City Cinderella Page 5

  ‘Right,’ she said, breathing almost as hard as Lucas as she stacked the pillows behind him again. ‘I need some tea. But I’ll bring it in here until you settle, if you like.’

  He nodded wordlessly, his eyes expressing his thanks, and Emily relented, giving him a wry little smile. ‘Would you like anything?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Just make your tea. God knows you deserve it—along with anything I possess that takes your fancy.’

  ‘Just tea, thanks just the same.’

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Yes?’

  His heavy eyes held hers. ‘This Miles of yours must be a raving lunatic.’

  ‘Not really.’ She smiled, deliberately activating the dimple. ‘Just your average, standard-issue male.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY THE time Emily got back to the bedroom Lucas had fallen into a restless doze. She tiptoed out again, filled with misgiving about the night ahead. Lucas Tennent’s muscular frame carried very little spare flesh, and she was no weakling. But he was a foot taller and a lot heavier than she was. If he got out of bed in the night and collapsed, it wouldn’t be easy to get him back in again. She shrugged philosophically. No point in worrying. Now she was stuck with her Florence Nightingale role she’d just have to manage, whatever happened. And in the meantime there was ironing to do. Normally the bedlinen went to the laundry, but at the present rate of turnover she needed to deal with it herself, and fast.

  After a brief spell at the ironing board, Emily checked that Lucas was still asleep. She stood looking at him, decided he was safe to leave for a bit, and abandoned the ironing to run out for the rest of the antibiotics. While the prescription was filled she shopped for a few more basic supplies, then raced back to the flat to find Lucas leaning against the chest in the hall, his sunken eyes hostile.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he barked at her.

  She stiffened at his tone. ‘Shopping.’

  To her surprise he gave her a contemptuous glare, staggered back to his room and slammed the door.

  Seething, Emily shed her jacket, took the bag of shopping into the kitchen, then marched into the bedroom to confront the invalid, who lay rigid in a bed like a rat’s nest. ‘I brought you the Financial Times,’ she said, putting it down beside him.

  ‘I didn’t ask for it,’ he snarled, and turned his head away.

  Emily’s fast-diminishing sympathy vanished completely. He didn’t pay her nearly enough money for this.

  ‘If you’ll sit in the chair for a moment, I’ll sort the bed out.’

  ‘It’s fine as it is,’ he growled.

  ‘You’ll be more comfortable,’ she insisted.

  Swearing under his breath, Lucas heaved himself up, then groaned and sat with head in hands for a moment.

  ‘Let me help you,’ said Emily, putting a hand under his elbow, but he shook her off irritably.

  ‘I can manage.’ He lurched to his feet and swayed so precariously Emily put out a hand, but he gave her a ferocious glare, collapsed in the chair, and sat with bare, muscular legs outstretched, the breath ripping through his chest with a sound like tearing cloth.

  Emily swiftly restacked the pillows, straightened the sheet, folded it down over the quilt and turned back a corner. ‘In you get.’

  ‘Why the hell did you put a sheet on?’ he said irascibly. ‘I get tied up in the bloody thing.’

  ‘Because you’re sweating so much,’ she said, with what remnant of patience she could muster. ‘I can change sheets and covers but I can’t do much about the quilt itself, so the bed will stay fresher this way. Now you’re up,’ Emily added, ‘how about a visit to the bathroom?’

  Lucas lurched to his feet, eyeing her malevolently. ‘I’m beginning to sympathise with the ex-lover. If you ordered him around like an army sergeant, no wonder he cheated on you.’ He went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

  Fighting the urge to hurl something at it, Emily put her shopping away instead and made coffee. She laid a tray, and was about to take it into the bedroom, then thought better of it. Lucas might say he didn’t want any coffee. In which case he might well get it thrown at him, invalid or not.

  She knocked very pointedly on the bedroom door and went in to find Lucas sitting up against the pillows, scowling.

  ‘You were out shopping for a hell of a long time,’ he accused. ‘What was so vital that you couldn’t exist without it for even a day?’

  ‘The rest of your antibiotics,’ said Emily, and slapped them down on his bedside table. ‘You were still asleep after I’d done some of your ironing, Mr Tennent, so it seemed a good time to make for the pharmacy before it closed. And, just for the record, I was out for less than half an hour. But I plead guilty to a bit of shopping while the prescription was made up. Frivolous stuff like bread, milk, and so on.’

  Lucas’s blank dismay was almost comical. ‘Emily—’ He got no further before a cough seized him, and it was some time before he could speak again. ‘Hell, I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I was afraid you’d taken off—and wouldn’t blame you if you had.’

  ‘I said I’d stay, so I will,’ she said coldly. ‘But only until tomorrow, Mr Tennent. Now, I’ve made coffee, so would you like some?’

  He nodded, eyeing her with a look she couldn’t quite identify. ‘Emily, my crack about the ex-lover was way out of order. I apologise.’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said brusquely. When she returned with a beaker of coffee, Lucas eyed it moodily as she put it down beside him.

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Tennent. In the kitchen, with a sandwich. Would you like something?’

  ‘Yes, you can stop calling me Mr Tennent!’

  ‘I meant,’ she said, unrelenting, ‘something to eat.’

  ‘No, thanks. Unless,’ he added, with the sudden, irresistible smile, ‘you’ve got a slice of humble pie handy?’

  But Emily, still smarting over the crack about the army sergeant, was immune to smiles by this time. ‘I’ll be back later,’ she said curtly, and left him alone.

  In the kitchen, she ate a cheese sandwich, drank some coffee, finished the ironing, then, in need of a break, went into the living-room to read her book. The combination of cheese, coffee and temper had given her indigestion, which made it hard to concentrate at first. But after a while she calmed down enough to follow the intricacies of the thriller’s plot. It was half an hour before she went back to check on Lucas, who looked so ill by this time Emily forgot her anger as she laid a hand on his forehead.

  ‘You’re burning up,’ she commented, worried. ‘I’d better sponge you down.’

  ‘You will not!’ he growled.

  ‘I’m just following the doctor’s instructions.’

  ‘I’ll sponge myself down. Later.’

  ‘Now,’ she said inexorably.

  Lucas glared at her. ‘I’ll do it next time I get out of bed.’

  ‘Why won’t you let me do it?’ she said impatiently.

  ‘For obvious reasons,’ he said through his teeth.

  ‘You mean because I’m your cleaner?’

  ‘No!’ he howled, then regretted it when it brought on another bout of coughing. ‘Hell,’ he gasped afterwards, lying back with an arm over his eyes. ‘How long do these antibiotics take to work, for God’s sake?’

  ‘They’ll function a lot faster if you co-operate.’

  ‘Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Stay where you are unless absolutely necessary, for one thing,’ she retorted. ‘How long were you hanging about in the hall before I got back from the shops?’

  ‘Not long,’ he muttered behind his arm.

  ‘Too long, obviously. From now on, Lucas, will you just stay in bed? Please?’

  He took his hand away to look at her. ‘Yes, Emily. For you, anything. And I’m not just being bloody-minded. At least, not this time. My objection to the sponging is a man/woman thing. We standard-issue males have our pride.’

  She smiled unwi
llingly. ‘Can’t you just think of me as a nurse?’

  Lucas gave her a long, explicit look. ‘Emily, angel of mercy you may be, but you’re also a woman. And I’m very much aware of it. And now,’ he added, resigned, ‘I’m going to incur your wrath and get out of bed. I need to go the bathroom again.’ His mouth twisted. ‘This is all so blasted intimate. And in entirely the wrong way.’

  ‘I feel as shaky as a newborn colt,’ he said later, when he got back into the neatened bed. ‘What were you doing before you came to check on me?’

  ‘Reading.’

  ‘You were a long time.’

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘Bring your book in here.’

  ‘If I do that you won’t sleep.’

  ‘I won’t sleep anyway. I need company. Your company.’ A great shiver ran through him. ‘God, I ache all over. I had no idea flu was as hellish as this.’

  ‘As many as a thousand a day died of it about the time Victoria came to the throne,’ Emily informed him. ‘But you won’t, as long as you’re sensible. How about some soup?’

  ‘Could we leave that until later? Just stay here with me for a while.’

  She hesitated, then gave in. ‘All right. But only if you try to sleep. I’ll fetch my book.’

  On her way back, Emily caught sight of herself in the hall mirror and eyed her reflection with distaste. Looking after an invalid was wearing. Or maybe it was just this particular invalid. Obviously never ill normally, Lucas Tennent was convinced he was at death’s door. With a wry shrug Emily pushed her unruly curls behind her ears and went back to him.

  ‘Emily,’ said Lucas glumly. ‘Now I’ve given it thought maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to spend time in here with me.’

  ‘Infection?’ she queried, sitting down in the chair. ‘Too late to worry about that. Besides, these days I take multivitamins religiously, as instructed by my mother. And she’s right. They seem to work.’ She gave him the smile which brought her dimple into play. ‘If I get you some tomorrow will you take them, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucas huskily, his eyes on her mouth. ‘Smile at me like that and I’ll do anything you want.’

  Emily turned her startled face away and tried to read. The book was gripping, and curled up on Lucas’s sofa in his living room she’d been enthralled by it. But here in his bedroom it was different. Conscious in every fibre of the man in the bed, she kept her eyes glued to the book and forced herself to sit motionless for what seemed like hours.

  Her tactics paid off. Lucas was dozing when it seemed safe at last to look, and Emily settled down to read in earnest. When she looked up again his eyes were fixed on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ she said at once.

  He smiled drowsily. ‘I was just thinking how reassuring it is to wake and find you here. But you look tired. Are you sure you’re not catching this blasted bug, Emily?’

  ‘Perfectly sure. So let’s not go over that again,’ she said briskly. ‘Now, how about that soup?’ She leaned over him to tidy the covers, but he dodged away.

  ‘Don’t,’ he ordered.

  ‘I just—’

  ‘Just don’t. In fact,’ he added harshly, ‘I’ve changed my mind. You’d better go home. I can dish out my own pills.’

  She eyed him in exasperation. ‘What’s the problem now, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘You are.’

  Emily moved back, offended. ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t see at all!’

  She looked down her nose. ‘Whatever it is, Mr Tennent, I’m not going home. At least, not today. I’ll remove myself from your presence, but I’ll stay in the flat because the doctor thought it best and I promised your sister. But only until tomorrow. After that you’re on your own.’ She turned on her heel.

  ‘Emily!’

  She halted at the door, but refused to look round. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I know you think I’m an ungrateful bastard, but you’d be safer if you went home.’

  Emily sighed as she turned to look at him. ‘As I keep telling you, Lucas, I’m unlikely to get the virus again. Now try to rest. I’ll be in to see you later.’

  He turned his face into the pillow, muttering something unintelligible.

  If it hadn’t been for her assurances to Alice Tennent and the doctor, Emily would have taken Lucas at his word and gone back to Spitalfields. She was tired, and his mood swings were increasingly hard to take. She went back to the sofa in the living room, consoling herself that it was for one night only. After that the ungrateful wretch could doctor himself.

  When Lucas had been left to his own devices for a while, Emily knocked formally on the bedroom door and put her head round it.

  ‘You’re still here, then?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Brilliant deduction. How do you feel?’

  ‘I don’t ache so much,’ he said with faint surprise, and smiled a little. ‘Maybe I’ll live after all.’

  ‘Could you manage some soup now?’

  Lucas thought it over, then nodded. ‘What kind?’

  Encouraged by his first glimmer of interest in food, Emily smiled at him in approval. ‘Wild mushroom. I bought two cartons of the fresh kind when I was out.’

  ‘Are you having some?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No point in asking you to come in here while we eat, I suppose?’

  ‘None at all.’

  When Emily returned with a mug of soup and some fingers of dry toast Lucas was sitting up against newly stacked pillows, a smug look on his face.

  ‘I saved you the trouble of tidying the bed,’ he informed her.

  ‘How kind,’ said Emily distantly. She whisked a towel across his chest. ‘What would you like to drink afterwards?’

  ‘Whatever you’re having,’ he said virtuously.

  She went back to the kitchen to heat her own soup, wondering how long the perfect patient act would last. Lucas was obviously feeling better after a rest, but from her own experience she doubted that would last as the evening wore on.

  Beginning to feel the lack of a proper meal, Emily buttered some thick slices of bread to go with her soup. Afterwards she made a pot of tea, then took some in to Lucas to find he’d eaten everything.

  ‘Good,’ she said in approval. She filled a glass of water and gave him an antibiotic. ‘This would be a good time to take some paracetamol, too.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ said Lucas, obeying so meekly that Emily looked at him narrowly as she took the empty glass afterwards.

  ‘I’m doing my damnedest to please you,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’d noticed.’

  Back in the kitchen, Emily frowned as she perched on one of the stools to drink her tea. This time last week she’d never met Lucas Tennent, yet here she was, looking after a stranger in circumstances so intimate they were normally the prerogative of a partner of some kind. Suddenly restless, she went up the open staircase leading from the breakfast bar to the gallery above. She gazed at the lights of the City for a while, looked up to count stars through the arched glass roof, then went back to the bedroom to find Lucas recovering from a coughing spasm.

  ‘You may find this hard to imagine, Miss Warner,’ he said, panting, ‘but normally I get up early every morning, row on my machine for a while, then walk to the City. There, amongst other things, my working day includes in-depth research, followed by complex reports on shares to recommend to investors.’ He glared at her in self-disgust. ‘But right now my legs feel like spaghetti, and I can’t even concentrate on the daily paper.’

  ‘I know how you feel. I’ve been there. But don’t worry. You’ll soon be back to normal.’ Emily looked at her watch. ‘Try to rest. I’ll be back later.’

  Much later, she decided. When it was time for the next antibiotic and a hot drink. And after that he was on his own until two. She yawned and set the alarm on her watch, just in case she dozed off during the evening, then settled down on the sofa to enjoy her thrille
r in peace. She finished the book just before the alarm went off, got up, stretched, put her shoes on and went to beard the lion in his den. And found that now, when she wanted him awake, Lucas was fast asleep, his hair plastered in lank black strands on his forehead, the white T-shirt transparent with sweat.

  ‘Lucas,’ said Emily softly, touching his outflung hand.

  He muttered, pulling his hand away, then opened his eyes. And smiled at her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said quietly. ‘Sorry to wake you, but it’s time for your medication.’

  Lucas blinked, then heaved himself up, his nose wrinkling in distaste. ‘Hell, I’m drenched again.’

  Emily went to his chest and took out a clean T-shirt and boxers. ‘You’d better sponge yourself down.’

  He heaved himself out to sit on the side of the bed. ‘At least the soup stayed with me,’ he said brightening.

  ‘Progress,’ she agreed. ‘Hurry up. I’ll strip this lot off while you wash.’

  Lucas got to his feet, took the change of clothes from her with a word of thanks, and made for the bathroom.

  Emily stripped the bed at speed, dismayed to find that the quilt itself was damp. She put the bedlinen in the washing machine and, after a moment’s thought, took the down-filled quilt to spread on the under-heated floor in the guest room to air. She borrowed the quilt from the guest bed, added the bottom sheet to conserve linen supplies, and returned to Lucas’s bedroom with her spoils to hear the shower hissing in his bathroom.

  Nothing to do with me, she thought, shrugging, and set to work. The bed was ready and waiting and the room tidy by the time Lucas emerged.

  ‘I smelt like a polecat. I couldn’t stand it,’ he said flatly, rubbing at his hair.

  ‘I can understand that,’ she agreed, surprising him.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you’d be yelling blue murder when you heard the water.’

  ‘What’s the point? I could hardly march in there and yank you out of the shower.’ She gave him a militant look. ‘But please tell me you own a hairdryer.’

  ‘There’s one in the chest in the guest room. For visitors’ use,’ he added blandly.