He sniffed at his own shirt and spoke to her over his shoulder as they reached the hall.
“I’m going to take a quick shower. The river water is starting to smell. Don’t start dinner yet. As it’s just the two of us I want to help.”
Ellen shook her head as she headed for the under stair doorway.
“I bought everything down at the market already. I only have to shove it in the oven to heat. All this rubbish about the French being fabulous cooks is a load of old baloney. It’s all really just posh ready meals that just happen to be a lot more delicious than ours back in England. I’ll pop it in the oven and it will be ready for when you come down.”
David nodded, took his legs from Ellen’s hands and made his way to the lift.
“Okay, I’ll be half an hour and then I just need to get some oil in these things to make sure they don’t seize up. I’ll use the chair tonight. It’ll be a good opportunity to see how manageable everything is. If I find there are any problems we can take a look and perhaps make alterations.”
He pressed the button for the lift and frowned when it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to rise to the first floor giving him more time than he wanted to get used to the smell of the river water that rose from his shirt and his skin.
At least Geraldine hadn’t been there to see him sitting in the wheelchair looking like a complete invalid. He thanked the Gods for small mercies as the lift eventually stopped and the doors slid slowly open.
Chapter Nine
David looked around at the sumptuous bathroom suite. He ignored the sunken bath and wheeled himself into the shower area. There was a moveable seat on a hinge fashioned within the tiles and he slid from his chair onto it. He swung himself round into the cubicle, adjusted the faucet and then sat under the hot spray for a few minutes before he began soaping up.
He rubbed bubbles over his shoulders and massaged the joints. He really had slammed into the water on the first run down the wire. He could feel the tension in his tendons and he wished that it could have been Geraldine massaging the tightness from his body.
He could still feel the wrenching in his lower back too. He leaned forwards and rubbed as well as he could. It wasn’t the same; he needed to lie down and let someone with a bit of knowledge, someone with tender hands and deep green eyes, give him a really good massage. He snorted at himself. He hadn’t realized how much he had assumed. In his mind he had never considered that Geraldine wouldn’t be at the château waiting for him when he arrived. He bit back a grim laugh at his own stupidity. She obviously had a life outside of him and the château. He’d just been being so self centred that he had forgotten it.
He leaned his head back against the tiles and soaked up the heat from the water. The spray was heavenly and he let it beat down onto his chest, relaxing him as the warmth spread through his body.
He shampooed his hair and rinsed, turned the shower off and towelled down while still sitting on the seat. He leaned out of the shower and lay another towel on the seat of the chair then manoeuvred himself back into it.
By the time he was dry and dressed again he had been far longer than the half an hour he had told his sister. He sighed deeply. Everything took so much more effort. All the extra drying and attention to his legs took up major time but couldn’t be rushed. If the skin failed over the bottoms of his amputations he would be in serious trouble. It was bad enough having his legs removed to above his knees, any higher and he’d need a different fitting on his prosthetics, one that straddled his hips. He couldn’t face the thought of going through all the practice and physiotherapy again. Every day had been like climbing an extremely high mountain made of very fine sand.
For a moment his mind swept back to the day the boy had blown up in front of his very eyes. The bomb around the youngster’s waist had probably been set off by remote control giving him no choice whatsoever. Poor kid! It was a vile thing to do to a child. The cowards who had wrapped that belt around the boy’s waist should be rotting in hell. The lad had been terrified, forced into doing it. David would remember the look on the teenager’s face in the seconds before he vaporized as long as he lived. He couldn’t imagine that kind of fear. At least he had known what he was getting into when he signed up for the army and although he hadn’t reckoned on losing any limbs he’d never really regretted a day of it.
He sometimes wondered what he would have done if faced with the same situation as Steve had been that day. He looked down at what was left of his legs. Could he have gone back into that burning car and calmly amputated a friend’s legs with nothing more than a hard fist as anaesthetic and a jungle knife to hand? He shuddered at the thought. It was a braver man than he who had wrapped his own and James’s belts around David’s thighs and then sawn through his knee joints, freeing him from the burning car.
Steve had already gone back to active service and was on another tour of Afghanistan when David had eventually plucked up the courage to Skype him and thank the man for saving his life. Steve had just laughed and said that Dave would have done the same but he wasn’t sure that he could have done. He didn’t own a bloody great, well-honed jungle knife for a start and he couldn’t imagine being able to cut someone’s legs off with the little blade he normally carried.
He snorted at the thought. Steve’s lethally sharp knife and steady hands had been what had saved him that day. The guy had been a complete hero, cutting him off at the knees and then hauling him from the car that blew up seconds later, to the helicopter that arrived through a hail of bullets. They were damned lucky no one on the enemy’s side had a rocket launcher or they would have all been done for.
David hadn’t remembered a thing about it of course. Steve’s huge punch had fortunately knocked him into the middle of the next week. James had given him all the gory details when he arrived looking pained and thin on a pair of crutches a few weeks later. Steve had saved him too but his legs had been crushed, broken in so many places that it had been a toss up whether they should be amputated. James’s father had insisted that they remain in place until James himself could decide on anything so drastic but by the time he had woken up the surgeons had put enough metal in the man to hold up the Eiffel tower.
David took a deep breath and a quick look in the mirror before heading back towards the lift. At least the scars on his face were healing. They still looked bad but most of the redness had gone leaving a patchwork of pale skin. His left eye looked a bit grim being half closed but he’d spoken to a surgeon about that and they thought it might be worth another operation. David wasn’t so sure and was thinking hard before going under the knife again. Anything they did had its own consequences and complications. He was never going to look normal again so he wasn’t sure it was worth the bother of going through the upheaval of it all. His nose was a mess too but he had a decent looking prosthetic for that if he wanted to wear it.
He pulled his hair across his forehead to cover the web of scars there. He still looked like he’d been through a very coarse cheese grater but unless he was going to begin using a ton of the make up the rehab centre had given him there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it. He was of the opinion that it was best everyone saw him at his worst right from the word go. They would then be under no illusion as to how he actually looked should it become necessary for him to go anywhere ‘unmasked.’
He lifted his hand to press the button to open the lift doors but there was a sudden ‘bing’ and they slid apart in front of him. A mountain of towels on slim legs began moving towards him and he yelped in surprise.
“Watch out Ellen! I’m right in front of you.” He wheeled backwards rapidly but then stopped as the towels suddenly teetered forwards. There was no stopping them and they drifted down over his head in a breath of warm air as Ellen squealed in dismay.
“Mon Dieu! You gave me a surprise. Pardon David. Ellen said that you ‘ad been messing about on that zip wire and you were nearly drowned. She told me that you were in the shower trying to warm up. I didn�
�t know if you ‘ad enough hot towels and thought to bring you some more warm ones.”
Geraldine’s beautiful French accent hit David with the force of a speeding rocket. All the air flew out of his lungs and his chest constricted violently. The towels fell from his face and shoulders and slithered into his lap. This was not how he wanted her to see him. He cursed inwardly at his position several inches below her as he sat in the wheelchair and wished desperately that he’d stayed in the shower for just a few minutes longer. He took a deep breath. There was nothing for it. He had to face her like a man.
He gazed up into the most gorgeous pair of emerald green eyes he had ever seen and drank in her beauty as his heart staggered back to life in his chest.
“Hello Geraldine,” he eventually managed to speak while controlling his emotions. “How is your grandmother?”
She seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was in a wheelchair and smiled down at him as she fussed to gather the fallen towels.
“She didn’t need my ‘elp at all. Can you imagine that? Only four days after ‘aving both ‘ips replaced. I was wasting my time. I ‘oped to get back ‘ere in time for lunch but I had a flat tyre. I had to wait for Jules to come and fix it for me. He left some friends early to ‘elp me. He is such a sweetheart.”
David frowned deeply.
Who the hell was Jules? He bit back that question and spoke airily.
“Oh, that was handy. Did he have to come far?”
Geraldine shook her head as she picked up the last towel from David’s lap and folded it back onto the pile.
“Oh no, only from town. He was seeing some friends after arriving from Paris. I was stuck out at Belle Isle en Terre but he came ‘ere for the weekend. He couldn’t leave before four though and I had to wait. I haven’t seen him for over a week so after he mended my car we decided to go and have dinner together. The restaurant was lovely and the dinner delicious. We stayed for coffee too so I didn’t arrive ‘ere until late. I would ‘ave loved for you to meet ‘im but ‘e ‘as to go back to Paris tonight. I won’t see ‘im for nearly another week.” She sighed deeply and then smiled at David again.
David’s heart had dropped to his stomach and he suddenly felt sick.
She was seeing someone else! It had never crossed his mind that she would find anyone else. My god! It was worse than discovering his legs were gone! Bitterness flooded his throat, a green haze clouded his vision. The world seemed to tip on its axis and his head began to spin.
He forced himself to remain upright in the wheelchair. He took control of himself and backed up further.
“I’m sorry Geraldine. I suddenly don’t feel quite the ticket. Nothing to worry about I’m sure. Just the after effects of travelling. Would you mind telling Ellen that I won’t be down to dinner after all. I’ll eat whatever she’s cooked tomorrow so it won’t go to waste.” He knew his voice sounded all wrong but he couldn’t do a thing about it. His whole world had suddenly crumbled to dust and he had no idea how he was ever going to put it back together.
He began wheeling himself back to his room but Geraldine called to him.
“Are you sure that there is nothing I can do? I’ll look in on you later if you like, just to check up on you.”
David stopped for a second, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt it begin to rip down the middle.
“No, don’t bother. I’ll be fine,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “Don’t let me hold you up. I’ll see you around sometime.”
Geraldine stared after him. Then she raised her eyebrows and covered her bewilderment as he disappeared back through his bedroom doorway and closed it behind him with more force than necessary.
Chapter Ten
“For goodness sake David! You are meant to be helping me.” Ellen was more than frustrated. There was clearly something bothering him but she didn’t have a clue what it was. She thought he’d be pleased that Geraldine had turned up unexpectedly early. She was obviously completely wrong about the situation.
Every morning for the last week David had wolfed down his breakfast, barely letting his bacon and eggs touch his plate before he’d dashed out into the grounds and disappeared for the day. A lot of the time he was up at the zip wire or canoeing down the river. He never bothered with lunch and every night he came home exhausted, ate a huge dinner and then went straight to bed.
Now, a week into his residency he was about to leave the château on some wild goose chase yet again. Ellen had had enough. There were still a million things to do before their opening on New Year’s Eve. The latest problem had arisen when she was about to make up all the beds in the rooms. They had forgotten that the specialist sensor mattresses were a lot thicker than normal ones and most of their fitted sheets didn’t reach far enough down the sides to tuck under the bed. The facilities were another thing to recheck and the stress was getting to her.
“I need you to start checking out the gym David. There’s a lot of new equipment in there. Our personal trainer is coming next week to take a look over everything but I want you to check it first and then the pool guy is coming later today to take a look at the water and make sure that’s perfect too. We both need to know what we’re doing. We can’t open with a green pool so he’s going to show me how to regulate the water. You don’t have time to go messing about on that blasted zip wire. I’m almost sorry I installed it now.” She bustled about picking things up and putting them down distractedly. “Delphine and Nicole are coming to give me a run through on some of the treatments and I need you to be there with Geraldine so that you two can offer advice on our therapies. You are going to have a facial and a massage so I know what to suggest to guests. I don’t want any guest to feel left out or embarrassed because I go and suggest or say the wrong thing.”
David looked up from where he had been trying to escape through the kitchen doorway.
“Can’t you and Geraldine do that? I’m sure that you would prefer a facial to me.” There was no way he could be in the same room as Geraldine yet. He still hadn’t yet come to terms with her having a boyfriend. He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else putting their hands on her and if he saw her with bed hair or kiss swollen lips he knew that he’d go completely mad.
Ellen frowned at him darkly, her lips set in a determined line and he realized that he wasn’t getting out of this one.
“Okay, okay, I’ll be there. What time do you want me?” He asked resignedly.
“Three, but before that I want you to go to the stable block and check on Jean-Paul. He’s meant to have finished by now but there looked to be a lot to do at the end of last week. Just check on his finishing schedule as I have the place booked out for the ball.” She turned on her heel and left him standing in the doorway.
He plodded along the wooded path towards the stables. It wasn’t far and he could hear the men working well before he arrived. They greeted him cordially and Jean-Paul gave him a tour, pointing out where they needed to finish light fittings and plug sockets. It was almost all done but they didn’t want to finish the electrics before the decorating had been done. He reassured David that two weeks was plenty of time so long as Theo and his team had the painting completed by the end of the week.
David thanked the man, rang Theo to confirm that he was arriving the next day and then trudged back up the path to the ravine. He had spent hours up there since his first day. Ellen thought he spent the time whizzing down the zip wire but he didn’t. He sat down on the edge of the cliff and dangled his legs over the precipice as he rummaged through the dangerous thoughts that crowded his mind.
He sighed deeply. There was only one thought really.
‘How the hell was he going to go on living here under the same roof as Geraldine when she’d clearly been stringing him along all the time?’
The emails and the texts had meant nothing to her! He should have guessed that he and all his friends were kidding themselves about the flirting in the summer. She probably thought he was some weird idiot and just kept it up s
o that Ellen would think well of her. He puffed out big breaths into the cold air, feeling slightly ashamed that he could even accuse Geraldine of being so calculating. It wasn’t fair and he knew it. He was the one who had blown mere flirtation into a full scale love affair. It wasn’t her fault that he had invested his heart and soul into their online chats.
He stared down into the abyss at his feet and longed to throw himself over the edge but he knew that would be selfish. Ellen would be devastated. She’d probably never set foot in the place again and he would have ruined everything for his fellow servicemen if he did anything so foolhardy. He was just going to have to man up and get over his disappointment.
He thought about the word. Disappointment! Jesus, that was the understatement of the year. It didn’t come anywhere near describing how he felt. Furious, angry, bitter, despairing, desolate, just plain sad! It was all and none of them. It was so much more. His chest had felt completely hollow since he had found out about the fabulous, tyre changing Jules.
Jules! The anger came to the fore. God! Who the fuck was called Jules? Even the man’s name made him want to vomit.
He grabbed up a stone at his side and threw it venomously into the abyss below his boots. It clattered on the rocks as it dropped to the ravine floor, the sound echoing back up at him and then it was silent again except for the sound of the river gurgling in the background.
He rubbed his hand over his cheek and cursed the scars that met his fingertips before he suddenly remembered that he was meant to be having something done to his face.
He glanced down at his watch and raised his eyebrows. He had sat there moping far longer than he’d thought. He stood up again and took another long glance over the rim of the ravine. Tempting, but not tempting enough. He’d get through this rejection the same as he’d got through a lot of other stuff. He just needed some time to face reality.
Scarred Beginnings (Scarred Series Book 2) Page 8
