The Perfect Match (16 page)

'Look, I'm sure Jenny won't mind standing in for you so that you can go to hospital,' Laura was saying to Guy. 'You could ring her now and then I can drive you both there. 'Where is your mobile?'

'I left it at the unit,' Guy told Laura. 'I'll go and get it.'

'You're not going anywhere,' she retorted. I shall go and get it. You stay here with Chrissie.'

'I'd better get back to the first-aid station,' the doctor was saying as he repacked and then closed his medical case.

Chrissie waited until they had both gone before telling Guy in a low voice, 'I haven't thanked you yet for...for what you did. That barrel...'

'I didn't do anything that any other man wouldn't have done,' Guy told her tersely. 'And if it
had
hit you, it would have been my fault. After all,
I'm
responsible for the safety aspects of the fair.'

'It was an accident,' Chrissie told him quietly, but even though she knew it was the truth, she couldn't help shuddering as she realised what could have happened if the barrel had hit her. Instinctively she wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach, causing Guy to go even paler than he already was.

'My God, what if it...where's the doctor...are you...?' he demanded hoarsely.

'I'm fine...I'm fine, Guy.' She reached out to restrain him when she saw him turning away as though he intended to go after the young doctor and drag him back by force if necessary. 'Really,' she insisted.

'I was only thinking about what might have happened if I if you... It's funny, isn't it? A few days ago the thought of being pregnant, of having a child, was the furthest thing from my mind. Yet now the thought of
anything
happening to the baby...' She bit her lip, unable to go on.

'Don't you think I feel exactly the same way?'

The harshness in Guy's voice startled her.

'It isn't the same for a man,' she denied, trying to ignore the unwary response of her emotions to his words.

'No...? That's all
you
know,' he returned bitterly, adding in a low growl, 'Just what the hell do you think it does to me, knowing that you and our child could have been hurt and that I couldn't have done a damn thing to protect the both of you?'

'But you did,' Chrissie reminded him rather breathlessly, desperately wanting to change the subject to something less emotive before he realised the effect his words were having on her.

It was completely ridiculous for her to feel so...for her to wish...for her to
want
to reach out and touch him comfortingly. After all, why should she care about his pain? Why should
she
care about
him?

She turned her head to look at him, then froze as she saw the huge livid bruise on his forehead and the dark bloodstain on the ripped sleeve of his shirt.

The sight of Guy's blood and the knowledge that it had been spilled in saving her produced a startling combination of fear, shock, pain and, yes, even anger that he should dare risk himself when she and their baby needed him so much. It was such a strong feeling and one she hadn't ever experienced before.

Chrissie glanced at the hospital waiting-room clock.

She had been given the all-clear and was now waiting for the doctor to finish stitching up Guy's wound.

Laura had disappeared to chat with an old friend whom she'd caught sight of in the corridor.

The waiting-room door opened and Chrissie could feel her face starting to burn with hot colour as Guy walked in.

'Is everything...are you all right?' she asked him awkwardly.

'It seems so. They fished a couple of splinters out of my arm but they seem pretty sure there aren't any more,' he told her cheerfully. 'Chrissie,' he announced in a very different and far more serious voice whilst Chrissie tensed, wondering what he was about to say. 'Couldn't we try again...start again?' she heard Guy asking her in a husky voice. He waved his good arm in her direction and added rawly, 'Today earlier...thinking, fearing... Don't we owe it to our child, son or daughter, to at least show him we cared enough for us both to be there for him?'

'Yes, I suppose we do,' Chrissie agreed in a small voice.

'We both had the advantage of growing up with two loving parents, as part of a family,' Guy continued, pressing home his advantage. 'I'm not saying that a single parent can't do a damn fine job of raising a child but...'

'I understand what you're saying,' Chrissie breathed, trying hard to swallow the lump of emotion threatening to choke her voice with the tears she dared not let him see her shed.

'But a child...two parents who love one another... who... who respect and value one another and not...'

'I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth about Charles,'

she told him with quiet dignity. 'I should have done.

I
had
intended to tell you but...' She gave a small, despairing shrug, willing herself not to give in and grab hold of the emotional lifeline he was throwing her and not just for their baby's sake, either.

This afternoon, lying on the grass listening to the doctor explaining to him that he should have his gashed arm properly attended to, she had known just how deeply and permanently she loved him, but she couldn't allow herself to be swayed by her own emotions, not when she knew... Guy loved Jenny and even if he didn't, there was still the issue of the desk.

'We
could
make it work,' Guy was telling her.

'Maybe for a while,' she agreed, then forced herself to look him in the eye as she asked him, 'But what if the baby...our baby should look like Uncle Charles? Would you still want the baby then?' she asked him painfully.

Guy had gone white.

'Would
you
love him if he looked like me?' he countered.

Chrissie closed her eyes. Of course she would...of
course
she would.

'It wouldn't work, Guy,' she told him wearily.

'There'd always be the issue of the desk between us and the fact that Charlie was my uncle and then...'

She paused and gave a small shrug. 'And I'd always know that I was just a substitute for the woman you really love and that you'd only married me for the sake of our child. I suppose as far as you're concerned, if you can't have Jenny, then anyone...'

She broke off, unable to continue as emotion threatened to silence her voice completely.

'If I can't
what
? Chrissie!' Guy started to expos-tulate, but the waiting-room door opened at that moment to admit Laura.

Oblivious to the tense atmosphere between them and the look of extreme irritation on Guy's face, she exclaimed, 'Good, you're both ready to leave. If you like, we can drop you off at your house on the way, Guy.'

Cursing under his breath, Guy switched on the bed-side light and reached for the bottle of painkillers the doctor had given him. His arm was throbbing like the devil just as he had been warned it would, but it was not that that had woken him from his shallow sleep.

He had been dreaming about Chrissie and seeing her standing there directly in the path of that damn barrel. It had taken him three seconds of frozen disbelief before he had leaped into action.

He could feel the sweat springing up all over his body. Tiredly he pushed his hand into his hair. The bruise on his temple felt raw and painful and his head ached.

After he had carried Chrissie out of the stable yard, calling to Laura to get the medical officer and whilst he waited to hear how she was...how
she
was, and not just their baby, he had known that he really didn't care any more that she hadn't told him the truth about Charlie Platt and he didn't even damn well care about the desk, either. In fact, if he could, he'd probably very likely destroy it himself, then there would be no issue over its rightful ownership.

The only
thing
that made any kind of sense to him right now—that
mattered
to him right now—was that he loved her and that he would go on loving her for the rest of his life. Somehow or other he had to find a way of convincing her of that fact. Because he was pretty sure that she loved him. No woman could fake the reaction he had seen on her face this afternoon when she realised he had been hurt. No woman would strive so hard to hide her strong emotions the way Chrissie had done at the hospital if she
didn't
love the perpetrator of them so very deeply. And as for that comment she had made about him loving Jenny!

Tomorrow he would sort it all out. Tomorrow. Now where were those painkillers? He groaned as he reached out for the bottle and in doing so knocked over the bottle of antibiotics the doctor had also given him. Well, he certainly wasn't going to pick them up now. They could stay where they were until morning.

O n l y
by morning Guy was in no state...no state at all to do any such thing.

By morning Guy was both unconscious and fever-ish, tossing uncomfortably in his bed, muttering into the silence of the room, his hair and body soaked with perspiration whilst under the dressing the hospital had put on his wound his arm had swollen to almost twice its original size and was pulsing with the pain generated by the poison that was slowly spreading in a dark red line up his arm towards his armpit.

'Hello, Jon, you look a bit frazzled,' Ruth greeted her nephew with a smile as their paths crossed in the square.

'Mmm...just a bit,' Jon agreed. 'I had to do the school run this morning because Jenny had to go to Fitzburgh Place to stand in for Guy again. He was supposed to be there at eight apparently, but he hasn't turned up and Jen couldn't raise him on the phone.

Maybe they kept him in hospital overnight.'

'Hospital?' Ruth queried.

'Mmm... There was a bit of an accident at the Antiques Fair yesterday. It seems a barrel broke free from a dray and if Guy hadn't intervened, young Chrissie could have been very seriously injured.'

'Oh dear. Well, I don't think Guy
is
in hospital,'

Ruth informed him. 'I certainly saw Laura dropping him off at home yesterday. She had Chrissie in the car with her, too. Is there a reconciliation on the cards there, do you think?' Ruth asked her nephew.

Jon looked grave. 'It would be nice to think so but...'

'Lovers
do
quarrel and make up,' Ruth pointed out.

'Well, yes, and if it was merely a lovers' quarrel, I would agree with you, but there's also the side issue of this desk—Ben's desk according to Guy, but her family's according to Chrissie.'

'Yes, I can see what you mean,' Ruth agreed.

'Look, I'm sorry to have to dash off,' Jon apologised, bending his head to kiss her, 'but I really must go. I've got a client due in ten minutes.'

As she watched him walk away before she had a chance to reply, Ruth hoped that his secretary, a nice woman, would notice that he had a piece of toast sticking out of his jacket pocket.

It was a lovely morning, but as she retraced her steps Ruth's mind wasn't really on the weather. It was such a shame that something so silly as a mere desk—

not even a particularly valuable desk at that—should be keeping two people, so plainly meant to be together as Guy and Chrissie, apart... three people if you counted their baby and Ruth certainly did.

But unfortunately she wasn't Solomon and this problem couldn't be solved by offering,
threatening,
to cut the desk in two.

In two... Ruth frowned. Something had been tugging irritatingly at the corner of her mind ever since the whole issue of the desk had come up.

'What are you doing here?' Ben demanded tetchily when he saw Ruth.

'I thought I'd come and see how you are,' Ruth informed him, ignoring his scowl. 'Oh, and while I'm here there's something I want to check up on in the library,' she added.

'Oh, and what might that be?' Ben demanded.

'Nothing that would interest you,' Ruth informed him with deliberate vagueness. 'By the way, I've asked Mrs Brookes to bring us a tray of tea.'

'Tea. Bah...can't stand the stuff. It makes my rheu-matism worse,' Ben complained grumpily.

'Really,
I've
never heard of it having that effect on anyone before,' Ruth replied straight-faced, managing not to point out that the heavy port that Ben enjoyed after his evening meal was far more likely to be the culprit.

However, she noticed that when Mrs Brookes had brought the tea, Ben seemed to enjoy his well enough, although she could tell by the way he moved that he was suffering a great deal of discomfort.

Hopefully once he had had his operation he would be able to move about more easily and he should certainly have less pain, but since she knew he hated to be reminded of it, she wisely said nothing, waiting until they had both had a second cup of tea before announcing that she would just pop into the library before she left.

She knew exactly what she was looking for.

Quickly closing the door, she went immediately to the cupboard housing the meticulous account books that went back to her father's time.

It took her rather longer than she had hoped to find what she was looking for, mainly because she hadn't known which year she needed to look under and con-sequently had had to search through several before finding the item or rather items she had been search-ing for. When she did, she couldn't help giving a small, triumphant yelp of exultation as she read the entry she had turned up.

There it was as clear as day, in her father's elegant copperplate hand.

Account... To Thomas Berry, woodcarver, £2 10s
6d. each for the construction of a pair of matching
desks in yew tree wood.

Two...a
pair! So she had been
right.
She
knew
there just couldn't have been one. It would have been completely out of character for her father, a perfectionist in everything he did, to go to the trouble of having the Chester family's heirloom desks copied and only having
one
made instead of the matching pair
they
possessed.

So at least she knew there
had
been two desks, which meant that both Guy and Chrissie
could be
right in claiming different ownership, but what still rather intrigued her was the matter of how one of the desks came to be in the possession of Chrissie's family in the first place.