Secretary Wife

Secretary Wife Page 12

by Rachel Lindsay

  'What's up?' Mary asked. 'You look as if you've suddenly seen the light.'

  Laura gave a vague reply, and though she re­mained chatting to Mary for a little while longer, she was glad to be finally alone in her bedroom to mull over this new thought. When had she sub­consciously decided that running away would not solve her problem? And how much of this decision was due to Duncan and his obvious desire to marry her? Equally important, was she using Duncan as a sop to her pride, and could marrying him under these circumstances be a success?

  The questions were incapable of being answered with any truth, and she vowed not to think of them again until she knew the result of Carl's operation. Yet if it was a failure, could she remain with him—even supposing that this was what he wanted? Here was another question she could not answer, at least not until she knew if Rosemary would remain in Carl's life if the operation did not succeed.

  It was Rosemary herself who gave Laura the answer, for she came to the house at noon the next day, ostensibly to collect a compact which she had dropped from her handbag the evening before but mainly, Laura guessed, to find out what she could about Carl's relationship with the girl whom she still regarded as his secretary.

  As always, Rosemary looked the picture of loveli­ness, with her big blue eyes, blonde hair and inno­cent expression. She dressed the part too, always wearing clothes of diaphanous material in' pastel shades that enhanced her colouring. Though Laura was physically smaller, Rosemary had an ethereal quality that made her seem heavy and lumpy by comparison.

  'I'm so glad we can talk to each other alone,' Rosemary breathed, putting her gold compact into her bag and perching lightly on the arm of a chair.

  'I don't think we have anything to discuss,' Laura replied.

  'I agree,' said Rosemary. 'What I have to say doesn't warrant a discussion.'

  Laura's scalp prickled. It was not only the tone of Rosemary's voice that was different but also the phraseology, which was far less childish. Rosemary, it seemed, was not going to put on her baby act when they were alone together.

  'I intend to marry Carl,' she announced.

  'I doubt if you'll get him to commit bigamy,' Laura said.

  'I'm not joking, Laura. Carl realises he should never have married you. But you were always Miss Availability and—'

  'I married Carl because he asked me to do so.'

  'You mean because he wanted to escape from me,' Rosemary said. 'I know exactly why he turned to you and I know exactly why he's turning away from you. If you have any pride,' she continued viciously, 'you wouldn't wait for him to ask you to go.'

  Laura clenched her hands. 'Carl knows he can have his freedom any time he wants.'

  'He wants it now! Haven't you the sense to realise it? Why don't you just pack up and go?'

  There was no answer to this and Laura wondered dismally why she should continue to suffer the in­dignity of living with a man who no longer wanted her.

  'Carl is only having the operation because of me,' Rosemary said. 'That should show you how much he loves me.'

  'I think he would like to walk for his own sake too,' Laura rasped, sickened by such manic ego-centricity.

  'But if I hadn't come back, he would never have considered it,' Rosemary persisted. 'You know that as well as I do.'

  'All I know is that you walked out on him when he needed you most, and that you've only come back now because you can't find anyone richer!'

  The round blue eyes grew rounder, giving Rose­mary the look of a startled kitten. What a misnomer that was, Laura thought bitterly; vicious tiger was nearer the mark. Yet that was insulting a tiger, who had courage and pride, whereas Rosemary only had greed.

  'I'm not as hard up for a man as you,' the girl spat. 'I had a wonderful time in New York. You can ask your precious Duncan, if you don't believe me.'

  'I'm sure you had a wonderful time. But if you'd had the chance of marrying a millionaire, you wouldn't have come back here!'

  A flush tinged Rosemary's skin and against her will Laura realised she was not being fair to blame her entirely for what had happened. Carl was equally at fault, for he had welcomed her back into his life with open arms, his eagerness making it clear how much he regretted his marriage.

  'What will you do if the operation fails?' Laura demanded. 'Will you run off and leave him again?'

  'I won't make that mistake twice!'

  'I can't see you spending your life with a man who's tied to a wheelchair.'

  'He would still be a wonderful lover!' Rosemary said in a little-girl voice.

  Laura almost gagged at the words. Blindly she turned her back on the room and stared out at the frost-tipped grass and leafless trees.

  'You should leave Carl,' Rosemary said behind her. 'Get out before I tell him you're in love with him.'

  With a gasp, Laura swung round. 'You wouldn't do that!'

  'I would.'

  With an effort Laura made herself look com­posed. 'If Carl thought I loved him, he'd feel so guilty about it, he'd never end our marriage. After all, I did help him when he needed me; and Carl has a great sense of responsibility.'

  'So have you. You also have a conscience, and it wouldn't rest easy if you knew you were prevent­ing him from being happy. So why don't you go quietly—while you still have your pride?'

  'Because I care about Carl more than I care about my pride. I'm staying as long as I believe there's even the remotest chance of getting him to see you for what you are!'

  Rosemary sauntered to the door. 'I'm not going to say "may the best girl win",' she drawled, 'be­cause I am going to win!'

  The door closed behind her and Laura sank on to the nearest chair. She tried to hold herself aloof from all Rosemary had said, but the words echoed around her with a lingering malevolence that in­filtrated into her very bones. Rosemary was right in what she had said. Carl might feel responsible for having married her, but not so responsible that he had attempted to hide his regret for having done so. Knowing this she was foolish to go on staying here.

  With a deep sigh she leaned back in the chair. What a strange mixture he was! On the one hand treating her as if she were an automaton and on the other hand displaying an almost frightening sensitivity to her feelings—as witnessed by the calculated way he had got rid of Mr Rogers. But it was these different facets that made Carl the man he was: clever and ruthless enough to succeed in business but charming and intuitive enough to do so without making too many enemies; virile and passionate enough to have a series of girl-friends, yet vulnerable enough to fall for a baby face and big blue eyes. Laura closed her own eyes and felt the trickle of tears squeeze between the lids. 'Am I crying for Carl or myself?' she wondered and, with a deep sense of depression, knew she was cry­ing for them both.

  Later in the evening Laura went to see Carl. She had debated long and hard whether to do so, and had come to the conclusion that while she still bore his name, the least she could do was to carry on with the pretence that it meant something.

  She dressed with unusual care for her visit, as if to show him that she had her own particular brand of charm. Most of her clothes were in the vivid colours he favoured, quite different from Rosemary's pastel ones, and she wondered if this was why he liked her to wear them: so that nothing about her reminded him of the girl he loved. She pushed the thought aside as she stepped into an emerald green silk dress and jacket. It was figure-fitting and made her realise she had lost a lot of weight. It emphasised the fullness of her breasts and also made her look taller. She was more heavy-handed than usual with her make-up, outlining her lips lavishly with scarlet and heavily coating her eyelashes so that they stuck out thick and straight. But warm brown eyes remained warm brown eyes no matter what one did to them, and no amount of willpower could give them the lumi­nous quality of china blue ones. The thought made her brush her hair viciously. It was time she had it cut. It was curling well below her ears and was showing a tendency to curl forward along her temples. She looked far less the efficient young woman w
ho had coped with Carl Anderson's busi­ness life and far more like a loved woman who was sharing his emotional one. A fat lot of sharing she had done with him. She clattered her brush down on the dressing table. Even when he had kissed her, it had only been a game of make-believe. He had never seen her in her own right, nor known her as she really was.

  She drove with unusual ferocity to the hospital and was lucky not to be caught for speeding. But her spirit was less troubled by the time she went up in the lift to the corner room Carl occupied.

  Surprisingly he was not in bed but sitting in an armchair by the window. The curtains were drawn behind him and a reading lamp flooded light on to his lap but left his face in shadow, making it im­possible for her to read his expression.

  'I thought you weren't coming to see me today,' he greeted her. 'If you had left it any later it wouldn't have been worth your while to come at all.'

  He was always so much in command of himself that his irritation surprised her. 'I assumed you would be busy with a lot of tests,' she apologised.

  'They finished at four o'clock. It's now eight.'

  'If you'd wanted to see me earlier, you could have telephoned me.'

  'Who said I wanted to see you?'

  Convinced by now that something was wrong with him, she moved closer, but the darkness made it impossible for her to read anything in his face.

  'Have you seen Mr Edwards today?' she asked.

  'He's been in and out of here like a yoyo.'

  'You're obviously a favourite patient of his.'

  'I'm the jam on his bread and butter!'

  She ignored this. 'Will you be having more tests tomorrow?'

  'I'll be having them every day until Dr Vanberg gets here on Friday.'

  'When is he going to operate?' she asked.

  'Monday, I suppose.'

  Laura moistened her lips. 'Mary says he's pio­neered a new technique.'

  'He's a surgeon like any other,' Carl said irritably. 'Mary is inclined to go all starry-eyed at the thought of a man with a knife!'

  Nothing could have been a less apt description of the blunt-spoken nurse, but Laura knew better than to contradict him. 'Even so, Dr Vanberg sounds interesting. I'd like to meet him.'

  'I don't want you interfering in my private life.'

  The cruelty of the remark stunned her. But it was so out of character for Carl to speak in this way that she was convinced something was seriously wrong. 'Obviously all the tests you've had have tired you,' she said calmly. 'It will be better if I leave you to rest.'

  'Don't go yet.' He flung out his hands as though ashamed of his outburst. 'John Durban was here for a couple of hours. He probably tired me more than the tests.'

  'You shouldn't be working while you're here,' she protested.

  'Work relaxes me. Duncan was here too,' he added, 'but it was a private visit—not a business one. We talked about…' Carl's voice trailed away and when he resumed speaking, it was in different tone and about Rosemary, who had apparently come straight to see him after her visit to Holly Grove. 'She told me she'd been to the house to collect her compact,' he added, 'but I suspect the real reason was to talk to you.'

  'It was.'

  'I would prefer you not to see her again. You don't like each other and I dislike the thought of you both bickering over me. It makes me feel like a bone caught between two dogs!'

  'Bitches, you mean,' Laura said lightly. 'But I'm not partial to bones and I'm happy to let Rosemary have the pickings!'

  'You know what I mean, Laura.' Carl shifted in his chair and the light fell across his face. It gave a shine to his skin and a glitter to his eyes, making them look like grey stones. 'I don't want you and Rosemary to settle my future for me.'

  'I have no intention of settling your future. That rests with you.'

  'As long as you realise it.'

  'The big strong man who stands alone,' she said bitterly, and could immediately have kicked her­self for her tactlessness. But Carl did not seem to mind and repeated her comment with a faint twist of humour.

  'Until my accident, I never realised how impor­tant it was to stand alone. Nor did I appreciate how rarely one can do it. We're so often hedged round by other people's wishes.' His hands clenched on the blanket that covered his legs. 'I'm tired, Laura. I want to rest.'

  She was at the door before she spoke. 'Do you want me to come and see you tomorrow ? If I irritate you, it might be better if I didn't.'

  There was a long silence before he answered. 'Perhaps it would be better. I'm sorry, Laura.'

  'You don't need to be,' she said huskily, and wished with all her heart that she had never agreed to marry him. At least it would not have put him in a position which he found embarrassing and painful. Should she tell him she would leave him or should she wait for him to ask her to go? If the other girl in his life was not Rosemary, she would have had no hesitation in leaving immediately, but as long as he was still trying to fight his love, she would remain to help him.

  'Let me know when you want to see me, Carl,' she said quietly. 'I'll be at home.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THINKING about Carl's display of temper, Laura knew that only emotional stress could have caused it. She tried to see something positive in it, but all she saw was that he knew her well enough not to pretend with her and liked her little enough not to care if he hurt her.

  Obeying his wishes, she did not go to the hospital the next day and, like a ghost, wandered around the house, unable to settle anywhere for long. Finally her restlessness drove her to the kitchen where, despite the disapproval of the cook, she set about baking cakes she did not want to eat, ignor­ing the aid of the electric mixer and venting her unrest upon the hapless batter. Later, tired but triumphant, she carried a fragrant plateful of buns to the drawing room and was sampling her work when Duncan arrived. It was so unusual for him to call uninvited that she looked at him apprehen­sively, afraid that he was bringing bad news.

  'There's nothing wrong,' he assured her in answer to her question, 'Stop looking worried.' He took her hand and drew her close, then gave her a look of surprise. 'You smell of baking!'

  'Which isn't surprising, since I've just made some cakes.' She pointed to the table behind her. 'José is bringing in some coffee, so I'll expect you to sample my culinary efforts.'

  'I never knew you could cook as well.'

  'As well as most women,' she smiled.

  'As well as being beautiful, intelligent and highly efficient,' he amended.

  His admiration was what she needed and she gave him a warm smile. She might profess to be unhurt by Carl's temper, but in her heart she knew she was bruised from it.

  'Have you seen Carl today?' she asked, sitting down by the fire.

  'I've just come from the hospital. He's in fairly good spirits, considering.'

  She pondered Duncan's use of the word 'consider­ing', not sure if he was relating it to the painful tests Carl was undergoing. She gave him a mea­sured look and saw something in his expression that disquieted her. 'Considering what, Duncan?'

  'Considering the risk he's taking.'

  The fear that had lain dormant in her since she had learned of Carl's operation sprang into life. 'So it is dangerous? I suspected, but I wasn't sure.'

  'It is extremely dangerous.'

  'I asked Mary about it, but…' Laura stopped, remembering how evasive Mary's answer had been. Under normal circumstances she would have probed further, but Rosemary's all-pervading presence had made her so rattled that she had not done anything about it. 'Exactly how dangerous is it?' she demanded.

  There was a slight pause. 'He won't die from it, if it went wrong but—but it has far less than a fifty-fifty chance of going right. Dr Vanberg is the pio­neer of this particular technique, as you know, but he hasn't performed all that many operations that have required it. Maybe fifty.'

  'And of those fifty, how many were able to walk again?'

  'Twelve.'

  The arrival of José with the coffee prev
ented Laura from replying and she waited until the butler had left the room before she did so. 'That isn't a very good percentage, is it, Duncan?'

  'No,' he said frankly. 'And if I were in Carl's place, I would never consider taking it.'

  The words gave additional bitterness to thoughts which Laura already found galling. It seemed no risk was too great for Carl to take in order to be a whole man for Rosemary.

  'I'm not sure I'd be prepared to take the risk even for you,' Duncan continued. 'I would like to think that if a woman loved me, she'd prefer me to be in a wheelchair than see me flat on my back like a log of wood—given that the operation failed, of course.'

  Laura stared at him in perplexity. 'A log of wood? Are you saying that if the operation failed, Carl won't remain the way he is now?'

  'That's exactly what I'm saying.' Duncan rose and paced the floor. 'I've known for days that the operation was dangerous, but it wasn't until this morning—when I bumped into Mr Edwards—that I learned exactly what it entailed. If the operation fails, Carl will look back on the manoeuvrability he had when he was in his wheelchair the way a man dying of thirst looks at water!'

  The coffee pot Laura was holding shook so vio­lently that she set it down. 'He mustn't be allowed to do it! We've got to stop him, Duncan.'

  'Do you think I haven't tried? I've been with him for the past hour—it's why I'm here now. Carl will be furious with me for telling you, but I felt you had to know. Maybe you can get him to see sense.'

  'He won't listen to me,' Laura said bitterly. 'Rosemary is the only one who can stop him.' She stood up. 'I must go and see her.'

  'She arrived at the hospital as I left,' Duncan said. 'You can't talk to her in front of Carl.'

  'I'll wait outside for her,' Laura replied. 'She's got to stop Carl from going through with this.'

 

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