A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh) (16 page)

‘Where does she normally keep it?'

'In her room. But it's just been redecorated and I've a feeling the
inhaler was accidentally thrown out when the contents of Janey's toy cupboard
was sent to the local hospital.'

‘Would you like me to go up and see
her?' Kate suggested. 'I don't have any medicine with me, but I might be able
to help.'

Mrs Howard rose immediately and led
Kate into the hall. 'So silly of me, my dear,’ she apologised. 'I know you're a
doctor at the factory, but I never thought of asking if you could help Janey.'

Since Joshua had not appeared to
think, of it either— which Kate thought gave a genuine indication of his belief
in her, despite his earlier panegyric—she nodded in silence and hurried up the
stairs to Janey's bedroom.

It was furnished as though for a
teenager, with pale sycamore fittings, white shaggy wall-to-wall carpeting and
delicate pink and white brocade drapes at the windows. But it was the little
girl on the bed who held her attention. Taut as a violin string, scarlet of
face and with huge anguished eyes, she looked nothing like the child who had
solemnly shown Kate her favourite hide-away in the garden.

'I take it you haven't found the
inhaler?' she commented crisply.

Joshua Howard straightened from the
bed and shook his head. He was so pale that it gave greyness to his swarthy
skin. It made his hair look more black and this in
turn made the grey in it more noticeable. All this Kate noticed in a split
second before she walked over to the bed and calmly sat down on its edge. Janey
was struggling to 'draw breath and it wheezed painfully between her parted
lips, filling her lungs so slowly that she must, Kate thought, be wondering
whether she would ever be able to draw in enough air to breathe.

'If only I had my medical bag with
me!’ she thought in desperate frustration. Habit made her take it with her
whenever she went out in the car, but being collected by Dermot today she had
not given it a thought. But there must be something she could do to ease the
child's condition.

'Don't be worried, Janey,' she said
softly, and gently pulled her into a sitting position. Tut the pillows behind
her,’ she said to Joshua, who did so immediately and remained by the bed, every
muscle alert, mouth taut with anguish.

Janey looked at him and then at
Kate; her mouth opened and words squeezed out. 'I… can't… breathe.’

You'll be able to breathe in a
moment,' Kate lied. There's an excellent new treatment for asthmatics which you
probably don't know of in wild Welsh Wales!' She felt rather than saw Joshua
give an impatient movement, but she ignored him and concentrated entirely on
the little girl, her grey eyes staring into the bright blue ones. Janey's face
was covered with sweat which ran in rivulets down her temples and Kate moved
along the bed and pot her hands on the heaving
shoulders. ‘I’ll show you how to do this new treatment Janey, but you have to
help me by relaxing. Let your whole body go limp.'

'I can't..� I— I must breathe.'

'I know you must breathe, darling,
and I know it's a struggle for you. But you've got to relax at the same time.
Look, I'll show you how. Let your arm go limp so that when I lift it up and
drop it, it will flop down on the bed. That's What I
mean by relaxing,’ She suited the action to the words arid smiled reassuringly
as Janey obeyed her. There, you see you can relax if you try. Now I want you to
do the same with your whole body. Both your arms, your legs
and your shoulders.' As Kate itemised each part of Janey's body she
placed her hands on it, making her voice low and even, and kept up a nonstop
flow of words that would have made no sense if taken apart and yet nonetheless
acted like a soothing balm upon the child on the bed.

This is a very new and marvellous
treatment
I'm
giving you, Janey,' Kate repeated. 'In a way it's like
magic. I'm
sure you can already feel it beginning to work. Your
breathing is getting easier, isn't it? I can tell, by the way your body is
relaxing.'

She went on talking, her eyes never
leaving Janey's, holding them in a gaze so intense that the grey seemed to. mingle with the blue and Kate felt as if she were merging
with the figure on the bed. For an uncountable length of time she continued to
talk, knowing how imperative it was that she hold Janey's attention and give
the child no opportunity to think of anything except the special treatment she
was receiving.

Slowly, imperceptibly, she felt the
thin body start to relax properly: the muscles slackened, the tautness of the
throat softened, but still she went on talking, and only when Janey herself
spoke clearly and said she felt much better did Kate straighten from her bending
position and rise. Her concentration had been so intense that her head was
throbbing and the room seemed to revolve. She felt Joshua's hand on her waist,
warm and strong as he. supported her, though he did
not speak to her, for he knew she was still preoccupied with his daughter.

'I still want you to rest quietly,
Janey,' she said, ‘but I suggest you sit up against the pillows,'

‘Will you stay here with me?'

'Of course.'

Janey looked at her father. 'And
you too, Daddy?'

‘I have to see to my guests, but
I'll be up again.'

Kate moved away from Joshua's
protective hand and resumed her seat on the bed. 'If you have a book, ‘I’ll
read you a story. This new treatment I've given you might make you tired and
you'll probably like to have a sleep.'

‘You won't go away if I fall
asleep, will you?'

‘Not if you don't want me to do
so,' Kate said. 'I promise to stay here until you wake up.'

‘You won't keep your promise—grown-ups
never do.'

'I do,' Kate said firmly, and
reaching over to the pile of books on the bedside table, selected one. She
opened it and was about to start reading when Joshua's hand came down on the
page—a gesture that made her look up at him. His face had not regained its
colour and she knew -he was still distressed by the sight of his daughter
struggling to breathe. Even to a doctor it was a painful thing to watch, but
for a parent it must be agonising.

'Janey will be fine,' she reassured
him softly.

‘You don't mind staying up here?’

‘Without being rude to you, Mr
Howard, I think I prefer it!'

'I'm sure you do,' he said solemnly.
'One doesn't need to be a diagnostician to know that! And incidentally, it's
Joshua, not Mr Howard.' He glanced at his daughter. 'I'll be back later,
poppet. In the meantime don't forget to do as the doctor says.’

‘Do
you
always do as the
doctor says, Daddy?’

‘If she's as
beautiful as Dr Gibson!’

Janey chuckled weakly and, as the
door closed behind her father, snuggled against the pillows. For the first ten
minutes Janey listened avidly to the story Kate read to her, but then the
sharpness left her eyes and the blueness dulled as the lids lowered and rose,
and finally settled in slumber. To make sure she was sleeping, Kate read
another paragraph before closing the book and rising. She stretched her arms
wide and then went quietly to the window. The room faced east, which meant it
received the morning sunshine and was cool in the afternoon. It overlooked the
front of the house and she saw that cars were still parked in the drive. Dermot
had said that guests frequently stayed for the evening and she hoped this
wasn't going to happen, for she could not face the prospect of chatting about
nothing to Felicity or, worse still, watching Joshua chat to her. Once more she
experienced an unfamiliar stab of jealousy and tried unsuccessfully to-fight
it. But she had been fighting it ever since she had stepped into the house at
lunchtime, and she no longer had the strength to do so.

Trembling, she collapsed into the
nearest chair. She mustn't go on thinking about Joshua. What she felt for him
was an attraction that stemmed from his magnificent physique and domineering
personality. It had nothing to do with the basic character of the man. ‘I'm in
love with love,' she thought gloomily. 'Coming to Llanduff� has made me realise all the fun I've
missed by dedicating myself to a career. You work .for so long that it's a shock
when you suddenly find you've been missing oat on all the fun and flirtation of
being young. I'm an ageing spinister with teenage dreams,' she mused. 'Still
looking for a prince on a white horse and thinking I've found him in Joshua!'
Restlessly she stirred. What was the point of lying to herself?
She did not believe a single word of thoughts. If she had merely been looking
for romance, Dermot would have been a far better choice; He was young,
handsome, nearer her own age and—even more important—emotionally free. Instead
of which she had Mien for a dark-haired demon who would want to rule Ms womenfolk the way he ruled his company. At a luncheon party
he-might pay lip service to a woman with a career, but he would never be able
to tolerate such a person in his own life. The woman he married would have to
put her career—should he allow her to continue with it—a long way behind him,
his children and his home.

His children. She glanced at Janey and saw other fantasy children with
her: a boy with Joshua's dark brown gaze and staggering build; a girl with the
same brown eyes but soft fair hair with streaks of blonde. Oh God! She bent
forward in anguish, her head buried in her hands, tears trickling through her
closed lids to wet her palms. But she dared not cry lest she awake Janey, and
she dried her eyes and sat up straight, regretting her promise to stay here,
but knowing she could not break it. With a sigh she rested her head against the
cushioned back of the chair and closed her eyes. Perhaps she would have a doze
too. The warmth of the sun streamed through the window pane and heated her
skin. It reminded her of flames and brought with it memories she still had to
fight to keep at bay. Determinedly she averted her mind and started to count
sheep jumping over a fence; grey sheep, black sheep, some with speckled grey hair.

A feeling that she was being
watched made Kate open her eyes. Dark brown ones were bent towards her, so near
that she could see her pale hair reflected in them. A tide of colour flooded
into her cheeks and she struggled to sit up, finding it difficult because
Joshua had placed his hands upon the arms of her chair.

‘My two sleeping beauties,' he said
softly, straightening and glancing across the dusk-filed room to Janey who was
still fast asleep.

'If's very rude to watch someone
while they're sleeping,' Kate spoke with as much composure as she could muster.

I’m a very rude man,' he replied. I’m
sure you've told me that.'

'I haven't!' she said indignantly.

‘Then it’s the one insult you
haven't levelled at me!'

She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Have I
really been that rude to you, Mr—Joshua?'

He nodded. ’Mind you, I don't think
I minced my words with you.'

‘Don't use the past tense,' she
retorted. ‘You don't mince your words now either!'

He chuckled. It lightened his
expression and turned him into a laughing devil. He really- had no right to
wear such dark and devastating black. Didn't he know how virile it made him
look? She glanced at him covertly as she made some attempt to smooth her hair,
and seeing his unconsciously arrogant pose—hands in the pockets of.
₍
his
'tight-fitting trousers, wide shoulders leaning against the edge of the pink
brocade curtain—conceded that he took his appearance for granted. Yet he was
not unfeeling when it came to illness and had proved himself to be a perturbed
and caring father, hovering anxiously by his daughter's bedside. Ins strong body trembling with his desire to make her pain
his own.

‘You were wonderful with Janey,' he
said softly, uncannily transposing her thoughts to become his own. 'I've never
known her come out of an attack-so quickly. Even her inhaler doesn't stop it as
well as your method did.'

She stood up, but could not move
past him, for he was blocking her way.

‘When you said you had a new kind
of treatment I didn't believe you,' he continued.

‘It isn't,' she said.

'Isn't what?'

'A new treatment. It isn't any treatment. I just said the first thing that
came into my head.'

His thick black eyebrows rose. 'You
mean it isn't a new way of treating asthma?'

‘No. All I did was to get Janey to
relax. If it hadn't worked I'd have had to go home to get an injection for her,’

'But you said——-'

'A lot of mumbo-jumbo like a witch doctor. I did it to get her confidence.'

‘You certainly got that,’ he said
huskily. 'And mine too. You really had me believing in what you were doing.'

'Janey believed it too,' Kate
replied. That was why it worked. But it's a lesson to me never to go out
without my medical kit.'

'Don't you ever forget you're a
doctor?' There was a raggedness in his voice.

'Even when I try,’
she said humorously, 'something like today crops up to remind me! And then I feel ashamed that I should ever want to forget
it.’

'I can't imagine you ever wanting
to forget it. You seem so single-minded where your career is concerned. Do you
ever want to?'

'Of course,’ she said huskily. 'I'm
a woman as well as a doctor.’

'I know,’ he said almost with a
groan, and before she could stop him pulled her forward and gathered her close
to his chest.

Kate felt she was being totally
enveloped; wrapped round by an overpowering masculinity which she could not
fight. Nor did she want to fight it. This was where she belonged: in this man's
arms, feeling his heart beating heavily against her breasts, aware of the
warmth of his body, and the tensing muscles that stiffened against her own.

‘I �
love you! she cried to herself.
'Oh,
Joshua, how I love you.' But luckily the words
could not be said aloud, for his mouth was pressing hard on hers, moving
back,-wards and forwards in a caressing motion. She felt the ground slip away
from her as his hands came round her waist and pulled her even closer to him.
She was trapped by his strength and even had she wanted to she could not have
moved. Her head was tilted back and one of his hands caressed the silky beige
hair.