‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked when she could bear it no longer.
He looked up from his phone after sending another text, one of many he had sent in the last few minutes. ‘What?’ The one word was sharp and his frown deep, as if he had already forgotten who she was and why she was there.
Poppy felt her heart contract again. ‘I said, is there anything I can do for you while you’re away?’
‘No.’ He pocketed his phone, his expression closing off even further. ‘There’s nothing. I have to do this alone.’ He took a short breath and then released it. ‘It’s over, Poppy.’
‘Over?’ She looked at him numbly. ‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’
His look was even more distant. ‘Look, I have to go. My brother needs me. I’ll get Margaret to send you something to make up for this abrupt end to our affair.’
She drew herself up straighter. ‘Please don’t bother.’
He reached for his jacket. ‘I’ll be in touch about the dower house. Hopefully we can come to some agreement.’
‘I’m not going to change my mind.’
He gave her another grimly determined look. ‘Nor am I.’
As he closed the door on his exit, Poppy wondered if he was talking about her, the dower house, or both.
* * *
It was terrible seeing his younger brother in intensive care hooked up to monitoring machines and IV drips. Rafe’s stomach was clenched so tightly he could barely breathe. Remy was standing by Raoul’s bedside with a look of such bewilderment on his face it reminded Rafe of the day they had been told their parents had been killed. The weight of responsibility back then was like a leaden yoke on his ten-year-old shoulders. He had realised at that moment he had to take control—that at seven and almost nine his brothers were far too young to understand what had happened and how it would impact on them. He’d had to take charge, to step up to the plate and make them feel someone was looking out for them.
He felt the same now.
‘He’s not going to die.’ Rafe said it without really believing it. It was his role to give assurance, to keep control. To support his brothers and keep the family together no matter what tragedy was thrown at them.
Remy swallowed convulsively. ‘What if he can’t walk again?’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Rafe said. He had already thought about it—how it would impact on Raoul, who was the most physically active of them all. His brother would rather be dead than spend his life trapped in a wheelchair; Rafe was sure of it. His job now as his older brother would be to keep him focused on getting as well as he could, to give him hope that he would one day be able to walk again. Medical breakthroughs were happening all the time, admittedly not as quickly as everyone hoped, but it would be crazy to give up hope. He had to keep Raoul positive about a possible recovery.
He looked at his brother lying so pale and broken. He looked at those long, strong legs lying useless in the hospital bed. How would Raoul cope with never feeling the floor beneath his feet, the sand between his toes...the sensuous feel of a lover’s legs entwined with his?
It was painfully, torturously ironic that only days ago Raoul had expressed to Rafe over that beer they had shared his desire to settle down. How likely was that going to be now? What if he had no function at all? The doctors had been very cautious in what they had said so far. Perhaps they didn’t know until more scans and tests were done. Spinal injuries could be mild or serious and just about everything in between.
‘We’ll have to tell Nonno,’ Remy said, pulling Rafe out of his painful reverie.
‘Yes.’ Rafe stood up and took out his phone. ‘He won’t be much help, though. He’ll just blame Raoul for being such an adrenalin-junkie. You were probably too young to remember what he said when Mama and Papa were killed. But I have never forgotten and I’ve never forgiven him.’
‘I remember...’ Remy’s expression was shadowed, haunted. He swallowed again, thickly, as if something hard and misshapen was stuck in his throat. ‘Did you know Raoul was thinking about getting engaged to Clarissa Moncrief? I think he was going to propose to her while they were on this trip to the lake.’
Rafe felt his stomach clench again. He had caught a glimpse of Clarissa in the waiting room earlier. She had darted out to the ladies’ room rather than speak to him. That didn’t bode well in his opinion. Would she stick around for Raoul if things didn’t go according to plan?