Free Never Leave Me by Margaret Pemberton Page B

instantly.’
    â€˜My God, what’s happened?’ Henri de Valmy cried, running in from the gardens, his face white, the secateurs still in his hand, forsythia blossom clinging to his jacket.
    â€˜She came off her bike,’ Dieter replied shortly, not hesitating in his swift stride towards the stairs. ‘She’s bleeding badly. I need pads. Linen. Anything.’
    Henri took one look at his face and did not demur. With Marie at his heels, he ran in the direction of the linen cupboards.
    He didn’t take her to her own room. He was unsure which of the bedrooms in the east wing was hers and had no intention of wasting precious time by asking. Besides, it seemed only natural that the bed he took her to should be his own.
    As he laid her on the blue silk counterpane she said so faintly that he could hardly hear her. ‘I don’t know your name.’
    He looked down at her pale face and the dark spread of her hair over the pillows.
    â€˜Dieter,’ he said, his voice tight in his throat.
    A ghost of a smile touched her lips. Dieter. It was a nice name. She tried to repeat it but she was being sucked down into a vortex of brilliant colours and black rushing winds, and then her mother ran into the room, Marie hard on her heels, and the colours vanished and only darkness remained.
    Dr Auge, the local doctor, was bewildered. A chauffeur-driven Horch to take him to Valmy; outriders; the demand for his presence issued not by the Comte but by the Wehrmacht officer in residence? It was all most unusual and he was filled with apprehension as he hurried through Valmy’s medieval entrance hall and up the winding stone stairs.
    â€˜My daughter came off her bicycle at speed,’ the Comte was saying to him as he ushered him along the uneven oak floor of the upper landing. ‘We’ve been unable to stop the bleeding.’
    â€˜Where is the wound?’ Dr Ague asked, puffing for breath.
    â€˜High on her inner thigh.’
    Dr Auge increased his speed. It sounded like the artery. If it was, there was no telling how much blood had been lost. He paused at the open bedroom door, bushy eyebrows flying upwards. The Comtesse was kneeling at one side of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand, and a German officer stood on the other side, blood smearing his uniform, every line of his body tense.
    The doctor looked swiftly across to the Comte in alarm. What in God’s name had happened that the Comte had flinched from telling him? Or maybe dare not tell him? He found no enlightenment. Henri de Valmy did not meet his eyes. He strode quickly into the room saying peremptorily, ‘The doctor is here.’
    A tourniquet had been applied to Lisette de Valmy’s thigh. Bowls of warm, disinfected water stood ready for his use. He dragged his attention away from the sinister figure of the Major and tried not to think how the injury had been inflicted. Of one thing he was sure – it had been no innocent accident. Innocent accidents did not attract the attention of the Wehrmacht and the Major’s eyes were dark with an anxiety equal to that of the Comte.
    The counterpane was heavily stained with blood and the girl was unconscious. He hurried to the bed, setting his ancient black bag down at his side, aware that the German was watching him with hawk-like intensity. Nervously he began to remove the sodden bandages. If Lisette de Valmy died, he did not want the responsibility placed at his door. He eased off the large pad of cotton wool staunching the blood and breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. It was bad, but the artery had not been severed. It was an injury well within his competence to tend.
    â€˜The water, Madame,’ he said to the Comtesse and, rolling up his sleeves, he set to work.
    Even when the last stitch had been inserted the German did not leave the room. The doctor put away his needle and wondered again what the truth of the matter was. The injuries had not been caused in