'Saul? Saul's here with you?' Instantly she was thrown into a panic.
'He's with the doctor,' Margaret told her. 'Lucy, have you thought seriously about his offer of marriage?' she asked anxiously. 'Please don't think Leo and I are backtracking on our offer to have you with us, but from what your doctor has been telling us I'm really very concerned about anything happening to you. The house is rather remote, and if Leo and I weren't there and something happened … We do go out rather a lot, and we're due to go on holiday with some friends later in the month. I'm not trying to put you off, my dear, but for your sake and the baby's, wouldn't you be better off with Saul? After all, it is his child … and you do love him.'
Yes, she did, and that was the problem. If she didn't love him it would be much easier for her to come to a decision, to decide cold-bloodedly and without emotion that Saul owed it to both her and the baby to take care of them; but loving him as she did, it was agonising to contemplate living in some degree of intimacy with him, while knowing that he disliked and despised her, and cared only for their child. Did she have the strength to endure that?
When visiting time came to an end without Saul coming in to see her she was dismayed to discover how disappointed she felt. She told herself it was only because she wanted to discover what he had learned from her doctor, but she knew that wasn't completely true. She wanted to see him, craved the sight of him like a junkie hooked on drugs, even while she knew it destroyed her.
∗ ∗ ∗
Taking her completely off guard he arrived the next morning, just as she was being discharged. His expression was grim and uncommunicative as he led her to his car.
She had expected her aunt and uncle to come for her, and tiny prickles of apprehension iced up and down her spine as he opened the door for her.
He didn't speak at all as they drove back, only addressing her when, instead of stopping at the Dower House, he swept past it, down the drive towards the Manor.
'Don't worry,' he told her laconically, 'I'm not kidnapping you. I just wanted to have a little talk before I restored you to the bosom of your family.'
Lucy could guess what he wanted to talk about and, drained by the sudden surge of weakness flooding her body, she said tiredly, 'There's no need for us to talk, Saul. You've won. I'll marry you. But please … all I want to do right now is lie down … '
Her voice wobbled betrayingly, the car screeching to a halt as he almost stood on the brakes halfway down the drive.
At first she thought he was angry with her, and then she realised the tension round his mouth and in his eyes was caused by fear-fear not for her, but for their child, she realised hazily as he leaned towards her, his voice urgent as he called her name, dragging her back from that black place that waited for her.
'Damn, you, Lucy,' he swore thickly, as her faintness receded. 'You take years off my life every time you do that. Is it any wonder your aunt and uncle are anxious about you? Have you thought about what might happen if you blacked out like that when you were alone?'
Of course she had; almost constantly since being admitted to hospital; and that was one of the main reasons she had agreed to marry him. It was unfair to expect her aunt and uncle to give up their normal routine simply to be with her twenty-four hours a day, and that was what the doctor had warned her was necessary, especially in these early crucial weeks. But Saul was wealthy enough to provide round the clock care-something neither she nor her aunt and uncle could afford-and, for the sake of her child, she knew she must accept his proposal.
'Don't nag me, Saul,' she heard herself saying breathlessly. 'I really can't take it at the moment. You've got what you wanted; I've agreed to marry you. Now please take me home.'
Without another word he turned the car round and drove back to the Dower House.
Of course, he insisted on coming in with her, and, of course, he had to tell her aunt and uncle what had happened. Her aunt made no attempt to hide her delight, although her uncle was more restrained, more anxiously aware that she looked both drained and ill.
'You'll stay here until we can be married,' Saul told Lucy before he left. 'I'll also arrange for a nurse to stay, to keep an eye on you.' He saw her expression and added curtly. 'Don't argue with me, Lucy, it isn't good for you. And if you won't think of yourself and our child,' his mouth tightened a little over the words, 'then think of your aunt. It isn't fair to expect her to keep an eye on you twenty-four hours a day, and that's what you need right now.'
She was too exhausted to argue. It was far simpler to give in, to allow her aunt to guide her upstairs and help her into bed. To let sleep claim her and open up an escape route from reality. Saul had taken charge and for once in her life she did not have the strength to object to someone else making her decisions for her.
At the back of her mind lurked the suspicion that this was after all what she wanted. She had wanted to marry Saul all along and, despite discovering that he didn't love her, that desire was still there, and that was partially why she was giving in so easily. Of course she dismissed the thought. The reason she was marrying Saul was because she was being pressured into it, as much by her own fear for the safety of her baby as by her relatives and Saul himself.
CHAPTER NINE
THEY were married very quietly a week later in the small village church. Her aunt and uncle, and Fanny, Tom and the children were their only witnesses.
The only two people who seemed unaware of the undercurrents surrounding the ceremony were Oliver and Tara. The only blot on Tara's blissful delight was the fact that Lucy was not getting married in a traditional white dress and would not therefore require a bridesmaid.
In fact Lucy wore a soft pink silk suit that her aunt bought in London for her; she was too exhausted and emotionally shattered herself to care what she wore.
'At least Neville has had the grace to stay away,' Saul commented curtly as they left the church. 'Or was he motivated more by cowardice than compassion?'
Lucy pressed her lips together, not deigning to answer him. If it pleased him to taunt her about Neville, then let him. It was better by far that he should believe she loved her cousin than that he should guess the truth.
The excuse Saul gave for his parents' non-attendance at the wedding was that his stepfather was still unwell. Lucy hadn't even asked him if his mother knew of their marriage.
In the days leading up to the wedding she had decided that the only way she could cope with their marriage was for her to distance herself from Saul as much as she could, and that meant not asking him any questions that were in the least personal.
After the ceremony she had to endure the ordeal of the small reception her aunt and uncle had arranged at a local hotel. Her aunt had been shocked by Lucy's suggestion that it was unnecessary, and it was true that although Fanny had glanced rather speculatively at her once or twice, everyone else did seem to be enjoying themselves.
They were due to fly to Florida in the morning. His business responsibilities meant that they would have to live in the States, Saul had told Fanny in response to her surprise.
Lucy shivered faintly, anticipating the loneliness of her new life so far away from everyone she knew. It was true that Saul's mother was her aunt, but that did not alter the fact that they were complete strangers to one another. Would Saul's mother welcome her as a wife for her son? And how would she feel when she discovered that she was carrying Saul's child? Lucy's chin tilted firmly. That was something over which she was determined to allow no deceit. If Saul did not choose to tell his mother that she was pregnant, then she would.
* * *
'If those tears are for Summers, you're wasting them.'
The cold incisive voice against her ear made Lucy sit up straighter in her seat, her head turned defiantly towards the small window of the jumbo jet.
They had been airborne for about twenty minutes now, and she felt so battered and numbed by the speed of recent events that even now she could barely comprehend that she was on her way to a new life in a new country.
Fanny, Tom, the two children, and her aunt and uncle had all come to the airport to see them off, and strangely she had managed to remain dry-eyed during that ordeal, pinning a bright smile to a mouth that seemed permanently stretched in false gaiety. She had hugged and kissed Tara, promised Oliver that she would write to him, suffered Fanny's tearful embrace with perfect calm and equanimity; but now, when she was virtually alone with Saul, with no means of hiding her panic and despair from him, her self-control had chosen to desert her, causing tears of shock and misery to slide slowly from her eyes.