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‘I had a sandwich,’ Susie said, and Kirsty opened her mouth to say something but Jake glanced at her again. This man could speak with his eyes.
She shut up—as silently ordered.
‘How much of the sandwich did you eat, Susie?’
‘I…’
‘I want the truth.’ He was smiling but there was something about the way he said it that told Kirsty he already knew the truth.
‘Half a sandwich,’ Susie whispered, and then as Jake’s eyes held hers—and held some more—she faltered. ‘A quarter, maybe.’
‘Is there a reason you’re not eating?’
‘Eating makes me feel sick.’
Kirsty was holding her breath. The world was holding its breath.
‘Has that been happening ever since your husband was killed?’
They’d been tiptoeing round the edges for so long that this direct approach was almost shocking. Silence. Then… ‘Yes.’
‘Have you talked to a professional about your problems with eating?’
‘Why should I talk to anyone about it?’ Susie whispered. ‘Kirsty keeps on and on…’
Kirsty opened her mouth but she was hit by that quelling glance again. Shut up, his glance said, and she wasn’t going to argue.
‘You don’t see not eating as a problem?’ he asked Susie.
‘No.’
‘Is that true? It’s not a problem?’
‘The only person who thinks it’s a problem is Kirsty. And she fusses. It’s just I don’t feel like it.’
‘I guess you don’t feel like much.’
‘You’re right there,’ Susie said bitterly. ‘But people go on and on at me…’
No need for the quelling glance this time. Kirsty knew when to shut up. If she could, she’d disappear, she thought. He was treading on eggshells but she knew instinctively that none would be squashed.
‘You know, Susie, I think you need time out,’ Jake said softly. He glanced at the notes he’d been taking as he’d examined her. ‘For a start, your blood pressure’s higher than it should be and we need to get it down.’
‘I’m not going to hospital.’
‘I didn’t suggest that,’ he said evenly. ‘But if you think you can bear to slum it here for a while…’
Susie gazed up at him from her massive eiderdown and her mound of soft down pillows. Astonished.
‘Here?’
‘You’re Angus’s family. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hold on to you for a week or so. I’ll talk to him about it, shall I? But meanwhile you need to eat, and then sleep.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You know, I’m very sure you are,’ he told her. ‘I cook the world’s best omelette.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Susie complained.
And Kirsty thought, Ditto.
‘But you’ll eat my omelette? I’ll be hurt if you don’t.’
How could her sister resist an appeal like that? Kirsty wondered. And if there was a tiny seed of bitterness in what she was thinking, who could blame her? Sure, persuade Susie to eat his omelette or she’d hurt his feelings. How many uneaten meals had she cooked for Susie?
She was being ridiculous. She looked up at Jake to find he was watching her, and the amusement was back behind those calm grey eyes. Drat the man—was he psychic? Could he read what she was thinking?
‘I’ll make some for your sister, too,’ he told Susie, and Kirsty flushed.
‘I’ll make my own,’ she told him. ‘If Uncle Angus says I can. It is his castle after all. Isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed,’ Jake said gravely. ‘Susie, if you’ll excuse us, I’ll take your sister to meet him. We’ll make your apologies. You can meet him in the morning.’
‘What gives you the right…?’ Kirsty was almost speechless but as soon as the door was closed against Susie’s ears she found speech was close to overwhelming her. ‘What gives you the right to invite Susie for an extended stay with a man she hasn’t met? With an uncle who’s dying? Are you his doctor or his keeper? Who are you? And weren’t you late before?’
‘I’m his doctor and his friend,’ he said bluntly. He was striding down the hallway so fast that she had to almost break into a run to keep up with him. It seemed his time constraint—his sense of urgency—was operating again. ‘We have it in our grasp to save three lives here, Dr McMahon, and in the face of that, who am I to quibble at being later than I already am?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Susie, her baby and Angus,’ he told her, wheeling into the next corridor. This mansion was vast, Kirsty thought as she struggled to keep up. It was astounding. It was furnished like a palace. Actually…
‘It’s not a very exclusive palace,’ Jake commented. ‘Louis XIV meets Discounts-R-Us.’
It was so much what she was thinking that she gasped.
‘Angus’s wife had grand ideas,’ he told her, reaching the stairs and taking them three at a time. ‘But by the time the mansion was built Angus said enough was enough. He’s rich but he’s not stupid. One day this place will be a glorious tourist hotel—the views alone are enough to sell it for millions. He didn’t stint on the building, but furnishings to suit were another matter. So we have a fabulous ballroom with a magnificent but very plastic chandelier. Plus the rest.’
It was amazing—but it was great, Kirsty thought, looking around her in awe. There were aspidistra plants winding up every column—and there were many, many columns. Grecian columns. If she looked closely, she could see the plants were plastic. Made in China. The Louis XIV chairs scattered along the wall were of a construction about three classes below chain-store.
What was she doing, being distracted by furnishings? She was still annoyed. She decided to go back to being furious. But before she could resurrect her indignation, he let loose with his own.
‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing, travelling the world with a woman who is eight months pregnant? A woman who has a shattered back and who’s anorexic to boot? What madness propelled you to bring her halfway across the world? I’m not talking lightly when I say we’re working on saving three lives. She’s risking her life and her baby’s life.’
‘You think I don’t know that? She would have died if I hadn’t brought her here,’ she said flatly. ‘And there’s the truth.’
‘Why?’
‘You can see why. She fell for Rory so hard she couldn’t see anyone else, and when he was killed she wanted to die, too. I think she still does.’
‘Is she being treated for depression?’
‘She refuses. She can’t take antidepressants because of the baby, if she’d take them—which she wouldn’t. She won’t talk about Rory. She just sits. I hoped that by bringing her here, where people knew Rory, she might break her silence.’
He reached the landing and said over his shoulder, ‘You said she’s a landscape gardener.’
‘That’s part of the problem,’ Kirsty told him. ‘Susie’s not fit to work. She has nothing, so she sits and thinks of what she’s lost.’
‘She still has the baby,’ Jake says. ‘It’s not altogether tragic.’
‘That’s easy to say,’ Kirsty said, and he flashed her a look that she couldn’t read.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To meet Angus.’
‘You said he’d be asleep.’
‘I’d said he’d gone to bed. There’s a difference. He’ll be waiting for us.’
‘He’s so ill he wouldn’t come to find out what’s happening?’
‘He’s a bit like Susie,’ Jake said, his voice softening. ‘He should be in a downstairs bedroom but he refuses. He refuses anything that might help. He just sits and waits.’
‘How close is he to death?’ she asked bluntly, and saw him wince. He really did care.
‘Until you arrived, I’d have said it’d be a matter of weeks.’ Suddenly he was slowing his stride, as if it was important that she hear what he had to say. ‘Days even. Once he’s in a nursing home I imagine he’ll lose any last vestige of will to live. He lives for this place.’
‘For this castle?’
There was a wry grin at that. ‘No. Loganaich Castle gives him pleasure but, as amenable as he was to building it, this was his wife’s baby. He doesn’t love it. His vegetable garden, though, is a different matter. But now…’ He hesitated.
‘Now?’ she prodded, and he seemed to think for a bit before continuing.
‘Now we have a landscape gardener and a doctor on hand,’ Jake said. ‘Who knows what difference that could make?’ He paused before a pair of vast oak doors, set with two plastic plaques. DEIRDRE LIVES HERE was engraved on a teddy-bear-embossed plastic plaque hanging on the left-hand door and ANGUS LIVES HERE was hung with decorative fishing lines on the right.
It was too much for Kirsty. She started laughing. Jake swung the door wide, and she was laughing as she met the Earl of Loganaich.
Serious lung deterioration was difficult to disguise and Angus showed all the symptoms. He was seated at the window but he stood as they entered, a frail man who groped for his walking frame before taking a faltering step toward them. His breathing was shallow and rasping, and his lips had a faint blue tinge.
If he was my patient, I’d have him on oxygen, Kirsty thought, and caught a flash of grim amusement from Jake.
She wasn’t going to look at him any more.
That was easy enough to arrange—for the moment. Angus was coming toward her, a quizzical smile on his wrinkled face.
‘Here’s my visitor,’ he said, his obvious pleasure giving lie to Jake’s declaration that he couldn’t have visitors. ‘But not…’ His face clouded in disappointment. She’d held out her hand to greet him and he stared down at her bare ring finger. ‘Not Rory’s widow? Jake’s made a mistake, hasn’t he? Rory never married.’
‘He did,’ Kirsty told him, confused. Why hadn’t Rory kept in touch with his family?
‘But you’re not…’
‘My sister married your nephew,’ she told him.
‘And she’s not here.’
‘Susie’s here, but she’s ill herself,’ Jake said softly. ‘We’ve popped her into bed. She’s exhausted.’
‘She’s ill?’ This old man was anxious on her sister’s behalf, Kirsty thought with more than a little incredulity as she listened to his laboured, painful breathing.
‘My sister’s looking forward to meeting you very much,’ she told him. ‘Jake seems to think it’s OK for us to stay the night.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘We won’t bother you. And we’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
His face fell. ‘So soon?’
‘We don’t want to disturb you.’
‘No one wants to disturb me,’ he snapped, so harshly that he made himself cough. ‘Why didn’t Rory tell me he was married? Why didn’t Kenneth tell me Rory was married?’
Kirsty had no answers. She knew Rory had a brother, but she’d never met him. As far as she knew, there was a deep and abiding dislike that had been the major decision behind Rory’s decision to emigrate.
‘Maybe Susie knows more than I do,’ she murmured. ‘You can talk to her in the morning.’ She cast an uncertain glance at Jake, and then looked back at Angus. His lips were still tinged blue and his distress was obvious. He was struggling to stand. As she turned back to him he staggered slightly. She caught his hand and helped him sit on the bed.
‘Th— Th—’ It was too much. He lay back on the pillows and gasped.
‘You need oxygen,’ she said urgently, and turned to Jake. ‘Why isn’t he on oxygen? It’d surely help.’
Jake sighed. ‘Thank you, Dr McMahon. The US has heard of oxygen, then, has it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing off in an instant. What was she about, interfering in a doctor-patient relationship that had nothing to do with her? ‘Of course it’s none of my business. And Angus—your… I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you.’
‘I haven’t done the introductions,’ Jake said. ‘Dr Kirsty McMahon, this is His Grace, the Earl of Loganaich.’
She glowered, and then shot a cautious smile at Angus. ‘Gee, that makes it easier to know what to call you.’
Angus managed a smile back—and so did Jake.
‘Call me Angus,’ the old man managed. But then he started to gasp again and Jake’s smile died.
‘Angus, you need to let me help you,’ Jake said urgently, and Kirsty could hear the raw anxiety in his tone. This was something much deeper than a doctor-patient relationship.
‘Angus won’t use oxygen,’ Jake added, startling her by referring to a conversation she thought he’d effectively closed. ‘I know it’s none of your business, Dr McMahon, but now you’ve brought it up we may as well give Dr McMahon an answer, don’t you think, Angus?’
‘No,’ Angus gasped, and struggled for some more breath.
