Beloved Read Online Free PDF Page B

the woman that Percy would have
died to marry. She'd never noticed him, despite his blazing good looks, before she married his half brother. In fact, she seemed to actually dislike him, and Charles's
half brother was twenty years her senior, a
stiff-necked stuffed-shirt whom

180
    Beloved
    Diana Palmer
    181

nobody in their circle had any use for. The marriage was a com plete mystery.
    "1 don't have a
dress."
    "Buy one," he instructed.
    She hesitated.
    “I’ll protect you from him," he said after a minute,
having realized that Simon would most likely be in
attendance. "I swear on my glorious red Mark VIII that I won't leave your
side for an instant all evening."
    She gave him a wary glance. His mania about that car was
well- known. He wouldn't even entrust it to a car wash.
He washed and waxed it lovingly, inch by inch, and
called it "Big Red."
    "Well, if you're willing to swear
on your car," she agreed.
    He grinned. "You can ride in
it."
    "I'm honored!"
    "I brought you some flowers," he added.
"One of the nurses volunteered to put
them in a vase for you."
    She
gave him a cursory appraisal and smiled. "The way you look, I'm not surprised. Women fall over each
other to get to you."
    "Not the one I wanted," he said sadly. "And
now it's too late."
    She slid her hand into his and pressed
it gently. "I'm sorry."
    "So am I." He shrugged. "Isn't it a damned
shame? I mean, look what they're missing!"
    She knew he was talking about Simon and the woman
Charles wanted, and she grinned in spite of
herself. "It's their loss. I'd love to go to
the ball with you. He'll let me out of here today. Like to take me home?"
    "Sure!"
    But when the doctor came into the room, he was reluctant
to let her leave.
    She was sitting on the side of the bed. She gave him a
long, wise look. "I wasn't lying," she
said. "Suicide was the very last thing from my
mind."
    "With a loaded pistol, which had
been fired."
    She pursed her lips. "Didn't anyone notice where the
shot landed? At a round hole in the baseboard?''
    He frowned.
    "The
mouse!" she said. "I've been after him for weeks! Don't you watch old John Wayne movies? It was in True Grit!"
    All at once, realization dawned in his
eyes. "The rat writ."
    "Exactly!"
    He burst out laughing. "You were going to shoot the
mouse?"
    "I'm a good shot," she protested. "Well,
when I'm sober. I won't miss him next time!"
    "Get a trap."
    "He's too wily," she
protested. "I've tried traps and baits."
    "Buy a cat."
    "I'm allergic to fur," she
confessed miserably.
    "How about those electronic things
you plug into the wall?"
    She shook her head. "Tried it. He bit the electrical
cord in half."
    "Didn't it kill him?"
    Her eyebrows arched. "No. Actually he seemed even
healthier afterward. I'll bet he'd enjoy
arsenic. Nope, I have to shoot him."
    The doctor and Charles looked at each other. Then they
both chuckled.
    The doctor did see her alone later, for a few minutes
while Charles was bringing the car around to the
hospital entrance. “Just one more
thing," he said gently. "Regardless of what Simon said, you didn't kill John. Nobody, no woman, could have
stopped what happened. He should never have married you in the first
place."
    "Simon kept throwing us together," she said.
"He thought we made the perfect couple," she
added bitterly.
    "Simon never knew," he said. "I'm sure
John didn't tell him, and you kept your own
silence."
    She
averted her eyes. "John was the best friend Simon had in the world. If he'd wanted Simon to know, he'd have
told him. That being the case, I never felt that I had the right."
She looked

182
    Beloved
    Diana Palmer
    183

at him. "I still don't.
And you're not to tell him, either. He de serves to have a
few unshattered illusions. His life hasn't been a bed of roses so far. He's missing an arm, and
he's still mourning Melia ."
    "God knows why," Dr. Gaines added, because he'd
known all about the elegant Mrs. Hart, things
that even Tira didn't know.
    "He loved her," she said simply. "There's
no accounting