Authors: Jessica Steele
'No!' Her answer was prompt. 'I couldn't let you.'
'I'm afraid you'll have to,' he said, a hint of steel there before he checked it and went on more kindly, 'Anyway, apart from it being me who gave the instructions, and the account therefore going down to me, a fine Ebenezer you'd make me look if it came out that I'd let my wife pay her own hospital fees!'
She knew it didn't matter a damn to him what anyone thought of him. But before she could say a word to argue the point, a thought came that was far more terrible than who should pay when she vacated this room.
'Nash,' she said urgently, the enormity of that thought almost choking her. 'If everyone here knows who I am, then...' she gulped as she tried to get it out, 'then there isn't the smallest chance the newspapers won't get hold of it, is there?'
She knew the answer from the way he looked as though he wasn't going to answer.
'Is there?' she pressed, her fingers clenching hard on to his as she waited.
His answer was to bring her hand up to his mouth, and her urgency was momentarily abated as, amazed, she watched and felt his kiss on the back of her hand.
'I'm afraid not,' he said quietly, as gently their hands touched down on the bed cover.
Perry knew then from those three words quietly dropped into the air that it was already too late to try and stop the wheels of the press turning. She tried a deep calming breath that hurt her ribs and was no help at all.
'My accident was reported in tonight's paper, wasn't it?' she asked tonelessly, and saw the answer in his face.
'Yes.'
'As Perry Grainger I'm not very newsworthy, am I?' Her voice was husky, and she was past flinching when after a moment's hesitation he put her out of her misery— by adding to it.
'The headline read, "The whereabouts of the mysterious Mrs Nash Devereux revealed".'
Tired, defeated, she had to ask a weary, 'Do you have the paper with you?'
'No, I don't.' She heard the sharpness entering his voice as he asked, 'Why punish yourself? I've told you all there is to know.'
'I should like to see it.' Even in tiredness and defeat her stubborn streak wouldn't desert her. 'Would you come and see me tomorrow and bring the paper with you?' she asked.
Nash looked as though he was going to refuse. But whether it was because he had intended not to come and see her again, or whether because he knew it was the paper she had to see more importantly than him, she didn't know.
'If that's what you want,' he said, standing up and returning his chair from where he had got it, his movements telling her he was about to leave.
'Nash.' He came to the bed, stood looking down at her.
'I... I don't want to see —-anybody else.' She felt uncomfortable that no word came from him as he stared down at her. She knew he was thinking her a coward for not wanting to see Trevor until she had sorted out what she could possibly say to him.
'I've already given instructions to that effect.' He spoke at last, bringing her gaze quickly away from the bunch of daffodils he must have placed at the foot of her bed when he came in, but which she had only just noticed.
'You have?'
Nash allowed himself a small smile. It charmed her when she didn't want to be charmed. Or perhaps it was the effect of seeing the unpretentious daffodils he had brought her when she would have thought his sophisticated taste would far more likely run to orchids.
'I thought you would want it that way,' he said, showing how easily he could read into her mind.
It confused her that he could get on her wavelength and read her thoughts before she had even thought them. 'Thank you for the daffodils,' she said, to cover her confusion. 'They're beautiful—a touch of spring.'
'Like their recipient,' said Nash, and while her confusion mounted, he leaned over the bed and placed warm gentle lips to her forehead. 'You're like a touch of spring yourself.
Perry didn't have very long after he had gone in which to wonder at such words coming from the cynic about women she knew him to be. For as if she had been standing outside the door waiting for him to leave, the rosy-cheeked staff nurse was in her room again and she was once more on the receiving end of an injection, this one ensuring she had a full night's sleep.
Her daffodils, now placed in water, were the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes to a sun-filled room. She smiled from pure pleasure at seeing their bright yellow heads.
Her smile didn't linger. Remembrance of where the flowers had come from, all their donor had last night had told her, crowded in, and her head that should have been resting chased this way and that with a problem she could no longer delay in dealing with.
Yet still there was hope in her that maybe the papers hadn't given too much detail about her. Hope grew as she considered the possibility of the report referring to her only as Mrs Devereux. The name Mrs Devereux would mean not a thing to Trevor. Hope spiralled upward. They couldn't have a photograph of her, she thought, and that being so, with just the title 'Mrs Devereux' and no accompanying picture, Trevor might not even bother to read the report.
She was able to smile again when the efficient Nurse Johns bustled in. 'Ah, sitting up and taking notice, I see,' she greeted her cheerfully. 'That's a good sign. We'll have you out of bed for a bath as soon as Doctor Boardman has seen you. Meantime We'll freshen you up with a lick and a promise.'
Her feeling that she might yet be able to confess personally to Trevor what was now becoming her dark secret, before he heard it from anyone else, stayed with her for most the time the nurse attended to her. In any case, with Nurse Johns brimming over with cheerfulness, she found it impossible not to respond.
That was until, her bed made, the nurse remarked that her friends were up bright and early.
'Friends?' Perry exclaimed, mystified, with a suspicion of something akin to fear trying to take hold, 'One or two people have phoned to enquire how you are,' Nurse Johns informed her.
'Who rang—d-do you know?' Fear was concreting. If she said Trevor's name Perry knew she wouldn't rest another minute until the hospital discharged her.
'Your husband for one. Mr Devereux wanted to know what sort of a night you'd had, and what time the doctor would be seeing you.'
Perry smiled because it was expected of her, but she was less interested that Nash was showing an unexpected concern for her, the reason for which she couldn't fathom unless he thought he had a duty to enquire since he had forbidden anyone else to visit her; what she was more interested to learn, feeling quite sick inside, was the name of her other enquirer.
'That was kind of him,' was all she could find to say about her husband, and adding as casually as she could, 'You said someone else rang.'
'The taxi driver who made you briefly airborne,' said Nurse Johns, smoothing out a non-existent crease in the bedcover. And while relief started to flood through her patient, she added something that sent that relief bolting. 'And a Madge—her merry face frowned as she tried to recall Madge's surname. 'Sorry,' she said, 'it's gone. But a lady called Madge rang to ask how you were.' She went to the vase of daffodils to arrange one that wasn't to her liking and missed seeing that Perry's pale face had gone a shade whiter. 'She said,' the nurse added, standing back to admire her handiwork, 'to tell you Ratty, I think she said, will just die if he thinks he's going to lose you.'
Nurse Johns turned, smiling, her eyes observing Perry's white face, and her smile dipped as she mistook the reason for her patient's lack of colour:
'Now don't you worry,' she said, severely for her. 'Ratty, whoever he is, isn't going to lose you. Neither are we. Why, in a few days you'll be out of here, apart from a few aches and pains as fit as a Stradivarius.'
About to tell her Madge hadn't meant Ratty would die if he thought her injuries were worse than they were, that she hadn't because of the message thought she might precede him, Perry found the explanation too much for her. So she smiled weakly instead, which seemed to please her nurse before she bustled out and on to her next patient.
Oh lord! Perry thought, the moment the door had closed. If Madge knew, if Madge had connected that she was Mrs Devereux, then her name, her full name, must be in the paper. It must mean too that Madge had previously read Nash's statement that he was hoping for a reconciliation with his wife. Madge must have put two and two together, ignoring that she knew of her love for Trevor, and must have decided of the two men she knew who she would choose and therefore, since Perry was reconciled with Nash, Mr Ratcliffe was about to lose an employee.
For the next hour or so Perry agonised over the fact that if her name was in the paper, then it was too late for her to get to Trevor first. So it wasn't surprising when Doctor Boardman came to see her, a tall thin man who looked at her over the top of his half-moon spectacles, that her temperature was soaring and she was confined to bed for the rest of the day.
It was useless telling herself she was doing herself no good by getting churned up. She just couldn't help tearing herself apart when she thought of how Trevor would think she had been two-timing him.
Maybe it was because her brain had to have some relief from the constant thoughts that nagged it that about three o'clock that afternoon, her thoughts swung off in another direction. Maybe her name hadn't been in the paper at all, she thought, hope rising again. Perhaps, when she hadn't gone into work yesterday afternoon, Madge, worried about her, had called at her flat, seen Mrs Foster and from her learned that she was Mrs Devereux!
She clung to her latest theory, not liking it very much, but finding it far more preferable to the only other theory. And at last, for the first time that day, rest essential, brain weary, she nodded off to sleep.
It was still light when she awakened, so she couldn't have been asleep for long, she thought. Then, sensing she was not alone, she turned her tousled head on her pillow and felt shock as she stared straight into the grey eyes of the man sitting beside the bed.
'H-Hello,' she greeted Nash, cobwebs of sleep vanishing rapidly as he didn't appear very pleased to be there, his unsmiling face a fair indication that the kind way he had been with her last night hadn't lasted. He didn't look today in any way as though he thought her a breath of spring.
'Why aren't you eating?' he demanded. 'Isn't hospital food good enough for you?'
Taken aback by his attack, she felt weak tears speed to her eyes before anger with him had them pushed away. If he had come here only to bark at her he could jolly well go away again!
'That's no way to talk to an invalid,' she said, nettled, and saw she had amused him by showing that by no chance had all the stuffing been taken out of her. She saw his mouth quirk, and having felt nowhere near smiling naturally all day, she felt the corners of her own mouth begin to twitch.
'I would have brought you grapes,' he said, his scrutiny of her thorough, 'only I don't like them.'
Perry couldn't resist it. A picture of Nash sitting there calmly hogging all her grapes came into her mind, and she giggled.
'That's better,' he observed. 'I thought we were going to have tears when I first spoke to you.'
'It's your charm that does it,' she said sweetly, and thought she must still be lightheaded that the laugh that came from him was the nicest thing she had heard all day.
'What do you fancy for supper?' he enquired, and she knew then he was aware that tears weren't so very far away and was playing a light-hearted game with her to keep her spirits up.
'Smoked salmon to start,' she joined in, 'followed by— er —cauliflower cheese and mashed potatoes, and blackcurrant cheesecake to finish up with.'
The game ended suddenly. 'So what went wrong today?' His question fell quietly, but she didn't miss that he looked determined to have an answer.
'I don't know what you mean,' she replied, feeling not unlike a pupil in front of the headmaster for some misdemeanour.
'Throughout the night you were checked,' he enlightened her, his sternness not letting-up. 'At eight o'clock this morning you were doing fine. You should have been up and about today, but Dr Boardman's examination of you gave him cause to ring me to...'
'Dr Boardman rang you?'
'I'm your husband, remember,' she was sharply reminded.
'As if I could forget!' she returned smartly—and knew from the way his mouth firmed that he had only just controlled some angry retort. She saw then his eyes taking in what her mirror had that morning shown, that she looked washed out, and heard his voice calm, gentle almost, when next he spoke.
'What happened after eight this morning, Perry? Aren't you going to tell me?' he coaxed.
'You--you should have put a block on telephone messages as well as visitors,' she blurted out, her stubbornness melted by the unexpected gentle coaxing where it would never have done had he remained looking ready to bite her head off. 'As well as the taxi driver ringing to enquire how I was, my friend Madge from work rang.'
She didn't have to add any more. Nash's brain took it from there. 'So you've been stewed up all day with thinking if your friend Madge knows you're Mrs Devereux, then your—boy-friend must know it too?'
Dumbly she nodded. 'He'll hate me for not telling him, I know he will,' she fretted.
'He takes an evening paper, does he?'
'Sometimes,' she answered. absently. 'But even if he didn't have one last night, I'm sure he'll ring my place of work today. Madge doesn't like him,' she inserted, her pale face growing anxious as the thought came. 'I'm not at all sure her loyalty to me won't be put to the test when she's up against the urge to tell him—to tell him...' 'You love another,' he put it.
'Hardly,' she snapped, embarrassed that he might be thinking what she was thinking, that her love for Trevor hadn't been much in evidence that night Nash had started to make love to her.
She heard his exaggerated sigh, saw his face was easy, as lightly he quipped, 'I must be slipping.' But she wouldn't smile, so he went on, perfectly serious now, 'Would you like, me to see him? Explain how...'