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  And she was deluding herself if she believed that she could spend much more time with him without completely losing it and betraying how she felt.

  No. As she saw it, she now had no choice. If she stayed here with Nick for the rest of the weekend she was terrified that there would come a point when her self-control and self-respect would totally desert her and when she would be reduced to a weeping pleading mess of emotions, begging him to make room in his life for her. The only way she could stop that from happening was to leave now whilst she still could.

  Perhaps Nick even already sensed what she felt.

  That fear increased her resolve—she had to leave—

  and hope!

  She had just finished packing her case when Nick came upstairs. He was carrying a mug of tea—and he was also fully dressed. As he handed her the tea he demanded sharply, 'What are you doing?'

  'Packing,' Sara replied as calmly as she could, glad that she had her excuse of putting down the tea to keep her back to him so that he couldn't see her face.

  'Packing...now...? We aren't going back until tomorrow....'

  'Correction,' Sara told him crisply, 7'm going back today...right now, in fact. After all—' she took a deep breath before turning to face him glad of the cloaking shadows of the room as she told him bravely '—we've accomplished what we came here to do.'

  Nick stared at her.

  'What the hell do you mean?'

  'We came here for sex,? Sara reminded him. 'To burn out the itch of desire we both felt.'

  She could sense her face was starting to burn as he looked at her, but she wasn't going to give in or back down. She daren't.

  Nick felt as though he had been engulfed by a huge rolling wave of unimaginable pain.

  He wanted to tell her that she was lying...that she felt the same way about him as he did about her. A disorientating sense of shock and disbelief filled him, making it impossible for him to speak, making him afraid to speak...afraid of the intensity and savagery of spilling out the pain he was feeling in front of her, like someone mortally wounded spilling out his guts in a mess of raw flesh and blood. What he was experiencing was shocking, agonising, destructive, uncontrollable, uncontainable...

  He could see Sara picking up her case and then stepping round him as she headed for the stairs.

  Sara wondered if Nick could tell what she was really feeling...if he knew that she was lying...if he was relieved that she was removing from him the necessity of reminding her of the facts? Saving them both from the embarrassment of her declaring her love for him and begging him to take pity on her.

  Last night he had refused to let her out of his arms even whilst they slept, but Sara wasn't deceived. That was just the male in him and meant nothing.

  She wasn't going to cry...not now. There would be plenty of time for tears later.

  And yet, right up until she was in her car and driving away, a part of her still hoped that he would say something to stop her... make her stay with him... even if it was only for a few more precious hours.

  SARA HAD GONE. Nick stared in disbelief around the empty cottage. Why the hell hadn't he stopped her?

  By doing what? Physically forcing her to stay? How could he have done that? He still couldn't fully take on board what she had told him.

  He had been so sure...so convinced that she felt the same way as he did. What was the matter with him?

  He should be pleased...relieved. Now there was nothing, no one, to stand in the way of his plans. Now he was free to do what the hell he wanted with his life!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  'Is THAT YOU, Grandpa?'

  David frowned as he recognised Amelia's anxious voice on the other end of the telephone line. It was nine-thirty in the morning and he and Honor had just finished their breakfast when the phone had started to ring.

  'Yes, it is, sweetheart,' he responded.

  'Mummy isn't very well,' Amelia told him, her voice starting to wobble betrayingly. 'Me and Alex can't wake her up properly. She won't open her eyes but she keeps asking for our daddy.'

  'Don't worry, Amelia,' David tried to reassure her as he sought not to let his own anxiety show in his voice. 'Are you and Alex dressed yet?'

  'No,' Amelia answered uncertainly.

  'Well, why don't you go and get dressed and by the time you are I'll be there.'

  'Olivia isn't well,' he told Honor when he had replaced the receiver.

  Quickly he repeated to her what Amelia had told him.

  'It sounds as though she's got this flu bug that's going the rounds,' Honor told him. 'One of the symptoms is very high fever.'

  'I told the girls I'd go round,' David added.

  I'll come with you,' Honor offered. 'I've got a draught which is very good for cooling down a fever.'

  'Do you think you should come with me?' David demurred. 'The last thing I want is for you to catch it from her, especially with the baby....'

  Honor was just about to point out to him that he was just as much at risk from catching it as she was and that if he did he was almost bound to pass the virus on to her but then she stopped.

  Perhaps this might be an ideal opportunity for David and Olivia to spend some time together.

  'Well, I had semi-promised to help Freddy choose some furniture for the orangery. Permission has finally come through for Fitzburgh Place to be used for civil marriage ceremonies and he wants to get the orangery equipped to hold receptions there. I'd thought a semi-Tuscan theme might be appropriate.'

  She stopped and told him gently, 'David, this virus is a particularly bad one. You may need to call a doctor out to Olivia. There have been quite a number of cases where people have had to be hospitalised....'

  'Are you saying that you'd prefer me not to go?'

  David asked her.

  Immediately Honor shook her head.

  'Certainly not. Olivia is your daughter and I know how I would feel if it was one of my girls who was ill—and how I'd feel and what I'd do if you tried to stop me from seeing them. No. Of course you must be there, but I don't want you to think out of loyalty to me and my "potions" that you can't call in her doctor.'

  HALF AN HOUR LATER as Amelia let David into the house, he could see that both she and Alex had been crying.

  As he hugged them he told them firmly, 'Now, I want you both to stay downstairs whilst I go and look at your mummy...just in case the phone rings,' he improvised when he saw that Amelia was about to protest.

  The curtains were still closed in Olivia's bedroom and David's heart lurched as he recognised immediately that Olivia was delirious and only semi-conscious. Her face when he reached out to touch it was burning hot, the pillow wringing wet, her body twisting as she moved restlessly beneath the duvet.

  Honor had been right to warn him that he might need to call in a doctor.

  The harassed receptionist who eventually answered his call told him that it would be several hours before the doctor could get round to visit Olivia.

  'Is there anything I can do in the meantime?' David demanded anxiously. 'She's obviously running a temperature. She's delirious and—'

  'You can bathe her skin to try to bring her temperature down,' the receptionist advised him. 'Oh, and make sure she drinks plenty of fluids.'

  'Give her four drops of the potion I gave you every half an hour in a glass of water,' Honor told David when he rang her to update her on the situation. 'It should help to break the fever. I've just been listening to the radio and they were saying that the local hospital is having to handle so many cases that they've had to cancel all but the most urgent operations.'

  Mentally blessing Honor for calling him back to the house to give him the new Disney video she had bought as a stocking filler for the girls for Christmas, David glanced round the sitting room door to check on what they were doing before heading back upstairs to Olivia.

  Both of them were thankfully happily engrossed in their new video.

  In the bedroom Olivia was lying still, her eyes wide ope
n.

  'Dad,' she queried hoarsely and angrily as she saw him. 'What are you doing here?'

  'The girls were worried about you,' he answered her honestly. 'They rang me.'

  'Worried about me.. .' She broke off as she started to shiver, her hand going to her throat. It felt raw with pain. Her head felt as though it were going to burst open and just as she thought she was so hot that she was about to melt, she suddenly seemed so cold that just to breathe in air hurt her lungs.

  'Throat bad?' David sympathised. 'I'll go down and make you a hot drink. You always did suffer with the most vile sore throats when you were a little girl. Your mother wanted you to have your tonsils removed but...'

  'But you wouldn't agree,' Olivia finished bitterly for him. 'It would have meant me being off school for three weeks and you wanted to go away on a golfing holiday. Yes, I remember.'

  'No!' David denied, shocked. 'What on earth gave you that idea? I didn't want you to have the operation because I'd had it myself and I could remember how awful it was. I thought the pain was never going to end and it never stopped me from having sore throats.

  There was no way I wanted you to be put through that.'

  Olivia stared at him.

  'No. That's not true,' she denied furiously. 'Mother told me...' She stopped as a fit of coughing seized her.

  Immediately David went to pour her a glass of water from the jug he had brought up and placed beside her bed.

  'Yuck,' she grimaced after she had taken a sip. 'It tastes bitter.'

  'It's got one of Honor's potions in it,' David told her. 'She says it will help bring down your fever.'

  'My fever! I've got a cold...that's all,' Olivia objected.

  'You've got flu,' David corrected her firmly. 'I've called the surgery and the doctor's coming round later.'

  'You've done what? You had no right...I don't want you here....' Olivia began, but her voice started to trail away as the fever returned. She felt so ill that it was impossible for her to continue to speak, to even continue to think. All she wanted to do was to lie down and close her eyes. Even the thin grey light seeping into the bedroom hurt her eyes and as for the pain in her head and her body... She couldn't remember ever feeling so ill.

  'The girls...' she managed to croak.

  'They're fine,' David assured her immediately. Although she was trying to fight it, he could tell that she was slowly losing her hold on consciousness, her breathing laboured and shallow as she finally gave in.

  She looked, David reflected sombrely as he watched over her, more like the little girl he remembered than the woman she now was and it made his heart ache to see her looking so frail and vulnerable.

  Once he was sure that she was asleep he went back downstairs to check on the girls and make them something to eat.

  When he went into the sitting room to call them in for their food Amelia asked him seriously, 'Grandpa, can Grandma do proper magic spells like in Harry Potter?'

  David frowned. He had been reading the books to the girls every afternoon after school.

  'Grandma Honor is a herbalist,' he tried to explain.

  'Is that like being a witch?' Alex and Amelia pressed him.

  'We want her to be a witch,' Alex interjected excitedly, 'because if she is, then she can—'

  'Shush,' Amelia began anxiously, but Alex was in full flood and refused to be deflected.

  Thoughtfully David looked from Amelia's guilty face to Alex's defiant and excited one.

  'Then she can what?' he questioned calmly.

  Ignoring her elder sister's agitation Alex told him eagerly, 'Then she can make a spell that will make our daddy come home.'

  David didn't know whether to smile or cry. On balance he suspected that crying might be the more appropriate response.

  'You both miss him very much, don't you?' he said gently instead, sitting down with them.

  'Yes.'

  There was no need for them to answer his question.

  He could see how they felt in their expressions.

  He didn't really know Caspar, his son-in-law, but from what he had heard about him, David had gained the impression that he was considered by the family to be a good and loving father.

  'He and Olivia were so much in love,' Jon had told him, shaking his head in bewilderment. 'I never imagined that they would split up.'

  IT WAS LATE in the afternoon before the doctor arrived looking harassed and exhausted.

  'Yes, it's the virus,' he confirmed.

  'She's got a very bad sore throat,' David informed him.

  The doctor frowned. 'Yes, I'll have to give you a prescription for that She's going to need to stay in bed for the next three or four days,' he grimaced as he told David. 'If she was in her sixties and not her thirties I'd be thinking in terms of trying to find her a hospital bed—not that there are any to be found locally. This thing has struck like the plague. There doesn't seem to be a single household without someone affected by it. If there's anyone available to look after her...her husband...'

  'I'm her father. I'll be here,' David informed him quietly.

  In the end the regime the doctor had prescribed was very much the same as the one recommended by Honor, as David told her when he telephoned her to update her on what was happening.

  'I'll have to stay here tonight,' he said ruefully. "I can't leave her.'

  'Of course you can't,' Honor confirmed robustly.

  'In fact, I should be very cross with you if you tried to.'

  'The doctor has said it could be three or four days,'

  David added. He paused then continued, 'There's your hospital appointment coming up.'

  Honor took a deep breath. Although she hadn't said so to David she was secretly dreading the test which was one which could reveal whether or not the baby she was carrying was likely to have any abnormalities.

  As much as she had tried to reassure herself about the health of their baby she was still aware of her age and the risks connected with it. Of course she wanted David there with her when she went to hospital even though, logically, she knew his presence would make no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the tests, the results of which they wouldn't know immediately anyway. But just as much as this child she was now carrying, Livvy was also David's child and now she, too, needed him.

  Only when she was sure she had both her emotions and her voice completely under control did she answer as confidently as she could.

  'Oh, don't worry about that. You concentrate on Livvy. Right now she's the one who needs you, David.'

  'Well, if you're sure... I have to admit I don't like the thought of leaving her.'

  'I'm perfectly sure,' Honor replied, surreptitiously crossing her fingers behind her back. 'You stay with Livvy.'

  'SARA, my dear...what a lovely surprise.'

  Sara smiled wanly at her grandfather. Frances had not unnaturally been shocked when Sara had informed her that she was going to have to leave, but nowhere near as shocked as she was when Sara had explained to her who she was and the mistake which had led to her taking the job in the first place.

  'I should have told you before,' Sara had admitted,

  'But...it was difficult....'

  'I can appreciate that,' Frances had comforted her.

  'Conflicting loyalties always are. We shall be very sorry to lose you, Sara.'

  'I have to go,' was all Sara had been able to say.

  Tania was complaining that Sara's arrival was delaying them from going out to dinner and as she listened to her and witnessed her grandfather's attempts to placate her, for the first time Sara could see why her father was not a big fan of his father-in-law's second wife.

  'It's okay, I'm not staying.' She managed to smile at Tania. 'It's just a brief visit.' She took a deep breath.

  'I'm going to fly out to join Mum and Dad.'

  'Oh, you really are the most lucky girl,' Tania told her enviously. 'I wish I had had your opportunities at your age, Sara dear. Your father is so lucky to have an apartment in suc
h a prestigious place. All those wealthy men... If you play your cards right I'm sure you could end up with a millionaire for a husband.'

  Sara closed her eyes swallowing down the nausea Tania's comments were evoking. The mere thought of any man, any man at all in her life and her bed who wasn't Nick made her skin crawl with horror and her heart ache with a pain so unbearable it made her want to scream that there would never be a husband for her now... nor a lover, either...

  She knew that both her parents, but especially her father, were against her desire to work for one of the overseas aid agencies.

  'It will break your body and your spirit,' her father had already told her brutally. 'Take it from me, Sara, you're far too soft-hearted. Even if you manage to escape going down with some debilitating and potentially life-threatening disease, you've still got to overcome the emotional trauma you're bound to suffer.'

  But she had to do something and the only thing she could think of was to lose herself and her pain in the hardest and most gruelling kind of work she could possibly find.

  But the reason she was flying out to the Caribbean wasn't simply to persuade her parents to accept her plans for her future. If she stayed at home she wasn't sure she could trust herself not to weaken and get in touch with Nick. Crawl to him...beg him...plead with him to take her back in his arms and back to his bed....

  'JENNY, is that you?'

  'Caspar.' Jenny's voice betrayed her surprise as she recognised Olivia's husband's voice. Why on earth was he telephoning her?

  'I just thought I'd ring to see how Livvy and the girls are,' Caspar told her answering Jenny's unvoiced question.

  'They're fine—so far as I know,' Jenny responded cautiously, unable to resist adding, 'why don't you ring Olivia yourself, Caspar. I'm sure—'

  'No. No,' Caspar cut her off abruptly, adding, 'and, Jenny, please don't tell Livvy that I rang. I don't want her to think that I'm—'

  '...worrying about her?' Jenny supplied gently for him.

  'Interfering in her life,' Caspar corrected her firmly.

  'Look, I've got to go,' he told her and then, before Jenny could say anything else, he had ended the call.

  'Who was that?' Jon asked Jenny, walking into the kitchen just as she was replacing the receiver.