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‘If I do I’ll make damn sure I take you with me,’ Luke replied savagely. ‘I’m not going to rape you, Genista. It will be much more subtle than that.’
‘Save it for Verity,’ Genista told him bitterly. ‘You and she are both in the same league, and it’s one which I’m thankful to say I don’t aspire to!’
She heard him leave while she was still upstairs. He had left her without a backward glance. Going back to Verity, she imagined. He had probably only come home in the first place to warn her that he wanted her to leave. The scene she had just endured must be the lingering effect of their first meeting. He had dented his pride badly on that occasion, and the need to be revenged still drove him. Every time Verity teased him and left him unsatisfied—and Genista suspected that she was the kind of woman who would enjoy adopting such tactics—would she be used as a substitute, a sex object, taken without pity or love? She shuddered deeply, then retched emptily and shivered with mingled fear and nausea. She couldn’t allow that to happen, but if she stayed here there was no way she could avoid it. She still loved Luke, and no matter how strong her will when she was alone, he only had to look at her for her bones to turn to water, for all her resolve to fade and her treacherous body to yearn for his touch.
She told Lucy she was going to London. The girl’s face dropped when Genista explained that she could not take her with her. She packed mechanically, stowing her case in the boot of her Mercedes, and bending to hug Lucy impulsively before she climbed into her car.
She would ring Lucy from London to explain to her that she wasn’t coming back. It would be hard, but far harder to tell her now, face to face.
The country road was virtually empty, but Genista concentrated on her driving as she always did. Later she was to reflect that her guardian angel must indeed have been watching over her, but as she took the fork which led to the motorway Luke was occupying her mind to the exclusion of everything else.
She saw the child at the same moment as she saw the lorry. She had only a split second to make the decision—a moment of choice between the safety of the child and the safety of herself—but really it was no choice at all.
She heard the protesting screech of the lorry’s tyres, felt the impact as she hit it head on, the sickening crunch of metal, the screams and then the silence punctuated only by the thin, high sound of a child crying. Not her child, please God, she prayed hazily as she fought against the beating wings of darkness, and for the first time in her life felt consciousness slip away.
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU’RE a very lucky young woman,’ the doctor pronounced cheerfully, lifting her wrist and taking her pulse. ‘That’s what comes of driving a sensibly built car, I suppose. Had you been behind the wheel of one of those sardine cans that pass for modern cars, I doubt you’d be lying here all in one piece. That was a very brave thing you did,’ he added a little more gently, ‘and a certain six-year-old has you to thank for her life.’
Genista was lying on a trolley in the casualty ward of the hospital the ambulance had brought her to following the accident. A nurse had come to assure her briskly that she was not to worry. Someone had taken away her clothes and handbag and now she was lying on this narrow, high bed, dressed in a hospital gown, while the young casualty doctor prodded and poked.
‘Doctor…’ At her hesitant tone he stopped examining the bruises beneath her ribs where her seat-belt had tightened and looked up at her.
Genista licked her lips nervously. From the moment she regained consciousness one thought had possessed her to the exclusion of everything else.
‘I think I might be pregnant,’ she said huskily. ‘Will I…the baby…’
‘How long?’ the doctor asked her quickly. When Genista told him, he relaxed a little. ‘You might just be lucky,’ he told her frankly. ‘Another few weeks and I would say that a shock such as the one you’ve just sustained would almost definitely bring on a spontaneous abortion, but because your pregnancy has only just started you could be okay. We’ll keep you in for a few days, just to be on the safe side, though. Try not to worry.’
That was easier said than done, Genista thought half an hour later, as the nurse made up a bed for her in the women’s ward.
‘Try not to worry,’ the girl comforted her, unconsciously echoing the doctor’s words. ‘Your husband should be here soon. Sister has been in touch with him.’
‘Luke!’ Genista’s stomach muscles contracted painfully. She had forgotten that the hospital would contact him as her next of kin. Would he realise that she had been leaving him? And if he did would he be glad?
She realised that the drink the nurse had given must have contained some sort of tranquilliser, for minutes after she had finished it a numbing drowsiness came over her.
‘Try and sleep,’ the nurse advised her. ‘It will do you good—you and your baby. It’s nature’s most effective cure.’
When Genista woke up she was conscious of various aches and pains all over her body from her bruises. There was a screen round her bed, and she could smell roses. She turned her head slowly, wincing a little at the pain from her jarred spine. There was a huge vase of red roses beside her bed, and sitting motionless in the chair next to it was Luke.
‘How do you feel?’
It seemed to Genista that he was under a great strain. No doubt Verity had not been pleased when he left her to come to the hospital, but he was the type of man who would insist on carrying out what he considered to be his duty.
‘The police tell me you had a lucky escape,’ he added.
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and Genista watched it hazily, wondering if, for one moment, when they brought him the news, he had wished that fate had decreed otherwise.
‘The lorry driver was full of praise for your quick thinking. You know you could have been killed?’
‘I couldn’t save my own life at the cost of that little girl’s.’ Weak tears slid down her cheeks, as her hands moved unconsciously to hold her flat stomach with protective fear.
‘The doctor tells me you’re pregnant.’
The emotionless words gave her no clue as to his own thoughts. The child she was carrying might have had nothing at all to do with him, to judge from his distant manner.
‘I take it you want to keep the child.’ He was studying the roses next to her bed, not looking at her at all. Red roses, Genista thought bitterly; a sop to convention, exactly the sort of flowers the nurses would expect a man to bring to the wife who had narrowly escaped death and was carrying his first child.
