‘But I must go—’ she began, then frowned. ‘What things?’
‘What happens next,’ he said, taking her by the shoulders.
Kate stared at him blankly. ‘But I told you. I drive back to Foychurch tomorrow.’
‘I know that,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m talking about us, Kate. Where do we go from here?’
‘I thought you were coming to see me next week.’
Alasdair gritted his teeth, and gestured towards the bed. ‘Did you hear any of those things I said just now?’
Kate looked away, but he jerked her head back.
‘To refresh your mind, Katharine Dysart, I said I loved you.’
Her eyes fell. ‘I assumed that was just good bed manners.’
‘You obviously have a lot to learn on the subject.’ said Alasdair coldly. ‘It happens to be something I’ve never said before.’
‘Not even to the lady in New York?’ she said tartly, forgetting she was naked.
His eye narrowed to slivers of steel. ‘No. Nor to anyone else until tonight. So pay attention. I love you, Kate. In some ways I did even back then, at Cambridge. But now it’s different. You’re a woman, and I want you. I’ve no intention of losing you a second time.’
Kate looked at him in such unflattering disbelief Alasdair turned away.
‘Since you’re obviously not going to stay the night you’d better get dressed,’ he flung over his shoulder.
Kate made some hasty repairs in the bathroom, pulled on her clothes, and borrowed Alasdair’s brush to tame her hair, her mind working overtime. At last, when she could put off the moment no longer, she went down the stairs Alasdair had left brightly lit for her and found him in the kitchen, making coffee.
‘If you’re determined to drive home,’ he said curtly, ‘you’d better drink this first. And give your parents a ring before you start out so they don’t worry.’
‘I always do that,’ she said defensively.
They sat at the kitchen table in tense silence, facing each other over steaming mugs of coffee.
‘So,’ Alasdair said at last. ‘I rushed things, obviously.’
‘And astonished me.’ She eyed him uncertainly. ‘Did you really mean what you said?’
His eyes kindled. ‘It’s hardly a joke! So perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell me how you feel about me.’ He smiled mirthlessly. ‘One thing you must admit, Kate. The experiment was a success. You wanted to know if sex could be something you enjoyed, and unless you’re the best actress never to win an Oscar you did enjoy it. With me,’ he added significantly.
‘I did,’ she said without hesitation. ‘It was bliss, Alasdair. But I never expected you to bring love into it. I used to dream that you would once, of course. But the dreams stopped dead after my farcical bid to make you jealous.’
His face set into a blank mask. ‘By which I take it my sentiments are not returned?’
‘They are to some extent,’ she admitted. ‘I admire your intellect, I like and respect you, and physically you turn me on like no man has ever done before.’ She braced herself. ‘But I’m not in love with you any more, Alasdair.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE silence was so absolute in the room Kate was sure her gulping was audible as she drank her coffee. As a conversation-stopper, she though morosely, her last words had been a wild success. But she had meant every one of them. Her feelings towards Alasdair had changed long before meeting him again. She knew only too well that the embarrassing, painful incident which put paid to her famed virginity had been entirely her own fault. But, strive as she might to be rational, some errant part of her brain still held Alasdair to blame for it.
After a while Kate could bear the silence no longer, and got up. ‘I must go.’
He rose to his feet, looming over her as he eyed her in a way which had little to do with the love he’d been declaring shortly before. He held out the jacket he had ready for her, and she slid her arms into the sleeves, wishing she had a magic wand to wave to get herself out of here and back home into bed right that minute.
Alasdair turned her round and zipped up her windbreaker, then smiled in a way that rang alarm bells in Kate’s head. ‘Despite our slight difference of opinion, darling, unlike your former lover, I shan’t give up so easily.’
She frowned. ‘You mean you’re still happy to be my friend?’
He shook his head. ‘Not happy, precisely, Kate. But I can be patient. I wouldn’t be much of a scientist if I weren’t.’
She sighed. ‘It’s such a pity the timing’s wrong. If you’d told me you loved me years ago I’d have been in seventh heaven.’
‘Then I’ll just have to develop some miracle drug to revive your devotion,’ he said lightly. ‘Which night shall I come over to Foychurch?’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘You mean you still want to do that?’
He smiled indulgently. ‘You can’t believe that what’s happened between us tonight has put me off the idea, surely!’
‘Oh. I see. You expect to make it a regular occurrence.’ She looked at him levelly. ‘What happened tonight was just what I meant it to be, Alasdair. An experiment. A wildly successful one, I grant you.’
‘Thank you so much!’
‘But,’ she went on doggedly, ‘it was also a one-off. I’m very grateful to you for proving—’
‘Stop right there,’ he ordered, his eyes glittering dangerously. ‘All I’ve actually proved is that with me you can enjoy the act of love. But that’s the point, Kate. With me and no one else.’
‘You can’t know that for sure.’
‘I’m right. Believe it.’
Their eyes clashed for a moment, then Kate turned to take her cellphone from her bag. ‘Time I was off,’ she said brusquely, and dialled Friars Wood. After a brief conversation with her father, to give an idea of when she’d be home, she told him not to let her mother wait up, then turned to Alasdair. ‘Goodnight,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Thank you for—for everything.’
‘It was a pleasure.’ he said, lips twitching, then took her by the shoulders and kissed her swiftly. ‘Drive safely, and ring me the minute you get there. I’ll be waiting.’
Kate nodded, and went with him to the front door. ‘Don’t come outside dressed like that.’
Alasdair eyed the sheeting rain with misgiving. ‘I think you should stay.’
Kate wasn’t happy about driving home through torrential rain herself, but she shook her head. ‘I can’t do that. I’m leaving home after lunch tomorrow.’
‘Then for pity’s sake go carefully.’ He seized her by the shoulders and kissed her again. ‘I’ll see you Tuesday evening about seven.’
She nodded, then fled out into the rain, unlocked her car and dived inside, threw her bag in the back, and tossed the phone on the seat beside her. She backed round carefully, waved at Alasdair’s tall shape silhouetted in the light from the hall, sounded her horn in farewell, then, with her windscreen wipers going full blast, drove out into the lane and started for home.
By the time Kate had skirted Gloucester and begun heading for Stavely she was heartily sorry she’d refused Alasdair’s offer. There was a steady stream of traffic heading her way, among them heavy goods vehicles which covered her windscreen in spray which made driving conditions nerve-racking. Progress was slow. And she was tired. Making love with Alasdair was not only different from anything experienced before, it was also a great deal more exhausting. Right now she’d have given a lot to be tucked up with him in that huge bed of his. Just to sleep.
She drove on, keeping doggedly to the speed limits, and doing her best to keep out of trouble when she was forced to put on speed to overtake a slow-moving lorry or slow down to let an overtaking car slot in in front of her. Eventually the road narrowed to one-lane traffic, which made things marginally easier, with no choice other than to drive nose-to-tail with the vehicle in front. It seemed like hours before Kate, feeling utterly shattered by this time, swooped round a sharp curve and saw a familiar rise up ahe
ad. Almost home.
As she moved down a gear to allow for the climb, her phone rang. A glance showed that it had slid to the floor at some stage, and, keeping her eyes straight ahead and one hand firmly on the wheel, Kate reached down for the phone as she topped the crest of the hill. There was a sudden blinding glare from approaching headlights and she dropped the phone, gasping as the car went into a skid when it met water pouring across the road. She hauled on the wheel, her feet hard on the pedals as she tried to right the car, but as the road dropped away on the other side of the hill she lost control. The car veered across the road, shot through a hedge, and Kate screamed as she was hurled into a whirling, somersaulting chaos which ended in sharp, agonising pain before the world went black.
Glad to wake from the nightmare, Kate lay very still, too exhausted even to open her eyes, but very grateful to find herself at home in bed. Terrible headache, though. She would take some painkillers when she got up. But not just yet. More sleep, she decided, and slid back into oblivion.
When she surfaced again she could hear a strange beeping sound. She was still horribly tired. Her eyelids seemed weighted down. The effort to open them was enormous, but she managed it at last. And wished she hadn’t. She closed her eyes again, waited for a few moments, then opened them very slowly. But the unfamiliar room was still there. She was in a hospital. Trembling, she closed her eyes again. Not a nightmare after all, then.
‘Kate,’ said a voice. ‘Wake up, Kate. Come on, I know you can hear me.’
She raised the heavy eyelids to see a nurse leaning over her, smiling in encouragement.
‘Hello, at last. How do you feel?’
Kate tried to speak but her mouth was dry. ‘Thirsty,’ she croaked.
Propped up expertly to drink water through a glass straw, she tried to smile her thanks afterwards.
‘You stirred a little an hour ago,’ said the nurse, ‘but you went back to sleep again. Just lie there quietly for a minute while I fetch Sister.’
Kate frowned. Then stopped frowning because it hurt. Now she had attention to spare for it she found her head hurt quite horribly, along with various other parts which hurt almost as much. She stirred, then lay still again when she found she was attached to a drip. And there were flowers in the room. Lots of them. How had they arrived so quickly?
The door opened and the nurse came in with a calm young woman in dark blue.
‘I’m Sister Blackwell,’ she announced. ‘Well done, Miss Dysart. You’re back with us at last. Tell me how you feel?’
Kate’s lips moved in a ghost of a smile. ‘As well—as can—be expected?’
‘By which you mean sore and in pain, and totally disorientated,’ said Sister, nodding. ‘You were in a car accident, and you were brought here to Pennington General. You suffered concussion from a blow to the head. You lost a great deal of blood, which has now been replaced, but for the time being we shall keep you on a drip and attached to a monitor.’
Kate gazed at her blankly. ‘How long?’
‘That depends on your progress.’
‘I meant—how long since I got here?’
‘Three days ago. Your parents will return to see you later. In the meantime try to rest.’
When she was alone Kate lay very still, trying to assimilate the information she’d been given. Three days. Three days out of her life. But at least she still had her life. For which, by the sound of it, she should be grateful. And it was a good thing the nurse had called her by name when she woke up. Otherwise she wouldn’t have the slightest idea what it was. She fought down a sudden rush of panic, reminding herself she’d been hit on the head. No wonder her memory was on the blink. But Kate’s panic increased when the door opened and a total stranger came into the room.
‘I have to be quick,’ he said. ‘Even a fiancé’s only allowed a minute or two.’
Fiancé? Kate stared at him blankly.
He stooped to kiss her cheek, his eyes full of compassion. ‘How are you?’
She tried to smile. ‘I’ve been better.’
‘Did you get my flowers?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve only just woken up.’ She looked at the profusion of blooms on the window ledge. ‘Are they over there?’
‘Never mind that. Tell me what happened to you.’
‘I don’t know. They said I was in a car accident, but I can’t remember.’
‘Just as well, probably.’ He took her hand very gently in his.
She looked at him in distress. ‘You’d better know that I can’t remember you either. Not even your name. I wouldn’t know my own if the nurse hadn’t called me Kate.’
He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. I answer to anything.’ He turned sharply at the sound of voices outside. ‘Look, I shouldn’t be here. I just had to make sure you were all right so I sneaked in.’ He leaned over to kiss her cheek again, and went quickly from the room.
When the door opened again a minute later Kate tensed, but this time it was the nurse.
‘Right, then, Kate. Would you like another drink?’
Kate smiled gratefully, drank more water, then settled back against the pillows. ‘My fiancé was just here,’ she told the nurse.
‘Again?’ Nurse Dunn smiled with sympathy. ‘Poor man. He’s been haunting the place.’
Sudden tears ran down Kate’s face. ‘I didn’t recognise him,’ she said, so desolately the nurse took her hand and squeezed it.
‘Don’t worry. Your memory’s just taking a rest, that’s all. So don’t try and force it. Try to sleep for a bit.’
When she was alone Kate lay very still against the pillows, trying to come to terms with her blank mind. In America they always asked you the name of the President, didn’t they? She wondered how she remembered that, decided it was too much effort to think about, and went to sleep. When she opened her eyes again there were two people sitting beside her bed, a lady with grey curly hair and dark eyes, and a tall man with greying fair hair, both of them with identical expressions of painful anxiety.
Tears slid down Kate’s face as they bent to kiss her. ‘I can’t remember anything.’
Frances Dysart gave her a careful hug and kissed her cheek. ‘Don’t worry about that, Katharine Dysart. I’m your mother and this is your father, and we love you dearly whether you remember us or not.’
Tom bent to kiss his daughter, then cleared his throat noisily as he resumed his chair. ‘Is your mind a total blank, darling?’
Kate sniffed inelegantly, but managed a smile, comforted by the fact that her response to them was instinctive and unmistakable. ‘Afraid so.’
‘The consultant says this is pretty standard procedure after a knock like yours,’ her father assured her. ‘Temporary memory loss. As you get better it should come back.’
‘I’ve told them at school,’ said Frances huskily, and blew her nose on a tissue.
‘School?’ Kate frowned. ‘I’m a bit old for that, surely?’
‘The school where you teach, darling,’ said her father, clearing his throat.
Kate thought about it. ‘Do I teach Physics?’
After a swift look at her husband Frances explained that Kate taught general subjects to eight-year-old pupils at Foychurch, a village in Herefordshire. ‘A supply teacher’s been called in while you’re getting better.’
‘Gabriel sent her love, and Adam will pop in again before he goes home tonight.’ said Tom, then smiled at her blank look. ‘Gabriel’s married to Adam, your very worried brother, my darling.’
A subliminal flash of black curly hair and dark eyes swam into Kate’s memory and out again. ‘Adam,’ she repeated, finding the name as familiar to her tongue as Mother and Dad had been.
Her parents went on to talk about Leonie, Jess and Fenny, and how all her sisters were desperate to see her the moment she was well enough, until Frances, aware that the new list of names was adding to Kate’s distress, changed the subject to ask if there was anything she needed.
Kate smiled ruefully. ‘A
new memory would be nice.’
‘Be patient, sweetheart,’ said her father gruffly. ‘Don’t try to force it.’
‘We’ll come back this evening,’ said Frances, looking at the exhaustion on her daughter’s ashen face. ‘By then you should feel stronger. I’ve brought clean clothes and various necessary bits and pieces. I’ll let the nurse sort it out for you.’
When her parents had gone the nurse came in to check on Kate and see to her basic needs, then gave her a sponge down and a clean nightgown, and left her to have a rest.
‘The consultant will be round later, Kate,’ said the nurse cheerfully. ‘My name’s Michelle, by the way.’
Too late, when she was alone, Kate remembered she should have mentioned her fiancé’s visit. She lay worrying about it. She had known at once she belonged to her parents. But there had been no similar response to the strange man. And surely, if she loved a man enough to become engaged to him, she ought to have felt some sense of relationship to him, too?
It was all too much, and, worn out by the sheer difficulty of life without a memory, Kate gave up and went to sleep.
Later she received a visit from the consultant, a genial no-nonsense man who came in with Sister in attendance to ask Kate questions about mental confusion, stiffness in her neck, and persistent headache or vomiting. She told him her lack of memory and sore, aching head were her main problems, apart from various cuts and bruises and the soreness in her chest. He told her the latter came from the restraining seat belt and would soon wear off, then assured her that the memory loss was likely to be fleeting.
‘You were lucky, my dear,’ he told her. ‘You survived.’
Something Kate held on to with gratitude. To her surprise, when the nurse returned later to make enquiries about supper, Kate found she was rather hungry.
‘So you should be,’ said the cheerful Michelle, smiling. ‘It’s days since you ate anything.’
‘I suppose it must be. I had steak and salad—’ Kate stopped dead, her eyes enormous as she stared at the nurse. ‘Odd that I can remember that, when everything else is blank.’
Sweet Surrender (The Dysarts) Page 10
