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Amanda bit her lip. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea where he’s staying. He—he left in rather a hurry…’ She hesitated. ‘But I could have a look in the diary in the study, if that would help.’
‘That would be marvellous.’ His voice was a shade too hearty, and she winced a little as she put the phone down.
The study was in its usual state of immaculate tidiness, and it was the work of seconds to find the diary, and check that it was enigmatically blank on the subject of Malory’s whereabouts.
Amanda looked round with a sigh. Surely there would be something to give a clue, she thought. An airline folder, perhaps, or a hotel brochure. She tried the desk drawers, but they were locked, and with a shrug she went back to the phone and admitted defeat.
‘Well, it will be all right. We’ll trace him ourselves. He’s bound to have been in touch with some of our contacts in the States.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and thought, but not with his own wife. She cleared her throat. ‘May I know why you want him? You said it was urgent.’
His voice sobered. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Do you remember my telling you that the Chromazyn tests were going well? It seems I spoke too soon. We’ve just been notified that one of the patients using the drug has suffered a severe adverse reaction.’
Amanda caught her breath. ‘How bad is it?’
‘As bad as it’s possible to get,’ he said grimly. ‘She’s been having convulsions. They don’t think she’s going to live. And Dr Templeton has to know about it, naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ she echoed unhappily. ‘I—I just wish I could have been more help.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He paused again. ‘And Mrs Templeton—try not to worry too much.’
But that was easily said. Amanda went into the drawing-room and sank down on one of the sofas. She was being bombarded with one shock after another, it seemed. But perhaps the news her doctor had just given her would help to alleviate some of Malory’s inevitable distress over the Chromazyn crisis, she thought, placing a protective hand on her abdomen.
At first, she’d put her faint feeling of nausea and general malaise down to being lonely and unhappy, but the realisation that her normal monthly cycle had been interrupted, too, had sent her hastily for an appointment with the local GP. And today she had received the positive results of the tests he’d done.
At first, she’d been overjoyed to learn she was pregnant. Then, as she’d driven home, more sobering thoughts had intervened. The coming of a child would make this ‘non-marriage’, as Malory had called it, far less easy to walk away from. She swallowed. Although Malory had seemed to exlittle difficulty in distancing himself from it…
And he had told her bluntly that he was not particularly paternal. Might he not regard the baby simply as an inconvenience to hold him trapped in an empty and meaningless relationship?
She must have conceived that very first time she had gone to him, she thought, and wondered what the odds were against that happening. Although, if either of them had been thinking clearly that day, they would have realised some kind of precautions were necessary.
She sighed. Well, it was too late to worry about that now. The baby existed, and she wanted it— especially as it was all of Malory she might ever have. Pain tore through her at the thought, but it was something she had to face. His continuing absence had taught her that quite unequivocally.
But now, if Templeton’s made contact with him, he would be coming home, and some basis for their future relationship would have to be formulated.
She allowed forty-eight hours to go by before phoning the laboratories to see if there was any news of Malory. She spoke to his secretary, a pleasant middle-aged woman called Deirdre who did her best to hide her surprise that her boss’s wife should be in such complete ignorance about his movements, but did not completely succeed.
Dr Templeton was flying into Heathrow that afternoon, Amanda was told, and she was supplied with the flight number and projected arrival time.
‘We’ll be sending a car to meet him, Mrs Templeton,’ Deirdre went on. ‘Unless you plan to do that yourself.’
Amanda said haltingly, ‘No, I don’t think... Make whatever arrangements seem best.‘
Coward, she castigated herself, as she put the phone down. You should make the effort—go and meet him. At least it would remind him that you exist.
She bit her lip. She didn’t want to ring the laboratories and tell them meekly she’d changed her mind. There was probably enough discreet specu-lation going on already. But she could get the train to London, and then a taxi to Heathrow. If she simply turned up, Malory could hardly refuse to give her a lift back, and they could talk.
