Fever Pitch

by Sarah Holland

  The sound of his heart thudding was the only thing that broke the silence which followed. Louisa tried not to think as she lay in his arms, her own heart pulsing hotly throughout her body.

  She wondered if Jacey really believed she had slept with Pete. It seemed incredible that he could. He must know she was in love with him, in spite of everything that had happened—she had married him, hadn't she? Surely he sees at least that much, she thought sadly.

  How could he hope to hurt her if he thought she cared nothing for him? She trailed one finger across his shoulder blade, feeling the pulse that drummed hotly in his body, his skin warm and damp to the touch.

  Suddenly he raised his head, looking down at her in silence. Then he rolled away, lying next to her, studying her intently as he rested his head on one hand, propped up by his elbow.

  'I'm sorry,' he muttered. 'I lost my head.'

  She raised her eyes to his, studying him thoughtfully. 'I know,' she said gently. 'I understand.'

  He shot her an angry glance. 'You shouldn't,' he said, his eyes dark. The sooty lashes flickered against his damp cheek as he looked away in an uneasy silence.

  Louisa watched him for a long time, then drew a deep breath and told him, 'Nothing happened between me and Pete. You have to believe that.'

  'Do I?' he said with flat sarcasm, and it wasn't a question, it was a hard cold statement that meant nothing. He ran long fingers over his brow, smoothing out a frown. 'It's pretty difficult. You were all set to marry him a while back.'

  'You could trust me,' she said gravely, studying him with unhappy eyes.

  'Trust!' he said angrily. The dark eyes flicked to her and she saw just how angry he really was. 'When did you ever trust me, Louisa?'

  She flushed, the words biting home. He was right, of course. When had she ever trusted him? And if she was honest, she would admit that he had given her everything he had, holding only certain things back from her.

  'This has to end some time, Jacey,' she said through pale bloodless lips. 'We can't go on like this for ever.'

  Jacey closed his eyes as though he couldn't bear to look at her any more. 'Go to hell!'

  She stared at him, wounded. Watching him in disbelief, she felt her mouth tighten as the words sank home. Slowly she stood up, her body stiff as the pain echoed through her, numbing her, blotting out all thought. Gathering together the remnants of her clothes, she walked up the stairs to the peace and sanctuary of her room.

  She went to apologise to Rizzio and Elizabeth next morning. The sun was struggling to rise above sulky grey clouds that hovered, glowering down at the world while the sun made little efforts to peep over them. Occasionally bright sunlight would stream across the crisp Yorkshire hills, only to be blotted out as the wind blew the clouds over it, sweeping grey shadows across the heather of the moors.

  The house was in an uproar when she arrived. 'Guess who's here?' Elizabeth muttered when she opened the front door.

  Louisa cocked an ear, listening to the guffaws of laughter inside, the howlings of Basil, and the loud music. 'I give up,' she said, smiling.

  'Uncle Willy,' said Elizabeth irritably. She brushed back a clump of overgrown hair. 'And his poisonous little boy. Honestly, if he says "Can I have" once more, I'll boil him in oil!'

  Louisa went inside, grinning. Basil galloped down the hall and knocked her flying, howling as he did so and lolloping all over her. She pushed him down firmly and turned to Elizabeth.

  'I came to apologise about last night,' she said slowly. Watching the other woman, she wondered exactly what they had thought last night when she hadn't come back. 'I hope I didn't cause any trouble.'

  Elizabeth's brows rose in straggly disorder. 'Not for us,' she said meaningfully. Pausing for effect, she added, 'Jason wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but that's not really any of my business, is it?'

  Louisa looked away. She didn't need Elizabeth to tell her that Jacey had been absolutely livid.

  Rizzio burst out of the living room. 'It's the bolter!' he said, grinning, and closed the door on a dreadful noise which emanated from within. Louisa wondered how many people were being murdered in there. 'Where did you get to last night, then?'

  'Lost,' said Louisa, smiling as she looked at him. 'That's where I got to. I had to practically steal the Crown Jewels to pay for a taxi.'

  There was a loud crash from the living room, and Elizabeth looked at Rizzio with loathing. 'I should have had you investigated before I married you,' she said irritably. 'One look at your loopy mother ought to have warned me!'

  Rizzio rolled his eyes heavenwards and drew a halo over his head.

  Louisa decided it was definitely time to leave. As far as Rizzio's family went, the skeletons were absolutely trooping out of the cupboards. Quickly she made her excuses to them and left, waving over her shoulder as Elizabeth watched her go' from the doorway.

  The sun smiled down on the back of her neck as she walked back to the house, and she suddenly felt a longing to be in London again. Being born and brought up in a city instilled a taste for noise in most people. It wasn't the bright lights that attracted, it was the pulse of a city like London, the noise of the traffic, the sound of taxis, the hurried pace of the people.

  She looked around at the wildly beautiful Yorkshire moors and knew that although they were romantic, she would always be in love with London. It was in her blood.

  Jacey was nowhere to be seen when she got back to the house. His car was still outside, so she knew he hadn't gone anywhere. Going into the kitchen, she began to make herself some coffee.

  The back door opened, and she looked up to see him framed in the doorway.

  'Where have you been?' he asked coolly.

  He looked dangerously sexy in faded blue jeans and a crisp white shirt that showed off his deep tan beautifully. Louisa looked at his broad shoulders and wanted to touch him.

  'Next door,' she told him. 'I went to apologise.'

  'But not to me,' he drawled, his smile sardonic.

  She flushed, putting down the cup she held. 'You didn't give me a chance. You just jumped down my throat.'

  'Without reason, of course,' he said tightly.

  She suddenly felt like smashing something over his obstinate head. 'You don't honestly believe I slept with him, do you?' she asked angrily.

  His eyes narrowed as he watched her, and she felt her heart sink with disappointment. Obviously he did.

  Jacey pushed his hands into his pockets. 'I don't know what to believe,' he muttered.

  Louisa looked down at her hands in silence.

  He gave an impatient sigh. 'What do you want from me, Louisa?'

  She looked up angrily. 'Nothing,' she said through tight lips. 'Nothing. Just forget it—forget the whole thing.'

  His mouth hardened. 'Now look,' he said thinly, 'you knew what you were taking on when we married. I can't help the way I'm built. I'm a jealous guy, Louisa. When something like last night happens, my cool just flies straight out of the window!'

  She laughed bitterly. 'Tell me about it!' she said through her teeth, with biting sarcasm.

  Their eyes met and warred for a long tense moment. Louisa felt so angry, she wanted to scream and break things. When she was at fault she could accept Jacey's violent temper—but when she hadn't done anything, she found it pretty difficult, to say the least.

  His mouth was a firm angry line. 'I'm going out for a few hours,' he said in a clipped voice. 'I'll be back around three. Don't go out anywhere.'

  She watched him slam out of the door and clenched her fists. However much he hated her, he was human, and a situation as emotionally volatile as their marriage would be intolerable to anyone. When would he stop, though?

  Her anger dissipated into depression and she slumped against the wall, sighing. She remembered reading somewhere that Fitzgerald had said that in the depths of one's soul, it was always four o'clock in the morning. Fitzgerald knew too much, she thought irritably, staring at the wall with unseeing black eyes.

 
; It was all to do with pride, of course. Jacey's pride was even greater than hers, but however powerful it was, it had to crumble under the weight of a need for understanding. And how could they ever understand each other if all they did was argue?

  It was two o'clock when the car pulled up outside. Louisa frowned, going to the door. He was home early.

  Her mouth dropped open. 'Pete!' she exclaimed in dismay, frowning as she looked past him to make sure Jacey wasn't around.

  Pete's face was lined with strain as he studied her. 'Are you all right? He didn't hurt you last night?'

  She put a hand to her head. It was just too unbelievable. How could he be so stupid as to come here today of all days? There he was, fiddling with a set of keys on the doorstep, and at any moment Jacey could come home.

  Sighing, she opened the door wider. 'You can't stand there, someone might see you. Come in—but only for a minute.'

  Pete walked in slowly, his spiky fair hair rippling in the breeze. He pushed it down with one hand. 'So what happened last night?' he asked, and Louisa saw the anxiety in his blue eyes as he watched her.

  'Nothing,' she lied, avoiding his gaze. How could she possibly tell him the truth?

  His thin brows jerked together. 'Nothing? Are you kidding? I've seen that guy, remember—and he's a nasty piece of work when he loses his temper.' He studied her intently. 'Do you expect me to believe he just laughed it off?'

  Louisa drew a steady breath, pursing her lips. Pete had to accept that she really cared for Jacey, and until he did, he wouldn't come close to understanding her. He also had to try and forget her. No one knows what goes on inside a marriage, a partnership—any relationship, in fact—except the two people involved. And only a fool would try to interfere. It would be like putting a stick of dynamite under yourself.

  'Look, you can't stay here, Pete,' she said quietly. 'If Jacey came back, he'd kill you.' She made a face, adding, 'And me.'

  Pete's jaw clenched. 'So he did get nasty! Did he hurt you? Tell me, Louisa. If he did, I'll. . .'

  'What?' she asked gently. 'Hit him?' She shook her head, eyes pained, 'Have you seen him lately? Even the Incredible Hulk would think twice!'

  Pete reddened belligerently, and she bit her lip, wondering if she ought to have said that. But it couldn't be helped. She had to point the truth out to him or he wouldn't see it.

  Then Pete sighed, kicking the floor with one worn trainer. 'I'm sorry,' he said under his breath, 'I guess I'm only in the way. I just wanted to help, that's all. I was worried for you.'

  Louisa looked at his hurt eyes and felt like a complete bitch. 'Oh, Pete,' she said gently, 'I didn't want any of this to happen. I'd give anything to put it right—you know that.'

  He gave her a little smile. 'Yeah,' he said, shifting restlessly. He jangled the keys in his hands. 'Why don't we go out for a drive? I promise I won't take you too far.'

  Maybe that wasn't a bad idea, thought Louisa, and she nodded, smiling. 'Very well. But only for a while—he's coming home at three.'

  The car was warm from the heat of the sun as they got into it. Louisa looked back at the house as they pulled away, and wondered why it always gave her the shivers. It looked so grim, even in sunlight.

  'We're going back to London in six weeks,' Pete told her as they drove quickly along the narrow lanes. 'A new club's opened in Ilford, and we managed to get a booking. It should be all right— it's a lively place, not too far from the West End.'

  Louisa smiled, thinking that marriage to Pete wouldn't have been so secure after all. She would have been tied to a life of travelling from town to town while he worked out his obsession with rock music. Her feelings for him were too platonic to live like that.

  She herself was too intense in everything she did to be able to live without an obsession. At the moment, though, Jacey was consuming her. That both pleased and annoyed her. She wanted to be more than just his partner. She wanted to be herself—but she knew she wasn't complete without Jacey.

  'Will you come and see us?' asked Pete, grinning.

  She laughed. 'Steve would throw his drums at me!'

  'No, he likes you, old Steve. He says you're a real hoot.'

  She shook her head, murmuring, 'Where does he come up with these phrases?'

  'You tell me!' Pete turned off the small road and began driving up a wider road. 'I sometimes think his only companions are ten-year-olds!'

  Louisa sat up straight suddenly. They were driving on to a motorway. The wider road had been a slip road, and now they were joining the mainstream of traffic heading for London.

  'What are you doing?' she asked, very still.

  Pete threw her a determined look. 'I'm not letting you go back to him, Louisa. He's not good for you.'

  She was speechless. A sign passed overhead with the word LONDON glaring at her in fluorescent white. She watched it in incredulity, frozen to the spot. He couldn't mean it!

  'Turn off, Pete!' she exclaimed angrily as a sign indicating a slip road came up overhead.

  He shook his head grimly. 'No way.'

  'For God's sake!' she shouted. 'You can't be serious! He's my husband, Pete, and I'm not leaving him!'

  Pete reddened, his face set like stone. 'I don't care,' he said mulishly, 'I won't stand by and see you hurt.'

  She stared at him, frantic. 'Turn off this road, Pete!' But he carried on driving, and another slip road came up on their left. 'Damn you!' she shouted angrily, and reached for the wheel, grappling with him to turn the car left.

  'What the ‑' Pete was horrified. The car careened and screeched all over the road.

  The car behind them couldn't stop in time. It smashed headfirst into the side of Pete's car, knocking them with a sickening crash across the road.

  Louisa didn't even have time to scream. Flung forward like a rag doll, she saw the world spin dizzily before her head thumped on the windscreen and blackness engulfed her like a yawning chasm.

  She woke up in a surrealist world where everything was seen from a horizontal position. She was floating, lying down, an orange blanket thrown over her aching body. Heads bobbed around above her. The back of a St John Ambulance man was visible in front of her—and that was the moment she realised she was being carried on a stretcher.

  It seemed perfectly normal to be lying down like a Roman empress while her bearers carried her.

  'It's all right, love, we're taking you to the hospital,' said a broad Yorkshire voice and she looked up to see another man, strangely surreal, carrying her too.

  She frowned, her head throbbing. 'I'll be late for work,' she told him, 'I have to get the bus.'

  'That's right, miss,' said the man airily. 'Of course you do.'

  It seemed perfectly normal to be loaded into the ambulance while the light flashed and whizzed. Louisa fingered the orange blanket, and wondered what she was doing here.

  Then she remembered. 'Pete . . . where's Pete?' She sat up, putting a hand to her head as a stabbing pain hit right behind her ear.

  'The driver?' asked the man who sat beside her. 'He got off lightly—just bruised and shaken.'

  Sinking back with a sigh, she looked at her watch. Nearly three o'clock. Oh well, that's that, she thought, her mouth trembling. She suddenly felt weepy, and wanted to cry, but instead she lay still while the ambulance rattled tinnily away.

  Ten minutes later she was being poked and prodded by a doctor who looked as though he should have retired twenty years ago. Peering at her, he doddered around, umming and erring to himself.

  'Does this hurt?' he asked, his fingers biting into her leg.

  'Yes,' she said through her teeth, wincing. She wondered what he would do if she poked him in the eye and asked the same question.

  'Nothing serious, but there may be fractures,' the doctor said, and whisked her down to X-Ray where she was hauled into a dark green gown and poked and prodded some more. She felt utterly wrecked by the time she left the department.

  They sat her in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room
where the sound of trolleys banging and nurses chattering was almost like piped music in a restaurant.

  'Want a cup of tea, love?' asked a voice an hour later, and she looked up to see a voluptuous, middle-aged woman squeezed into a crisp white uniform.

  'Please,' said Louisa, and the woman battered a tea trolley towards her, rolling up her sleeves as she poured the refreshing liquid into a chipped cup. 'How long do you think I'll have to wait?' asked Louisa as she was handed the tea.

  The woman adjusted the cap on her dyed blonde head. 'Which doctor did you have?'

  Louisa frowned. 'Doctor Masters, I think.'

  'Oh dear!' The woman made a face, shaking her head. 'They get him out of his coffin every morning for surgery. I sometimes think that skeleton in his office is one of his patients, still waiting.''

  That doesn't sound too promising, thought Louisa. Biting her lip, she wondered if Jacey was here yet. She had given her telephone number to a nurse on arrival. No doubt Jacey was waiting for her somewhere. She didn't dare think about what he would say when she finally appeared.

  She was called back into the doctor's office, and told she could go home. Wagging a finger at her, the doctor told her how lucky she was, then told her to have a check up in three weeks' time in case anything was lurking unseen.

  Jacey was waiting for her as the nurse led her out to the main waiting room, which was filled with harassed nurses and crying children, and which couldn't have done much to improve Jacey's temper.

  'Here we are, Mr Knight.' The nurse handed her over with a professional smile, her eyes devouring Jacey. 'Right as rain, but a little shaken.'

  'Poor darling,' Jacey murmured, studying Louisa from beneath hooded lids. His arm slid around her, his fingers splaying on her waist. 'How do you feel?' .

  She looked at him oddly, surprised by his calm greeting. 'I'm fine,' she said huskily, looking at him through her lashes, 'but my head hurts when I move it too far to the left.'

  He leant her head on his shoulder, stroking her hair, and turned to lead her out of the hospital gates. The sun was bright as they walked to the car, the hospital gardens beautifully kept, the flowerbeds dazzling the eye with their bright array of colours.