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And not doing much . . . Correction: not doing anything to disguise thighs so strapping and so muscular and so. . . This man could be an Olympic sprinting champion, she decided, keen to see whether the top half of the mystery intruder would match the bottom half, when a cold, clear and crisply incisive voice cut into her thoughts like a tape-measure into the hips of an unnsuccessful dieter.
‘When you’ve quite finished,’ the voice said repressively.
Nicolette sat back on her heels and found herself looking into the most spectacular pair of eyes she had ever seen. She swallowed.
Beautiful brown eyes.
She swallowed again. Brown was far too ordinary a word to use in conjunction with eyes which reminded her of velvety chocolate, and of treacle . . . of all things dark and sweet and mysteriously delicious. And when she looked more closely they weren’t a uniform colour at all, because there were flecks of other colours hidden in their depths. An arresting green—as fresh and as verdant as a spring day—and gold, too, precious and gleaming and . . . and . . .
‘Er. . .hello,’ she managed.
His mouth, which also happened to be the embodiment of perfection, twisted into a grim, hard line as his eyes flicked disparagingly over her dripping hands. ‘Staff Nurse,’ he growled dangerously, ‘would you mind telling me what you think you’re doing?’
Nicolette should have interpreted the dangerous glint in those magnificent eyes, but she foolishly attempted to chivvy him out of a blatantly foul temper. ‘Well, I’m not writing out my tickets for the National Lottery, am I?’ she joked.
He didn’t move a muscle of his face in an answering smile. Instead he surveyed her with a cold, unblinking scrutiny as though she were something which had just been dragged in by the cat. ‘Are you or are you not supposed to be in charge of the ward?’ he demanded curtly.
The implication being, she supposed, that she’d left work on the ward undone, which she knew darned well she hadn’t! Nicolette’s soft features rearranged themselves into a mutinous expression. ‘I am!’ she fired back with equal curtness, her good humour evaporating completely. Just let him dare criticise her—just let him!
Not seeming at all perturbed by her expression, he proceeded to do just that. ‘And is this how it is deemed proper—’
Oh, what a pompous word!
‘—for a staff nurse to run the ward?’
‘What am I doing that’s so wrong—Doctor?’ enquired Nicolette sweetly. ‘At least, I’m assuming that you’re a doctor and not a pharmacist or a dietician or one of the many other members of the hospital staff who wear white coats. And the reason I don’t know your status is because you haven’t. . .’ she toyed with saying ‘haven’t had the courtesy’, but resisted the temptation ‘. . .haven’t introduced yourself,’ she finished primly.
The implied criticism went over him like water off a duck’s back. ‘Of course I’m a doctor,’ he snapped back. ‘Since when have you known pharmacists and dieticians to carry stethoscopes around in their pockets?’ His finger jabbed at the stethoscope which was dangling clearly from the pocket of his white coat. ‘And as to what you’re doing wrong—why, you’re cleaning the bath out, for heavens sake!’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of cross-infection?’ she retorted hotly, not flinching from the look of incredulity which had hardened the eyes she had once foolishly thought magnificent.
‘What?’ he demanded, as though she’d just started speaking to him in a foreign language.
‘Baths have to be cleaned every time they’re used,’ She shot back. ‘Or didn’t you know that?’
‘Of course I know that,’ he bit out impatiently. ‘But isn’t there a junior who could be doing it for you, while you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, namely, looking after the ward?’
Nicolette had many theories of her own about how nursing could be improved, and the mystery doctor had inadvertently hit on one of her number-one bêtenoires. She took a deep breath as she forced herself to control her temper. Heavens, she couldn’t remember being so mad in years! ‘I do not ascribe to the theory,’ she began haughtily, ‘that the students should be lumbered with all the menial tasks around the ward. If we make them play skivvy the whole time then they aren’t exactly going to learn a whole lot, are they, Doctor?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why bother asking me, Staff? You seem about to give me a little lecture. Pray continue.’
Patronising so-and-so! ‘With pleasure!’ she responded tartly. ‘Giving juniors nothing but menial chores plays havoc with their self-esteem.’
‘Self-esteem?’ he echoed incredulously, as though he hadn’t heard her correctly.
‘Yes, Doctor—self-esteem! Nurses need it too, you know. And constantly assigning them to clean baths and empty bedpans, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, isn’t going to make them feel like an indispensable member of the nursing team, is it?’ she finished, her defiant tone disguised by her need to draw in a deep breath. ‘Especially if they see the staff nurse swanning around the place like a queen bee, afraid to dirty her apron or have any kind of hands-on contact with the patients. Now that kind of attitude doesn’t earn the kind of respect I like to receive from my junior nurses!’
‘Whereas you think that scrubbing out the bath and singing loudly like a fishwife does, I suppose?’ he suggested sarcastically.
She gave him her most beatific smile. ‘Yes, Doctor,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I do.’
His eyes were thoughtful as he stared down at her from a very great, very disapproving height and it only then occurred to her that she had conducted the entire conversation with him whilst sitting on the floor, and that her long black-stockinged legs were all splayed out in the most inelegant position! She hastily clamped her knees together and his frown increased still further.
‘I am waiting to do a ward-round,’ he told her in a shiveringly soft voice. ‘So would you mind getting up?’
‘Not at all,’ Nicolette answered formally.
Two things happened simultaneously.
The first was that Nicolette automatically did as he asked, and rose awkwardly to her feet.
The second was that she was so overcome, whether by his presence or their heated little contretemps, that she failed to see the small puddle of water on the tiled floor, which she must have slopped there when she was cleaning the bath. And, given the two catalysts of a slippery surface and her own innate clumsiness, the inevitable happened.
Nicolette slipped, her legs and arms flying with all the lack of co-ordination of a newly born foal, and she would have fallen completely and hit her head on the side of the bath, to boot, had not the tall man beside her lunged out instinctively to save her.
Nicolette was a tall girl, and certainly not fat, but she was healthy and well covered, and her rescuer was obviously unprepared for the soft, warm weight that landed in his arms, because somehow she toppled him too, and the two of them slid in synchrony down the side of the bath, like two drunks at the end of a long party.
‘What the hell—?’ he snarled in angry disbelief.
Nicolette tried to brace herself, but it was difficult. Her nose was just inches away from his name-badge, which had been hidden by most of his lapel, and which proclaimed his name as Dr L Le Saux.
Of course.
Of course it was him! It would have to be, wouldn’t it? I mean, thought Nicolette with acid humour, if you were going to present yourself to the ward consultant, to a man who loved order, then how better to go about it than to rugby tackle him to the floor with all the grace of a dying duck?
But there was another reason, too, for her inability to catch her breath, or even to move, that was nothing to do with Nicolette’s embarrassment and everything to do with the man himself.
Because somehow, in the course of steadying her and saving her from possible concussion, he had firmly put one hand around her waist, and was still holding on to her, with all the assurance of a man who had had a lot of experience of holding on to women.
Although, she thought, looking at those craggy features, that didn’t surprise her one bit! And, close to, the eyes were even more devastating than she had originally thought.
‘Would you mind,’ he enunciated in the most tightly controlled voice she had ever heard, ‘getting your foot out of my trousers?’
Nicolette blinked and glanced down. Oh, heavens! She could see just what he meant: the elegant grey trousers had a turn-up, or a cuff, as some people called it. The top Italian designers that season had deemed such cuffs essential for every well-dressed man. Even she had read about that in the newspapers!
And her hefty black nurse’s shoe, with its extremely heavy-duty sole, had somehow lodged itself there, wedged inside it as securely as a sailor in a hammock.
With her customary enthusiasm Nicolette yanked her foot out, but the movement was accompanied by a distinct tearing sound and her eyes swivelled downwards in horror to discover that in the process of removing her foot she had ripped his gorgeous trousers!
‘Thank you,’ he said, in a chilly voice just dripping with sarcasm.
‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed Nicolette as she scrambled to her feet and automatically held her hand out to help him up as she would to a patient.
He studiously ignored the outstretched hand, managing to lever his long-legged frame up from the bathroom floor until he was beside her once more and towering over her again. Only this time there wasn’t just that look of poorly concealed irritation on his face, there was downright anger there, too, but that didn’t deter Nicolette from trying to make amends.
‘Oh, your poor trousers!’ she exclaimed in horror. ‘You must let me offer to repair them.’
There was a long, tense silence while he studied her face disbelievingly, and then he said, ‘I doubt whether you could afford to.’
Well! It was one thing to wear clothes that obviously cost a king’s ransom to buy, but quite another to then rub your wealth in someone else’s face! Nicolette stiffened and drew her shoulders back proudly. ‘I meant,’ she said deliberately, ‘that I could sew them for you.’
If she had suggested single-handedly flying a light aircraft across the Atlantic with him as the only passenger he could not have looked more horrified, or more appalled.
‘If you think,’ he said deliberately, speaking each word with distaste, as though he were being forced to swallow a particularly nasty dose of medicine, ‘that I would allow you anywhere near my trousers—’
It was just very unfortunate that Nurse Jones chose that particular moment to walk back into the bathroom, to find them face to face and glowering at each other. And it was unfortunate, too, that, from the look of profound and abject consternation on her face, she had completely misinterpreted the meaning of his words. ‘Oh, I’m s-so s-sorry!’ she stuttered, and, turning scarlet, she went straight back out again as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels.
The awkward silence which fell as they watched the student nurse go stretched and stretched until it was almost unbearable.
Nicolette looked helplessly up into his eyes.
‘I would now like to do my ward-round,’ he told her icily. ‘If you could find it in yourself to grant me the pleasure—’ this word was enunciated with devastating contempt ‘—of accompanying me?’ And he stalked out without another word.
Nicolette was always one to look on the bright side, and yes, OK, perhaps it wasn’t the most auspicious of beginnings, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to get on in the future, did it?
She gulped, trying and failing to imagine a close, friendly working relationship developing with such an unbearable man.
She turned and went to follow him out, but as she did she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror and flinched.
She looked so unprofessional!
Her uniform was very casual, which didn’t exactly help. She wore a simple short-sleeved dress, with a kind of tabard that covered most of it. This was a sleeveless white overall, brightly decorated with cartoon characters and which was unique to Southbury’s paediatric wards. Designed specifically to make young patients feel at home, at present it was only adding fuel to Nicolette’s conviction that she didn’t look fit to be in charge of the ward!
Her cheeks were as pink and as shiny as if she’d spent the morning out gathering hay, and her blue eyes were bright—two chips of dazzling sapphire in her square face. Puzzlingly, she looked so alive and so vibrant that it almost shocked her, but it was the state of her hair that most caught her attention.
Difficult to control at the best of times, the frizzy black curls had clearly been affected by the steam, the fall and the subsequent collision because it now looked as though a swarm of ebony snakes was protruding from her head.
There were tendrils threatening to escape everywhere, and, worse still, some which already had escaped and were lying on her cheeks and coiling down the back of her long neck.
It would be hopeless, she knew, to try to mend the damage; her hair needed completely redoing. And she couldn’t, she just couldn’t leave Dr Le Saux waiting for her while she went off and did her hair. Just imagine what he would think of her then!
So she automatically smoothed her hands down the sides of her blue cotton dress, unconsciously moulding the curving lines of her hips as she did so, and set off with a heavy heart to do a ward round with Dr L Le Saux.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e67f6449-448e-5606-9fd3-be074d46d537)
NICOLETTE spotted that the curtains had been drawn round one of the beds and that Dr Le Saux’s white coat was just disappearing behind it, reminding her a little of the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland!
The paediatric ward was not of the old-fashioned ‘Nightingale’ design that Nicolette was used to, with two long stark lines of beds on either side, although perhaps the ‘orderly’ Dr Le Saux might have preferred that, she thought wickedly. Instead, as was the modern way of nursing, the ward was divided into four-bedded cubicles, with the nurses’ station in the centre but close enough to be able to observe the four side-rooms, where the very sick or infectious patients were looked after.
Nicolette moved the curtains aside and stepped in.
Dr Le Saux was bending over a child aged about nine, a child who was staring up at him with big, trusting eyes. The tall doctor straightened up when Nicolette walked in, and the corner of his mouth moved very slightly upwards in a derisive little curve, indicating that his mood remained as prickly as before.
‘So here you are,’ he observed. ‘At last,’ he added unreasonably.
My, but he was irascible! Did his wife nag him, or what? Nicolette found herself staring into eyes which had suddenly taken on a brooding, stormy quality. It would take a strong woman to nag Dr Le Saux, she decided! His name badge, so embarrassingly close earlier, now winked at her like a diamond. ‘Dr L Le Saux’, it said, and she wondered idly what the ‘L’ might stand for. Lucifer, most probably, she thought, biting back a grin with difficulty. ‘Yes. Here I am,’ she said airily.
She turned to face the little boy on the bed who had been admitted earlier that week. She had said a quick ‘good morning’ after report when she had briefly gone round the ward to try to acquaint herself with the patients, but that had been all she had had time for. None the less, Nicolette knew the boy’s name; she had arrived half an hour early and had memorised every single patient’s name.
The little boy who lay in the bed was pale and thin, with a pinched little face. ‘Hi, Simon,’ said Nicolette.
‘Hi,’ said Simon, giving her the wary little once-over that children always seemed to give when they met someone who would be involved with their care during their stay in hospital. ‘How d’you know my name?’
Nicolette tapped the side of her nose, rolled her eyes, then giggled. ‘Magic. I’m a mind-reader!’
At the sight of her open grin, the slightly suspicious look on Simon’s face evaporated. ‘You saw it in the Kardex?’ he guessed.
‘Right first time!’
‘And what’s your name?’ he asked her.
She looked down at the small boy understandingly. He could read on her badge what her surname was; he wanted to know what her real name was, her Christian name. ‘Nicolette.’ She smiled broadly, thankful that she lived in a time where hospital traditions were no longer as starchy as they had used to be. Indeed, the use of Christian names was positively encouraged these days.
Simon responded to the warm grin. ‘That’s pretty,’ he said. ‘An’ you’re pretty, too! Isn’t she pretty, Doctor?’
Nicolette was too busy trying to stop herself from blushing to take much notice of the fact that the stern-faced Dr Le Saux had not encouraged the use of his Christian name!
His face went even sterner as he managed to ignore Simon’s question by saying smoothly, ‘Perhaps you’d like to give me a brief run-through of Simon’s history, Staff Nurse? I am assuming, of course, that you managed to find the time to read it up?’
She had, thank heavens! Nicolette gave Simon’s hand a quick squeeze, pleased as punch when he squeezed hers back. ‘He has cystic fibrosis.’
Dr Le Saux nodded. ‘And what can you tell me about the disease?’
At least medical staff could now speak frankly in front of their young charges—which was a relief, thought Nicolette as she gave Simon a dazzling smile. Research had long since shown that honesty was the best policy when dealing with children and that ‘protecting’ them by concealing the nature of their illness often led to their constructing frightening fantasies that were far worse than the truth.
‘It’s an inherited condition, affecting many tissues, particularly those with endocrine glands,’ she summarised fluently.
‘And how would you describe the endocrine glands, very simply, to a junior nurse?’ he probed.
Nicolette decided that she would have to award him ten out of ten for persistence, but just about resisted pulling a face at him because she had to concede that he had a point. Some senior nurses did waffle on without knowing how to explain a subject adequately yet succinctly. None-the-less, the last time she had been asked directly about the endocrine glands had been during her last set of examination papers!
She creased her brows together in concentration. ‘They are a series of small glands, situated in various parts of the body, which form secretions known as hormones,’ she told him.
He nodded. ‘Good. So tell me how cystic fibrosis presents?’ he queried immediately.
Nicolette could see that she was going to have to spend every evening with her nose in a textbook if she was to continue working on Dr Le Saux’s ward! ‘The majority of patients present with diarrhoea and failure to thrive, due to malabsorption or recurrent persistent chest infection. Or both. The diagnosis is made by—’
‘I’m the one asking the questions, Staff,’ he growled impatiently.
‘Certainly, Doctor,’ she answered politely, but her eyes flashed a spark of defiance at the way he had just arrogantly butted in like that. Talking to her as though she were fresh off her first ward, instead of a highly qualified nurse with five years of exacting training behind her! She caught Simon looking up and watching her, a broad grin on his pale face.
‘Don’t take any notice of him, Nurse,’ he told her, almost cheerfully. ‘He’s always growling. He has to—he’s a lion man!’
‘That’s enough, Simon!’said Dr Le Saux warningly.
Teasing his doctor seemed to have given Simon a definite rise in spirits. ‘That’s what he’s called, too—lion man! Suits him, doesn’t it?’
Nicolette raised her thick black brows above clear blue eyes and looked with frank curiosity at Dr Le Saux. Lion man? ‘Oh?’ she queried in a faint, soft voice.
