Stand-in Bride Page 13

  He'll live, Nicole decided in relief. Now she just had to work on her own survival.

  "We'd better get back in," Andrew announced briskly, a faint undertone of concern in his voice. "The seas are beginning to kick up."

  Nicole began to pack away the remains of the lunch, relieved to have something to do to keep her occupied for a while. Too bad what started off as a carefree excursion had been spoiled, at least for her. As large as the boat was, it was too confining for the unfortunate combination of people. It was disturbing enough to her equilibrium to be near Louis, knowing how hopelessly she loved him, but to have to watch him with Angela was no longer bearable. Not after the intimacy of last night when she had given herself to him completely.

  Add to all this the presence of Adrian, who showed every sign of getting too involved with her as her protector, and you came up with overwhelming awkwardness. She was even beginning to doubt the feasibility of her decision to stay on at Mimosa House until . after Thanksgiving.

  Andrew ordered everyone back into the wheelhouse and explained the need for utmost caution in going out on deck if the seas became any more violent. The boat gave a sudden lurch and Elaine moaned, "I feel sick." Her sentiments were reflected in the slightly greenish color in the features of Jimmy and Adrian.

  "There're lots of bunks down below," Andrew informed them. "If you feel sick, find a place and relax. We won't be out here long."

  The sea motion didn't bother Nicole, but the suffocating closeness of Louis and Angela did. She went down the companionway steps from the wheelhouse to the galley as though she planned to follow Andrew's suggestion, but instead of entering the sleeping quarters, she ducked out the door leading from the galley to the side deck.

  Walking to the stern of the boat, she held firmly to the handrail to keep from losing her footing in the lurching motion. In an incredibly short time the winds had increased, churning the dull grayish water into a choppy, foaming sea. The skies were overcast, but fortunately there seemed no imminent threat of rain.

  The wind cut cruelly through her flannel shirt and cotton turtleneck, numbing her skin, but its bite was preferable to the confinement she had escaped. Actually, if it weren't a constant effort to keep her balance, she could enjoy this wild abandon of the elements. There was something tremendously exhilarating in the awesome expanse of surging seas, something that was uplifting and humbling at the same time.

  Her shivering introspection was interrupted by a movement. She stiffened resentfully at the sight of Angela half walking, half stumbling toward her and then recoiled as she met the other girl's eyes. The blue eyes were ablaze with a deep enmity that made Nicole think of a snake about to strike. She hates me! Nicole realized in a split second of awareness.

  A rigid outstretched hand reached for her just as the bow of the boat crashed jarringly into a wave. Whether the thrusting movement of the small white hand was deliberate, or an accidental by-product of the violent movement of the boat, or just imagined by Nicole as a tangible evidence of Angela's hatred, Nicole would never know for certain. But she felt her feet leaving the solid surface of the deck and her body hurling uncontrollably through space for a terrifying instant before impact with the churning sea.

  She tunneled down, down, down, endlessly, into murky nothingness, her ears exploding with the roar of the depth and her lungs screaming for oxygen. Finally the descent reversed itself and she bobbed to the surface, gasping for air, only to be slapped brutally in the face by a crashing wave. An unreasoning panic paralyzed her arms and legs as she realized she was going to die.

  Recognizing a gasping whimper as a sound coming from herself, she prayed desperately to overcome the panic that urged her to fight. Some ray of common sense told her she would only use up her strength quickly if she combated the power of the violent sea.

  Gradually she relaxed and concentrated on staying afloat, allowing the swelling waves to buoy her helpless body. Oh, God, surely somebody on the boat must have missed her by now! Andrew would come back and save her if she could just stay up a little longer.

  Time was impossible to gauge, but it seemed as if she had been tossing around for hours when she felt the vibration of an engine. She was terribly weak and couldn't see anything because of the sting of the waves and the lank strands of hair across her face. She made a swiping movement with one numb hand, aware suddenly of shouts somewhere low on the surface of the water. A terrible fatigue enveloped her, a feeling of lethargy just when rescue might be somewhere very near.

  She was only dimly aware of a strong grip on her arms and struggled weakly to escape. It was useless. Slowly, painfully, her body was pulled up out of the water and dragged heavily across something hard and unyielding. It felt like a wall, bruising her stomach and hips.

  As she tumbled into the bottom of the lifeboat, the light clicked off in her consciousness. She was oblivious to everything. To the racking aches in her exhausted body. To the sickening heave of the boat on the aroused seas. To the self-condemning oaths of the man who crushed her limp body against his as if to infuse it with his own throbbing life.

  Nicole shifted slightly and winced at the pain and soreness in every muscle and limb of her body. She might have been sucked between giant rollers, judging from the way she felt. Someone was holding her hand and saying something in a low, soothing voice, but she couldn't get her eyes open no matter how hard she tried. Her eyelids felt like cement.

  There was something terribly important she had to do today, if only she could remember. She moaned impatiently as the vague outline of memory eluded her again, and someone smoothed the hair back from her brow with wonderfully gentle fingers. She relaxed under the calming touch and stopped fighting the overwhelming need to sink back into darkness. Maybe later…

  It was some time before she roused up again to the brisk instruction from a crackling antiseptic presence at her bedside. This time she managed to lift the heavy eyelids a fraction and focused hazily on the ample white figure booming good-naturedly, "And what are you doing just lying here on this nice Saturday morning?" She strapped something bulky around Nicole's upper arm, and there followed a wheezing sound that tightened the band until she could hear the loud regular thump of her pulsebeat.

  Memory clicked. Today was the tournament. But she wouldn't be able to play. Not the way she felt now, all heavy and drowsy, with that awful soreness all over. She had to get word to Adrian somehow, though. He'd be counting on her. The sounds she made seemed unintelligible even to her own ears, causing a terrible frustration.

  "What, dear? What is it you want?" came the efficient voice underscored with kindness.

  "Adrian—I want Adrian," Nicole croaked, each syllable an immense effort.

  There was movement somewhere out of the range of her indistinct vision. Was someone else there? she wondered fleetingly as the nurse raised her eyebrows, which were tufted and bristly like a man's, and turned her head in a questioning look. Nicole tried to lift herself up so she could see who was there, but the dull ache in her head throbbed louder. She decided to put everything off for a while…

  When she awoke, her mind was clear and she was hungry. The clatter of metal against metal and the soft whir of wheels out in the corridor combined with the tantalizing odor of food must have awakened her. She looked around curiously, realizing she was in a hospital bed.

  She hadn't drowned after all. Somehow she had been saved, but she didn't remember a thing except that stranglehold grip on her arms. The whole scene on the rear deck immediately preceding her plunge over the rail flashed before her in crystalline clarity, but she still didn't know exactly what had happened. Had Angela pushed her deliberately? Etched into her memory were the outstretched white hand and the flaming ice of hatred in those pale blue eyes.

  She shuddered as the young orderly skillfully manipulated the controls at the end of her bed to raise her into a half-sitting position. "Come on, now, this supper ain't that bad!" he quipped, setting the tray on the high table he swung across her bed. She wo
uldn't have to move an inch to eat her meal.

  "It looks delicious," she said weakly as he lifted stainless-steel covers to reveal broiled chicken, rice dressing, green peas, and mashed potatoes. There were also tomato juice, iced tea, a small hot roll, and Jell-O topped by a dollop of whipped cream.

  "Feel like a little company now?" queried the stout aide who bustled in just as she was pushing the table to one side after eating a little of everything. There was something mannish about the middle-aged woman, perhaps the bristly eyebrows mixed with gray. A little whisper of memory teased the edges of Nicole's mind; the woman had been in the room before.

  "I'd love some company." Nicole's hands went quickly to her hair. She probably looked a wreck. The aide noted the movement and made clucking sounds as she opened a drawer and took out a hairbrush.

  "Here, let me brush your pretty hair. You look fine for somebody who tried to go for a swim during a norther."

  "My hair was in braids when I fell overboard," Nicole remembered aloud.

  "It was a tangled mess sure enough when they brought you in, but you were too out of it to care. That good-looking husband of yours combed it out himself, just as gentle as you please."

  Nicole digested that news with wonder. Louis had been here with her in the hospital room. Maybe those were his gentle hands she remembered smoothing back her hair. The very thought quickened her pulse and brought a tinge of pretty color to her pale face.

  "There, now. I'll just tell your visitors they can come in for a little while."

  Moments later Elaine and Adrian were hovering in the doorway, looking worried and slightly apologetic the way healthy people usually look when they visit the hospital.

  "Come in," Nicole urged, her eyes straying beyond them for the sight of a broad set of shoulders that didn't appear. Adrian and Elaine tiptoed forward to stand on either side of her bed. She held out a hand to each of them, fighting a big lump of disappointment in her throat.

  "Gosh, you look like you're gonna cry," Elaine wailed, her young features downcast with concern.

  "I'm just happy to see both of you characters," Nicole said brightly through a mist of tears. "Now pull up those chairs and sit down. I want to know everything, including how I was rescued and who won the tournament. Adrian, I'm so sorry I let you down!" She appealed to him with the dark eyes that looked entirely too large in the pale face.

  "Don't be ridiculous! As if you could help what happened," he scoffed huskily, tightening his grip on her hand.

  Elaine, displaying the resiliency of the very young now that she could see with her own eyes Nicole was all right, launched into a narrative of the rescue operation. "Louis saw you go over and he threw his windbreaker over real quick to mark the place you fell—wasn't that quick thinking? Then he ran to the wheelhouse and told Andrew to turn around and then he got the lifeboat ready to put overboard."

  There followed a slight pause, during which Nicole mocked lovingly, "And then?"

  "Well, we almost had a fight over who was going in the lifeboat, but Louis won. He had a real hard time 'cause the water was so rough it just kind of tossed the boat around, but he finally got to you and pulled you into the boat. We were all so relieved, Nicole—I was so scared you were going to drown!" Her youthful poise crumbled and she buried her face in the covers.

  "Hey, enough of that," Adrian scolded gently. "We're supposed to cheer Nicole up, not make her feel worse." He and Nicole tactfully ignored the tearstained face and sniffles that quieted as Nicole demanded the details of the mixed doubles tournament.

  "Did you get another partner at the last minute?" she asked hopefully.

  "Who could possibly take the place of my original partner?" he teased, rewarded by her smile and Elaine's giggle.

  "Anybody!" Nicole retorted.

  "You're sounding almost normal," he said approvingly.

  "Louis and Angela won?" She finally worked up the nerve to ask.

  "Nope. They defaulted." Elaine took over again.

  "Louis stayed here with you all last night and today— you should have seen him when he got home this afternoon. He looked awful. Seems kind of weird to me to take off on a business trip on Saturday evening, but he did. Atlanta. I asked him when he'd be back and he just said who knows."

  It took all Nicole's powers of self-control not to show her terrible disappointment. How she longed to have Louis sit beside her bed and hold her hand while he told her how he had rescued her! She wanted to share the awful loneliness and terror of those minutes before he had hauled her out of the sea. How could he leave her at a time like this when she needed him so terribly?

  Adrian stood up and leaned forward to kiss her gently on the forehead. "We have to go now and let you get some rest. According to the head nurse, the doctor plans to release you in the morning, with strict orders to take it easy a few days. I'll come for you unless you prefer to ride in the ambulance."

  "Oh, no, I'd rather not!" she said firmly. "Please come get me. I want to get back to normal as soon as possible."

  They left, to be replaced almost immediately by a drawn and anxious-looking Andrew. She put aside her own heavy thoughts to reassure him she was fine and very grateful to him for his skill in maneuvering the boat in heavy seas.

  "It's Louis you have to thank. He was great," Andrew said fervently. His dark eyes were haunted at the specter of another tragic loss at sea.

  Finally, the intercom bristled with static and a bored voice instructed all visitors to leave the patients' rooms. What a relief, Nicole thought, to stop pretending and release the tears scalding the backs of her eyelids! God knew she was grateful to be alive, but things sure didn't look any brighter than they had before. Why had Louis saved her life and stayed by her side all night, only to leave her again? Why? The sleep of sheer weariness finally came, leaving the question to be pondered many times in the next few days.

  Chapter Ten

  She had been home for a week now and felt as good as ever. Physically, that is. On the surface, life proceeded as smoothly as it had those first four months at Mimosa House. Louis might never have come home and destroyed her fragile peace of mind.

  He hadn't returned since her accident. Nor had Angela, whose whereabouts no one seemed to know, since her mother was as vague as she had been immediately after the wedding.

  Nicole consulted with the Holdens in the running of the household and the upkeep of the estate grounds, almost comfortable now in her role as mistress of Mimosa House. Much of her confidence grew out of Louis's insistence upon the authority of her position during those weeks he had been home.

  She spent a great deal of time with Elaine, who turned to her for companionship and advice as the younger girl coped with the pain of that difficult transition from childhood to young adulthood.

  Adrian was still a familiar figure, working out almost daily with Elaine on the tennis court and coaching her for the upcoming Dryades tournament. Mrs. Holden always laid an extra plate at the table in case he could be pressed into staying to share a meal.

  One difference, though, was Nicole's decreased dependence upon him for her own tennis practice. She had mastered the intricacies of the ball machine and always managed to practice when he was busy with his duties on the plantation. He made no comment and soon stopped offering to help. Even though he was still warm and casually affectionate toward both her and Elaine, Nicole knew their relationship had undergone a subtle change that prevented any possibility of return to the old, unselfconscious camaraderie.

  She didn't know how deep his emotional attachment to her went, but she could only hope to convince him she was happy and didn't require his championing her cause any longer. She hoped he would find a girl who deserved him and appreciated his fine qualities.

  If only Louis would return, so that she could confront him and answer all the questions plaguing her! Until then she would be caught up in a strange state of suspension, not unhappy or pining away like some storybook heroine, but just waiting.

  He returned wi
thout any forewarning one blustery evening early in November. It was a short time before dinner, making it impossible for Nicole to talk to him alone. Elaine was jubilant at his presence, spilling over with news of all she and Nicole and Adrian had been doing. With little competition from Nicole or Adrian, who looked uncomfortable at being there, she dominated the dinner conversation.

  Adrian tried to escape right after the meal, but Louis insisted he stay for a brandy and coffee. Standing with his back to the open fire in the family room, he looked formidable and unapproachable as he exchanged a few general comments with Adrian about the cane crop.

  His air of formality and aloofness sucked away every ounce of confidence she had been fostering so carefully during the days since her accident. She had spent hours examining every past conversation, searching for signs of possible affection. Now he questioned her politely about household matters without the slightest indication of emotion.

  He was that same tall, imposing figure who had towered before her that fateful day in the Peltiers' library, commanding her to take Angela's place in the wedding. There was no suggestion of warmth in those impenetrable blue eyes as they surveyed her where she cowered in a deep armchair.

  As soon as she could escape without seeming rude, she excused herself on the pretext of having some letters to write. It took supreme discipline not to hurry as she left the room with the blue eyes boring into her back.

  For hours she prowled like a prisoner in her room, unable to concentrate for any length of time on writing letters or reading. She soaked a long while in a hot tub and washed her hair, taking her time afterward to comb it dry. After slight deliberation, she had donned the white satin nightgown she'd worn that night Louis had surprised her in the kitchen.