Fever

by Charlotte Lamb

  'I love you,' he whispered against her lips. 'My darling, never turn away from me again—I couldn't bear it. I don't know how I've managed to live through the last year. You had me in such a state I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. I wanted you so much I've been sick with it.'

  Sara froze, pulling back, and he lifted his head, his eyes flashing to her face. -

  'What is it? Sara...’

  'I'm still not interested in an affair with you,' she said with cold anger.

  His smile was wry. 'I'm asking you to marry me, don't you realise that?'

  For a few seconds the happiness was like a golden fountain, then her eyes went dead again. She shook her head slowly.

  'What do you mean, no?' Nick looked as though she'd kicked him, his face taut.

  'I can't.'

  He bent towards her, speaking urgently. 'You don't care enough? I think you do, darling. You couldn't look at me like that if you weren't a little bit in love with me. Every time I kiss you, I get this tremendous response, don't you realise that?' His mouth had a shaking tenderness. 'You just don't know how you feel, Sara. Don't fight it. It means more than I can tell you.'

  'All the same, it wouldn't work. We're hardly a

  computer match, are we? We come from very dif­ferent, worlds. We haven't anything going for us.' He laughed huskily. 'Let me show you exactly what we have going for us,' he offered, his hands sliding down her spine.

  'No, Nick,' she evaded, twisting away, but he pulled her back towards him remorselessly, bending his head. She put her hands on his chest to hold him away, struggling. Without using any extreme force Nick won the short struggle, bending her backwards slightly before his mouth came down on hers. He showed her at some length precisely what they had, and when at last she slackened the feverish grip of her arms around his neck, she was trembling and wildly flushed. He looked at her through sleepy, half-closed eyes, a passionate satisfaction in his face.

  'My God, I've wanted to do that for a long time,' he groaned.

  'I'd be mad to consider it!' Sara said with a smothered laugh.

  His answering smile had rueful humour. 'That makes two of us. You're going to drive me out of my head, do you think I don't know that? You are the most maddening, infuriating hot-tempered little spitfire I've ever met. We're going to argue about every single, solitary thing under the sun, and I've no doubt I'm going to want to beat you more than once. But I just can't bear the thought of my life without you.'

  'I don't see myself as a sedate banker's wife, or­dering the fish and taking the dog for a walk,' Sara commented drily.

  'Neither do I,' Nick agreed, his mouth twisting.

  He gave her a wicked little smile. 'But then my vision of our future is rather more hectic.'

  She blushed and his blue eyes gleamed.

  'Don't sidetrack,' she complained.

  'I'm not. That's what matters, darling, can't you see?' His fingers found her neck, stroked it deli­cately, making shivers run down her spine. 'Marry me, Sara. If I just wanted to take you to bed, I wouldn't ask you, but it isn't just sex I want, it's you.' He looked at her with a passion that weakened her. 'All of you, even your stubborn, infuriating little mind. I want to live with you and that's some­thing I've never wanted before. Seeing you here in the garden today, I knew life wasn't going to be worth living if I couldn't have you there whenever I looked up.'

  He was saying what she secretly knew she felt her­self. Nick was a part of her, woven indissolubly into her life, her heart. She needed him and she couldn't bear the thought of a future without him.

  A new thought struck Sara. She groaned. 'If I married you, Tilly would insist on coming to live with us. I know it.'

  Nick wore the complacency of one who knows how much he's loved. 'Would you mind?'

  'I know who'd be running the home,' Sara re­marked drily.

  'She's a darling, really,' Nick said. 'While you were painting Tilly would keep things ticking over for you.'

  'Yon only look smug because you know she thinks the sun shines out of you.'

  He didn't disagree, smiling. He was still holding her in his arms and the tension and urgency had drained out of him. The blue eyes were alight as they looked at her.

  'Say it,' he suddenly muttered. 'You haven't said it yet. I told you, but you haven't told me.'

  'What are you talking about?' she asked, genuinely bewildered.

  The blue eyes glittered. 'You know what I want to hear you say.'

  Her heart turned over. She closed her eyes and weakly laid her head on his shoulder, feeling the strength and hardness of the body under her cheek, 'I love you, Nick.'

  He kissed her hair, trying to reach her face, but she burrowed it deeper into his body, and he laughed huskily,

  'My darling, I don't believe it. Are you shy?'

  ‘Regretful,’ she groaned. ‘It’s insanity! We've nothing in common. We'll probably quarrel all day long.'

  'At least I'll be able to get some sleep again,' Nick said, with apparent indifference to everything else.

  'Listen,’ said Sara, raising her head.

  His mouth silenced whatever she had been about to say and her arms went round his neck to enclose him passionately.

  Behind them the water rippled gently and the last of the sunshine turned the stream to liquid gold.

  When they walked back to the house together Judith gave them a sly, wicked smile. Nick eyed her grimly.

  'Ah, I want to have words with you, my dear sister.'

  'I was just going to help Tilly with dinner,' Judith demurely evaded.

  'Not so fast.' Nick caught her arm in an unbreak­able grip. 'How did you know about Sara?'

  Judith opened her eyes wide. 'Someone told me she was a very good landscape artist.'

  Nick's lips compressed. 'What a liar you are, Judith. If T wasn't in an exceptionally good mood, I'd force it out of you like a cork out of a bottle. In future, keep your busy little nose out of my affairs.'

  His sister looked at Sara, grinning. 'I seem to have done the trick, all the same.'

  Nick looked down his nose, his face haughty. 'Spying, were you?'

  'If you will behave in an abandoned fashion at the bottom of my garden, what else do you expect?' Tudith asked sweetly.

  Nick's arm went round Sara's waist, pulling her close to him. 'You can be the first to congratulate us, although you don't deserve it.'

  Judith looked delighted, kissing them both. 'Thank the lord for that! I was afraid she'd turn you down and we'd have to put up with your nasty temper for life.'

  'Very funny. I knew you'd be pleased,' Nick told her. 'David should beat you twice a day.'

  'What a fantastic thought,' Judith returned shamelessly. 'Why not suggest it to him? David's never that inventive.'

  Nick put his long hands over Sara's cars. 'You didn't hear that, my darling.'

  Sara grinned at Judith. 'Of course not,' she re­sponded demurely.

  'Anyway,’ Judith said with smug satisfaction, 'I think I deserve a vote of thanks, not censure. If I hadn't brought her here, you'd have gone around snarling and scowling for years without having the guts to do anything about it.'

  Nick looked furious. Sara put a hand to his face, turning his head towards her.

  'Go and help Tilly, Judith,' she murmured, look­ing into Nick's eyes. The door closed discreetly and Nick began to kiss her.

  Dinner was a hilarious affair. Nick had opened a bottle of champagne, but by the time they had reached the second course it had all gone, so he opened another. Even Tilly had a smile which snowed all her teeth in incredible detail. She looked smugly from Sara to Nick.

  'Deciding how many children you'll have,' Judith whispered, careful to keep her tone too low for Tilly to catch.

  Sara was too dazed with happiness and cham­pagne to care. Every time her eyes met Nick's she felt her heart turn over with a wild flop like a fish in a basket, and Nick wasn't hiding how he felt. He kept looking at her, the blue eyes hungry, and Judith's elaborate plans for their
wedding made him irritable.

  'Do we need all that fuss?'

  'Sara does,' Judith insisted. 'A girl only gets mar­ried once.' Her eyes teased Nick. 'Well, usually.'

  'You were right, first time,' he said with a bite, his eyes going again to Sara.

  She yawned, suddenly heavy with sleep. Tilly eyed her. 'Bed for you,' she announced, and even Nick did not dare to argue.

  Sara was barely aware of getting into bed. She fell asleep at once and slept deeply, her face flushed.

  In the morning she woke to find three small dark heads ranged along the end of her bed, their chins resting on the wooden rail.

  'Hallo, you monsters,' she greeted them, yawning.

  'It's raining,' they told her. 'We can't go out in the garden. There's sausages for breakfast if you get down before Uncle Nick eats them all.'

  'Well, clear off and let me dress,' she invited.

  When she came down she found Nick at the breakfast table with a newspaper in his hands and the remains of a hearty breakfast before him. He looked round, his face lighting up, and she bent with her hand on his shoulder to kiss him,

  Tilly popped her head round the door and Sara straightened. 'Good morning, Tilly.'

  'There's one sausage left. What those boys didn't get, he did.'

  'Pig,' Sara informed Nick. 'I'll have toast, Tilly.'

  'I'll make it now,' said Tilly. 'Sure you won't have an egg?'

  'No, thank you. Just toast.'

  Tilly vanished and Nick pulled Sara back down to him, his hands on her slim waist.

  'You taste of marmalade,' she told him. 'I hope you won't always taste of it, because I'm not ad­dicted to the stuff.'

  'I love you,' he told her in reply. 'I've been wait­ing for you to come down because I had an awful feeling I'd dreamt it all.'

  She laughed. 'No, it wasn't a dream, or if it was, I dreamt it too.'

  'When will you marry me?'

  'When Judith has decided on a date,' Sara teased.

  'Seriously,' Nick said.

  'We'll discuss it when Greg gets back to London.'

  His face changed. 'I wish you weren't so hung-up on Halliday,’ he muttered. 'I accept you aren't in love with him, but you and he are too damned close.'

  'Greg lives and breathes for Lucy, I promise you. He worries about me because he brought me up and I worry about him because there was never anybody else in my life. When he marries Lucy she can worry about him.'

  'So long as you don't,' said Nick, not hiding the jealousy in his dark face. His eyes lingered on her possessively and Sara gave him a contented smile, happy to have him look at her like that. However insane it was to marry him, she knew she had no real choice. Her choice had been made long ago on the evening they met. although at that time she had been thinking of nothing but Greg, barely aware of Nick at the time.

  Oddly, it seemed Nick was thinking of that even­ing, too, his face hardening.

  'You remember the night we met? That was when I started thinking you loved Halliday. I saw the way you couldn't keep your eyes oil him and even then I was jealous. I wanted to stop you look­ing at him. I wanted to make you look at me. I didn't know what was happening to me, but I was de­termined to make you see me.'

  'Poor Greg, he was so unhappy that night.' She looked at Nick soberly. 'You've got to like him, Nick. I couldn't bear it if there was trouble between you two. You both mean so much to me.'

  Nick's frown came and went. 'I'll try not to hate his guts,' he said wryly.

  'You wouldn't be jealous if he really was my brother,' she pointed out.

  He grimaced. 'No? I'm not so sure. I never re­member being jealous in my life before, but since I met you I've been forced to recognise my own capacity for it. I think I'd be jealous of anyone you looked at.' He laughed, his mouth harsh. 'Even Forcell. I've given him hell for weeks, poor fellow. He looks bewildered whenever he sees me.'

  'Oh, poor Jeremy,' Sara said, laughing.

  'Poor Jeremy hell!' Nick at once looked furious. 'When he kissed you yesterday I nearly threw him bodily into the stream.'

  She laughed. 'You're surprisingly violent for a banker, Nick.'

  'Then we're more evenly matched than you think,' Nick said forcibly. 'Because you aren't ex­actly a model of sweet temper yourself. I'm not blind to your faults.'

  She looked at him teasingly. 'What faults? I'm perfect.'

  His eyes glimmered. 'Oh? Now I'd have said you were an atrocious flirt, for a start.'

  'Me?' She opened her green eyes wide.

  'Yes, you, my butter-wouldn't-melt-in-the-mouth darling. I've watched you flirt too many times to be convinced you're not. You have a way of looking at men which sends their temperatures up.'

  Her face sobered. Was he returning to his original ideas about her? He caught her eves and smiled at her wryly.

  'No, I'm not harking back. I believe you've never gone further than flirting, but don't expect me to like watching you smile like that at other men. I know precisely what that smile of yours can do, re­member.'

  'If you've finished cataloguing my faults, I might begin on yours,' she said sweetly, smiling at him in exactly the fashion he had just complained about, and Nick's hand shot over the table to grab hers. He lifted it to his mouth and bent his head, his lips hungrily pressing the pink palm.

  She drew a shaky breath at the passion in his face and he looked at her, his face urgent.

  'Marry me soon,' he muttered.

  The door opened with ostentatious slowness and Judith came in, coughing a loud stage cough. Nick released Sara's hand and leaned back, giving his sister an ironic, deriding smile.

  'Very funny, but we were doing nothing we shouldn't.'

  'I should hope not, over sausages and toast,’ Judith returned, unabashed. She dropped a kiss on his hair, came round to kiss Sara's cheek. 'Tilly did mutter something about passion at breakfast time being disgusting, though.'

  Nick slid Sara a grin. 'Oh, that wasn't me,' he said mockingly. 'Tilly saw Sara kiss me when she came down, that's all.'

  Judith gave him a beatific smile. 'You'll be need­ing Tilly when you're married, won't you? Sara won't want to give up her work to keep house,’ Nick eyed her grimly. 'Don't think I can't read your mind like a particularly revolting book. I'm well aware what was behind your sudden devotion to my happiness. You got Sara down here in the hope of getting me married off and Tilly out of your hair.'

  Judith's eyes were wide and innocent. 'What are you talking about? Can't I get my garden painted without vile accusations being bandied about?'

  'How did you find out about Sara?' he demanded.

  'You must have been a tracker dog in some pre­vious existence,' his sister complained.

  'How, Judith?'

  She looked at him drily. 'You were rather obvious that day at the Zoo. I saw you looking at her and I put two and two together.

  He flushed. 'That still doesn't explain how you found her.'

  Sara bit into her toast, watching Judith over it. Judith looked at Nick with sweet transparency and lied without flinching. 'I saw a picture of her in a newspaper.'

  'Oh,' said Nick, accepting it. He looked at Judith menacingly. 'Well, in future, mind your own busi­ness.'

  She gave him a cheerful grin. 'I'm sorry if I made a mistake in getting her down here. I thought you'd be delighted to see her.'

  Nick's flush deepened. 'Who the hell invented families?' he demanded of the ceiling.

  'I had the impression you were all set to add an­other family to the world,' Judith observed, lips twitching. 'In fact, I thought you couldn't wait to do so.'

  Nick lowered his gaze. 'Haven't you got anything else to do? Why don't you go and fuss over one of your loathsome offspring?'

  'Charming,' said Judith, looking from him to Sara. 'When Sara has finished her breakfast, why don't you take her for a drive? Then maybe I can have my own home back.'

  Nick looked at Sara restlessly. 'Coming, darling?'

  She finished her toast and drank th
e last of her coffee. 'Coming,' she said, getting up.

  Tilly stopped them in the hall, her limp exag­gerated. 'Andrew's put his Batcar down the waste disposal and it’s making noises like a concrete mixer.'

  'Tell Judith,' said Nick with satisfaction. 'I'm taking Sara for a drive. This house is worse than Piccadilly Circus!'

  As they drove away Sara was laughing and Nick glanced down at her,, his black brows lifted. 'What's funny now?'

  'Life,' Sara said vaguely. 'I had such a different picture of you, Nick. Your penthouse, the bank, the lovely ladies you squire around ... that was what I knew of you until Judith brought me down here, but you're very different here. I never thought I'd see you being chivvied around the way Tilly does.' 'We're all of us contradictory,' Nick shrugged.

  Sara sighed. 'But I barely know you, do you realise that? Oh, Nick, are we quite mad to think of getting married knowing so little about each other?'

  'We know enough. I think I knew that first night at the party. I hadn't recognised the way I felt, but I'd been watching you for some time, before I man­aged to wangle an introduction, and I couldn't stop looking at you.' He glanced sideways, smiling, his eyes wandering from her bright head to her small, vivacious face. 'You're like sunshine. You sparkle. And when you smile I get a strange feeling inside me as though I'd just drunk champagne. What drove me mad was the thought that you'd smiled at other men like that.'

  'I can't say I enjoy the fact that you've known other women,' Sara admitted, her face wry as she let her secret jealousy show.

  His eyes widened and a smile came into them.

  'Ah,' he said softly, watching her.

  She lifted her chin aggressively. 'What does "Ah" mean?'

  'I wondered if it bothered you,' he admitted.

  'What do you think?'

  He took her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. 'There'll never be anyone else. There hasn't been for a long time, not since I recognised the way I felt. It took me a while to face it, but by the night you came to my flat I knew for certain. I almost went crazy when you walked out on me that night. If I'd seen Halliday after that I really think I might have killed him.'