Force of Feeling

She looked at the dress she had hung up, ready to wear. It was the dress she had bought for Guy, the dress she had worn on their last night together… A quiver of emotion darted through her, and she fought to keep it at bay. She had known there would be pain, but she had never imagined it could be like this. When Craig had left her she had been hurt, but much of it, she now recognised, had been shock and the spiteful destruction of her self-confidence…Craig’s retaliation for not getting his way. But this pain was different in quality. So intense, so overwhelming, that nothing else mattered…nothing.

It amazed Campion that she could feel so unhappy, and yet at the same time look so—so blooming. Her skin glowed, her hair shone, and she couldn’t help but be aware of the interested and approving looks that men now gave her.

She had Guy to thank for that, for the almost visible patina of womanliness that now clung so alluringly to her. She hadn’t gone back to wearing her hair up; instead, she had had it trimmed to accentuate its thick curl, and she had even started experimenting cautiously with make-up. She used some now, wondering what it was that Antony Polroon, the bookshop owner, wanted to discuss with her.

He was a thin, dark man in his mid-thirties, wiry and slightly intense, and very Cornish.

Normally, he was the kind of man she would have avoided on sight, but her new-found confidence had helped her to see him as a fellow human being, and not another man who was bound to condemn her as unworthy of his attention.

They were dining at the hotel. Campion arrived downstairs several minutes late and found him waiting there for her.

His admiring glance told her that he approved of her dress, and she tried desperately not to remember another man’s attention focusing on it, another man removing it from her body and caressing her until…

She realised that Antony was watching her curiously.

‘I’m sorry… This tour has been something of a strain, and I’m beginning to feel it. What was it you just said?’

‘Nothing important. Only that you’re a very beautiful woman,’ he told her wryly.

A very beautiful woman. Two men had told her that now. Funny how meaningless the words were. She didn’t want compliments, adulation, attention; she wanted Guy. She wanted his presence at her side, his smile, his warmth in bed, she wanted his love.

‘Shall we go into dinner?’ Antony suggested.

He was an entertaining companion and, in other circumstances, Campion would probably have enjoyed the evening. As it was…

As it was the ache of missing Guy had become a physical pain inside her, a pain so intense, in fact, that half-way through the main course she had to excuse herself and rush to the ladies’ cloakroom.

When she came back, looking slightly green and very apologetic, Antony got to his feet.

‘I’m sorry. Will you excuse me? I must have picked up a bug of some kind. I’m afraid we’re going to have to call it a day.’

‘I’ll see you to your room.’

Campion demurred, but Antony insisted and, if she was honest, she was feeling slightly dizzy, as well as very queasy.

Too many hours spent travelling, too many new faces, or simply too much heartache over Guy.

Riding in the lift increased her feeling of nausea, and she was glad to lean on Antony when it rocked to a standstill and he helped her out.

She had never fainted in her life, but now she was desperately afraid that she was about to do so.

Her room wasn’t very far from the lift, and she nodded weakly when Antony asked if she had her key.

‘It’s here in my bag,’ she told him, passing the small evening purse over to him. While he opened it and removed the key, she leaned weakly against the wall.

She felt terrible, even worse than she had done one year when she had had ‘flu.

She heard the sound of the lift doors closing; it seemed to fill her head like a dull roar.

Antony opened the door of her room and held it open with his foot while he supported the sagging weight of her body in his arms.

‘Would you like me to find a doctor?’

Even to take those few steps that would get her inside her room was an appalling effort. She shook her head, unable to speak. Several yards away from them, down the corridor, the lift door opened.

‘I’ll be all right in a few minutes…’ All she wanted was to be left alone. She felt terrible, but if she said as much she suspected that Antony would insist on informing the hotel, and then they would fuss, when all that was really wrong with her was that she was missing Guy. Missing him? She almost laughed aloud. Without him, her life was an empty desert, a wasteland, a landscape scoured and ravished and left for dead.

‘Come on. You should be in bed.’