by Penny Jordan
‘Go to hell!’ Genista choked bitterly, hating him for a brief moment.
‘If I do I’ll make damn sure I take you with me,’ Luke replied savagely. ‘I’m not going to rape you, Genista. It will be much more subtle than that.’
‘Save it for Verity,’ Genista told him bitterly. ‘You and she are both in the same league, and it’s one which I’m thankful to say I don’t aspire to!’
She heard him leave while she was still upstairs. He had left her without a backward glance. Going back to Verity, she imagined. He had probably only come home in the first place to warn her that he wanted her to leave. The scene she had just endured must be the lingering effect of their first meeting. He had dented his pride badly on that occasion, and the need to be revenged still drove him. Every time Verity teased him and left him unsatisfied—and Genista suspected that she was the kind of woman who would enjoy adopting such tactics—would she be used as a substitute, a sex object, taken without pity or love? She shuddered deeply, then retched emptily and shivered with mingled fear and nausea. She couldn’t allow that to happen, but if she stayed here there was no way she could avoid it. She still loved Luke, and no matter how strong her will when she was alone, he only had to look at her for her bones to turn to water, for all her resolve to fade and her treacherous body to yearn for his touch.
She told Lucy she was going to London. The girl’s face dropped when Genista explained that she could not take her with her. She packed mechanically, stowing her case in the boot of her Mercedes, and bending to hug Lucy impulsively before she climbed into her car.
She would ring Lucy from London to explain to her that she wasn’t coming back. It would be hard, but far harder to tell her now, face to face.
The country road was virtually empty, but Genista concentrated on her driving as she always did. Later she was to reflect that her guardian angel must indeed have been watching over her, but as she took the fork which led to the motorway Luke was occupying her mind to the exclusion of everything else.
She saw the child at the same moment as she saw the lorry. She had only a split second to make the decision—a moment of choice between the safety of the child and the safety of herself—but really it was no choice at all.
She heard the protesting screech of the lorry’s tyres, felt the impact as she hit it head on, the sickening crunch of metal, the screams and then the silence punctuated only by the thin, high sound of a child crying. Not her child, please God, she prayed hazily as she fought against the beating wings of darkness, and for the first time in her life felt consciousness slip away.
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU’RE a very lucky young woman,’ the doctor pronounced cheerfully, lifting her wrist and taking her pulse. ‘That’s what comes of driving a sensibly built car, I suppose. Had you been behind the wheel of one of those sardine cans that pass for modern cars, I doubt you’d be lying here all in one piece. That was a very brave thing you did,’ he added a little more gently, ‘and a certain six-year-old has you to thank for her life.’
Genista was lying on a trolley in the casualty ward of the hospital the ambulance had brought her to following the accident. A nurse had come to assure her briskly that she was not to worry. Someone had taken away her clothes and handbag and now she was lying on this narrow, high bed, dressed in a hospital gown, while the young casualty doctor prodded and poked.
‘Doctor…’ At her hesitant tone he stopped examining the bruises beneath her ribs where her seat-belt had tightened and looked up at her.
Genista licked her lips nervously. From the moment she regained consciousness one thought had possessed her to the exclusion of everything else.
‘I think I might be pregnant,’ she said huskily. ‘Will I…the baby…’
‘How long?’ the doctor asked her quickly. When Genista told him, he relaxed a little. ‘You might just be lucky,’ he told her frankly. ‘Another few weeks and I would say that a shock such as the one you’ve just sustained would almost definitely bring on a spontaneous abortion, but because your pregnancy has only just started you could be okay. We’ll keep you in for a few days, just to be on the safe side, though. Try not to worry.’
That was easier said than done, Genista thought half an hour later, as the nurse made up a bed for her in the women’s ward.
‘Try not to worry,’ the girl comforted her, unconsciously echoing the doctor’s words. ‘Your husband should be here soon. Sister has been in touch with him.’
‘Luke!’ Genista’s stomach muscles contracted painfully. She had forgotten that the hospital would contact him as her next of kin. Would he realise that she had been leaving him? And if he did would he be glad?
She realised that the drink the nurse had given must have contained some sort of tranquilliser, for minutes after she had finished it a numbing drowsiness came over her.
‘Try and sleep,’ the nurse advised her. ‘It will do you good—you and your baby. It’s nature’s most effective cure.’
When Genista woke up she was conscious of various aches and pains all over her body from her bruises. There was a screen round her bed, and she could smell roses. She turned her head slowly, wincing a little at the pain from her jarred spine. There was a huge vase of red roses beside her bed, and sitting motionless in the chair next to it was Luke.
‘How do you feel?’
It seemed to Genista that he was under a great strain. No doubt Verity had not been pleased when he left her to come to the hospital, but he was the type of man who would insist on carrying out what he considered to be his duty.
‘The police tell me you had a lucky escape,’ he added.
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and Genista watched it hazily, wondering if, for one moment, when they brought him the news, he had wished that fate had decreed otherwise.
‘The lorry driver was full of praise for your quick thinking. You know you could have been killed?’
‘I couldn’t save my own life at the cost of that little girl’s.’ Weak tears slid down her cheeks, as her hands moved unconsciously to hold her flat stomach with protective fear.
‘The doctor tells me you’re pregnant.’
The emotionless words gave her no clue as to his own thoughts. The child she was carrying might have had nothing at all to do with him, to judge from his distant manner.
‘I take it you want to keep the child.’ He was studying the roses next to her bed, not looking at her at all. Red roses, Genista thought bitterly; a sop to convention, exactly the sort of flowers the nurses would expect a man to bring to the wife who had narrowly escaped death and was carrying his first child.
‘Yes.’
Her own voice sounded flat and dead. A whole world had been encompassed by that one small word, because having Luke’s baby would catapult her into a new life.
‘God, what a mess!’ The bitter vehemence of the words brought Genista’s head up abruptly. Luke was still pale, his jaw clenched in an anger which seemed to be directed more at himself than her.
‘The doctor wants to keep you in hospital for a few days—to run a few checks and make sure that you’re suffering from nothing more than severe bruising. Once he’s pronounced you fit to leave I’m taking you home.’ As though he anticipated her arguments he continued brusquely, ‘I know you were leaving me, Genista—and why, but I’m not letting you go back to that apartment on your own.’
His insistence that she returned home with him was merely another sop to convention; another example of his determination to do the correct thing, no matter what the cost to himself or anyone else. He couldn’t want her in his house—not now. Verity would be furious. And how could she herself endure the torture of living with Luke and yet knowing that all the time he longed to be with someone else?
‘I can manage,’ she protested. ‘It’s better this way, Luke.’ Tears filled her eyes, her voice suspended by the huge lump of pain in her throat. ‘I appreciate that you feel obliged to take care of me, but…’
‘But you’d rather go
to Bob, despite the fact that it’s my child you’re carrying, is that it?’ Luke ground out furiously, leaving the chair to pace the narrow confines of the bed. ‘No way, Genista,’ he told her brutally. ‘You’re coming home with me, otherwise I’ll tell the doctor that you’re going back to an empty flat, and you’ll find yourself staying here even longer.’
She didn’t have the strength to argue with him. It was far easier simply to lie back and let him dictate to her. And anyway, deep down inside, wasn’t there still a small spark of hope, flickering on despite the fact that it should have long ago been quenched? She was carrying Luke’s child, and although she couldn’t pretend to herself that he loved her the way he loved Verity, mightn’t he…Mightn’t he what? she derided herself, her thoughts trailing to an abrupt stop. Mightn’t he turn his back on Verity for the sake of a child he hadn’t even known he had fathered? For the thought to even cross her mind was ridiculously romantic, and surely a recipe for disaster. What had love brought her to, that she was willing to contemplate such a union just to have Luke near to her?
When the bell went, signalling the end of visiting time, Luke paused by her bed, staring enigmatically down at her, a strange expression in his eyes…almost as though he wanted to touch her but daren’t. She was imagining things again, Genista told herself, letting her own love for him trap her into seeing what she longed to see. He bent his head and his lips brushed her cheek—the sort of caress any man might give his wife in public, but it wasn’t the sort of kiss Genista wanted, and her lips trembled unhappily.
It was difficult adapting to hospital life, perhaps because she was not truly ill enough to appreciate the care. Jilly came to see her one afternoon, dropping gratefully into a chair.
‘Mm, lovely!’ she commented appreciatively, sniffing Genista’s roses. ‘No need to ask who those are from. Luke was in the office when the news came through—talk about seeing someone stripped of all their defences! He looked like a man who’s just been told he’s lost all that matters to him in life.’
Genista smiled mechanically. Poor Jilly—if only she knew the truth!
Jilly said nothing about the baby, and Genista did not mention it either. The doctor had assured her that the danger was over, but she wanted to keep the news to herself. She doubted that she would see much of Jilly once she parted from Luke. She could hardly call at the office!
Genista had another visitor later that afternoon. Jilly stayed only a few minutes and once she had gone Genista drowsed lazily, paying no attention as the click of high heels approached her bed.
‘I want to talk to you.’
The voice and the familiar smell of Opium reached her at the same time. Her eyes flew open, her heart contracting in dread as she saw Verity staring down at her. The other woman was dressed in a blue silk two-piece, looking so elegant that Genista was not surprised to see the rest of the ward watching them covertly. In contrast she felt that she had never looked worse. The accident had robbed her of her normal energy. Her skin was pale from being indoors, her hair lacking in its normal vitality. Next to Verity she felt plain and dowdy.
‘Quite the little heroine, aren’t we?’ Verity hissed contemptuously. ‘Well, it won’t work, you know. Oh, Luke will take you back out of a sense of duty—more fool him. But it won’t last. Have you no pride?’ she demanded. ‘Can you honestly contemplate sharing the bed of a man who you know wants to be with someone else? Oh, I know you love him! But if you think you have any chance of keeping him you’re a fool. You might love Luke, but he loves me, and if you had any self-respect you’d make sure he wasn’t forced into the situation of telling you so himself!’
For a long time after Verity had gone Genista lay staring into nothing.
Verity was right: she must refuse to go back with Luke. It would be better for both of them!
He had visited her every evening, and as the fingers of the clock crept round towards visiting time Genista’s tension increased. She would be firm, but cool. She would not betray by a muscle how much she longed to go home with him. She would remind him that she had not wanted to marry him, and that he had never pretended it was a proper marriage.
By the time the clock struck seven she had convinced herself that she would be able to persuade him that she was right. However, she had not bargained for the fact that he had brought Lucy with him—a Lucy who confided delightedly to Genista that her parents were flying over that evening and the three of them were to spend the rest of her half term in London, sightseeing.
It could not be purely coincidence that in Lucy’s presence Luke seemed far less austere, Genista reflected. He laughed and teased the younger girl, and at one point his fingers touched hers as he leaned across her bed. Genista withdrew from the contact immediately, but Luke’s hand covered hers, clasping it lightly and curling it into his palm. When they got up to leave he raised her fingers to his lips, kissing them briefly before telling her that the doctor had told him that she could leave the hospital in the morning.
‘You’ll have to take things easy for a few days,’ he warned her. ‘Mrs Meadows has agreed to come in full time until you’re feeling better.’
If she had any real backbone, she’d discharge herself from the hospital before Luke came back, Genista remonstrated with herself after he had gone. But would it do any good? He seemed determined to take responsibility for her, and she, weak fool that she was, badly wanted the memory of these last few days with him. In another week she would be feeling much better, far more able to do what she knew she had to do.
Luke insisted that she sit in the back of the car. Getting into it brought back memories of the accident, and for a moment she thought she was actually going to faint, but then Luke was beside her, his arms closing round her as he held her comfortingly for a moment.
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s only to be expected. The doctor warned me of the possible traumatic effect of being in the car, but it’s something you’ll have to face sooner or later.’
Luke was an excellent driver, and Genista felt quite safe, or so she told herself until they reached a junction and a careless driver shot out in front of them. Even though she was sitting in the back, she ‘braked’ automatically.
The car stopped suddenly, and through her nausea Genista heard Luke swear, before he climbed out and the door slammed.
She was shaking from head to toe, and made no attempt to resist when he opened the door and slid in beside her, taking her in his arms and cradling her as though she were a frightened child. It was heaven to be held so close to him, to feel the warmth of his body and smell its familiar sharp odour. Telling herself that she was a fool, Genista closed her eyes and clung ashamedly to the broad warmth of his shoulders, quivering under the soothing touch of his hands stroking down her spine. Burying her face in the open neck of his shirt was an automatic reaction, as was breathing deeply the clean, male smell of his skin. She wanted these moments never to end, but at last Luke put her away from him, his jaw clenching as he looked down at her.
‘I’m a man, not a monk, Genista,’ he told her harshly. ‘We both know the danger of what we were just doing.’
He drove on without a word, leaving her to stare blindly out of the car window. Had his words been a subtle reminder that although sexually she might arouse him, his reaction was purely physical, and that it would be Verity of whom he would be thinking if they actually made love?
While he garaged the car, she went upstairs, walking automatically into the room she had shared with Luke. Her case was on the bed, and seeing it reminded her of everything that had happened since she left. She started to unpack automatically, staring white-faced with shock into the wardrobe as she opened the door. Less than a week ago it had held Luke’s suits, next to her dresses—now it was empty.
‘I’ve moved my stuff out,’ Luke told her evenly, walking into the room. ‘In the circumstances—for both our sakes—I thought it better. If you want me, I’ll be within call, and I hope you won’t let what’s happened between us preven
t you from calling me if you need me, Genista. Whatever else I might be guilty of, my desire to do everything I can for you is quite genuine.’
‘I know.’ Her voice sounded husky and strained. She glanced at the large bed she had shared with Luke and would now be occupying alone, willing the tears not to fall.
‘Why don’t you lie down and have a rest?’ Luke suggested. ‘I’ll bring you a drink.’
‘I’m fine,’ Genista replied automatically, and then remembered that he might want to talk to Verity. She owed it to him to be as unobtrusive as possible. After all, he could hardly want her company.
She was undressed and in bed when he came back with a cup of tea.
‘If you want to go to the office…’ she began, thinking to offer him an opportunity of leaving her, but he shook his head decisively,
‘Work can wait. Whatever needs to be done I can do from here. I’m not leaving you alone, Genista. If you can’t sleep, call me. The doctor gave me some sleeping pills for you.’
She pulled a wry face. ‘No, thanks. I’ve had enough pills recently to last me a lifetime.’
It was not strictly true. She had been offered them, but had always refused, thinking of the child growing inside her. The nurses had understood and had not pressed, even on the nights when she lay awake until the early hours of the morning, dreading the emptiness of her future.
She dozed and woke late in the afternoon, breathing in the fresh country air through the open window. Downstairs she could hear a phone ringing and her stomach clenched. Was it Verity, ringing Luke?
To her surprise at seven o’clock he came upstairs with a covered tray which he placed beside her bed, and a bottle of wine.
‘It’s only an omelette,’ he told her, surprising her further. ‘I’m no chef, but Mrs Meadows couldn’t stay this evening. You don’t mind if I eat up here with you, do you?’
Mind? If only he knew!
The omelette was delicious and Genista had drunk two full glasses of wine before she realised it. She felt positively lightheaded; courageous enough to plead breathlessly with Luke to stay with her for another half-hour when he said that it was time she slept, but when he did eventually go she heard him leave the house and the sound of his car, driving away, and she knew beyond any doubt that pity was not and never could be enough!