Eventually, using him as a crutch, I managed to haul myself upright more or less under my own steam.
“Can you make it to the car?” he asked, his voice terse. It was only ten feet or so away, but it seemed like half a mile to go round the bonnet to the passenger side.
I took a deep breath, regretting it as my ribs protested, and nodded.
“OK, come on, take your time.” He put a gentle arm round my shoulders, keeping it light. “I'll be right here.”
I stopped suddenly and peered up at his face. “Marc, what are you doing here?” I asked. My voice seemed awfully reedy and thin. I was still shivering from the cold, which was making my ribs hurt all the more.
He gazed down at me, reaching to move my hair away from my eyes. Most of it on the right-hand side was now glued to my scalp. I daren't even begin to imagine what I looked like.
“I came to see you,” he said, smiling that slow long-burning smile of his.
My heart flip-flopped over in my chest. I couldn't help it.
Maybe it was a ploy to take my mind off things, because the next thing I knew he was pulling open the passenger door of the BM. I stopped short when I saw it had a cream leather interior.
“I can't, Marc, I'll ruin it,” I protested. Not only was half my hair plastered with blood, but I'd picked up a good layer of masonry dust sliding down the front of the building, and a liberal coating of road dirt from the gutter.
“I'll have it valeted,” he dismissed impatiently. “Now for Christ's sake lady, get in!”
I subsided into the soft upholstery without further demur. He slammed the door and moved round the bonnet to the driver's side, looking suddenly hard and dangerous. An unexpected fear needled me. Was I doing the right thing allowing myself to be put into his car so easily?
I quashed it as he climbed into the driving seat and glanced at me, the concern clear in those pale eyes.
“I think perhaps I should take you straight to Casualty,” he said.
“No!” It was a reflex. I hated the damned places. Besides, I had a good enough knowledge of my own body to recognise when an injury was serious. Those I'd sustained this evening were painful, but they were in no way life-threatening.
“Well, I need to do something with you,” he said, touching a hand to my cheek. His fingers felt so hot they almost burnt me. “You're freezing and you're in shock.”
He took my hands between his and tried to rub some warmth into them, but I yelped again. Turning them over, I realised I'd torn and scraped my palms and fingers, but I couldn't for the life of me remember doing it.
He gave me a dark look, but said nothing. Instead, he settled for just turning the car's air con control round to maximum heat and putting the fan on full blast.
We set off sedately along the quay, turning left away from the river to weave through the back streets up towards the railway station, and the castle.
By holding my hands directly over an air vent in the dash for a few minutes, I managed to persuade some sensation to return. Unfortunately, with it came a pulsating pain in my fingers. I clamped them together in my lap and tried not to think about it too much.
As the heat permeated the interior of the car, I was aware of a grinding weariness soaking down over me. “Aren't you going to ask me what that was all about?” I said tiredly.
Marc glanced sideways at me, his face lit by the eerie orange glow from the car's instruments. “I assumed you'd tell me when you were ready,” he said, concentrating on the road ahead.
“Someone at your club doesn't want me there, Marc,” I said, feeling abruptly groggy, “and I don't know why that is.”
I felt the BM react as his hands twitched on the wheel. He favoured me with a brief look. “Do you have any idea who?” he asked sharply.
“Not a clue,” I said hazily. I let my head flop back against the padded rest.
“So why do you think someone doesn't want you there?” he demanded. “Come on, Charlie, talk to me!”
I opened my leaden eyelids with an effort. “Hmm? Oh, I don't know,” I mumbled. “And I don't know what I do know, either, which Jacob thinks is half the problem.”
“Charlie,” he said dryly, “you're rambling.”
“Mm, sorry,” I muttered indistinctly. For some reason a picture of the man outside the French windows at the Lodge slid into my woolly mind. He'd worn a mask, too. “Somebody's been watching me, and I've got a bad feeling about it,” I informed Marc with a sigh. “A very bad feeling.”
The line between consciousness and oblivion was blurring. I felt it closing in on me.
I slept.
***
It only seemed a few seconds before I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking gently.
“Charlie, come on, wake up.”
I came fully awake with a jerk, automatically tensing to strike before I recognised Marc. He backed off quickly. “It's OK, don't panic.” His voice was calm, soothing.
I realised he'd stopped the BM, and slithered further upright in my seat. I recognised the front entrance to one of the most up-market hotels in the area. His hotel.
“Why are we here?” I felt dazed, disconnected. My mind seemed to be working at half speed.
His face was unreadable in the gloom inside the car. “You were most insistent I shouldn't take you to a doctor, and I didn't think it was wise to take you home again,” he said. “It was either here or drive you round in circles all night.” He put his hand under my chin and tipped my face up, studying. “You're a mess,” he added. “We need to get you cleaned up.”
“Thanks,” I said, “you really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”
He flashed me a quick smile as he opened the car door and climbed out, moving round swiftly to help me out of my side. I got out experimentally, and found my ribs seemed to grate protestingly when I moved. I stifled a gasp as I stood up.
Marc caught me. “Are you OK?”
I shook my head. “It's nothing. I'm fine. Nothing a hot bath and a stiff whisky wouldn't cure – and not necessarily in that order.”
Despite my denials, it seemed a long walk to the front door. Marc walked slowly alongside me, watching like a hawk for the first sign I was about to keel over. At one point I stumbled and his arm snaked round my shoulders instantly. His musky aftershave mingled interestingly with the smell of man.
“I can manage,” I said. Having him so close when I wasn't in full control of my senses to begin with was altogether too distracting.
The expression on the receptionist's face when we staggered in to the grand lobby area of the hotel spoke volumes about the state I was in. I suppose with my bloody face, dirty soaked shirt and scuffed leathers, I wasn't exactly representative of the target clientele. Marc silenced her protest with a single hard stare.
“Miss Fox has had an accident,” he said, his voice like stone, brooking no argument. “She will be in my suite.” The woman probably thought he'd run me down in his car.
Somehow, I don't remember the ride in the lift, or how I got from there to Marc's room. The next memory I have is the crackling noise of an open grate. I opened my eyes to find I was on a deeply cushioned sofa, with a soft blanket thrown over me. Marc's face appeared.
“You had me worried for a moment there,” he said. “Here's that whisky you wanted, and the bath's running.” I fumbled to a sitting position and he handed me a lead crystal glass of liquid the colour of old gold.
I stuck my nose into the glass, recognised single malt quality, then gulped two-thirds of it down like a rough blend anyway. The resultant fire lit my stomach and roared through my veins with a welcome blast.
Marc moved round in front of me. He'd taken off his jacket, and folded back the sleeves of his shirt, revealing muscled forearms, covered with a fine layer of dark hair. I was surprised to see he had tattoos on both arms, blurred with age. He was carrying a wet flannel and a towel with the hotel crest on it.