Bachelor's Wife (15 page)

He was right, of course. And she wouldn't dream of letting Mrs Foster come up at all. She wouldn't have let her come up earlier had she been in any position to stop

her. But still her stubbornness persisted.

'I'm not coming with you, Nash, and that's final,' she said.

'Very well,' he agreed, and she knew a brief moment of victory. That was until he added smoothly, 'If you'd like to get changed, I'll run you back to the hospital.'

Open-mouthed, she stared at him,, stubborn green eyes looking into hard unrelenting grey eyes. 'I'm not...' she tried.

'Take your choice,' said Nash to a girl who for all their kindness to her in hospital, would rather be anywhere than go back; 'hospital or Sussex?'

Perry drew a tired breath of defeat, but felt too weary suddenly to fight him anymore. 'Swine,' she said dispiritedly.

'You say the sweetest things,' said Nash.

CHAPTER NINE

SNUGGLED beneath the blanket Nash had tucked around her before they started out on the drive to his country home—Greenfields he had told her it was called—Perry battled against the desire to sleep.

'Fighter to the last, aren't you?' Nash commented suddenly, making her aware that while most of his attention was on his driving, he still had time for the occasional glance her way and had just caught her forcing her eyelids apart. 'Why not give in?' he suggested mildly. 'The journey will be less wearying for you if you close your eyes.

The surviving spirit in her wanted to tell him she wasn't tired. But he had already found her out in one or two blatant lies, and she knew he wasn't going to believe this one anyway.

'I promise to keep it to myself if you snore,' he remarked, causing her lips to twitch when she wanted to feel indignant.

'I thought you lived in Belgrave Square,' she said out of blue, something that had occurred to her when he had first mentioned his country house. Then, afraid he might think she had been checking up on him, 'That's where the taxi driver wanted to take me from the hospital, anyway.'

Nash didn't comment on what he thought of her countermanding the taxi driver's previous instructions, but told her after a moment, 'It's convenient to have a flat in London. But having been brought up in the country I like to have the wide open spaces around me whenever I get the chance.'

Surprised and a little pleased that the hard man she had known had opened up to reveal a little of himself, Perry found herself asking softly:

'Does it upset you, Nash, that Lydia inherited your old home?' and immediately she had, she wished she hadn't. Perhaps he was still bitter about that time six years ago.

'That bang on the head doesn't appear to have affected your memory,' he observed, smoothly overtaking the car in front. Then after a moment's silence when she was still wishing she had bitten her tongue and slightly pink that he was going to ignore her question, he said, 'No, it doesn't upset me. It was my father's wish that she should have it—that he couldn't see her for what she was, was my bad fortune.'

Perry saw more in his answer than he said. He meant he saw it as his bad fortune that he had had to go against all his deep-seated convictions about ever marrying, in order to get what was so rightfully his.

Unconsciously she sighed. Nash could have done something ages ago about his bad fortune in having to take a wife. She wished he had. None of what had taken place would have occurred had he divorced her long, long ago. As it was, life as she had known it would no longer be the same. She had lost Trevor, and, suddenly feeling weepy, she wasn't sure that losing him bothered her all that much—which was confusing, because he had meant so much to her. Perhaps the heartache would start tomorrow, she thought, sighing again. At the moment she felt too numb from all that had happened to feel pain anywhere but where she had been physically hurt.

A small yawn escaped. Her eyes closed. She'd open them in a minute, she thought...

The next thing she knew was that strong arms held her, and were carrying her, plus blanket, away from the car. It was still daylight and for a second she didn't know where she was. Then above her she saw Nash's face, dark hair whipped by a gust of wind in an engaging cowlick across his high, intelligent forehead.

Grey eyes spotted that she had awakened as their owner progressed over a gravelled drive, a manservant preceding him to open doors. 'Hello, Nash,' Perry whispered, still half asleep, and felt an idiot as his eyes showed amusement. That was until he said gravely: 'Hello, yourself.'

A thin wiry lady nearing her sixties greeted them in the hall. Perry guessed she was Mrs Vale as she told Nash everything was as he requested, and asked if she could be of assistance.

Ignoring Perry's movement suggesting she was capable of standing on her own two feet, he held on to her as he thanked Mrs Vale, suggesting, 'Perhaps you'll come up in about fifteen minutes with something to tempt my wife's appetite, Ellie.'

Then as his housekeeper went away to do his bidding, he carried Perry up the stairs, passing the man he called Bert coming from the light airy room Nash took her to.

Without saying a word, he placed her on a velvet-covered chair while he went to unplug the electric blanket he had obviously ordered to be switched on.

Perry watched, thinking she should make some comment. But seeing his thoroughness in action as he went over to her suitcase that Bert must  have brought up, she was lost for words as she saw him extract a nightdress which he had thought to pack at the top, knowing it would be wanted first.

Her eyes followed him as he placed her pink satiny nightdress on the, just then, most inviting double bed she had ever seen, and then he came over to pull her to her feet.

'Come on, Sleeping Beauty,' he said matter-of-factly, his fingers already at the welt of her sweater ready to pull it over her head, 'it's bed for you.'

But while she still felt tired enough to welcome bed, she certainly wasn't
that
tired that she was going to stand for him confidently thinking he was going to be the one to undress her, impersonal as he seemed to be.

'I can manage by myself,' she said, pulling her sweater down when already it was level with her bust.

'Oh dear, oh dear,' said Nash, sarcasm about to break, she knew it. It didn't come. With a resigned sigh he lifted her until she was sitting on the bed. 'Get busy with the top half,' he instructed. 'I'll be back in a few minutes.'

For all her tiredness, careless of her aches and pains, Perry had her nightdress over her head and was struggling to pull her jeans from her legs when, in under a minute she was prepared to swear, Nash reappeared.

Studiously ignoring him, her face pink, her arms purposely covering the front of her, she got on with her task. Then she found Nash wasn't looking at her as he came to bend to her shoes, remarking:

'Didn't Nanny ever tell you it's easier if you take your shoes off first?'

'I never had a nanny,' she said sourly.

'Nor your bottom slapped either, by the sound of it,' he commented, delegating her straight to the nursery as her shoes came off and she had to sit while he pulled her jeans from her ankles. 'Anything else to come?' he enquired, and there was a devil in his eyes, she saw, as he read in her eyes that he could go and take a running jump before she'd remove her briefs.

Wisely he didn't wait for her answer, but pulled back the covers and had her tucked up in the luxurious warmth of the bed, when ease came instantly to her aching body.

'Hmm, this is delicious!' she sighed blissfully, forgetting to be sour as the heat salved her wounded flesh. 'Pure heaven,' she purred, saw the look of utmost satisfaction that came to him, and didn't care at all then that he looked to be pleased that he had done the right thing in bringing her to his country home.

Then suddenly he was sayings 'I won't be around to

keep an eye on you. Please me by staying in bed for the rest of the day.'

'Where are you going?' she asked promptly, knowing she had no right, but comfort leaving her that it looked as though he was prepared to dump her in his home and then disappear.

'A man has to earn his crust,' said the man who headed a multi-million-pound empire. 'I have a meeting in London this afternoon.'

'Oh.' Having lost all sense of time, Perry wanted to ask if he intended coming back or was he spending the night at his flat in town. But that feeling of guilt was smiting her again. 'I'm sorry, Nash. You—I must have cut heavily into what must be a very busy day for you.'

He gave her a look that conveyed 'all in, a day's work' but didn't stop longer than to tell her briefly that if he wasn't too late getting home, he would look in on her, and while she was still trying to hide the smile that piece of information evoked, he went.

Not understanding why she should feel so gladdened he was returning to Greenfields that night, Perry snuggled down in the bedclothes, no longer feeling like sleep, more—floaty.

She came round from her floaty feeling when Mrs Vale brought her up her lunch. And for all she hadn't thought she was hungry, she suddenly felt ravenous as a delicious smell of home-made soup reached her. She took an immediate liking to Mrs Vale, who insisted she call her Ellie as she adjusted her pillows, thinking that for all Ellie's size being in direct contrast to Mrs Foster, she was just as motherly.

'Feeling sleepy?' she enquired, taking the last of her dishes away and looking approving that she had made quite a good showing of eating most of her meal.

'Not a bit,' said Perry, feeling wide awake.

She realised very shortly, when Ellie came back after taking her used dishes away and pottered about unpacking her suitcase before asking her if she would like her to sit with her for a while, that Nash must have left instructions that she wasn't to be left alone to brood.

Though she was grateful to him that he couldn't have said anything to her about what had happened to her after she had left hospital when Ellie, waving aside her suggestion that she must be more than enough extra work without taking up any more of her time, drew up a chair to sit near the bed and remarked:

'Nash said you shouldn't be out of hospital yet, so you must share some of his determination that having decided you wanted to leave you got them to telephone him to come for you.'

'They were marvellous to me,' she said, grateful to Nash for keeping the sordid business to himself, 'but...'

'But like me you can't abide such places,' Ellie smiled. 'Well, we can look after you just as well, Mrs Devereux, only you'll have to take things very easy. Though Nash will see to it you don't overtax yourself.'

 That sounded very much as though she was in for some more of his bossy treatment! Perry made up her mind there and then to make her recovery the fastest on record. Nash had said she should stay in his home for a few weeks, but a few days, she thought, were going to be enough if he was going to start acting the lord and master.

For the next thirty minutes or so they chatted idly and comfortably on any subject that presented itself. Perry telling about her work and hearing that Bert was Ellie's husband, and earning a warm smile from Nash's housekeeper when after she had called her Mrs Devereux several times, a name Perry was not at home with at all, she asked her to call her by her first name the way she did Nash.  By the end of that time Perry had realised from Ellie's way of speaking of Nash, the affection there in her voice whenever his name cropped up, and from the way she

referred to him by his first name, that she must have known him before he had bought Greenfields. And since by now they were getting on with each other famously, she was able to put the question:

'How long have you known Nash, Ellie?'

'My name was the first word he spoke as a baby,' Ellie replied proudly, and went on to reveal, her loyalty to Nash never in doubt, that she and Bert had been in service to his parents. 'His mother was such a lively soul,' she remembered. 'Said she couldn't stand being buried alive in the country.' Her eyes saddened. 'Nash's father was never truly happy after she left him.'

Recalling that Nash had as good as said his father had been besotted with Lydia, Perry couldn't stop the, 'But he married Lydia,' that rose to her lips.  'An old man's fancy,' sniffed Ellie, leaving her in no doubt that she didn't care very much for Nash's stepmother before she went on. 'She wanted Bert and me to stay on and work for her, but not likely.' Her last three words spoke volumes. 'As soon as she moved in, we moved out. Nash found us when he bought this place and since we weren't much happier in the job we'd moved to, we couldn't start to work for him soon enough.'

There was an amiable silence in the room for a few seconds; then suddenly Ellie was showing surprise that Perry knew of Lydia's existence at all, asking was it Nash who had told her about her. And when she confirmed that he had, she saw the momentary look of puzzlement on her face as she said:

'Nash never talks about his father's second wife,' then, her face magically clearing, 'I'm sorry, I haven't got used yet to the fact that you and Nash are married. Naturally he would discuss things with you he wouldn't discuss with anybody else.' Her face was solemn as she added, 'None of us knew Nash had a wife. We only learned it from the papers. Oh, I do so hope everything goes well for you

from now on, that the reconciliation he's hoping for happens.'

'We...' Perry began. But feeling such a liking for Ellie even on such short acquaintance, she just didn't have the cruelty in her to dash that look of fervent hope she saw in her face by saying, 'We're going to be divorced.' 'We shall have to wait and see,' she said, and didn't feel so much of a coward when she saw Ellie was smiling again the smile that was so much a part of her.

Then Ellie was standing up and saying that with all their talking they could both do with a cup of tea, pausing to ask if she would prefer something else. Perry knew she meant did she have a preference for coffee, but just had to tell her that what she would like above anything was a bath. Whereupon she discovered Ellie wouldn't hear of her having her bath unattended, and ten minutes later was exclaiming in shocked tones when she saw the extent of the bruising on her body.

'They should never have let you go,' she said, frowning—and Perry couldn't tell her that she had collected a few more bruises after she had left hospital. 'I don't know what Nash was thinking of in agreeing to such a thing,' Ellie tut-tutted.

'Don't be cross, Ellie,' said Perry, beginning to wish she had done without her bath after all, and saw the housekeeper's frown disappear at her plea.

Though still pale after her bath she felt so much better she was able to eat most of the meal Ellie brought to her at dinner time. Only this time, careful though Ellie had been before when she adjusted her pillows, Perry noted the extra care she exercised, and knew the bruises she had seen were well to the front of her mind.

Sleep came naturally after that, and she didn't fight it. Nash would be home later, and if Ellie went on to him about her bruises the way she had to her, then she would rather be asleep than have him coming in and demanding to look at them—or worse, if heated argument ensued, have him taking her back to hospital.