His Lordships Daughter (22 page)

“The doctor and I thought you should rest.”

Frowning, she sat up again. “There is nothing wrong with me. A couple of hours in the Jacuzzi will sort me out. And, I do have to go places. I have things to do and people to see.” Glancing at her bedside clock, she s
howed surprise. “Six thirty? A.m.
?”

“P.M.” her father replied. “You have been fast asleep for almost twenty four hours.”

“Urgh!” pulling the sheets over her head, Phyllipa snuggled her body down into the bed again. “Good night father! Please don’t bang the door!”

The day the nurse popped her head around the door
. “You have a visitor. Doctor!  Ms
.
Gore.”

Any signs of tiredness had completely gone from Phyllipa as she entered the office of the hospital which ha
d taken Steven in. her eyes was
packed with dancing health and she was dressed as if she had just walked off some high fashion catwalk.

Rising at the crack of dawn, after a marathon sleep, she had breakfasted with her father.

“Do you feel as good as you look?” he had asked her
.

“My hands are a little raw and there a few bruises niggling somewhere, but apart from that I feel absolutely wonderful.”

“We would not like to think you are going to make a habit of swimming through ditches in sub zero temperatures.” His tone was
chiding
*
.

She looked at her father carefully. When he referred to himself in the plural she knew
he was being extremely serious. “I am hoping the occasion will not present itself again. But, I had to act fast or Steven would have drowned!”

Her father looked at her with pride. “Yes, so I believe.” He poured himself some more coffee. “Are you going to visit him?”

She nodded. “I thought I would drop by to see if he wants anything.”

“Well, perhaps you would give him my regards.” She had kissed him, got into her car and driven to the hospital. Her face tingled with anxiety as Steven’s doctor introduced hi
mself. “It’s nice to meet you Ms
Gore.” Grasping her hand in greeting, , he caused Phyllipa to wince at the pain from her injured palm.

“How is Steven this morning?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face.

The doctor flicked a switch causing an arrow of light to crawl
behind a line of X-
Ray films clipped to a screen. “He slept well and as you can see we have some lovely snaps of him.” He explained, almost gleefully. Grabbing a pencil from the desk, he speared it at some opaque areas on the picture. “Let’s take him from the top, shall we? He must have got a couple of bangs on the head from something, but, happily although there was a slight concussion, it is nothing serious.” He looked at his visitor’s face again and envied his patient. “We’ve CAT scanned him and

*
-  Chiding (meaning) To scolder or rebute

themselves out, and he was very cold.” He put his hands together as if in prayer “Just a touch of hypothermia! Not serious now, but we reckon another thirty minutes of exposure and it could have proved fatal.” He grinned as he warmed to his story. “Anyway we banged some jump leads into him and got his body equalised. That’s the good news!”

Phyllipa’s heart sank and it showed in her face as she listened.

“It’s not bad, bad news, as such. It’s just a question of time. Injured people come in here and expect instant recovery, in fact some of them demand it. We would love to oblige them, but, mother nature has her own yardstick and who are we to argue with her.” He tapped the X-Ray again, moving the point of his pencil up and down the skeletal lines “This is Steven’s left leg.” He dug
the pencil in again. “His tib and fib got squashed
a
bit
!”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry! This bone is the Tibia. See how it shines. Wonderful bone! Get’s bashed about a lot! Hockey sticks and cricket balls, all that sort of stuff.”

Phyllipa’s eyebrows went up again. “Yes, well, shinbone to you.” He carefully explained. “Lies on top of the Fibula…”
he pointed the pencil again. “Here! This thinner bone has a hairline fracture, but not to worry, that will mend. It is the Tibia which is going to take time. It was crushed, shattered in three places but for now we have plated it.” He tossed the pencil back on his desk. “There was also some surface damage to the leg itself, but, fortunately his riding boot afforded him some protection.”

“Are you saying his injuries could have been worse?”

“Very much so.,t
o a certain extent the leather spread the force of the blow. If he had been wearing trainers  or something like that, he would have lost his leg!”

Phyllipa shivered.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No thank you.”

The doctor politely showed her to the door. “I won’t keep you from your friend. We will be monitoring him for two or three days, then we will look at his leg again.” He shrugged his shoulders. “After that, it will just be rest, rest and more rest!” he shook his head. “Don’t think he is going to be crawling around on crutches in a week or two, because that is not going to happen! If he does as he is told, his leg will be as good as new again O.K? But if he doesn’t, he will limp for the rest of his life!”

Phyllipa nodded. “As you say doctor, he will just have to do as he is told won’t he? Thank you for the anatomical trip.”

He smiled
at her “You are very welcome, Ms
Gore, anything you wish to know anytime, I am here.”

The nurse ushered her into a lift. “We’ve put him in room one four nine.” She explained. “It’s high up with wonderful views of the countryside.” The elevator braked and suddenly Phyllipa was looking at her ex boss propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows. The room seemed to be full of flowers. He looked up as she entered.

“You have a visitor Steven!” the nurse announced as she checked his damaged leg which was enveloped in plaster and hoisted in the air by chromium pulleys hanging from a tubular gantry. “Press the bell if you should need me.” Smiling at them both, she eased herself from the room.

Phyllipa bent over the bed, k
issing Steven on his cheek, and
sat down on the chair provided. “My father sends his regards.”

“And you?”

“I’m here to see if there is anything I can do for you?”

“Is that all?”

S
he
nodded. “That is all Steven.”

He sighed. “thank you for the flowers!”

The tone of each of them was formal, like business colleagues meeting at a yearly sales convention.

“It was the least I could do.” Her voice was cold.

His face twisted in a wry smile. “I have phoned you.”

“Really!” she fibbed “I didn’t know.”

“I thought it was time we talked to one another.”

“What about?”

Running a hand through his black hair, he shifted his body to a more comfortable position, causing the hardware supporting his injured leg to
murmur
in protest. “Come on Phyllipa, you know what about.”

“Perhaps you would like to tell me what the hell you were doing out riding on a morning that wasn’t really suitable?” she nodded at him. “I know my father would like to know as well.”

“I felt a little guilty about not exercising Sultan.” He explained. “I knew that no-one else could handle him, so I came over and tacked him up. We were trotting by the ditch when I
felt something hit me and pulled
me from th
e saddle.” He looked at her
almost accusingly. “At that time the weather wasn’t very bad. It was a bit blowy, but the storm came in pretty fast and suddenly I was in the ditch wet through with a tree across my leg.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And that’s it!” his eyes looked at, enquiringly. “Is Sultan O.K?”

She
nodded. “Yes! He’s got a few cuts and one or two bruises, but we have had the vet to him and he’s alright.” She smiled. “You’ve got to thank him for being rescued.”

“I thought I had you to thank.” He voice creaked with emotion. “You saved my life!”

“It was just a stroke of luck that I was standing looking out of the library window when he dashed past
. If he had taken the short way back to the stables as he normally does, it is doubtful that you and I would be having this conversation.”

For a few seconds he closed his eyes, as if savour
ing his miraculous escape,
he opened them again. “Please let me explain my behaviour.”

Phyllipa looked at her wristwatch. “I can give you three minutes!” he flung his arms out in supplication. “I was wrong about you.” He admitted. “I was wrong about your intentions towards the company, and I was wrong about everything else. June told me about the bet with your father…”

“She had no right to tell you!” Phyllipa interrupted, glaring at him.

“Well, she did! And she also told me about your generosity and it all sounded pretty wonderful to me.” He tried to hold her gaze again, but she just stared back at him. “Apart from my love for you…”

“Funny sort of love!”

He ignored the jibe. “All I have is an apology. I know it doesn’t seem much after all the things I said and did, but it is all I’ve got.” He stopped and waited, hoping for some sign of encouragement from his visitor, “No it doesn’t seem much!” Phyllipa’s voice rose slightly. “But if you must fight me Steven, you must fight fairly.” She flicked a wayward strand of hair back into line. “There was absolutely no excuse for the sort if personal remarks that you came out with. No pun intended, but you hit me below the belt and I am still screaming – foul!”

He groaned. “I know what I said. If I could take the words back then I would but I can’t.”

Smoothing imaginary creases from her clothing, she got to her feet. “No you can’t do that, but what I fail to understand is how a total “Commitment love” – and those were the words you used, can turn so ugly?” she looked down at him, “Love eh? I’ve never had a great deal of respect for that word owing to it being constantly abused, but you’ve put a new meaning to it, and it’s all bad.”

Steven groaned again. “I’ll shoulder most of the blame for what has happened between you and I.” he said, magnanimously, “But I am not going to carry the whole can.” He looked at her defiantly. “So don’t try and make me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.” She said bending down to kiss his cheek
“Is there anything you want?”

He nodded. “Yes!”

“Anything special?”

“I think so!”

“What?”

“You!”

For a fleeting moment she
mused. “Well I did tell my father at breakfast that I was visiting you to see if there was anything I could do for you and I never break my word where the family is concerned.” Sitting on the bed, she slid her hand beneath the sheets and located his penis. Softly stroking it, she breathed a sigh of relief as it rapidly stiffened to a more than adequate size.

Steven gasped, his face blushed as the colour of his eyes deepened. “For god sake, Phyllipa… I am pretty fragile, we can’t make love here…”

“Shush!” she hushed him. “This isn’t love. This is your “Commitment” stuff.” With a practised hand she pulled her skirt up then removed her panti
es. Steven cried out loud. “
My leg won’t take your weight… I didn’t mean I wanted you now. I meant…” the words died away as Phyllipa, fully aroused and shivering with excitement, pushed her naked buttocks into his face. Then sliding her body forward, taking care to avoid his injured leg, straddled his body reversely. With a lot of effort she controlled her furious eagerness, carefully bringing her gaping loins to his engorged phallus, causing the chromium gantry which controlled his damaged leg to rattle and swing dangerously.

Moaning and crying
undulating waves of delight invaded her avaricious body, Phyllipa felt his tumescent flesh slide deep inside her, as, grasping the metal sides of the bed, she pulled her pelvis down, greedily determined to capture every last sensation from the libidinous coupling. The delicious pain from her injured hands catapulted her into the first stage of orgasm, floating her carnal senses in and out of her erotic prison, like a kite in the wind.

Keeping her quivering moist flesh as still as she could, purposely denying Steven’s trapped manhood hardly any movement, she suddenly became aware of soft fingers feathering her breasts. Startled she looked up into the face of Steven’s young nurse. “I wondered if you needed any
help.
My name is Emma!” she offered, bending forward to alternately close her lips around Phyllipa’s engorged nipples, suckling, tasting and massaging them with her busy tongue. “Please hurt me!” Phyllipa gasped. “I need hurting!” nodding understandingly, Emma straightened up
, then quickly removing the starched belt from her uniformed waist, bought it down viciously across Phyllipa’s bottom, sending shock waves of ecstasy seething through her loins. Squealing and gasping from the painful pleasure which was getting faster
, she suddenly yelled at the top of her voice as her raging climax exploded, leaving her momentarily content. For a few moments she lay there, her head bowed, then carefully extricating herself from the position, stood and gazed down happily at Steven with his throbbing manhood still standing stiff and erect his face plainly showing the strain from the almost impossible demand she had placed upon him. Looking at her accusingly, his eyes blazed “You did that on purpose didn’t you?”