Carly's Gift (31 page)

“The Victoria Arms is just up the way a bit,” Jeffery said to David. “We could drop Mrs. Hargrove and Andrea off there. They could have a pint and a little something to eat while we're returning the punts.”

David looked at Carly. “How does that sound to you?”

“Fine. Will you meet us or should we take a cab back to the bridge?”

“Perhaps we should wait to see how Andrea's feeling when we get to the pub,” Jeffery suggested. “You might want to head straightaway to the hotel.”

Andrea took the handkerchief from her nose. “Would the three of you please stop treating me like an invalid? It's only a nosebleed.” As she talked, a trickle of blood escaped her left nostril. Jeffery took the handkerchief and gently wiped it away.

“Personally, I'd just as soon we go back to the hotel and wait for you there,” Carly said to David. “I could use a nap before dinner.”

“Cut it out, Mom,” Andrea said, taking the tissues Carly had given her and pressing them against her nose. “You're no more tired than I am.”

“A bit out of sorts, are we?” Jeffery said to Andrea.

She glared at him. He grinned back. Her anger was no match for his good humor. “You always do this to me,” she said, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

“Does that mean we're going to the hotel?” Carly asked.

Andrea held up her hand. “No, it means that if David and Jeffery don't hurry back to the pub to pick us up, they just might find we've tipped a few too many.” She gave Jeffery a sweet smile.

Jeffery slapped his knees and stood. “What say, David? Are you up to the challenge?”

“Last punt to touch the dock pays the bar bill.”

As it turned out, Carly ordered stout and Andrea settled for a soft drink. The pub was unusually quiet and when they were settled, it was all Andrea could do to stay awake.

That night, reluctantly, and only after Jeffery promised to stay with Andrea, Carly agreed to go out to dinner with David. At Jeffery's suggestion, they went to Le Petit Blanc.

The atmosphere and solicitous service were wasted on Carly, who was only interested in something to stop the rumbling in her stomach. They might as well have gone to the Pizza Hut they'd passed on their way there.

“I'm worried about Andrea,” she said, unfolding her linen napkin and laying it across her lap.

David looked at her over the top of the wine list. “She's starting to concern me, too. I knew she was pushing herself, but I had no idea she'd gone this far. She's exhausted.”

“Has she been sick?”

Putting the list aside, David gave her question his full attention. “She had a couple of colds this past winter, but as far as I know, that's it.”

“As far as you know? What in the hell does that mean?”

David reached across the table and took her hand. “If she's pregnant, she wouldn't come to me until she and Jeffery had decided what they want to do about it.”

Carly caught her breath in surprise. “Do you honestly think that's a possibility?”

“Come on, Carly. You've spent enough time with them to be able to answer that question yourself. I told you over a year ago where I thought their relationship was headed.”

She closed her hand tightly around David's seeking his strength. “Dear God, I hope that's not it.”

“Let's not borrow trouble. Maybe she's just run down and needs to catch up on her sleep. You saw how intense she is about her studies. She's set goals that are very important to her.” He caressed her fingers with his thumb. “I promise I'll get her to a doctor the day after you leave.”

“And that you'll call as soon as you find out anything?”

“Even if I know it's when Ethan is home.”

The waiter arrived. David placed their order and asked that the wine be brought immediately. When they were alone again, he picked up where they had left off. “As hard as it will be for us to accept, should Andrea be pregnant, she and Jeffery are the ones who will have to decide what they want to do about it. We're going to have to stay out of it unless they ask for our advice.”

“That's easy for you to say.”

“All right,” David said with a sigh. “Let's assume for a minute that Andrea is pregnant. Any advice you could give her is bound to be tainted by your own experience. You can't draw a parallel between what happened to you and what's happening to her. The father of Andrea's baby would move mountains to protect and take care of her.”

Carly's shoulders sagged in defeat. “I want so much for her.”

“You've got to trust her and Jeffery enough to let them work things out in their own way.”

The waiter returned with their wine, opened the bottle, and poured a splash into David's glass. David picked up the glass, mechanically swirled the amber liquid for several seconds, sniffed it, and then took a sip. “It's fine,” he said. When the waiter had finished pouring and left, David raised his glass to Carly.

“They remind me of us at that age,” she said, lightly touching her glass to his.

She thought a minute. Suddenly serious, she said, “I wish it was us who were pregnant.”

“Jesus, Carly,” he said, anger heavy in his voice. “Why do you say things like that?”

“Because it's true.”

He took the napkin from his lap and flung it on the table. “And it's impossible. So why bring it up?”

“Tubal ligations have been reversed.”

“But not yours. Not now. Not ever. At least not for me, right?”

As if just then realizing the cruel game she'd been playing with them both, she looked down at her lap. “I'm sorry, David. I don't know what came over me.”

“Let's get out of here.”

She folded her napkin, put it on the table and picked up her purse. David stood, took out his wallet, and left twice what the bill would have been. When they were outside, Carly asked, “Where are we going?”

“I'm going to drop you off at the hotel and go for a walk.”

“Can I come?”

“I want to be alone for a while. Besides, Andrea might need you.”

“Jeffery is with her. If she does need something, he'll get it for her.”

“You're cutting me up into little pieces, Carly,” he said. “How in the hell am I ever going to put myself back together when you're gone?”

“Maybe I don't want you to,” she admitted, struggling to understand what was happening between them. “Maybe I want to know for certain you're as unhappy as I am.”

“How can you doubt it?”

She buried her face in his jacket. “I've made such a mess of our lives.”

He took her arms and held her away from him. “All right. You've said it. You've had your thirty seconds of feeling sorry for yourself. Feel better?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so.”

She had never come closer to giving defeat the fertile ground it needed to grow. “I need something to take my mind off today.”

“And what would that be?”

She slipped her arm through his and started walking.

“Two hours with you. A time capsule I can take with me and open when I need to escape my life with Ethan.”

Carly led David to the river and found an isolated section of grass. He took off his jacket for her to sit on, then sat beside her, guiding her into his arms.

She told him about the dreams that got her through the night, how she rewrote the script of her life, the role he played, the places they'd traveled, the empty part of her heart.

It was her gift to him; the only one she could give.

Twenty-eight

Andrea brushed at
the grass stains on her riding breeches and let out a disgusted snort. There seemed to be something almost prophetic about her keeping clean when there was any kind of party at the Armstrongs'. If she wasn't spilling punch on her skirt, she was dropping caviar on her blouse. Staying away from food was the obvious answer. Who would have thought the gentlest horse in the stable would dump her on her rear end?

When David first mentioned skipping Stratford-Upon-Avon and the drive through the Cotswolds in favor of spending a couple of days at Hawthorne, Andrea had exploded. She was convinced the change in itinerary was to accommodate her and completely unnecessary. And then Jeffery had stepped in and said he thought it was a grand idea, the perfect opportunity for her mother to meet his parents. The clincher was when he told her that he would take a couple of days off from school and come with them.

Although she'd fought the decision, she'd been glad for the unpressured time she'd had with her mother and David and grateful for the chance to be with Jeffery and to be able to sleep in every morning.

She looked up and saw Jeffery approaching from the stables. “I just got them out of the cleaners,” she said, still trying to work the worst of the stains out of her breeches. “And now look at them.”

“Afraid your mum might think we stopped for a bit of fun?” Jeffery teased. “Come along in. We can sneak you up the back staircase and nick some fresh clothes for you from Anne's closet. Your mum will never suspect a thing.”

She fell in beside him, easily matching his stride, making up for his four-inch height advantage with her long legs. “I think I'd almost rather have her suspect we were fooling around than to find out I fell off my horse,” she said, tugging off her hat.

“She does seem a bit preoccupied with how you're getting on.”

“To put it mildly. She keeps looking at me as though she expects me to keel over at any minute.” She shot him with an accusing look. “And telling her I had another nosebleed didn't help.”

“Sorry about that.”

“We're going to have to be more careful from now on.”

He bent to pick up a rock from the path and toss it into the nearby field. “How do you mean?”

“I was thinking, that if for some strange reason my nose does its thing again, you should tell everyone you hit me.”

“Oh, that's a clever way around it.”

She feigned a surprised look. “Don't worry, I'll tell them it was an accident.”

“And your mum will have you booked on the next flight home.”

She laughed and playfully hit him on the arm with her hat. “She knows you could no more hit me than you could nick one of those strawberries we saw sitting alongside the road.”

“You can't go about taking another man's possessions,” he said. “But keeping your wife in line is another matter altogether.”

“Wife?” she said, stopping to stare at him, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “You've yet to make a formal proposal and already you're calling me your wife?”

“Sorry,” he said with exaggerated surprise. “Shall I go down on bended knee before you this very minute?”

“Don't tempt me.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her behind an oak tree. Pinning her between himself and the broad trunk, he kissed her, tenderly and then with growing passion.

“Sometimes I think I'll go out of my mind waiting for you to finish school in London,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Two more months. I'm marking the days on a calendar I've got in my room.”

“What did you tell your mum about going to the States this summer?”

“I haven't said anything yet.”

He was quiet for several seconds. “It's all right, you know. I'll have you forever. She's only got you a couple more years.”

It was so like him to clear the path for her. “I love you, Jeffery.”

“That doesn't mean I'll be glad to see you leave, mind you.”

“I do miss my brothers and Grandma and Grandpa. I'd really like you to meet them.”

“And what about Ethan?” he asked gently. “You couldn't have lived with him all that time and not have feelings for him, too.”

He was always careful to include Ethan any time they talked about her life before she'd come to England. Even after she'd told him the way Ethan had tried to manipulate her into not coming back, Jeffery had remained neutral. He was convinced there would be a day when the two of them worked things out.

“He won't let me miss him,” she said. “Every time I try, he finds a way to remind me that I'm David's child, not his. I think he's afraid of me.”

“What a clever bit of baggage you are to have finally figured that out.”

She made a face at him. “Don't act superior.”

“I didn't mean it that way at all,” he said. “Of course he would be afraid of you. For one thing, without you here, your mum wouldn't have any reason to see David. And from what I can tell, they're quite good friends still.” He'd hesitated at the “friends” part. He sat down, his back to the oak, then brought her down with him. She stretched out, her head in his lap.

“Do you think there's something going on between my mother and David?” she asked.