A Suitable Groom

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Go,’ Cassie insisted, but still Veronica hesitated, unwilling to leave her on her own.

  Then the cloakroom attendant returned. ‘Is the ambulance coming?’ Veronica asked.

  ‘Just as soon as they can, but—’

  Veronica wasn’t interested in buts. ‘Stay with her. I’m going to get her husband.’ And she hitched up the glamorous red dress and ran all the way back to the banqueting hall.

  Fergus had finished speaking and his audience was applauding enthusiastically when Veronica burst in through the doors. She had been hurrying, he could see, her face was flushed and almost desperate with urgency, and as she began to weave her way through the tables the applause wavered and died down. ‘Nick, Cassie needs you. Now.’

  He half rose. ‘What is it? Oh, God … Where is she?’

  ‘In the ladies’ cloakroom. Someone’s called for an ambulance, but I don’t think there’s much time.’

  Nick’s response was brief and logical. ‘It’ll be quicker to take her to the hospital—’

  ‘I’ll drive,’ Veronica said, relieved for once in her life that someone else was taking control. ‘She’ll need you.’

  ‘She’ll need both of you,’ Fergus said, and turned to the suddenly silent banqueting room. ‘Is there a doctor here?’ No one made a move. It was worth a try, but you didn’t get too many doctors at business dinners. ‘Get her ready to move. I’ll bring the car up to the door,’ he said to Veronica.

  The weather had got worse, much worse, during the course of the banquet. Leaves, twigs torn from the trees, bowled across the tarmac, caught and stuck wetly against his legs as Fergus turned up his collar and, head down, ran into the teeth of a wind driving the rain across the car park in waves. He hit a puddle, and one of his shoes filled with water, but he scarcely noticed as he backed the car beneath the grand porticoed carriage entrance of the Guildhall. He opened the car’s rear door, then hurried inside the building.

  ‘Any sign of the ambulance?’ he asked the anxiously hovering porter.

  ‘I just rang again, sir, but a high-sided lorry’s blown over on the by-pass and there’s been a pileup—’

  He didn’t wait to hear more. The attendant opened the door a crack to his knock. ‘The car’s at the door. Are you ready to go?’ he asked as she widened it a fraction to let him in.

  Nick, white-faced, looked up. ‘No ambulance?’ He shook his head. ‘Sweetheart, I’m going to carry you out to the car. There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll be at the hospital in no time.’

  He picked her up, and Veronica wrapped the velvet cloak around her. ‘Better take these.’ The attendant pushed a pile of more towels into Veronica’s arms. ‘Good luck,’ she called as Fergus held the door and Nick shouldered his way through.

  People had begun to gather in the entrance, but the buzz of conversation died away and they fell back to let the party through.

  Nick laid Cassie on the back seat and then sat at her head, holding her hand, gentling her as Veronica joined them and shut the door behind her.

  Fergus glanced back at them. ‘Ready?’

  Nick nodded once.

  ‘Gently, Fergus,’ Veronica warned unnecessarily. A tray of loose eggs wouldn’t have been driven more delicately.

  But Cassie had other ideas. ‘Forget gently,’ she urged. ‘Just get there as fast as you can—’ Her words ran into a long yell, and Fergus put his foot down, relying on the car to take care of ‘gently’. But not even the big Mercedes could disguise the savagery of the gale force gusts of wind that buffeted them as they passed gaps in buildings, flinging the rain at the windscreen almost faster than the wipers could cope with. And it took all his skill, every bit of concentration, to avoid the debris flying across the road, while behind him he was painfully aware of the rising urgency of Cassie’s cries.

  ‘Stop, Fergus! Stop,’ Veronica cried.

  ‘Now?’ he demanded. ‘Here?’

  ‘We’re not going to make it.’

  He pulled over, switched on the hazard warning lights and used his car phone to call the hospital, tell them what was happening. Then, ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  For a moment, their eyes met above the seat. ‘Have you got a torch?’

  He flipped open the glove compartment and handed it to her.

  ‘Take Cassie’s head, will you? I need Nick here.’

  He scrambled over the seat and took Nick’s place, his arm propping Cassie up, giving her something to push against, and he took her hand, squeezing it encouragingly, although whether she was aware of him at all he couldn’t have said.

  ‘I can see your baby’s head, Cassie. You’re nearly there.’ Veronica’s voice was calm. She must be as scared as Cassie, he thought, but she wasn’t showing it. Since that momentary look of anguished desperation in the banqueting hall she had been like a rock. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Wait until you’re lying here before you say that—’ Cassie gasped as another wave hit her. ‘Remember this, Fergus, when you’re—’

  ‘Push now, Cassie,’ Veronica encouraged, and Cassie’s fingers dug into his hand as she did as she was told. ‘Again, Cassie. That’s it, brilliant, oh, well done! The head’s through.’ Then, ‘Nick, take over.’ She grabbed the torch from him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There, look!’ And she slid out of the way as first one shoulder and then another was delivered, leaving Nick to catch his newborn child in his hands. He turned the infant over, wiped its face with the fresh towel Veronica handed him.

  ‘Oh, Cassie,’ he said, ‘she’s so beautiful. She’s just like you.’ There were tears in his eyes, Veronica saw, tears of pure joy and the kind of pride that made a man want to beat his chest and roar. ‘Thank you—’ His voice cracked with emotion.

  Fergus eased Cassie up a little so that she could see, and Nick lay the baby gently on her abdomen so that she could touch her.

  There were tears pouring down Cassie’s cheeks too, he saw, and he was pretty close to them himself. Only the flashing blue light of the ambulance saved him. ‘It’s the cavalry,’ he said, easing himself back over the seat as Nick took his wife in his arms, getting out of the car to wave them down.

  ‘In a bit of a hurry, were you, ma’am?’ one of the paramedics said cheerfully as he dealt with the placenta, cut the cord and put the baby into her mother’s arms. ‘That was nice and easy.’

  ‘Why do men always think it’s easy?’ Cassie said. ‘If it’s so easy, why don’t they do it?’

  ‘We’re just not bright enough,’ he said, easing her, with Nick’s help, on to a stretcher. ‘All right? Good. Don’t worry, we’ll have you tucked up in bed with a cup of tea in no time.’

  ‘Veronica! Fergus!’ Cassie shouted as she was lifted into the ambulance. ‘I want you to be godparents—’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Fergus called back. Then the door was shut and they were gone, blue lights flashing as they raced away in the direction of the hospital. ‘I have to say, Veronica, when you invite a man out on a date you certainly know how to show him a good time …’ he said, turning to her. Then he realised that it wasn’t just rain pouring down her cheeks. There were tears, too. ‘Veronica? What—?’

  ‘Don’t say anything.’ She stepped back as he reached for her. ‘Don’t. Please. Just take me home.’

  It wasn’t a request to be ignored. Something was wrong, desperately wrong, but this wasn’t the place to find out what it was. He opened the car door for her while she climbed in. Then he got in beside her, started the engine and drove slowly back to her cottage.

  Maybe it just was delayed reaction. Shock. He glanced at her. The rain had plastered her hair to her head and the bones of her face stood out, sharp and tense. It was as if she was determined to keep all expression from it, show no feeling. She was feeling, all right, but it was not the ecstatic, over-the-moon sense of accomplishment she should be feeling right now.

  It was pain. A pain so intense, so shocking, that she was hanging on for everyt
hing she was worth, terrified that if she once let it out she would never be able to put that cool, collected image back in place and fool the world.

  And his own cold pit of despair beckoned as he began to suspect what it was.

  He brought the car to a halt outside her cottage. ‘Don’t get out—’ she began, but he was ready for that.

  ‘I really need to wash my hands.’ He didn’t wait for an invitation, but climbed out, opened her door and took her elbow to help her out. It might not be PC, she might tell him that she didn’t need anyone to help her, but right now she would be wrong.

  Her body was rigid, as if she was trying to stop that from feeling too, and for a moment she didn’t move. Then, like an automaton, she unfolded herself jerkily from the seat, quite deliberately detached herself from him and led the way to the front door.

  She unlocked the door, reset the alarm. ‘The cloakroom’s through there,’ she said abruptly.

  He wanted to take her, hold her, tell her that he thought she was truly wonderful and that he loved her with every fibre of his being, but it was as if she were surrounded by one of those invisible shields they had in old science fiction programmes on the television.

  And then it was too late to do anything as she looked at her hands, still bearing traces of her brush with midwifery, and, with a groan, made a dash for the stairs.

  He took off his sodden jacket, pulled his tie loose, washed his hands and splashed cold water on his face. When he emerged, Veronica hadn’t reappeared. But he could hear the sound of water running.

  He tossed his jacket on the sofa and searched the living room, found a bottle of brandy in a cupboard and poured some into a glass. She had still not reappeared, and after a moment he carried the glass up the stairs.

  The door stood open on her bedroom. It was like her: restrained, elegant, with pale colour-washed walls, fresh garden flowers in a tall straight-sided glass, little groups of fat white candles, the small casement windows with thick cream calico curtains. And, dominating the room, the glowing walnut of an antique French bateau bed, covered with an old hand-pieced English quilt. The bathroom was beyond it, the door partly open, but the light hadn’t been switched on, and the only sound above the wind and rain was that of water running.

  ‘Veronica?’ Nothing. He tapped at the door, pushing it wider. She was sitting on the floor, propped against the side of an old-fashioned, lion-claw bath; her face was deathly white, her hair damp in the light spilling in through the open door, and tears were still coursing down her cheeks. ‘I thought you could do with a brandy,’ he said, stepping through the door, turning off the taps. ‘And I was right. Here,’ he said, taking her shaky hands, clean but wet, wrapping them around the glass and holding them there with his own. ‘Drink it,’ he insisted, and as if she were a child, not quite sure what to do, he lifted the glass and held it to her lips, tipping it so that she had no choice but obey him.

  She swallowed and coughed, and for a moment life flashed back into her eyes, and with it pain. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, before she could collect herself, retreat behind the glass wall. ‘What’s wrong?’ Then, because it had to be faced, as all life’s pain had to be faced sooner or later, ‘Is it Nick Jefferson? Are you in love with him?’

  What else could have affected her so profoundly?

  ‘No!’ She was genuinely startled. Her denial came back at him fast and true, and relief surged through him. Not that, then. Not that.

  She shook her head. ‘How could you have thought it?’ she demanded. She liked Nick as a colleague and as a friend, but she could never have fallen in love with him. She had thought, safely wrapped up in her work, that she would never fall in love again. But she had been wrong.

  I love you.

  Veronica longed to say the words, to tell him, to show him. Instead, she lay her forehead against his wet shirt and began to weep in great grieving, silent sobs that shook her entire body. He took the glass from her, put it down on the floor beside her, and he held her, his arms tight about her, his face against her hair.

  I love you.

  The words were there in her head, but she couldn’t say them, mustn’t … He mustn’t ever know. It wouldn’t be fair … But, as a another fierce gust of wind shook the windows, she moaned and clung to him.

  For a moment he held her, then he eased her away while he was still capable of coherent thought. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you out of this dress and into bed.’

  ‘It’s ruined,’ she said, looking down at her dress, at herself. ‘What a mess.’ What an understatement. How had she let things ever get to this point?

  ‘You’re wet through.’

  ‘So are you.’ She laid her palm against the cold wetness of his shirt. Beneath it was life, warmth, the beating of his heart, and she raised her lashes, clumped together by rain and the tears she had shed, and looked up at him.

  He swallowed. ‘You’d better get into something warm, Veronica.’

  ‘I have just the thing.’ She looked beyond him to the bed, and then back up into his face. ‘Don’t leave me, Fergus. Stay with me tonight.’

  Stay with her. It was an emotional response to the birth of Cassie’s baby, the elemental forces of the storm raging beyond the window. He knew it—knew it, but it would have taken a man of stone to resist her heartfelt plea. And he wasn’t stone. He wasn’t even clay; he was pure putty as he took her face between his hands, looked into her eyes and discarded without hesitation all those resolutions about making her wait. She needed him. He didn’t know why, and right at that moment he didn’t care. It wasn’t a time for the head, but the heart. ‘I’m not going anywhere, darling.’ Not tonight, not ever. And his mouth came down on hers with a fervent, precipitate, breathless need. He was past pretence, past playing sophisticated games. He loved her, and right now there was only one way to show her how much.

  Her response was instant meltdown, her mouth, hot and demanding, provoking an explosive chain reaction, a no-holds-barred volcanic eruption of desire that leapt between them and surged through his veins like hot lava. She grabbed at his shirt-front, scattering studs as she tugged it open. He hooked down the straps of her gown, peeling the sodden cloth from her skin until he encountered the fastening of her bra. He unclipped it and it fell to floor, but now his hand cradled and warmed the sweet mound of her breast while his mouth explored the hollows of her throat and his other hand, low on her back, drew her into him.

  She leaned back, boneless in his arms, keening urgently, desperately. ‘Fergus—’ she begged.

  ‘I know, darling, I know.’ And they ripped at their clothes in a frenzy as the storm raged and tore at the cottage. Then there was a crash somewhere beyond the garden and the lights went out. Startled, she cried out, but he took her cry into his mouth, pulled her hard against him so that she felt the throbbing heat of his need, and the cry became a moan, desperate with a longing as fierce as his own. That was when he picked her up and carried her to bed.

  For a moment she lay back against the pillows, her damp hair drying in curls about her face, and in the silent flash of lightning that lit the room she looked more like a girl than the sophisticated woman who had waylaid him with her hatbox, teased and flirted with him. Thunder crashed ominously above them. I love you, he said, but inside his head. You’ll never know how much because I don’t know the words that can make you understand. I’m not even sure there are words …

  Then she reached for him, stroking her palms up across his chest, his shoulders, his neck, until she held his face between her hands. ‘Love me,’ she whispered. Outside, lightning flashed again, and in the harshness of the light he saw her eyes, no longer silvered and teasing but swirling with storm clouds that matched the intensity of those boiling overhead and swimming with tears. ‘Love me and make the world go away.’

  The storm passed. Fergus lit the candles and, propped up on his elbow, watched her sleeping.

  She slept like a child, still and quiet, her mouth smiling as if she, and only she,
knew some enormous secret. After a while she stirred, stretched, and as her toes encountered his her eyes opened wide. Then, as she came fully awake, the smile faded and was replaced by an expression of such profound sadness that he was moved to say, ‘You do realise that you’ll have to marry me, now.’

  She became deeply still. ‘Marry you?’

  He’d done entirely the wrong thing. He knew it instantly. ‘Now you’ve seduced me you’re just going to have to make an honest man of me. My sisters will insist. Shotguns at the ready if necessary.’ He saw the mixture of emotions chase across her face—disappointment, sorrow, and perhaps a touch of relief as she realised that he had been teasing her. Then, from some deep well of strength, she managed to find a smile to match his nonsense.

  ‘How will they know unless you tell them?’

  ‘I tell them everything.’

  ‘Maybe, but it isn’t always the truth. You’ve told them that we’re engaged,’ she reminded him.

  ‘We are.’ He lifted her left hand, held it over his so that she could see the engagement ring sparkling on her finger. ‘You’ve got the ring to prove it.’

  ‘Fergus, you know that was just a misunderstanding.’ She was beginning to sound just a little desperate, which gave him the confidence to press on.

  ‘The misunderstanding was other people’s.’ He kissed her fingers before turning them over, kissing her palm, her wrist. ‘I knew exactly what I was doing.’

  ‘Don’t!’ She sat up, pulling her hand away, the quilt up to her chin. Then, staring straight ahead, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Was I that bad?’

  ‘What?’ She turned, startled.

  ‘It’s been a while, I’ll admit, but I always thought it was a bit like riding a bicycle—’ He stopped as tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Oh, hey, come on.’ He sat up beside her and put his arms about her, gently, so that she would know that he wanted nothing more than to comfort her. ‘Poppy and Dora aren’t so terrible. Really. They won’t make you marry me. Even if you got me pregnant … ’