Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook (10 page)

Ruby was feeling the same as he did, Hugo was telling himself. She was no longer wary of him for some reason and was accepting that they belonged together. The future was opening out before him. He could see her beside him, filling the empty space in his bed for evermore, with her desire equalling his, and their children playing in the grounds of Lakes Rise with the two of them looking on fondly hand in hand.

As if she was reading his mind, she said suddenly, ‘I need my wrap, Hugo, it’s getting chilly out here. Shall we go back to the table?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he agreed evenly, aware that her mood was no longer matching his for some reason.

Ruby was panicking. She’d been crazy to think she could spend the evening with Hugo on the crest of a feeling of false euphoria born on the determination that everything in her life should be normal for once. That she should be like any other woman truly in love, honest and open, passionate and caring, but out of those things passion was the only thing she could be truthful about and that would have to last her a lifetime once she’d shut Hugo out of her life.

Aren’t you making a big thing out of something small?
the voice of reason was saying as they walked back to the table. They’d left it with Hugo’s arm around her and returned to it as separate people. It isn’t as if what you’ve got is catching. Yet it is, she thought, not in the usual way, but it is something that can be passed on and the wonderful man sitting opposite deserves better than that for his children.

Was it the moment to tell Hugo the reason why her moods changed so frequently while his were so constant? The words were on her lips but she couldn’t say them. He hadn’t asked her to marry him, or even told her he loved her, so some fool she would look if she opened her heart to him and he had no such ideas in mind, and she tried to repair what was left of the evening by saying, ‘It felt really chilly out there. Maybe I should have dressed in something warmer.’

‘Yes, maybe you should,’ he commented in the same flat tone as when he’d agreed to her suggestion that they should break into those precious moments up on deck by going back to their table in the restaurant.

This was going to be it, he was deciding sombrely. Ruby wasn’t ready for what he wanted from her, even though it had seemed that she was when she’d opened the door to him earlier and all through the evening, until now, when it was as if she’d shrunk back into her shell, and if she wasn’t prepared to discuss it with him he could only draw his own conclusions.

She had turned the evening of delight into an ordeal for both of them, she thought as they wished each other a brief goodnight outside the apartment a little later, and as Hugo strode purposefully towards the house she wanted to run after him and explain about the misery and the feeling of loss that she had to live with, but could she endure watching his reaction if she did?

On Easter Sunday morning there was always a faith lunch in the village hall after the service in the church, when everyone brought an item of food, sweet or savoury, towards a buffet, and after a sleepless night Ruby decided to attend both the service and the lunch, with the thought in mind that it would shorten what was going to be a long and miserable day.

She was seated at the back of the church, waiting for the service to start with palm leaves and the heady scent of Easter lilies all around her, when Hugo appeared. As she shrank back out of sight she saw that close behind him was Laura Armstrong, the new practice manager, and her children and unbelievably the four of them seated themselves opposite.

It went without saying that Hugo was going to see
her
, she thought, wishing herself far away, but he was chatting to the children, who would shortly be enrolling at the village school, while their mother looked on approvingly, and she thought what a nice family cameo they presented.

Laura must have come to stay in Gordon’s house over the weekend she decided. The repairs that she’d arranged were already under way so maybe she’d come to check on progress and to acclimatise herself with village life while she was there.

If Hugo had already known that Laura was going to be around he hadn’t said anything about it while they’d been together the night before, though the reason for that might be because he’d been too occupied in writing her, Ruby, off as a non-starter when it came to love.

He looked across eventually and smiled briefly. On seeing the direction of it, Laura smiled too and Ruby knew that she was going to like the new practice manager in spite of her monopolising Hugo whenever she was around.

As the food and drink for the faith lunch were being set out after the service she asked the vicar’s wife if she could help in any way and was quickly found the job of serving tea, coffee and cold drinks from a table separate from the rest, instead of being able to hide herself away in the big country kitchen where the food was being prepared, and of course the moment came when next in the queue in front of her were Hugo and the Armitage family, asking for two soft drinks and two coffees, and with colour rising she served them and wished herself far away. When the others had wandered off to find a table Hugo lingered behind and asked chattily, as if they hadn’t spent the previous evening misunderstanding each other, ‘How are you this morning?’

‘All right, I suppose,’ she replied, and continued the charade. ‘How are
you
, Hugo? I see you’ve got company.’

‘Er, yes,’ he agreed absently, as if his thoughts were somewhere else. ‘I met Laura and the children on my way to church and as they are strangers to Swallowbrook took them under my wing. They’re here for a couple of days while she visits some of the local tradesmen to get estimates for the work she’s having done, and to cast her eye upon what has been done already, but you asked if I’m all right, Ruby.

‘The answer to that is I would be if I thought that you felt the same about the two of us as I do, but I’m a patient man, Ruby, I can wait.’ And on that comment he went to join the Armitage family.

A short distance behind him in the queue elderly John Gallagher had been observing them and thought that their body language wasn’t easy to understand. There had been no signs of disagreement about it, but neither had there been any evidence of the mutual attraction he’d seen every time he called into the surgery. So had it died a death? he wondered.

He had a feeling that he, John, might know something that the other man didn’t, though he wasn’t even sure of it himself. But he remembered the crisis that Ruby Hollister’s family had been facing when they’d been involved in leaving the village, and how he had acted swiftly to get their toddler fast treatment in a life-and-death situation when he’d suspected he had haemophilia.

They’d moved as planned after he’d got the boy sorted and he’d sent their notes to the practice they’d registered with in Tyneside, so he’d never known the final results of the trauma except that young Robbie did have the illness and was being treated by a hospital there.

The other side of the catastrophe had been that he had a sister and there was a possibility that she would have been found to be a carrier of it, which would have put a blight on her young life too.

He didn’t know if Hugo had any knowledge of what had happened to the Hollister family all that time ago, but he imagined not, and it wasn’t
his
place to tell him. or interfere in any way, because of patient confidentiality, but it was food for thought, he decided with a smile for the youngest member of the surgery staff when it was his turn to be served.

When he espied Hugo with Gordon’s niece and her family at a table nearby he went to join them and noted that whatever had been going on between him and Ruby, the other man’s expression was giving nothing away.

While John chatted to the new family that would soon be part of the village Hugo was watching Ruby. She looked pale and tired he thought with the familiar caring feeling she aroused in him wiping out the depression of the night before.

She should be sitting here with them, relaxing. It was only yesterday that she’d been helping him at the garden party, and now she’d offered her services here.

The queue had gone and she was wiping the table down and preparing to take dirty pots into the kitchen when he reached her side and said, ‘I’ll do this. Pour yourself a drink and go and join John and the Armitages.’

As she was about to refuse he said, ‘Don’t argue, Ruby. Just do as I say. I imagine that Laura will welcome someone else to talk to after John, who talks about fishing all the time, and myself, who’s having trouble concentrating on what they’re saying because I’ve got you in view.’

She flashed him a wan smile. No doubt he was watching her to see what she was going to do to confuse him next. But she did as he’d asked, poured herself a coffee and went to join them.

When he’d finished tidying up for her and was about to join them at the table, Ruby got to her feet and said goodbye to all of them with the excuse that she had chores to do. As she walked away Hugo thought how lost and lonely she looked and the moment it was polite enough to follow suit he went to catch her up before she got to the apartment.

But there was no sign of her walking the short distance or her already being there when he arrived at Lakes Rise. When he turned and looked towards the lake he saw a flash of the blue and white flowered dress that she’d worn for the Easter service in the church, so turning he pointed himself in that direction.

She was gazing listlessly across the calm waters when he caught up with her, and putting his concern to one side for the moment he said, ‘I thought that I was the only one that you’re allergic to, Ruby, but you didn’t have much time to spare for the others, did you?’

‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘It was just that Dr John was asking about my family, how they were and if they were settled in Tyneside, which reminded me of what a traumatic time it was moving from here to there, and how miserable I was to have to leave this place.’

It was a lightweight version of that time she was giving him, but when chatting to the elderly GP she hadn’t been sure whether he’d been going to mention Robbie and to prevent that occurring she’d made an excuse to leave.

Hugo was looking around him beneath a darkening sky and asking, ‘So what are you intending to do now?’

She shrugged slender shoulders beneath the pretty dress. ‘Nothing special. I just had the urge to spend a few moments here by the lake before going back to the apartment.’ She looked up into the bright blue gaze observing her. ‘I’m sorry I’ve turned out to be such a drag on you, Hugo.

‘There is nothing intentional about it, but after having to be there for your sister and her children in their distress you must feel that you’ve found yourself a tenant who is almost as needy.’

‘Needy! That’s a good one!’ he exclaimed laughingly. ‘You’re so self-contained I can’t get near you, and those black clouds in the sky are a warning that a downpour is due.’

Even as he spoke the first heavy drops were beginning to fall on them and there was nowhere to shelter along that part of the lakeside.

‘Come on!’ he cried, and taking her hand in his he began to run towards a distant café, but by the time they got there they were drenched.

‘We can’t get any wetter,’ she gasped. ‘Instead of standing around in wet clothes, we might as well carry on back to Lakes Rise, don’t you think?’

He nodded. ‘Guess you’re right. Let’s go.’ and they didn’t stop until the house came into view.

When she would have veered away towards the apartment he shook his head. ‘Come to my place. I’ll make us both a hot toddy when we’ve got into some dry clothes.’ And because it would have been too painful to refuse she followed him inside without protest.

CHAPTER EIGHT

W
HEN
they stood dripping in the hallway and Ruby saw herself in the mirror there she exclaimed laughingly, ‘What a ghastly sight! I’m soaked from head to foot, and just look at my dress.’

‘I don’t look much better,’ he said whimsically, with the dark thatch of his hair flat against his head. She tried to lower the zip of the dress that was clinging to her like a second skin. ‘Let me help you.’

He eased the zip down gently and at the same time passed her a long raincoat that was hanging on the hall stand and asked, ‘Which would you prefer first, the hot drink or the shower?’ Huddled in the garment that was far too big, but better than the soaking-wet dress now lying at her feet, she was beginning to shiver and. as she eased the rest of her clothes off beneath its cold folds Hugo was stripping off.

As she observed the heart-stopping masculine appeal of him, hot drinks and showers were pushed to the back of her mind. She moved towards him with lips parted and heart beating fast, with no will to resist the moment that was being presented to them, and discovered that Hugo’s thoughts were not in line with hers.

Instead of reaching out for her, he said gravely, ‘I’ve taken advantage of the moment a couple of times since we’ve got to know each other better, Ruby, and although it has been mind-blowing I’ve sensed that you have doubts about us.

‘If I was to do the same again when you obviously want me to, where would we go from here? I would be taking advantage of you big time on this occasion, and by tomorrow or even later today you might be regretting it, and we can’t go on like that. I want commitment from you, Ruby, and you aren’t prepared to give it, are you?’

It was there again, she thought, another moment when the time might be right to tell Hugo why she couldn’t do what he was asking of her, but he’d just rejected her out of hand, and mortified she picked up her wet clothes and without a word passing her lips opened the door, and squelched across to the apartment on bare feet.

You aren’t thinking straight, she told herself minutes later as she lay in warm, scented water, and are making life difficult for Hugo in the process. He deserves an explanation, but can you face telling him that when you offered yourself to him tonight, it was the same as when the two of you were dancing on the boat, that both times it was because you craved to be like anyone else, free of the thing that has its hold over you?

The decisions she’d made after the genetic counselling had seemed far away on both occasions because she’d wanted him so, loved him so, and tonight had been prepared to fall into his bed and deal with any repercussions from it afterwards, she’d just wanted him to love her in return.

But she’d reckoned without Hugo’s integrity and his having no knowledge of the thing that stood in the way of the commitment that he was asking from her.

When she was dressed after a long miserable soak she folded the raincoat neatly and putting it into a large carrier bag took it across to the house and placed it on the front step. Once that was done she rang the bell and made a speedy departure.

It was early evening yet seemed as if the day had been a hundred hours long and none of them enjoyable as she forced down a sandwich and tried to get interested in what was on television, but every few seconds her glance went to the house, hoping for a sight of him, and was disappointed.

The deluge that had soaked them to the skin had passed. A watery sun was struggling to get through cloud before the light went and each time she looked across there was no sign of life at Lakes Rise, although his car was on the drive.

Yet did it matter? she thought miserably. She’d spoilt what they had when she’d been so eager to offer herself to him. He’d probably gone to The Mallard to get the taste of it out of his mouth.

The prompting to go back home and find a position in general practice there was strong, but if she did that there would be nothing left of her dreams. No Swallowbrook, which meant no lake, no practice that she had always wanted to be part of, and top of the list no Hugo. Yet a voice inside her kept saying that it was the right thing to do if she was ever to have peace of mind.

Hugo had gone fell walking. The practice was closed the following day, it being Easter Monday, and in the aftermath of the fiasco when they’d arrived back drenched from the rain he’d booked in for the night at the Plateau Hotel situated on a wide ridge some distance up the nearest of the fells.

He was not happy about the way he’d treated Ruby but could see no way of putting things right between them because of her unpredictability. He dreamt all the time of making love to her in sweet nakedness. but when it had been offered to him at a cost that he knew nothing of, he’d refused.

It wasn’t working, this thing between them, he’d thought bleakly as he’d walked up the first rise to where the hotel stood, and from the looks of it never would.

The place was full and noisy as the season was now getting under way. Tourists were pouring into the area either for sightseeing, walking, climbing or sailing, but he wasn’t in the mood for mixing with any of them and went up to his room as soon as he’d eaten.

He would need to set off early in the morning to get to the tops and be back here for lunch, he decided as he paced the room, and should be home in the early evening, but before he turned in he had to let Ruby know where he was. Although he didn’t imagine she would be keen to see
or
hear from him after the way he’d rejected her and then laid down the law with regard to what
he
would require of her.

She glanced across at the house again as the sun was setting and Ruby saw that the raincoat was still there on the front step, and as that seemed to confirm that Hugo wasn’t around she went across and quickly retrieved it with the sick feeling inside that they had come to the end of their on/off relationship and if that was how Hugo felt maybe she should be grateful for a get-out.

She’d made a poor attempt at keeping within the guidelines of the promises she’d made to herself when they’d both been on the verge of nakedness and from now on was not going to put a foot wrong. But as the night wore on with still no sign of life at the house she couldn’t settle until the phone rang at nine o’clock and his voice came over the line.

‘Ruby, it’s me,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’m at the Plateau Hotel halfway up Stone Wall Fell, if anyone needs me for anything. I’m going to carry on to the top in the morning and should be back at Lakes Rise by early evening tomorrow at the latest.’

‘Yes, I see. Take care, Hugo, and thanks for letting me know,’ she replied woodenly, and thought surely he didn’t have to go to such lengths to get away from her.

He was as good as his word and came striding up the drive early Monday evening, just minutes after she’d been across to the house once more and deposited the raincoat with its painful memories on the front step.

Hugo glanced across at the apartment briefly and as she was nowhere in his line of vision he bent and picked up the raincoat and went inside and she thought miserably that it was over almost before it had begun, the love affair that hadn’t had a chance from the start, and if he found that hard to believe he would soon change his mind when she gave in her notice tomorrow.

During the last twenty-four hours she had decided that although it would be heartbreaking, it was the best thing to do. She would go home to her family where her problem was no secret, where she didn’t have to pretend and watch what she did, and maybe one day Hugo would find someone who would be ready to give him the children that he would want. She could never begrudge him that.

Now that the decision had been made she felt calmer, less distraught because she was keeping to the path that she’d chosen to follow, and she could only do that if he wasn’t around.

She would be expected to work a month’s notice, which was part of her contract and might be awkward with them living so near each other, but there was no reason why they should be in each other’s company more than needs be at the surgery and when she came home she would go in and shut her door and hopefully the time would soon pass.

Once again there was no sign of him when she was ready to leave for the surgery on Tuesday morning and she breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to confront him with the weight of what she was about to do heavy on her mind. As she settled herself behind the wheel of her car she said sadly, ‘It’s going to be just you and me again, Theodora. What do you think about that?’ And with a splutter and a roar they were off.

‘This
is
a surprise, Ruby!’ Libby exclaimed when she gave in her notice.

And Nathan commented, ‘We thought you were happy here as part of the practice?’

‘I was, I am,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It is a private matter that has caused me to offer my resignation.’

‘I see, and you will be working your month’s notice, I hope?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she told him, and Libby thought how pale she was, this clever, likeable young doctor, and wondered if her leaving the practice was anything to do with Hugo, who had just pulled up outside the surgery after doing a house call on his way there. She’d seen them together a few times and sensed there was chemistry between them.

Ruby had gone to her room and was already seeing her first patient when he came striding in, and when they told him that she was leaving he gazed at them slack-jawed.

‘Since when?’ he wanted to know.

‘Since just five minutes ago,’ Nathan told him.

‘Did she say why?’ he asked tightly.

‘Just that it is for personal reasons,’ Libby explained, hoping he might have some answer to the surprising news, but if he had Hugo wasn’t saying anything and stayed chatting about other things for a while longer before going to sort out his patients of the day and left the other two doctors to do likewise.

As he closed the door of his consulting room behind him he groaned out loud. The situation between Ruby and himself had been bad enough over the weekend but this was something else! She was leaving the place she loved and it was because of him, he thought grimly.

What was he supposed to do, let her? She would be working the standard notice period, no doubt, so there would be just a month before life lost its meaning and in that time he had to find the answer that he sought.

It was always extra-busy at the practice after a long weekend such as the Easter one and today was no exception. There was no break for lunch, the staff were all having a bite while working, which left no opportunity for him to talk to her, and in any case, surrounded by others like him who would also be surprised that her time with them was going to be so short, did he want to air his frustrations in public?

Each time they came face to face in the surgery Ruby turned away, not willing to meet his glance, and by the time their working day was over he was consumed with impatience.

She was home before him. Nathan had wanted a brief chat before they separated at the end of the day with regard to Ruby’s news of the morning, in the hope that he, Hugo, might be able to throw some light on the surprise announcement. But there was no way he was going to bring his private life into the open, no matter what, and though he’d sympathised with the other man’s dilemma he’d thought that it was nothing compared to his own and they’d separated, each with his own questions regarding Ruby.

When he arrived at Lakes Rise the door at the bottom of the stairs that led to the apartment was open and he called, ‘Can I come up?’

There was a faint ‘Yes’ from above and he wasted no time.

She was standing in front of the cooking range, listlessly tossing a pancake in the air every few seconds, and if he hadn’t been so stressed he would have laughed at the absurdity of the moment, yet even so he couldn’t resist saying, ‘Shrove Tuesday has been and gone, the same as you have in mind for yourself, Ruby. Why on earth have you decided to leave the place that you love? The job you love? If it’s because of me I promise to stay away from you. Our relationship got lost somewhere along the way, didn’t it, yet it doesn’t mean that you have to do anything as drastic as giving in your notice.’

She could have told him,
Yes, I do love Swallowbrook, I do love the job, but I love you more and as far as I can see I won’t be bringing you much joy if I stay.

Instead she said, ‘I’m sorry, Hugo. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going home and will find myself a position there.’

‘You do know you’re letting the practice down, I suppose?’ he commented, trying another approach. ‘Libby will be leaving soon because of the baby, and now you’re going, which will leave us two doctors short.’

Her resolve was weakening. Another second of having to listen to his calm reasoning and it would be so easy to change her mind, but Hugo didn’t know the worries that consumed her and if in the future he should ever discover her reasons for behaving the way she had, her mood swings and the way she’d offered herself to him in a moment of indescribable longing and been refused, he might feel that he’d had a lucky escape.

‘Will you please go?’ she said, switching off the hotplate and depositing the dishevelled pancake in the waste bin. ‘I need to phone my parents to tell them that I’m coming home to live.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said evenly. ‘I hope they tell you that you’re crazy for letting a few misunderstandings uproot you from Swallowbrook for a second time.’ And before she could reply to that he’d gone.