‘She’s got more important things to worry about. This is just between us,’ he warned. ‘As far as Xandra and my mother are concerned, you’re Annie Rowland. Is that understood?’
‘You guessed who I was,’ she pointed out.
‘I don’t think they’re ever going to see you quite the way I did.’
‘No?’ She felt a tremor deep within her at the memory of just how he’d seen her. Remembered how powerful she’d felt as he’d looked at her, touched her. As she’d touched him. She wanted that again. Wanted him…‘If I stay, George,’ she asked softly, ‘will you finish what you started?’
He opened his mouth, then shut it again sharply. Shook his head.
No. Faced with her image, he was just like everyone else. Being the nation’s virgin was, apparently, the world’s biggest turn-off.
‘It’s just sex, George,’ she said, hoping that she could provoke him, disgust him sufficiently so that he would let her go.
‘If it’s just sex, Annie, I’m sure Rupert Devenish would be happy to do you the favour. Put it on the top of your Christmas wish list. Or does he have to wait until he puts a ring on your finger? Were you simply looking for something a little more earthy than His Lordship before you settle for the coronet?’
If he’d actually hit her the shock couldn’t have been more brutal. It wasn’t the suggestion that she was on the loose looking for a bit of rough. It was the fact that he thought she’d marry for position, the castle, the estates, that drove through her heart like a dagger. And maybe the fear that, in desperation, six months, a year from now she might settle for the chance to be a mother.
Picking up the phone, admitting what she’d done and waiting for a car to take her home would, she knew without doubt, be the first step.
It took her a moment to gather herself, find her voice. ‘I’d better go and pay the taxi.’
‘It’s done.’
‘What?’ Then, realising what he meant, ‘You sent it away without waiting for my answer?’
‘He’s busy. You owe me twenty pounds, by the way.’
‘A little more than that, surely? There’s the call-out charge, towing me back to the garage, the time you spent on the car.’ She looked up enquiringly when he didn’t answer. ‘Or shall I ask Xandra to prepare the invoice for that?’
‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘The garage is closed. And forget the taxi fare too.’
‘What about board and lodging? Or do you expect me to work for my keep?’
‘You are my daughter’s guest,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘And right now we have to go and pick her up.’
‘We?’
‘You don’t imagine I’m going to leave you here on your own?’
She thought about arguing with him for all of a second before she said, ‘I’ll get my coat.’
Two minutes later she was wrapped in the soft leather of the sports car that had been parked on the garage forecourt and heading towards Maybridge General.
They exchanged barely two words as the car ate up the miles but, when he pulled into the pick-up bay a couple of minutes before three, Annie said, ‘There’s a parking space over there.’
‘It’s nearly three. Xandra will be here any minute.’
She didn’t say a word.
‘Are you suggesting that she won’t?’
‘I’m suggesting that she’ll make you go and get her, so you might as well make a virtue out of a necessity.’
‘I could send you.’
‘You could. But then you’d have to come and get me too. Always supposing I don’t take the opportunity to leave by another entrance.’
‘Without your bag?’
‘I could replace everything in it in ten minutes.’
‘A thousand pounds won’t go far if you’re travelling by public transport. Staying at hotels.’
Again she said nothing.
‘There’s more? How much?’
‘You’ll have to search me to discover that,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘I won’t resist.’
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, the knuckles turning white.
‘Go and visit your father. It would make your mother happy, make Xandra happy. And me. It would make me very happy.’
‘And why would I give a damn whether you’re happy or not?’
He was so stubborn. He knew it was the right thing to do, wanted to build bridges with his daughter, but pride kept him from taking that first step. She’d just have to give him a little push.
‘Because, if you don’t, George, I’ll be the one calling the tabloids to tell them that Lady Rose isn’t in Bab el Sama but holed up at Saxon’s Garage. With her lover.’
‘Lover!’
‘Why spoil a good story by telling the truth?’ she said. ‘They certainly won’t.’
‘You wouldn’t do that.’
Exactly what she’d said when he’d threatened her.
‘Within an hour of our return from the hospital there’ll be television crews, photographers and half the press pack on your doorstep.’
‘They wouldn’t believe you. They’ve seen you get on a plane.’
‘So what? You were bluffing?’
‘Of course I was bluffing!’
He cared, she thought. Cared enough.
So did she.
‘Take your pick, George. Visit your father or let me go.’
George dragged both hands through his hair. ‘I can’t. Please, Annie, you must see that. If anything happened to you-’
‘You’d never forgive yourself? Oh, dear. That is unfortunate because, you see, I’m not bluffing. And I know those journalists well enough to convince them I’m not some fantasist sending them on a wild-goose chase.’ She held her breath. Would he believe her? After what seemed like the longest moment in history, he glared at her, then pulled over into the empty space she’d pointed out. Cut the engine.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ he said, releasing his seat belt, climbing out. ‘Whatever it is you think you’re doing.’ She jumped as he vented his frustration on the car door, but made no move to get out, forcing him to walk around to the passenger door and open it for her.
George watched as she swung her long legs over the sill, stood up and, without a word, walked towards the entrance of the hospital.
‘You know that’s a dead giveaway too,’ he said when he caught up with her. ‘Modern independent women can usually manage a car door.’
‘If you insist on acting as my bodyguard, George, I’ll insist on treating you like one.’
‘Remind me why they call you the nation’s sweetheart?’ he said.
‘Sweetheart, angel, virgin.’ She stopped without warning and looked at him, a tiny frown wrinkling her smooth forehead. ‘
‘Annie!’ He grabbed her elbow in an attempt to hurry her past a couple of nurses who’d turned to stare. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Behaving badly?’ she offered, staying stubbornly put. ‘It’s a new experience for me and I’m rather enjoying it. But you didn’t answer my question. Am I-’
‘Don’t say another word,’ he snapped. He didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Fat chance. He hadn’t been able to think about anything else all afternoon and while his head was saying no, absolutely no, a thousand times no, his body was refusing to listen. ‘It’s this way.’
But it wasn’t. His father had improved sufficiently to be moved out of the cardiac suite and into a small ward.
