Dragon's Lair (25 page)

Reluctantly she obeyed. 'Satisfied?'

'Not entirely. Pull your sleeve up. I want to see if there's a swelling.'

She didn't want to. For one thing she was just becoming aware, now

that the first shock had worn off, that her arm was indeed very

painful. But that was natural, wasn't it? After all, she had just

banged it on a hard floor. But the pain should be getting easier all

the time, she thought, and yet there seemed to be no way in which

she could hold her arm and make it comfortable even.

Biting her lip, she pulled back her sleeve and extended her arm

almost defiantly. His fingers moved on her skin, featherlight, and

she yelped involuntarily.

'So it does hurt.' There was a sort of grim satisfaction in his voice.

'Of course it does. I've bruised it,' she said defiantly. She brought

her other hand up underneath to support it, and it felt infinitesimally

better. 'I tell you I'm all right,' she added, her voice rising.

'You're far from all right,' he said flatly. 'Sit down on the step and

I'll put your shoes on for you.'

'I can manage my own damned shoes!'

'Fine,' he said with heavy sarcasm. 'Let's see you do it, then.'

There was sweat beading her brow by the time she had got one of

them on and the laces weren't even tied. She heard Gethyn curse

under his breath, then he seized her other foot roughly, thrusting the

shoe on to it and knotting the laces with an almost savage twist.

'Come on,' he said, putting his hand under her good arm and urging

her to her feet. 'We have a fair old drive ahead of us.'

'Where are we going?' She hung back, staring at him, her eyes wide

and apprehensive.

'To a hospital that has a casualty department,' he said shortly. 'They

don't grow on trees in this part of Wales, I'm afraid.'

'You're being ridiculous!'

'I don't think so.' She was being led now inexorably towards the

door which had been her original goal, and the irony of this did not

escape her. 'You may have bruised your arm as you say, or you may

have sprained it. Whatever you've done, an X-ray will tell us all

about it. Wait a minute.' He caught up his coat from the table and

felt in one of the pockets, producing the headscarf she had bought

in Dolgellau. His mouth twisted as he looked at it. 'Perhaps we can

find a use for this abomination after all.'

Davina stood numb with fury while he fashioned a rough sling and

put her arm into it.

'Please take me back to Plas Gwyn,' she pleaded when he had

finished. 'Your aunt could put a cold compress on it for me and ...'

'Don't argue,' he said, and doused the lamp.

The air outside felt chilly as he put her into the Land-rover.

'You're in for an uncomfortable time until we get on to the road,' he

informed her. 'If you start to feel sick just hang out of the window.'

She wasn't sick, but she could have been, and faintness was

threatening to overwhelm her again by the time the jolting ceased

and they emerged mercifully on to the road. She made herself sit

up, carefully avoiding moving her arm which was throbbing dully

and persistently, and took a grip on herself.

Gethyn did not speak, and in the dim light inside the Landrover, the

lines of his face seemed to show strain.

It was she at last who broke the silence between them. 'I don't

recognise this road.'

'No. We're going to Aberystwyth. It's fractionally nearer.' His voice

sounded almost impatient. But more than that— worried, as if he

was actually concerned about her. But that was hardly possible, she

thought with a bitter little twist to her lips. It was far more likely

that he was regretting the loss of his night's entertainment.

At length he glanced at her. 'Are you warm enough? These aren't

the most comfortable of vehicles, as you've already found out to

your cost this evening.'

'I'm quite all right,' she lied. 'I think this mercy dash of yours is

simply carrying things to extremes.'

'Perhaps.' She was aware of the jut of his chin in the darkness. 'But

I'm taking no chances.'

The dark folded shadows of the hills seemed to close them round as

they drove. Occasionally Davina spotted the twinkling lights of a

farmhouse set back off the road. Nothing overtook them. Gethyn

was driving as if he meant it, but other cars swooped towards them,

their lights like bright searching eyes. She found she was closing

her eyes involuntarily against the unwanted brilliance, and at last

she dozed a little.

When she opened her eyes, the road had widened, and there were

houses and street lights, and Gethyn was swinging to the right,

putting the Landrover at a long, steep hill, and the large brilliantly

lit building which stood at its crest.

He held the glass doors open for her to pass into the casualty

department. It seemed almost deserted. A young man in a white

coat doing a crossword puzzle lowered his paper and gave Davina a

searchingly professional glance as she was escorted to the reception

desk. The formalities completed, a young bearded male nurse led

her along a passage to a curtained cubicle.

'Hurting, is it?' He peered at her arm inside the sling, and gave a

slight whistle. 'Don't answer that. I can see for myself.'

The doctor's fingers were firm but gentle as they explored the

swollen area just above her wrist. Like an automaton Davina moved

her fingers on instruction, and had to bite back a cry of pain when

she attempted to move her thumb.

'Hm.' The doctor looked across at Gethyn with a slight grimace.

'One definite fracture and a possible scaphoid as well. But, we'll

know more about that when we see the X-rays.'

The young man with the crossword puzzle turned out to be the

radiographer, and Davina made herself sit very still, trying not to

flinch as he arranged her injured arm in all kinds of positions for the

camera.

Gethyn was waiting when she emerged from the X-ray room.

'I've found you a cup of tea,' he said briefly, handing her a paper

cup. 'Hot and plenty of sugar. Good for shock.'

She was quite glad to sit down beside him on the bench in the

reception area and sip her tea. It was quite revoltingly sweet, but

after a while the quaking feeling in the pit of her stomach began to

dissipate, and she began to feel considerably more human.

In what seemed like no time at all she was back in the cubicle

hearing the bad news. Two fractures—one just above her wrist and

another at the base of her thumb. She couldn't believe it. She'd had

far worse falls than the one she had just suffered. She had fallen off

ponies as a child, and on the ski slopes when she grew older, and

had never been a penny the worse from any of them. She'd stood

more chance of hurting herself that afternoon when she'd scrambled

round the rocks to find the dragon's cave.

She sat numbly watching the dripping strips of plaster being

expertly applied round her hand and thumb. Her right hand, she

thought desolately. It would have to be her right hand. What was

she going to do now? How was she going to drive her car? Her arm

was not hurting so much, she had to admit, now that it was

supported by the plaster, but it felt as if it did not belong to her,

swathed in plaster almost from her elbow to her knuckles. She

wanted very badly to find a quiet corner somewhere where she

could sit and cry until there were no more tears, but no one seemed

prepared to let her do that.

She found herself meekly accepting a list of instructions about how

to look after her arm, and then Gethyn, his hand warm under her

other arm, was shepherding her back to the car park.

He gave her a brief look as he climbed in beside her. 'How do you

feel?'

'I don't know.' She stared down at her arm. 'I can't quite believe all

this has happened. I feel such a fool.'

'I broke a collarbone playing rugby one season,' he said. 'And I

broke this'—he tapped his nose—'the next. I gave up rugby after

that. Too bloody dangerous.'

She knew he was trying to make her laugh and was grateful for the

sudden lightening of the atmosphere.

'What position did you play?'

'Full back,' he returned casually.

She pondered her scanty knowledge of rugby. 'Oh—like J. P. R.

Williams.'

He gave her a faint grin. 'I wouldn't put myself quite in that class.'

'I had no idea you played rugby,' she said casually, and could have

kicked herself.

'No.' His brows rose sardonically. 'But then it was never the past

you were particularly interested in, was it,
cariad?
Only the

present, and the future, though there was damned little of that as it

turned out.'

'I'm sorry,' she mumbled.

'Don't be.' He sighed harshly and explosively. 'There's little point

now. Perhaps if we both get out of this mess older and a little wiser,

it will have served its purpose. Who knows?'

There was tension between them again now—almost tangible, and

she regretted it. Just for a few fleeting moments they seemed to

have recaptured the easy comradeship of their courting days, the

companionship which had so often and so easily turned to

passionate need, one for the other. At times, she thought unhappily,

they could be walking, laughing at some mutual nonsense, hand in

hand like children. Then the next moment they would be in each

other's arms, man and woman completely. Oh, where had it gone?

Why had she let it go?

She stole a sideways glance at Gethyn under her lashes and saw

that he was frowning faintly, his fingers drumming restlessly on the

steering wheel as he drove. They were out of Aberystwyth now.

The sea was behind them and they were heading inland, back to the

tall hills. She moved restlessly. The little drama was over now, and

they were back to the major event. Because she'd been injured and

frightened, a lot of things had remained unsaid. But there were other

things—other statements that had been brought out into the open,

and these were what rankled.

She remembered everything he had said before her fainting fit with

a deadly clarity. She had been too hurt, too bewildered at the time

to reason it all out, but now she had nothing else to do but stare

ahead of her through the windscreen and brood, and she did not like

the conclusions that were buzzing like a swarm of angry bees inside

her brain. When Gethyn had first launched his bitter tirade, she had

assumed that he believed she had miscarried on purpose— thrown

herself down the stairs, perhaps. There was a bitter irony in that

now.

Yet now she knew that he believed there had been nothing careless

or accidental in the loss of the child. That somehow, even without

his consent, she had managed to wangle herself an abortion. But

how could he think such a thing? True, at the time he had been on

the other side of the Atlantic, but her message to him, begging him

to come, telling him what had happened, had surely been clear

enough?

Unless it had not been delivered properly. Out of the nightmare of

pain and fear, she could remember one thing clearly. Her

mother—cool and elegant as always—at her bedside, wiping her

forehead with a dampened cloth. Her voice quietly soothing. 'My

darling—my poor little girl.' And her own faltering reply: 'Tell

Gethyn—ask him to come.'

But what had her mother told him? Davina felt a shiver run down

her spine as she tried to come to terms with this new possibility.

Mrs Greer had hated Gethyn and resented her marriage and every

aspect of it. Her concern for Davina had been real, but her attitude

afterwards made it clear that she thought her daughter should be

glad she had not been made to bear Gethyn's child. And she had not

bothered to conceal her relief and pleasure when Davina told her

quietly she intended to write to Gethyn telling him she did not want

to see him again.

Davina had assumed at the time that her mother's relief was simply

at the marriage being at an end, but now she wondered if it was not

quite as simple as that. If Mrs Greer had another even more potent

reason for wanting her daughter and hated son-in-law kept at a

permanent distance. If she had lied ... Davina flinched away from

the thought, but it had to be faced. If she had told Gethyn a

deliberate lie, then that was all the reason in the world for not