Sins of Sarah (51 page)

Locked together. Nick and Charles fought some macabre dance for long seconds, until suddenly Charles began to choke - long, heaving sounds that made Nick loosen his grip on him. Charles was going blue, grasping at his chest, until with a deep moan he slid to the floor.

For a moment Nick stared, stunned, as Charles shuddered and then lay still. Then he realized what was happening and dropped to his knees beside him,, all animosity forgotten in an instant. 'Get some help!' he rasped at the men. 'And an ambulance. Oh, God, Miriam!' He was desperately feeling for a pulse and not finding one, ripping open Charles's shirt as he did so.

Miriam rapped out orders and joined Nick on the floor. 'Is he injured?' she demanded, puzzled.

'No! I think it's his heart; he's had an attack before. Try and find Isabelle, someone. Sarah?'

'I'll do it.' Sarah ran upstairs, hardly able to watch as Nick, in desperation, leant over Charles's prone figure and, taking a deep breath, began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with Miriam's help. Charlotte and Isabelle had locked themselves in the nursery suite, and it was frantic seconds before Sarah could convince them that it was safe to unlock the door. Sam was howling with hunger and Sarah grabbed at him. 'I'll see to him. Isabelle, please, will you go down to Nick?'

'Daddy! Is he hurt?' Charlotte screamed, and Sarah stared at her. She had almost forgotten Charlotte.

'No - no thanks to you!' she snapped, and collapsed into a chair with Sam in her arms. Distractedly, she pulled the strap of her dress down and let Sam find his own way to her breast - which, like a little homing pigeon, he did.

'How could you have let Charles in?' she demanded, when silence had been achieved. 'After all you knew he had done to us?

'I didn't believe you, Sarah,' Charlotte admitted shame-facedly. 'I... I thought. . . you and Daddy were making it up, so that I'd forgive you about Sam. That's what Charlie said.' In floods of tears again, she almost fell across the room and buried her face in Sarah's lap. 'Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry - so very sorry ... I had no idea he was going to do that! Really I didn't! I didn't want any harm to come to you, or Sam.' Sarah reached down and curved her hand over Charlotte's dark curls.

'I know,' she said softly. 'Charlotte, even I had no idea Charles could be so ... well . . . violent. And I know him as well as Nick does - better in some ways. Don't cry, darling, I think we all need to keep calm for a while.' She shuddered, realizing for the first time how close to death all three of them had come. Only the suckling baby kept her calm at that moment, and she went on stroking Charlotte's hair in a desperate attempt to get her to relax a little .too.

They were still like that when Nick appeared in the doorway, fraught and dishevelled. 'He's breathing,' he said wearily. 'The ambulancemen are here so they have taken over. Isabelle was fantastic! Sarah, Charlotte - are you all right?'

'Oh, Daddy!' Charlotte hurled herself at Nick, her face tear-stained and red. 'Daddy, I'm so sorry.'

Relieved, Nick hugged her. 'It's all right, darling, you weren't to know. None of us were, but I guess I should have known he might try something like that - he threatened to.' With his arm still around Charlotte, he moved to Sarah, bending to kiss her cheek, only too aware, with some distaste, that his mouth tasted of Charles. 'I'll have to go to the hospital with them,' he told her gently. 'But as far as anyone else is concerned it was just a heart attack. We took the gun away and the staff will say nothing.'

'Nick! He nearly killed us!' Sarah protested.

'Yes, I know.' Nick looked grave. 'But I don't want it to get out - can you understand that? We've been friends for so long, darling, despite everything. Even if I never see him again - which I won't, believe me - I can't do it to him.'

'Nick!' Sarah disengaged Sam and pulled her dress back up. 'I think you are a far better friend to Charles than he ever deserves to have. But if that's what you want I'll go along with it; I promise.' Nick went into the nursery bathroom and washed his face, then quickly rinsed out his mouth with antiseptic. He felt sick now the drama was receding, and he gripped the edge of the basin as nausea churned in his stomach.

Finally, pulling himself together, he dampened a flannel and took it back to Sarah, to gently clean up the damage to her cheek where the blood had started to dry up. She had almost forgotten about it, and she looked at the blood on the flannel in surprise.

'I nearly had a heart attack myself when I saw that,' he admitted. 'But in actual fact it's little more than a graze. You were very lucky - in fact we all were. Look, I'll have to go. I'll be back as quickly as I can. Will you go and help Miriam for me, darling? I think she's as shaken as we are.' He was struggling to be matter-of-fact, when all he really wanted to do was grab Sarah in his arms and never let her go. The thought of the next few hours filled him with horror, but he knew he had to get through them. Hospitals were still part of Nick's nightmares.

When he had finally gone, following the ambulance in his own car, Sarah pulled herself together and, after giving a repentant Charlotte strict instructions on how to look after Sam, went downstairs to Miriam. Somehow the two of them marshalled the bewildered staff into action, to clear up the broken mirror and generally make good the damage Nick and Charles had caused as they fought. Neither of them felt like eating, but when Charlotte came down, after handing over to Isabelle, Miriam poured them all a glass of brandy - including Charlotte.

'I think we all need this,' she decided firmly. 'Or at least, I do!' Sarah smiled, for the first time in hours.

'I need it too, so Sam will sleep well tonight!' Seth only bought good cognac, and it slipped down - the first alcohol Sarah had had since Sam's birth except for the champagne - and she relaxed in minutes. Tentatively, Charlotte crept up to her as she leant back on the sofa, still clutching her own glass, hardly daring to drink it.

'Sarah,' she whispered. 'Will Uncle Charlie be OK?'

'I honestly don't know. All Nick said was that he was breathing.' Sarah frowned.

'He worked miracles,' Miriam said in admiration. 'He simply wouldn't give up. Neither would Isabelle.'

'Daddy really is rather special, isn't he?' Charlotte said. 'Uncle Charles was very close to me with that bullet; I was so scared.'

'We all were,' Sarah admitted. 'But I'm sure Charlie only meant to frighten us, darling.' He was too good a shot to miss at that range.

Charlotte huddled close to Sarah, as she had done upstairs, for what seemed like hours, until Nick finally came back at almost midnight. He looked exhausted, and his face was pinched with fatigue as he slumped into a chair while Miriam silently handed him a glass.

'So far, so good,' he said slowly, 'He's still alive, but only just. We'll ring in the morning. We can only hope now.'

'In that case there's nothing else we can do,' Miriam said firmly. 'Come on, Lotte, bedtime.' Left alone. Nick and Sarah clung together. 'It was a massive attack,' Nick said eventually. 'I really don't see how he can survive it, but I do want him to. I really do. I hope that doesn't seem disloyal to you, darling. I'm so confused.'

'It's not disloyal at all,' Sarah affirmed. 'I think over the last few weeks. Nick, I have learnt just how kind and thoughtful you can be. You hide your feelings most of the time, but with me and Charlotte, and especially Sam, you're so different.'

'I learnt long ago to keep my feelings to myself,' Nick mused. 'At home, at school, even at university, it really was frowned on to show them. It wasn't till Tasha came along that I learnt to say I love you. But when I lost her to Charles, I vowed I would never say it again. I don't think I ever told Diana that I loved her, yet I can't tell you enough.' He hugged her so tightly she thought her ribs would crack, but she knew then just how much he needed her and welcomed it. His pain was hers at this moment.

'Let's go to bed. Nick,' she begged. 'I need you to hold me.'

'That is something I've been longing to do all evening.' Nick lifted her to her feet with alacrity, and led her up the stairs.

When Sarah came out of the bathroom, wearing a long, floating white nightdress he had bought her in Nice, he was just putting down the phone. 'No change,' he said briefly, and strode into the bathroom. Sarah sat on the window-seat looking out over the subtly lit gardens and felt the tears of relief begin to slide inexorably down her cheeks. Frantically she wiped them away. She had no reason to cry for Charles, had she?

Nick came back into the room, his bare feet silent on the thick carpets. Since he couldn't make love to her, he had taken to wearing shorts to sleep in, but she felt the soft hair on his naked chest rub against her own bare back as he slid his arms around her, nuzzling her hair away from her neck with his lips. They were gentle on the curve of her neck, and Sarah smiled as she turned ill his arms.

'I love you, Nicholas,' she said softly. 'More than anything or anybody in the world.' Nick laughed and nodded towards the crib where Sam slept peacefully, his tiny fists clenched each side of his dark head. He shared their room at night so that Sarah could feed him - though the previous night he had slept right through to their immense relief.

'Even more than Sam?' he teased.

'Sam is part of both of us,' Sarah argued as he lifted her up. 'A very precious part. You don't regret him, do you, Nick?'

'Only when he's wailing at three o'clock in the morning! No - silly girl - I don't regret him I would never regret him. I love him as you do, and once we're married I'd like to have other babies! I've got over that stupid fear now, thanks to you. In fact I have become a totally different person because of you. Much stronger, in some ways.' .

'And protective,' Sarah added, as he slipped her into the bed and then joined her.

'The next few weeks I'm going to need to be,' he sighed. 'Imagine what will happen now! The Press will be down on us like the proverbial locusts they are - not to mention Diana. No way are they going to believe that Charles paid us a friendly visit and had a heart attack in the process. And if he dies . . .!

'Oh, God! Nick what are we going to do?' Sarah buried her face in the pillows as if to hide from the prospect.

They had suffered enough from the press harassment of the last few weeks.

'Depends a bit on Charlie. It might seem a bit callous to whisk you off to LA while he is so ill - but it would be safer for us all. Charlotte should go back to Diana, anyway, so she will be OK. Thank goodness she was upstairs when it happened; she was very fond of Charlie - even named after him.' 'Is,' Sarah corrected.

'Is,' he repeated, as if to reassure himself. 'We were so lucky tonight, Sarah. He could easily have killed both of us, the state he was in. There was no way he would have left without you, and if you'd continued to say no to him - he would have killed you rather than leave you with me, I'm sure of that. And I couldn't have contemplated a life without you. I know that now.'

'Thank goodness you came back that bit earlier, and didn't decide to stay in London overnight.'

'I couldn't bear to, though I should have done.' Nick sighed heavily. His solicitor was locked in combat with Diana's solicitor over the huge new claims she was making, and the situation was deteriorating rapidly. 'Just be glad that Miriam decided to collect me, and not the chauffeur. He drives at snail's pace, something you could never accuse Miriam of doing.'

Sarah shivered. 'Nick, do you think we'll ever be able to lead a normal life again?'

'Yes, darling, I do.' He was adamant on that point. 'LA is used to the film business, and the people who work in it. We'll be able to live and do as we please. Seth and Bob are delighted with Emerald Isle, so once that's out you'll have plenty of offers if you want to do other work apart from mine. Maybe I'll retire and let you keep me,' he added teasingly, and she laughed.

'That I doubt very much!' She knew Nick's capacity for work. 'But I'll make sure you stop working yourself into the ground from now on.'

'I won't have a chance to! Since with a son - or two, I 'm going to need to find the time to play football, aren't I? And cricket - maybe even golf. I haven't played that for years.'

'More likely baseball!'

'Over my dead body! I think I'll put Sam down for Kings tomorrow!'

'I'm not sending our son to boarding school,' Sarah protested. 'Especially if we're living in the States.'

'By the time he's eight you may be glad to! My parents certainly were!' He cuddled her close to him. 'Wait till you've done the school run for a few years, with all the other Hollywood mums.'

'You can do that too.' She giggled, distracted now as he peeled the nightdress from her shoulders.

'Me?' He was appalled at the prospect.

'You!' she said firmly. 'You already bath and change him - why not that?'

'Nobody else sees me bathing and changing him,' he said, grinning in the dark. They both knew how much Nick enjoyed doing things for Sam. 'Or doing this, for that matter!' He caressed her breasts gently. 'Damn these doctors and their rules! I want you so much! Sarah, are you sure it's too early?'

'It's supposed to be, but - I feel fine. Nick.' He was gentle, as she had known he would be; and afterwards, as Nick slept and she lay awake in his arms, blissfully contented, she knew. Everything was going to be all right.