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It was the one thing she’d said that betrayed some kind of emotion locked behind the caring, and it sent tingles down Hugo’s spine. Nell checked that the new dressing over his wound was firmly anchored, and then turned abruptly, leaving him alone in the bathroom.
* * *
If it worked, then it worked. Society lunches and bidding for a weekend in the presence of a prince wasn’t a strategy that Nell had been called on to adopt before, and neither was washing a patient. But talking to someone, learning what made them tick and suggesting ways of coping was. And if the sudden closeness with Hugo had left her wanting to just touch his skin, simply for the pleasure of feeling it under her fingertips, then that could be ignored in the face of a greater good. Her job here was not really to look after him in a medical sense but to get behind his suave, charming exterior, and find out what drove him so relentlessly that he was willing to risk his health for it.
Nell rang down to the palace kitchen, wondering if anyone was there at this time in the evening, and found that not only was the phone answered immediately but there was a choice of menu. She ordered a salad, on the basis that it was probably the least trouble to make.
Apart from raiding the fridge, of course. Nell had suspected that the top-of-the-range fridge in Hugo’s kitchen was pretty much for show, and when she’d opened it, she’d found a selection of juices and other drinks. Nothing that involved any culinary activity other than pouring. She could have made him a milkshake, but that was about all, and a decent meal would help him recover.
The formal dining room in his apartment seemed a little too much like keeping up appearances, when that was exactly what she was trying to encourage Hugo not to do. A small table on a sheltered balcony was better, and she opened the French doors at the far end of the kitchen and arranged two chairs beside it. It would have made an excellent place to cook and enjoy food, and it was a pity that Hugo’s gleaming kitchen didn’t look as if it saw too many serious attempts at cooking. Nell wondered what he would say if she expressed the intention of baking a cake, and smiled to herself. Maybe she’d try it, just to see the look of bewilderment on his face.
Their meal arrived, and Nell directed the young man who carried a tray loaded with two plates and various sauces and condiments through to the balcony. He looked a little put out that she’d laid the table herself, and adjusted the position of the knives and forks carefully.
She called Hugo, and he appeared from the bedroom, looking relaxed and rested. When Nell had chosen his clothes, she been considering comfort, and hadn’t spared a thought for how well they might fit or how her eye was drawn along the hard lines of his body. Chest. Left arm. It was permissible to allow her gaze to linger there, on the grounds that she was checking up on him. The strong curve of his shoulder, the golden skin of his arm, which dimpled over bone and muscle, were both visual pleasures that Nell could pretend not to have seen.
‘Thank you. This is nice.’ Hugo pulled one of the seats away from the table, waiting until Nell sat down before he took his own place. Even now, he couldn’t quite let go and let her look after him.
‘I just made a call down to the kitchen. Is someone always there?’
‘No, not always. My parents are hosting a dinner party tonight.’ He smiled at her, and in the muted lights that shone around the perimeter of the patio his face seemed stronger. More angular and far more determined, if that was even possible.
‘So calling down for a midnight snack is usually out of the question.’ Nell picked up her fork, stabbing at her food.
‘Yes.’ He grinned. ‘If I want a midnight snack, I usually have to walk all the way down there and make it myself. Life at the palace can be unexpectedly hard at times.’
Nell couldn’t help smiling in response to the quiet joke. Hugo knew exactly how lucky he was. Maybe not exactly, he probably hadn’t ever battled his way around the supermarket on a Saturday morning, but he understood that he was privileged.
‘If we’d been at my place, this might have been cornflakes. With chocolate milk if you were lucky.’
‘You think I haven’t done that?’ Hugo looked slightly hurt. ‘I trained as a doctor, too. You’re not the only one who’s eaten cornflakes with chocolate milk at three in the morning then fallen asleep on the sofa.’
Probably a nicely upholstered sofa, and not too much like the lumpy one that had been in Nell’s shared digs, when she had been training. She wondered if Hugo’s memories of medical school were quite as good as hers were.
‘Where did you stay in London?’ Holland Park, perhaps. Somewhere near the embassy.
‘Shepherd’s Bush. We had a flat over a pizza place for a while, and it always smelled of cooked cheese. Then we moved to Tottenham. That was a great flat, in a high-rise. You could see right across London.’
Perhaps his experience had been a little more like Nell’s than she’d thought. ‘It must have been a bit of a culture shock for you.’
He laid down his fork. ‘People are people. That’s what every doctor learns, isn’t it?’ He said the words as if he was explaining a simple concept that Nell had somehow failed to understand.
‘Yes, of course. But some people find things easier than others.’ Waiting lists. Doctors who had enough time to see to the physical needs of their patients but not always the opportunity to talk for as long as was needed... The list could go on.
‘You met Justine and Henri earlier today. What did you think, that they were a couple of privileged people who like a nice lunch?’
‘They...’ Yes, that was exactly what Nell had thought. ‘They were very generous.’
‘Yes, they always are. They lost their son to heart disease when he was only two years old. Justine became very depressed and it was years before she would even talk about him. Holding a lunch event is a massive step for her. It’s not all about the money. Yvette lost her father to heart disease when she was fifteen.’
Nell felt herself flush. ‘I’m sorry. I did think less of what they were doing because they’re rich, and that was wrong of me.’
Hugo shook his head. ‘You’re not entirely wrong. A lot of the people who were at the lunch today were there because they wanted to be seen in the right places. But many of them have a real and personal commitment to what we’re trying to do.’
‘The little girl in the leaflet. She’s really a heart patient?’ Nell had had her doubts, wondering if the leaflet was principally an exercise in PR. It was important now, to know whether she’d been wrong.
‘Yes, she is. One of my patients, in fact. She had her ninth operation a few days ago. She wanted to help me build her new clinic.’
Nell laughed. ‘Her new clinic.’
‘Yes, it’s hers. She might let a few other patients in if she likes them. No boys. And she wants it to be completely pink, like a giant marshmallow.’ He was smiling now.
‘Sounds like my kind of hospital.’
‘So what are you doing here?’ He asked the question quietly. ‘You don’t strike me as the kind of person whose ambitions lie in the direction of keeping errant princes in check.’
Hugo had a way of dropping the charm and cutting right to the chase. It was uncomfortable. ‘I’m...in between jobs at the moment.’
‘I saw your curriculum vitae. Someone with your talents isn’t usually in between jobs unless she wants to be.’
He’d seen what the employment agency hadn’t, and there was no explaining it away with clichés. Nell wanted to tell him the whole truth, but that probably wouldn’t be all that wise.
‘My last job was challenging, both professionally and personally. I want to spend six months looking around for another that will...’
‘Just be challenging professionally?’
Nell caught her breath. How did he know so much about human nature, when he seemed so protected from it? ‘Something like that.’
‘So you thought that one patient might be a bit of a holiday.’ He was taking her apart, piece by piece, and Nell felt powerless to stop him. ‘But I imagine you’re someone who gets a little bored on holiday.’
She could feel her cheeks heating up. She wasn’t going to give Hugo the satisfaction of admitting that he was absolutely right. He held her gaze for a moment longer, and then leaned slowly back in his chair. Maybe he’d already seen what he wanted to see, and her reply was unnecessary.
‘Then maybe I should consider diversionary tactics. To keep you from feeling that you’re wasting your time here.’
He reached for the bottle of water on the table, and Nell took it from him. ‘How can I be wasting my time when there are bottles to be opened?’
If he could hide his innermost feelings under a layer of charm, then so could she.
CHAPTER SIX (#ud65e59a7-5521-5b05-ace0-e0fd12bf648e)
THE SUMMONS HAD arrived first thing the following morning, and Nell had followed the messenger to the King’s study. Despite the early hour, he was already working at his desk. He had offered her a cup of coffee and then pushed the morning paper towards her.
The King hadn’t expressed the horror that Nell had felt when she’d looked at the pictures on the front page. It was just one of those things, an innocent action could be misinterpreted under the glare of scrutiny that the royal family were subjected to. But he had taken issue with a number of other things.
Nell had felt her heart close. Unable to look at him, she’d given no reason as to why she and Hugo had been seen at the back entrance to the palace at one in the morning. How could she? She’d promised to keep silent about the business with Jacob and Celeste until Hugo had had a chance to approach his father.
The King moved on to why exactly she’d been seen bidding for Hugo’s company at the auction yesterday. This time Nell did have an answer, even if it wasn’t a very good one.
‘It was my idea. I thought that...well, it’s too much for him to be hosting a weekend like that so soon after the operation. And Hugo wouldn’t back out.’
‘And you didn’t consider how it might look?’ The King’s tone wasn’t unkind, but it was very firm. He tapped the paper with one finger. ‘My real concern though, is that it’s clear to me that this photograph does not show an embrace, as the papers seem to believe, it shows Hugo leaning on you. Your one responsibility was to ensure that he didn’t take on too much, and damage his health.’
Nell nodded her assent, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. How could she object to the King’s request that she submit a written account of Hugo’s activities and medical condition every day, when she had already failed so spectacularly? And how could she complain when he hinted that unless things changed, he would be finding another doctor for Hugo.
She was trembling by the time the King dismissed her. Hurrying back to her apartment, Nell blinked back the tears. They were her own business, fit only to be seen by the four walls of her sumptuous bedroom.
Nell sat down on the bed, gulping for breath. She was just being stupid. The King had every right to ask questions, and if he’d been unfair, it was because he didn’t know about Jacob’s visit to Hugo’s apartment, and Nell hadn’t enlightened him. This wasn’t a re-run of all that had happened in her last job.
All the same, it had a similar sting to it. Nell had rejected Martin’s advances, and he’d taken advantage of his position as her boss to deliver payback. She’d come to dread seeing him on the ward, because there had always been some barb or put-down. And she’d learned to sit in silence when he’d called her to his office, because replying to his catalogue of her faults and flaws had only made things worse. She’d thought his anger might subside over time, but if there was one thing that Martin knew how to do, it was hang on to a grudge.
This wasn’t the same. In some ways it was worse, though. The King had been painstakingly correct, and in his own way he’d been almost kind, but his concerns were justified. She couldn’t put his criticism down to spite, the way she’d been able to with Martin. And she’d hardly looked back when she’d left the hospital, but leaving Hugo...already he was quite a different proposition.
There was nothing else for it. She had to get the crying over and done with, pull herself together, and do better.
* * *
She was expecting the knock on the connecting door between their apartments. Hugo would have finished his breakfast, and would be ready for another battle of wills over whether he was well enough to do whatever he pleased. Nell had dried her tears and was ready for him.
She opened the door, trying not to look at him, just in case he happened to be smiling. Hugo’s smile was his most effective weapon.
‘You did too much yesterday. You need to rest today.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘All right. Now that you’ve got that off your chest, would you like to join me for coffee?’
Maybe she could have waited a little longer than two seconds to say it. ‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘You’ve had breakfast?’ He moved away from the door, leaving Nell to follow him into his sitting room.
‘No, I...’ Saying that she felt sick with apprehension wasn’t the best way of appearing strong. ‘Coffee’s fine.’
‘Right.’ The tray was standing ready on the table, and he filled two cups, watching silently as Nell added milk to hers. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ She smiled breezily at him, and he frowned.
‘So I’m going to have to make a guess, am I?’
Nell puffed out a breath. Maybe she should tell him, he’d probably hear about it anyway. And perhaps Hugo would respect his father’s wishes better than he did her advice.
‘The King called me to see him this morning. He’s not happy.’
‘He isn’t happy about a lot of things. Ignore him.’
‘I can’t ignore him. Apart from the fact that he happens to be the King, he’s also my employer.’
‘I’m Crown Prince, don’t I get a say?’ Hugo grinned, and Nell ignored the temptation to forgive him anything and everything.
‘This isn’t a game, Hugo. If you want to bait your father then go right ahead and do it, but don’t put your own health at risk just because you won’t admit that he’s right.’ Nell pressed her lips together. She could have put that more tactfully, but right now she wasn’t in the mood to do so.
He was suddenly solemn, his gaze searching her face. Nell felt herself redden, the tears that she’d only just managed to control pricking at the corners of her eyes.
‘What did my father say to you?’
‘He heard about you being up so late the other night. There was nothing I could say to him in response, without telling him about Jacob.’
‘So you took the blame yourself.’ His frown grew deeper.
‘What else could I do? He heard about my bidding at the auction as well. And there are photographs of me supporting you to the car in this morning’s papers.’
‘He can’t hold you responsible for that.’ Hugo pressed his lips together, obviously aware of the conclusion that the papers had drawn.
‘He doesn’t. But he holds me responsible for the fact that you’re doing too much. He says that things have to change and that from now on I have to submit a daily report to him.’
‘Nell, I’m sorry. I’ll make it right.’ His jaw hardened into a determined line.
‘No, you won’t. You can’t. But if you’re reckoning on carrying on like this, then tell me now, because I’d rather leave than be fired.’
‘No one’s going to fire you, Nell.’
She shook her head silently. Hugo didn’t understand, he’d never been squeezed out of a job or bullied by a boss. He was the golden boy, who everyone wanted.
Even Nell wanted him. Despite all her exasperation, she’d started to enjoy their battles, almost to look forward to them. And in doing so, she’d forgotten the reason why she was here.
‘There’s a meeting arranged for this afternoon at my charity’s offices. It’s only going to be for an hour, the construction company is going to update us on how things are going. If I asked everyone to come here instead, I’d find it less taxing.’
Hugo’s tone was almost contrite. When Nell looked up at him, there was a trace of concern on his face.
This was a start. ‘That sounds like a good idea, Hugo.’
* * *
Shame was something that Hugo usually tried to avoid. If he worked hard, and met the standards that he set, he generally found that he could live with himself. But now he felt thoroughly ashamed.
Being ill had made him crazy. It had stripped away the feeling that he was in charge of his life, and he was struggling to find the man he’d once thought himself to be. But in trying to pretend that it hadn’t happened, he’d hurt Nell, and that was unforgiveable.
He knew exactly where his parents would be during the week, they were creatures of habit. As he expected, he found them sitting at the twin desks, placed back to back to allow murmured conversation and smiles while they completed their correspondence for the day.
‘Mother...’ He smiled, and his mother rose for a hug, made awkward by his lame shoulder.
‘Hugo, darling. How do you feel today?’
‘Much better, thank you.’ Hugo’s relationship with his mother was an effortless synergy of respect for her position and warmth. The one with his father involved rather more effort. ‘I’d like to speak with Father.’
His mother sat firmly back down, waving her hand towards his father, who had looked up from the papers in front of him. Her smile told Hugo that she knew exactly what all this was about, and she wasn’t going to give either of them the chance to argue in private.
‘Go ahead, darling. He’s right here, in case you didn’t notice.’
Right. Hugo turned to his father, and found himself locked in the familiar combative stare that was their usual greeting to each other. He sat down, knowing that it probably wouldn’t defuse the situation. Pacing up and down wasn’t going to help much if he wanted to imply that he was taking things easy.
‘It’s not Nell’s fault, Father.’
