by Maggie Cox
‘What’s wrong, honey? What have you done to yourself? Tell me, Sorrel…let me help you!’
He tried to lead her back into the bedroom, but she suddenly bent over doubled up in agony, her hand a white-knuckled clamp around the hard edge of the door. From this angle all Reece could see was the top of her ravishing blond hair and the smooth buttermilk skin of her neck, where the impossibly delicate silken curls fell away. But then his gaze locked in dread onto the pool of blood that was trickling down through her toes and staining the cream rug she was standing on. It was clear then that his fears about the baby were more than real. Sorrel was losing it…
His throat locked tight as emotion overwhelmed him. But then Sorrel cried out again, and Reece knew he had to get her to the hospital before she bled to death. That one goal in mind, he swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. As she lay there, frightened and sobbing, he held onto her hands, wishing they weren’t so cold, and looked urgently into her terrified blue eyes.
‘Sweetheart, I’m going to have to get you to the hospital. I’m not going to phone for an ambulance because I can get you there quicker myself. It’s going to be all right, angel…I promise. Just let me wrap this around you to keep you warm, and we’ll get going.’
Pulling the aubergine-coloured counterpane from the bed, Reece placed it tenderly around Sorrel’s shoulders, lightly touched her face, then lifted her up again into his arms.
‘Am I going to die, Reece?’ she asked him, her voice quivering. ‘There’s so much bl-blood!’
There was no point in asking him if she was going to lose the baby. She’d known as soon as she’d woken up with that terrible knifing pain practically slicing her middle in two and seen the vivid scarlet stains on her gown that that was practically a certainty.
She felt Reece’s strong arms enfolding her even more tightly, the muscles in his biceps bunching like iron. His gaze was reassuringly fierce as he stared back at her.
‘You are not going to die, Sorrel…don’t you dare even think about it! We’re going to get you to the hospital and everything’s going to be just fine…do you hear me?’
Her eyes were drifting closed as another wave of pain stole away the words she’d been going to say, but one clear thought rang out in her mind above all the rest. Reece was wrong…delusional or just too ridiculously optimistic for words… Because after this nothing was going to be fine ever again. Even in her traumatised state of mind Sorrel already knew that.
The ceiling was very white and clinical, and as Sorrel stared up at it, her mind determinedly trying not to focus on the terror and pain she had just survived, she bizarrely recalled a similar ceiling in her dentist’s surgery. As pale and clinical as this one, it was nonetheless transformed by a wonderful colour poster of a sun-drenched Caribbean island. The scene comprised a sweeping crystalline sandy beach and swaying palm trees, and on the horizon miles and miles of iridescent ocean, sparkling off into the distance.
That poster never failed to transport her to another world. While the dentist attended to her teeth Sorrel would determinedly concentrate her gaze upon it until he’d finished treating her. And as she dreamed about lying on that sublime beach and inhaling the evocative scents of coconut and sea breezes, feeling the kiss of that Caribbean sun on her skin, she barely even noticed the time passing in the dentist’s chair. She wished she could call upon her ability to dream the time away now, and be the fresh-faced eager young girl again, that Reece had fallen head-over-heels in love with. But how could she when her heart felt as though a rusty three-inch nail had been driven into it with force and her soul felt shrivelled and all used up?
Experiencing a powerful urge to cry, Sorrel couldn’t give vent to her need—because the strong sedation she had been given acted like an impenetrable stone wall between her heart and her tears and they simply would not come. Biting down hard on her parched lips instead, she deliberately shut her eyes, truly feeling that the darkness was somehow much more preferable to the light right now….
He felt like a survivor of a train wreck, or something equally shocking. Staring into the mirror above the chipped enamel sink in the men’s room at the hospital, Reece hardly recognised himself. Every feature on his face was tinged with the shadow of heartbreak and the horror of his enforced descent into darkness when he had realised that not only was Sorrel losing their baby, but she might just possibly lose her life, too.
He’d sensed the medical team’s urgency as they’d shut him out of the operating theatre, and again and again Reece’s heart had slammed against his ribs as he waited for the surgeon in charge to reappear. By the time he’d got Sorrel to the hospital she’d lost so much blood. He’d had a nightmare journey to get her there—not because of traffic, but because her cries of pain and distress had torn him apart inch by torturous inch. And it was all his fault. If he hadn’t made her come out to dinner when she was clearly not feeling up to it… If he hadn’t rowed with her and threatened her with court proceedings if she didn’t come home with him… If he had only tried to be more understanding about this desire of hers for him to be home with her more often rather than away travelling for most of the time…
As he stared into that cold, unflattering square of cracked and tired mirror Reece reflected in silent agony on all the things he could possibly have done to make his wife feel more loved. He hadn’t wept tears since he was fourteen, when they had told him that his mother was dying and wouldn’t survive the cancer that had eventually taken her away from him. He’d gone to stay with his aunt Shirley in New York and had locked all his feelings away deep inside him, in the hope that he could barricade his wounded heart against any such devastating hurt again.
In the past few hours Reece had discovered that his heart was just as vulnerable than ever. If not more. Now he wanted to weep and never stop. Tears pricked his eyelids like taunting spearmen pushing him towards the edge of a cliff. But as his sight became suddenly blurred by the threatened deluge he turned away in disgust and shame and pushed out through the door into the long medicinal-smelling corridor of the hospital where he had brought Sorrel. Almost as soon as he did so, he mentally started to steel himself to come face to face with her after the trauma of last night, and couldn’t help fearing that he was woefully inadequate to the task.
She had her hands curled into fists beside her on the sheet and her lovely face was as pale as a winter moon as Reece approached the bed. Silently thanking God that they’d taken down the drip they’d put up last night, and that she was free from tubes and wires and all the frightening hospital equipment that denoted a critical condition, he felt the smallest release of tension ease out between his shoulder blades.
There was a hard grey vinyl chair beside the bed, but apart from the plain yellowed locker at the other side of Sorrel the room was pretty much bare of any decoration or comfort. Stark was perhaps the word he would use to describe it. He would get her out of here just as soon he got the all-clear from the surgeon, he quickly decided. She couldn’t possibly recuperate in such a depressing environment. But all the same he was grateful for everything the medical team had done. They had saved his wife’s life and given her the privacy of a room of her own for the first day at least. He hadn’t particularly relished the idea of speaking to Sorrel for the first time since the traumatic events of last night in a ward filled with other patients.
Turning to regard him, Sorrel registered his presence with her eyes, like a sleepwalker suddenly stumbling awake—and the brief streak of fear and anxiety reflected in the grief-stricken blue depths made Reece’s stomach contract in pain, as though his bare flesh had suddenly been penetrated by a sharp blade.
‘Hello,’ she said softly, the unexpectedly husky quality of her gentle voice sending shivers cascading down Reece’s spine.
Reaching for her clenched fist, he stroked across her knuckles with the pad of his thumb…back and forth, back and forth. She reacted by uncurling her fingers a little, like a nervous bud cautious about flowering. Even a
fter the shocking events she had been through she was still the most ravishing creature Reece had ever laid eyes on. Her pale, delicate, and yet at the same time striking features were poignantly bare of any artifice save her own natural beauty, and although he wasn’t blind to the pale mauve shadows beneath her eyes, or the sorrowful downturn of her mouth, her loveliness still shone through the pain.
He wanted badly to kiss her. He desired it so much that he almost trembled with his need to feel that wondrously tender skin beneath his own. But fear of rejection was an ever-present companion to that need, so Reece held back—praying for a sign—the smallest, most fleeting indication from Sorrel—that she might welcome his kiss.
‘Hi.’ He smiled down at her, behind the tenderly bestowed gesture wondering if he would see her sweet lips curve into a smile of joy or happiness in his presence ever again. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I hurt.’
Reece flinched. ‘I know you do, honey, and I wish I could take all the pain away for you—God help me, I do. You were so brave, sweetheart…brave and strong. As soon as I’ve seen your doctor I’m getting you out of here to somewhere much nicer, so that you can be more comfortable.’
His face was bereft of colour, his strongly delineated features almost stark with shock and sorrow. As she studied him, Sorrel registered a fresh wave of pain that was nothing to do with her physical hurts. He might have smiled at her, but behind that smile was an ocean of suppressed agony that she couldn’t deny. It was there in the sombre set of his jaw, in the dark circles beneath the now dulled emerald of his fascinating eyes and the tiny, deeply indented grooves bracketing his mouth.
Reece had clearly had to reach deep down inside himself to even find the will to make that smile. Yet part of Sorrel couldn’t help fretting—was he privately relieved that she had lost the baby? She knew it was a terrible, probably totally undeserved judgement, yet the undeniable pressure of it threatened to seriously impede her breathing. Now there would be no need for him to change or alter his commitment to work in any way. For Reece, things could return to normal. For Sorrel, dying seemed like the only acceptable alternative right now.
‘Do I have to move?’ she asked, frowning. ‘I’m OK here.’
Her eyes spoke volumes to Reece of her need to deny herself comfort of any kind, and the realisation disturbed him deeply.
‘You mustn’t blame yourself for what happened, Sorrel. How can any of us know why it did? Maybe your body just wasn’t ready to cope with pregnancy? What you need now is the best of care and lots of rest to help you recover. Then, when you’re strong again, I’ll take you somewhere warm and beautiful. We’ll go away for a couple of months maybe? Take our time, get to know each other all over again.’
‘Forget about the baby, you mean? Pretend that this never happened?’
‘I didn’t say that!’
‘We should have gone through with the divorce proceedings, Reece. We should have just followed through and had done with it. You didn’t want the baby. You didn’t really want me. You were only mad at me because I left and took matters into my own hands. The most important thing to you has always been your career. Rubbing shoulders with people like Angelina Cortez…that’s all you’ve ever really wanted, Reece. Not a wife and baby…no way.’
Sorrel was almost incoherent with grief. One thought bumped against another, just giving way to a flood of rage and hurt that pained her worse than the dreadful killing ache deep inside her womb.
Someone ought to pay for the terrible thing that had happened to her. Sorrel’s greatest hope for them both had been that they could create a strong, secure, loving family—just like her own had been. Why was that so hard for her to achieve with Reece? Because ultimately he was wrong for her, she decided, tearing her glance away from the astounded expression on his face. Losing the baby was surely a sign that this man she had chosen was wrong for her.
‘You think that this doesn’t hurt me as much as it hurts you, Sorrel?’ His voice threatening to break with grief, Reece willed his wife to look at him. Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to regard him.
‘Just yesterday I learnt that I was going to be a father. Yes, the news came as a shock—I won’t lie to you about that.’ A tiny muscle flinched beneath his eye. ‘Now…only a day later…that realisation has been ripped away from me in the most terrible way. Do you think that I’m made of stone? I’m devastated by what’s happened to you…to us.’
Shaking his golden-haired head in anguished silence, Reece moved restlessly away from the bed. ‘I wanted our baby, Sorrel. I wanted this chance to be a better husband to you and a good father to our child. Now it seems that I’ve lost both those chances. If you think that my career is the most important thing to me at a time like this then you couldn’t be more wrong. And I’m not going to simply let you wallow in your own grief and feel that you’re in this nightmare on your own. I’ll be here for you every step of the way…you can count on it.’
His mouth softening a little round the edges, Reece walked right back up to the bed and studied her tenderly. ‘As dreadful as you’re feeling now…I promise you that things will get better, sweetheart. I’m in this marriage for better or worse, and nothing’s going to change my mind about that. Am I getting through to you, Sorrel?’
‘Mrs Villiers…how are you feeling this morning?’
They were both saved from further heartbreaking interaction as the surgeon who had looked after Sorrel last night walked into the room, accompanied by another doctor and a nurse. And as Reece reluctantly tore his gaze away from his wife’s troubled blue-eyed glance, he knew he was absolutely determined to follow through with everything he had said to her.
A week later, and home again, it came as a deep shock to Sorrel to realise that even though she had lost her baby she still felt as if she was pregnant. They’d told her at the hospital where she’d gone to recuperate that it would take a while for her hormones to settle down again and return to normal, and that she wasn’t to worry. But the after-effects of her miscarriage only served to remind her that her body was no longer preparing to carry her baby to term, that all the sickness and lethargy and bouts of crying she’d suffered had all been for nothing.
What was making things worse was Reece’s unexpected presence in the house. He might have told Sorrel in no uncertain terms that he fully intended to stay in this marriage for ‘better or worse’, but she really hadn’t expected him to take so much time off work simply just to be with her. She knew the situation was unprecedented, but even so Reece had never sacrificed his desire to immerse himself in his work before. The fact that they were barely talking to each other—mainly because Sorrel deliberately withdrew into silence whenever he walked into the same room as her—didn’t seem to bother Reece that much. He simply asked her if she needed anything, closed the window against any draughts, brought her magazines, a sandwich, an occasional cup of tea or coffee, and then left her alone with her thoughts with the proviso that if she did need anything else she was to tell him immediately.
Sorrel speculated on how long they could continue in such an emotionally sterile state. She was beginning to think that she preferred the jagged heat of their many arguments rather than the suffocating fog of silence that had descended on them both. Any day now she fully expected Reece to walk in and tell her that he’d had enough of playing nursemaid and that he was returning to work. Knowing that she was nowhere near getting over the loss of her baby, Sorrel wouldn’t have blamed him. It must be like living with a lifeless marble statue instead of a living, breathing woman.
‘Want to go out for a while?’
His slow and deep, almost gravelly voice broke into her thoughts, and for a moment the rich warm tones caused a throb of heat to flare somewhere deep inside her. Sorrel had always loved Reece’s voice. It stroked over her nerve endings with the combined seductive heat of the most desired French brandy and rich dark velvet and made her long to lean into his arms and just simply give way to the security and warmth of the s
trength that she knew she would find there. How good would it be to stop grieving alone and simply reach out to each other again like they used to?
Dropping the edge of the curtain she’d pulled back to glance out of the window, she glanced back at him in surprise.
‘Where?’ She shrugged, her heart helplessly lifting at the sight of his tall straight physique, silently admiring the way his stylish black jeans and grey lambswool sweater complemented his lean, yet nicely muscled body. Sorrel noticed too the chestnut lights glinting in his dark gold hair, and the way one corner of his delicious mouth was almost curving into a smile. Her resistance started to seriously be compromised.
‘I thought we could take a walk in Kensington Gardens…just a short one—nothing too taxing. Are you up for that?’
She had barely eaten a thing since her return from hospital, and as Reece’s probing gaze swept his wife’s almost too slender form in her cream-coloured cardigan and brown linen skirt, he was alarmed to discover that she appeared to have lost even more weight. His heart pounded against ribs that already felt contused by anguish and grief.
‘OK. I’m going stir-crazy just staying in the house anyway.’
Her agreement at going for a walk totally took Reece by surprise. As soon as he’d made the suggestion he’d fully expected her to say no, and he’d been steeling himself against it. Now a flicker of hope started to throb inside him.
‘It might be a good idea to put on some jeans and boots. It’s been raining off and on all morning, and there’s probably a good deal of mud around.’
‘OK.’