Melting Fire

by Anne Mather

  ‘Out,’ declared Olivia tremulously. ‘I—I have an appointment. With a doctor!’ and without waiting for Bella’s response, she opened the door and hurried towards the stairs. She had no real idea where she was going. She only knew she needed time alone, to think, to assimilate the things Bella had told her, not least the astonishing lies she had told. Richard loved her! Her breath caught in her throat. He loved nobody but himself, and the corporation. She couldn’t believe her departure had meant that much to him. Bella said he was working himself to death, but Richard would never do that. Work had always been his first love, his god; if he was working harder than usual, it was because it suited him to do so, and Alex would say anything to be accommodating. Even so …

  ‘Olivia!’

  Bella’s shrill cry from above startled her in the process of slinging the damp anorak about her shoulders. Looking up, into the housekeeper’s anxious face, she missed her footing, and her gasp of dismay mingled with Bella’s scream as she tumbled down the remaining stairs.

  Scrambling on to her knees at the bottom, her head dazed from the blow it had received on the corner of the baluster, Olivia tried to get her balance. She could hear Bella, hurrying down the stairs to reach her, her breath sobbing in her throat, but all that she could think of was the baby. There was an ominous pain in the pit of her stomach, and she had the strongest suspicion that there was going to be no baby, and this knowledge filled her with utter despair.

  When Bella knelt beside her, gathering her close into her arms, all she could think of was that she had lost her baby, Richard’s baby. ‘I think I’m hurt,’ she sobbed, burying her face in Bella’s shoulder. ‘The baby …’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Faces were appearing at doorways along the first floor landing, and Bella held her close against her. ‘Hush, my darling, don’t cry. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine, mine.’ She lifted her head. ‘Will someone call a doctor?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A YOUNG black man who lived on the first floor carried Olivia up to her room again, and after he had gone, the doctor arrived. It was the same doctor she had consulted earlier in the day, and he regarded her pale face with an expression of disapproval.

  ‘So this is what you decided to do,’ he remarked brusquely, but although Bella was hovering anxiously in the background, Olivia could not let him think that.

  ‘No,’ she said, sniffing miserably, ‘you’re wrong.’ Her voice trembled as Bella came to gaze at her. ‘I—I wanted the baby, I realise that now. And oh, God, I wish I hadn’t been so careless!’

  ‘I see.’ The doctor reserved judgment. ‘Well, let’s have a look at you, shall we? Miss Ponsonby—if you’d just switch on that light …’

  Olivia closed her eyes. She had been so stupid. Talking to Bella like that. Threatening to destroy the baby! It was as if she had tempted fate to intervene, and it had. And now there wasn’t going to be any child. That tiny piece of humanity, that tenuous thread which had joined her to Richard was gone, and only now did she realise how much it had meant to her. It was useless pretending any longer. She would never be able to forget Richard, and whether it was love or hatred, or a mixture of both, she had no hope of putting another man in his place.

  But would Richard believe this had been an accident? Even with Bella’s testimony to back her up, would he think she had fallen deliberately? Depression swamped her. What did it matter? With the baby gone, she did not even have that excuse to return to Copley. It was funny, she thought dully. It took something like this to show her why her life in London had lacked the sense of satisfaction she had expected, and when fulfilment was within reach she had destroyed it.

  ‘Miss Ponsonby …’ The doctor summoned Bella across the room, and they stood by the door, whispering together. Watching them, Olivia felt an intense weariness. She didn’t feel like fighting any more. Independence was not so great. But it was hers now, like it or not.

  His discussion over, the doctor came back to the divan. Olivia avoided his eyes, not wanting to see the compassion there, but the doctor’s words brought her lids darting upwards.

  ‘All is not lost, Miss Ross,’ he told her gently. ‘Babies are not so easily disposed of. Yours will survive, providing you do as I say.’

  Olivia tried to get up on her elbows. ‘You mean—you mean——’

  ‘You’re still pregnant, Miss Ross. I’m not lying to you. But you need rest, lots of rest. And I’m going to arrange for you to go into hospital for a few days.’

  ‘Oh, doctor!’ Olivia’s voice quavered. ‘Do you mean it?’

  The doctor cast a smiling glance at Bella. ‘If this is what happens to unmarried mothers when they think they’ve lost their babies, we should recommend it as therapy,’ he remarked dryly. Then, more soberly: ‘Seriously, Miss Ross, it was a near miss, and I’d hate anything to go wrong now, if you really want the child.’

  ‘I do, I do!’ Olivia didn’t care what Bella thought. ‘When will I be going into hospital?’

  The doctor hesitated, glancing at Bella again. ‘Today—at once, as soon as I can arrange for an ambulance. Er—Miss Ponsonby says she will accompany you, just to see you settled in, and so on. But in the meantime, I’m going to give you a mild sedative, just to make you sleep for a while. While all the arrangements are made.’

  Olivia didn’t object. She was still wrapped in the warm reassurance of knowing that she still carried Richard’s child inside her, and whatever happened, she would have this small part of him to keep for ever …

  Bella disappeared to make a phone call while Olivia drowsed the rest of the afternoon away. Then, at six o’clock, the ambulance appeared, and Olivia was carried down the stairs on a stretcher, feeling rather a fraud for having to be so.

  But once in the ambulance she relaxed, and reaching for Bella’s hand she said: ‘You were right, you know; I couldn’t have gone through with it.’ She hesitated. ‘I only wanted to—to hurt Richard.’

  Bella patted her wrist. ‘If you had lost the baby, it would have been my fault.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Olivia shook her head. ‘It was mine. I acted carelessly, heedlessly. I pretended I was so tough.’ She sighed. ‘I’m not, you know—anything but. I’m just selfish, like you said.’

  Bella clicked her tongue. ‘Don’t be so silly. Now, relax. It’s all over now.’

  But it wasn’t, thought Olivia doubtfully. There was still Richard to be told. What would he say? What would he do? She cringed from the thought of his displeasure. What if he didn’t want her to have the baby? What if it should be an embarrassment to him? She hadn’t given that particular consideration any thought at all, and her mouth felt dry at the prospect of confronting his anger. Bella had said he wanted her back. Her! Not someone whose condition was bound to create difficulties.

  She drowsed again, a fitful slumber punctuated by fearful dreams, in which Richard was always the aggressor. She experienced that moment when she had lost her footing on the stairs over and over again, but always it was Richard who picked her up, Richard who shouted at her, Richard who made her feel unloved and unwanted.

  She opened her eyes to the realisation that it was completely dark beyond the windows of the ambulance. In London, it was impossible to find anywhere that was so dark, the street lighting always casting a glow of illumination.

  Bella seemed to be dozing, but when Olivia struggled up she opened her eyes immediately. ‘Feeling better?’ she asked, her smile tentative, but Olivia was unnerved.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she demanded. ‘Where is the hospital? This is an ambulance, isn’t it?’ Her face contorted. ‘You wouldn’t—fool me, would you?’

  ‘Fool you, dear? What about?’

  Olivia swallowed convulsively. ‘Have I lost the baby?’

  Bella’s denial was vigorous. ‘Of course not. Would a doctor lie about a thing like that?’

  Olivia licked her lips. ‘Then where are we going?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  Olivia sank back against the pill
ows. ‘Not—Copley!’

  Bella nodded. ‘Don’t be angry, Olivia, please. The doctor was insistent that you should rest, and I explained that you couldn’t stay alone, in the bedsitter.’

  ‘Oh, Bella …’ Olivia turned her head aside. ‘I can’t face Richard like this.’

  ‘No one’s asking you to,’ declared Bella comfortingly. ‘As it happens, Richard’s staying at the apartment this evening. Alex told me, when I rang earlier on. You’ll have plenty of time to compose yourself before you see him.’

  Olivia shook her head helplessly. ‘What—what if he doesn’t want me there?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Bella’s tone was flat. ‘He’d do anything for you. Only you’re too blind to see it.’

  Alex was there to greet them when they arrived at Copley. Much to Olivia’s embarrassment, it was he who directed the ambulance men upstairs, showing them where her room was located, and thanking them for their efforts. Then he left, and Olivia was alone in the gold and green beauty of her bedroom.

  Closing her eyes for a moment, she absorbed the scents and smells of the cosmetics on her dressing table, the more pungent odour of beeswax from the furniture, and the drifting fragrance from a bowl of roses someone had placed on her dressing table. She was home, she thought emotionally, and that knowledge had never been so warming.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Bella’s voice from the doorway made her open her eyes again, and she smiled rather tearfully at the old lady. ‘Yes,’ she said, forcing the tears aside. ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘The ambulance men? Yes,’ Bella nodded, approaching the bed. ‘Now, what would you like for dinner?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘I’m not very hungry. I haven’t been—since——’

  ‘I understand.’

  Olivia caught the housekeeper’s hand. ‘What did you tell Alex?’

  ‘Alex?’ Bella shrugged. ‘I said you’d fallen down the stairs and strained your spine.’

  A soft laugh escaped Olivia’s lips. ‘Oh, Bella, what an accomplished liar you are!’

  ‘A liar? Me?’ Bella assumed an offended air. ‘It was no lie. You did fall downstairs.’

  ‘But—spraining my back!’

  Bella tossed her head. ‘At least it gives you a reason for resting, and that’s the important thing—you must rest.’

  ‘Yes,’ Olivia nodded, looking down at her flat stomach. ‘I can hardly believe it, you know. Even now …’

  Bella smiled. ‘We’ll make you believe it. Now, what about dinner?’

  In the end Olivia accepted a bowl of chicken broth, and a lightly scrambled egg. She wasn’t hungry, but it pleased Bella to mother her, and she was too weak to protest. Before the meal, Bella helped her to undress and slide between the silk sheets, and her aching limbs responded to the unaccustomed luxury.

  ‘I—I’ll have to telephone Mr Dailey tomorrow,’ she told Bella, as the housekeeper settled her down for the night, and then willingly gave herself up the the welcome oblivion of sleep.

  Whether it was because she had slept during the afternoon, and afterwards in the ambulance, she didn’t know, but she awakened restlessly, in the early hours of the morning. Bella had turned out the lamps before departing, but moonlight flooded the room, and she shifted uneasily in the comfortable bed. She was thirsty, that much she recognised, but there was something else, some other reason why she felt so disturbed.

  Blinking, she levered herself up on her elbows, and as she did so, a dark shape loomed from a chair beside the bed. ‘Bella?’ she said, uncertainly, not so much alarmed as impatient, but the hand that reached for the bedside lamp was not the old lady’s, and even without the sudden glow of light she knew it was Richard.

  ‘I—I—Bella said you were spending the night in town,’ she stammered, not prepared for this unexpected confrontation, but the next moment her words were forgotten as she gazed into his drawn face.

  Bella had not been lying, she realised in dismay. Richard looked ill. His face was pale, paler than she had ever seen it, and his hollow cheeks matched the sunken circles round his eyes. He had lost weight, and the tight-fitting jeans exposed the bones of his hips, the narrow length of his legs. Even the bones of his hands were visible, long and sensitive, the hands which had explored the secret places of her body …

  ‘Oh, Richard,’ she breathed, unable to deny the surge of emotion that swelled inside her. ‘Richard—I’m sorry!’

  ‘Don’t give me your pity, please,’ he said tautly, pushing his fingers into the waistband of his pants. ‘I’m all right. It’s you I’m concerned about. Alex tells me you’ve injured your spine.’

  ‘He—he had no right to tell you anything,’ replied Olivia unevenly. ‘There was no need for you to come back here. It’s nothing. I—I fell down a few stairs, that’s all.’

  ‘You could have killed yourself!’ he muttered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Dear God is there no way I can persuade you to give up this crazy scheme? All right, so I know you want your independence. I’ve accepted that. But couldn’t you live here? Couldn’t you travel up to town every day, as I do? Couldn’t you at least try and let me make up to you for—for what happened?’

  ‘Oh, Richard …’ Olivia caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘I—I want to come back——’

  ‘You—what?’

  Richard stared at her disbelievingly, and she stretched out her hand and touched the taut muscles of his thigh. ‘I do,’ she whispered, stroking his leg sensuously. ‘I do. Only—only it’s not that simple.’

  Richard was steeling himself not to cover her hand with his own as he stared down at her. ‘What—do you mean?’

  Olivia struggled into a sitting position, still touching him with both hands now, concentrating on the buckle of his belt with guarded eyes. ‘I—do you remember the last night I was here?’ she murmured, not knowing how else to begin, and the imprecation he uttered was both harsh and self-derogative.

  ‘How could I forget?’ he asked savagely. ‘Do you think I haven’t thought of it every waking moment since you walked out of here? Do you think I haven’t berated myself over and over again for destroying the trust you had in me? For allowing emotion to override common decency?’

  Olivia bent her head. ‘Is that how you see it?’

  ‘It’s how you see it, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘God, you have no conception of my feelings! You never had. You always thought I was selfish—possessive. Well, maybe I was that, too, but I wanted to protect you from the first day you came into my life, and God help me, I don’t know when those feelings changed to love.’

  ‘Love?’ Olivia lifted her head. ‘You—you’ve never said you loved me.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ Richard lifted a hand to wipe the beads of moisture from his forehead. ‘I thought I’d shown it in a hundred different ways.’

  ‘Shown it?’ Olivia moved her shoulders helplessly. ‘All you showed me was how easily you could seduce me, how helpless I was in resisting you. I used to worry about that, you know. I was afraid I was one of those women who—who had no resistance to men. Until—until Jules tried to make love to me. Then I knew …’

  ‘What did you know?’ Richard’s fingers came to still her caressing ones. ‘Olivia, for pity’s sake! Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’ Suddenly she wasn’t afraid any more. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Yes, I like it,’ he admitted wearily. ‘Too much.’

  ‘Oh, Richard …’ His humility was too much for her. With a little cry she got on to her knees and clutched his shoulders. ‘Richard, I don’t care about anyone else but you. Really. When Jules touched me, I—I froze. I hated it. I was going to tell you. The morning—the morning after the ball …’

  ‘Olivia!’ With gentle hands, Richard cupped her face, and parted her lips. Then he kissed her, tentatively at first, but as her mouth widened to admit his, and her fingers clung to the short hair at the nape of his neck, his kiss deepened and lengthened, until they were bot
h out of breath and trembling.

  ‘I love you, Richard.’ Olivia smoothed the straight dark hair from his brow. ‘I suppose I always have. I just never wanted to admit it.’

  He came down on the bed beside her, pressing her back into the pillows, his mouth urgent and demanding. Then, hoarsely, he exclaimed: ‘Tell me if I’m hurting you. Your back——’

  But Olivia wound her arms around his neck and he kicked the bedcovers aside, gathering her wholly into his arms, warm against the powerful muscles of his legs. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck, content to let him hold her, secure and at peace at last.

  ‘That night,’ he murmured, his fingers caressing her shoulder. ‘The night. I—I have a confession to make.’

  His words were an unwelcome reminder of what she had to tell him, too, but when she started to speak, he silenced her with a fingers against her lips.

  ‘Me first,’ he said, drawing her hand to his lips. ‘It has to be said, and I’m not proud of it.’

  Olivia frowned. ‘What?’

  He sighed. ‘I’ll tell you. Do you—remember how I came to your room?’

  ‘Of course.’ She shrugged. ‘You said you’d heard something.’

  He nodded, taking her fingertips between his lips. ‘It wasn’t true.’ He paused. ‘I came there with the—the intention of—of keeping you, in whatever way I had to.’

  ‘Richard!’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘But you went away again.’

  ‘I know.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘I found I couldn’t do it. Not—cold-bloodedly, like that. When I saw you sitting there, with my gift to you around your wrist——’

  ‘The bracelet!’ That was something else she had to confess.

  ‘That’s right. Well, you looked so innocent, so trusting.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘But—afterwards …’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ His lips twisted. ‘My control was not proof against you coming to my room.’