скачать книгу бесплатно
Marrying a Doctor: The Doctor's Girl - new / A Special Kind Of Woman
Betty Neels
Caroline Anderson
The Doctor's Girl by BETTY NEELSLoveday West was thrilled when Dr. Andrew Fforde offered her a job as his temporary receptionist. She hadn't expected to fall in love with him–but he was just so handsome and charming! But was her place in his life as temporary as her contract?A Special Kind of Woman by CAROLINE ANDERSONWhen single mother Cait Cooper sees her daughter off to medical school, she feels now's the time to do all the things she's yearned to do. Enter Dr. Owen Douglas, who sets about giving Cait more fun than she's ever had…until their affair puts her right back where she started and Cait doesn't know which way to turn!
International bestselling author
Betty Neels
&
Rising star of Harlequin Romance®
Caroline Anderson
bring you…
Two fabulously tender and deeply emotional stories that will whisk you into a heartwarming, magical world.
Betty Neels spent her childhood and youth in Devonshire, England, before training as a nurse and midwife. She was an army nursing sister during the war, married a Dutchman and subsequently lived in Holland for fourteen years. She lives with her husband in Dorset, and has a daughter and grandson. Her interests are reading, animals, old buildings and writing. Betty started to write on retirement from nursing, incited by a lady in a library bemoaning the lack of romantic novels. Betty Neels has sold over 35 million copies of her books worldwide.
ALWAYS AND FOREVER by Betty Neels
Harlequin Romance® #3675
Caroline Anderson has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft-furnishing business and now she’s settled on writing. She says, “I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realized it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher-husband, John, and I have two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets and several acres of Suffolk, England, that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!” Caroline also writes for the Medical Romance™ series.
THE IMPETUOUS BRIDE by Caroline Anderson
Harlequin Romance® #3676
Marrying a Doctor
The Doctor’s Girl
Betty Neels
A Special Kind of Woman
Caroline Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
The Doctor’s Girl (#u3baf0703-bb6b-5537-81f0-56a6e1375095)
DEDICATION (#u3060f4fc-9717-570c-b4fe-76d944959775)
LETTER TO READER (#ud8fb7561-f9c8-5f31-8f78-b7a7b518b169)
CHAPTER ONE (#ufbec49d8-20b3-5237-8ad8-2969723c0b00)
CHAPTER TWO (#u8af3dcd0-7dad-54ba-b2bb-6725364db9fb)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
A Special Kind of Woman (#litres_trial_promo)
LETTER TO READER (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
The Doctor’s Girl
Betty Neels
For Elizabeth, my friend and guiding star over the years.
Dear Reader,
The last time I wrote to you it was Christmastime. Now, when I look out of my study window, our tiny garden is a wealth of green and color with lavender bushes, miniature rose bushes, tobacco plants, poppies and petunias, all growing higgledy-piggledy with buttercups and speedwell sprawling over any space that’s left. Untidy, undisciplined, but exactly right for our very small cottage. And indoors it is just as cluttered. Bits and pieces we have brought back when we traveled, presents from friends and family, photos of cats and dogs we have loved, things we cherish for their memories. And that goes for friends, too: times change but some things never will—old friends, old clothes, favorite books…and writing a letter to people you don’t know, but who are, all the same, friends. God bless you.
CHAPTER ONE
MISS MIMI CATTELL gave a low, dramatic moan followed by a few sobbing breaths, but when these had no effect upon the girl standing by the bed she sat up against her pillows, threw one of them at her and screeched, ‘Well, don’t just stand there, you little fool, phone Dr Gregg this instant. He must come and see me at once. I’m ill; I’ve hardly slept all night…’ She paused to sneeze.
The girl by the bed, a small mousy person, very neat and with a rather plain face enlivened by a pair of vivid green eyes, picked up the pillow.
‘Should you first of all try a hot lemon drink and some aspirin?’ she suggested in a sensible voice. ‘A cold in the head always makes one feel poorly. A day in bed, perhaps?’
The young woman in the bed had flung herself back onto her pillows again. ‘Just do as I say for once. I don’t pay you to make stupid suggestions. Get out and phone Dr Gregg; he’s to come at once.’ She moaned again. ‘How can I possibly go to the Sinclairs’ party this evening…?’
Dr Gregg’s receptionist laughed down the phone. ‘He’s got three more private patients to see and then a clinic at the hospital, and it isn’t Dr Gregg—he’s gone off for a week’s golf—it’s his partner. I’ll give him the message and you’d better say he’ll come as soon as he can. She’s not really ill, is she?’
‘I don’t think so. A nasty head cold…’
The receptionist laughed. ‘I don’t know why you stay with her.’
Loveday put down the phone. She wondered that too, quite often, but it was a case of beggars not being choosers, wasn’t it? She had to have a roof over her head, she had to eat and she had to earn money so that she could save for a problematical future. And that meant another year or two working as Mimi Cattell’s secretary—a misleading title if ever there was one, for she almost never sent letters, even when Loveday wrote them for her.
That didn’t mean that Loveday had nothing to do. Her days were kept nicely busy—the care of Mimi’s clothes took up a great deal of time, for what was the point of having a personal maid when Loveday had nothing else to do? Nothing except being at her beck and call each and every day, and if she came home later from a party at night as well.
Loveday, with only an elderly aunt living in a Dartmoor village whom she had never met, made the best of it. She was twenty-four, heartwhole and healthy, and perhaps one day a man would come along and sweep her off her feet. Common sense told her that this was unlikely to be the case, but a girl had to have her dreams…
She went back to the bedroom and found Mimi threshing about in her outsize bed, shouting at the unfortunate housemaid who had brought her breakfast tray.
Loveday prudently took the tray from the girl, who looked as if she was on the point of dropping it, nodded to her to slip away and said bracingly, ‘The doctor will come as soon as he can. He has one or two patients to see first.’ She made no mention of the clinic. ‘If I fetch you a pot of China tea—weak with lemon—it may help you to feel well enough to have a bath and put on a fresh nightie before he comes.’
Mimi brightened. Her life was spent in making herself attractive to men, and perhaps she would feel strong enough to do her face. She said rudely, ‘Get the tea, then, and make sure that the lemon’s cut wafer-thin…’
Loveday went down to the basement, where Mrs Branch and the housemaid lived their lives. She took the tray with her and, being a practical girl, ate the fingers of toast on it and accepted the mug of tea Mrs Branch offered her. She should have had her breakfast with Mrs Branch and Ellie, but there wasn’t much hope of getting it now. Getting Miss Cattell ready for the doctor would take quite a time. She ate the rest of the toast, sliced the lemon and bore a tray, daintily arranged, back upstairs.
Mimi Cattell, a spoilt beauty of society, prepared for the doctor’s visit with the same care she took when getting ready for an evening party. ‘And you can make the bed while I’m bathing—put some fresh pillowcases on, and don’t dawdle…’
It was almost lunchtime by the time she was once more in her bed, carefully made up, wearing a gossamer nightgown, the fairytale effect rather marred by her sniffs. To blow her nose would make it red.
To Loveday’s enquiry as to what she would like for lunch she said ill-temperedly that she had no appetite; she would eat something after he had visited her. ‘And you’d better wait too; I want you here when he’s examining me.’
‘I’ll fetch a jug of lemonade,’ said Loveday, and sped down to the kitchen.
While Ellie obligingly squeezed lemons, she gobbled down soup and a roll; she was going to need all her patience, and the lowering feeling that the doctor might not come for hours was depressing.
She bore the lemonade back upstairs and presently took it down again; it wasn’t sweet enough! She was kept occupied after that—opening the heavy curtains a little, then closing them again, longing to open a window and let a little London air into the room when Mimi sprayed herself once more with Chanel No 5. By now Mimi’s temper, never long off the boil, was showing signs of erupting. ‘He has no right to leave me in such distress,’ she fumed. ‘I need immediate attention. By the time he gets here I shall have probably got pneumonia. Find my smelling salts and give me the mirror from the dressing table.’
It was getting on for two o’clock when Loveday suggested that a little light lunch might make her employer feel better.
‘Rubbish,’ snarled Mimi. ‘I won’t eat a thing until he’s examined me. I suppose you want a meal—well, you’ll just have to wait.’ Her high-pitched voice rose to a screech. ‘I don’t pay you to sit around and stuff yourself at my expense, you greedy little…’
The door opened by Ellie, and after one look the screech became a soft, patient voice. ‘Doctor—at last…’
Mimi put up a hand to rearrange the cunning little curl over one ear to better advantage. ‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ she purred. To Loveday, she said, ‘Pull the curtains and get a chair for the doctor, and then go and stand by the window.’ The commands were uttered in a very different voice.
The doctor opened the curtains before Loveday could get to them and pulled up a chair. ‘I must introduce myself, Miss Cattell. I am Dr Gregg’s partner and for the moment looking after his patients while he is away.’
Mimi said in a wispy voice, ‘I thought you would never come. I am rather delicate, you know, and my health often gives cause for concern. My chest…’
She pushed back the bedspread and put a hand on her heart. It was annoying that he had turned away.
‘Could we have the window open?’ he asked Loveday.
A man after her own heart, thought Loveday, opening both windows despite Mimi’s distressed cry. She would suffer for it later, but now a few lungfuls of London air would be heaven.
From where she stood she had a splendid view of the doctor. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and fair hair flecked with grey. He was good-looking too, with a rather thin mouth and a splendid nose upon which were perched a pair of spectacles. A pity she couldn’t see the colour of his eyes…
Miss Cattell’s voice, sharp with impatience, brought her to the bedside. ‘Are you deaf?’ A remark hastily covered by a fit of sneezing, necessitating the use of a handkerchief and nose-blowing.
The doctor waited patiently until Mimi had resumed her look of patient suffering. He said mildly, ‘If you will sit up, I’ll listen to your chest.’
He had a deep voice, pleasantly impersonal, and he appeared quite unimpressed by Mimi’s charms, ignoring her fluttering breaths and sighs, staring at the wall behind the bed while he used his stethoscope.
‘Clear as a bell,’ he told her. ‘A head cold. I suggest aspirin, hot drinks and some brisk walks in the fresh air—you are quite near Hyde Park, are you not? Eat whatever you fancy and don’t drink any alcohol.’
Mimi stared up at him. ‘But I’m not well—I’m delicate; I might catch a chill…’
‘You have a head cold,’ he told her gravely, and Loveday had to admire his bedside manner. ‘But you are a healthy woman with a sound pair of lungs. You will be perfectly fit in a couple of days—less, if you do as I suggest.’
Mimi said rudely, ‘I’ll decide that for myself. When will Dr Gregg be back? I don’t know your name…?’
‘Andrew Fforde.’ He held out a large hand. ‘I’m sure you will let me know if you don’t make a full recovery.’
Mimi didn’t answer. Loveday went to the door with him and said gravely, ‘Thank you for coming, Doctor.’ She went downstairs with him, along the hall and opened the front door. As he offered a hand and bade her a grave good afternoon she was able to see that his eyes were blue.
A sensible girl, she went first down to the kitchen, where Mrs Branch and Ellie were sitting over a pot of strong tea.
‘I’ve saved you a bite of lunch,’ said Mrs Branch, and pushed a mug of tea across the table. ‘That weren’t Dr Gregg. Ellie says ’e looked a bit of all right?’
‘Dr Gregg’s partner, and he was nice. Miss Cattell has a head cold.’ Mrs Branch handed Loveday a cheese sandwich. ‘You’ll need that. Well, will she be going out this evening?’
‘I should think so,’ said Loveday in a cheese-thickened voice.
Miss Cattell was in a splendid rage; the doctor was a fool and she would speak to Dr Gregg about him the moment he was back. ‘The man must be struck off,’ declared Mimi. ‘Does he realise that I am a private patient? And you standing there with the windows wide open, not caring if I live or die.’
Mimi tossed a few pillows around. ‘Where have you been? You can get me a gin and tonic…’
‘Doctor said no alcohol.’
‘You’ll do as I say! Make it a large one, and tell Cook to make me an omelette and a salad. I want it now. I shall rest and you can get everything ready for this evening.’
‘You are going to the party, Miss Cattell?’
‘Of course I am. I don’t intend to disappoint my friends. I dare say I’ll be home early. I’ll ring for you if I am.’
Another half an hour went by while Mimi was rearranged in her bed, offered her omelette and given a second gin and tonic. She finally settled, the windows shut and curtains drawn, for a nap. Loveday, free at last, went to her room on the floor above, kicked off her shoes and got onto the bed. Some days were worse than others…
Miss Cattell was still asleep and snoring when Loveday crept into her room an hour later. In the kitchen once again, for yet another cup of tea, she thankfully accepted Mrs Branch’s offer of a casserole kept hot in the oven for her supper. Mimi wouldn’t leave the house before half past eight or nine o’clock, and there would be no chance to sit down to her supper before then.
Later, offering more China tea and wafer-thin bread and butter, Loveday was ordered to display a selection of the dresses Miss Cattell intended to wear. She meant to outshine everyone there and, her cold forgotten, she spent a long time deciding. After the lengthy ritual of bathing, making up her face and doing her hair, and finally being zipped into a flimsy dress which Loveday considered quite indecent, she changed her mind. The flimsy dress was thrown in a heap onto the floor and a striking scarlet outfit was decided upon, which meant that shoes and handbag had to be changed too—and while Loveday was doing that Ellie was ordered to bring another gin and tonic.
