Swallowbrook's Winter Bride (6 page)

The ambulance that had been sent for had arrived and Libby said, ‘Yes, of course, and we’ll tell him that the two of you are on your way to the maternity unit at the hospital.

‘Have you chosen a name for the baby?’ she asked as mother and child were being transferred to the ambulance a few minutes later.

‘Yes,’ was the reply. ‘When we knew that the baby would be born in October, we chose Octavia for a girl and Octavius for a boy.’

‘Very impressive,’ Nathan commented briefly when Libby told him the baby’s name. He had already gone back to his patients, and she hurried back to hers who had waited with much good humour for the morning surgery to return to normal.

After the moment of euphoria when she’d hugged him to her Libby’s upbeat feeling about them continued to dwindle as the day progressed because she kept remembering what he’d said about having children of one’s own.

At one time she’d dreamt of having a boy like him, dark-haired, dark-eyed, incredibly handsome, and a girl with blonde hair and the kind of ready smile that she used to have, which now appeared as infrequently as the sun in winter.

But long ago he’d dashed those hopes as casually as if discussing the weather, and Ian’s lax approach to marriage had stopped any yearnings in that direction, so if the day ever dawned when she held a child of her own in her arms, it would be the age of miracles.

The arrangements for Toby at half-term turned out as Nathan had expected. John and the river had the vote, with his young visitor even sleeping at the lodge in a small bedroom that the older man had fitted out for him.

It meant that Nathan was able to put in a full day at the practice while the two doctors were holding the fort during Hugo’s absence. It also gave him some free time for himself, which he hadn’t had much of since taking Toby into his life.

As they left the surgery one evening to go to their respective cottages he said to Libby, ‘I don’t feel like cooking, so am going to get changed and dine at the hotel where we had Dad’s farewell. Do you feel like joining me?’

She hesitated. The thought of a delightful meal in equally delightful surroundings was tempting, but keeping up a front of casual detachment in the place where they had been so drawn to each other wasn’t. Yet even as the thought was going through her mind she found herself saying, ‘Yes, why not? I don’t feel like cooking either. I feel tired and drab, so like you I will go and change into something less formal.’

‘The blue dress maybe,’ he suggested casually. ‘It looked good on you that day at the school harvest.’

‘Yes. I suppose it would be suitable,’ she told him, concealing her surprise at discovering that he’d remembered what she was wearing on that occasion. But this was Nathan who not so long ago had been quick to point out that there was nothing wrong with
his
memory, as if hers might be at fault!

‘How long before you want to go?’ she asked, getting back to basics.

‘Half an hour?’

‘Yes, I’m starving, and, Nathan, I want it to be my shout. I remember finding that my account had been paid when I went to settle it the last time I was there.’

‘So? You were my guest.’

She was frowning. ‘Even so…’

He sighed. ‘Do you recall me saying that I would like to make it up to you for taking up your evening with Toby’s problems? So please don’t argue, Libby.’

‘All right,’ she agreed at last. Maybe what had happened between them had been an aberration. A moment of madness that had come out of the blue. Tonight it would be just a matter of two busy doctors unwinding over a pleasant meal. There could be no harm in that.

They were separating at the bottom of their respective drives and as she went upstairs to shower and change, out of the wardrobe came the blue dress.

When she went out to join him wearing it he nodded his approval and for the first time in ages she felt beautiful.

The evening progressed just how she wanted it to be, friendly and tranquil, with no disturbing vibes to make her feel threatened or on edge as she listened to Nathan describing the traumas and the good times of his time in Africa.

‘Was it so demanding that you never had the chance to come back home for a break?’ she asked at one point.

There was a pause in what had been a relaxed conversation as his mind went back once again to those soul-destroying moments when he’d stood in the church porch and had to accept that he’d had a wasted journey. He’d been an arrogant fool not to act sooner, to assume that despite their parting words Libby would have continued to have romantic feelings for him and would have waited till he’d come to his senses where she was concerned.

But, no, instead he’d acted on impulse and selfish desire. But he’d got his just deserts. He’d arrived too late to stop the wedding, and as he’d watched her smile up at her new husband had thought that there had been no point in his coming as Libby seemed happy enough with Jefferson.

If he was to tell her that he
had
been home during that time, just the once, what good would it do? She’d loved him once, but not any more, and tonight they were at peace with each other as friends, so why spoil it?

‘Yes,’ he replied, avoiding her glance. ‘The pressures were always too great to be able to take time off.’

As they were about to leave the hotel and he was helping her into the warm jacket that she’d brought with her he asked, ‘Do you want to take a stroll by the lake?’

‘Yes, if you like,’ she told him, with the memory of that other time when she’d done the same thing alone and in daylight on the morning after the party.

It was then that she’d been attracted to Greystone House, the property on the island, where she was going to stay in a couple of weeks’ time.

Tonight it was floodlit with lanterns and so was the lake, like diamonds sparkling on water. When Nathan took her hand in his she didn’t draw it out of his clasp, but kept it there, warm and safe, in case she should trip in the semi-darkness.

‘What is that place?’ he asked, glancing across the water to where the house stood solid and unreachable. ‘I remember it from way back but don’t ever recall what it was used for.’

‘I don’t know about then,’ she told him, ‘but now it is a very popular holiday let, though I’m not sure what degree of the services it has, such as lighting, heating and water, but for anyone wanting peace and solitude it’s the perfect place. It’s owned by a local businessman who lets it out when his family aren’t using it.’

If she told him that she was going to stay there herself in the near future he would think she was crazy no doubt. But it would give her the opportunity to be alone with her thoughts, with the reassurance of knowing that she was just a boat ride away from the things she held dearest.

Every moment spent with Nathan in tranquillity was a joy, but there was always the reminder of things past to spoil it. It was why on the night of his father’s party, when she’d been ready to give herself to him completely, she’d backed away. There had been no real closeness between them since then until tonight, just as long as they could keep gentling along like this.

Walking alongside her, still holding her hand, Nathan was thinking the same kind of thoughts. He’d been too pushy that other time and spoilt it, but not tonight. They were in a different mode, though still overwhelmingly aware of each other.

‘Is Toby enjoying his stay by the river?’ she asked as they went back to where the car was parked on the hotel forecourt.

He was smiling. ‘Yes. I don’t know which of the two of them is enjoying it the most. Having him around has given Dad something to keep him on his toes, but I have to make sure he isn’t doing too much, though Toby isn’t a demanding child like some are, and Dad says that he brightens up his life.’

‘Becoming his guardian has caused you to have to make many adjustments in yours, hasn’t it?’ she commented.

‘Yes, I have to admit that is so. Before he came to me I was used to doing what suited
me
first and foremost, and now my requirements must always come second. Toby seems happy enough with me, but he needs a mother figure too, which I suppose means that I should find myself a wife.’

He was sounding her out, putting out a feeler to see if she would respond, and she did, but not how he wanted her to.

‘I’m sure there will be plenty of applicants for the position once you let that be known,’ she replied coolly. ‘You have the looks, a beautiful cottage, the job…’
And a heart of stone
to be discussing something like this with me of all people.

She was averting her gaze from his, didn’t see him flinch, and when he opened the car door for her, she slid into the passenger seat and stared into the distance.

They were back in the centre of Swallowbrook in minutes and instead of inviting him in for coffee, as she had been intending to, Libby thanked him for the meal, bade him a brief goodnight and was gone, closing her front door behind her decisively.

Yet there was nothing decisive about the way she began to climb the stairs with dragging feet and a heavy heart.

Why couldn’t she accept once and for all that Nathan only wanted her as colleague, neighbour and someone to play hide and seek with Toby? she thought bleakly.

Throwing off her clothes, she got into bed and wished that it was tomorrow that she was going to the house on the island.

She slept at last, only to dream that Nathan was down below, ringing her doorbell, and when she let him in he said, ‘I love you, Libby, can’t live without you.’ But as she moved towards him, smiling with arms outstretched, she awoke to find that the doorbell
was
ringing and when she went downstairs he
was
there, but he wasn’t saying the words of her dream. ‘Dad has just phoned to say that Toby is sick,’ he said without preamble. ‘I’m going there now and thought I’d better warn you that I might be missing from the surgery in the morning.’

‘What does he say is wrong with him?’ she asked as the doctor in her rose to the surface.

‘Temperature, headache, rash—it all sounds worryingly familiar.’

‘Meningitis?’

He nodded.

‘Give me a couple of minutes to fling on some clothes. I’m coming with you,’ she told him.

‘Are you sure?’

She was already halfway up the stairs and called down to him, ‘Of course I’m sure. Have you got your bag?’ He nodded bleakly. ‘So go and start the car.’

‘When did Toby start to be ill?’ she asked as they drove towards the river and his father’s lodge.

‘Just a short while ago, Dad said. Awoke fretful, poorly, covered in a damned rash and is vomiting. If anything else bad happens to him, I shudder to think how I’ll cope,’ he said, with his voice thickening, and she thought that love could make strong men weak.

‘Nothing
is
going to happen to Toby,’ she told him steadily as the complex of retirement homes came into view. ‘The two of us, you and I, are not going to let it. We are being given a taste of what it’s like for the families of our sick patients. It’s the other side of the coin, a lesson to be well learned.’

Toby was how John had described him, but Nathan’s father had met them at the door with the news that the rash had come out fully and wasn’t the same kind as the symptoms of meningitis. ‘My feeling is he’s picked up a bug or some sort of virus,’ he said as they examined him.

Nathan muttered, ‘Thank God it isn’t the other thing. This we should be able to cope with, but the problem is I don’t know anything about Toby’s health before I took him into my care, what or if he had any health problems before I became responsible for him. In normal circumstances parents have firsthand knowledge about anything regarding their child’s health.

‘I feel pretty sure that his condition this morning is allergy related but am loath to start prescribing anything until someone else has seen him beside ourselves. What do
you
think, Libby?’ he asked.

‘It could be something he is allergic to,’ she agreed, ‘but from what to make him so poorly?’

‘That’s just it, we don’t know, do we? It could be from anything—food, toiletries, plants, something airborne.’ To Toby, with incredible gentleness, he said, ‘Aren’t you the lucky one, with three doctors to look after you?’

As she took his hot little hand in hers to feel his pulse he said drowsily, ‘When can we play hide and seek again, Libby?’

‘Soon,’ she soothed, and when she turned round Nathan had been replaced by his father, who said, ‘We’re not sure what the rash is, are we, Libby? I’m wondering if his condition is due to something that Toby has eaten, and agree with Nathan that we shouldn’t prescribe until we are sure what is wrong, which is going to mean taking him to A and E immediately. Do you want to go with them and I’ll take the morning surgery for you?’

Daylight was already filtering through the curtains and she asked, ‘Where is Nathan, and what time is it, John?’

‘He’s on the phone to the hospital, and it is almost a quarter to eight o’clock.’

‘I’d like to go with them, but am not sure if Nathan would rather you were there,’ she told him.

‘Maybe, but Toby is asking for
you
and that’s all that matters.’