The Right Bride?

by Sara Craven

  ‘For the moment, still in hospital.’

  ‘For the moment?’ Her concern antennae went into action. ‘They say you can go home?’

  ‘I’m going home,’ Silas replied.

  There was a subtle difference between ‘They say’ and ‘I’m going’. Colly picked up on it. ‘You’re signing yourself out, aren’t you?’ she questioned, trying to hold down her feelings of anxiety.

  ‘In the morning.’

  Don’t panic. Stay calm. ‘Are you well enough to leave?’ she enquired, amazed she could sound so even, when she was inwardly a ferment of disquiet.

  ‘I’m fed up with this illness, not foolhardy about it,’ he responded. ‘I’ve had enough. Another day in here and I’ll be climbing the walls. The problem is,’ he went on, getting down to the reason for his call, ‘while I’ve promised my father I won’t return to the office until my physician gives me the nod, my mother has threatened to come and nurse me if I do sign myself out. Unless,’ he added, ‘I can do something about it.’

  ‘That sounds reasonable to me,’ Colly said with a smile.

  ‘You don’t know my mother. She’s wonderful,’ he said, ‘but memory of her attempts to mollycoddle me at the first childhood sniffle makes me know she’ll fuss and cosset me to death if I let her an inch over my doorstep. She’ll want to take my temperature every five minutes and feed me every ten.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better stay where you are,’ Colly said sweetly.

  ‘Not a chance!’ he fired unhesitatingly back, then paused and said evenly, ‘Actually, it was my mother who gave me the answer.’

  ‘What answer?’ Colly fell straight in.

  And she was sure she could hear a smile in his voice because of it, as he began to reveal, ‘It was while I was resisting all arguments that she move in, with my mother insisting that she was the natural choice for someone to come and “watch over” me—that on its own was threatening enough—that when she attempted to settle her argument with the words “It’s not as if you have a wife to look after you” I had an idea.’

  ‘You didn’t tell her you had a wife?’ Colly exclaimed in shock.

  ‘I wasn’t that panicked!’ Charming! ‘I just thought, if you’re not busy with anything else just now—purely to keep my mother off my back—you might care to come and stay for a night or two. Naturally, without question, you’d have your own room. I just…’ His voice seemed to fade, and she guessed he was far from back to his full strength yet. She loved him too much to put him through further strain. It did not take any thinking about. ‘I’ll come and see you at the hospital at ten tomorrow,’ she said decisively. And, bossily, ‘Now go to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ he responded meekly—but Colly just knew that his lips were twitching.

  She sat for ageless minutes after his call, just thinking about him. She supposed that for a man who was always up to his eyes in work, always so very busy, that to be so incarcerated would truly drive him up the wall. Particularly now that he had started to mend and was no longer as gravely ill as he had been.

  Colly had no idea of what was involved in ‘watching over’ him, but, while obviously not back to top form yet, he must be feeling well enough to leave hospital. And if Silas needed someone to be there so that he was not in his home alone overnight, or during the day, for that matter, then Colly knew that she wanted that someone to be her and no one else.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WITH Silas her first priority, Colly rang Rupert at his home that Friday night and asked if he’d mind if they reverted to her previous hours of work.

  ‘Ah, your money’s come through and you no longer need to relieve me of my hard-earned cash,’ he replied.

  ‘My heart bleeds,’ she joked with him. ‘Will that be all right?’

  ‘I shall miss you,’ he answered, adding soulfully, ‘Nobody makes coffee like you.’

  ‘I’ll be there to make you some next Tuesday,’ she said, and rang off.

  When she left the apartment the following morning Colly was carrying an overnight bag. That to stay with Silas and keep any eye on him as he recovered had never been part of their agreement was neither here nor there. She loved him, was in love with him, and if he was in trouble—in this case still unwell—with him was where she wanted to be.

  He was already dressed when she arrived at the hospital, and was sitting in a wooden-armed chair. Colly’s heart went out to him—he looked far from well.

  ‘You’ve lost weight!’ she observed when, impatient to be off, he got to his feet.

  He adopted a kind of sardonic look of pathos. ‘I’ve been poorly,’ he sighed.

  As ever, he made her laugh. But she still was not too happy about him leaving hospital. ‘Are you sure you should be—?’ she began.

  ‘I’ve already had this lecture,’ he cut in sharply.

  ‘You just wait until I get you home!’ she threatened toughly, and turned away when she saw him trying to suppress an involuntary laugh of his own. ‘Sit down again while I go and check up on your medicines,’ she instructed, and went quickly to find someone in charge.

  Armed with a mental list of dos and don’ts, Colly went back to Silas. ‘Now?’ he questioned, rising from his chair. He had lost weight Colly fretted, but clamped her lips shut so not to make another comment. She must keep her anxieties to herself.

  Stubbornly he walked unaided to her car—it was quite some way. It was a cold day; she turned up the heater. Silas was asleep five minutes later.

  She knew his address, and fortunately found it without too much trouble. Silas stirred as they arrived outside the stately building where he had his apartment. ‘It’s impossible to park around here,’ he said, and was alert as he directed her to where his garage and the parking area was.

  From there she took charge and drove round to the front of the building again. ‘You go in while I park,’ she suggested.

  That he did not argue showed her that he was not feeling as strong as he might have thought he was. Colly parked her car, grabbed her overnight bag from the boot, and hurried to him. He had left the door ajar; she went in.

  ‘Not in bed yet?’ she enquired mildly, on finding him seated in a beautiful high-ceilinged drawing room.

  ‘You don’t know how good it is to be back,’ he replied.

  ‘Coffee?’ she suggested, and found her way to the kitchen while she wondered on the best approach to get him to go to bed. She did not want to argue with him, or say anything in the least contentious that might see him pulling the other way. But in bed seemed the best place for him.

  She returned to the drawing room with a tray of coffee, handed him a cup and took hers to the seat opposite. ‘You’ll probably want to rest in bed after you’ve drunk that.’ She tried the power of suggestion.

  ‘Why? What have you put in it?’

  She wanted to laugh—and hit him at one and the same time. Hints, she saw, were going to be a waste of time. ‘You may be out of hospital, but you still need your bedrest.’

  He gave her a disgusted look but forbore to tell her that she was worse than his mother. ‘How have you been?’ he enquired instead.

  ‘Me? Fine!’ she replied, not caring to be the subject under discussion. ‘Better than you, I’d say.’ She attempted to put the conversation back where she wanted it.

  ‘If you need any help winding up your father’s estate, my people will—’

  ‘Thanks for the offer, but everything’s going smoothly,’ she butted in. ‘Nanette wants to sell the house and I’ve no objection.’

  ‘She has your present address?’

  ‘No, but I’ve been working full time at the gallery and Uncle Henry pops in whenever there’s anything new I need to know. I told you about Henry Warren, my father’s friend?’

  Silas did not answer her, but questioned something else she had just said. ‘You’re working full time? I thought you only helped out there one day a week?’

  ‘I did,’ she agreed. ‘But when I discovered that the foundatio
n course I’m interested in doesn’t start until September I realised I’d better find some paid employment, so I—’

  ‘We agreed I was to fund you!’ Silas cut her off, sounding annoyed.

  ‘It didn’t seem right that I should sit idly back and use your money while waiting for my course to start,’ she explained. ‘But, since I’m not qualified to do anything in particular, I told Rupert I need to find paid employment, and he said he’d put me on his payroll.’

  Silas still did not look overjoyed. ‘So you’ve had to ask for time off in order to spend two or three days here?’

  She shook her head. ‘With my father’s new will my financial position has changed. I rang Rupert last night and told him I’d like to go back to our old arrangement.’

  What she expected Silas to reply she could not have said, but a kind of grunt was what she did get, coupled with something that sounded very much like, ‘You’re too proud by half!’

  ‘Look who’s talking!’ she retorted. ‘You’re dead on your feet but won’t give in!’ And, guessing from the set of his jaw that she was going to get nowhere with him with that attitude, ‘Come on, Silas, give me a break.’ And, when he looked obstinately back at her, ‘I shall have to pop to the shops in a little while. I shall feel much happier in my head if I know you’re lying down regaining your strength.’

  ‘What have you to “pop to the shops” for?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘You have to eat. If I’m to cook meals for you—’

  ‘You don’t have to cook my meals!’ he objected—and Colly stared at him, and started to get cross.’

  ‘Look here, Livingstone. I’ve given up my job—not much of a job, I admit, but all I’m likely to get until I’m trained—to come here and keep an eye on you. But if I’m not allowed to cajole you to bed, and nor am I allowed to see to it that you take proper nourishment, then would you please mind telling me just what exactly I am doing here?’

  ‘You’re here to answer the phone when my mother rings—which she is going to any minute now, if I’m not mistaken. And—’ he gave her a wry look ‘—you shouldn’t talk to me like that. I’ve not been well.’

  Laugh or hit him? She was tempted. Laughter won. She turned away so he should not see. Though she soon sobered, to turn back and quickly ask, ‘Your mother knows I’m here? Who I am? I mean, that we—um—got married?’

  ‘Hell, no! If she knew I’d married she’d be round here to meet you quicker than that. I just told her a kind, close friend, who had nothing else on at the moment, was coming to stay for a few days.’

  And that annoyed Colly. Though, as she was well aware, jealousy was the root cause. ‘You have many “kind, close” women-friends with nothing else on at the moment?’ she asked shortly.

  He shrugged. ‘None that I’d care to give that sort of advantage.’

  Colly thought about his answer and realised he was meaning that, because he knew she had no ulterior motive in answering his SOS, he could trust her not to want to get too domesticated with him. The fact that they were already married to each other, but only married for expediency and no other reason, made her, in his eyes, nothing of a threat.

  ‘I think—I’m not sure—but I think you’ve just paid me a compliment.’

  He did not tell her whether he had or he hadn’t, but informed her, ‘Mrs Varley was here most of yesterday. She—’

  ‘Mrs Varley?’ Colly interrupted him. He might be physically weakened, but she knew she would have to stay on her toes to mentally keep up with him.

  ‘She’s the good soul who comes and housekeeps five mornings a week. When she’s not cleaning, washing or ironing, she cooks. She also shops. She said when I rang that she’d leave a pie ready for today’s dinner.’

  ‘Presumably I’m allowed to heat it up?’

  The phone rang before she received any answer. ‘Tell my mother I look well and that—’

  ‘I’m expected to answer your phone?’

  ‘She’ll be here jet-propelled if it goes unanswered,’ he hinted, not moving.

  ‘Go to bed.’ Colly openly blackmailed him.

  ‘I could always tell her we’re married, I suppose.’ He bounced her blackmail with blackmail of his own. Colly decided not to risk it.

  She went over to the insistent telephone and picked it up. ‘Hello?’ she said, feeling more than a touch nervous.

  ‘Hello,’ answered a warm-sounding voice. ‘I’m Paula Livingstone, Silas’s mother,’ she introduced herself. ‘And you’re—Colly?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Colly replied.

  ‘You got that son of mine home all right? How does he seem? He won’t tell me if I ask him, so I just have to use your eyes.’

  Colly cast a glance over at him. ‘He seems much improved from the last time I saw him.’ She thought that was a nice safe answer.

  Only to realise she had invited more questions and no small speculation when Paula Livingstone enquired, ‘You saw Silas when he was in hospital?’

  Somehow Colly did not feel she could lie to her. ‘Only for a short while—when he was in the isolation unit.’ Colly saw Silas give a ‘tut-tut’ kind of look at what she had just said. She turned her back on him.

  ‘They let you see him? Oh, that is nice,’ Paula Livingstone remarked warmly. ‘They said that only family members were allowed in when…’

  Oh, heavens. Colly realised that Silas had straight away seen this development in the split second she had owned to seeing him in that particular department. ‘I saw him on his last day there—I believe Silas was transferred out of the isolation unit soon after.’ She had to turn and take another look at him—he was shaking his head from side to side. Colly felt a laugh bubbling up, and wondered if she was growing slightly hysterical. ‘We’re just having a cup of coffee, then Silas is going to go to bed for a little while,’ she volunteered.

  ‘Oh, good. I’m so glad you’re there with him,’ Paula Livingstone said genuinely.

  ‘Would you like to speak with him?’

  ‘No, no. He’ll only accuse me of being a fusspot. I’d come over in person, but he always did have a rigid independent streak. I naturally dropped everything when Silas was so ill. Which means I’m way behind with my committee work. But if you need me for any reason—no matter how small—I’ll be there. Just give me a call.’

  Colly came away from the telephone having warmed to Silas’s mother but hoping that she would not have to speak to her again. It was too fraught with holes for her to fall into. ‘I didn’t handle that too brilliantly, did I?’ she said to Silas unhappily.

  ‘You did well,’ he answered.

  Colly knew that she had not done well. ‘I’m no good at subterfuge,’ she remarked. ‘All I’ve done now is let your mother believe I’m almost as close to you as family.’

  ‘We’re still not getting divorced,’ he countered, pulling a face that made her laugh.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ she ordered. ‘And, if you don’t want to make a liar of me, go to bed.’

  Silas gave her a long steady look, but to her amazement he got up and, without another word, went from the room. That alone told her that he was more tired and used up that he would ever admit to.

  Moving quietly so as not to disturb him, Colly stacked their cups and saucers onto the tray and took them to the kitchen. As silently as she could she washed the dishes and investigated the cupboards. He would need a light meal of some sort shortly.

  Having taken a look in the fridge and the freezer, she saw that Mrs Varley had been extremely busy. There was enough food there to last through a siege. Colly prepared some vegetables for the evening meal, and began to wonder where her room would be.

  She felt a little hesitant to investigate, but would not mind knowing where she was to sleep that night. Taking her overnight bag with her, she went along the hall. There were several doors to choose from.

  Anticipating that one of them would be the door to Silas’s room, she tapped lightly on the wood panels of the first door and quietly opened i
t. It was a bedroom. Silas’s bedroom.

  He was neither asleep nor in bed, but, fully clothed apart from his shoes, he was lying on top of the bedcovers reading. He lowered his book and glanced at her over the top of it.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ she apologised, feeling suddenly all flustered—how very dear to her he was. ‘But I was wondering—looking for my room.’

  ‘I should have shown you,’ he said, and before she could stop him he was off the bed and coming over to her.

  ‘I’ll find it!’ she protested. ‘Just—’

  ‘I’m not totally debilitated!’ he butted in harshly, and led the way along the hall to a room at the end. ‘This do?’ he questioned brusquely, opening the door and allowing her to enter first.

  For a few seconds Colly was in two minds about staying at all. She was doing him a favour, not the other way round! Then she looked at him and realised that he hated being ill, hated being weakened, and hated like blazes having to ask anyone for help. And her heart went out to him.

  So she smiled at him. ‘You’re a touchy brute, Livingstone,’ she told him sweetly. ‘And this,’ she said, going in and looking round, ‘is a lovely room.’ A grunt was her answer as he left to return to his room.

  After unpacking her bag Colly went to the kitchen. She decided on a ham omelette with some salad, and would very much have liked to take it to Silas on a tray—she doubted very much that he possessed a bed-tray. But, in view of his scratchiness not so long ago, she decided to treat him as he wished to be treated. She laid two places at the kitchen table and, when everything was ready, went to his room.

  ‘I’ve laid the table in the kitchen. Lunch is ready when you are.’ She turned about and went back to the kitchen. When less than thirty seconds later he joined her, she felt he had been nicely brought up not to let the cook’s efforts go to waste.

  He had eaten only half his omelette, though, when he put down his knife and fork. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. He plainly could eat no more.

  Colly smiled at him because she had to. ‘You’re forgiven,’ she assured him. And, apologising in turn, ‘I’ll try to be more understanding,’ she added.