No More Lonely Nights

'You won't. I can walk.' She put her feet down on the floor and stood up. She still felt a little shaky, but the room wasn't going round and round. Cass hovered, much too close, and she eyed him sideways. 'I'm fine now.'

The doctor stepped nearer and offered his arm. 'Then we'll go down to my car, shall we?'

Cass followed and over her shoulder as they negotiated the stairs Sian said remotely, 'There's no need for you to come to the hospital.'

They moved slowly through a high-vaulted hallway: oak-panelled and fragrant with lavender furniture-polish and summer flowers in great earthenware bowls. Sian was concentrating on walking without that betraying little tremble, but she noted Mrs Cassidy in the background, looking pale and worried. Somewhere there was someone crying; Sian heard that too, although she wondered if she was imagining it. Cass went to speak to his aunt while the doctor helped Sian down the stone steps from the front door. He put her into a comfortable red estate car and she leaned back, closing her eyes briefly, because her head hurt and she still felt weak. The doctor paused before getting behind the wheel; she heard him talking to Cass and felt Cass watching her, but didn't look that way.

Sitting up, she stared ahead of her while the doctor came round the back of the car and got into the seat next to her. The engine came to life and the car drove off with a grate of tyres on gravel. Cass was standing outside the house on the steps, staring after them. She saw him in the wing mirror; his blue striped shirt emphasizing the pallor of his skin and his dark hair blowing around in the wind until he raked it down with one hand in an impatient gesture.

Sian looked away, dry-mouthed and miserable. He wasn't the man she had thought he was. Disillusionment ached inside her as the doctor headed for the black ironwork gates.

'You're a reporter, I gather,' he said, and she started, looking round at him.

'Yes.'

He gave her a brief, wry smile. 'And Magda tells me you're the one who first broke the story about Cass being left at the altar?'

'That's right.' Her voice was defiant; she wasn't apologising for that. She would never feel guilty about Cass again; he had deserved everything that happened to him.

The doctor fell silent, and after a few moments it was Sian who re-started the conversation.

'You're a family friend, not their doctor?'

'I'm both, I hope.' He smiled again, with more warmth.

'I suppose you're Mrs Cassidy's doctor, then?'

He nodded. 'I'm one of the local GPs—we have four at the health care centre a couple of miles away. I'm Piers Brand, by the way—please call me Piers.'

'I'm Sian,' she said, and he smiled.

'I know.'

'How far is it to the hospital?' she asked, and he soothingly told her it was just another five minutes' drive. Sian fell silent and neither spoke until he was pulling in to the casualty department parking bay, when he asked if she felt up to walking into the hospital or should he get a porter with a wheelchair. Sian said she was quite capable of walking, and he smiled that wry little smile again.

'There's no need to feel you're being asked to prove anything! Nobody will think the less of you if you feel too shaky to walk.'

'But I don't,' she said, and got out of the car without his help, made it into the casualty waiting-room unaided, where she sat while he went off to talk to the nurse on duty at the desk.

Sian was taken off to X-ray, and then saw another doctor who questioned her along much the same lines as the other had; she had lights shone in her eyes, was tested for some fifteen minutes, and then she was told she needn't stay overnight. There seemed to be nothing wrong apart from superficial cuts and bruises; the X-ray had shown no trace of damage.

She wasn't sure if Dr Brand had gone or whether he was waiting for her, but if he wasn't she could always get a taxi. Where to, though? Should she go back to Mrs Cassidy's house? She was reluctant to see Cass again; she was still too angry and shocked by his hit-and-run driving. Yet if she didn't go back there it might cause just as much trouble, because undoubtedly they would come looking for her if she left the hospital and went back to London.

She walked into the casualty waiting-room, but Dr Brand wasn't there. Sian's heart constricted, seeing Cass get to his feet, a newspaper clenched in one hand.

'They let you go?'

'Were you hoping they'd lock me up for days and give you a chance to get your clever London lawyers on the case?' The biting tone of her voice made him frown.

'Piers has gone. I'll drive you back,' was all he said, and that made her angrier.

'I suppose you think that if you get me alone you can talk me into withdrawing the allegation!' she threw at him, and he took hold of her arm and hustled her towards the main door of the hospital so fast that she almost skidded on the highly polished floor. 'Are you trying to kill me?' she muttered, and some nurses going off to supper turned to stare at them.

Red-faced, Cass snarled, 'Just shut up until we're in the car!'

'Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?' she seethed, trying to wrench her arm free. 'What do you mean, anyway? Telling me to shut up! I won't. I'll shout the truth from the roof if you keep bullying me like this.'

He dragged her over to where his car was parked. 'Bullying you? Who's bullying you? I just don't want to have this discussion in front of a horde of strangers!'