The Elusive Doctor Read online

  “Why is it that every time you succumb to the attraction between us you act as if you’ve escaped a fate worse than death when the moment is interrupted?” Nina cried.

  “You underestimate my feelings,” Rob said with a chill in his voice to match her own. “I don’t feel as if I’ve escaped an unpleasant fate at all. It’s more like having had to pass by the entrance to heaven.”

  “Then why…?”

  “You know why. I’ve already told you.”

  “The trouble with you, Rob,” she flared, “is that you’re too blinkered to see what’s staring you in the face. You’re letting the past threaten the future!”

  Dear Reader,

  It was some years ago that my already-published sister suggested that I try my hand at writing, and once I started, I was hooked. And I have never looked back since receiving the marvelous news that my first medical romance had been accepted. I am fascinated by the medical world, and to be able to combine it with romance is a wonderful opportunity. I am always full of ideas for stories, and my eldest son, who is a hospital manager, helps me with my medical research.

  In The Elusive Doctor, I wanted to bring to life for you the unique atmosphere that living in a close-knit community can have. Even now I am intrigued by the fact that in the village where I live, everybody knows each other and you can’t go far before you’re saying hello to a friend. Perhaps Nina, my city-loving heroine, will fall for the quaint village of Stepping Dearsley, as well as falling for the hero! I hope you enjoy finding out!

  Happy reading!

  Abigail Gordon

  The Elusive Doctor

  Abigail Gordon

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  AT MID-MORNING the main street of the village was busy. A smattering of those who lived in Stepping Dearsley were moving purposefully in and out of its few shops and the rest, who had come by car, bus and train, to spend a summer’s day in one of Cheshire’s prettiest villages, were engaged in a variety of pursuits. Morning coffee being one of them.

  Those who thought themselves up-market were gravitating towards the lounge of the Royal Venison Hotel where peacocks strutted on smooth green lawns. Or to the quaint café next to the butcher’s for those who either couldn’t afford the hotel’s prices or preferred a more chintzy atmosphere.

  In a small courtyard close to the hotel a group of ramblers were eyeing the paintings in Sara Forrester’s small art gallery, and when they moved away, with the studs of their walking boots clinking on cobbles which had been there longer than anyone could remember, a teacher and a party of schoolchildren out for the day took their place.

  Across the way, the stone building which had once been a small church was taking in and spilling out those who had cause to seek the help and advice of their GP. And as Nina surveyed it from the opposite pavement her expression was no more cheerful than it had been since she’d arrived at the house that she could see gleaming whitely through the trees at the other end of the village.

  This sunny backwater wasn’t Kosovo, Bosnia or the Sudan, she thought gloomily as a young mother, clutching a prescription with one hand and a whimpering toddler with the other, came out of the building that she herself would shortly be entering.

  She’d had such plans, such idealistic ideas of what she’d been going to do when she’d qualified, and they’d all been centred around setting the world to rights.

  And instead…what had happened? A letter in the post from her father to say that she’d been needed at home. The old tartar hadn’t even said ‘please’, and if it had been anyone else but Eloise who’d been the cause of the abrupt summons to present herself in this place, miles from anywhere, she would have refused.

  But if her dad was a pain, Eloise was her dearest friend, as well as her stepmother. The news that she’d been diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer had thrown Peter Lombard into a state of uncharacteristic panic, and in his usual autocratic way he’d ordered Nina to return to the fold.

  He hadn’t considered that she might have had other plans and, when Eloise had protested that she was all right and could cope with whatever the future held, he’d still been adamant that his daughter must be with them at such a time.

  ‘There’s a vacancy for a trainee GP here in the village,’ he’d said when Nina had phoned in answer to his letter. ‘So if they’ll take you on, you won’t stagnate.’

  Stagnate? she’d wanted to cry. I’ll suffocate in that place!

  The thought of being cooped up in the country hide-away to which he and Eloise had moved only twelve months before gave her claustrophobia. She was a city girl. Nightclubs, discos, shopping malls—those were her scene.

  She’d been the life and soul of the party amongst the medical students at the London university where she’d studied for her degree, and once she’d got it she’d been ready for off, only to be brought to heel by her father’s summons.

  Obviously she hadn’t been going to refuse. Knowing her father, he would be worse than useless if things got really bad for Eloise, and his gentle wife, whose loving kindness had won the heart of a grieving eleven-year-old many years ago, would need her support.

  Nina had arrived home the previous day and had known that her dad, in spite of his high-handed ways, on this occasion had been right. She and Eloise had clung to each other, and the young medical graduate had realised that their roles had been reversed. The mantle of the protector was now upon her shoulders.

  Peter Lombard’s suggestion that she find herself employment locally had been digested and reluctantly acted upon. Hence the fact that she was standing, glum-faced, outside this quaint stone edifice which was the centre of health care in Stepping Dearsley.

  Bracing herself, Nina crossed over the street, and as she hesitated outside the surgery she groaned at the thought of what lay ahead.

  An elderly woman passing by eyed her curiously. ‘You all right, my dear?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen you around here before. But, then, we get a lot of strangers in the place. We village folk sometimes feel that there’s no room for us.’

  ‘I’m Peter Lombard’s daughter,’ she told her, wondering why she had to identify herself to this old dear. ‘He lives in the white house at the far end of the village.’

  Bright old eyes twinkled up at her. ‘Ah, so you belong to one of the newcomers. You’re family to that nice Missus Lombard, then?’

  Nina nodded. She saw no point in telling this old chatterbox that her mother had died when she was eleven and that shortly afterwards her father had presented her with a lovely stepmother.

  What Eloise had ever seen in her father she didn’t know. He was ex-army and never forgot it. Not an easy man to live with. But she supposed he was handsome in his own way. Tall, supple still, hair of dark russet that was now turning to silver and green eyes that didn’t miss a thing.

  She had inherited his striking good looks and could sometimes be just as strong-willed, but the basis of Nina’s character had come from her mother, and sometimes when she saw her father at his most awkward she sent up a prayer of thanks for the breezy yet generous confidence which had been her legacy from the woman who’d been taken from them.

  It wasn’t in evidence today, though, far from it. She was out on a limb in this place, like a wary creature out of its habitat, and there wasn’t a lot she could do about it.

  ‘I’m Kitty Kelsall,’ the old lady was saying. ‘Mine’s the end cottage there. I do a
bit of cleaning at the surgery but I’ve finished for today. They’ve got the decorators in and there isn’t much I can do until they’ve finished.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Nina commented absently. So she was going to be interviewed by the members of the practice surrounded by paint pots. Would they be chewing on straws, she wondered…and dressed in smocks?

  In whatever way the panel of GPs who were to interview her might be attired, at least she was looking her best, Nina thought as she pushed open double glass doors and slowly made her way into the Stepping Dearsley Group Practice.

  In a smart suit of fine black wool, relieved with a white silk blouse, and her shining russet crop styled in a short cut which brought into focus her fine-boned face with its tilting mouth and challenging green eyes, she was feeling happy about her appearance, if nothing else.

  She’d been right about one thing, she decided as she looked around her. The decor was certainly of a haystacks and buttercups type. Wooden settles were there for the waiting patients to sit on, rather than neat wooden chairs, and the wallpaper had a definite dated look about it.

  But that atmosphere didn’t follow through to the room from which a group of receptionists were eyeing her with smiling curiosity, and she thought that whatever the place lacked in glamour it made up for in numbers of staff. How many folk were there living in the village, for goodness’ sake?

  ‘I have an appointment with the partners,’ she said coolly as one of the receptionists asked in what way she could help.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ the woman said. ‘Two of them are on their rounds,’ she explained, ‘and the others are downstairs.’

  She pointed to a door next to where Nina was standing. ‘It’s through there, Dr…er, Lombard, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘The focal point of the practice is downstairs,’ the receptionist said, still bent on putting the interviewee in the picture. ‘We have a large area below street level and all the computers are there, along with our admin staff.’

  Nina found herself gaping slightly. The place looked like the old curiosity shop decor-wise, but it appeared to have a glut of receptionists and a computer terminal below stairs. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as big a bore as she’d thought.

  ‘Shall I show you the way?’ the woman was asking.

  Nina shook her head. ‘No. I’ll find my own way, thanks just the same. If I get lost I’ll come back.’

  If the upper floor of Stepping Dearsley Group Practice was not modern, the same couldn’t be said of what lay beneath, Nina decided as she made her way along a recently decorated passage which led into a large chamber that looked more like the headquarters of a space launch than a doctor’s surgery.

  As she made her entrance one of the painters was putting the finishing touches to the paintwork of a cornice that ran the length of the room, but there was no one else in sight.

  He hadn’t seen her and when she said, ‘Excuse me,’ he whirled round on the scaffolding that was supporting him and caught the paint pot beside him.

  It didn’t hit her but it splashed as it fell, and as Nina gasped in dismay she thought that it would have to be white…and she would have to be wearing a black suit!

  The man was looking down on her in stunned disbelief, and as she glared up at him she said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘And so what are you going to do about this?’ she hissed, pointing to the splashes on her skirt. ‘You’re wearing white overalls. The paint wouldn’t have shown on you. But, no, you have to go and spill it all over me! I’ve got an interview any moment in this rural backwater and what am I going to look like?’

  ‘Pretty good, as far as I’m concerned,’ he said slowly, as if he was finding his voice with difficulty. ‘I really am sorry, but I’d no idea there was anyone around, and when you spoke it startled me.’ Still standing on the plank, he pointed to a bottle on the floor beside her. ‘We could try turps on it.’

  ‘Would you like to attend an interview smelling to high heaven of white spirit?’ she snapped. ‘And, for goodness’ sake, will you come down off there? My neck’s beginning to ache with looking up.’

  As he obeyed the request and jumped down off the scaffolding, Nina thought that he wasn’t exactly prostrate with contrition. There was laughter in the brown eyes observing her from beneath the white cloth cap that went with the overalls.

  ‘You could turn the skirt back to front,’ he suggested, ‘and even if you didn’t, I’m sure that the doctors won’t hold it against you.’

  ‘I should hope not!’ Nina exclaimed. ‘It isn’t my fault that I’m in this mess. I don’t know what firm you’re working for, but I think that your employer should be made to reimburse me for a new skirt. And speaking of the doctors, where are they? The receptionist said that there were some of them down here.’

  ‘Yes, there are,’ he said, but before he could explain further there was the sound of feet on the stairs and he began to unbutton the overalls.

  ‘Rob!’ an amazed female voice cried before he could divest himself of them. ‘What are you up to?’ It belonged to a willowy brunette with curves in all the right places and a heavily made-up face.

  The decorator laughed. ‘I was just touching up the cornice where they’d missed a bit.’

  She sighed. ‘You’re crazy. What do you think we’re paying them for?’ Light hazel eyes had swivelled to where Nina was standing, nonplussed and paint-spattered.

  ‘And you are…?’ she questioned.

  ‘Nina Lombard,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m here to be interviewed for the doctor’s vacancy in the practice—and I don’t usually present myself covered in paint on this sort of occasion.’

  ‘That’s my fault, Bettine,’ the man called Rob said. ‘I knocked a can of paint over and you can see what happened.’ He turned to a fuming Nina. ‘I suppose I should introduce myself, Dr Lombard. It isn’t Michelangelo that you see before you…or a member of Jarvis and Pendelbury, the local decorating firm who are transforming our premises. Robert Carslake, senior partner of Stepping Dearsley group practice at your service.’

  The cap was in his hand and the overalls halfway off, and as she took in the sight of broad shoulders, trim flanks, dark brown hair and eyes the colour of winter chestnuts Nina broke into breathless laughter. What a beginning to a career in rural health. That was, if she got the job.

  She got it, but not as easily as she might have expected. For one thing, the joker of the paint pots was a different person when seated behind a big oak desk flanked by his colleagues.

  He was pleasant and polite, but Nina saw immediately that he was nobody’s fool and she wondered if he was the big brain behind the outfit or if they all had equal status, although that wasn’t likely if he was senior partner.

  The curvy brunette, who had a noticeably proprietorial attitude towards him, was introduced to her as Bettine Baker. A fair-haired man of a similar age to herself, sitting beside Dr Baker, was called Gavin Shawcross, and seated at the other side of Robert Carslake was Dr Vikram Raju, a middle-aged man of Asian origin, who was watching her with friendly dark eyes.

  At which university had she taken her degree? Robert Carslake wanted to know. Where had she done her in-hospital training? Had she any plans to specialise, either now or in the future?

  How long would she be available to work in the practice if they took her on? Bettine Baker asked with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

  When Nina replied that it would be for as long as she was needed at home, Robert Carslake said with a smile that was somewhat tight around the edges, ‘So you’re prepared to work in this “rural backwater”, as you described it, for as long as it suits you, but not necessarily to the advantage of ourselves?’

  With the feeling that she had well and truly started off on the wrong foot, Nina flashed him a tentative smile of her own. ‘I used that term in a moment of irritation.’ Glancing down at the paint splashes on her skirt, she went on, ‘You may recall that I’d just come into c
ontact with a can of white paint.’

  There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Were she to confess that her angry description of Stepping Dearsley was indeed how she saw the place, her job prospects could fly out of the window and she couldn’t afford that to happen.

  The last thing she wanted was for her father to have to support her, or to have to seek employment other than in the health service. But these people, the doctors of the village’s group practice, weren’t to know that all her plans and hopes had been knocked sideways for the love of a sick woman…and at the command of a man who always expected to be obeyed.

  Nina swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression. If you offer me the chance to work in the practice I would hope to be a useful and dedicated member of your team. It would be my first position since graduating and obviously a great challenge. When I said that my home circumstances might dictate how long I was available I was thinking of my stepmother’s illness, of which you are no doubt aware.’

  ‘We know that you’re Peter Lombard’s daughter and that his wife has a health problem,’ Robert Carslake conceded, ‘but I’m sure you realise that our decision will be based on what is best for the practice.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured meekly.

  ‘And that we shall want to discuss the matter between ourselves before making a commitment.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He got to his feet and the atmosphere lightened. ‘We’ll be in touch in a couple of days, Dr Lombard. We can reach you at your parents’ home, I presume?’

  She would have liked to have said, yes, if she hadn’t died from excitement first, but that would have gone down no better than her previous comment about the village. She was a city creature. These country dwellers weren’t going to understand her frustrations.

  Instead, she nodded with continuing meekness, and as they shook hands in farewell Nina knew that, last outpost of civilisation or not, she wanted the job.

  As she climbed the stairs that would take her back to ground floor level and the consulting area of the practice, Robert Carslake caught up with her.