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Was he really willing to put his life on hold while he searched the length and breadth of the country to track the wretched woman down again? It had taken him two weeks just to track down which hospital she’d been working at last, and it had taken all the charm he’d been able to muster to persuade one of her neighbours to remember that she’d mentioned a possible Christmas break in Cumbria.
He couldn’t imagine the magnitude of the coincidence that had put the two of them on the same motorway at exactly the same time…and then he’d lost her again.
So, he had a decision to make. He had another two weeks before he had to make a decision about the date of his return to work in Russia, two weeks that he could spend visiting Babushka Ana and getting his life in order, or he could spend it trying to complete his search for Laurel.
He’d come so close this afternoon that he could almost have reached out and touched her car. If he hadn’t decided to bide his time…
But did he really want to spend two precious weeks chasing down a woman who’d left him without a backward glance? Shouldn’t he go back to Babushka Ana as soon as possible? She’d been so frail last time he’d seen her. Who knew how long she had left?
Not that she knew who he was half the time, but still…she had been the one constant in his life for so many years that he couldn’t help the guilt when he thought of her days passing endlessly without family to visit her.
But if a few more days or weeks meant finding out what had happened to Laurel, why she’d disappeared like that…
As ever, her image was clear in his mind—the long, softly curling hair that made him think of Christmas angels, the sweetly expressive face and those fascinating amber eyes. It had been the hidden shadows in those eyes that had first caught his attention a year ago when he’d joined the staff at the hospital where she’d just been finishing her training.
Not that she’d done anything to attract his attention. Far from it.
In fact, it had taken him several weeks of concerted effort before he’d realised that, far from downplaying her beauty, she’d actually been totally oblivious to it.
He still marvelled at her innocence, and the unexpectedly passionate way she’d responded to him, even as he railed at the way she’d suddenly disappeared from the hospital and his life, apparently uncaring of the fact that they had an ongoing relationship.
It was that relationship and, yes, he wasn’t too proud to admit it, a measure of injured ego that had prompted him to spend this time trying to find out why she’d left.
But was he willing to spend more weeks tracking Laurel down? The heat that poured through him when he remembered the way she’d responded to his kisses gave him his answer. Yes, he was, even if he gained no more than the satisfaction of finding out why she’d run away.
The heat became the slow burn of anger and determination that had prompted him to plan his final quest during the last days of his job in England, and had accompanied him throughout his search. Then the car wheels gave a sudden slew sideways and he had to drag his concentration back to the road. He wouldn’t be in a fit state to search for anyone if he were trapped in a heap of crumpled metal at the side of the road.
‘How much further is it to this place?’ he muttered, not even daring to glance at the map he’d left open on the passenger seat beside him. ‘What was it called? Something that made me think of the Garden of Eden.’
He pulled a face at the dimly perceived scenery through which he was passing. It had looked quite spectacular until the light had faded and the snow had started falling. Now it looked far from idyllic, just somewhere on the road to…Edenthwaite! That was it! Although why Laurel wanted to go there was way beyond him.
He’d been so sure that she’d been enjoying her work as a newly qualified nurse, and enjoying the relationship they’d been forging together. Obviously, he’d been wrong or she wouldn’t have left like that, without even a word to…
‘What was that?’ He took his foot off the pedal and peered towards the ragged top of the stone wall beside him and the metallic flash that had caught his eye.
As it receded in his rear-view mirror he realised that someone must have crashed into it at some time because the flash had been a reflection from broken shards of glass or a mirror.
‘Thank goodness it didn’t happen tonight,’ he murmured when he noted the lack of tyre tracks in the layer of snow beginning to gather across the road and on the limestone blocks that made up the bordering walls. ‘I pity anyone who crashes up here tonight. If the snow keeps falling like this, it could be days before anyone finds them.’
With new caution in each movement, he allowed the car to pick up a bit of speed again. There was no point loitering in the middle of nowhere in this weather when he could be booking into the hotel in Edenthwaite.
‘I’ll make some phone calls tonight to find out where she’s staying. If she was making for Edenthwaite, it’s probably because she’s hoping to get a job in the hospital, or she’s about to take up a post there. By tomorrow, I should be able to start asking some questions,’ he said firmly. ‘There must be some reason why she’s been moving about so much—some reason why she was heading in this particular direction—and I’m going to find out what it is.’
Then, perhaps, he’d be able to go back to Russia with a clear conscience. At least he wouldn’t be left with the nagging feeling that he should have tried just a little harder to find the woman who was never very far from his mind.
‘Where are all the cars when I need them?’ Laurel groaned, her eyes fixed on the cock-eyed view in the mirror. At least she wasn’t totally upside down any more. The car seemed to be on its side.
The cold had seeped into the car slowly at first but there was no heat left at all now. She was shivering all the time, and her head was aching after the collision with the door frame. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious but her brain was still functioning well enough to appreciate the irony of the situation.
‘After all this time of keeping a low profile and making sure I don’t do anything to draw attention to myself,’ she groaned. How many times had she caught sight of her pursuer and known that it had been time to move on yet again? It must be four or five times since she’d read that letter and realised the significance of it.
Not that she had realised the full significance until she’d made a few enquiries. The whole thing had seemed utterly fantastic…totally unbelievable…until she’d taken a chance and had barged into the lawyer’s office without the courtesy of an appointment and had demanded some straight answers.
‘I’m a twin,’ she whispered, feeling the smile spread over her chilly face again, the delight growing with each repetition. ‘She’s somewhere out there—in Edenthwaite, perhaps—and when I find her, I’ll finally be able to get the answers to fill in all the rest of the pieces to the puzzle.’
And there were so many questions, more with every day that had passed since she’d read that fateful letter.
Her mother’s letter.
Her real mother.
She had a copy of it with her now, sewn into the lining of her coat, but for safekeeping had lodged the original and the will and birth certificates that had accompanied it with her mother’s solicitor until she completed her search.
She didn’t need to see the faded script on the first page to recall the heartbroken words, apparently written just hours after she’d given birth and had had to watch her precious babies being taken away for others to nurture into adulthood.
The first time she’d read the letter, she’d been shocked, then overwhelmed with anger at the deception that had shaped her life. It had taken her several months before she’d been able to find sympathy in her heart for the mother who had abandoned her then deliberately distanced herself from any contact.
Laurel closed her eyes against the hot prick of tears, cradling her hands over the swell of her own child. It hadn’t been until she’d realised that she was pregnant and had felt that instant flood of maternal love that she’d been able to understand how a mother would do anything to make sure her child was taken care of, even give her up for adoption.
She was just grateful that society had changed enough in the last twenty-eight years that she could make her own choices, not have them forced upon her by appalled family and friends.
And they would be appalled if they knew what she’d been doing for the last year.
She gave a brief wry chuckle when she realised just how close to twelve months it had been since she’d left the only home she’d known and had tried to disappear.
It would be Christmas in just a few days, and exactly one year ago she’d been a meekly dutiful part of the lavish planning and preparations for her wedding.
She still didn’t know whether Grant had been privy to her father…no, not her father…to Robert Wainwright’s machinations. When she’d realised what had been going on, she hadn’t paused even long enough to leave him a note and hadn’t dared to contact him in the meantime.
Not that she believed for a moment that she’d left Grant with a broken heart. As far as she could tell, theirs had been a marriage brokered solely in pursuit of financial gain.
One thing that had persuaded her into agreeing to it had been the fact that she would finally be escaping from Robert’s incessant criticism. It would be such a relief not to have to pretend any more that she was still taking those wretched tablets and to be able to live her own life. The fact that she would finally be able to wholeheartedly follow the nursing profession she’d fought so hard for had been enough to convince her to accept Grant’s proposal.
It wasn’t as if she’d had any other suitors lining up, not with Robert keeping an eagle eye on every spare moment when she hadn’t been on duty. Anyway, she’d never really wanted a man in her life. A lifetime under the overbearing control of one had made her wary about any sort of social interaction. It had been enough for her that she’d finally completed her training as a nurse.
Laurel sighed when she remembered just how long she’d had to campaign to be allowed to apply for a place and her surprise when her mother…no, not her mother, Robert’s wife, had added her weight to the argument in her favour.
She would always see the day of her interview as a milestone in her life. For a few moments she’d wondered if she’d made an enormous mistake when she’d explained in detail how she’d become addicted to tranquillisers and the steps she’d taken to rid herself of the problem.
Looking back, she believed that it had been her willingness to consider herself on probation and the offer to permit blood tests at any time to confirm that she was ‘clean’ that had prompted them to give her the chance she’d wanted.
Those years had been hard work but she didn’t regret a single bedpan. Not only had they given her a way to escape the poisonous atmosphere that seemed to surround her whenever she was in the same room as Robert Wainwright, they’d also made her realise that she’d found the purpose to her life.
And that wasn’t all. There was another, even more important reason.
If she hadn’t fought to get out from under Robert Wainwright’s thumb—if she hadn’t insisted that she wanted to train as a nurse—she’d never have been in the right place at the right time to meet Dmitri.
This time the smile was bitter-sweet, muted by the pang of loss that surrounded her heart.
It hurt to know that never again would she see the man she loved. After the way she’d had to leave him, he probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her, but that didn’t mean that she regretted meeting him. Far from it.
Laurel didn’t need to have him in front of her to be able to picture him perfectly, starting with those mesmerising eyes.
CHAPTER TWO (#udf64abd9-cbf2-5746-9473-89d07599561d)
‘EXCUSE me?’
Fear had been Laurel’s first reaction at being accosted, and she’d frozen. It had always been her first emotion in those days. Fear that someone had finally seen behind her deception and tracked her down. She hadn’t seen how they could have, since she’d changed the name she was known by on the ward, but still, with the necessity of at least one person in the admin department knowing her legal name so that she’d been able to be paid, there had always been a risk that something could get back to Robert Wainwright.
The softly spoken voice behind her had a definite accent but it wasn’t one that Laurel recognised. Neither did she recognise the shiver of awareness that the velvety sound had on her nerves.
She forced herself to turn, and looked up into the most amazing eyes she’d ever seen.
They were grey, but not like any grey she’d ever seen before. They didn’t look the cold colour of steel but almost as if they carried the searing heat of molten silver, and set against the intriguing slant of lean cheeks and surrounded by long dark lashes they seemed more mysterious than ever.
For several long seconds Laurel stared into them, almost mesmerised by their intensity. It wasn’t until he blinked that those sinfully long lashes broke the spell and she realised that she hadn’t said a word.
‘I’m sorry. Can I help you?’ At least she hadn’t dropped the armful of clean sheets she was carrying.
‘I hope so. Can you tell me, which way to ryebyonak?’
‘Ryeby—what?’ Laurel asked, wondering if her brain was so scrambled that she couldn’t understand simple English any more.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘I was thinking of home—of Russia—and sometimes the wrong words come out. I should have said I was looking for the…the babies. Neonatal department.’
‘I’m going that way myself. I can show you,’ she offered, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. His eyes had hardly left her face since she’d turned round and she was now wondering if she’d got a coffee moustache, or something. She would have to check as soon as she had a moment. It was imperative that she didn’t draw even the most innocent attention to herself, not until she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do.
‘Here. Let me take those for you,’ he offered, and before she even realised what he was going to do, let alone argue about the need, he’d scooped the heavy pile of linen out of her arms and tucked them easily under one arm.
And all she could think about was the fact that she could smell the scent of soap on his skin.
‘You work in the department?’ he asked as they set off, and she wondered if he was having to shorten his stride to allow her to keep up with him. She wasn’t particularly short at five feet eight, but guessed that he must be at least six feet and probably an inch or two more.
And every inch of it seemed as lean and powerful as one of those swimmers she’d seen on television, practising for the next Olympics. He might be dressed in a smart charcoal-grey suit and white shirt at the moment, but she could just imagine what he’d look like in a pair of those skin-tight shorts, or…
Whoa! Enough!
What on earth was happening to her? She’d never been the sort to fantasise about men, let alone naked men. And all he’d done had been to carry a pile of sheets and ask her…
‘Oh, yes!’ she said hurriedly, suddenly realising that he was still waiting for an answer. ‘I work on the neonatal ward—well, I’ve only recently started in the department. It’s my first post since I qualified.’
‘And was this an assignment, or was it something that you have chosen?’
His expression was so intent that she could almost imagine that her answer mattered more than if it was just for the sake of conversation.
‘Oh, I chose it,’ she said, feeling quite flustered. She just wasn’t accustomed to being the focus of anyone’s attention, unless they were looking to find fault. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
‘I hope it meets your expectations,’ he said with a thoughtful nod, then continued softly, so softly that, coloured by his exotic accent, she couldn’t be sure she’d heard him correctly, ‘You will be good for the babies.’
That had sounded like a compliment, something else that she wasn’t accustomed to hearing and had no idea how to respond to. Thank goodness they had reached the ward.
‘Sister should be in her office. Shall I show you where…?’
‘No, thank you. That won’t be necessary,’ he said with a smile that almost had her swallowing her tongue. This man was more deadly than anything the old Soviet Union might have once had in its nuclear arsenal. ‘I can find my way around the ward. I just have trouble finding my way around the hospital at the moment.’
He relinquished his hold on the pile of sheets.
‘Perhaps you need to drop a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back,’ she suggested with a grin of her own, only realising how flippant she must have sounded when she reached the linen cupboard. That was hardly the right way to go about keeping a low profile.
‘Get a grip on yourself,’ she muttered under her breath as she stacked the shelves neatly. They couldn’t afford to run low on clean linen when their patients were among the most fragile and susceptible to infection in the whole hospital.
At least disposable nappies had eliminated one set of supply problems. She could just imagine how many traditional cloth ones would have been used in a day.
Now she needed to let Sister know that she’d returned from her errand and find out about her next task. That was one thing about working in a busy unit like this, there was so much going on and so many things to do that she was learning something new every day. Still, it would be nice when she was proficient enough to do more than assist her more senior colleagues.
‘Roll on the day when I’m not one of the lowest of the low,’ she murmured. Having had to fight to be allowed to do her nursing training, she was several years older than most newly qualified staff, and she was human enough to feel a twinge of resentment when she was being ordered to do relatively menial tasks by much younger women. ‘And as there’s no way I’ll be moving up the ladder until they’re sure that I’m competent enough, that situation can only be remedied by time and hard work.’
She consciously straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. The fact that her flight from home had also cost her the plum post she’d been offered at the hospital where she’d done her training was just another thing to lay at her family’s feet. At least her ‘record’ as a former tranquilliser addict was in the past, buried by the hospital at which she’d done her training. They’d actually told her that after watching her closely over the last three years, they had no fear that it would ever interfere with her work.
‘Ah, there she is, Sister Richards! My rescuer!’ exclaimed a newly familiar voice, and Laurel’s breath caught in her throat.
‘Thank you for rescuing him for me, Laurel. I wouldn’t want to lose him,’ her superior said, but although she was speaking to Laurel, her eyes never left the lean man at her side.
Laurel could all too easily understand why, especially if he was in the habit of smiling like that. What she didn’t know was whether there was something of a personal nature between the two of them, neither did she know why just the thought of it made her feel strangely hollow inside.
‘We didn’t introduce ourselves properly,’ he said, completely ignoring Melanie Richards’s possessive-sounding words as he held a hand out towards Laurel.
‘Oh, she’s Laurel Wright, one of our most junior staff,’ her superior said dismissively, her eyes still fixed on the man like a starving woman gazing at a giant box of Belgian chocolates. ‘This is Dr Ros—Rostro—’
‘Rostropovich,’ he supplied, tightening his hand fractionally around Laurel’s when she would have withdrawn it immediately. ‘Dmitri Rostropovich. It would probably be easier if you called me—’
‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Rostropovich,’ Laurel said without any difficulty, and had to fight a smile at her superior’s visible chagrin. Stumbling over pronouncing his name was all the evidence Laurel had needed that they were not as close as the younger woman wanted them to be. ‘Do you spell that the same way as the famous cellist?’
Having retrieved her hand, she wrapped the other one around it, surprised that she couldn’t feel the flash of heat that had been generated when his hand had touched hers. She was going to have to revise her scepticism over those scenes in romance novels where there was an electric connection between the hero and heroine the first time they touched.
Not that she was anybody’s heroine, least of all his.
‘It’s spelt exactly the same, although I don’t think there’s any family connection. Do you like his music?’
‘Some of it, especially his recording of—’
‘Laurel doesn’t really have time to stand chatting about music,’ Melanie Richards pointed out with a disgruntled scowl. ‘It’s time for Staff Nurse Norris to go for her break, isn’t it, Nurse? You’re supposed to be taking over monitoring baby Sweeny, aren’t you?’
It was news to Laurel but she wasn’t about to turn down the chance to do some hands-on nursing for a change. Up till this moment Sister Richards had seemed to be deliberately keeping her to menial tasks.
‘Perhaps we will be able to talk of music another time,’ Dmitri said politely as Laurel turned to cross the ward towards her charge. ‘In the meantime, if you will permit, I will come with you to have a look at this baby Sweeny who needs monitoring.’
Laurel caught a glimpse of the hastily hidden flash of anger in her superior’s eyes and blinked in surprise.
