Cue apology for low-status bedroom, query re mattress, general concern of host over comfort…
Clearly he needed a prompt. ‘Please, don’t apologise. Really. The bed was fine. I was just worrying about Maisie.’ Then, since that didn’t stir him to remorse, ‘Have you checked to see if the phones are back on?’
‘Not lately,’ he admitted. ‘Help yourself.’
He indicated a phone on a small writing desk standing by the window.
Unlike its more workmanlike counterpart in the office, this was free of all clutter and contained only a slender laptop computer and telephone. She lifted the receiver. There was no dial tone, but the dog, sensing the possibility of action, came across and then, when she didn’t move, began snuffling beneath the desk, rattling something against the skirting board.
Glancing behind the desk to see what he’d got, she realised that it was the phone jack. It wasn’t plugged into its socket, but was lying on the floor.
About to tell Harry, she caught sight of Susan and Maisie, in her ridiculous combination of frilly frock and rubber boots, hand-feeding carrots to a couple of donkeys who were leaning over the stone wall that divided the driveway to the house from a field, and, in a sudden flash of understanding, knew what had happened.
Maisie. She had done this. Gone round the house quietly disconnecting the phones. Hidden her cellphone. Just to gain a little time.
Was she really that desperate to stay?
‘Well?’ Harry asked.
She jumped at the nearness of his voice and practically collided with him as she swivelled round to block him from seeing what Maisie had done.
For a moment the room swam and she put out a hand to stop herself from falling.
Harry caught her shoulders to steady her.
‘Jacqui?’
As she looked up at him, his face no longer distant, withdrawn, angry, but showing only concern for her, the sensation of falling didn’t go away.
‘Are you feeling dizzy?’
No…Yes…Not in the way he meant…
‘I’m fine,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘Unlike the telephone.’
Cross as she was, all her protective instincts came rushing to the surface. Telling him what Maisie had done would only make things worse between them and she rationalised that a few more minutes wasn’t going to change things.
All she had to do was wait until Harry was safely out of the way, plug it back in and leave him assuming that the telephone people had been working on the line somewhere.
‘Is the line still dead?’ he asked.
That small voice that lived in the subconscious urged, ‘Tell him…’
She ignored it.
‘Er—yes,’ she said, fingers mentally crossed as she held up the receiver so that he could listen for himself. ‘Not a peep.’
Although this was technically true, she was well aware from Sunday School that this was something called ‘lying by omission’ and her voice had that slightly ‘peepy’ quality that her mother would have recognised instantly. Of course, that might have had more to do with Harry’s hand on her shoulder, his closeness, than a total inability to fib without her voice going up several octaves.
He took the receiver from her, but maybe he’d learned his lesson from the last time, because he didn’t bother to listen, simply replaced it on the cradle.
‘I’d better take another look at your scalp,’ he said.
He didn’t wait for her permission before he parted her hair with what, for a big bad giant, was exquisite gentleness. But agreeable as this might be, she leaned back—just sufficiently to show him that she could do this without falling over, but not far enough to break contact—and said, ‘Can I get this straight? When you say that you’re a doctor…’
‘Yes?’
‘You do mean that you’re a doctor of medicine?’
Jacqui finally got the smile she’d been waiting for. Genuine humour. The kind of creases around the eyes that looked so good on a man. The kind of creases around the mouth that were so unbelievably sexy…
‘That’s a very good question, Jacqui. It suggests your brain is still in good working order.’
Oh, good grief, that had to mean the answer was no…
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘Do you have an equally good answer? Or am I to accept from the fact that you evaded giving me one that you are, in fact, a doctor of philosophy? A scholar of some deeply obscure subject such as Babylonian cuneiform, perhaps? Or the breeding habits of natterjack toads? Or even…’
‘Relax, Jacqui. Your head is safe in my hands.’
It didn’t feel safe. He might know what he was doing, but his careful probing of the damage was sending very unsafe tingles skittering down her spine. But that was what a bang on the head would do for you. Knock things loose. Especially sense; he was the big bad giant who lived at the top of the mountain, she reminded herself…
‘Medicine is the family business. My greatgrandfather was the local doctor.’
‘Really? The village doesn’t look big enough to support its own surgery.’
‘It used to be in the days when farming was done by men rather than machines. It finally closed about ten years ago when my cousin was lured away to a large practice in Bristol that has its own dedicated team of support staff.’
‘Nice for him. Not much fun for the locals. What do they do now?’
‘Drive ten miles to the nearest town like most people in rural communities.’
‘Definitely no fun if you’re old or have a sick child.’
‘They should try living in a place where you have to walk for a week…’ His jaw clamped down on the words, cutting them off.
So, when he disappeared to foreign parts for months or years, he was working. Africa? Walking for a week to the nearest clinic sounded like rural Africa.
She didn’t press him for more details, just stored up the information to take out and examine later.
‘So,’ she said, verbally tiptoeing around the danger zone, ‘that was your great-grandfather. What did your grandfather do?’
‘What?’ He was back on the defensive, eyes shuttered, expression forbidding, and for a moment she quailed.
‘You said it was the family business,’ she reminded him.
For a moment she thought he was going to tell her to go to hell and take her busybody nosiness with her.
‘He’s a heart specialist,’ he said, abruptly.
‘Present tense?’
‘He still takes an active interest in his field,’ he said. Then, ‘My father is an oncologist and my mother is a specialist in paediatric medicine. Is there anything else you want to know?’
He sounded vaguely surprised to have said so much, she thought. As if he was unused to talking about himself or his family and couldn’t quite work out why he was doing it now, and she wondered where all these incredibly clever people were when he so obviously needed them.
‘They’re all, as you can see, very busy people.’
Like Selina Talbot, then. Obviously putting career before family ran in the family, too.
‘And you?’