Love Me

Episode 20

I bought it on impulse,’ she told him quickly. Too quickly, she realised as she

saw the cynical look he was giving her. ‘Anyway,’ she added protectively, ‘it’s

hardly the kind of outfit a woman would buy to...to attract a man.

‘No?’ David gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Oh, come on, Kelly, we both know

better than that. There’s something powerfully alluring about the sight of a

woman wearing a trouser suit, something very, very sensual and appealing much more so than an over-tight dress on an over-exposed body. You bought

this outfit because you’re jealous of Nick. Because you—’

‘Me...jealous...of her?’ Kelly virtually spat at him as she grabbed her new

purchase from him and stuffed it back into the bag. ‘No way,’ she told him,

shaking her head almost violently in denial. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ she

added dangerously, too upset to question the wisdom of inviting him to

humiliate her still further by revealing his awareness of just how she felt about

him. ‘Just because years ago I was stupid enough, adoring enough, vulnerable

enough to...to care too much about you, that doesn’t mean that I’m jealous of

your lover. In fact...’

‘My lover?’ David stopped her as they both stood up, frowning down at her as

he informed her curtly, ‘I was referring to the fact that you’re jealous because

you’re afraid of losing Nichol to Nick. He’s your lover and—’

‘My lover...? Nichol?’ Kelly stared at him in disbelief.

Suddenly Kelly had had enough. There was no way that David could possibly,

genuinely, believe that she and Nichol were lovers; he was just playing some kind

of peculiar and cruel game with her. Well, he was going to have to play it on his

own. Grabbing hold of her shopping, she darted past him, almost running into

her bedroom and slamming the door behind her, her heart thudding with angry

pain.

As she closed her eyes and leaned against the door she had just closed, she

could feel them starting to burn with the useless demeaning tears of her

unwanted love.

What was David doing now—laughing inwardly at her because he knew that her

jealousy, her pain, her love were all for him, or was he too wrapped up in what

he thought to spare any time to consider her feelings? Had he accused her of

being jealous out of his own feelings of jealousy against Nichol?

This job, which she had taken on with such high hopes, such a surge of

determination and conviction that through it she would finally and for ever slay

the dragons of her tormented youthful love for him, had now turned into a hydra-

headed monster which she could never hope to overcome. How on earth was she

going to be able to concentrate on what she had to do when she was forced to

work in such close proximity to David?

No. It was impossible, she acknowledged half an hour later as she sat at her

desk trying to concentrate on the work schedule she had in front of her. No

matter how hard she tried to visualise a situation where she and David could work

together in harmony, her emotions untouched by his presence, all she could

actually see was a situation that was going to get worse and worse as she became

more and more helplessly trapped in her love and his lack of it. The best remedy,

the only remedy she could honestly see that would work would be for her to go

to Nichol and ask him to find someone else to complete this project, she admitted

unhappily.

It wasn’t a course she wanted to take. She prided herself on her

professionalism and it would mean taking Nichol into her confidence about her

feelings for David—she knew, of course, that he would respect them, but even so...

If she stayed on the possibility was—no, the probability was, she corrected

herself fiercely, that sooner or later she would make a mistake that could

prejudice the progress of the work on the house. This was a project that was

going to demand her total concentration and attention and how could she give it

when all the time she was thinking about David, when her feelings for him were

already dominating her mind and her emotions?

It wasn’t going to be easy. She hated letting Nichol down; in fact, it felt as

though in asking him to find someone else to take over this particular project for

her she was letting herself down; but she feared that if she stayed the way in

which she could potentially let herself down, damage herself and her self-

esteem, her very self, could be far more traumatic.

The anger and contempt which David had displayed towards her this evening

had shown how very little compassion he was likely to have for her. No, there

was no other way.

It was with a very heavy heart that Kelly prepared for bed. There would be

other houses, other projects, and no one but her would ever know how much it

would hurt knowing that it was someone else who would have the pleasure of

restoring David’s ancestral home to what it must once have been, just as it would

be another woman who would ultimately stand beside David and their children in

love and pride as they went through their lives together.

David wasn’t sure just what had woken him up first—his training, his work, meant

that he was always alert to any sound that heralded some unfamiliarity, his

perceptions and senses so keenly attuned that he was aware of such changes

even in his sleep.

Alert and wide awake, he lay in the darkness listening. The illuminated face of

his alarm clock showed that it was just gone half past one in the morning. The

house had no alarm system. Lee, his gun dog who slept downstairs, might be getting on in years now but she would have been barking if someone had been

trying to break into the house, and besides, the outside lights had not come on.

Through his open bedroom window he could hear an owl hooting as it flew

past. No alien sounds disturbed the natural busyness of the country night.

He started to relax and then he heard it—a door opening upstairs. Immediately

he was out of bed and, reaching for his robe, pulled it on—he slept nude—before

striding across to open his bedroom door quietly.

He saw her immediately, a slim white wraith who seemed to float rather than

walk down the corridor, but, ethereal though she looked, Kelly was no ghost.

Even before he reached her he knew that she was sleepwalking; all the tell-tale

signs were there, and of course he knew from her girlhood exactly what to do.

So why was it so hard, then, to take her gently in his hold so that he could turn

her round and walk her back to her bedroom?

The best thing to do, they had all been told after the first frightening occasion

when she had been found wandering the long gallery at Otel Place, totally

oblivious to what she was doing, was to guide her gently back to bed, if possible

without waking her; but now, as he touched her,David could feel her start to

tremble violently, her face turning towards him, her body stiffening as he tried to

turn her round. Cursing under his breath, he glanced towards his own still open

bedroom door. Perhaps if he could get her in there... The old family doctor at

Otel Place had recommended that she be allowed to wake up naturally rather

than be abruptly woken from her sleepwalk and he had also informed them that

often these bouts of ‘walking’ could be attributed to some kind of disturbance or

trauma that the walker might have suffered. David did not need to look very far to

find the cause of tonight’s disturbance, and inwardly he cursed not just Nick

but Nichol as well.

Didn’t the man know just how lucky he was—what he, David, would give to

change places with him?

Kelly was still trembling against his body, her eyes wide open and unseeing

as she stood stiffly beside him, almost transfixed. Not wanting to risk waking

her, David urged her gently towards his own bedroom, talking very quietly and

softly to her, just as though she were still the girl he remembered.

‘It’s all right, Kelly,’ he assured her gently. ‘Everything’s all right... Come

on, now...’

Obediently she moved, leaning on him slightly. If he could get her into bed

without her waking up he could sit with her to check that she was going to sleep

on and then he could spend the rest of the night in one of the other rooms. In the

morning... He started to frown. Too late to regret now the jealousy which had prompted him to speak so harshly to her earlier, but the sight of that suit, the

knowledge of just how it would look on her body, had filled him with such

furious jealousy that he had overreacted.

Tenderly David guided her into his bedroom and towards the bed. The light

gown she was wearing was plain and pink, in soft cotton. In it she looked

almost like a girl...youthful...virginal...

He closed his eyes. The last thing he needed right now was to start thinking

about—to start remembering. Forcing himself to suppress the thoughts, the

memories and the emotions which were running riot inside him, he stopped to

pick her up, intending to lay her down on the bed, but as he did so a dog fox out

in the woodland beyond the garden howled to his mate; the sound carried into

the bedroom on the still night air, shocking him into immobility and Kelly into

immediate wakefulness.

David...what...?’

He could hear the shocked anxiety in her voice as she stared round his moonlit

bedroom.

‘You were sleepwalking.’ He tried to reassure her. ‘I heard a noise...found you

on the landing...’

Sleepwalking. Kelly focused distractedly on David’s face.

It had been years since she had last walked in her sleep, but she didn’t for one

moment doubt that David was telling the truth. After all, there was no reason why

he should have spirited her from her own bed and carried her here to his—was

there? If he had wanted to take her there, all he had to do... But even so... She

started to shiver.

She only walked in her sleep in times of intense personal stress...intense

personal distress...

‘It’s all right, Kelly,’ she heard David saying gently. He was still holding onto

her. Kelly could feel the warmth of his arms, his body through the robe he was

wearing and through her own fine cotton nightgown. Bemusedly she looked at

him, her eyes huge and shadowed in the small oval of her pale face.

Outside a peafowl, one of the small colony which had migrated from

City Hall to the Rectory, its slumber no doubt disturbed by the mating call

of the fox, screamed loudly, causing Kelly to go rigid with tension.

‘It’s all right, Kelly,’ David repeated soothingly. ‘It’s only a peafowl.’

She knew that, of course—their noise was, after all, familiar to her—but for

once she felt too weak to bother arguing the point with David.