'But I must know,' Tara insisted. 'Wasn't - are you sure there wasn't anyone else at all?'
'No one,' she was told. 'Only a very contrite and worried young man who's with one of my colleagues in another cubicle, and probably making much the same inquiries about you as you are about him.'
'I see.'
If Clifford was indeed not too badly hurt, she had no need to worry about him, but she wished she could dismiss as easily the vision that kept recurring of Philip's white startled face as they sped past him, and those long, strong hands wrenching at the wheel of his own car, dangerously close to the edge of the long drop.
'Would you like me to go and find out just how your young man is faring?' the doctor asked kindly, and Tara gazed up at her appealingly.
'Oh, please!' she said, and turned her head away from the kindly understanding face when tears of pain and reaction began to roll uncontrollably down her cheeks.
A kindly hand patted hers consolingly and a soft swish of skirts told her that she was alone. It was quite ridiculous to be crying so much, but there seemed to be nothing she could do about it and she lay there for several seconds alone and hearing the sounds of activity beyond the concealing curtains, an industrious to and fro that oddly enough seemed to have a soothing effect.
She heard the curtain opened again after a while, and turned her head hopefully, her face tearful and
childishly pathetic as she stared at the man who stood there in the opening. 'I've been allowed to come and see you for just a few seconds,' Philip said, in his soft, quiet voice, and he hesitated to come any further into the cubicle.
Tara swallowed hard, the tears starting anew as she gazed across at the dark familiar face and saw that he was perhaps a little paler than usual, but showed no signs of having been hurt at all. 'Philip! Oh, Philip, I thought—' She tried to say more, but relief choked her and she held out her hands instinctively while the tears coursed down her face, blinding her for the time it took him to cross the few feet to the couch.
He took her hands in his, holding them tightly in his strong fingers, seeking to comfort her, then he held them with his left hand against his chest while his other hand gently brushed back the hair from her bandaged forehead. She was crying uncontrollably, mostly with relief, but Philip did not realize that.
'Now that's enough,' he said softly, but with pseudo-sternness. 'No one's any worse than shaken and bruised, except you.' The soothing fingers smoothed her hair back in a slow, caressing movement that was almost hypnotic, and filled her with the strangest sensations. 'You poor little baby,' he whispered. 'You came off worst. Ssh now, Tara! It's all right, it's all right!'
Tara wanted nothing so much as someone to cling to at that moment, someone to hold her tightly, and being denied that comfort, she turned her face into the hard pillow on the hospital bed and sobbed miserably, 'I - I
want to - to—'
'Tara, you mustn't cry so!' He sat on the edge of the high bed and put an arm over her protectively, then, as if acting purely on some in'esistible instinct, he raised her from the thin pillow and held her close against him, his arms strong and reassuring, his voice soft against her cheek. 'Please don't cry so, Tara, you'll make your poor head worse.' Briefly his lips were pressed to her tear-wet face tenderly. 'Don't cry, sweetheart, please!'
Tara sobbed for a while, finding relief in her tears and an ansver to some emotional need in the strength of Philip's arms around her, then she gave a great shuddering sigh at last and looked up at him. There were dark shadows beneath his black eyes and tight lines round his mouth, but he was smiling faintly at her and she felt her heart thudding a sudden warning which she determined to ignore.
'I - I thought you'd gone over the edge - over the edge of the road,' she told him, in a husky, unsteady voice that she scarcely recognized as hers.
Philip's smile widened, bringing warmth to his black eyes as he looked down at her. 'I'm sorry to disappoint you,' he told her softly, his tone gently taunting her fears. 'Is that why you're crying? Because I didn't finish up in the valley?'
'Oh, Philip!'
She looked up at him reproachfully, wishing she knew exactly what her reactions meant, and he shook his head slowly, one hand gently stroking the side of her face. 'I'm sorry, Tara,'
'I - is Clifford badly hurt?' Her inquiry was anxious, if belated, and Philip's frown was swift and condemning as he tightened his mouth sharply.
'He's better than he has any right to expect,' he said shortly. 'He should have broken his damned neck, driving like that!'
'Oh no!'
He looked at her for a moment with glittering eyes, then smiled again slowly, lowering her back on to the pillow again and smoothing back her hair. 'Well perhaps not,' he allowed. 'But he's getting a lot less sympathy from the policeman who's with him now than he is from you!'
'Policeman!' Tara echoed, her eyes wide and startled. Her head was throbbing painfully and she found it hard to concentrate on anything, but she could understand easily enough, how serious it could be for Clifford if the police were taking an interest.
'Of course,' Philip said, and looked at her curiously. 'You didn't think a crash like that could just be swept up and forgotten, did you?'
'I - I never thought.' She looked up at him, suddenly suspicious, but hoping she was wrong. 'Did - did you send for them?'
His smile, she thought, held a tinge of regret for her suspicion, but he shook his head. 'No, Tara, I didn't. I didn't have to - there was another car coming from the opposite direction. That's why I tried to stop Clifford from passing me on that bend. I could see the other car and I knew he couldn't.'
Tara had visions of worse disaster suddenly and she
looked at him anxiously. 'Was - was there anyone else hurt? In the other car?'
'No, no one, fortunately.' He smiled down at her suddenly and put a large gentle hand to her bandaged head. 'You've come out of it worse than anybody, poor little Tara, and I'm sorry about that.'
The effect of his voice on her senses, even fuddled as they were, was inevitable, and she closed her eyes briefly when he touched her, opening them swiftly a moment later when she remembered something else that was troubling her. 'They're - the doctor said they were going to X-ray me,' she told him, seeking reassurance again. 'Does it mean that I—'
'It simply means that they want to make quite sure your bump on the head is no more than that,' he told her softly. 'They have to make quite sure, you know. It won't hurt and it's for your own good.' Tara wished he need not sound quite so much as if he was consoling a child, but she was reassured by his confidence, for the moment. His fingers tightened on her hands for a moment and he held her gaze as he spoke. 'You may have to stay in for a night,' he added with studied casualness, and Tara's eyes widened in alarm.
'Oh, but I - I can't stay here overnight, Philip! It's silly! I'm not hurt badly, honestly, I'm all right!'
There was a hint of panic in her voice as she foresaw all kinds of complications following, and Philip recognized it, his strong fingers squeezing hers reassuringly. 'You'll be a sensible girl and stay, if they want you to,' he told her, quietly but in a tone that brooked no argument and promised to deal firmly with any objections
she might raise. 'If you don't have to stay in, then I'll take you home with me, but I think it's possible you'll have to bear with them and stay, overnight at least.'
The prospect stunned her and she felt she should have been objecting more strongly, but suddenly she was feeHng incredibly drowsy and heavy-eyed. It occurred to her vaguely to wonder what she had been given while she was still only half aware of what was going on. Her eyelids felt heavy and she could see Philip now only through the dark fringe of her lashes.
'I'll - I'll stay if I have to,' she promised huskily, and he leaned over her again and kissed her mouth gently, the warm, lean strength of his body bearing down on her briefly.
'Good girl!'
Tara wanted to say something about being commended in such childish terms, but
she was getting much too drowsy to object to anything at all, although she just managed to smile. A small, slow smile that gave her soft mouth a briefly sultry look, then she closed her eyes with her hand still holding on to Philip's.
CHAPTER SIX
'I WAS lucky to get off so lightly,' Clifford told her, and Tara, one hand to her head, pulled a rueful face in agreement.
'I can't quite understand how you managed to get off as lightly as you did,' she said. 'I'm still in the dark about exactly what happened.'
'Didn't Philip tell you last night?'
She thought he sounded resentful, which he probably was, because he had not been allowed to see her last night and Philip had. 'He didn't tell me anything,' she said. *I was in no state to bother about details anyway. My head was aching like mad, and I was just glad to know that you and Philip were all right.'
'Philip?' He frowned curiously. 'Why should he not have been all right? He didn't crash.'
'No thanks to you,' Tara retorted, without stopping to think, and saw her mistake when he put his hands to his face.
He sat beside her bed in a small private hospital ward. It had been Philip, so she understood, who had insisted on her being put into a private ward, although she felt it was rather a grand gesture for only one night. That fallacy, of course, had been exploded this morning when another doctor had decided that she should stay in for at least another day and night.
Protests had done her no good at all. Mr. Hautain,
loi
the Sister had informed her, insisted that she should not be allowed to leave the hospital until she was quite fit to travel. Even here, it seemed, Philip had a certain amount of influence.
'I'm sorry, Cliff,' she said, reaching for a hand. 'I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just feeling a bit edgy, that's all.'
He smiled ruefully. 'I know, darling,' he told her. 'And it's my fault.'
She made a face, unable to argue with him on that point, but unwilling to condemn him further. No doubt Philip had done his share of that since last night. 'Why don't you tell me exactly what happened last night?' she said. 'I'm still a bit woolly-headed, but I'll try not to fall off to sleep again while you're talking.*
He looked at her and smiled, and she realized that even bruised and battered as he was, he was still devas-tatingly attractive. His good-looking face was decorated with a large strip of sticking plaster over one eye, and a dark, puffy bruise under the same eye.
Another bruise, even blacker, showed along the length of his jaw, but instead of detracting from his looks, the whole effect of rather piratical boldness seemed almost to add something. It had been quite enough to put a sparkle into the eyes of the young nurse who had admitted him.
He took Tara's right hand in his own two as he perched on the hard wooden hospital chair, and raised her fingers to his lips before starting his explanation. 'There was another car coming round the bend from the opposite direction,' he told her. 'That's why Philip
was flagging us down.'
'I remember now,' Taxa said, frowning. 'He did say something about his seeing the car and you not.'
Clifford did not look at her, but at the hand he held. 'I feel horribly guilty about you being in here,' he confessed. 'And I wish there was something I could do about your poor head, darling. Philip says he'll willingly crack me over the skull, so that I know how it feels, but I declined to go that far.'
'So I should hope!' Tara exclaimed, trying not to feel the curious sense of satisfaction it gave her suddenly, to know how violent Philip's reaction had been. 'The Hautains have no call to dub you a savage after that remark!'
He smiled ruefully. 'Oh, that's just Grand'mere Hautain's opinion,' he reminded her. 'Don't forget Philip's half savage in his own right, according to Grand'mere's reckoning, and he's furious vith me. He wouldn't even drive me in to see you this morning. I had to get a taxi.'
'Is your car very badly damaged?'
He nodded. 'Pretty bad, it'll be some time before I get it back from the garage, and I'm suspicious that Philip's bribed Ted Davies at the garage to keep it longer than he need, only I can't prove it.'
'Aah! Poor Cliff!'
He squeezed her fingers, and laid his bruised face against her palm. 'I don't really deserve your sympathy,' he told her. 'But I'm grateful for it just the same.' He studied her for a few seconds before shifting his gaze to a spot on the opposite wall. Seeking words,
Tara suspected. 'I shouldn't have overtaken him on that bend,' he said. 'Philip's right, and I shouldn't have been driving at all after all that wine I'd drunk. If I'd been up to standard I'd have used my head and realized that I couldn't see anything coming the other way.'
'We were both a bit heady,' Tara consoled him, but he was determined to take the full blame.
'It was pure, heavenly chance that there was a layby round that bend,' he said, 'and not a hell of a big drop. And it was sheer damned bad luck that you were thrown out and I wasn't.' He kissed her fingers again fervently. 'I wish it had been me, darling, I honestly do!'
'Oh, Cliff, no!' She put a hand to touch his bruised face gently. 'What good would that have done?'
Clifford laughed shortly. 'Well, it would have given Philip more satisfaction, for one thing,' he told her. 'At the moment I'm in the doghouse! Even that lady doctor let him break it to you about staying in here, because she obviously saw him as a more reliable type than me.'
'Oh, Cliff, that's just not true!'
'Yes, it is,' he insisted. 'She saw me being grilled by the law and decided I was a thorough bad lot, so she let Philip tell you, when she realized he was my brother.'
Tara bit her lip, remembering how Philip had told her there was a not very sympathetic policeman with CUfford, and how she had suspected he had been responsible for involving the law. That had been very
unfair of her, she could see that now. 'Philip said something about you talking to a policeman last night,' she said.
'He was talking to meV Clifford told her wryly. 'I was required to blow into a little bag and that, of course, was that!'
Tara stared at him in dismay - it was even worse than she had feared. 'Oh no, Cliff!'
' 'Fraid so,' he said. 'I'm for the high jump. Above the permitted level of alcohol, I beHeve is the official term.'
Tara suddenly felt all her sympathies with Clifford. Everything was going against him at the moment, and she reached for his hand consolingly. ' I wish we hadn't gone out last night,' she said ruefully. 'And most of all I wish we hadn't drunk so much of that wine! It just isn't fair that you have to pay for it all, Hke this! It just isn't fair!'
'Oh, now, don't get upset about it, darling,' Clifford told her resignedly. 'It may not turn out as bad as it seems and if it does ~ well, it was my own fault. As Philip says, I did ask for it!'
'Oh,PhilipV
She suddenly felt annoyed about Philip, unreasonably so perhaps, because she remembered those strong comforting arms around her, and her own childish vul-nerabihty. She had almost begged Philip to hold her in his arms and he had done so, but he had been only as gently comforting as he would have been with any young girl who was distressed after an accident.
It only now occurred to her that she had expected,
even hoped for something more when she held out her arms to him in those first moments of relief. Now she resented having been so openly welcoming and unrestrained. 'Why couldn't he have got a little tight as well?' she said. 'And thrown his girl-friend out on her head? Damn and bother Philip!'
'If you say so, my darling,' Clifford agreed mildly, smiling at her vehemence, and a little puzzled by it, she thought. He leaned across and kissed her lightly on her mouth. 'But I'm sure EUie Owen wouldn't look nearly . as pretty as you do wearing a bandage on her head.'
Tara's head was aching again, and she wished she did not remember so clearly how gentle and comforting Philip had been last night. Nor did she want to remember that Elwyn Owen-Bragg had looked sleek and expensive and, apart from that harsh voice, made a very s
uitable partner for a successful businessman like Philip.
'She's not really pretty, is she?' she said, and Clifford smiled.
'More the glossy sophisticate,' he agreed. 'Just the sort Phihp ^vould go for!'
'I wouldn't know what sort Philip goes for!' Tara told him shortly. 'If opposites attract, as I was always under the impression they did, then he should prefer something a bit more soft and - and feminine.'
Clifford's blue eyes regarded her for a moment, with a steady shrewdness startlingly reminiscent of his grandmother, then he bent his head and kissed the hand he held. 'Someone like you, my darling?' he asked softly, and laughed. 'Oh no!'
After three nights and nearly three days in the hospital, Tara was very anxious to leave. Not that she had not had the very best of attention and everyone had been very kind, but she had an aversion to hospitals, and also she v^as afraid that Clifford would get the wrong impression of how serious her injuries were, although he had been in twice to see her.
Immediately after the doctor's visit this morning, when she had been told she could leave, she had made a hasty telephone call to Fairwinds and asked for her clothes to be brought in. Although she did not speak to Clifford she expected he would come and fetch her and she felt quite excited at the prospect of going home with him.
The nurse who came to see if she was ready, helped to fasten the back zip of her dress, wearing what Tara could only describe as a smug smile as she chattered on. 'Aren't you the lucky one?' she said archly, surveying Tara's sleeveless pink dress and the figure it revealed, with undisguised envy. 'All these attractive men running around after you. There's a different one come to fetch you home!'
'A different one?' Tara gazed at her curiously for a moment before realization dawned. Her heart was pounding heavily at her ribs and her head spun chaotically with all kinds of reasons why Philip should be the one to fetch her and not Clifford. 'Isn't Mr. Clifford Hautain here?' she asked, and the nurse shook her head.
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