Flowers for My Love (3 page)

His hand came out to catch hold of her shoulder in a light but firm grip.

‘It’s no use, you know,’ he said in clipped tones.

Davina frowned up at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That I mean to know you better and the sooner we start getting acquainted the sooner you’ll begin to like me.’

‘Like you?’ she gasped. ‘Why should I?’

‘This is why,’ he answered, taking her roughly into his arms.

It was like hovering on the brink of a fiery furnace, this agony of joy. The heat was there, rushing out and taking her breath away. She shrank with fear yet trembled with the exhilaration of ecstasy.

The next moment she was pushing him away with all her strength to allow her hand to come up and smack his face. Her own face burned like a fire, her eyes blazed.

‘I don’t think that’s very funny,’ she cried on a gulp of breath.

‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ He stood tense and smiling a little.

‘I’ve been longing to kiss you from the first time I saw you.’

Davina took a long breath, a long shivering sigh as if she had been shocked out of her senses.

‘Could be that I’ve been wanting to slap your face too since our first meeting. Your ego, Nick, is king-size. Now keep away from the shop. I don’t want your sort for a customer.

Slapping faces can become awfully wearing and I can’t afford the energy. Goodnight!’

Davina fled from the room to look for Cheryl. For two pins she would drag her sister home with her, only it would be silly to do so when Nick Tabor was leaving.

Cheryl was talking to two young men in their early twenties who were obviously interested in her. As Davina joined her the guests began to drift into the buffet room. There was heaps of every kind of food.

The two young men used their long arms to procure plates for the four of them which they began to fill, and they munched contentedly. There was too much noise for anyone to talk confidently and Davina was too busy eating to look around for Nick.

She did not see him again that evening, but she could not forget him or his kiss. No man had ever kissed her like that before. It had been like an electric current running through her body and setting her quivering uncontrollably.

There was nothing to it, she told herself impatiently. The man was just experienced and it showed. But she had been kissed by men of experience before with none of the electric reaction that had fused her to Nick.

The next few weeks were uneventful to Davina in the way that there was no Nick to brighten them. Strange how she missed him. Cheryl remarked on his absence several times.

‘Did you know that Nick used to be in the Guards?’ she said one day at a slack moment in the shop. ‘That was before his father introduced him into banking. Now he’s one of the leading international bankers.’

She had been gazing through the window. Now she was hugging her upper arms and gliding slowly around the shop as though dancing with the absent Nick.

Dreamily, she said, ‘Can you imagine him with his uniform hat set on those fair curls, his legs in those long shiny boots and all that heavenly uniform?’ She sighed. ‘It makes you swoon just to think of it!’

Davina laughed. ‘Life isn’t like that, Cheryl, as you’ll discover. Maybe you ought to have been a nurse or something like that. You wouldn’t only have no time to dream, you’d see life as it really is.’

‘It’s an idea. How would I look in uniform? Some nurses today are wearing beautifully coloured overalls as pretty as ours.’

Davina said carefully, ‘Who told you about Nick? You seem to know an awful lot about him.’

‘I heard folks talking at the party Mrs. Tabor gave. He isn’t married.’

Davina lifted her head from looking down at the order book.

‘No? The man evidently believes in loving and leaving them. I bet he’s had more love affairs than you or I have had hot dinners.’

‘What if he has? A man of experience is always more exciting. Why don’t you like him?’

‘We don’t know anything about him, do we? And that’s bad.

In any case I’m not interested one way or the other.’

Davina knew when she spoke the words that they were not true. She was continually thinking about Nick and wondering where he was.

A week later he strode into the shop as if he had never been away and her heart leapt in her breast.

Davina was alone in the shop, Cheryl having gone out to do some shopping for their evening meal at the flat.

For several palpitating moments Nick looked at her with unsmiling consideration, then sketched a faint bow which was supercilious in its lightness, and she felt her face grow hot.

‘Good afternoon, Davina. I trust I find you well.’

‘Very well indeed,’ she replied. She knew her voice was crackling with dislike, but she did not care.

‘That is indeed good news,’ he said sardonically. ‘It means you will be fit to go out with me this evening for dinner.’

She gave a slight start and he watched with pleasure the way her eyes with their tantalising tilt filled with a sparkling anger as she stared at him.

‘Mr. Tabor,’ she said with a quiet dignity which sat well upon her slender shoulders, ‘I have no time for playing games. Is there anything you might be wanting—and I would remind you that I asked you not to come into my shop again.’

‘Yes, there is something I want very badly. You,’ he stated baldly.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m not for sale, Mr. Tabor.’

‘It was Nick the other time we met. What’s wrong in going out to dine with me? You’ll enjoy it.’

‘You mean you intend to. I shouldn’t. I neither like nor trust you.’

‘You don’t know me well enough to either like or trust me.

Why don’t you find out? Or are you scared?’

Davina lifted her chin. ‘I don’t want to know you.’

‘I’m perfectly respectable,’ he said dryly. ‘I have an elder brother who’s a surgeon visiting the States, Juleen’s husband. I began a career in the Guards because I loved horses, but my father wanted me to go in for banking. I gave it a trial to please him and found that it was not only exciting but that I had a bent for it. So here I am.’

Davina said coldly, ‘I’m afraid I’m not as free as you, Mr.

Tabor.’

He lifted a hand. ‘Nick, please.’

‘Very well, Nick. I have a brother to see through his medical studies and a sister to keep on the straight and narrow. I work long hours at this shop and I have no time for love affairs.’

‘But surely you have to eat. Surely you can have a meal out once in a while?’

‘Not this evening, thank you.’

‘Tomorrow, then?’

Davina pushed back a heavy wave of hair from her hot forehead. Today had been another heavy day beginning at half past four to reach Covent Garden for the flowers.

She shook her head, and the grey eyes narrowed on her pale face.

‘Who does all the heavy work like delivering orders and fetching flowers from the market?’ he demanded.

Normally Davina would have told him to mind his own business, but as usual his presence was turning her into a kind of zombie.

‘We do it between us, Cheryl and I.’

‘Then how is it that Cheryl is as bright as a button today?’ He nodded at her look of surprise. ‘Yes, I saw her just now on her way to the shops. While you’re fagged out.’

She lifted tired shoulders. ‘It’s one of those days—and your appearance doesn’t help.’

He said tersely, ‘That’s plain speaking anyway. Seems to me that you’re doing all the donkey work. You’re just a couple of kids playing at shop.’

‘I’m twenty-four. At least we’re earning a living.’

‘And throwing your own life away in the bargain. Go and put your feet up in the back. I’ll take over until Cheryl gets back.’

Davina looked at him as though he had gone mad. ‘You must be joking!’

She stared at the beautifully cut City-going suit, at the immaculate silk shirt and sober tie. He looked like an advertisement for men’s wear out of
Vogue
and he was proposing to sell flowers.

For answer he laid strong fingers on her shoulders, turned her round and marched her into the back of the shop through the beaded curtain.

The shop door opened as she sat down and she hoped it was Cheryl. It was two young women wanting bouquets to take to the hospital. Most of the flowers were marked with the price and Nick was soon wrapping up flowers that the girls were delighted with including the service, Davina thought wryly. The man could charm ducks off the water.

The shop door opened and closed several times after that, by which time Davina was fast asleep. The screaming sound of the electric kettle boiling awoke her out of what seemed to be a drugged sleep.

Opening her eyes, she saw Nick filling the teapot with boiling water. Looking at her wrist watch, she cried out in disbelief.

‘It’s five o’clock! Why didn’t you waken me? Where’s Cheryl?’

He put on the teapot lid and looked around for cups.

‘Not back yet,’ he replied lazily, and reached for the cups from a shelf.

‘But she has to be. She went out at two to do a bit of shopping.

I hope nothing has happened.’

‘Drink this,’ he said, ‘and stop getting in a panic. She’s probably stopped somewhere.’

Davina took the cup from him, her eyes dark pools of distress.

‘She wouldn’t stay out for three hours without telling me where she was going.’

‘I said drink the tea.’

Warm strong fingers closed around her trembling ones and he lifted the cup to her lips. Davina gulped down the warm milky tea and looked up at him appealingly.

Far from feeling refreshed her head was as heavy as lead. Her tongue felt like sandpaper and her throat burned. ‘I feel awfully ill,’ she said. ‘Please hold me.’

The next moment she had passed out. When she opened her eyes again Nick had put a cold wet compress on her forehead and he had his arms around her.

‘Not to worry,’ he murmured. ‘I must get you home and send for the doctor.’

Thickly she said, ‘I shall be all right. Our flat is here over the shop.’

He pushed a cushion under her head on the chair. ‘Give me your keys. I’ll carry you up when I’ve unlocked the door.

‘I’ve telephoned for the doctor,’ he told her, laying her gently on her bed. ‘Do you think you can manage to undress yourself?’

She nodded, and he left the room. He came in when she was in bed. He sat on it to look at her gravely as he put the back of his hand against her flushed cheek.

‘How’s the throat? Painful?’

She nodded.

‘I’m afraid it’s tonsillitis,’ he said gently. ‘Cheryl has it too.

She collapsed in town and is in hospital. They’re keeping her in for a day or so.’

‘You knew all along, didn’t you, even before I awoke this afternoon, yet you didn’t tell me.’

‘What good would it have done? Had I told you you would have gone haring off to the hospital and probably have collapsed there yourself.’

Davina was very aware of lying in a flimsy nightdress while he dwarfed the room with his size. She felt too ill and wretched to care much, but he still upset her.

‘Is there anyone who can look after you?’ he asked.

She thought quickly. ‘My brother Darren is coming home tomorrow from medical school for the Easter holidays.’

He pushed the damp wads of hair from her hot forehead.

‘Can he cook?’

‘He’ll be all right. He’s very intelligent. I’ve tried to make him self-sufficient. Besides, if I have tonsillitis he can manage to make me hot drinks and cook a little for himself.’

The doctor came and Nick told him about Cheryl as he examined Davina.

‘It’s acute tonsillitis all right,’ he said, placing a cool instrument on her tongue to enable him to peer down her inflamed throat. ‘Keep warm, take hot drinks and the pills along with the medicine I shall prescribe and you’ll soon be up again, young woman.’

Nick went out at the same time as the doctor to fetch the medicine the doctor had prescribed.

Nick stayed that night, giving her the medicine every two hours. Between doses she tried to sleep, but always something that felt like a web seemed to cover the back of her throat. Then Nick would hold her up in bed against his wide shoulder and give her a dose of some fiery burning liquid which seemed to burn a way down to her stomach.

She was conscious of him there, moving around or sitting quietly beside her, but it was too much of an effort to talk.

The next morning, with a light stubble around his chin, he made her a hot drink, and sponged her hands and face. The doctor came again and Nick took him into the lounge while they talked.

When the doctor had gone Nick came in and sat on her bed.

‘How are you feeling? The doctor is pleased with you and suggests getting a nurse in for a few days.’

Quickly, she said, ‘I don’t want a nurse. Darren is coming today. Thanks for all you’ve done. I couldn’t possibly have managed without you. You can do one thing for me before you go—telephone the hospital to ask how Cheryl is.’

‘I’ve already done so. She’s much better and will be out in a day or so.’

Even after a night sitting up with her he still looked almost immaculate except for the golden stubble on his chin. She felt a vague resentment that he did not look in the least tired. The grey eyes still mocked and his mobile mouth still had that sardonic twist.