Force of Feeling
As Antony helped her inside, she was dimly conscious of a man walking down the corridor.
‘That’s odd,’ Antony commented as he closed the door behind them. ‘He must have got the wrong floor or something. He got as far as your door and then he turned back. Looked furious about something as well.’
Campion’s head was pounding, her mouth felt dry and sour, and the last thing she was interested in was her fellow guests.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Antony pressed. ‘You…’
‘I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I spoiled our evening.’
‘I’ll ring you in the morning.’ Antony walked back to the door and opened it.
In the morning she was leaving for Falmouth, but Campion didn’t have the energy to tell him so. She heard the door click locked as he left, and she didn’t even have the strength to get undressed, but instead fell asleep as she was.
She woke up in the early hours, stiff and cold, her muscles cramped. She undressed and had a bath before crawling into bed. She could never remember feeling so exhausted. Her stomach felt hollow and empty, and she tried to remember when she had last eaten before last night.
She was appalled to discover that her last proper meal had been the breakfast she had shared with Guy. She had only picked at food since then. No wonder she was feeling ill.
She was woken by the alarm call she had booked, and got up feeling lethargic and drained. She ordered a room-service breakfast, but when it arrived she could only pick at it, her stomach rebelling at the sight of food. She packed her case and rang down for a porter, and then went down stairs to meet the publishers’ agent who was accompanying her on the tour, as previously arranged.
Kyla Harris was a plump, efficient girl in her mid-twenties, with a mass of dark curls and a warm smile.
‘Are you all right?’ she frowned when she saw Campion’s pale face.
‘I think I’ve picked up a bug.’
‘Oh dear, and just before Christmas as well.’
Campion realised that Kyla was looking anxiously at her, probably dreading hearing her say that she wanted to cancel the tour, but what was the point? She could be sick just as easily here in Cornwall as she could in London, she told herself sardonically.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Kyla asked, when their cases were stowed in the back of her car, ‘someone was looking for you last night. Did he find you?’
‘Someone?’ Campion felt her heart leap. ‘Who?’
Kyla shrugged. ‘I don’t know. One of the girls on reception said that someone came in, asking for us. She gave him your room number. Local press, I expect…’
‘Oh, yes,’ Campion agreed dully. ‘Press, of course.’
For a moment, she had been stupid enough to hope that her visitor might have been Guy.
If Guy wanted to speak to her, he was hardly likely to come rushing down to Cornwall. He knew where she was. All he had to do was to lift the telephone…
* * *
In Falmouth, she did a radio interview and then a signing session. By five o’clock in the afternoon she was exhausted. One day left and then back home; and she still had all her Christmas shopping to do.
Lucy and Howard always made a big event of Christmas, with lavish presents, and she always liked to repay their generosity with carefully chosen gifts.
A display in a shop window caught her eye as she and Kyla made their way back to the car, and she stopped to glance at it.
An old-fashioned polished crib was hung with hand-made appliquéd quilts and matching bolsters, some brightly coloured, others delicately pastel.
One in particular caught her eye; she knew that Lucy would love it, but might it not be tempting fate to buy it for her for a Christmas present, especially in view of her past problems?
She could buy it and keep it until the baby was born, she told herself and, asking Kyla to wait, she went inside.
When they reached their hotel, she apologised to Kyla, and asked her if she would mind if she ate in her room.
‘No, you go ahead. You look washed out. Are you sure you want to go on?’