скачать книгу бесплатно
‘But you said——’
‘I said nothing,’ she interrupted coldly. ‘I agreed that I was new here and you took that to mean that I was a nurse. Presumably,’ she added, ‘because I’m female.’
The turquoise eyes had narrowed and he was staring at her consideringly, comprehension beginning to dawn.
‘You mean—that you’re a doctor, too?’
‘Ten out of ten for perception,’ she replied sarcastically, pleased to see him at a disadvantage at last.
He didn’t remain at a disadvantage for long, however; he glowered at her and marched out of the kitchen into the hall, where she heard him pick up a telephone. She followed in his wake slowly, drying her hands on the tea-towel, amused to hear what would now transpire.
He glanced up at her briefly, then away, ignoring her completely.
‘Mrs Jefferson, please,’ he said shortly into the receiver. There was a pause. ‘Adam Forrester.’
She looked up in surprise. So that was it! No wonder she had thought she had known him—who, both in and outside the medical profession, hadn’t heard of Dr Adam Forrester?
He’d been considered a prodigy, mainly because he’d written a book while still at medical school which had become required reading for all students—she’d read it herself.
But it had been work done during research for his thesis which had aroused the interest of the general public. He had fed some laboratory mice some of his watercress salad and had discovered that it had made them sexually more active. The tabloid press had had a field-day—the News of the World had run a full-page story with banner headlines claiming ‘Doc says watercress makes you sexy!’ Watercress sales had soared; he had been invited on to a chat show and had proved so popular that a television series had followed.
Here’s Health had run for almost two years, a popular and light-hearted Sunday evening show—and then it had suddenly stopped, at the height of its popularity, and Adam Forrester had disappeared from view.
Louisa surreptitiously glanced around the walls of the hall they stood in. What on earth was he doing living in a place like this? It was bright enough, with pale magnolia walls, but they were bare of adornment. It was just not the kind of place you imagined a wealthy and successful doctor living—he looked to be in his mid-thirties, so why wasn’t he residing in some stone-built mansion in the countryside?
‘I don’t care that it’s Sunday evening,’ he was saying. ‘I need to speak to her now.’
It was the kind of tone which did not invite argument, and she could just imagine a flummoxed telephonist agreeing to his request.
He looked up again. ‘There’s no need for you to hang around,’ he told her. ‘I can sort this out.’
‘Oh, but I’d like to listen,’ she said sweetly. ‘If that’s all right with you?’
Clearly, it was not all right with him, but as he couldn’t actually eject her physically, especially while talking into the phone, he was forced to content himself with an exaggeratedly loud sigh.
After a couple of minutes of silence he was connected.
‘Mrs Jefferson?’ he barked. ‘It’s Adam Forrester here.’ He listened for a moment. ‘Yes, of course I realise it’s a Sunday evening,’ he exploded. ‘And if you’re trying to make a point about being disturbed, don’t bother—it’s about time you administrators sorted out a legitimate problem, instead of trying to disrupt the running of the wards!’
Louisa could hear an indignant reply.
‘I’d like to know just why I happen to have a woman doctor sharing my flat with me?’ He spat the word out as though it were poison.
The expression on his face as he listened to the reply was almost comical.
‘I see,’ he said coldly. ‘I must say that I have never heard such a load of pretentious old claptrap in my life!’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Perhaps it is too late to do anything about it this evening, but you can be sure that first thing in the morning—I want this thing sorted out!’
He slammed the receiver back into its hook, so that the whole phone shook, and turned to face Louisa.
‘It seems,’ he said heavily, ‘that some of your more eloquent predecessors are responsible for your being here.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about a group of female doctors who took it upon themselves to complain about being given flats in the Nurses’ Home, on the grounds of sexual discrimination. When it was pointed out to them that this might mean sharing flats with the male doctors—they apparently replied that this was how it should be. That they were not helpless maidens who needed protecting, and did not expect to be treated any differently from their male counterparts. Typical!’ he finished disgustedly.
There was a short tussle as loyalty to this radical group of females struggled to overcome the natural abhorrence she felt at living in such close quarters to a man again. And not just any man. This man! But it would simply remove any dignity she had to get into an argument with him about it. He was right, it could all be sorted out in the morning.
‘Don’t worry, Dr Forrester,’ she said haughtily. ‘I find the situation as unappealing as you obviously do. But no doubt I can tolerate it for one night.’
‘I suppose so,’ he grunted. His eyes swept over her assessingly again, as they had done in the car park, and there was something about the look which made her feel totally exposed and vulnerable.
She met his eyes defiantly, determined that he should not see how much his presence disturbed her.
‘I usually take a shower around ten. So you’d better scurry back to your room by then. Unless——’ he grinned for the first time, a roguish grin which left her in no doubt whatsoever as to his thoughts ’—unless,’ he continued, ‘you’d care to appreciate the delights of my naked body?’
She knew that his words were mocking, but she flushed scarlet, mentally trying to block out the images which came rushing into her mind at his words.
‘Not if I want my stomach to retain its contents!’ she snapped, hoping that the sharp words would detract from her discomposure.
She made as if to leave, but he caught her arm, the turquoise-blue eyes boring holes into her. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he whispered, emphasising each word as if to impress its meaning on her. ‘I never play this close to home.’
He released her arm. ‘By the way—do you realise that I still don’t even know your name?’
She angrily pushed a thick wave of chestnut hair back from her face. ‘And you don’t need to either. After tonight, Dr Forrester—I hope I never set eyes on you again!’
She would have loved to have stabbed the heel of her neat black court shoe into his ankle, but she contented herself with a final glower before walking back to her room and slamming the door shut very loudly behind her.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5cee9ae7-a686-5418-ba1b-f4a092fed168)
LOUISA stood in the centre of the room, still breathing heavily in anger, looking at the surroundings which such a short time ago had been her ‘home’, but which she would now almost certainly be moving out of.
What a start! And what a man! She remembered how tranquil her thoughts had been in the car this afternoon, on the long drive up from London, anticipating her first job as a qualified doctor. And now this. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.
She walked over to her desk and tapped her fingers restlessly over a medical textbook. What was it the Dean had said about her as he had handed her the coveted Bailey prize for biochemistry in her third year? That she was calm, and unflappable, and dedicated. Oh, and ambitious. She mustn’t forget the bit about ambition—Mike would certainly be disappointed if she left that bit out. It was a quality which was lauded if possessed by a man, yet seemed to be greatly despised in a woman.
Men. They stood in your way and they got under your skin with their demands for more time, more meals, more of everything, until you had precious little left for yourself.
She had come to St Dunstan’s to forget men and to begin a new life in her chosen field of medicine. She had set herself various goals, and one of them was to start work for her MRCP examination as soon as she possibly could. Membership of the Royal College of Physicians was essential if one planned to make a career in hospital medicine. It was a tough exam, and the pass rate was low, but Louisa was determined to pass first time.
She switched on the Anglepoise lamp and sat down at the desk. She was going to have to work very hard indeed to get on—women in medicine didn’t have to be as good as their male counterparts, they had to be better. She had heard from older women doctors that even when you did land a good job, there were often the snide comments, that you’d fluttered your eyelashes in the right direction, flirted with the boss. Prejudice was alive and well in the 1990s!
She opened up the textbook, chuckling gently to herself as she did so. She could just imagine the smouldering resentment which must have led a group of her peers to campaign for sexual equality in the matter of accommodation—what a brave lot they must have been! Not that she had anything personally to thank them for—they were partly responsible for her having blushed for the first time in years.
Never mind, even if he had noticed her pink cheeks, it would be of little account in the morning. He could think what he jolly well liked.
Opening up the colossal tome which lay before her, she found the page on ‘Cardiological disorders in young adults’, and after a few moments was thinking of nothing else.
She came to with a start and, glancing down at her watch, realised that she had been reading for almost two and a half hours. Almost a quarter to nine. She was willing to bet that the canteen would have shut by now and she hadn’t brought any provisions with her.
As if in protest at her thoughts, her stomach gave a loud rumble. Lunch had been a hurried sandwich and a coffee in a motorway service station. Naturally slim, never having to diet, she could not, however, imagine surviving without anything more to eat until the morning.
So she had but two options—she could either wander around this unfamiliar hospital in the dark in search of a meal which she could not even guarantee being able to get at this time of night. Or she could be sensible and* ask Adam Forrester to loan her something until the morning.
So why did she recoil from the most sensible option? Was it because Dr Forrester had already had the most strange effect on her normally unruffable composure?
She stood up, stretching slowly. It was of no matter—she would do the most practical thing and go and ask him.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she clicked off the desk lamp. She had stupidly sat down to study in her grey suit, and the narrow skirt looked crumpled. It would need pressing before she could wear it for work.
She pulled the jacket and the skirt off, and the white silky shirt which she wore underneath—and pulled a pair of old jeans from out of the drawer. Some colours were difficult to wear with her pale skin, but the jade-green angora sweater she pulled over the dark red hair suited her perfectly, while the casual clothes had the effect of making her appear even younger, and much softer.
She let herself quietly out of her room, listening out for him, but the sitting-room and the kitchen were empty. She could see light shining from the crack underneath his door and so, rather reluctantly, she raised her fist and tapped twice.
There was no reply and it occurred to her that he might actually be ignoring her—but surely he wouldn’t be so childish? She raised her hand to knock for the last time when the door was flung open and he stood there, staring down at her with what looked like his habitual impatient expression.
He too had changed into jeans, and had removed the thick jumper he’d been wearing—instead he had on a thin shirt, unbuttoned at the neck and showing a great deal of very dark hair on his chest. And his feet were bare. She found herself staring at them.
‘Yes? What is it?’ he demanded perfunctorily.
There was nothing of his earlier manner about him now, his attitude was brisk and businesslike, almost as if they had never spoken before.
‘I’m afraid I’ve been working and didn’t realise it had got so late,’ she began, attempting to give him a pleasant smile.
‘Get to the point, will you?’
She bit back an angry retort to his rudeness—she was, after all, asking him a favour!
‘I’m very hungry, and think I must have missed the canteen—and wondered if you’d lend me something to eat? I could repay you tomorrow.’
There was something so very un-English about asking for favours, particularly from a comparative stranger, she thought, interpreting his frown as one of irritation at her request.
He looked at his watch. ‘Yes, you will have missed supper.’
Behind him she could see into his room—a replica of her own—but it shared none of the untidiness of the sitting-room she had seen earlier. She wondered who he had been sharing a meal with.
She could see everything neatly arranged, the bed smooth, books in neat lines on the shelves, and, judging from the light at his desk and the open books, he too had been studying.
‘There isn’t anything very much,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I was planning to make myself an omelette—you’re welcome to share that if you like.’
She had definitely not anticipated dining with him, but she couldn’t really insist on taking his food and then eating it in the privacy of her own room!
Instead she nodded. ‘An omelette will be fine, thanks.’
She stood there for a moment hesitantly, and he must have taken the hint because he closed his door and led the way through into the kitchen.
‘Do you want me to do anything?’ she asked.
‘I think I can just about manage an omelette,’ he said sarcastically.
What a bad-tempered man he was, she thought as she sat down at the kitchen table, tucking her slim legs underneath. She would much rather he had given her the eggs and she could have cooked for herself after he had finished. It seemed a bit of a farce to eat a meal together when he obviously couldn’t stand the sight of her.
She watched as he cracked the eggs into a glass bowl, and beat them with milk and salt and pepper.
‘Cheese OK for you?’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
He was certainly very organised—he melted butter in the pan and swirled the mixture on to it like a past master of the art, even browning the omelette under the grill so that it puffed up to twice its size.
When he placed the plate before her she smiled up at him—however crotchety he was, her stomach was certainly grateful!
He reached down into the bottom shelf of the fridge.
‘Do you want a beer?’
In fact she rarely drank much at all, but the hassle of requesting a cup of coffee from someone so unforthcoming was too much to contemplate.
‘Yes, please.’
He poured her out a glass of lager, and sitting down at the table opposite her, drank his own straight from the can. She sipped thirstily in between mouthfuls of omelette and brown bread.
She finished her meal to find that his own was scarcely touched, and he was regarding her with almost a glint of amusement in his eyes.
‘Why, you’ve hardly eaten any of yours!’ she exclaimed. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
He actually smiled at her! ‘Not as hungry as you were, obviously! Do you want something else? Yoghurt? Fruit?’
She finished off the last of her beer. ‘No, thanks—that was plenty. I might just make a cup of coffee in the morning—if that’s all right?’
He indicated a cupboard by the cooker. ‘Sure. It’s all in there. Help yourself.’
She stood up a little unsteadily; the glass of unaccustomed alcohol on a virtually empty stomach had affected her more than it should have done.
She cleared her throat, and the icy turquoise eyes glanced at her questioningly.
‘I’m sorry there’s been this mix-up,’ she babbled. ‘I’ll come and collect my things tomorrow, when they find me somewhere else.’
He gave her the faintest of smiles and she could have kicked herself—she hadn’t meant it to sound as if she was apologising for being here. She paused in the doorway, the beer seeming to have given her an uncontrollable urge to talk.
‘I don’t expect you are very hungry.’ She smiled, remembering the dishes she had washed up on her arrival. ‘It looked a delicious bolognese sauce!’
What had she said to offend him? He looked absolutely furious. He stood up suddenly and stared at her as witheringly as if she had been some small mollusc on the floor in front of him.
‘How like a woman,’ he muttered in disgust. ‘Even when there’s nothing to say, she’ll always come out with some meaningless babble. What is it they say about empty vessels?’
She stared at him, speechless for a moment. She had never in her life been spoken to in such a rude, dismissive manner by a virtual stranger. What God-given right did this man have to behave in such an unpleasant way?
She regarded him coldly, suddenly completely sober again.
