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‘Goodness, it’s more like a luxury hotel bedroom than a hospital,’ she commented as she sat down in the chair the nurse provided.
‘How are you feeling?’ she added, studying Lucy’s pale face. ‘We saw your doctor on our way in and he says that the vitamin problem isn’t too desperate. He is worried about you though, Lucy. He was telling Saul…’
‘Saul? Saul’s here with you?’ Instantly she was thrown into a panic.
‘He’s with the doctor,’ Margaret told her. ‘Lucy, have you thought seriously about his offer of marriage?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Please don’t think Leo and I are backtracking on our offer to have you with us, but from what your doctor has been telling us I’m really very concerned about anything happening to you. The house is rather remote, and if Leo and I weren’t there and something happened… We do go out rather a lot, and we’re due to go on holiday with some friends later in the month. I’m not trying to put you off, my dear, but for your sake and the baby’s, wouldn’t you be better off with Saul? After all, it is his child… and you do love him.’
Yes, she did, and that was the problem. If she didn’t love him it would be much easier for her to come to a decision, to decide cold-bloodedly and without emotion that Saul owed it to both her and the baby to take care of them; but loving him as she did, it was agonising to contemplate living in some degree of intimacy with him, while knowing that he disliked and despised her, and cared only for their child. Did she have the strength to endure that?
When visiting time came to an end without Saul coming in to see her she was dismayed to discover how disappointed she felt. She told herself it was only because she wanted to discover what he had learned from her doctor, but she knew that wasn’t completely true. She wanted to see him, craved the sight of him like a junkie hooked on drugs, even while she knew it destroyed her.
∗ ∗ ∗
Taking her completely off guard he arrived the next morning, just as she was being discharged. His expression was grim and uncommunicative as he led her to his car.
She had expected her aunt and uncle to come for her, and tiny prickles of apprehension iced up and down her spine as he opened the door for her.
He didn’t speak at all as they drove back, only addressing her when, instead of stopping at the Dower House, he swept past it, down the drive towards the Manor.
‘Don’t worry,’ he told her laconically, ‘I’m not kidnapping you. I just wanted to have a little talk before I restored you to the bosom of your family.’
Lucy could guess what he wanted to talk about and, drained by the sudden surge of weakness flooding her body, she said tiredly, ‘There’s no need for us to talk, Saul. You’ve won. I’ll marry you. But please… all I want to do right now is lie down…’
Her voice wobbled betrayingly, the car screeching to a halt as he almost stood on the brakes halfway down the drive.
At first she thought he was angry with her, and then she realised the tension round his mouth and in his eyes was caused by fear—fear not for her, but for their child, she realised hazily as he leaned towards her, his voice urgent as he called her name, dragging her back from that black place that waited for her.
‘Damn, you, Lucy,’ he swore thickly, as her faintness receded. ‘You take years off my life every time you do that. Is it any wonder your aunt and uncle are anxious about you? Have you thought about what might happen if you blacked out like that when you were alone?’
Of course she had; almost constantly since being admitted to hospital; and that was one of the main reasons she had agreed to marry him. It was unfair to expect her aunt and uncle to give up their normal routine simply to be with her twenty-four hours a day, and that was what the doctor had warned her was necessary, especially in these early crucial weeks. But Saul was wealthy enough to provide round the clock care—something neither she nor her aunt and uncle could afford—and, for the sake of her child, she knew she must accept his proposal.
‘Don’t nag me, Saul,’ she heard herself saying breathlessly. ‘I really can’t take it at the moment. You’ve got what you wanted; I’ve agreed to marry you. Now please take me home.’
Without another word he turned the car round and drove back to the Dower House.
Of course, he insisted on coming in with her, and, of course, he had to tell her aunt and uncle what had happened. Her aunt made no attempt to hide her delight, although her uncle was more restrained, more anxiously aware that she looked both drained and ill.
‘You’ll stay here until we can be married,’ Saul told Lucy before he left. ‘I’ll also arrange for a nurse to stay, to keep an eye on you.’ He saw her expression and added curtly. ‘Don’t argue with me, Lucy, it isn’t good for you. And if you won’t think of yourself and our child,’ his mouth tightened a little over the words, ‘then think of your aunt. It isn’t fair to expect her to keep an eye on you twenty-four hours a day, and that’s what you need right now.’
