they were due to depart, she awakened at six-thirty feeling absolutely terrible. She lay for a few minutes, trying to control the nausea that was gripping her, and then realising it was hopeless, she stumbled into the bathroom.
She was violently sick, and afterwards she leant her hot forehead against the cool tiles, praying the accompanying dizziness would leave her. But it didn't, and she eventually crawled back into bed, feeling like death.
Her father appeared at seven-thirty, after she had visited the bathroom a second time, and one look at her haggard face convinced him that she would be going nowhere that day.
'I'm sorry, my dear, but you're definitely not well enough to go flying off to Aberdeen,' he insisted gently. 'I'll telephone Daley and explain the situation. I'm sure he'll understand, and if it's imperative that you go with him, then he'll just have to postpone his visit.'
'Oh, Dad, Brad will look after me,' Abby protested, propping herself up on her elbows. 'It's just a touch of gastritis, that's all. Perhaps it was that pate I ate last night. It did have a funny taste.'
'The pate was perfectly all right. I had some myself,' retorted her father shortly. 'And in any case, you didn't eat enough to upset a fly. Come to think of it, you hardly eat enough to keep a body alive. Perhaps you should be thinking of eating more, not less, then you might not get so nauseous.'
'Food! Ugh!' Abby grimaced. 'I ache at the thought of it.'
'Well, you ought to eat something,' observed Professor Gillespie thoughtfully. 'A slice of dry toast, perhaps. Could you manage that? Then if you were sick again you wouldn't ache so much.'
Abby turned her face into the pillow. 'I'll get up‑'
'I'll fetch it,' retorted her father firmly, and too weak to argue, she acquiesced.
Curiously, she felt much better after the slice of toast had been digested. So much better in fact that when her father suggested ringing Brad, she begged him to reconsider.
'Honestly, I'm sure I could go,' she pleaded, but for once Professor Gillespie was adamant.
'Maybe tomorrow,' was all he would concede, and as she had expected, Brad agreed to postpone the trip.
'He's coming round later to see how you are,' her father told her, when she came down the stairs, tying the cord of her dressing gown, and she made a gesture of resignation as she passed him on her way to the kitchen.
'There was no need,' she insisted, but Professor Gillespie ignored her, and with a shrug she helped herself to some bread from the bin.
'What are you doing?'
Her father, coming into the kitchen behind her, looked surprised, and she grinned. 'I told you I was all right,' she exclaimed. 'As a matter of fact, I feel ravenous now. That slice of toast definitely did the trick.'
'Really?'
The Professor looked thoughtful, but he made no comment, and Abby, sitting down to a poached egg a few minutes later, felt a fraud for delaying Brad over nothing more than a minor upset.
Brad himself was all concern when he arrived in the middle of the afternoon. He brought her an enormous bouquet of winter roses, but although she was grateful for his consideration, they reminded her too poignantly of Rachid, and the time they spent together in Paris. Roses always would, she acknowledged, but she thanked Brad sincerely, and tried to apologise for her apparently speedy recovery.
'I told Dad it was nothing,' she exclaimed, fingering the petals of a creamy rose in some embarrassment. 'But he insisted on calling you, and—well, I feel a hypocrite.'
'Don't be silly.' Brad was quick to reassure her. 'There's no urgency about the trip. I suggest we give it a couple of days before we make any more arrangements. That way, you'll be sure of being completely recovered.'
'I'm recovered now,' protested Abby, but Brad was as determined as her father, and she gave in to the warm feeling of security their caring engendered.
The following morning, however, she had reason to be grateful for her father's good
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