Lesley walked abruptly out of the cloakroom and down to the beer garden in the basement of the hotel. Small tables were spaced around the dance floor, and in the farthest corner stood a piano and microphone. Phillip Redwood was sitting at a table opposite, his head bent over a letter, and as the two girls approached, he stood up and stuffed it into his pocket.
"I've ordered champagne," he said. "I didn't know your taste in drinks and it seemed the easy way out."
"And the dearest," Pat said.
He smiled but said nothing as the waiter came forward to fill their glasses. Behind him the pianist strummed the keys and Phillip Redwood moved his chair so the girls could get a better view. The pianist played, nonstop for nearly an hour, and when he finished there were loud commands from the audience.
"Everyone yells for their favourites," Redwood whispered. "And they're invariably sexy numbers."
Pat sipped her champagne. "I can't understand why people go on about sex. Perhaps being a nurse has put me off."
Phillip Redwood chuckled and looked years younger. "I can't say /find the subject dull!"
"Men never do!" Pat rejoined. "They're the most gullible creatures on earth."
"How right you are!" rie spoke with such force that neither Lesley nor Pat knew what to say, and the silence was only broken by the pianist who began to play a fox-trot.
Redwood looked at Lesley. "Care to risk it?"
She nodded and preceded him onto the floor. Other couples were already dancing and the lights on the walls dimmed like the dying embers of a fire. His arms closed around her and she stiffened in nervous concentration as she tried to fit her steps to his.
"Give in and enjoy it!" he murmured.
She smiled and the tension left her. Unexpectedly she remembered the last time they had together when Richard's sudden arrival had caused him to behave so oddly. Could he have been jealous of the younger man? She discarded the thought even as it formed. It was more likely he had felt Richard's boisterous greeting would threaten the quiet efficiency of the clinic. Somehow she could not imagine his seeing anything except in terms of his work.
"Why so thoughtful?" he asked.
"It's the music," she prevaricated. "It often makes me sad."
"Then I mustn't let you hear it often. Your laughter is far too lovely."
"When have you heard it?" she asked in surprise.
"When you play in the snow with your nephew. Voices carry in this air."
"I'm sorry. I'll try to be quieter."
"Must you take everything I say as criticism? I was paying you a compliment." She did not reply and he gave her a slight shake. "Is that so hard for you to believe?"
"It was unexpected."
"Why? Or can't a doctor be a man?"
"You were the one who said a doctor shouldn't be a woman!"
"Now you're being an exasperating woman!"
She smiled. "I should think you find most women exasperating!"
"And beautiful ones the worst of all. Like yourself."
Instinctively she drew back, but his hands pulled her more tightly against him.
"Why are you embarrassed?" he asked.
"Because you'll regret this conversation in the morning."
"The morning's too far away for me to care about it."
The tempo changed to a slower sinuous beat and he pulled her closer still. Lesley was carried away by the enchantment of a mood dangerously sweet, but with a last cadenza of chords the dance came to an end and sanity returned.
"You dance very well, Mr. Redwood."
He looked at her gravely. "So do you, Dr. Forrest."
They returned to the table and for the rest of the evening he danced alternately with herself and Pat. But never again did they recapture their earlier intimacy. A tension she had been acutely aware of when they had met earlier in the evening seemed to have returned to him, and she wondered if it had anything to do with the letter he had been reading as she and Pat entered the beer garden.
At half-past twelve he looked at his watch. "I hate having to break up the party, but I'm operating early in the morning. I'll settle the check while you collect your coats."
They were at the top of the stairs when Pat gave a horrified scream. "There's a bear in the hotel!"
They turned to run but the animal caught Pat by the waist and with huge paws swung her off the ground.
"Have a photograph taken with me," the creature Said, "and show your friends the polar bears of Switzerland."
Lesley began to laugh and Phillip Redwood, appearing at the top of the stairs, smiled as he took in the scene.
"Don't tell me you were fooled?"
"I'm afraid we were," she admitted. "I thought it was the yeti from the Himalayas!"
Still laughing, they clambered into the front seat of Redwood's car. Lesley, in the middle, was pressed tightly against his side, and everytime he changed gear she felt the hard pressure of his thigh against hers. She was intensely aware of him and was glad when, after dropping Pat outside her chalet, she was able to move farther away.
"It's been a wonderful evening," she murmured.
"For me, too. I needed company tonight."
"I guessed that. Is anything wrong at the clinic?"
"No, it's a personal problem." There was a pause. "You're singularly tactful," he said abruptly.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't tell me you've never wondered about me or my wife?" He swung the car up the clinic drive and stopped at the entrance. Keeping his hands on the wheel he looked at her. "It's a lovely night. How about a short walk before turning in?"
Sensing he wanted to talk, she nodded and they trudged along the snow-covered path that climbed steeply behind the building. Soon they reached a plateau and she looked down on the fairy-tale scene below. By some trick of the moonlight there seemed to be no depth to the landscape and she felt she could stretch out her hand and touch the black fir trees and the uneven shapes of the chalets sprinkled throughout the valley below.
"The last time I went out with Deborah, we came up here." Phillip Redwood spoke so softly that his voice was barely audible. "I hoped that when she saw this view she'd realise there were some things more important than having a 'good time.' But I forgot that there's none so blind as those who deceive themselves." His voice grew sharp. That went for me, too. I couldn't believe I had loved a woman who didn't exist."
"Then you shouldn't be bitter," Lesley said bluntly. "You both obviously made a mistake."
"What a mistake!"
He swung away from her and there was so much suffering in the movement that she longed to comfort him. Yet she dared not.
"It wasn't Deborah's mistake," he went on. "It was mine. I was older than her—more worldly. I should have realised that she expected from life. I put paid to my marriage when I accepted Professor Zecker's offer."
"If she had loved you she would have been prepared to live here with you."
"That's exactly what she said to me—only,in reverse! That if I loved fieri would live where she wanted. Unfortunately neither of us were prepared to give in."
"But loving « giving."
"Are you suggesting I should have settled for my own private clinic in Harley Street?"
"You know I'm not. But wasn't there any other choice?"
"Not for me." He was silent and then said, "I didn't intend to stay here more than two years. But Deborah wouldn't even accept that."
"Didn't you discuss it before you were married?"
"It hadn't arisen then. Even if it had, I loved her so much that nothing would have stopped me from marrying her!"
The words stabbed at Lesley and she was angry with herself for feeling such emotion. What did it matter if Phillip Redwood had loved stupidly and blindly?
"Well," he said, "why don't you say I deserve this empty life?"
"Because it isn't empty. You have everything to live for!"
"Do you think the clinic can be my life? That I can bury myself in work and forget I'm a man?" He drew a deep breat
h. "This evening I had a letter that made me realise how human I am."
"From your wife? I knew you were upset," she murmured.
"From a friend of mine in St. Moritz. But it was about her. She's there with another man."
Lesley waited for him to continue, but he was silent. Many questions trembled on her lips, yet she did not feel she had the right to ask them. She was about to return to the clinic when he spoke again.
"This isn't her first affair. So don't think I'm upset about that. But she's now so blatant about it. She's telling everyone who I am and how much she hates me!"
Unable to prevent herself, Lesley moved close to him. She did not touch him but her nearness seemed to have an effect, for he spoke again.
"You might as well hear the whole story. You're bound to know it sooner or later. When I first came to Arosa, Deborah was with me. The winter sports were at their height, the hotels were packed and everybody she knew from London was here. Naturally she was happy, but when the snows disappeared, so did she. And she didn't come back till the next winter season—eight months later." He looked down at the ground. "When she did, she made it clear she would leave again in the spring."
Lesley sensed the drama that lay behind his matter-of- fact words. "What did you do?"
"I told her I wasn't prepared to have a part-time wife, that if she left me again, I wouldn't take her back."
"And she left?"
"Within the hour." There was a momentary hesitation. "It's my belief she had no intention of staying. If I'd behaved like a lapdog she'd merely have set out to pick a quarrel and then gone in her own time. My obstinacy merely precipitated matters." There was another pause. "After that, I cut myself off from everything except work. I didn't intend to make a second mistake again and the best way of avoiding that was to avoid women. That's one reason I was furious when you arrived!" The corners of his mouth lifted. "So you see it wasn't simply because of Martha Roberts. Any young woman reminded me of Deborah; made me realise I didn't have a home and family."
"Why can't you marry again? Even if you… even if you'll never love anyone as much as you loved your wife, can't you at least settle for companionship?"
He said nothing and, embarrassed lest she had probed too deeply, she went on quickly, "I had no right to say that. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's a normal question in the circumstances. The trouble is I'm not sure how to answer it. A short while ago I would have been. But not now. You see marriage is more than a commitment between two people. It involves others, too. When my marriage collapsed, Sir Lionel—her father—came to see me. He sym-pathised with my point of view but was worried what would happen to his daughter if I sued for divorce."
"Worried?"
"She likes men," he said bluntly, "and she's a poor judge of character. Put that all together and you can see why Sir Lionel was afraid."
"She didn't show bad judgment when she married you!" Lesley blurted out.
"She married me because I had the reputation of being hard to get," he retorted. "And spoiled young women don't like being thwarted. Anyway, Sir Lionel was convinced we'd get together again. He believed that if I refused to divorce her she'd come back to me. I tried to make him see our marriage could never work, but he wouldn't accept it. He asked me not to divorce her for as long as possible… said I was the one stable factor in her life and that I mustn't desert her."
"And you agreed?"
"Yes. I said that unless I felt she was truly in love with someone else, I'd hold her to our marriage vows."
Lesley made an involuntary sound and Phillip Redwood gauged it correctly. "You think I was wrong?"
"I don't think one has the right to try to control someone else's life. Unless it's for religious reasons, it's spiteful not to give someone a divorce."
"I didn't see it that way. In the first year after she left me, she wanted to marry a Texan who'd already had four wives; then she fell for a boy of twenty and finally an oil-rich Arab of seventy."
"You still aren't her judge," Lesley murmured.
"I know." It was a slowly spoken but firm admission. "I should never have listened to Sir Lionel. If Deborah wanted to marry King Kong I should have let her!"
"Then you've solved your problem. Give your wife her freedom and start living her own life once again."
"You make it sound so easy. Unfortunately I'm plagued by conscience."
"Why?"
"Because I haven't changed my mind out of the goodness of my heart. I've changed it because I want to live again!" He moved a step closer, seeming taller and darker in the moonlight. "It's your doing, Lesley Forrest. You came along and showed me all I was missing. You made me see that a normal man can't live without love."
Lesley forced herself to be calm. "Then I'm glad I came here. At least it means you won't go on wasting half your life. In time you won't miss her so much and-"
"Miss her?" he echoed. "I don't miss her—I never have! I was relieved when she left me. My marriage was a mistake from the word go. I fell in love with a dream—with a figment of my imagination. Deborah happened to fit the bill physically. But mentally and emotionally we were on different levels." He flung out his hands. "But that's over. Ended! Now I intend making up for the years I've wasted."
"Oh Phillip, I'm so glad," She stopped, dismayed at having used his name. "I'm sorry, Mr. Redwood."
"You needn't be. Now I can call you Lesley. I've thought of you that way almost from the moment you arrived here." He put out his hand and touched her cheek lightly. "Didn't you know?"
Avoiding his eyes, she shook her head, but he refused to be put off by the gesture and put his hand under her chin to tilt up her face.
"Lesley, look at me."
Mesmerised, she obeyed. There was no mistaking the warmth in his eyes, but before either of them could say anything the roar of a car on the clinic driveway shattered the silence. Instantly they both moved forward to watch its progress.
"Who can be coming here at this hour?" Phillip Redwood asked.
"Perhaps it's an accident."
"There's a small hospital in the village." He set off down the snowy slope. "We'd better see what it is. Later on we'll continue where we left off."
As they reached the clinic they saw that the car was already parked in front of the entrance and a tall blond man was emerging from the back of it, holding the limp figure of a woman. A nurse and male attendant were already running down the steps to assist him, but as Redwood came into sight, the blond man turned to face him.
Only then did the surgeon get a close look at the unconscious woman, whose long, dark hair streamed from her head like a silky river. Lesley heard him catch his breath and felt as if the years were rolling away and once more she was a probationer nurse in the private ward at St. Catherine's.
"It's Deborah," he whispered. "My wife."
CHAPTER NINE
With clockwork efficiency the clinic geared itself to action and soon Deborah Redwood was lying in a room near her husband's apartment. Both he and Axel spent a long time examining her, and Lesley waited outside the room until Axel came out.
"Is it serious?" she asked.
"Yes. Tuberculosis of the lung. One of the worst cases I have seen."
Lesley gasped. "But how_______ With today's drugs it ca: be cured. Why didn't she have treatment before?"
He shook his head, then buckled against the wall, his face ashen.
"What's wrong, Axel?"
I think I coming down with flu. I've been dosing myself but it's gotten worse." He tried to straighten but stood swaying before her. "I must see Herr Kasper—the man who brought Mrs. Redwood in. He's her friend," he explained stiltedly. "You know what that means."
Lesley nodded. "I'll see him for you, if you like."
With a grateful nod Axel staggered away and Lesley went to the waiting room where a tall blond man was pacing the floor.
"How is she?" he asked in accented English. "Is she bad? Please to tell me the truth."
Keeping
her expression blank, Lesley told him what she had learned from Axel.
"Will she recover?" he asked falteringly.
"Only Mr. Redwood could answer that, and I doubt if even he can say much at this stage."
The man muttered something in German and continued to pace the room. His vitality was overpowering, and even though he was agitated she could see why many women would find him attractive. But not her, she thought. He was too obvious… too lusty. Understated power was so much more attractive… lean darkness and the suggestion of passion held in control…
Quickly she forced herself to speak.
"Where was Mrs. Redwood when she took ill?"
"At the Palace in St. Moritz. I am a ski instructor there. We went on a long run today and were coming down from the Weisshorn when she collapsed. That's why I brought her here."
"You don't mean to say she's been skiing in her present condition?"
"She never said she was ill. It is only what I guessed. This morning, when I said I was going to the Weisshorn, she insisted on coming with me."
"You should have refused to take her…or not gone."
"I have to ski; it is my living. Also I ski for Switzerland in the next Olympic Games." Sensing Lesley's antagonism his bright blue eyes flashed in anger. "I know what you are thinking, but you are wrong! Never do I try to attract women. Never! But always they bother me, run after me."
"You don't need to apologise to me," Lesley said, "nor to explain."
"But you are angry. Is it because I brought Deborah here?" He flung out a muscular arm. "What else could I do? I know she has left her husband, but he is still married to her, and he is also a doctor! When she dropped at my feet, he was the first one I thought of. Himmel! You think the same as all the other people at the hotel, but you are wrong! You have a totally false impression."
"Please, Herr Kasper, there's no need to—"
"But I cannot have this gossip," he interrupted. "If I am involved in any scandal I may lose my place on the Olympic team. You are a doctor; you know what scandal can do. Believe me, I could do nothing with Deborah. Men have always wanted her and she has always had her own way with them. She would not believe I did not love her. She is mad that one: crazy for skiing and crazy for me because I am a champion!"
Rachel Lindsay - Love and Dr Forrest Page 7
