Gracious Lady

by Carole Mortimer

She took a deep breath. 'Who is it?' she demanded, much more forcefully than she actually felt.

  'I—oh, hell!' the man swore harshly as he stumbled over the stool that stood in from of the dressing-table now, landing on the carpeted floor with a heavy thump.

  'Maximilian!' Sophie gasped as she instantly recog­nised his voice. 'I—what are you doing in here?' She was getting out of bed even as she spoke, crossing to his side, going down on her knees beside him on the floor as only a low groan answered her concerned query. 'Maximilian...?' she prompted in a puzzled voice, reaching out to touch him, instantly withdrawing her hand as it came into contact with the bareness of his shoulder. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but— My God, was he completely naked...? If he were, that would explain completely what he was doing here!

  Maximilian groaned beside her again, a low, ob­viously agonised sound that made Sophie forget every­thing but the fact that she had to help him. He had obviously hurt himself when he fell over the stool, might even have broken something. But because Sophie wasn't sure how he was dressed—or undressed, whichever the case might be!—she was loath to put the light on and actually look to see how he had injured himself.

  'Maximilian, where does it hurt?' she prompted, reaching out to shake one bare shoulder when he didn't respond, hoping it wasn't his shoulder that hurt! 'Maximilian!' she urged again, growing impatient now.

  God knew what would be thought of the two of them here together if anyone should go past her bedroom. Her only defence was that she hadn't invited him in here, had no idea why he was here—except the obvious reason, of course, and she couldn't use that as defence! All she knew was he had come stumbling into her bedroom like a—my God, he was drunk, Sophie realised incredu­lously. That had to be the answer, she realised as she sat back on her heels. He had been stumbling when he came into the bedroom, obviously hadn't been able to stand steadily on his own two feet even then.

  'My stomach,' he suddenly moaned. 'Oh, God...!' He shuddered, his position on the floor almost foetal now.

  He deserved to have a stomach ache if he had been drinking enough to make him like this, Sophie decided irritably. Couldn't he see he wasn't solving anything by getting—but neither was she, she realised self-derisively.

  'Come on, Maximilian,' she instructed firmly, grasping his arm and attempting to pull him to his feet. It was an impossible task from the outset; he was a dead weight. Dead drunk! 'Maximilian!' she repeated sharply. 'At least help me to get you as far as the bed,' she sighed wearily. Although what she was actually going to do with him when she got him to the bed she had no idea; he couldn't stay here, drunk or not.

  She found, to her relief, when she moved to switch on the bedside lamp, that he wasn't naked at all, although the brief black underwear he did have on was little enough covering, and very sexy! But it was better than nothing, and as she struggled to get him up on to the bed she tried not to look too intently at the bronzed litheness of his almost naked body. And as he seemed to have all the pliability of an octopus, seeming to have just as many limbs to control, this proved very difficult to do.

  Sophie finally managed, after much heaving and tugging, to get him lying on top of her bed; unfortu­nately he was laying from side to side across the bed, with his feet dangling to the floor on one side! But he was on the bed. Unfortunately, so was she, one of her arms trapped beneath him where he had taken her with him!

  'Maximilian!' she said again, more forcefully this time. She was sure, after tonight, that he wouldn't like the sound of his name on her lips at all; she sounded like a nagging fishwife!

  His only answer was to roll over on one side—the wrong side, trapping her more firmly against him than ever! —throwing his arms about her waist and nuzzling his face into her throat.

  Oh, God, Sophie thought dizzily. What was she sup­posed to do now? They couldn't stay here like this, her bedroom door still wide open, leaving them conspicu­ously obvious to anyone who should walk past her room in the morning, apparently locked in a passionate em­brace! But neither, she discovered after trying for several minutes, could she free herself. And Maximilian was out cold!

  Great. Just great! Here she was, held in the arms of the man she loved, wearing one of his pink shirts, as he had asked her to, and he was unconscious at her side. It was just too—

  Suddenly he moved again, groaning, falling back­wards on the duvet once more, his face twisted in agony. Agony? Surely that wasn't usual for someone who was just drunk? And—he didn't smell of drink!

  Not at all, she discovered as she leant closer to him. He wasn't drunk at all!

  Then what was wrong with him? She frowned down at him, noticing for the first time how pale his cheeks were beneath his tan, giving him an almost gray cast. But he had only bumped into the dressing-table and stool in front of it, he couldn't really have hurt himself that badly on them, and he had definitely been staggering when he came into the room.

  He was ill! Oh, my God, the stomach pain wasn't being caused by drink at all. Appendicitis, then? It was a possibility, Sophie realised.

  'Maximilian?' She moved up on to her knees beside him on the bed this time, leaning over him as she gently shook his shoulder. 'Darling, where does it hurt?' she prompted softly, not even aware at that moment that she had used the endearment, just so worried about him she couldn't think straight.

  'Poisoned,' he managed to gasp. 'I've been— poisoned!'

  She sat back, frowning down at him, completely stunned. What—? How—? 'Maximilian...?'

  He was suddenly completely lucid as he looked up at her, his eyes dark with pain. 'Get me to the hospital, Sophie,' he told her through teeth gritted together in rigid control.

  She blinked down at him. 'I'll call the doctor.' She began to scramble off the bed.

  'There's no time for that.' Maximilian gasped as another wave of pain shot through him. 'Just drive me straight to the hospital. I need to get—whatever this is out of my system as quickly as possible. Please, Sophie,' he prompted savagely as she still hesitated about what to do.

  She swallowed hard. 'Shall I get Sean?' She was pulling denims on over her panties even as she spoke, tucking the pink shirt hurriedly into the waistband. There was no time to change the latter, and no privacy either. Not that Maximilian was in any condition to notice what she was wearing!

  'No, I don't want anyone else involved in this. Just you,' he told her as he struggled into a sitting position, still in obvious pain, although he looked down ruefully at his near-nakedness. 'But perhaps you should help me get some clothes on too before we go...?'

  Sophie was surprised they didn't wake the whole household in their struggle to get Maximilian back to his bedroom and then into his clothes!

  She felt hot and flustered by the time they had finally managed to get him into a shirt and trousers, kneeling down at his feet to lace his shoes.

  'This isn't quite the way I had imagined having you at my feet!'

  She looked up at him sharply at the huskily made statement, colour heating her cheeks at the burning in­tensity of his gaze as she straightened abruptly. 'You're obviously feeling a little better,' she bit out shortly, although in actual fact she knew she was being unfair to him; he looked absolutely dreadful, his face haggard, greyer than ever, a fine sheen of perspiration on his skin. It was the intimacy of the image his words had provoked that had shaken her into speaking so sharply. 'Maximilian, what makes you think you could have been—? We'd better go!' She rushed to his side as he was bent over double with the pain again. What did it matter at this moment why he thought he had been poisoned—although how, and by whom, she had no idea either? He was obviously in agony, and the sooner she got him to the hospital, the better.

  She almost screamed her terror as, after she had eventually managed to get Maximilian down the stairs and out the front door, a shadow detached itself from the wall outside and a voice spoke in the darkness!

  'Who's there?'

  That was what she wanted to know; the stupid man had al
most given her a heart attack!

  ‘It's all right, Davies.' Maximilian was the one to answer him. 'Miss Gordon and I are just—going for a drive.'

  A drive? Being taken to the hospital because he thought he had been poisoned could hardly be called that! But Maximilian was obviously in no mood to ex­plain himself to Davies—whoever he was!—in any other way. Sophie was just too dazed and confused by the whole sequence of events to care any more...

  'You can drive, I take it?' Maximilian handed her the keys to his car, getting into the passenger seat without waiting for her reply.

  Yes, she could drive, but she rarely did so, because she couldn't afford a car of her own, and she had never driven anything as powerful as Maximilian's luxurious BMW. Malcolm had certainly never let her anywhere near his precious Porsche!

  She was more than a little nervous about driving the BMW at all, but when Maximilian lapsed into semi-consciousness again almost as soon as they had driven down the driveway her nervousness dissipated and she just concentrated on finding her way to the hospital.

  Considering, she thought ruefully as she drove, what a restrained and controlled man Maximilian was—except in stables, and when he imagined her going to bed in one of his shirts!—her life had certainly been very eventful since she met him. And to think she had imagined this would just be another dull week of the work she needed to do to fund her studies; there was nothing 'dull' about being near Maximilian!

  'For goodness' sake, Jennie, just calm down,' Sophie attempted to soothe with a frown, watching the young girl as she sprang to her feet and began pacing the room in agitated movements. 'I told you, your father is fine now,' she dismissed. 'And—'

  'But it's my fault,' Jennie choked, looking far younger than her sixteen years at the moment.

  Sophie had returned to the house a short time ago after spending most of what was left of the night at the hospital with Maximilian. He had been right about the poisoning, had received treatment for it at the hospital, was even now sleeping it off in a hospital bed, the danger passed.

  Sophie had gone straight to the kitchen on her return, only to find her aunt already up and about, apparently fully recovered, if a little pale, breakfast already set out in the morning-room. She had avoided her aunt's searching looks, going off in search of toast and coffee— what passed for the latter out of the machine at the hos­pital certainly couldn't be identified as such!—only to find Jennie already seated at the table having her own breakfast.

  She had known, for all their arguments, that Jennie was going to be upset about her father, but the worst was over now, and Sophie was sure Maximilian wasn't about to start pointing fingers.

  'It was no one's fault, Jennie,' she dismissed, sipping her coffee. 'There was no way of knowing—'

  'I knew,' Jennie wailed, her face contorted with guilt. 'But I only wanted him to get a little stomach ache, be­cause he's been so mean to me, and—'

  'Jennie, no one could have foreseen that one of those prawns was—what do you mean?' She frowned at the young girl as she realised what she had said. 'Jennie, what are you talking about?' She shook her head dazedly.

  The young girl swallowed hard, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘I know Daddy can't eat garlic, that it disagrees with him, and so I—'

  'Garlic?' Sophie repeated dismissively. 'But I told you, Jennie, it was one of the prawns that gave your father a serious case of food poisoning.' And Maximilian had been very ill indeed by the time they arrived at the hos­pital; in fact he had been almost delirious.

  'It was the garlic,' Jennie insisted stubbornly. ‘I put a little in the curry, knowing all the other spices and flavours would disguise it.' She winced at the memory.

  Sophie frowned at her. 'You wanted to make your father ill...?' Only that fact seemed important at the moment. 'You deliberately gave him something you knew would make him sick?' She couldn't believe Jennie was capable of doing such a thing, to her father, of all people. Or was he the one person...?

  The young girl began to cry now. 'Garlic usually gives him heartburn, that's all, keeps him awake all night.' She sniffed inelegantly. 'It's never made him this ill before.'

  And it hadn't made him this ill this time either. The doctor at the hospital had been absolutely certain that was a prawn. Although Maximilian's having eaten the garlic that disagreed with him couldn't have helped the situation! Poor Maximilian.

  ' Jennie—' Sophie moistened her lips, trying to think what to say; what Jennie had done had far more serious implications than merely trying to give her father a bad night's sleep. 'The garlic aside, it was a prawn that made your father so ill last night.'

  Jennie blinked at her uncertainly, paling even more as she saw the truth of Sophie's words in her steady hazel-coloured gaze, and dropping down heavily into her chair.

  'I thought—I believed— Oh, Sophie!' she cried, burying her face in her hands.

  Sophie went to her unhesitatingly, putting her arms about her, hugging her tightly. What Jennie had done had been spiteful and childish, but it hadn't been dangerous. At the same time, it was evidence of just how badly the relationship between Maximilian and his daughter had deteriorated. And that certainly wasn't be­cause the two didn't care for each other. Sophie had seen how much Jennie loved her father, and she had wit­nessed—and personally felt!—Maximilian's distress yes­terday when he'd thought Jennie had disappeared. Communication had, for some reason, broken down be­tween the two of them, and Sophie was sure it had some­thing to do with the accusations Jennie had levelled at her father yesterday. And the situation couldn't go on. Before, they had just been hurting each other emotionally; now, with Jennie's confession, it had pro­gressed beyond that.

  'What am I going to do?' Jennie clung to Sophie in childish need.

  'We are going to the hospital to talk to your father,' Sophie told her firmly.

  'I couldn't,' the young girl shook her head protestingly. 'He's going to hate me when he realises what I've done!'

  'Don't be silly, Jennie,' Sophie dismissed gently. 'Your father could never hate you.'

  'No?' Jennie grimaced doubtfully. 'How would you feel towards me if you knew I had deliberately spiked your food with something I knew disagreed with you?'

  Hopping mad, was Sophie's immediate inward re­sponse. As she had no doubt Maximilian would too. But at the same time, this was hardly something she could keep to herself. Not that she thought Jennie would ever be silly enough to do something like this again; the whole incident had obviously frightened the young girl very badly.

  'Perhaps, in a few moments,' rasped a harshly auth­oritative voice from behind them both, 'you would care to explain that remark! But right now I have something more important I want to talk to Sophie about.'

  Maximilian!

  Sophie gasped in surprise when she turned and saw him standing there; the last time she had seen him he had been stretched out in a hospital bed, very pale against the bedclothes, having lapsed into an exhausted sleep after being violently ill.

  He still looked very pale, grey almost, and there was a dampness to his skin revealing the obvious effort it was taking to be on his feet at all.

  'Maximilian, what are you doing here?' Sophie hur­riedly crossed the room to his side. 'You shouldn't be out of bed,' she added worriedly; what were the doctors thinking of, letting him leave hospital so quickly?

  He looked at her now with such contempt that she was halted in her tracks before she even reached him, gazing up at him uncertainly. What had happened since she'd left him a couple of hours ago, grateful to her for helping him in the way she had, to turn him into this cold, forbidding stranger who looked as if he would like to choke the life out of her with his bare hands? She realised, from his initial remark, that he must have overheard at least part of her conversation with Jennie, and so know some of what had gone on last night; but that should have directed his anger at Jennie, not at her.

  ‘I had no choice,' he bit out coldly, his gaze never leaving her face.

  She s
hook her head dazedly. 'But the doctors at the hospital wouldn't have let you—'

  'I didn't ask them,' he scorned hardily.

  Her eyes widened. 'You mean—'

  'I discharged myself,' he grated. 'As I said, I had no choice.'

  Sophie didn't even begin to understand what he was talking about; what she did know was that he shouldn't be out of bed. If he didn't soon sit down he was going to fall down!

  ‘I had no choice,' he repeated for the third time, 'once I had seen this!'

  'This' was a newspaper, which he threw down on the table with obvious disgust.

  A newspaper...

  And Sophie suddenly knew, without even looking at it, that Brian had gone ahead with his threat and written his story!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  'LEAVE US, Jennifer,' Maximilian instructed his daughter abruptly.

  'But—'

  'After what I overheard a few minutes ago,' he con­tinued in a hard voice, 'I don't think you're in any position to argue—do you?'

  Jennie's lips clamped together in defeat, biting back any further protest. But she was far from cowed, either by what had happened last night or her father's harshness now, despite the fact that she had been so upset a few minutes ago; Maximilian's return, obviously with no serious ill-effects except that paleness to his skin, seemed to have restored Jennie's defiance. Although she moved obediently to the door now. Probably just glad to be escaping so tightly, Sophie decided!

  'But don't disappear completely,' Maximilian warned softly before the young girl could leave the room. 'We still have such a lot to talk about!'

  Guilty colour darkened Jennie's cheeks as she hur­riedly left the room, closing the door on her escape with obvious relief.

  Sophie had made use of their brief exchange to pick up the newspaper Maximilian had thrown down so dis­gustedly minutes earlier. She didn't have far to look for the article that had so incensed him; he had left the newspaper open on the appropriate page! Sophie didn't even get as far as reading the article itself, highlighted with a photograph of Maximilian and Jennie standing together at a race meeting, a smaller one of Sophie be­neath this—Brian had obviously found one of her childhood photographs that Ally had, and used that; she must have been all of sixteen herself when it was taken! The headline with the story read, 'Lady Sophie, "family companion'", the implication obvious; and with that ridiculously old photograph of her to accompany it it gave the impression of Maximilian's being a cradle-snatcher, if nothing else! No wonder he was incensed!