The Perfect Match (15 page)

'No, it'll be a nice outing,' she agreed, 'but if you're harbouring any plans for staging a reconciliation...' she warned darkly.

'You're adults, not children,' Laura responded calmly as Chrissie got up and started to clear away their breakfast dishes.

'Yes, we are.' Chrissie wondered as she watched Laura start loading the dishes into the dishwasher why the knowledge that Laura
wasn't
planning to try to bring her and Guy back together should leave her feeling so flat.

Surely she didn't
want
him back? After what he had said...after the accusations he had made? He had proved only too clearly that she was really better off without him in her life...in
their
lives.

But he
was
her baby's father. Comfortingly she touched her still-flat stomach as though to reassure the life growing within it that
she
would give it all the parenting it needed; that
she
would give it all the love it needed.

'Are you all right?' Laura asked her, frowning.

'Yes, yes, I'm fine,' Chrissie responded.

The previous day, she had seen the doctor who had cheerfully announced that so far as she could see, Chrissie was a perfectly healthy mother-to-be, if a somewhat nauseously inclined one.

'We generally find it stops around three to four months,' she had consoled Chrissie, laughing when Chrissie's face had dropped.

'Four months...?' she had wailed.

'I prefer not to prescribe antinausea drugs,' the doctor had added, 'unless the mother-to-be is so ill that it is beginning to affect the baby's growth. Have you tried a couple of dry biscuits in the morning when you wake up?'

Laura, too, had recommended the same remedy, explaining that although she had no personal experience of its efficacy, both her sisters who had suffered from the same problem had sworn by it.

'We could take a picnic lunch,' Laura was telling her now. 'As you'll have already seen the grounds are really something special, but I suspect Guy won't be too pleased with me if he learns that I've dragged you all round them.'

'Guy has absolutely no input into what I choose to do,' Chrissie informed her determinedly but either Laura hadn't heard her or she was choosing not to hear her, Chrissie recognised as the other woman busily wiped down the worktop before setting the dishwasher in motion.

'Guy
is
concerned about you,' she told Chrissie half an hour later as she drove them both to their destination. 'He telephones at least twice a day asking how you are.'

Chrissie averted her face before saying brusquely,

'He's not concerned about me. It's the baby he's worrying about. This is my baby, Laura,' she declared fiercely. 'It has nothing to do with Guy.'

'Apart from the fact that he is its father,' Laura reminded her.

Chrissie sighed. They had been over this argument several times during the past couple of days, and whilst Laura had in no way attempted to press Guy's claim, neither had she offered Chrissie the comfort of taking her side.

'Most men in his position would be only too glad to be told they had no responsibility,' Chrissie fretted.

'Some would, I agree,' Laura replied. 'But Guy simply isn't like that. He's always been extremely responsible.'

'But not responsible enough to check before he told me that he'd fallen in love with me that he really meant it,' Chrissie couldn't help retorting.

She bit her lip when Laura made no response. She hadn't intended to say what she had but sometimes the hurt of what Guy had done to her was just too much for her to bear.

'In fact, given his reputation, I'm only surprised that this hasn't happened to him before,' she muttered bitterly.

Now she had got Laura's attention and she could see the frowning lack of comprehension in the other woman's eyes as she unexpectedly brought the car to a halt at the side of the country lane they were travelling and demanded shortly, 'What on earth are you talking about, Chrissie?
What
reputation?'

Chrissie swallowed, dismayed to see the unexpectedly stern expression on Laura's face. It made her look disconcertingly similar to the way Chrissie could remember her mother looking at her over some childhood misdemeanour.

'I...er...Natalie mentioned it...' She found herself almost stammering as Laura continued to regard her with frowning concentration.

'Natalie,' Laura scoffed dismissively. 'That woman is a troublemaker who wouldn't recognise the truth if it walked past her in the street. Besides which Natalie has always been rather...possessive where Guy is concerned, completely without reason, and over the years I suspect she's been rather clever at manipulat-ing certain situations to her own advantage. I can assure you, Chrissie, that Guy has
never
had the kind of reputation you're talking about. He has had women...friends, of course, relationships, but...'

She paused, shaking her head. 'This is an issue you should really be discussing with Guy, not me. I must confess I'm rather surprised at you, though, Chrissie,'

she added, much to Chrissie's discomfort. 'I had thought you far too sensible and intelligent to be taken in by the spiteful comments of an obviously jealous woman.'

Chrissie gave a small shrug. 'It isn't important anyway,' she fibbed.

'Have the police been back to you yet regarding ownership of the desk?' Laura enquired as she re-started the car, changing the subject.

Chrissie shook her head. 'No, they say they want to wait until my parents return so that they can inter-view my mother. After all, she hasn't actually seen it yet and until she does...'

'When she and your father come to Haslewich, they'd be more than welcome to stay at the farm,'

Laura told her. 'As you know, we've got the space and since this
was
your mother's childhood home...'

Chrissie was touched by the generous offer.

'I'll pass your invitation on to her,' she assured Laura. 'I know she'll be worried about coming.' She hesitated. 'She's also very sensitive about the reputation that her brother had in the town and—'

'Good heavens, no one will hold that against her, or judge her because of it,' Laura informed Chrissie firmly.

Chrissie bit her lip but couldn't prevent herself from saying quietly, 'Guy held it against me.' She heard Laura sigh.

'I don't know if I should tell you this,' Laura began quietly, 'but Guy had a very specific reason for not liking your uncle.'

Chrissie listened, horrified, as Laura went on to tell her about Charles's bullying of the not-so-robust little boy that Guy once was.

'That kind of thing can leave scars, especially for a man like Guy. He would never use his own physical strength against anyone else, he simply isn't like that.

But I suspect that there's a macho instinct in every man that makes it hard for him to admit that another male has caused them to feel fear or physical pain. In their eyes it demeans them as a man. Guy was always scrupulous about not doing anything to take revenge for the way Charlie treated him when he was young.

However, deep down inside himself, I think a part of him still carries what he sees as the humiliation of allowing Charlie to bully him, of not being able to stand up for himself and defend himself. Am I making any sense?' she asked Chrissie quietly. 'Or...'

'Yes,' Chrissie told her huskily, her eyes filling with tears. She could hardly bear the mental images Laura had so poignantly drawn for her and in her mind's eye she could clearly see the small, pale, perhaps even fragile-looking boy being tormented by his much bulkier and bigger tormentor and, yes, she could understand, too, what Laura meant when she said that Guy might still carry a sense of humiliation because of what had happened. 'Why didn't he
tell
me...say something?' she asked Laura.

Laura's eyebrows rose. 'Do you really need to ask?' she returned dryly. 'He's a man.'

Chrissie sighed in acknowledgement of her comment.

Although Guy had shown Chrissie round the site of the Antiques Fair, what she had seen then had not prepared her for the scene that met her eyes when, after parking the car, she and Laura turned the corner into the stable yard.

It was like being transported back to an earlier and more robust century, Chrissie recognised, as all her senses were assailed by the sights, sounds and smells of a Victorian fair in progress.

Street musicians in costume played cheerful tunes; acrobats and a clever pickpocket were entertaining the crowd with their antics; on a stage elevated safely above the visitors, a fire-eater performed feats of dar-ing. A pieman sang out his wares whilst a very convincing Gypsy woman with two highly enthusiastic children at her side, all in traditional costume and all, Chrissie suspected from their features, members of Guy's extended family, 'hawked' lucky pieces of heather, which Chrissie realised they were actually giving away.

Everything that could be done to create the authen-tic flavour of a bygone age
had
been done and Chrissie could only stand and marvel at the colourful and picturesque sight in front. 'Is
Guy
responsible for all of this...?' she asked Laura wonderingly.

'I'm afraid so,' Laura responded dryly. 'He loves it, you know. Oh, he pretends not to...claiming that all these extras are necessary if you want to pull the crowds in, but secretly...' She shook her head and laughed. 'At Christmas he always organises a family event. I don't really know what to call it. It's a sort of play, only everyone gets involved and we all have to get dressed up and there's no audience, only every one of us hamming it up and acting out the roles Guy's given us.'

'It sounds wonderful,' Chrissie told her and meant it. Suddenly the light went out of her eyes when she realised that
her
child would never be able to take part in such festivities, that
her
child would never know the fun and pleasure that went with being part of such a large and extended family group.

As she looked round, a stall selling art deco jewellery caught her eye. It was one of her mother's pas-sions and instinctively Chrissie began to walk towards it.

Across from the stall, a flat waggon pulled by a large shire-horse was having beer barrels unloaded from it. Chrissie heard the warning shout but didn't realise what had happened until a child screamed and she saw the heavy barrel that had broken free from the load was rolling straight towards her.

For some reason, instead of moving she discovered she could only stand there transfixed, paralysed, her heart pounding with fear, the ominous rumble of the barrel accentuated by the dull roaring she could hear in her ears.

'Chrissie!' She heard Guy's voice and turned instinctively to look for him, only to see him running through the crowd towards her, his face set with tension.

'Guy,' she whispered, then her knees suddenly started to buckle beneath her and the whole world turned dark.

Groggily Chrissie opened her eyes. She was lying on something soft and warm. Warily she turned her head.

A man's jacket...a man's jacket that smelled disturbingly familiar.

'Guy...' She tried to sit up and was instantly, gently, restrained.

'It's all right... every thing's all right,' she heard Guy saying quietly. 'You fainted.'

'What happened...?' Dizzily Chrissie put her hand to her head. She had a vivid memory of a child screaming and a barrel... She started to shudder and cried out, 'My baby!'

'Your baby's fine,' she heard a different voice telling her.

'This is Dr Miles,' Guy informed her, introducing the fair-haired young man kneeling on the grass beside her. They were outside the stable yard in what looked very much like a private garden, Chrissie recognised as she tried to study her surroundings—not a particularly easy task from a supine position.

'The barrel...?' she questioned fearfully. But the doctor was shaking his head firmly.

'Guy reached you before it did—fortunately,' he assured her. 'Either the shock of seeing it, or the heat, combined with your pregnancy, caused you to faint, but from what I can tell both you and your baby are perfectly well, although it might be an idea to make an appointment to see your own doctor, especially if you're going to make a habit of passing out,' he teased her.

'Where's Laura?' Chrissie asked, still not fully able to take in everything that had happened.

'She's gone to get us all a cup of tea,' the doctor told her matter-of-factly, turning away from Chrissie after warning her to take her time before she tried to sit up. 'Now I'd better take a look at that arm,' he said quietly to Guy. 'Your tetanus injections
are
up to date, I hope?'

'As luck would have it, yes, they are,' Chrissie heard Guy affirming ruefully.

Because the doctor had moved in between her and Guy, she was unable to see just exactly what was wrong with Guy's arm, but she could hear him wince and draw his breath as the doctor examined him.

'Mmm...it's quite a deep gash and it's going to need stitching,' she heard him say. 'I'll clean it up as best I can and put a dressing on it but I'd like you to pop into the out-patients' department as soon as you can so they can check it over properly and stitch it for you.'

'Easier said than done,' Guy responded, shaking his head. 'I simply can't leave here until we close the fair down for the day, which won't be until this evening.

I have a moral obligation to the exhibitors to be here and a legal one to Lord Astlegh who, as you very well know, only agreed to allow us to have the fair here on the understanding that I would take personal responsibility for its good conduct.'

'Oh yes, and I'm sure he'd want you to die of gan-grene rather than break your word,' Laura said sar-castically, having just returned with the tea.

'Gangrene...' Only Chrissie could hear the wobble of fear in her voice as she repeated the word under her breath.

Wearily Chrissie closed her eyes. Her head was aching and she felt very queasy, but for once not because of her pregnancy. No, this time her nausea had a rather different cause.

Guy had saved her from being hit by the runaway barrel and in doing so had sustained injuries himself.