still unconscious, and being monitored, but you may see her if you wish.'

  At his nod, she led him to the intensive care unit, but did not go in with him. It was more than she could bear to watch bun beside Ingrid, holding her hand, stroking her skin, caressing her with his eyes.

  Numbly, she waited in the corridor, her manner composed and giving away nothing of her feelings as Patrick came out. He appeared more at ease, and there was a little colour in his face.

  'Mike, Jenna and Tom wanted to wait, but I sent them home, he said as they walked towards the exit.

  'That was wise.'

  'You look as if you can do with a drink,' he went on. 'You were on your feet three hours, at least.'

  'That's nothing. I've often done five hours at a stretch. But one rarely feels tired at the time. It isn't until afterwards that it hits you.'

  'I can believe it.' He hesitated. 'Would you care to have dinner out and unwind?'

  'If I unwind, I'll end up falling asleep at the table! I'd prefer to go straight home, if you don't mind.'

  He did not speak again until they were in the station-wagon.

  'I think you owe me an explanation, Tessa,' he said gruffly, as they left the hospital car park.

  'I know. When I told you this morning that I wanted to speak to you, I was going to confess.'

  'What made you put on the act in the first place?'

  'Boredom. I had to stop work for three months and elected to stay at my godfather's.'

  'Yo
ur godfather being Mr Anderson?'

  She nodded. 'I was examining the broken wall on your side of the garden when you came along and took it for granted I'd come in answer to your advert. I was amused at the assumptions you made about me, and decided to go along with it. It seemed a fun way of passing the time.'

  'A very fun way,' he grunted. 'I'm beginning to remember some of the things I said to you.'

  '"Butter-fingers" really cut me to the quick!' she made herself laugh. 'And I didn't much care for your casting aspersions on my ability to use a knife!'

  'You deserved it, the way you led me up the garden path!'

  'I hope you've forgiven me?'

  'If you've forgiven me.'

  'Of course. And, for the record, I'm twenty-seven, not eighteen.'

  'You'd make a great fiction writer.'

  The ease with which he accepted her explanation and made no reference to the passion they had shared reawakened her pain. Limbo hadn't lasted long, she thought wryly, and knew it was going to be a long while before she could think of her stay in the country without heartache.

  'How much longer will you be on holiday?' Patrick asked. 'I won't suggest you continue being our general dogsbody!'

  'I should think not! That's another reason I wanted to speak to you before: to tell you I'm returning to London. I'm fit as a flea and will feel guilty if I take any longer off.'

  'A dedicated professional, first and foremost,' he commented.

  Her eyes flew to his, but there was no sarcasm in them. 'My work means a lot to me,' she said, grateful he didn't know that behind her calm facade she was weeping for the might-have-beens, the husband she would never have, the children she would never succour.

  In silence they drove a few miles, and she tried not to think that after tonight she wasn't likely to see him again, would never hear his voice, never breathe in the smell of him.

  'Ingrid owes you her life,' he said suddenly.

  'That's overly dramatic. Any surgeon could have done what I did.'

  'Not according to Mr Morgan. He was in the intensive unit and I had a word with him. He praised you to the skies.'

  'Professional etiquette,' she said hurriedly.

  'Why so modest?' Patrick asked. 'The Tessa I knew would have been far less so.'

  'But you didn't know the real Tessa,' she flashed.

  'Too true.'

  Nor did I know the real Patrick, she thought bitterly, and was glad when the car stopped outside Greentrees.

  'Perhaps you'd make my goodbyes to everyone at the Hall,' she ventured.

  'If that's what you wish. But I know they'd like the chance of endorsing my thanks for what you did today. I do hope you'll have dinner with us tomorrow night?'

  'I'm afraid I can't. I'm leaving for London first thing tomorrow, and I want an early night.' She stepped from the car.

  'You don't delay once you make up your mind.' Patrick came to stand beside her.

  'Neither do you, I imagine.' She unlocked the front door. 'We both put our work first.'

  'At least I also find time to play!' he teased. 'Though, come to think of it, you weren't averse to playing a bit either!'

  Tessa's breath caught in her throat. At last he had referred to their lovemaking, though from his drawling tone she wished he hadn't.

  'How ungallant of you to remind me, Patrick. But you kept talking to me like Methuselah, and I decided, to call your bluff.'

  'Seems as if we were both having a bit of fun,' he chuckled.

  Had she wanted final confirmation of his feelings, she had it now, and it was an effort to keep a tremor from her voice as she spoke.

  Tin so pleased you're taking the hoax in such good part.'

  'I can't do otherwise. In your place I might have done the same.'

  'You'd make a very bad Man Friday!' She pushed open the front door and moved away from him. 'Don't overwork, though. In the end it can be non-productive.'

  'Yes, Doctor.' His laugh drifted behind him as he returned to the station-wagon. 'I hope you won't forget to listen to your own advice.'

  'I won't,' she promised, and made herself stay where she was until the tail-lights disappeared into the darkness.

  Only then did she enter the house and close the door, leaning against it as if it could give her strength.

  'My love,' she whispered. 'My lost love.'

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  'Tessa, what a surprise! You look marvellous!' was Sir Denis's instant comment when he entered his consulting-rooms at the hospital and saw Tessa talking to his secretary. 'In town for the day?' he enquired, leading her into his room.

  'In town permanently.' She was delighted her appearance didn't pity her. 'I'm fighting fit and ready to start work.'

  Lips pursed, he surveyed her, and, as if satisfied with what he saw, nodded agreement. 'I hope there's a young man in the offing?'

  'Afraid not. I just relaxed and read and ate.'

  'Ah, well, as long you don't slip back into your old routine and take on too much.'

  'You're a fine one to talk,' she chided. 'Your workload is worse than mine.'

  'But when I switch off, I do so completely. You're inclined to come in and find extra work.'

  'Not any more, I won't,' she assured him. 'I've learned my lesson.'

  Despite this avowal, Tessa slipped into the frenetic hospital routine as though she had never left it and, once back into the swing of things,' found it impossible to switch off, a fact which Sir Denis noted without comment.

  To be honest she made little effort, considering work her best means of forgetting Patrick.

  Fat chance of that, she conceded at the end of the month, for he came to the forefront of her mind the instant she left the hospital each evening, and only faded from it when she returned there each morning.

  She knew she should make an effort to build a private life, but, since it was impossible to imagine herself with any man other than Patrick, it seemed a pointless exercise. The years stretched before her, with nothing to show for them other than professional accolades and personal aridity.

  Would their story have ended the same way if she had not had a career, or been willing to give it up for marriage? But that was presupposing Patrick's relationship with Ingrid was over. Yet, even if it were, the question was worthless, for her work was an integral part of her life, and she could no more abandon it than stop breathing.

  Their only hope of a future together would have been for Patrick to have made the adjustment—not easy, bearing in mind his much-vaunted objection to working wives.

  In reality her career would have created little problem for either of them. He put in long hours of concentrated effort, and she could as easily have spent that lime in hospital as whiling it away in his house, where his staff ran everything with clockwork precision.

  Yet such thoughts were pie in the sky. There was no chance of his changing his thinking, because he didn't love her. If he did, he would have found a reason to contact her.

  Gradually, as the weeks turned into months, there were entire days when she didn't think of him. At this rate, she'd forget him completely within a few years!

  In the middle of October, Mrs Benson telephoned to say Henry was going into the veterinary hospital in London to have an operation on his hip.

  'I took him there this morning, and they will be operating on him tomorrow.'

  'Poor Henry. Do they think he'll make a complete recovery?'

  'He'll be as good as new, they said. But they'll be keeping him there for two weeks, and I was hoping you——-'

  'Don't worry, Mrs B., I'll visit him twice a week.'

  'You're a good girl, Tessa. I'll come to see him too, and if we fit in with each other he'll see a face he knows nearly every day.'

  Talking to Mrs Benson made Tessa realise how much she missed Greentrees and her godfather. He was still in New Zealand and proposed spending the worst part of the British winter there.

  'Why not fly out and join me for Christmas?' he had suggested, and,
though she hadn't agreed to go, she was toying with the idea.

  It was out of the question for her to go to Greentrees. She might not necessarily bump into Patrick, but simply being near his home would be unbearable. She'd have to come to terms with this when Uncle Martin returned in March, but as of now her emotional stability was too fragile for her to put further strain on it.

  In her efforts to stop thinking of him, she sought out old friends from medical school. The only trouble with this was that many of them were married and did their best to pair her off with the unattached men they knew. Unfortunately she automatically compared each one with Patrick—finding him infinitely handsomer and more intelligent. None the less, she compelled herself to accept every reasonable invitation proffered her. After all, it was childish to assume only one man was suitable for her!

  She had almost convinced herself she was totally recovered when she picked up an evening paper and saw Patrick's face smiling out of it. It appeared his company had won an export award, and there was talk of his receiving a knighthood. Ingrid was going to cling to him like a limpet—if they weren't already married!

  Tessa scanned the article, but found no mention of a wife—no mention of anything personal, in fact, for it concentrated on his brilliant technological achievements.

  Scrunching the paper, she threw it into the waste-paper basket, but an hour later she retrieved it and did her best to straighten it out, staring hungrily into the fine-boned face, with its thin but shapely mouth, long, firm nose and deep-set eyes. Despite this flashbulb shot, his charm was tangible, and a wave of such desolation washed over her that she was swamped by it.

  The following day she was glad to find she had a heavier than usual operating schedule, for it left her no opportunity for moping, and it was well past eight o'clock when she returned to her consulting-room, hungry and exhausted, and sank into an easy chair.

  Kicking off her pumps, she wriggled her toes, sighing with pleasure as she did. Then she reached for the thermos of coffee left for her by her secretary, and poured herself a cup. A plate of smoked salmon sandwiches, cling-wrapped and inviting, awaited her too, but for the moment she was too tired to eat. Instead she sipped the hot coffee and mulled over the day.