Love (13 page)

“
No, mum. Honestly!” Karen protested, sensing her indecision. “It’s fine. He is okay. Mrs Maybury comes in to clean for him most days. She’ll be chaperone. Besides Doctor Palmer says it’s this or hospital.”

“
Oh dear, I hadn’t realised it was that serious. I suppose you’re old enough to make up your own mind,” sniffed Mrs Packer. “I mean, if Doctor Palmer says so, it must be all right. He has looked after your grandmother for all these years. Do telephone me at once if you have any problems, if you know what I mean. Perhaps Amanda could come down at the weekend and take you back to the cottage.”

Karen was tired. The effort of talking on the phone and arguing with her mother had knocked her out. Adam took the phone from her.

“I take it your mother thinks I’m some sort of sex fiend. It must run in the family this deep mistrust of men. I promise you that my intentions are strictly honourable. I don’t molest vulnerable women under my care. You should know that already.”

Karen nodded sleepily. She felt so dopey she could hardly follow what he was saying. She snuggled back down under the duvet and was quickly asleep.

When Adam brought her bedtime pills he also brought a wicker bed-tray on which was a bowl of steaming chicken and leek soup. He plumped up Karen
’s pillows vigorously and put them behind her back so that she was propped up in a sitting position. He then put the tray over her legs.

“
I hope you are going to be able to manage a bit of this. I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all afternoon to produce this nourishing broth for you. I am assured by my mother, whose recipe this is, that it is a great restorative.” He had even, Karen noticed, cut the toast into soldiers.

She thought she didn
’t feel hungry but since he had gone to so much trouble she thought she ought to try just a drop. She could not remember, even as a child, getting such tender loving care. Her family tended to favour more spartan treatment for illness and her mother’s proud boast was that she had never taken to her bed. Feeling unwell was viewed with deep suspicion and most illnesses identified as hypochondria. Coddling was thought to encourage malingering.

One tablespoon convinced Karen that the soup was indeed
an elixir. She had no trouble finishing the bowl and the buttery toast. She looked up. Adam was watching her. She must have looked frightfully greedy. No, he looked fond and pleased. Their eyes met and held. Then she looked away.

“Th
ank you,” she said. “It was brilliant. I feel much better. Your mother was right. Perhaps you should bottle it. Chancellor’s chicken soup, it has quite a good ring to it.”

“
Well, when you’re feeling better, you can work on some labels. Do you think me or a chicken? Anyway, you better take your pills.” Adam handed her the pills and took the tray away. He reappeared with an ice lolly and a DVD. “I thought you might feel up to some gentle entertainment.”

Karen was dismayed to see that he had chosen an old
Monty Python film. She usually found them a little too silly. But between the pills and her fever the surreal humour made her giggle helplessly. Adam lay down next to her on the king-size bed and produced a box of chocolate fudge and some ice cold coke.

“Th
is has got to be one of my favourite ways to spend the evening,” he said taking her hot hand in his.

I am absurdly comfortable, Karen thought. I can
’t remember feeling quite so at ease with any other person. It was like being with one of one of her best girlfriends and yet there was an undercurrent of excitement to which, even though her head felt like cotton wool, her body responded. In fact, her feverishness added an air of unreality to events. She didn’t see the end of the film, she was fast asleep.

When she woke in the morning she wondered whether she had dreamed it all. She lay quite still and cautiously tested her throat. It did feel marginally better. She could swallow without that excruciating ache. Her glands were still swollen in her neck and her skin was warm to the touch but she was no longer burning up. What she really felt like was a bath. She got out of bed, stood up and sat down again promptly. She felt quite dizzy. Take it slowly, she told herself. And so, moving at a snail’s pace, she found the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the bath while the water ran in.

Karen felt cooler for the bath. She had found a rather nice box of talcum powder with an old-fashioned swan
’s-down puff in it. She dusted herself liberally, it smelled pleasantly of rose and sandalwood. She swished some toothpaste around her mouth and combed out her hair. She hoped Adam wouldn’t mind her borrowing his comb. Maybe this wasn’t his bathroom after all. It might be his mother’s comb and powder. He had mentioned her several times since she had arrived.

Adam, en route from the kitchen, with her breakfast tray, was surprised to find Karen coming out of the bathroom.
“I’ve just had a bath,” she said, stating the obvious.

“
Good,” he said. “Would you mind if I joined you for breakfast. I’ve brought enough for two.”

Humphrey decided to make it breakfast for three and sat at the end of the bed eating snippets of toast and marmalade.

“Doctor Palmer said that you should drink loads of fluids,” Adam reminded Karen. “So drink all you can. I’ve got you some ginger ale which isn’t too sickly. Humphrey and I are going to walk off our breakfasts down on the beach while you watch morning television.” He looked thoughtfully at Karen and said, “Why the worried face? I thought you were feeling a little brighter this morning.”

“
I am. It’s not that. I should be painting,” said Karen. “I have lost so much time coming down here and now to be stuck in bed, sick, I just worry that I won’t have enough work ready in time for my show.”

“
Agonising about it isn’t going to get you back on your feet any sooner. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling better, I’ll bring you some paper and pencils and let you draw me as a special treat. Now rest.” Adam smiled broadly as he tucked Karen into bed and turned on the television.

Despite the nagging anxiety about the painting the day passed pleasantly in a haze of
talk shows and daytime dramas. Adam appeared at regular intervals with her medicine and nourishing food and drink. He said that he was only in his study if she needed anything else; he was busy correcting proofs on his latest travel book.

What a strange man he is, thought Karen. She had never known anyone who would take such good care of a comparative stranger. Certainly not a man, maybe some women. She wasn
’t sure what she felt about it all. Some people might think he was a little soppy, but he wasn’t, not at all. He was a tall, good-looking man of the world who moved in international circles and yet here he was playing Professor Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle. She was so used to men who ran from caring and responsibility that it was almost frightening to be the object of such attention. The trouble was that he was extraordinarily efficient at it all and as far as she could see he had nothing to gain from it. The strange and disconcerting thing about Adam was that he would focus all his attention on her so that she felt like the centre of his universe. But then he would appear to switch it off just as quickly. It left her not sure of anything.

Karen
’s body didn’t waste time worrying about the whys and wherefores of Adam’s behaviour. It had a perfectly straightforward response to him. He made her melt with desire and those parts which didn’t melt felt like they were charged with a million volts of electricity. Usually, hand holding was a sticky sweaty business reserved for teenagers in cinemas but when Adam held her hand nothing had ever felt more arousing.

That evening they were plagued by phone calls. Adam had several long-distance calls from America about the script for the film that was being made from his South American travel book. He also had a call from Morgan which he took in the study to Karen
’s annoyance. Then it was Karen’s turn.

First her mother called to check up on things.
“You sound much better, darling,” she said. She was clearly pleased and relieved. “You sounded just dreadful. I was so worried. I called up Amanda and made her promise to come down at the weekend and take care of you. You can’t impose on Adam Chancellor forever.”

“
It’s really not necessary,” protested Karen. “Amanda has plenty to do without coming all the way down here for the weekend.”

“Th
at’s as may be,” replied Mrs Packer. “But she’s booked on the overnight train on Friday night. She’s quite happy to come down. Besides which the fresh air will do her good. Now I’m not having any arguments about this. You have always been such a stubborn girl.”

Karen gave up. Once her mother had made up her mind there was no arguing with her. She might as well make the best of it and give in graciously. Amanda could walk Humphrey and tidy the cottage, she thought with some amusement.

She had no sooner put down the phone than Amanda herself rang. They held an almost identical conversation with Karen protesting and Amanda insisting. Finally, Karen had to plead her sore throat as an excuse to end the call.

“Do
I gather from all that that a member of your family is coming down to oversee your recuperation?” asked Adam.

“
Yes. Worse luck,” said Karen. “My sister Amanda is coming on the overnight train on Friday.”

“
I’ll pick her up at the station then,” said Adam.

“
You can’t!” said Karen firmly. “It comes in at the crack of dawn. You won’t be up. She can get a taxi if she insists on coming.”

“
Now that’s not a very charitable way to treat your sister. I don’t mind fetching her. I wake quite early and so it isn’t a problem. So no arguing. It’ s decided.”

“
Everybody is so bossy,” moaned Karen. “Give a girl an illness and everybody thinks she’s fair game. It’s not right. Once my mother gets a bee in her bonnet there’s no stopping her. I suspect that Amanda has been sent down to inspect you. They are probably speculating as we speak.”

By Friday morning Karen was feeling quite human. She felt well enough to keep Adam to his promise to go and fetch her sketch pad and pencils from the cottage. After breakfast he and Humphrey set off on their dog-walk, stopping on the way back to collect the promised items.

Karen made Adam sit in the wicker chair in front of the window. He was to pretend to be reading a book.

“You can have it on the back cover of your next book,” she joked.

As she drew it occurred to her that she had never asked him what made him choose this remote corner of England when he could live anywhere in the world that he chose.

“I’ve always loved Cornwall,” Adam began. “Ever since I came here for holidays as a child. I needed somewhere outside of London to get away and write without the distractions of people and city life. Then, my grandmother left me the house in her will and it seemed like fate was taking a hand in my life. I love being near water too, my house in London is by the canal. In fact it’s built like a Venetian house with one of the walls submerged in the water. Because I have to travel so much, especially now with the film in Los Angeles, it’s nice to get on the train when I’ve had enough of civilisation as we know it and just disappear down here. I like to walk and walk, and the coastal paths are brilliant.”

Satisfied with
that answer, Karen continued to probe, “So, where is this amazing London house, then? It sounds gorgeous. I’ve often thought of getting a house boat on the canal. It would be fun to move around. There are some amazing ones moored near Chelsea.”

“
Actually, it’s in North London, between Primrose Hill and Camden. On Regent’s Canal, near the park.”

“
Wow!” said Karen. “When I was a bit of a gothy teenager I used to go shopping at Camden Market on Sundays. I haven’t been there for years.”

“
While we’re interrogating one another, there’s something I have been waiting to ask you.”

Karen felt a moment
’s anxiety. What was he going to ask?

“
What the hell were you doing walking down the road in the middle of a storm on Tuesday night? Do you usually choose such inappropriate times to go hiking when you have a temperature of 101 degrees?”

Karen was embarrassed to tell him the truth. It all seemed so long ago and she had behaved rather foolishly. In fact, she could not believe what an idiot she had been.
“I, umm, well ... I went out with Nick Farmer. I mean, he took me to the Psychic Fair in Penzance...”

“
Yes,” prompted Adam. “That doesn’t explain how you came to be in the road.”

“
We had a falling out and I took the bus home. Only there wasn’t a bus. Not all the way anyway. So I had to get off at the top and walk. But it was dark and I didn’t have a torch or an umbrella and I didn’t feel very well.”

“
Why on earth didn’t you let him bring you home? That’s what I can’t understand. He must have known there were no busses to Trelawney Cove after six. What did he do to make you so angry? I did warn you that he had a reputation for being a bit of an opportunist but I have never heard anyone say he was an out and out bastard.”