Wild Lady Part 20

He eased himself out of the car and crossed the street to the front door and rang the bell.

There was no response. After a moment he frowned. That was odd. Even if she had got inside, she must know it was him. Surely she wouldn't miss the opportunity to gloat...? Some inner instinct for danger raised the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck. The same instinct that had sent him diving for cover when a sniper had lined up on his head...

He jammed his finger onto the bell, holding it down for the count of five. When there was no answer he knew that his instincts were right.

"Claudia!" he called. "Claudia!" And then he was pounding on the door with his fist, punching at the bell with his thumb, still shouting. Lights began to come on in windows up and down the street and he stepped back to look up at her window, but there was still no sign of life. "Claudia!" His voice sounded desperate even in his own ears now and he swung again at the door with his fist. But this time it opened to the pressure, swinging back. And Claudia was clinging onto it as if for dear life.

Her mouth was working, but there was no sound. Great silent wrenching gulps of breath were being gasped in but she couldn't catch at them. And in the streetlight, her hair and face were wet, soaked with something that was the same color as her dress. *****

"You can come in now, Mr. MacIntyre. Miss Beaumont is asking for you."

The sense of relief that she was well enough to speak, was prepared to speak to him was like being given a new life. He'd been driven from the emergency room by a sharp-tongued nurse who'd told him to wait in the day room, but the hour that he'd been waiting had seen more like ten. He'd called Luke who had promised to find Edward Beaumont and tell him what had happened but after that he had nothing to do but berate himself for ever doubting her, blame himself for what had happened.

"How is she?"

"Sleepy. She's been given a sedative, so if you're planning on talking you'd better be quick. Down the hall. Third door."

Claudia was lying in bed, one side of her face and neck covered in angry red blotches. And great chunks had been hacked from her glorious hair. She was so still that he thought for a moment that she was asleep. Then she turned her head and looked at him.

"Gabriel," she murmured, drowsily. "I wasn't sure you'd stay." She thought he'd go away and leave her alone after what had happened? Well, why not? Hadn't he left her, when she needed him most? "I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"Being there."

"But I wasn't there." If he'd been there this would never have happened.

She reached out and took his hand. "Yes, you were. If you hadn't rung the bell just when you did I would have had a face full of paint; it would have been in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. It could have been a hundred times worse."

If that was true she'd been lucky. They'd both been lucky. "Did you see anyone?"

"No." She yawned. "I sat on the bottom of the stairs for ages trying to recall the new code for the burglar alarm. I was so tired I just couldn't remember whether you had said five seven or seven five and I knew if I got it wrong I'd wake the whole street..." She raised her hand in a gesture of helplessness. "I finally decided it was seven five -"

"It was five seven."

"Oh, well. I always was hopeless with numbers. It was why I chose my birthday in the first place."

"Most people do."

"Well, whatever. I'd just got to the top of the stairs when you rang the bell. I knew it was you and I was so relieved ... you can't begin to imagine. Then as I turned to come back down, I heard someone behind me -" Her eyes darkened as she remembered. "I ... I thought for a moment it was acid..."

"It was paint," he said, quickly. Red paint. Thick and sticky and for one terrible moment he'd thought it was blood. He leaned over her, brushed the hair back from her forehead. "In a day or two you'll be like new."

"Except for my hair." Her eyes were getting heavier. "I've never had short hair. My mother said I should never have it cut..."

"It'll grow again," he rea.s.sured her, his voice thick with emotion. "Why did you do it, Claudia? Why did you pretend it was all a hoax?"

But she had drifted away on the sedative induced sleep. He stared down at her, guilt eating away at him because he knew that he had failed her, that it had all been his fault.

"She's asleep, then?" the nurse said, looking around the door a few minutes later.

"She just drifted off."

"Good. You look as if you could do with a nap yourself. There's no need to stay you know, she won't stir for a while."

"I'll stay." Nothing on earth would move him from her side again unless he could be certain she was quite safe.

"Then you'd better sit down before you fall down." There was a chair beside the bed. He moved it until it was between Claudia and the door and he lowered himself into it. "You think whoever did this will try again?" the nurse, who had watched his maneuvering with interest, asked curiously.

Not and live to tell the tale. He turned to her. "It's possible. In case that point was missed by the emergency staff, will you mention that I have put a cross in the box marked "no publicity"."

"Right. I'll be sure to pa.s.s on the message." She backed out of the door. "Will you be wanting a constant supply of coffee to keep you awake?"

"No, thank you. Staying awake isn't a problem." The nurse gave him an old-fas.h.i.+oned look and he shook his head. "I don't need drugs either."

"Lucky man."

He was glad she thought so. Doing without sleep was something that he had had to learn the hard way behind the lines in the Gulf and Bosnia. It wasn't a method he would recommend.

Claudia slept peacefully for several hours. The nurse looked in once in a while and he stretched and walked about the room whenever sleep threatened to overwhelm him. Just before seven she stirred and he crossed to the bed.

The inflammation on her cheek and neck where the paint had been removed contrasted starkly with the grayish pallor and dark hollows of the rest of her face. As he reached forward to take her hand, he heard someone behind him and he swung around, but there was no threat, it was Edward Beaumont.

"Luke left a message on my answering machine. I'd taken a pill so I only heard it an hour ago. I came as quickly as I could. How is she?"

"Asleep." Mac stood to one side so that he could see for himself. For a moment Edward looked down at his daughter, his face grim. Then he turned to Mac. "You're Gabriel MacIntyre?" Mac nodded. "Luke told me about you."

"Then he will have told you that I promised him I'd look after Claudia. I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job."

"I don't suppose she made it easy for you. She's never made anything easy, for herself or anyone else. I'm Edward Beaumont." He offered his hand. Mac took it and for a moment the two men sized up one another. Edward Beaumont was tall with an aristocratic bearing. He was elegantly dressed despite the early hour and would never be caught with a hair out of place, or his chin unshaven in public. Mac was twenty years younger, three inches taller and carried a great deal more muscle. He was wearing denims, a well-worn T-s.h.i.+rt and he hadn't had a shave in twenty-four hours. The contrast was striking, but the respect was apparently mutual. "Luke was impressed with you, Mr. MacIntyre. I can see why."

"I'm not feeling very impressed with myself. Claudia could have been seriously injured and it would have been entirely my fault."

"Entirely?"

"I offended her and so she sent me packing in the one way she knew would work."

"Oh?"

"She told me the threats were all part of a publicity stunt."

"Did she? And you believed her?" He was surprised, but clearly didn't expect Mac to answer because he continued without a pause. "Actually that wasn't what I meant. I was wondering what you had done to offend her."

Mac stiffened. "I asked her to trust me. Unfortunately I didn't return the compliment."

Edward Beaumont lifted a hand in a supremely helpless gesture and his whole body sagged a little. "Don't blame yourself, Mr. MacIntyre."

"Beau?" Her voice was unusually small.

"Oh, darling, we've disturbed you," Edward Beaumont said, turning to bend over his daughter and kiss her forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know. Sore. Scared." Mac heard the rising panic in her voice and caught her hand as she reached up to touch her face.

"Leave it."

"Gabriel," for a moment she clung to his hand. Then, as she regained her composure, she let go and her voice was neutral, giving nothing away as she turned to her father. "Will you take me home now, Beau?"

"I think we'd better see what the doctor says. You've had a nasty shock." He patted her arm gently. "Whoever could have done such a terrible thing?"

"You have no ideas?" Mac asked him.

"Me?" Edward Beaumont was clearly surprised by the question. "I haven't a clue why anyone could do anything so wicked."

"Mac thinks people will do anything for publicity," Claudia murmured and Mac flinched.

"Don't be ridiculous, Claudia," Edward said, firmly. "One thing is certain though, you can't go back to your flat. I'm all over the place for the next two weeks or I'd take you home with me, so I think the best thing is to call Fizz, she'll be able to look after you properly -"

"No. Fizz mustn't know about this." Claudia's voice was stronger now and she was quite emphatic. "She'll only worry. And whoever did this knows where she lives. I couldn't risk anything happening to her." She looked to Mac for support.

"I agree, but your father's right, the flat is out of the question. I don't think you should stay with any of your family. You need to stay right out of sight until ... well, until the police have made their investigations."

"You called them?" It was an accusation.

"Enough is enough, Claudia. They'll want a statement as soon as you feel up to it." For a moment he thought she was going to tell him to take his statement and take a running jump. He wouldn't blame her. But then she nodded and let her head fall back against the pillow. Mac hesitated. He'd let Claudia down once and now she was getting over the shock of what had happened she hadn't been slow to let him know it. He wasn't sure how she'd take his next suggestion. "Look, I've got a cottage ... it's a bit basic, but it's out of the way and at least no one will look for you there. You're welcome to stay. If you want to."

"That's very kind of you," Edward began, but Claudia broke in.

"Are you quite sure about that, Gabriel? You know how much trouble I can be."

He knew. No one better. But he was pretty sure that groveling wouldn't win him any Brownie points with Claudia. "You're the proverbial pain in the backside, Claudia..." - as a spark of animation brought her eyes back to life, he knew he was right - "... and if you misbehave again it's quite possible that I'll throw you in the lake but if you'll promise -"

"Lake?" She heaved herself up on one elbow. "Your cottage has it's own lake and you consider it basic?"

"Well, I guess your view of basic depends on your priorities. Why don't you come and have look at it. You don't have to stay if you don't like it."

"I'll come. But no more promises."

For a moment their eyes locked, then Gabriel nodded. "No promises."

Several hours later, standing in the stone clad kitchen of a cottage which seemed to be suffering from terminal decay, Claudia wasn't so sure she'd made the right decision. Seeing her expression Gabriel lifted his shoulders expressively.

"I told you it was a bit basic."

"You weren't exaggerating."

"It has a lot of potential."

"For what?"

"There are a couple of acres of land with it and the lake. I'm renovating it when I have the time."

She looked around. The sink was stone with a pump handle attached to the side and an old-fas.h.i.+oned geyser above it that suggested the place had had a brush with twentieth century plumbing sometime in the nineteen-fifties and was still trying to get over the shock. The cooker appeared to date from the same period and like the geyser relied on bottled gas to fuel it. A glance at the ceiling confirmed that the suspiciously large number of candles meant precisely what she had feared, electricity had yet to find its way down the long rutted lane that led to the cottage.

She ran a finger experimentally along a shelf and examined the thick wad of dust that piled up beneath it with distaste. "You must have been somewhat short of time recently," she said, regarding Gabriel over her finger. "You don't expect me to stay here, surely?"

"No one will look for you here."

She couldn't fault him on logic. "That's true," she said, brus.h.i.+ng the dust of her fingers. "And even if they did, they'd take one look and go away again."

"Isn't that the point?"

Claudia knew she was being unreasonable, but she felt dreadful and knew she looked worse. She bit down on her lip. A week from now and her face would be back to normal and a visit to her hairdresser would fix her hair. It could have been a million times worse. But knowing that and believing it when confronted by the result of the attack in the hospital mirror were two different things.

"I'm sorry that the place is so dusty. I haven't been here for a while, but it's nothing a little soap and hot water won't fix."

"A lot of soap and a lot of hot water," Claudia amended, glancing doubtfully at the geyser. It didn't look up to the task. Then she indicated the carton of groceries on the square scrubbed table in the middle of the room. "Someone must have been expecting us."

"Not you. Just me. I asked Adele to organize a few essentials but she doesn't know you're here."

"Why? Just in case it was her all the time?"

"She's the size of a house, Claudia. She couldn't get up your stairs with a can of paint, let alone throw it at you and beat a hasty retreat down the fire exit, but I thought the fewer people who knew you were the safer you would feel."

"So it's just you and me?"

"Yes, Claudia. Just you and me." He glanced into the box. "I'll go and stock up the larder tomorrow."

"And leave me alone?" The panic was already beginning to rise in her throat at the thought. "Here?"

"What's the matter, doesn't the lake live up to your expectations?"

"The lake is fine. The cottage is..."

"Basic." Their glances collided and she received the distinct impression that a fit of tantrums and a demand to be taken to the nearest five star hotel would be met with resistance.

Since they had left the hospital, communications had been fairly limited between them, but she had been left in no doubt that for the foreseeable future Gabriel MacIntyre was determined that she would do exactly what she was told. It would have been comforting if she had thought for one moment he was doing it for any other reason than guilt.

And since walking out wasn't an option - they hadn't pa.s.sed any habitation within five miles of the place - she decided not to waste her breath.

She turned angrily away and pushed open the door to the living room. It was larger than she had antic.i.p.ated, with a big stone fireplace at one end and a dusty blue and white jug on the mantle in which some flowers had withered and died a long time ago. Beside the hearth was a basket containing a few logs and yellowing newspapers. In front of it a couple of comfortable armchairs and a thick rug suggested someone had once made an attempt to provide some comfort.

Claudia gave a little s.h.i.+ver. The room wasn't exactly cold, but the August sun hadn't penetrated the thick walls and although the walls had been painted in the not too distant past, it had a musty air of abandonment about it. As if the occupants had simply walked out and locked the door behind them and never come back.

Gabriel had followed her into the room and was now watching her, his whole body tense, the skin drawn tight over the hard planes of his face and quite unexpectedly something twisted in her gut. He wasn't finding it easy being in this place yet he had brought her here so that she should be safe. And she was behaving like a spoilt cat. But then, when had she ever behaved like anything else.

"Why don't you light a fire?" she suggested.