‘You shouldn’t try to talk.’ She pressed her palm to his forehead and watched as he automatically closed his eyes in response.
‘Murray? Murray!’ She thought he had swooned away, but he opened his eyes a little and smiled back.
‘Go on. Tell me about the pitch,’ he whispered.
Drawing her hand back, she filled him in.
‘I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to hand the bottle over. Not when we’d made it ourselves. I was so proud of it. They didn’t deserve it. And all I could think of was getting out of there and coming back here.’
‘Really?’ His voice crackled into a cough.
‘I told them I quit, there and then. I wanted to get back to you. I think we’re a good team.’
‘I do too.’ He breathed out the words.
‘I think we have a good friendship and a good business idea and we can really make a go of building a perfume brand.’
Mutt watched her speaking, his eyes on her mouth as though he wasn’t really hearing her.
‘You’re exhausted. You need to sleep,’ she told him, putting her hand to his head again, but this time on his hairline where she stroked him with soft fingertips.
Even though he tried to fight the drowsiness he couldn’t win against the gentleness of her touch and the warm scent of lavender and the way she shushed him like a baby, her breathing raspy and low, close to his ear.
‘Shh, you can sleep now, it’s OK. I’m here.Shh.’
‘Home,’ he whispered, as sleep took him once more.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The Agreement
This wasn’t the sound of daytime TV, and it certainly wasn’t the sound of Nina shushing him to sleep. It was two people from Yorkshire rabbiting on about how one of them really fancied going to see Adam Ant in concert, and another one saying he wanted to wake up in a hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and there was a lot of giggling and… was that kissing sounds?
‘You’re awake. He’s awake, Ruth, look.’
‘Mr Firth?’ Mutt whispered drowsily.
‘Pour him some squash, quickly. Oh the poor lamb.’
Mutt tried to sit himself up and the whole ward seemed to break out in excitement at that. A burly nurse came over and hauled him gently up and adjusted his pillow at the same time. Then he gave him a shot of painkiller and told him with a smile that this was his last dose of the strong stuff so he should make the most of it.
Mutt felt the wonderful anaesthetising effect immediately, but he wasn’t going to drift off again. ‘Where’s Nina?’
‘She’s gone to get you something to eat. You slept through dinner again,’ Ruth told him.
‘Oh.’ Mutt licked his parched lips. ‘Why… why are you here? Weren’t you supposed to have left already?’
‘We’re going first thing tomorrow. We extended our stay by a few days,’ Mark told him, pulling some papers from his coat pocket. ‘I couldn’t go without showing you this.Ah, here she is!’
Nina was back by the bedside, not as pale, but still not like herself, not how she’d been in the chieftain’s chamber, all light and laughter.
‘Here, I got you ham and cheese, there wasn’t a lot of choice. They did have Um Bongo though.’ She pierced the straw into the carton of kids’ drink and held it to his lips.
She smiled as he sipped. ‘The Firths arrived a second ago. Isn’t that nice?’
‘We wanted to say goodbye,’ Ruth added. ‘You know this one’s been sleeping here at the hospital pretty much since the accident happened?’ She hiked her thumb at Nina. ‘Wouldn’t come back to the inn even when Beatrice insisted, and you know how insistent she can be.’
Mutt stared at Nina with a look that made Mark and Ruth exchange starry-eyed glances.
