by Joan Wolf
Like a good soldier, Meg responded to his command and climbed over the seat into the back. “Okay!” she said. He put the car into a lower gear to slow it, and it did slow at first. But then it bucked and swerved and headed toward a truck that was parked next to the curb. Harry fought the steering wheel but could not get control of the car. His last thought before they crashed was, Tracy.
He woke up in the hospital with an IV in his arm, a bandage on his head, and a skull-splitting headache.
“What happened?” he asked the nurse who was doing something with the IV. His voice came out like a croak.
“You were in a car accident, my lord,” she said soothingly. “You’ve a bad concussion, but you’re going to be fine.”
He had no memory of the crash. “Was I alone?”
“Lady Margaret was with you, my lord.”
Christ. “Is she all right?”
“She is fine. In fact, she has been waiting for you to wake up so she can see you.”
“Was anybody else hurt?”
“No, my lord, just you.”
Well, that’s something, he thought.
“My head hurts,” he said.
“That’s the concussion, my lord. The doctor wanted to know when you woke up, so I’ll just go and get him, shall I?” She gave him a cheery smile and left the room.
Hell, Harry thought. An auto accident. Why can’t I remember?
He was staring up at the ceiling, concentrating on enduring the pain in his head, when Meg appeared at his side. She was followed by Tracy.
Meg had initially tried to get hold of Tony, but hadn’t been able to. Her next thought had been to try Tracy, and her call to Gail’s cell phone had found Tracy in her dressing room taking off her makeup. Tracy had said she would come.
The twenty-minute ride to the hospital had been a nightmare for Tracy. She could not get out of her mind the words of Scotty’s doctor when she had got to the hospital. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Collins, but the fire was too intense for anyone to get to him.
Harry can’t be dead. She said it like a mantra the whole time she was parking the car and running to the hospital door. Harry can’t be dead. God wouldn't do this to me again. Harry can't be dead.
A hospital administrator met her in the lobby and her first words were, “Is he alive?”
“Oh yes, Miss Collins, it’s not as bad as that,” the gray-suited man replied reassuringly.
She shut her eyes. Thank you, God. Oh thank you, God.
They had put Meg in a private waiting room, and when Tracy came in she jumped up and ran to her. “Tracy! Thank God you’ve come. I can’t find out anything about Harry. They took him away as soon as the ambulance got to hospital. They finished checking me out an hour ago, but no one’s told me anything about Harry!”
There were shadows like bruises under Meg’s blue eyes. She looked incredibly fragile.
“Let’s sit down, and you can tell me exactly what happened.” Tracy said steadily. Meg followed her to the sofa, sat a trifle awkwardly, and recounted the whole ordeal, from the failing of the brakes to the crash.
“I… I think Harry hit his head on the steering wheel.” Meg began to cry. “It was so scary. Harry was unconscious, and I thought I should get him out of the car in case it went on fire, but I couldn’t budge him from behind the wheel. Then some men came running, and they did get him out. Then the ambulance came and brought us here.”
At the mention of fire, Tracy felt sick to her stomach. She said unsteadily, “Did Harry wake up in the ambulance?”
“N… no,” Meg said. Her tears were coming faster. “They wheeled him away, and no one’s told me what’s happening.”
“I’ll go and find out right now,” Tracy said. Then she reached out and put her hand on Meg’s knee. “How about you, Meggie? Are you all right?”
“I have some bruised ribs from the seat belt, but otherwise I’m fine.”
Tracy stood up. “Okay. Wait here.”
She went to the nurses’ station and, after a minute or two returned to tell Meg, “The doctor is coming to talk to us. Harry’s conscious, Meg, so that’s good news.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“I don’t know the extent of his injuries. We’ll have to wait for the doctor.”
They had barely reestablished themselves upon the sofa before the door opened to admit a tall, rangy, middle-aged man with gray hair and washed-out blue eyes. He looked at Meg, and said immediately, “His Lordship is going to be fine, Lady Margaret. He has a concussion, and we want to keep him overnight, but nothing appears to be broken.”
At this good news, Meg once more began to sob. “Oh thank God, thank God.”
Tracy said, “I am Tracy Collins, Doctor, and Fm a friend of His Lordship. Is it possible for us to see him?”
The doctor nodded his stately gray head. “Certainly. As I said before, he has a concussion and should be quiet, so I would ask you not to stay for too long.”
“I understand.”
The three of them walked along a confusing maze of corridors until finally the doctor stopped outside a numbered door. “He’s in here. I’ll send a nurse to fetch you if you’re too long.”
Tracy nodded that she understood and motioned for Meg to precede her into the room. She waited until she heard Harry’s voice before she herself slipped inside.
He had an IV in his arm and a bandage on his forehead and his eyes looked almost black in the pallor of his face. Meg was standing beside his bed saying, “I’m fine. It’s you who are hurt, Harry.”
“It’s just a little bump on the head,” he replied soothingly, and then he noticed that Tracy had come into the room. His concussion-dilated eyes met hers, and he said her name. He did not seem surprised to see her.
Her heart turned over in her breast. She walked to the bed and had to forcibly restrain herself from touching his hair. “Meg said your brakes failed.”
“Yes.” He frowned, and said fretfully, “I can’t remember a damn thing, though.”
Meg, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed from Tracy, said tearfully, “You made me get into the backseat, Harry. You saved my life. The f… front seat where I was s… sitting took the worst part of the crash.”
Slowly he turned his eyes from Tracy to his sister. “You’re sure you weren’t hurt?”
“Just some bruised ribs from the seat belt.”
He let out a slow careful breath. He had not yet moved his head. “Have you contacted Tony?” he asked his sister.
“No.” Meg fished a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “I called the house, but he wasn’t there. So I called Tracy, and she came.”
The dilated black eyes looked back at Tracy. “Thank you.”
Tracy said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to find out where they took your car. I think a mechanic should go over it to see why the brakes failed.”
His face didn’t change. “Get Ian Poole to look at it. Meggie will give you his number.”
Their eyes locked, and Tracy felt the connection between them so strongly that the sensation was almost physical.
“Don’t worry,” she said, answering what she was certain were his two main concerns. “I’ll take care of Meg, and I’ll get the car looked at. You, in the meanwhile, need to rest.”
As if on cue, a nurse appeared at the doorway to announce bossily, “I’m afraid it’s time for you to leave. His Lordship needs quiet.”
“Good-bye, Harry,” Meg said, bending down to give her brother a kiss on his cheek. “I’m so sorry that you’re hurt.”
“Get Tony to take you to see Beth tomorrow,” he ordered. “I don’t want you to fall into a funk about this, Meggie. It won’t be good for your health.”
She scowled. “I’ll be fine.”
“Promise me you will go to see Beth,” he said.
She gave a loud, elaborate sigh. “Oh, all right. I’ll go and see her. But I’m okay, really.”
He nodded, and a deep line appeared between his brows, as if t
he slight movement had produced pain. Tracy, abruptly deciding that she didn’t care what he would think, bent down and lightly kissed his hair above the bandage. It felt thick and soft under her lips. And then the nurse was ushering her out the door.
It was when Meg winced as she got into the front seat of the Mercedes that Tracy realized she was in pain. “Are you certain you didn’t break anything?”
“Yes. They took X rays.”
Privately, Tracy thought it was a miracle that those fragile bones hadn’t snapped right in two. “You were lucky,” she said out loud.
Meg sniffled. “I keep thinking that if I hadn’t been there, Harry could have put the car in low gear even sooner. He waited to make sure I was in the backseat.”
Tracy had turned the engine on, but instead of driving off, she rested her arm along the back of the seat and looked at Meg. “Your life is very important to him. I think he demonstrated very clearly today just how much he loves you. And I think you owe it to him to try to get better.”
Without waiting for an answer, she put both hands on the wheel and began to back out of the parking space.
Silence reigned as Tracy drove away from the hospital through the slanting rain. Then Meg said in a low voice, “What are you going to do about the car?”
“Find out from the police where it was taken and get it to this Ian Poole. Where can I find him?”
“Poole Garage is in Silverbridge village. Harry and Ian Poole are friends. Ian always looks after our cars.”
“Then, when we get back to the house, I’ll find out where the car is and call and ask Ian Poole to examine it. If he’s the one who’s supposedly taking care of it, I imagine he’d like to know how the brakes came to fail so catastrophically.”
“It’s an old car,” Meg said. “Tony is always after Harry to get a new one.”
“It’s not that old, and it’s a Mercedes. If it was properly looked after, the brakes shouldn’t go like that.”
“Well,” Meg said, “they did.”
“True.” Tracy smiled reassuringly. “And we must be grateful that neither you nor Harry was seriously injured.”
Meg said gloomily, “Now Harry will have to buy a new car, and that’s an expense he wasn’t counting on. I should have got Mrs. Wilson to drive me to see Beth.”
“Meg, this accident was not your fault! If there was something wrong with the brakes, they would have failed the next time Harry took the car out, no matter where he was going and who he was with. And the resulting accident could have been much worse—perhaps even fatal. Please don’t try to take the blame for this.”
“I just feel guilty,” Meg said in a small voice.
Tracy’s own voice softened. “I know, and you have to try to overcome that feeling if you want to get better. You are a lovely young woman, and your brother was willing to risk his life for you because he loves you. And he loves you because you are worth loving. The accident happened because the brakes failed, not because of anything you did. Keep telling yourself that, Meggie, because it’s true.”
In the same small voice, Meg replied, “I’ll try.”
When Tracy and Meg arrived back at Silverbridge it was to find the first floor of the mansion overrun by movie people. Scaffolding was being erected, and lights and cameras were being positioned. Meg was intrigued by the transformation and went to take a look around all of the rooms while Tracy went upstairs to use the telephone. She had just finished making arrangements with Ian Poole to have Harry’s car towed to his garage, when Tony came in.
He smiled at Tracy. She had not turned on any lamps and, with his silver-blond hair, his golden tan, and his drop-dead good looks, he looked like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy morning room. “Were you washed out of your shoot?” he asked.
“We got one print in before the rains came,” she replied. She replaced the phone book she had been using in a drawer of the antique French desk upon which the telephone stood. “Have you heard about the accident?”
His blue eyes clouded slightly. “Accident? What accident?”
“Harry and Meg were in a car crash this afternoon.”
She could have sworn his surprise and concern were genuine. “Are they hurt?”
“Harry’s in the hospital with a concussion, and Meg has some bruised ribs.”
“My God.” He took a few steps closer to her. “What happened?”
As Tracy recounted the scenario of Harry’s accident, she watched Tony’s face. Nothing on that perfect facade seemed amiss. He looked genuinely concerned, and the questions he asked were legitimate and intelligent.
Finally, “I don’t know why Harry insisted on hanging on to that ancient car,” he said with exasperation.
“Meg says he doesn’t have the money to buy a new one,” Tracy replied.
“Meg may buy that story, but I don’t. He always has the money to buy a new horse.” His lips set into a hard line, and for a brief moment he resembled his brother. “If he would only be sensible and take Robin Mauley’s offer, he would have enough money to buy himself a dozen horses and a brand-new car as well!”
Tracy watched carefully as she said, “He wants to keep his land.”
“I know.” An expression of contempt flitted across Tony’s perfectly tanned face. “Harry is an anachronism. He still thinks land is important. Well, it’s not. The house is but the acreage is negligible. The days of the great land-owning aristocrat are long over—Harry just hasn’t tumbled to that fact yet.”
Before Tracy could form a reply, Meg came into the room. “Tony!” she cried. “Did Tracy tell you about the accident?”
He turned to her, “Yes, she did. Poor little Meggie. How are your ribs feeling?’
“They hurt, but I don’t think they hurt as much as Harry’s head. He looked white as a sheet, Tony.”
Tony did not look overly worried. “He’ll be fine, Meggie. Harry has a hard head.” There was a moment of silence before he added sardonically, “As I have discovered many times, to my sorrow.”
“Tracy’s having the car checked by Ian Poole to see why the brakes failed,” Meg said.
No trace of alarm showed in Tony’s bearing. Instead he raised his brows, and asked Tracy, “Is that useful? After all, Ian is the one who maintained the car. If he didn’t pick up that the brakes needed replacing, he’s hardly going to come out and blame himself.”
Tracy had thought of that, but she was willing to bet that Ian Poole wasn’t to blame for Harry’s accident “We’ll wait and see what he has to say.”
Tony shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And he exited gracefully in the direction of his room.
17
Harry's head still ached when he awoke the following morning, although the ringing in his ears had subsided somewhat. He drank some tea for breakfast but refused the food. All he wanted was to get out of the hospital.
“The doctor will be in shortly, Your Lordship,” the nurse told him. “In the meanwhile, it will be best for you to remain quiet.”
Harry bit back a sarcastic reply. She’s only doing her job. Be patient. Out loud he said, “Is this telephone hooked up?”
“Yes, my lord, it is.”
“Good. I have a call to make.”
The expression on the thin, middle-aged face of the nurse said clearly that she did not approve. Rank had its advantages, however, and she didn’t quite have the nerve to tell the Earl of Silverbridge that he couldn’t use the telephone.
Harry had a difficult time reading the numbers on the phone. They didn’t seem to be staying still and had an annoying habit of dissolving as he tried to focus on them. Eventually, however, he managed to dial the number he wanted. The phone was picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello,” Harry said. “This is Silverbridge. Is Ian there?”
A young male voice answered, “Yes, my lord. I’ll fetch him right away.”
Ian must have been under a car or something because it took him almost five minutes to get to the phone. When Harry heard his familiar voice, he c
losed his eyes. He had to know what had happened to the car, but he was afraid to hear it. “Did you get a chance to look at the car, Ian?” he asked steadily.
“I did,” the mechanic said. “That was no accident, Harry. The brake lines were cut.”
Why am I not surprised?
“How can you be sure?”
“First of all, I maintained that car, and I would have noticed if the brake lines were wearing. Second, they weren’t shredded and frayed, the way they would have been through natural deterioration. The cuts were clean, as if done with a knife. I expect whoever did this didn’t slice all the way through, just enough to ensure that the lines would eventually blow when you applied the brakes.”
Harry’s headache seemed to have doubled in intensity. “I see.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He breathed carefully in and out “At the moment, nothing. This is something I’m going to have to take care of myself.”
Ian was doubtful. “Are you sure? It looks to me as if someone just tried to kill you.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Harry repeated. “How about the car, Ian? Is it salvageable?”
“No, I’m afraid it’s not. The cost of repairing it wouldn’t be worth the money.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Harry replied gloomily. After another brief exchange, he rang off, rested his aching head against his pillow, stared at a long crack in the ceiling, and thought about his situation. Someone had burned down his stable, and someone had cut the brake lines on his car. The probability was that the same person was responsible for both acts of sabotage. It was hard enough to imagine that he had one enemy, let alone two.
It must be connected to the sale of the land, he thought. First Mauley had the stable burned down, so that I would need money immediately. Then, when that didn’t work, he tried to do away with me altogether. If I die, Tony will be the earl, and Tony would sell the land to Mauley in a shot.
It was hard to believe that a reputable real estate magnate such as Robin Mauley would go to such drastic lengths to get his hands on Silverbridge land. But Harry couldn’t think of any other motive for the acts of sabotage that had occurred within two days of each other. At that moment, the partially closed door to his room was pushed open, and Tracy walked in. Harry’s heart lifted as he looked at her. Once more he felt the feather-light touch of her lips on his hair last night.