Flowers for My Love (4 page)

She looked down at her hands on the coverlet and spoke to them.

‘Does Cheryl know I’m ill? I hope you didn’t tell her I don’t want her to come home and look after me when she’s not well herself.’

‘Cheryl doesn’t know anything. She’ll put it down to you being too busy with the shop to go and see her. About this brother of yours—you’re sure he’s coming?’

‘Certain. Please don’t stay any longer. You missed a night’s rest and you need a shave. I’m awfully grateful, but we shall be able to manage.’

‘You mean you can’t wait to be rid of me?’ The fair eyebrows lifted sardonically and she gave a pale smile.

‘Don’t take it personally. I just want to concentrate on getting better and I feel I can do that far quicker on my own.’

He reached for the hand nearest to him on the counterpane and curled his fingers round it.

‘And you’re not the teeniest bit sorry that I’m going?’

‘Not really because ... you make me aware of what I’m missing ... how I would have lived had my parents been alive.’

‘And you think that’s bad?’

He was kissing her fingers one by one and she tried to free them to no avail.

Desperately, she said, ‘It’s a luxury I can’t afford. Cheryl and Darren are at a crucial stage in their lives when they can either make or mar their future. I have to concentrate on them until they’re firmly established in what they want to do.’

His eyes narrowed and the grip on her fingers made her wince inwardly.

‘You mean you’re off men until Cheryl and Darren are settled? Or is it that you’re afraid of becoming too attached to some man ... me?’

She managed a smile. ‘Let’s say that you unsettle me and make me dissatisfied with the plans I’ve made.’

Nick’s voice had been crisp and demanding. Now some of the harshness was leaving his voice and Davina trembled inwardly. A Nick who demanded she could deal with, but a gentle charming Nick whose mouth curved upwards at the corners and whose eyes looked deeply into her own undermined her defences alarmingly.

‘I understand,’ he said gently. ‘I’m glad I’ve managed to get through to you at all. You know what it means, don’t you? You haven’t yet become a hardened female who finds herself married to her career. I’m all for a woman being a woman.’

‘You mean you don’t like a career woman?’

He shrugged wide shoulders. ‘Marriage is a career which I favour for all women. Granted there are some who don’t fit in, but marriage and a career don’t mix. A lot of women want their cake filled with the cream of both and it just doesn’t work.’

Davina closed her eyes. She felt dreadfully weak in more ways than one. What frightened her most was the fact that as ill as she felt, this big disturbing man sitting beside her could still bring her alive to all kinds of needs she had been learning to suppress.

Weak tears oozed between her lashes as she recalled his gentle ministrations throughout the night. He had seemed to know the exact moment when her throat had been unbearably dry and painful, and she had drunk greedily from the cup he had held to her lips.

He had pretended to be half asleep on the occasions when she had felt the need to go to the bathroom. On her return he had swooped her up into his arms to carry her back to the bed.

‘You’ve been very kind,’ she whispered almost to herself.

‘I shall be all right now, thanks to you.’

‘Tears?’ he mocked, bending over her to scoop them away with a long lean finger. ‘I’ll be going. I hope this brother of yours comes up to expectation, because he’ll have me to deal with if he doesn’t.’

Deliberately, he bent his head and kissed her quivering mouth, and her eyes shot open to gaze up at him darkly.

‘Just to show you that I mean business,’ he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

Davina drifted off to sleep and wakened to find herself alone. Feeling the need for a drink to ease her parched throat, she pushed herself up in bed and saw that Nick had left a jug of fresh iced lemon tea by her bed along with the next dose of her medicine.

There was also a large bowl of fruit on the bedside table.

The large bunch of grapes placed on top of the pile looked inviting, but all Davina wanted to do was sleep.

When she wakened again it was well into the afternoon.

Darren had not come and she began to wonder if anything had happened to him. Staggering to the bathroom, she splashed cool water on her face and put her wrists under the cold water tap to cool her down.

It was dreadful how weak she felt upon going back to bed.

The day passed and the night too, a much better night than the previous one. Her throat felt better and she managed to wash herself in the bathroom. After cleaning her teeth and combing her hair she felt a little better.

The rest of the jug of lemon tea had gone during the night, but she felt too fagged out to make more, unless ...

She made her way slowly to the fridge in the kitchen to discover another jug of lemon tea waiting for her.

Dear Nick, she thought. Thank you. Darren’s bed had not been slept in. He evidently had not arrived. She heard the key in the lock an hour or so later. Her watch said nine o’clock.

‘In here, Darren,’ she called croakingly.

But it wasn’t Darren who filled the doorway but Nick bearing a bouquet of roses and a scowl.

‘So your precious brother hasn’t arrived,’ he barked, and placed the flowers on a chair before striding to the bed. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’

She felt his cool fingers on her forehead, and her heart beat like a sledgehammer. It was difficult to define which was making her feel so lightheaded, Nick’s nearness with his pleasing masculine fragrance of good grooming or her illness.

‘I’m much better, thanks. I have no idea what’s keeping Darren unless he’s decided to spend his holiday with a friend, in which case he would be sure to let me know.’

He had found her sitting on the bed in her nightie in the act of picking up the telephone to enquire about Cheryl.

She felt his eyes upon her and was aware of the fragile nightie. Her wrap lay on the chair and she glanced towards it.

For some reason she wanted that wrap desperately.

He said dryly, ‘I suggest you get back into bed. There’s nothing for you to worry about. I’ve contacted the hospital and Cheryl is improving nicely. I shall be calling to see her later.’

Davina was in bed before he had finished speaking. He looked into the jug of lemon tea, then at the medicine.

‘I take it this is the second jug from the fridge. I’ll make you some more. You must tell me what kind of books you like and I’ll get them for you.’

Davina said weakly, ‘How did you get in?’

Nick held up her key. ‘I hung on to this.’

He turned abruptly at the sound of another key in the front door.

‘Seems someone else has one too,’ he added sardonically.

He strode out of the room to greet the newcomer and Davina heard his deep musical voice mingling with Darren’s.

Darren came in the room looking rather sheepish and concerned.

‘Sorry I didn’t manage to come home yesterday, but we had a bit of a farewell party and I missed my train. How are you?’

Davina put out a hand which he took in his. ‘I’m all right.

Just a touch of tonsillitis. Cheryl has it too. She collapsed while out shopping and landed in hospital. Nice to see you, Darren. Sorry to land you with trouble on your holiday.’

He grinned. ‘That’s all right, I can study a patient at first hand. You must tell me what my bedside manner is like.’ He came nearer and bent over her to whisper, ‘Who’s the man in the kitchen? Is he the doctor? He’s just been telling me off about not arriving sooner—as if I knew you were ill. He made me feel about five years old.’

Davina smiled. ‘He’s a friend. Actually he comes to the shop for flowers.’

Darren frowned ferociously. ‘You’re not going to marry him, are you?’ he demanded.

She shook her head. ‘Of course not! He’s been very kind to me, that’s all.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ He gave an immense sigh of relief. ‘Sorry he isn’t a doctor, though. I might have learned something from him.’

‘You will,’ Davina promised. ‘He can turn his hand at anything.’

‘He doesn’t exactly look like a kitchen hand, does he? I’m famished. Anything in the fridge?’

‘It’s always pretty well stocked, as you know. Help yourself.’

Nick strode in at that instant with a tray on which stood a steaming bowl.

He addressed Darren briskly. ‘I’ve made tea and there’s a couple of slices of bread in the toaster in the kitchen.’

As Darren left the room Davina looked at him helplessly.

‘I’ve never met anyone like you,’ she said. ‘You don’t leave anyone a leg to stand on.’

He placed the tray down on a chair and came to the bed.

‘If that’s for me,’ she said, ‘I don’t want it. I couldn’t eat a thing.’

‘You don’t have to eat it. Just let it slide down your throat.’

He lifted her up in bed and placed the pillows behind her back. Then he placed the tray across her knees.

‘I’ll go to see how Darren is getting on with the toast and I expect that bowl to be empty when I come back,’ Nick told her darkly.

With the feeling that he was quite capable of feeding her if she did not eat Davina picked up the spoon.

In no time at all Davina and Cheryl were back in the shop again. Neither of them felt too fit, and it showed in their conversation. Cheryl had always been a bit of a dreamer; now she seemed to dream more than ever. It bothered Davina to see how she had withdrawn into her own little world.

Was she in love with Nick? He had gone to see her at the hospital and she had never told Davina what had passed between them. She was so young and Nick so very experienced.

Darren had been a brick in looking after them during his holiday. At least he was settled enough and did a fair amount of homework while he was at the flat.

During that first week back in the shop Davina found herself wishing that she could shake off the feeling of disturbance that was always with her since Nick bad gone away. He had left for Brussels the day after Darren had arrived and had sent flowers every day. They had come to the flat fresh with the dew still on them and that had been the only time that Cheryl had mentioned him.

‘Funny, isn’t it, sending us flowers when we live among them? They must have cost him the earth. Did you see Rex when I told him they were from an admirer?’

Davina had shaken her head. ‘I still think you’re wrong to make it up again with Rex. He’ll let you down again—he’s that sort.’

But Cheryl had only laughed. ‘Well,’ she argued, ‘he has the kind of money that takes us to the best places. By the way, his aunt in Kent has invited us down for the weekend. You will go with us, won’t you?’

Davina stared at her sister in astonishment. ‘Why in the world would you want me to go with you? I should only be in the way.’

‘But you wouldn’t. I think his aunt wants to see what kind of family I’ve got. Please say you’ll come.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Davina promised.

It was only one of the things Davina had to think about. The trouble was one could not shut out memories as disturbing as those of Nick. The sign of any young man blond and wide-shouldered who faintly resembled him set her heart going nineteen to the dozen. It was so odd that one man could disturb the even tenor of her life, but there it was, and it was very frightening.

Each night Davina lay in bed staring into space, into emptiness. She saw something go, taking part of her with it and leaving nothing behind. Each day she was back in the shop where a man’s half mocking eyes had captured her own, stirring an old fear in her mind. Disturbing grey eyes and a mouth that could be cruel and ruthless or soften into tender humour while he ordered flowers for one or two of his lady loves.

Before the weekend, on early closing day, Davina took Cheryl to town to buy new clothes, and ended up with replenishing her own wardrobe. The extravagance for Cheryl was justified because it was essential. For herself it was in retaliation for Nick’s entry and exit from her life.

They went down to Kent directly after the shop closed on Saturday in Rex’s big car. The spring weather had improved enormously and it was quite warm.

The house lay in acres of woodland and gardens, the latter glowing with all the beauty of an English spring; daffodils, crocus, narcissi, and violets. However, the house itself was Georgian and very homely with chintzes and lots of flowers.

Lila Stanford, a smart woman in her fifties, greeted them on their arrival. She and her husband George were celebrating the arrival of their first grandchild. These birthday celebrations marked a complete gathering of the family.

The eldest daughter Corinna, married to an Oxford don, had produced the first grandchild. There was a son the same age as Rex and a younger daughter still at boarding school.

Lila and Rex Martin’s mother were sisters. His parents were still away on a winter cruise. Davina had never liked Rex Martin. In her opinion he had never grown up for all his twenty-five years. He was irresponsible and far too fond of a good time. Cheryl was not the girl for him. She was too vulnerable, too trusting and idealistic.

Rex dabbled in painting and had sold one or two pictures.